Almost As Much (The Cherished Memories Book 3)

by Linda Ellen

  He chuckled and shook his head. “Okay. She. I hope you’re right about that. What’ you gonna do with another boy runnin’ around messin’ things up if it’s not a girl?” he asked, squeezing her a little as he tightened his embrace.

  Louise just smiled and shook her head in denial as she lovingly rubbed a hand over her extended lap. “I know she’s in there. I can’t explain it. I just do.”

  “Well okay, then. A girl, it is,” Vic returned obligingly. “In the meantime, those rascal boys of ours are waiting to hear the verdict.”

  Her smile widened as she looked up at him and leaned in for one more kiss. Then bending around his head, she called out, “Boys! Come here, please.”

  In seconds, Buddy and Jimmy came running, stopping at attention like little soldiers in front of the united parents. Each boy searched their parents’ faces, feeling as if something had changed. They exchanged quick looks.

  Louise sat up and took a hand from each boy. “Boys, I ask your forgiveness for being so absorbed in…other things…lately. I promise, from now on I’ll try to do better. Forgive me?” she asked softly, tilting her head a bit to one side as she met each pair of eyes.

  At once, they broke out with grins and launched themselves into her arms. She laughed and caught them, all three crashing against Vic’s side as a chuckle left his lips. It was the most joyous moment the family had experienced in quite a while.

  After a few kisses and squeezes, Louise murmured, “Now, what do you say we figure out what you two are going to dress up as for Halloween?”

  She shook her head fondly as they began talking over each other, one idea after another tumbling willy-nilly as they extracted themselves from her grasp and plopped down onto the coffee table.

  Friday evening, just as the sun was going down, Louise finished gathering the elements of Halloween costumes for two excited boys. It was to be the first year Buddy and Jimmy would be allowed to go out trick-or-treating on their own, without their older brother or parents as escorts. Secretly, they planned not to return until their sacks were so full they could barely carry them.

  Jimmy was decked out as the Lone Ranger, courtesy of his older brother, Tommy, who had dug into the back of his closet for an old costume he’d had from his days as the TV character’s biggest fan. The doorbell rang as Tommy fixed the white cowboy hat on Jimmy’s head over the black facemask and handed him an old pillowcase that they saved for candy gathering every year.

  “We need to go! We’re missing out!” Buddy exclaimed as Louise tried to finish fixing his costume.

  “Well, hold still, young man. I’ve about got this…”

  Vic glanced over from finishing up his annual task of carving the jack-o-lantern and grinned at his son’s outfit.

  The family had pulled together to accomplish the youngster’s idea of dressing as a space-age robot, using two cardboard boxes covered with aluminum foil. A smaller box on his head with holes for eyes was topped with a beat up Chevy hubcap, and two bells out of an old telephone served as the ears. Kitchen cabinet knobs applied to the headpiece cleverly resembled bolts holding the ‘body’ together. Vic had scrounged around at the station and found some broken voltage regulators and various other automobile-related items to use as dials and controls for the front. Louise had affixed the foil-covered cardboard arms onto the body with a few spots of thread. In addition, a pair of Vic’s old boots adorned the boy’s feet, so big he had to clomp along in them, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.

  “Got it,” Louise mumbled as she finished securing the hubcap.

  Finished with the carving, Vic washed his hands and turned back to survey the end product, which he approved with a nod and a pat on the cardboard back. “Okay, son, here’s your sack. And Buddy, take this flashlight,” he added as he pressed the metal item into his son’s grasp. “You be careful and make sure your little brother is okay. Don’t run off and leave him.”

  “I won’t, Daddy,” Buddy assured him, taking the job of older brother seriously as he gripped the light in one hand and the sack in the other. “Come on, Jimmy! Let’s get going before all of the good stuff’s gone!”

  Lilly stepped aside from the task of giving out candy to the first arrivals and let the two boys pass by, with Louise following and fixing even as they scurried. “Okay, now you two be careful – and be sure to say thank you every time!” she called as they made their exit.

  “Okay, Mama,” Jimmy called as the two hurried down the walk to join the other kids.

  Vic placed the lit pumpkin next to the door and then stood with his wife and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  Tired from the hustle and bustle, Louise rubbed her lower back with one hand. She and Vic stood with their arms around one another, watching their boys make their way down the street with the neighborhood kids, flashlight bobbing up and down as Buddy shuffled along.

  “Are you sure they’ll be all right…without one of us watching over them?” she murmured as the group headed up Fleet and Alec’s sidewalk next door.

  “Yeah, they’ll be fine,” Vic assured. “They’re growin’ up. We gotta let ’em stretch their wings some time.”

  The parents both smiled proudly as they heard a familiar voice say, “Hey, look at that keen robot suit!” They watched as their friend’s porch light illuminated Alec as he dropped large handfuls of candy into first Buddy’s sack and then Jimmy’s.

  “Thank you!” the boys chirped in succession.

  Fleet looked over and spotted her friends standing outside and began to wander over, holding a bundled Alexa in her arms. She had told Louise earlier in the day that Alexa had come down with a cold, so she wasn’t going to take her out trick-or-treating – although the little girl was too young to know the difference yet, anyway.

  “Hey guys. That’s a great suit Buddy has. When you first told me about it, I couldn’t imagine how you’d pull it off, but you sure did. It looked amazing,” she complimented.

  “Thanks,” Vic grinned as he reached in the bowl for a handful of candy to drop in a ballerina’s open bag. “Louise did most of it, but we all kind of helped. It was Buddy’s idea mostly, though. He thought of the design. That boy of mine’s got real talent. I think he’s gonna grow up to be an engineer or something,” he added with his Proud Daddy smile.

  “I can’t believe you’re letting them go by themselves this year, though,” Fleet observed as she looked down the street past her house, watching the waddling robot and the bobbing light, with the outline of the Lone Ranger skipping along beside him in the darkness.

  “Don’t remind me. I’m holding myself back from following,” Louise admitted, catching Lilly’s glance and hearing her mutter, “Pshaw. They don’t need a mother hen shadowing their every move. They’re good boys.”

  “Alas, like my husband and my mother keep reminding me – my little boys aren’t so little anymore…which is all the more reason to be excited about the newest member of the Matthews’ family that will arrive in a few months…” Louise added, purposely keeping her gaze on the costumed little people she was dealing with at the moment, and not on the two people she could see in her peripheral vision who were meeting one another’s gazes.

  Fleet missed the exchange as she cuddled a softly fussing Alexa. “I miss the days when AJ used to go out. Can’t believe that boy is fifteen already. Would you believe he’s got a girlfriend and he’s over at her house tonight? Time sure flies.”

  “It sure does,” Louise murmured as she thought about the years when they’d only had cute, precocious Tommy, who would charm all of the neighbors on three different streets, until his candy bag eventually became so full he couldn’t drag it home. I can’t believe he’s going on eighteen… she mused, picturing him as she had seen him a few minutes before, dressed in his full football uniform in preparation of attending a Halloween party with some of his friends in the Fern Creek High senior class. Now, Vic doesn’t even think twice of tossing him the keys to the car…

  As Louise dipped a
hand into the big bowl of candy to dole out some to each of a group of five kids who were jockeying for position, she heard a voice to her left yell, “Hey woman! I’m covered up in goblins, princesses, clowns, and ghosts over here! Get back here and help!” It was Alec, yelling from amidst a large group of kids, each holding a wide-open bag or paper sack in expectation.

  Fleet laughed and called back, “Hold your horses!” Then turning, she rolled her eyes at her friends and groused, “Duty calls. Later gators. And Vic – hold on to this mother hen, here, and don’t let her chase after her chicks tonight,” she added, receiving a rumbling chuckle in response.

  “Bye, Fleet,” Louise called over her shoulder as she finished up another group of adorable small visitors.

  When the evening finally came to an end, the boys had stayed out later than they had promised and Vic, at the urging of his wife, had to resort to taking the truck out to go look for them. He found them one street over, both trying to drag bulging sacks of candy down the sidewalk. Buddy had removed his robot costume’s head at some point and stuffed it under one arm.

  With a chuckle, Vic pulled over and helped them climb onto the tailgate, depositing their sacks in the back.

  It was an exhausted, but satisfied and proud pair of boys that trudged into the house. Both were brimming with tales of the houses they had visited and the excitement they’d had that night, and they couldn’t wait to share them with their mother.

  She took it all in stride, to Vic’s immense relief.

  ‡

  CHAPTER 17

  Elvis, Thanksgiving, and The Close Call

  “And the girls were just going crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my born days,” Tommy commented as the family sat eating dinner at the kitchen table. “I couldn’t see very well, but I think there were a couple of girls in front of the stage that even fainted. Some men carried ’em out.”

  Shaking his head as he thought about the sheer chaos he, several friends, and their girlfriends had experienced the evening before at Elvis Presley’s much publicized second Louisville appearance, he went on, “The Armory was jam-packed – I doubt they could have gotten one more person in there. We were crammed in like sardines.” Then, he thought about Peggy, the girl he had been dating since they had met at a Halloween party. “And man, I thought Peggy was gonna lose her mind. She screamed herself hoarse. Dang, all the girls around us were screaming and crying – I couldn’t even hear Elvis up there singing.”

  “My goodness, why would anyone pay money to see a singer, and then scream so loudly they couldn’t even hear him sing?” Lilly asked, frowning. “That’s simply ridiculous.”

  Tommy shrugged, agreeing. “Don’t know. But they sure did.” Then with a snort, he admitted with an embarrassed grin, “I got caught up in it a bit myself. It was like…like the air was charged with electricity or something – and our seats were right down there on the floor level, in the middle of it all.” He took a bite of his meal as he gathered his thoughts, wishing he could articulate the phenomena in a better way, but the words to justify the sensations and emotions of experiencing Elvis in person stubbornly eluded him. Truly, there seemed to be no words to adequately describe it.

  “But anyway… Elvis was wearing a bright green jacket, and when he came up on the stage, he raised one arm to greet the audience and the place erupted in this big roar – I thought sure it was gonna blast the walls right out of that old building. Flash bulbs were popping everywhere, like a dang lightning storm. I’m tellin’ you, the hair on the back of my neck stood right up.” He glanced around at his captivated listeners, his blue eyes glittering with exhilaration. “Then, he turned his head and the crowd screamed again. He walked over and blew into the microphone, like he was checking if it was on, and the people roared even louder. Then he started singing the first song, but we couldn’t hear much because of the noise of the crowd. He was all over the stage, but he didn’t get nasty or anything – I’d heard they told him to keep it clean,” he smirked. “But several times he did this thing where he would grind his hips or come up on the balls of his feet, and everybody went berserk.”

  “Sounds shameful,” Lilly declared, her sharp eyes peering at her grandson as if she wondered if she should give him a lecture on the evils of lewd behavior.

  Tommy gave a slight shrug, knowing his grandmother was a bit of a straight-laced prude. He glanced over at his father, and Vic sent him an amused wink.

  Louise frowned in disgust. “I can’t imagine such goings on. I’ve been to many swing concerts in my day, and although we were excited to see the bands, we were respectful enough to let them be heard. You paid to see a concert and then couldn’t even hear it. Sounds like you wasted your money, Tommy.”

  “Oh, I dunno,” the young man remarked, a forkful of mashed potatoes poised before his mouth as he considered the experience. “I’m glad I went. I have a feeling Elvis Presley is gonna be big, you know? Like maybe the biggest singing star ever. Heck, they’re already calling him the King of Rock and Roll – and I’ll be able to say I saw him in person.”

  He shoved the fork into his mouth and allowed the food to slide down his throat before shaking his head as if he were still under the intoxicating influence of the previous night’s events. “There’s just something…well, almost magnetic about the guy. When he’s up there on the stage, you just can’t take your eyes off him.” He paused a moment as he pictured all of the things he had seen at the concert, then went on with a shrug, “I don’t know, he’s just…there’s something special about him. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Well, all I gotta say is – there’s no way he will be a bigger star than Satchmo, or Cab Calloway, or Sinatra,” Vic declared with a smirk before taking a large bite of his meatloaf.

  “We’ll see,” Tommy grinned across the table at him. “Oh, and you know what else? Peggy lives on Beaver Street, and guess who lives a few doors down – Elvis’ grandfather, Jesse Presley! She said he’s lived there for years and he’s good friends with her grandpa. Well, Peggy called me a while ago and said Elvis himself came this morning and gave his grandfather a brand new ’57 blue and white Ford Fairlane– along with a color TV. He had that stashed in the trunk. She said Elvis also handed his grandmother a hundred dollar bill. Ain’t that something? Peggy said he stayed a few hours with them, and then the next time she looked out the window, Elvis was leaving in the back of a pink Cadillac with pillows all around him and two husky bodyguards in the front seat!”

  “So that’s who it was,” Vic mumbled, pointing at his son with his fork as he recalled a conversation. “A pal of mine stopped by the station today and was telling me about being down at Riggs Motors on Broadway when a man pulled in – big fella, wearin’ a white cowboy hat, white jacket and black string tie, smokin’ a big ol’ cigar, and drivin’ a pink Cadillac. He got out and went inside and precedes to hand Mr. Riggs a check for a brand new ’57 Ford. Said he didn’t even dicker about the price. My friend said after the man left, Toby Riggs kept crowin’ it was the easiest sale he’d ever made.”

  “That wasn’t Elvis, that was his manager, I bet!” Tommy exclaimed. “What’s his name? Colonel something…Parker? Yeah! Colonel Tom Parker.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “You know, that Elvis…” Tommy mused thoughtfully, “Not only can he sing, but he’s a darn good actor, too. When I took Peggy to see his movie, Love Me Tender, a couple of weeks ago, I was expecting it to be corny or something, but it wasn’t. He did a real good job in it. The character he played even died in it, and he really did that scene well. The thing is…he’s only twenty-one, and he’s already made it in show business. It just…” he paused, glancing around at his family, who were all listening and looking at him. He cleared his throat and a small shrug lifted his shoulders. “It just kinda makes me wonder if…maybe I could try to…I don’t know…be a singer or something.” He looked around again and snickered self-consciously. “Anyway…”

  “I don’t see why not �
� we know you can sing, and you’re handsome and talented,” his proud mother declared.

  “Wow, that would be swell, Tommy!” “Yeah!” Buddy and Jimmy exclaimed simultaneously, with true big brother hero-worship.

  The family talked about the idea of Tommy trying to break into show business until the conversation tapped out and they lapsed into silence and went back to eating their dinner.

  A few minutes later, a memory surfaced and Vic tipped his head back, motioning toward Louise with his chin. “By the way, I meant to tell ya, Al called and said that he and Goldie want to come spend Thanksgiving in Louisville.”

  “Uncle Al? That’s great,” Tommy responded as he spooned another helping of mashed potatoes onto his plate. “We haven’t seen them in, what…years,” he shrugged, unable to pinpoint the last time.

  “No, we haven’t,” Louise nodded as she took a bite of her meatloaf. “We went to Evansville a couple of times and stayed with them for holidays, when you were little. But since Buddy and Jimmy came along, we quit doing that.” That fact saddened her, as Vic’s brother Al and his wife Goldie were the nicer of Vic’s family members, but she was glad that they could at least talk on the phone every few months.

  “They’re gonna stay at Jack and Liz’s house,” Vic commented off-handedly as he forked a big bite of meatloaf. He shoveled it in his mouth and proceeded to chew as Louise turned surprised eyes on him. He chuckled softly, knowing what she was thinking. Swallowing and reaching for his glass of iced tea, he went on, “Since Tim and Shirley are both married and gone, Jack and Liz have a three-bedroom house all to themselves.” He paused for a moment, thinking about his niece and nephew; twenty-eight year old Tim, married with two children, and twenty-six year old Shirley, who had married at eighteen and moved to Florida with her ex-soldier husband. They now had three children, and spent most holidays at home.

  Louise perked up, her eyes zeroing in on Vic. In rapid fire, she gushed, “Let’s have them here for Thanksgiving! They haven’t seen our house, or the station…do you think Jack and Liz would come, too? Or are they going to spend it with Tim and his family…” she paused as Vic held up a hand.