by Leanna Ellis
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She nods, then races from the table to the ladies’ room. Rae and I glance at each other. I start to rise from my seat and go after her, but Rae places a hand on my arm.
“Wait. She’ll share when she’s ready.”
“Share? But what if she needs help? What if she’s still experiencing motion sickness.”
“She’ll let us know.”
I waver between acting like the girl’s mother and trying to give her space and a bit of her dignity back. I figure if she’s throwing up in the bathroom, she’s probably old enough not to need me to hold her hair for her. Thank God for that, as I have a weak stomach. But of course, if she needed me to, I would. I have done similar things for my mother and Stu.
“So,” I say, trying to fill the awkward silence between us. I can’t ask Rae about her child, and I don’t want to analyze my propensity for hiding. I tap my fingers on the table. “You said you would rather talk about Elvis …”
Rae smiles, her eyes twinkling, and laughs. “What do you want to know?”
“How can we figure out where Elvis, the bust, came from?”
“We’ll start at the most obvious place and work our way down.”
Elvis’s voice sings in my head, Way on down … “How way on down do you think we could go?”
“I’m afraid far,” she says.
“So where’s the most obvious? Graceland?”
“Of course.”
Chapter Nine
Too Much
I wish I could shake off the melancholy that wraps around me like tentacles. But tonight with so much talk, with so much heartache lingering like an ink stain, I feel trapped, unable to breathe.
Ivy emerges from the ladies’ room looking pale and unsteady. Worried, I suggest, “Why don’t we go back to the hotel?”
Rae reaches for her purse.
“But what about your dinner?” Ivy asks.
“We’re finished.” I leave cash on the table for a tip. Rae offered to help pay, but I refused. This trip is Stu’s fault. It’s only fair I pick up the tab.
Accompanied by the sound of laughter and clinking dishes, we escort Ivy to the car.
“Maybe we should call your dad.” Concern creases my brow.
While I unlock the Cadillac, I glance over at Ivy.
Something’s going on. She’s pencil thin, her arms and legs bony. But so much anger and pain churn in those eyes. I recognize the look now: It’s the same look I saw in her mother’s face so long ago. A chill sweeps over me.
“Do you think we should go to the emergency room?” I ask. “Get you checked out, make sure you’re okay?”
“No! I just don’t do well in the back seat. And the drive got to me. Again.”
“The dinner was spicy,” Rae says, then scolds, “You should have told us. I would have switched seats with you.” She climbs into the back seat.
I flip on the headlights, glance again at Ivy, who has closed her eyes. In the rearview mirror I see Rae staring out the side window, lost in her own thoughts and memories. Memories, I know, can be probing, penetrating, making me cringe as if I were being grilled under an interrogator’s lamp. Or they can be fuzzy, like a distant glow, warm and enticing and just out of reach.
“That was here,” Rae whispers, more to herself than to Ivy or me as we pass an old diner that looks straight out of the 1950s. The Cadillac rocks slightly, acknowledging every bump and ripple in the road. Rae tsks. “So much has changed, yet …”
The blinker ticks. The Cadillac jiggles like a nervous mother joggling a baby as we wait for the left-turn signal. When the green arrow blinks, I accelerate through the light.
Rae suddenly sits forward and places a hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “Are you doing okay?”
The girl nods.
“Are you going to be sick?” Rae asks.
Immediately I brake, a bit too hard, and Rae falls forward against the front bench seat. “Sorry.” Anxious, I glance from the road to Ivy, making the steering wheel bobble and the car weave, pitching Rae right, then left in the back seat. “Should I pull over? You can’t—”
“I’m okay,” Ivy says through clenched teeth. I’m not sure if she’s holding back vomit or irritated at our hovering concern. Cautiously, I maneuver the Cadillac over to the right lane.
“Don’t worry,” Rae says, handing a Styrofoam container to Ivy.
“What’s this?” Ivy opens it.
“I swiped it from the waitress on the way out of the restaurant. Just being cautious. You looked a bit green.”
Ivy tosses the container to the floorboard.
“How much did Stu pay for this car?” Rae asks.
“Too much,” I answer, remembering my shock over the sticker price. But I hadn’t said anything. “He bought it after . . .” My voice drifts. “Stu was obsessed with everything Elvis.”
“Why?” Ivy asks, wrinkling her nose as if she couldn’t understand it any more than if Stu had collected skunk tails. “All of this is so cheesy.”
“He was the King.” I shrug one shoulder. “Many people loved Elvis. Still do. Right, Rae?” But my aunt doesn’t answer. “He was the epitome of cool. At least to Stu.”
“I think it was more than that,” Rae finally says. “Sounds like Stu was running from something. Or avoiding something … to spend so much money on an old car.”
“I guess we’re all running and hiding, aren’t we?” I manage, feeling my throat tighten. I’m caught between irritation at Stu for spending so much on this car and questioning what I always believed about my husband. Have I had it wrong all these years? Why did Stu love Elvis so?
“I ran away from my problems,” Rae says, “when I was young. Not as young as you, Ivy. First I left my folks to get away, to escape what felt like a suffocating life of boredom.” She laughs. “Then I ended up running back to that security. Life can be crazy sometimes. Or maybe it’s us … our actions that are crazy.” She sighs, looking back out the side window. “Anyway, I couldn’t stay any longer and I left … went even farther away. But you can’t outrun the pain, the past, or your problems. It never works. Never.”
The hotel looms large ahead. Cars line the streets. Elvis’s voice floats from the speakers. It’s not the words or the tune that stirs me, just his voice. The deep, melodic voice.
“For thirty years I ran. I stayed away. Even after …” Rae shakes her head as if cutting herself off. “I was off on my own. But then I finally had to stop. I couldn’t run anymore.”
I pull up to the front of the hotel. It’s a covered area where benches line one side for folks waiting for free shuttles to various tourist spots. Overhead Elvis sings about a tiger. With the car idling, I look at Rae over the seat separating us. “What changed?”
“Everything. And yet nothing at all.”
“What were you running from?” I ask.
“Oh, I could give you a litany of things, but mostly I was running from myself. Fear. Fear dictated my life. And that’s no way to live.”
“I can’t imagine you afraid of anything.”
“We all have feelings below the surface, undetectable to others. Most of the time.”
“Was my mother ever afraid?” I ask.
“Aren’t we all afraid of something?” Rae returns. “But Beverly never ran. She was braver. She had more faith.”
“So are you better now?” Ivy asks, half turning in her seat to look at Rae. “Now that you’re facing up to things?”
“In some ways, yes. It’s hard to face up to my own weaknesses and inadequacies. My mistakes. My sins. But everything is magnified again here. In Memphis.”
“Like your getting pregnant?” Ivy asks.
“No,” Rae says quickly, almost sharply. “That wasn’t a mistake. Ever. I cannot say bringing a baby into the world is ever a mistake. It’s after—” She stops herself. “I’ve said too much. Enough.”
“So it’s possible,” Ivy asks, “for someone to change what they’ve done? Fix their mistakes?”
&nbs
p; “You cannot change what’s done. You can make the best of what is.” Rae places a hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “That’s what I’m trying to do. Maybe that’s all I’ve ever done.”
I wonder what mistakes Rae means. And Ivy … what could she have done? She’s so young, and yet there’s a weariness in her eyes that many forty-year-olds don’t have.
“You want us to get out here?” Rae asks.
“I’ll park and meet you in the suite.”
“Good idea.” Rae gives me a secretive wink as if to say she’ll take good care of Ivy.
* * *
GUILT FALLS ON me hard. It’s the same guilt I felt every time I had to leave Stu’s side for even a short time. I feel as if I should accompany them to the suite. What if Ivy gets sick on the way upstairs?
I watch them walk into the hotel. They are such different women, yet similar in a way I cannot pinpoint. Maybe it’s the squareness of their shoulders, their long strides. Ivy has an independent streak that I’m not sure I ever possessed. Even though at the end of Stu’s life he depended on me, I believe that during twenty years of marriage I leaned more on him. Not financially, as I always worked, but emotionally. I needed him. Maybe more than he needed me.
Weaving the Cadillac through the parking lot across the street from the hotel, I search for an empty space. I wonder why Rae continues to bring up her story of running away, of not escaping the past. Is she anxious to get out of Memphis? My heart pounds in empathy. Going through Stu’s belongings, as well as my mother’s, before the garage sale, I felt an urgent need to run.
Or maybe Rae was simply rambling on for Ivy’s sake. But why? I sense something is going on with the girl. Is it simply her mother, the confusion of her loss? Did she come all the way to Memphis with us just to get away from her dad for a while? There has to be something else. Or maybe I’m just so uneasy around teenagers that I assume the worst.
I remember flying to New York on business a few years back. It had been an unusually turbulent flight that had me reaching for the barf bag in the pocket of the seat ahead of me. Luckily I hadn’t needed to use it. But I had felt off kilter the rest of the day. If I stood too quickly, I felt dizzy, my stomach unsettled. I was cautious what I ate at a business meeting that night. Maybe that’s all it is with Ivy—car sickness and spicy food.
As I walk through the parking lot toward the hotel, I notice the night sky has begun to grow gray with clouds. A heaviness settles in my chest as I enter the hotel. Yet my pace takes on the tempo of the ever-present Elvis music rocking and rolling through the small lobby. I purposefully slow my stride and take the elevator up to our rooms.
Thankful for the relative quiet of the suite, I check on Ivy, getting her a cold cloth for her head and a drink of water. “If you need anything in the night, just let me know.”
I watch her lying on the bed, looking so thin and frail, and wonder if I should let Ben know that his daughter is sick. “Do you want me to call your dad? Have him come get you? You could have the stomach flu or something.”
“Don’t tell Dad. He’ll just worry.”
That’s true. Knowing Ben needs a break—he’s carried the burden of parenthood alone for so long—I decide to wait. Surely I can manage as a stand-in guardian for a long weekend.
“You think Rae really ran away?” Ivy asks in a hoarse whisper.
“So she says. I know Rae was around when I was little, and then she wasn’t. My mother would never talk about Rae. She always changed the subject when I brought it up. I figured they’d had a fight or something. Maybe it was hurt and resentment that kept Mother silent.”
“Dad acts the same way when I mention my mom,” Ivy says.
“I’m sure it’s just hard for him. I know he wants to talk to you. Maybe he just doesn’t know how. Maybe he can’t find the right words.”
“Well, I can’t answer my own questions!”
“I know. Just give him a break. Okay? It was rough on him. It can’t be easy to relive the pain of that time. Keep trying. When you get home, try again. Ask him the questions you asked me. He may not know the answers. It might be really hard for him … and you, too. But afterward, I think you’ll both be glad you talked.”
“It just makes Dad mad.”
I sigh and sit on the edge of the bed. “He’s not mad at you. When it happened, when your mother left … he took it really hard. He blamed himself. And he was angry at your mom. You can’t blame him for that. I’m sure your questions just stir up old hurts. Just know it’s not you. Whatever happened between your parents was about them, not you.”
I finger the corner of the pillow. Cautiously I venture deeper into dark emotions that I’m not sure I can fully understand. “Ivy, I know it’s hard not having a mother. I was lucky and had mine until I was thirty-five. And still it seems too early to have lost her.” I realize it’s the lost memories of her stories, things she held back from me, that make her absence so sharp. Maybe it’s the same way with Ivy. She has no memory of her mother, nothing to hold onto. “So, if you need anything … a substitute …” My throat tightens. “I’m not your mom. I won’t pretend to be. And I’ve never been a mom.” My throat feels full, stretched, as if I’ve swallowed a ball of my mother’s yarn. “But if you need somebody to listen, someone to talk to, I’m here. Okay?”
She closes her eyes.
I wait for an answer but don’t really expect one. Turning off the light, I close her door most of the way, leaving it open a wedge so she can make her way to the bathroom if she needs to. There is a sharp pain in my heart, and I press my hand against my chest as if I might find Mother’s knitting needles sticking out of me. Slowly the pain eases.
* * *
I FIND RAE in the sitting room, already in a green silk robe, her long, silvery hair loose and flowing about her shoulders. The television is on, the sound muted. But Elvis sits in a Hawaiian jail singing “Beach Boy Blues.” In the corner, quiet yet noticeable, is our own Elvis shrouded only partially by a hotel towel, yet the profile is obviously that of the King.
“How is she?”
“I guess okay. I wish I knew what was wrong. Can,” I whisper and move closer to Rae so my voice doesn’t travel down the hall to Ivy, “can drugs make you sick to your stomach?”
“Of course.” She sets a brochure about Sun Records on the coffee table.
“Why did you say all that tonight about running away from your problems?”
Rae lifts her chin. “She has problems. She wants to hide from them. But it’s impossible. I learned that the hard way. I was hoping she might share with us.”
I nod. “I hope she will. Maybe tomorrow. Her mother ran away from her problems, from her responsibilities. It’s been really hard on Ivy. Ben, too.”
“I can imagine. A young girl needs a mother.”
“I’m not a mom. But,” I shrug, feeling uncomfortable with my latest role, “I hope I helped.” I look back at Ivy’s partially closed door.
“Don’t worry. She’ll talk when she’s ready. She wants a mother. And she’ll find that in you.”
Her statement shocks me as if she’s thrown a dart into my heart. “In me?”
“You don’t have to be afraid, Claudia. You’re a natural. You have the gift of caring for wounded creatures.”
“I don’t know anything about being a mother.” The empty space fills with a hard, weighty substance. Could it be fear? I don’t have answers for Ivy. I don’t have any solutions. Aren’t parents supposed to have all the answers? Mine certainly seemed to. Mother never hesitated in scolding, in pointing out right and wrong, in speaking her mind. And yet I sense there is more to parenting, maybe something I missed out on.
On the television Elvis chases after an angry teen, then turns her over his knee and spanks her.
“You know more than you think,” Rae says. “Caring for a creature in need is the best way to feel alive.” She stifles a yawn as she unfolds from the couch and stands. “I’m going to turn in, too. It’s been a long day. Who knows what tomor
row will bring?”
Graceland, I think, my gaze shifting toward Elvis.
“Good night.” She turns to go.
“Aunt Rae?”
She looks back at me. Something flickers in her eyes, and I wonder if my calling her “aunt” is a good thing or troubling to her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize coming to Memphis would be so hard for you.”
She gives a little lift of her shoulder. “If everything were easy, what would be the price of love?”
I nod, not entirely sure I catch her meaning. “You know, I’ve seen pictures of when you would visit us, when I was little. I, well … I wish you had kept in touch with us.”
“There is a time for every season.”
I nod, supposing the old adage is true. “Why did you leave? I always assumed you had a fight with my mother.”
“With Beverly? Not at all. Your mother, she saved me in many ways. She managed to do what I could not.”
“What was that?”
“The right thing. As she always did.” She rocks her hips to a mysterious rhythm. Slowly she starts singing the words to Elvis’s “Love Me.” The words speak of fools and the loss of love. Her voice sounds deep and seductive, mimicking Elvis’s rendition of the slow ballad. With a jaunty smile and a flippant wave, she sings her way to her bedroom and closes the door.
But I know she is no fool. No fool at all.
I turn off the television and the main lights in the sitting area. The neon lights from a fast-food restaurant, souvenir shops, and car lots draw me to the window. With the air conditioner blowing on me, I stare out at the black sky. A haze of clouds drifts in over the city, and the neon lights take on an eerie cast. “Love Me” circles around my mind, and I can hear Elvis’s mournful tone.
Stu and I slow danced to that song once upon a time. I can almost feel his breath against my neck, the heat of his body pressed tight to mine. Closing my eyes, I feel my own heart pounding and imagine Stu’s own thumping against me. Slowly the beats merge into one. I wanted to stay like that forever, with Stu’s arms securely around me, swaying to Elvis’s slow tempo and tempting voice. It was just us, and I’d felt contentment, security, peace.