Elvis Takes a Back Seat (5 page)

“This just doesn't sound like Mother.”

“I remember her buying Coca-Cola bottles, then taking them home, dumping out part, and filling it up with rum that she snuck out of Father's closet.”

“Grandpa had rum?”

“Oh, sure,” Rae says. “But he wasn't a big drinker. Someone at the office would give him a bottle for Christmas, and Momma would make him put it in the closet. He had a whole collection. Every now and then, he'd pull some out and add it to the eggnog at Christmas. But most of the time, Beverly was sneaking a snortful.”

“Mother?” Rae's memories of my mother and mine don't coincide. “She was always so prim and proper.”

“Not always. But eventually that is the path she chose. Maybe I shouldn't tell you these things.”

“No, that's okay.” I want to know more. I unlock the trunk of the Cadillac. The lid pops open.

“Beverly may not have wanted you to know about the wildness of her youth.”

“Probably not.” I unlatch the cooler. “But it makes her seem more real, less perfect.”

Rae shrugs and takes out a can, brushes off the ice, and hands me one. “A Coca-Cola in memory then?”

“Thanks. Do you think Ivy will want one?”

“Young girls drink Diet nowadays.” She pulls out a diet soda from the icy slush. “Always worried about being skinny.”

I tap the top of my can three times. With a glance at my watch, I sigh. “What's keeping her? Do you think she's sick?” I can imagine Stu's horror at the thought of someone puking in his beloved Cadillac. “You know, carsick?”

“Or maybe it's something else.” Rae's mouth thins.

“Like what?”

“Could be anything.” She purses her lips together as if contemplating myriad reasons that I don't want to imagine.

“But you think …”

“Smoking, maybe.” She taps a finger against her mouth.

“Cigarettes?”

“Or …” Rae pauses, “weed. Isn't that what kids call pot nowadays?”

“Marijuana?” I stare at my aunt. What did she know of drugs? I sense somehow she does. Maybe because Mother told me Rae lived a bohemian life, I conjure up wild parties in my own mind.

I remember walking through a shopping mall with my mother. A group of teenagers grabbed our attention with their boisterous laughter. They leaned against a metal railing near the food court, laughing and cutting up. Mother sniffed derisively, “Drugs.” But I'm not sure Mother would have known a weed if she'd met one or even knew that young kids were often more likely to try crack than marijuana. But then I never would have guessed she'd ever tasted hard liquor.

The question running around my mind now is, does Ivy know anything about drugs? I think of her suitcase in my trunk. Could I—should I—search it? After all, I'm responsible for Ivy. Would that be responsible or just nosy?

I wish I could call this trip off, turn around, and go home. I pray it's short. Which is saying something. I can't remember the last time I prayed. Probably when Stu was sick … but those prayers went unanswered. Praying feels more like making a wish on the first star of the evening or a hay bale. But I figure I need all the help I can get. Once we find Elvis's owner—and I don't bother thinking we won't— then I can turn my questions, doubts, and concerns over to Ivy's father, where those things belong.

I lean close to Ivy as we pile back into the Cadillac and sniff her. She jerks around and glares at me. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” My face feels like I just pressed a curling iron to it. “The pine trees must be getting to me. I feel like I'm going to sneeze.”

I didn't smell smoke on Ivy. Only citrus hair products. So much for theories of smoking and drugs.

An hour later we stop—again!—at Cracker Barrel in Arkadelphia. As Ivy zips past the souvenirs to the restroom, I wonder again what's going on.

“In the restroom again,” Rae whispers, as if I hadn't noticed. I pick up different lotions and lip balms while we wait for a table.

We amble around looking at frog T-shirts and quilts before my name is called. With Ivy still in the restroom, Rae and I settle at a table. I stare at the menu and try to decide
between fried catfish and salad. Nothing actually sounds good. Nothing has since Stu. But I've learned to eat a few bites anyway, swallowing automatically.

I glance out the window next to our table, past the rocking chairs lined up along the porch to the parking lot. Along the side of the restaurant sits the Cadillac, its top securely in place and Elvis still strapped in the back seat.

Feeling Rae staring at me, I shift my thoughts back to her speculations. “Ivy might have a weak bladder. Or an infection.”

“I don't think so.”

“Maybe the hilly roads made her feel ill. When I was a kid, I got carsick.”

“It's not that hilly and the road is straight.”

“Well, I can't follow her into the restroom every time she says she has to pee.”

“I didn't say you should.” Rae sips her water, then wipes the condensation off the glass with a paper napkin.

“I'm not the parental type,” I say, wondering why I'm searching for excuses.

“You have a woman's heart. It's enough.”

I wish she wouldn't say that. What does a woman's heart have to do with it? Obviously mine isn't masculine. But as a kid I felt closer to my father than my mother, so does gender really matter?

“Let's just eat and get back on the road.” I glance at my watch again, a present from Stu. “Leather,” he'd said, handing me a gift-wrapped box, “is for the third anniversary. So says Hallmark.”

“Did you give me a belt?”

“A whip,” he'd joked.

The watch helped keep me on track, so I wasn't as late as was my tendency. Almost twenty years married to Stu and now I laugh at how I like to stay on schedule, rarely running late. But today, because of Ivy, we're more than an hour behind the schedule I'd planned.

“How far are we from Memphis?” Rae asks, cutting off my memory.

“Only a few more hours, depending on”—I feel Elvis staring at me from the parking lot, like Stu used to wait for me, already in the car, motor going, clock ticking—“how many more stops.” To divert Rae from her concerns for Ivy, I say, “How long has it been since you've been to Memphis?”

“A few years. Twenty.” She pauses as if she's just now added up the years and realized how long it's actually been. “Forty maybe.”

A family with four young children is shown to a nearby table. The disheveled mother jiggles a baby against her shoulder. The father takes another off toward the restroom. The wait staff brings booster seats and high chairs.

“Think Memphis has changed?”

Rae twists the straw sticking out of her water glass. “That's the one certainty in life—change.”

“Are you excited about going back now?”

She takes a long sip of water. “Not really. I don't like to visit old haunts.”

Walking down memory lane for me these days often includes puddles of tears. But I don't sense heartache in Rae. She seems strong, as if she can simply block out memories she doesn't care to reexamine. Hoping to fill up the emptiness between us, I ask, “Why'd you leave?”

“It was time. Time for new adventures.”

I wonder how she knew it was time. Or was it simply an offhand comment in retrospect? In the past year I've tried on new lifestyles in my mind, imagining myself becoming a hermit in the mountains with the solitude of earth and sky for company, or traveling abroad and letting the crowds of tourists press memories out of my mind. But I'm frozen with uncertainty.

Rae once told me, “God will reveal his plan. In his time.”

But frankly, I've heard nothing. I doubt my ability to hear God's voice. And if Stu's dying was God's plan, then I'm not sure I want what he has planned for me. So the question for me is, what do I want?

Others pushed me into a garage sale. Stu pushed me into this trip. I don't know which direction I'd push me.

“I came here …” Rae waves her hand, her charm bracelet jangling, as if to erase that remark. “I came to Dallas for a while and stayed with your mother.”

“When I was a baby,” I said, remembering the pictures in my mother's photo albums. “Then you went to the west coast?”

She hesitates as if uncertain of her response, then nods. “I worked my way there by way of Chicago, New York, Santa Fe, and L.A. Then I eventually landed in Oregon. I came back to Dallas once more. You were a girl, maybe three or so. Do you remember?”

“Vaguely.”

“No, you were four.”

I remember lying in my bed, my pink-checked pajamas tickling my chin. Aunt Rae came in to say good night and
good-bye. She'd be leaving early the next morning. I clutched the little doll she'd given me, which I'd named Emily.

She told me a bedtime story of a little girl who went to Topsy-Turvyville. “Everything is upside down and backwards. Cars go backwards. Elevators go sideways, too. Houses have their chimneys on the ground, their front doors way up high. People even eat upside down.”

“I bet that's messy,” I remember saying as I giggled.

“Sometimes,” she chuckled. “But the people who live there are used to it, so they take special care not to dribble food or let it plop on the floor. Anything is possible in Topsy-Turvyville.”

“Anything?”

“Anything. So when you get lonely or sad or miss me, as I will be missing you, think of Topsy-Turvyville. Okay? And remember it is the place where things are not what they seem.”

I'd forgotten that time, repressed it or locked it away somewhere safe—until now. I feel like I'm living in Topsy-Turvyville. My life has been turned upside down and backwards. But unlike Rae's imagining, this place is messy, unkempt, and overwhelming. I want to go back to the way things were, to my normal life, to my hopes and dreams, to the time when I felt safe and secure—with Stu.

Silence settles between Rae and me, but around us continues the noise of other conversations, plates clattering, a baby fussing. The children at the table near us drop crayons on the floor and whine for their food. Once more I shift my gaze out the window. Even from here I can see the dark outline of Elvis's head safely tucked inside the back seat.

“Did you miss your friends from Memphis? Your family, when you moved around so much?”

“I made new ones.”

New family? But I don't voice my question. She makes starting over sound easy, but to me it seems as difficult as telling a lame man how to stand and walk. How can I ever make a new life for myself? Everything reminds me of Stu.

Seeing Ivy emerge from the bathroom, I give her a wave. She drifts toward the table and slides into the chair beside me. She looks thin and pale; her shoulders slump with what seems like unhappiness. Still, she's a beautiful young woman. Her short shorts and tight-fitting T-shirt grab the attention of several men sitting nearby.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She sniffs and looks around. “What is that smell?”

“Lunch grease,” Rae says. “I'm having chicken-fried steak.”

I hand the menu to Ivy. “I think I'll have the vegetable plate. What are you going to have? That is, if the waitress ever returns.”

“We're in no hurry, Claudia,” Rae says. “No rush.”

There's no deadline. No one waiting for us … or Elvis. But I want to get this trip over with as soon as possible. I don't want to linger and stroll through Memphis or down Memory Lane. This isn't a vacation.

My gaze veers toward Elvis. An older couple walks past the Cadillac. First the man turns and looks back, probably noting the make and model. He touches the woman's arm, then points at Elvis. Together they bend over, peering into the back seat. Eventually they enter the restaurant, their
heads bent together as they share a laugh. It's tiny moments, snippets of others' lives, that make me miss Stu the most.

Ivy clicks her short nails against the wooden table. “Do they have soup here?”

“We'll ask the waitress.” The conversation dies as we wait for the gal who brought us water when we first sat down. She gave us a toothy grin and said she'd be back “quick as a bunny.” But we are still waiting.

Looking at Ivy, her thin arms, heavy makeup, and shocking black hair that contrasts with her pale skin, I remember Ben wanting me to impart some motherly wisdom to his daughter, but I am at a loss for words. I figure if I can get us talking at all, it might put us on the right course. But I don't know what teenagers talk about. Boys? Movies? The latest music? I feel way behind the times. “I thought it might be fun to stay at the Heartbreak Hotel in Memphis.”

Ivy shrugs.

“Have you been there, Rae?”

“No.”

“I called and got reservations last week.” No one seems interested. “I thought we could immerse ourselves in all things Elvis.”

Ivy looks around at the other tables, her gaze settling on the family next to us. The children wiggle and squirm. The baby starts to cry.

Finally the waitress returns and takes our orders. When she moves on to the next table, I continue, “Heartbreak Hotel is named for one of Elvis's songs. It's very famous.” That garners no response either. “I thought it might be kind of retro”—I feel desperate trying to sound hip enough to
interest Ivy—“to go to Graceland. Have you been there, Rae?”

She unwraps her utensils and lays her curled-up napkin in her lap. “A long time ago.”

“What about you, Ivy? Have you been to Graceland?”

“What is it?” Her lip curls as if the word is distasteful.

“It's Elvis's home. Elvis Presley. It's a mansion really. Still decorated the same way it was when he died. I've heard there's purple shag carpet and a Jungle Room.”

“Whatever.”

I swallow a heavy sigh. “Rae, was that where you met Elvis? Or later?”

“I
knew
Elvis.”

“Oh. Well … okay.” I cut my gaze toward Ivy, but she isn't paying attention. “Tell us about him. What was he like? Was he as generous as everyone says?”

Rae narrows her eyes and yells, “Stop!”

Her shout startles me and everyone around us. Suddenly the restaurant is silent except for Rae as she yells and waves her arms. She bounds out of her chair, knocking it over. It clatters against the brick floor. Without a backward glance, she runs toward the nearest exit, which sets off an alarm.

“I wouldn't talk about Elvis anymore,” Ivy says.

“Get up!” Through the big window, I see two middle-aged women bent next to the Cadillac. “They're stealing Elvis!”