by Leanna Ellis
I put an arm around Rae’s waist, as she supported me. “That must have been hard.”
She shrugs. “Shouldn’t we be getting to Graceland?”
Ivy winks at me and tilts her head toward the carousel. Confused, I look from her to the carousel, then back. She steers us toward the grinning woman who’s waiting for her first customers of the day.
“What about Elvis?” Ivy says. She pulls three dollars out of her hip pocket and says, “We’ll ride.”
“No, no,” Rae says, trying to back up. But I have my arm around her waist and Ivy pulls on her other side.
“Come on.”
Suddenly we’re on the big platform, standing among a herd of painted horses, their bright colors as garish as the Elvis bust.
“This could give you motion sickness, Ivy,” Rae warns.
“I’m fine.”
“You gotta sit down before I can turn on the ride,” the woman calls from behind us.
“Here.” I urge Rae to sit in the chariot. She stumbles, and I hold her arm. Ivy climbs the nearest horse. When we’re all settled, the carousel begins to turn. Ivy’s horse rises and falls slowly. She twists in the saddle to look at us.
My hip is nestled snugly against Rae’s on the bench seat that’s built more for a parent and child than two adults. “Okay,” I grin ruthlessly, “we’ll have to ride until you tell us how you met Elvis.”
With a sigh Rae spreads her skirt out along the bench seat. The carousel music drones on and on. The platform spins faster as Ivy’s horse bobs up and down.
Taking a long, slow breath, Rae says, “Haven’t we told enough family secrets for one morning?”
“Are there more?” My heart thumps in my chest.
She looks out over the park. From this angle I can see the car, and I know Elvis is safe. “There are things known and not. Elvis—I have not spoken of him in a long time. To Stu … but that was different.”
“So you knew he carried your secret to the grave?”
“It’s not a secret. No big mystery. I knew Elvis. It’s difficult for me to speak of.”
“Painful?”
“Heartbreaking.”
I waver, then decide not to force her. After all, I would resent it now if someone asked me to speak of Stu … or the baby. Elvis, to me, is almost a mythical character; but to Rae he was flesh and blood, a person, a friend even. Maybe more.
In that awkward moment I forgive my mother for withholding her secrets, her losses. Maybe the pain of loss was too painful for her to discuss, like it is for Ben to talk about Ivy’s mother. Maybe my mother couldn’t find the right words either. Maybe she thought I’d be jealous of a baby always on her mind, forever in her heart. Maybe she wanted to hide what she considered a horrible sin. What she didn’t understand was that, knowing, I would still have loved her. Maybe more. She would have been more real, less perfect, more human. What she didn’t understand was that I simply needed to know it was okay to forever mourn a baby that I could never hold but would never forget.
I remember Mother flitting around, cleaning my house for me, bringing me raspberry Jell-O, sliced strawberries, and homemade chicken sandwiches. That was her way of trying to ease the pain when I came home from the hospital, my arms and womb empty—her way of helping me through those dark days when no words could have penetrated or healed the gaping wound in my heart.
“The tiny decisions we make each day,” Rae says, her words somehow harmonizing with the carousel music, “they seem insignificant, silly even. But they can change our course. What’s the saying about no controlling a bull, but put a little ring through his nose … ? That describes my life. And once God got a hold of me … once I let him have control …”
I’m not sure what she means. Doesn’t God control everything? He’s never asked for my consent. He certainly never asked my opinion on whether my father or Stu should live or die.
“But way before that happened,” Rae continues, “I met Elvis. It was really nothing. Insignificant in Elvis’s life, I’m sure of that. Of course, I knew who Elvis was before we met. Everyone knew about Elvis.”
“Like Bono?” Ivy asks, her horse sliding up its pole.
“Who? Whoever,” Rae waves her hand. “No, no. Elvis was … like a god. Everyone knew of him, young and old. You didn’t even need to know his last name. Just Elvis. You either loved him or hated him. Very polarizing. Most parents didn’t care for him at all. They believed he was a bad influence. He redeemed himself somewhat by going into the Army and serving his country. He was patriotic. Some folks thought he’d disappear from the limelight, being out of the public eye for so long. But the Colonel handled his publicity well, kept his memory alive. And then it was 1961 when I came to Memphis. The morals were different from today. Yet things were changing. Elvis had recently come back from Germany. Memphis was energetic … alive.
“I was young, restless. Just seventeen. I wanted to be away, off on my own. A friend of mine had an uncle who lived in Memphis who said he’d hire us to work in his office. What was her name? Hedda Winningham.” Rae smiles to herself, as if lost in her own thoughts and memories. “We had such fun in high school.” The fingers of one hand trace the shape of her nails on the other.
“So I followed her to Memphis. And we worked for her uncle, filing and doing secretarial things. I could type a little. We were foolish, looking for fun. She moved on to Nashville, I believe, and later married. Her name’s … Polk now. Hedda Polk.”
She pauses as if lost in her own memories. Her gaze drifts, and she stares off as if she’s watching a movie we can’t see. Ivy glances at me with a worried look, but I give her a quick smile of reassurance.
“Heddie became friendly with a man at a radio station in Memphis,” Rae continues, her voice more mesmerizing than the tinny sound of the carousel song. “I believe he knew her uncle.” She waves her hand as if passing over information that is unimportant. “He had a friend. I can’t remember his name now, but he knew Elvis. I mean, really knew Elvis. They were good friends. Elvis used to drop by and talk to him regularly at the radio station. So this guy invited Heddie to one of the parties over at Graceland. She was excited. Who wouldn’t have been? But she was nervous, too. Worried. She dragged me along. Not that she had to drag me at all. Who wouldn’t have wanted to go to Graceland? In those days I was …”
“Bold?”
“Bolder than I should have been.”
“So you went?”
“I did. And, of course, Elvis was there. It wasn’t anything spectacular. No music sounding. No trumpets blaring.” She pauses with a smile and glances at the speaker perched high at the carousel’s center where the lyrical music tumbles out. “No bells. Yet it was magical. For me. He was beautiful. His eyes … and that mouth.” She sighs like a young teenager. “He was cocky but also humble. Nice and cordial. But jittery. He seemed nervous, which astounded me. Then he showed us around. He seemed so proud … not in a ‘look what I’ve got’ way. More like amazement, like he still couldn’t believe it himself. Like he feared he might wake up and find it was all a dream.
“I remember people were everywhere, crowding around him, laughing at everything he did or said, hanging onto his every word. It was kind of a disappointment actually.”
“Hard to live up to the hype,” Ivy says as if it’s perfectly understandable. Maybe it is. How many times have I anticipated something, wanted something, only to be disappointed when I got it? Things that never lived up to the anticipation. Never filled the holes.
“Maybe that was it,” Rae agrees. “Graceland was big. At least, in those days it was big. I’m sure there are bigger houses built now. But then it seemed extraordinary. And Elvis. He was big, too. Charismatic. My senses were on overload. I was out of my league. I felt … I don’t know …” She gestures toward her stomach, her hand trembling. “Uncomfortable. I wanted to tell those people to go home and leave Elvis alone. In some ways Elvis seemed like a little boy who needed someone to protect him. That was my sense of it all.�
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“And that was it?” I ask.
“For that night. I went home. I’d met Elvis. What more could there be? I certainly wasn’t a groupie. I wasn’t looking to hang out at Graceland on a daily basis. And there was some dancer from Vegas hanging out with Elvis. And then later … maybe a week or so … he called.”
“He called you?” Ivy asks, gripping her horse’s pole. She’s started to understand how big Elvis was with a hotel and street named for him and myriad souvenir shops stuffed with his memorabilia.
“No. The friend … Heddie’s friend from the radio station. He called. Elvis wanted to see me.” She puffs out her chest. “Actually, he’d rented a movie theater for that night. Elvis wanted me to come. Not Heddie. Well, she could … but he specifically wanted me there.”
“And you went, right?” Ivy asks.
“No. I had a date.”
“You didn’t drop the guy for Elvis?” she asks, narrowing her gaze as if it would have been the biggest mistake Rae could have made.
Rae chuckles. “No. Of course not. He was more real than Elvis. Elvis was … like a dream. I didn’t think anything could happen long term with a dream. Too surreal.”
Ivy nods. I feel the carousel beginning to slow. I fumble with my purse and find three more dollars. I don’t want the ride to stop and disrupt Rae’s story. As we pass the attendant, I wave the dollars at her. She comes over and stuffs the bills in her pocket. Then the carousel picks up speed once again.
“I told him I was sorry but I was busy. Maybe another time. I didn’t think I would hear from Elvis again. Turning down the King … well, it didn’t seem like anyone turned down Elvis.”
“And? Did he call?”
“The next time Elvis called. Himself.”
Ivy leans over her horse as it slides downward along the pole again. “And you went, right?”
She gives a secretive smile. “Now you know my story.”
“I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface.”
The carousel slows once more. The attendant shrugs as we pass. “The kids,” she says, pointing toward a group of five waiting to board the carousel, “they want on.”
“It’s enough,” Rae says. “Let’s go to Graceland. You’ll see who Elvis was. No ordinary man.”
And she, I realize, is no ordinary woman either.
Chapter Eleven
Don’t Be Cruel
Once back at the hotel, we walk across the street toward the graffiti-covered stone wall outside Graceland. I search surreptitiously for some enclave where an Elvis bust might be missing. Rae walks slowly, almost hesitantly. Ivy acts more like the tourists we are, her eyes darting all around as she gawks at the strange sights. She seems to feel better today after her high-carb breakfast, so I put my worries on hold.
When we finally reach the beginning of Graceland property, a woman with gray hair, openly weeping, writes a message to Elvis on the wall.
“What’s with her?” Ivy asks.
“She loved the King of Rock ’n’ Roll,” I offer as explanation, although it seems pretty odd to me to weep over a dead stranger. But maybe she knew the King, too. Then again, I don’t see Rae weeping and carrying on. Maybe it’s only displaced grief the woman feels for Elvis. Maybe it’s easier to weep over a legend, a tragic figure, than to face the pain in her own life.
Ivy keeps moving forward, but she glances back at the woman.
It takes only a few steps to reach the music-note gates, famous the world over. They stand open and seem smaller than I imagined. A guardhouse sits next to the entrance. The guard waves to a shuttle bus that drives through and up the lane toward the house. I get Ivy and Rae to stand in front of the stone wall and take their picture. The number of people milling around amazes me. How long has Elvis been dead? Thirty years? And still people clamor to be near him. I try to put it in perspective for Ivy.
”This many people aren’t lining up to see Bruce Springsteen’s or Paul McCartney’s house.”
“They’re not dead,” she says.
“All the more reason to go see their houses! I mean, you might catch a glimpse of them.”
“Whatever.”
“John Lennon … or Janis Joplin … they don’t have this kind of following,” I add, determined to show her how important Elvis was. “Maybe you don’t know who Lennon—”
“I know.”
“You know who John Lennon is?” Rae asks.
“Yeah,” she says in that teen tone that means duh.
It’s a hot June day, sticky with humidity, as we cross the street again to the tour shuttle. With the hotel suite I bought a package deal with tickets to Graceland. So we pass the line of fans, which are a mixture of young and old, and enter the strange and bizarre world of Elvis—and Rae’s past. Before we board the shuttle, we’re handed earphones and an audio system designed to dangle around our necks. It’s a short drive to Graceland, where we get off the shuttle. We stand outside the front door on the driveway. There our fellow tourists take pictures of the house, the trees. One leans on the lion statue, but a staffer asks him politely not to touch. We’re reminded to turn off the flash on our cameras.
“I don’t know how,” a woman beside me laments.
“I bet I can figure it out,” a staffer says.
After a brief explanation of when the house was built and how Elvis purchased it for one hundred thousand dollars, we enter the house.
Rae walks slightly ahead of us, as if she belongs there, as if she’s Priscilla Presley, with her chin tilted up, her expression closed, as if she expects someone to recognize her—or for Elvis to walk down the stairs and welcome her.
We stand in the hallway at the entrance of Graceland, jockeying for position to see the royal-blue dining room with its black marble floor and golden chairs. I imagine other famous stars sitting there with Elvis at the head of the table, enjoying the down-home cooking that he loved. On the other side is the living room with a long white couch and mirrored fireplace. At the end of the room are stained-glass peacocks bracketing a doorway that leads to the music room.
When our group begins to surge forward toward the kitchen, I touch Rae’s shoulder. She turns, lifts one of her earphones. “Is it how you remember?” I ask.
“Some.” Her brow crinkles as she looks over each piece in the living room. “It’s not the same piano. I remember a white baby grand with gold trim.” She rubs her hands together, making her charm bracelet jangle and her rings click against each other. “Things change.” She speaks in a low tone as if she doesn’t want anyone to hear her. “I didn’t expect it to be the same. I have changed, too.”
* * *
THE GREEN SHAG carpet on the walls and ceiling cause Ivy’s jaw to drop with disbelief at the over-the-top decor. Rae has a wry smile curving her mouth and an occasional shake of the head. Nothing seems to surprise her though.
Ivy shrugs at the TV room. “What’s the big deal?”
I’m sure she’s seen more high-tech movie rooms in her friends’ homes. Ben’s big-screen TV can play more than one channel at a time. But Ivy doesn’t realize Elvis was way ahead of the technological curve. Remote control wasn’t even widely available then.
Someone brushes my shoulder, and I step out of the way while tourists angle their cameras for a quick picture. The flash goes off and someone calls, “Turn off your flash, please.”
I keep looking for a giant pedestal where Elvis’s bust could sit, like a king on his throne overseeing the throngs of admirers. A pedestal just waiting there vacant, expectant after all these years. I imagine a Grecian-style column, about waist high, broad and sturdy, made out of marble. A fitting place for a king. But there isn’t a spot among all the outlandish decorations for the tackiness of the piece. It’s an absurd anticipation but rather hopeful, or maybe selfish. I want the search for the bust’s home to be over. I want to return to a normal life, whatever that is. For there is nothing normal or ordinary in what I’m doing.
“This is pimpin’,” Ivy says.
“Pimpin’,” she repeats, looking at the Jungle Room.
Surprised, I glance around, hoping others haven’t heard. I can just imagine an ardent fan taking offense and starting a riot. “Elvis wasn’t a …”—I lower my voice—“a pimp!”
I can hear Stu’s outrage in my head and realize he would take offense, but there’s no reason for me to be upset by her remark. Ivy simply blinks at me.
Rae joins us, taking off her earphones. “The seventies have returned, haven’t they?” She glances purposefully at Ivy’s bell-bottom hip-huggers.
“Take a picture, will you? Think Dad would let me decorate my room like this?” she asks.
“Doubt it.” I wrinkle my nose at the garish decor as I snap a picture sans flash. “It’s truly horrible.”
“Don’t be cruel,” Rae sings softly.
“Pimpin’,” Ivy says again, her head bobbing like she’s jamming to some rap song in her head. Then she punches a button on her audio system and moves away from us.
“She means, it’s cool,” Rae explains at my stunned expression. “It’s just a saying kids use now.”
How does she know this? And how am I so out of touch that an older woman has to explain teenage jargon to me?
“Oh,” I manage.
I would definitely not be a good mom to a teenager.
“Okay, well … I guess that’s one way to say it.”
* * *
WE TOUR MOST of the house, what’s open to the public anyway. I catch Rae looking longingly up the great stairwell. But no one goes into Elvis’s private residence.
“Were you ever upstairs?” I ask.
Rae lifts the earphone away from her ear. I can hear the automated guide talking. She fumbles with the audio player and finally stops it. I repeat my question.
“Of course. It was probably redecorated since I was here. Elvis stayed upstairs much of the time.” She glances around at the crowd shuffling through his house. “Strangers … crowds made him nervous. There always seemed to be people everywhere. He’d stay upstairs and send someone down to see who was here, if it was safe for him to come down.”