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‘My God, I was only fourteen,’ my mother says, cradling her coffee mug in her hands. ‘But I loved him. Absolutely, yeah. All my friends did. My best friend Marcy kept a picture of him in a locket around her neck, one she’d cut out of a newspaper. Between us we had every record he ever made, and we wore them smooth. So when we heard that Elvis Aaron Presley was actually coming to our town, naturally we went nuts.’
She smiles to herself, looking into the middle distance somewhere above my head, where memory is stored. ‘We spent so much of the time screaming I don’t even remember what songs he played that night. Maybe ‘Love Me Tender’, my favourite. And when it was done, while all the crowd was still shrieking, I snuck outside and waited by the tour bus with a bunch of other sneaky girls until a bunch of people came up to it, him in the middle. I don’t know why, but I called out ‘Aaron!’, his middle name, and he stopped in his tracks for a second, looked at me. What can I say? An hour later, I was at his hotel, and in his bed.
‘Oh, don’t give me that look.’ I am the eldest of her daughters and even I haven’t heard this one. ‘I know I was young but then we all were. I guess I didn’t know what to expect, but you know he was a perfect gentleman. Kissed me a few times, kissed my belly, stroked my shoulders. Pulled off my long socks and rubbed my feet. I told him ‘Love Me Tender’ was my favourite and he hummed a few bars in my ear. Then we sat in bed, cuddling, fondling, watching tv. I sat up cradling his head in my lap, stroking his shoulders. I could smell his hair. I remember how he looked, kinda babyish up close, no stubble, his little double chin. A beautiful boy. Who would have thought it. Me and the King, sitting in bed watching tv. I remember Jack Benny was on. He gave me a sip of his beer. It was like we were married. I thought, this is what being married must be like, every night. And so for about two hours, I was practically married to the King.
‘For years after that I strutted around like a little bitch, rejecting every guy who tried it on, ever asked me out. I was too special. I had been married to Elvis himself for two whole hours. None of them could ever match that, even come close. And then your father came along, with his funny stories, his knack for saying little things that stuck with you, his weird take on life. We went on camping trips upstate when the weather was bad. We went to Italian restaurants on my birthday, Greek on his, forgot to pay bills and got drunk on Fridays, and a million other things. And gradually, bit by bit, I forgot about the King, and when I recalled I didn’t care. Elvis Presley himself, whom I had been some kind of special wife to for two magic hours, and then your father, arguing with the guy at the toll-booth over a quarter. And your father won.’
Suddenly she looks at me directly. ‘But I’ve never told your father, you know how he is. He’d sulk. You won’t mention it, will you? Promise me you won’t tell him?’
I can’t resist it. ‘That’s all right mama,’ I say, and give her a lop-sided smile to prove it.
About Joe Morby
Joe Morby is a freelance writer living in Berkshire, England. He usually writes boring political articles, but will get round to writing a novel one of these days.
