by Ginger Alden
There were times when Elvis expressed displeasure with his manager, feeling the colonel chose hotels too far away from the performance venues, and all because they had better food. Once, while we were riding to a show, Elvis asked, “Can’t the colonel find anything closer?”
On another occasion, I had left the room so Elvis could talk privately with Colonel Parker. When I returned, Elvis was shaking his head in amazement. “I was sitting here telling him I had a sore throat, and all he was talking about was the next tour,” he said.
I brought Rosemary and my mother into the suite and a few minutes later, Elvis and the colonel exited his bedroom. Elvis introduced my family to Colonel Parker, and when the colonel turned his back to walk away, Elvis gave a contemptuous wave of his hand, motioning him out of the suite.
The three of us followed Elvis back into his bedroom and he closed the door. “How are you doing?” my mother asked him.
Since his eyes had been bothering him a little, Elvis mentioned that, then invited her to sit beside him on the bed. Diving right in, he asked what she thought would be the best solution to her marital problems.
I knew this would be uncomfortable for her to discuss, but it would probably be good for her to talk with someone.
Telling Elvis now that she was completely drained emotionally, my mother said it looked like a divorce was the only solution.
“Is it the best solution, or the last alternative?” Elvis asked her.
“I’m afraid it’s the best solution,” she said.
Charlie knocked on the door, came in, and mentioned that Milo High was waiting at the airport to take Rosemary and my mother home so he could return again to pick up the colonel and take him where he needed to be.
Clearly unhappy about this interruption, however, Elvis shot Charlie a look and he left. Elvis then continued their conversation.
“If there’s no chance of you working things out,” Elvis told my mother, “I’d like you to see my lawyer, Beecher Smith, when you get home, and I’d like to pay for the divorce.”
I remembered Beecher from the signing of Elvis’s will. We were all stunned that Elvis wanted to get involved like this, but my mother thanked him graciously.
Before long, there was another knock on the door. Charlie stepped inside and reminded Elvis that Milo was waiting. It was obvious that Elvis was getting even more annoyed. As if trying to avoid any further interruption, he said, “Let’s finish the conversation in Ginger’s room.”
We left his room and entered mine, where Elvis sat on the bed with my mother. He asked if she would still like to look for a new house. She thanked him, but said she was happy where she was.
Elvis pondered this for a minute, then told her, “Mrs. Alden, I know you won’t be financially able to pay the house note and other expenses on your own. If you’re happy in that house, I want to pay for it. You don’t need a mortgage and your home will stay in your name.”
I noticed my mother’s eyes getting misty. Elvis then surprised us even more by adding, “I’d also like you to have a swimming pool and some landscaping done. You don’t have any trees. You need trees.”
Elvis was on a roll and we were swept up by his enthusiasm. Again, my mother thanked him.
Elvis asked what she thought my dad would want from the divorce, and my mother said our father would probably want his fair share of the equity in the house.
Now there was a knock on my door. When I opened it, Charlie was standing there.
Before he could speak, Elvis shouted, “Charlie, it’s my damn plane, and I’ll send it when I’m damn good and ready!”
Charlie made an about-face and left.
Putting his arm around my mother’s shoulder, Elvis said then, “Don’t worry. I’ll see that my father takes care of everything.”
Elvis’s jeweler, Lowell, was along on the trip. Elvis called him into our suite at that point and gave my mom and Rosemary each a beautiful diamond ring. The two of them were flown home on his JetStar shortly afterward. The deep compassion and personal concern Elvis was showing for my mother’s welfare deeply touched me to the core.
• • •
Elvis finished his last concert that April in Saginaw, Michigan. We flew back to Memphis then, where he would have a little over two weeks off until his next tour began on May 20.
The conversation with my mother was still on his mind. One day, Elvis told me he had spoken with his father to set things in motion regarding my mother’s divorce and paying off our home. Elvis asked me to have my mother call Beecher Smith.
“Thank you,” I said, and promised I would. I appreciated his offer to pay off my mother’s mortgage, knowing how much it would mean to her to have that financial burden lifted, especially now that she was facing the harsh reality of making ends meet on her own.
Arriving at Graceland a few days later, I found Elvis finishing a conversation on his bedside phone. When he hung up, Elvis told me he’d been talking to Vernon, who had filed for a divorce from his wife, Dee. Elvis told me they had been trying to work out a settlement.
I was surprised to hear this; since Vernon was engaged to Sandy, I had naturally assumed he was already divorced. This was the first time I’d ever heard Elvis talk about his stepmother.
“My daddy used to come home from work and be tired, and Dee would have some entertainer or other people in the house,” Elvis said, looking irritated.
I knew that Elvis was worried about his dad’s health as well as the divorce. I placed my hand on his back, trying to calm him a little. “I hope everything works out okay.”
“She better leave my daddy alone,” Elvis said.
The specter of divorce was swirling around us: My parents, Vernon, and even one of Elvis’s stepbrothers were all having marital problems. This was affecting both of us. Still, when it came to our own relationship, our love for each other continued to burn bright and our enthusiasm hadn’t dimmed. Elvis still believed strongly in marriage and clearly wanted to get married again. I felt the same way: I wanted to be a wife and mother, and I believed if you were meant to be together and stay together, you would.
A short while later, Elvis got up from bed and began rummaging through a closet in his bedroom. He came across various hats and showed them to me, then pulled out a poster-size photo of himself taken when he was little. In the photo, he was standing between his parents, wearing overalls and a hat.
As he held the picture up to show me, Elvis stuck out his lower lip in a little-boy pout. “I was two and had a peanut in my mouth,” he said.
“Now that’s a ‘Little Two,’” I teased, alluding to one of the nicknames he’d given me.
Elvis propped the picture on a chair, facing the bed, and asked, “Does this bother you?”
“No,” I said. I wondered if the conversation about his dad had prompted him to seek out this particular photo. It would remain on the chair until the next day.
• • •
Now that the weather was warmer, Elvis would sometimes tell me we were going out on his motorcycle, but then we’d end up reading or watching television for a while. I didn’t mind waiting; however, it got my hopes up. I’d remind him later and he would then say he was tired or just didn’t feel like it, and I’d end up disappointed.
As this pattern repeated itself a few times, I began to think that Elvis just might not ever leave his house. He rarely left the upstairs floor. I remember one night, Elvis asked me, “Who’s downstairs?”
“I saw Ricky downstairs with a girl,” I replied.
“I don’t want to go down, then,” he said. Upstairs, Elvis was usually wearing something casual or his pajamas. He didn’t feel comfortable going downstairs in front of strangers unless his hair was styled and he was dressed a certain way, and he was too polite to ask anyone to leave, so Elvis had effectively set up a world where he wasn’t going downstairs in his own home.
He had everything he needed upstairs at Graceland: his office, organ, televisions, beds, Lisa’s room, and bathrooms. Food, or anything else he might want, would appear at the touch of a button. What’s more, being on the road for so many years had led Elvis to become accustomed to eating in bed or at a coffee table.
Did I wish Elvis went downstairs more, sat in the Jungle Room, ate at the dining table, or went outside more? Sometimes, sure, but I thought that would come in time. I was young and flexible, and wherever Elvis was, that’s where I wanted to be.
Other times, Elvis would surprise me by deciding he wanted to go out and we would spontaneously go somewhere.
One night, Elvis said he wanted to show me the house in Tupelo where he was born. I got super excited about seeing the house. This would be another little piece of the puzzle of Elvis’s life, and I was happy he wanted to share it with me.
As we passed time reading and watching television, I began worrying that Elvis would change his mind again. Fortunately, he didn’t. Elvis eventually asked Billy Smith to get the motorcycles ready and invited him to come along with his wife.
The four of us left Graceland and headed toward Tupelo with bodyguards following. We had been riding on the highway for quite a while when Elvis took an exit before Hernando, Mississippi, and proceeded through a small town.
I looked back and noticed Billy and Jo were no longer behind us. I told Elvis, and we circled back around to look for them. They were standing by their motorcycle at the side of the highway. When we pulled up to them, we saw their motorcycle had an oil leak. Jo was splattered with motor oil.
Elvis suddenly decided not to continue. “We’ll go another time,” he said as we headed back to Graceland. I so wished Elvis had wanted to go on that night, and sadly, we never would get the chance to make it to Tupelo before Elvis passed away.
• • •
More and more I learned that Elvis liked pampering, as we all do. He occasionally asked me to shave him in bed or requested that I help him with his socks. His socks weren’t always easy to get on. One night when I was trying to help him dress, I got down on the floor, rolled a sock in my hand, and began pulling it onto his foot. I had such a tough time that I started to laugh and Elvis did, too.
“Here, let me do it,” he said, finally managing to pull it on.
I saw pampering as trying to do little things for Elvis that would not only feel nice but could be good for him at the same time. I brought him dried fruit, thinking that would be a healthy snack. Sometimes, Elvis picked at it, which was a step in the right direction.
On occasion, I had mentioned wanting to play racquetball or go horseback riding with him, but he’d made the same excuses he sometimes gave if I asked about riding his motorcycle: He just “didn’t want to do it right now” or felt too tired.
Undeterred, I kept trying. I knew Graceland had a swimming pool on one side of the house, but in all our months together, I had yet to see it up close. Thinking this might be a way to get Elvis out, one night I mentioned that I’d love to see his pool.
“I’ll show it to you,” he said.
Yes! We stepped outside the back door of Graceland. Luckily, it was a nice spring evening. Elvis took my hand and led me down a walkway. We soon came to a kidney-shaped swimming pool, but Elvis continued right past it and took me to an area he called his “meditation garden.”
“I had this built a few years back,” he said.
“This is so beautiful, Elvis,” I observed, looking around.
It was a lovely, peaceful place, surrounded by a curved brick wall with stained glass panels inset into its arched openings. In the garden’s center, water splashed in a circular fountain pool enclosed by an ornate wrought-iron fence.
Elvis walked me over to some chairs by the pool, where the two of us sat down amid the tranquil surroundings.
After a few minutes, Elvis broke the silence. “I’d really like to perform in Europe. Can you imagine if I went to England? I’d have to sing from a cage. I’d need more security than the president!”
It had never dawned on me before that Elvis hadn’t ever performed in another country. I thought of him as so well traveled, and he was so beloved worldwide that it seemed impossible he’d never sung in Europe. I had been gazing at the pool; now I looked up and caught Elvis looking over at me.
“You know,” he said softly, “my daddy told me that, since we met, it was the first time he saw the little boy he put overalls on back in East Tupelo.”
I saw the warmth in his eyes and felt overcome, knowing this was Elvis’s way of saying his father approved of us.
“My mother always told me to marry a brown-eyed girl,” he went on. “She said they’d be more faithful.”
This was the first time Elvis really talked about Gladys Presley with me. I was glad to hear him bring her up; I was eager to learn more about Elvis’s past, particularly his childhood.
“I really wish I could have met her,” I said, hoping to encourage him to talk more about his mother.
“She would have liked you,” Elvis said, then fell silent again for a moment before adding, “I really want to have more children. I’d like us to have a little boy.”
“A boy would be great,” I agreed. My brother was quite a bit older than me, so I was used to girls, having sisters and nieces; I’d always wondered what it would be like to have a little boy around. I was mainly happy to know that Elvis wanted children with me as much as I wanted to have a child with him.
Elvis brought up a name he liked then, mentioning Jesse for a boy. I remembered this was the name that had been given to his twin brother.
“How about Grace Lynn for a girl’s name?” I ventured.
He liked that name, too. “When the time is right, God will let me know,” he said with a soft smile, as if wanting to reassure me once again.
We returned to the house a little while later, where Elvis said, “I’d like to change some things. Has your brother said anything to you about working for me?”
I told Elvis that leaving the fire department was a difficult decision for my brother to make right now. I explained that Mike had two daughters to take care of and a pension. I knew he couldn’t just jump ship, because the decision would affect his whole family.
“Tell him the offer stands and he’ll be taken care of,” Elvis said.
• • •
Our tranquil days and nights were occasionally interrupted by Elvis’s mood swings. One night, Elvis and I were watching television in Lisa’s bedroom when a program came on that Elvis didn’t care for. He started making comments about it, then suddenly left the room. He returned with a gun and shot the television.
Why didn’t he just change the channel? I thought in exasperation.
Quickly looking over at me, as if to say oops, Elvis started laughing and cursing about the program. At least he recognized that this was something I wasn’t comfortable with. Still, I wondered what I should do now.
Walking out on Elvis last time hadn’t produced the desired result, so I decided to stay. If this was a test, I was hanging in there.
On another occasion down the road, he shot the phone in Lisa’s room when it buzzed and disturbed him. Again, I didn’t leave. But I did begin to think there must be a shed somewhere out back, stockpiled with television sets and telephones.
I didn’t like this behavior, but I loved Elvis. The big question was how I could find a way to make him see that he shouldn’t do this sort of thing.
Luckily, the phone-shooting incident would be the last one that happened while we were together. As time went on, I began to think that maybe I’d gotten through to him after all.
• • •
From the start of our relationship, I had willingly given up my job, my hobbies, and spending time with family and friends to accommodate Elvis’s schedule and desires. I had loved being caught up in
Elvis’s magical, whirlwind world, and I was passionate about building our new life together at Graceland. Now, as our relationship continued to grow and strengthen, I began feeling more comfortable and able to express myself and I wanted to incorporate my own passions into our life together. Elvis had shown how he felt about me in his way and now I hoped to use my talent to help him see even more how he was in my heart and mind.
Elvis and I had read so much about numerology that I was now intrigued by the possibility of numbers correlating to certain events in our lives. I also liked the idea that certain colors or gemstones could be lucky for us.
I wanted to design a necklace Elvis could wear onstage, one that would incorporate our numbers, four and eight. Elvis loved the idea, so I began a few sketches, keeping them at Graceland to work on periodically. It felt great to be doing something artistic; I hadn’t had time to do much drawing, and I still loved it.
Having always been interested in karate, I asked Elvis to teach me some beginning steps and stances. He was happy to oblige me one night. I pestered him a little as he was teaching me. I wanted to learn fancier, more advanced moves, but Elvis kept telling me to start at the beginning.
We finally stopped to rest at one point. He sat on the bed and I put my feet up against the bottoms of his.
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor. I think his strength actually shocked him, because Elvis burst out laughing. “Are you all right?” he asked.
I had to laugh, too, as I stood up and rubbed my hip. “Yes.”
With a knowing look, Elvis said, “Ginger, always start at the beginning. Be patient and learn.”
Impressed by this simple display of skill, I decided to take his advice. I also felt it was time to get to know his family some more, as they would be my family too one day, so I began extending myself to them, starting with Dodger.
Elvis loved his grandmother. I always followed him in to say a quick hello to Dodger whenever the two of us were entering or leaving Graceland together. One time after we’d stopped in to see her for a few minutes, he said, “We should visit with her more.”