Hot Shot (37 page)

Joel couldn't think of a single thing Presley had sacrificed except dignity, but he didn't say so. The woman was crazy. She had to be. But then, what did that say about him?

"Did you go to high school, Joel?" she asked. It was the first time she had addressed him by name. He wasn't accustomed to women like Angela calling him by his first name. He would have preferred her to call him Mr. Faulconer.

"I went to a military academy," he replied stiffly.

"Did they have cheerleaders?"

"No. Certainly not."

"I used to be a cheerleader. I was one of the best." Softly, sadly, under her breath she began to chant, "We've got the team, we've got the steam, go fight. We've got the team, we've got the steam… I was so popular in high school. All the kids liked me because I was never stuck up, not like some of the other girls. I was nice to everybody. You know what I liked best about high school? Your whole life was ahead of you, and in your mind you made all the right choices. In your mind everything came out perfect. Not like real life, when you marry the wrong man and have trouble with your kid. Not like what's happened to you and me."

He jumped up from the picnic bench so suddenly that it tilted, nearly unseating her.

"Don't you dare presume to speak for me. My life is perfect. I wouldn't have it any other way."

She gave him a look so sad that it cut right through him. "Then why are you going to Graceland?" she asked softly. "If your life is so perfect, why are you going with me to Graceland?"

He turned away from her. High, dusty weeds spoiled the polish on his expensive shoes. A coffee spot marred the spotless white of his custom-made dress shirt. "I've been tired, that's all. I needed to get away. I need a rest."

This time she was the one who gave a soft snort of disbelief. "Never kid a kidder, Joel.

You're even lonelier than me."

He wanted to strike out at her for her presumption, but he couldn't summon up words that were cruel enough. She came up behind him. A hand settled in the center of his back and rubbed gently, like a mother comforting a child. His eyes drifted shut with the pain of her soft, soothing touch.

The service station attendant called out that their tire was ready. It was Angela's turn to drive.

"God has Elvis now," she said as she merged with the traffic in the right lane. "I keep trying to tell myself that."

"Do you really believe that?" he scoffed.

"Don't you?"

"I'm an Episcopalian. I give to the church. Sometimes I even attend, but—no—I don't believe in God."

"I'm sorry," she said sympathetically. "I think it must be harder for men like you to believe. You have so much power that you start thinking you're God, and you forget how unimportant you really are. Then, when bad times hit, you don't have anything to fall back on. With me it's different. I've never been important, and I've had faith all my life."

"God is nothing but a crutch for the ignorant."

"Then I'm glad I'm ignorant, because I don't know what I'd do without Him."

They continued their odyssey—Amarillo to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City to Little Rock, Little Rock to Memphis—two middle-aged people on their way to Graceland, one of them mourning the passing of her youth, the other on his way to see death so he could make up his mind if he still wanted to live.

They reached Memphis early Thursday morning. A crowd of several thousand had kept vigil at Graceland throughout the night, and it was already difficult to find a parking place anywhere near. Angela parked the Toyota in front of a fire hydrant some distance away. Joel badly needed a shower and clean clothes, as well as a decent meal. He thought of calling a taxi to take him to a hotel. He thought of a dozen things he could do, but he ended up walking to Graceland with her.

The day was already heavy with humidity. Helicopters circled over the mansion, and all the flags they passed hung at half mast. The sight of the flags deeply disturbed him. It seemed inappropriate to mourn a rock and roll singer so lavishly. Would the California flags be flown at half mast when he died? He shook off the thought. He didn't intend to die for a very long time. When he got back home, he would see his doctor and tell him how badly he had been feeling. He would tell him about the tightness in his chest, about the fatigue and depression. He would get some pills, watch his diet, start exercising again.

Although it was still early, souvenir hawkers plied the crowd that had gathered around Graceland's high brick walls and spilled out onto Elvis Presley Boulevard. Weeping mourners hugged Elvis T-shirts to their chests along with photographic postcards and plastic guitars made in Hong Kong. Joel found the vulgarity unspeakable.

The funeral cortege would be emerging through Graceland's famous music gate, and Angela wanted to be able to see it all. Joel moved her to the front of the crowd that had gathered in the shopping center directly across the street. It took some time, but despite his disheveled appearance, people sensed his importance and made way for them. He noted the heavy police presence and numerous first-aid stations set up to tend to those who were fainting from heat or hysteria. The city officials were obviously worried about the temper of the crowd, which seemed to change indiscriminately from a noisy outpouring of grief to almost carnival gaiety. A woman in green rubber shower thongs told Angela that at four o'clock that morning a kid in a white Ford had jumped the curb and hit three teenage girls who were keeping vigil. Now two of them were dead. Life seemed increasingly arbitrary to Joel.

Cars began entering through the music gate for the funeral service which was to be held inside the mansion. Angela thought she spotted Ann-Margret in one of them. Another bystander said he had seen George Hamilton, and there was a rumor that Burt Reynolds had slipped in through the back. It amazed Joel that these people actually cared about minor motion picture celebrities, not one of whom could possibly have been accepted for membership at his country club.

Joel could probably have gained entrance to the funeral with nothing more than a few well-placed phone calls, but the idea repelled him. He was not a participant, but an observer of this plebeian carnival of loud voices and excessive emotions.

The morning dragged on, and the heat grew so oppressive, breathing became difficult. He bought two rickety camp stools from a vendor. They sat on them in sight of the gates and waited for the funeral cortege to emerge.

"What's important to you, Joel?"

The question was presumptuous, so he remained silent.

She lifted her hair off her neck and fanned herself with a flattened red and white cardboard popcorn box. "Sammy and my friends are important to me. Your daughter.

Going to Vegas. Going to church. I like doing hair and being with my girlfriends. The old ladies laugh at my jokes, and I make them feel pretty again—I like that. But most important is Sammy." She set down the popcorn box and studied one fingernail where the purple-red nail polish had started to chip. "I know I embarrass him—the way I look and the kind of person I am—like telling a few people that Elvis is his dad. But I won't change, not even for him. I tried changing for Frank, and it didn't work. A person has to be what they are. I like wearing flashy clothes and having a good time. Otherwise, before you know it, you're fifty and you haven't ever lived."

He was fifty-nine years old. Did she think she was talking about him? "I live on one of the most beautiful estates in California," he said coldly. "I have homes all over the world, cars, everything a man could possibly want."

"Despite all that, I feel sorry for you."

He was furious with her. Where did she get the audacity to pity him? "Save your pity for someone who needs it."

"You seem to be missing out on all the good parts of life." Once again she began to fan herself with the popcorn box. "You don't believe in God, and you won't make up with your daughter."

"You leave Susannah out of this!"

"She's a special girl. She's kind and sensitive, and Sammy's probably going to hurt her.

You should be there for her."

"She doesn't deserve anything from me. She's made her own bed, and now she can damn well lie in it."

"Sometimes the best part of loving somebody is loving them even though they've hurt you. Listen to me, Joel. Any fool can love somebody who's perfect, somebody who does everything right. But that doesn't stretch your soul. Your soul only gets stretched when you can still love somebody after they've hurt you."

"Your husband for example?" he said scornfully. "You women are amazing. You let men walk all over you because you're too spineless to stand up to them, and then you hide your weakness under the cover of sacrificial love."

"Loving never makes you weak. It's being untrue to yourself that does that. It's like with Sammy. He wants to make me over into somebody like Florence Henderson. That's how he is. He buys me things like little pearl earrings and white cardigan sweaters. I always thank him, but those things aren't my style, and as much as I love him, I won't let him change me. That's how I stay true to myself. So I keep saying my prayers and hoping one day it'll be better between us. It should be like that with you and Susannah. Just because she did something you don't approve of doesn't mean you should cut her out."

His face was stony. "I refuse to have anything to do with someone who has betrayed me."

"She wasn't betraying you. She was just following her own star. It didn't have anything to do with you."

"It would be impossible for me to forgive her after what she's done."

"But. Joel—that's what makes it love. Otherwise it's just shaking hands."

He didn't want to think about what she'd said, but he couldn't help it. Was it possible that this cheap, gaudy woman knew something about life that had escaped him?

Suddenly the music gate opened. A limousine as white as Elvis's Las Vegas show costumes crept forward, followed by another. Next to him Angela gave a dry, broken sob.

One by one, sixteen white limousines passed in a mournful parade through the gate.

People were crying. Tough-faced men and overweight women let tears fall unashamedly down their cheeks. And then Angela clutched his arm as the white Cadillac hearse appeared—the hearse bearing the body of the King of Rock and Roll.

Angela took a deep, shattered breath and whispered, "Good-bye, E."

Joel watched the hearse turning slowly out onto the boulevard. He felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and rubbed it. He didn't want to ponder the fate of kings. He didn't want to think about his own mortality and why he had come on this strange odyssey, but suddenly the emptiness of his life pressed down on him with so much weight that he felt as if he were being pounded through the pavement into the dry, hot, Tennessee earth. He thought about what Angela had said—that the best part of loving was being able to love someone who had hurt you. He pressed his eyes shut and remembered just how badly Susannah had hurt him. But in the face of death and funerals, it no longer seemed to matter quite so much.

And then he finally admitted how badly he wanted her back. He wanted Susannah back, and he wanted to be able to love Paige the way a daughter should be loved. He envisioned his family gathered around him at Christmas dinner with rosy-cheeked grandchildren at the table and Kay at his side—silly, frivolous Kay, who used to make him laugh and helped him forget the pressures of holding power.

As he clutched his shoulder and struggled to breathe, he saw his faults stretched out in front of him like a long unbroken line on a sales graph. He saw his sins of pride and selfishness, he saw his small cruelties and his foolish belief that he could shape the world through the strength of his own will. He saw the arrogant way he had squandered the love of the people who cared for him.

The pain gripped him, traveling from his shoulder down into his chest, and he thought of the little girl he had pulled from her grandmother's closet so long ago. She had given him perfect, unconditional love—the most precious gift of his life—and he had thrown it away. Panic swept over him as he realized all he had lost. Was it too late? Could he have her back?

With astonishing suddenness, a wave of euphoria swept over him, riding right alongside his pain. It didn't have to be too late! As soon as he got back, he would tell her. He would fly home tonight and go to her. He would tell her that he forgave her, that he loved her.

His life would once again have meaning. Everything would be all right again.

Angela's eyes were still on the white hearse, and her face, even in profile, looked stricken. "I know I'm not young anymore," she whispered, "but—do you think I'm still attractive, Joel?"

He clutched his chest, no longer able to draw a breath that wasn't pain-wracked. There was no more time. He felt the chill coming over him, the fading of light, and he knew he had to give something back quickly, something good and precious. With his last remaining bit of strength, he pushed out the words.

"You'll always… be quite… beautiful, Angela…"

And then, in the shadow of the hearse bearing a king, another king slumped to the ground.

Chapter 20

Susannah had just fallen asleep when the phone rang shortly after midnight. She groaned and rolled over, automatically reaching out for Sam before she remembered that he was still at work. She should be there, too, but she had been exhausted and had finally gone home.

She fumbled for the phone, wondering why her husband and her partners couldn't leave her alone for even one night. "Hello," she murmured thickly.

"Susannah?"

"Paige?" She was instantly alert to the strangled sound in her sister's voice. "Paige, what's wrong?"

"It's—it's Daddy."

"Daddy?" Her spine stiffened and she braced herself for something horrible.

"He's—he's dead, Susannah. He had a heart attack."

"Daddy's dead?" The words slipped from her lips, the syllables distorted as if they had been spoken underwater.

Paige was crying. It had happened in Memphis, she said. No one knew what he was doing there. Susannah gripped the sheet as her sister went on. The night closed around her like a small, tight box.