Elvis Takes a Back Seat (2 page)

I pull out a soda and close the door. Leaning back against it, I clutch the cold can in my hand. Exhaustion weights my limbs. Tapping the top of the can three times, I yank the tab and take a long pull of Diet Coke. The cold liquid bubbles down my throat, evaporates the emotional congestion.

Mother remained stoic after my father's death. I was in high school; my mother in her early forties. It suddenly occurs to me she must have been widowed about the same age I was. How did she manage without my dad? She seemed so strong, so brave. I'm not like her at all.

I pull the note from my back pocket. Stu probably wanted to make sure I didn't get rid of Elvis. Maybe he wanted me to donate Elvis to some pop culture museum. Or maybe he wanted me to put Elvis on the coffee table so I wouldn't forget. How can I? Yet how can I ever say no to Stu?

I unfold the note. A trembling starts deep within me. There are only a few lines.

Deer Claudia,

I'm waiting for the end. Can't stop thinking. Elvis is in the basement. And he belongs in Memphis. He haunts me.

I draw a shaky breath. Stu was a magna cum laude graduate, yet the cancer stole his intellect, his dignity, and finally his life.

I reread the first paragraph, remember how the tumor affected his speech. I translate “basement” to mean “attic” since we never had the former.

A memory lurks of Stu sipping Sprite through a straw. “You know, he was forty-two.”

In the background Elvis sang about being lonesome. His heartbreaking vocals made me believe he'd experienced that very emotion.

“When Elvis recorded this song?”

“When he died.” A sharp hook of comprehension snagged the edge of my stomach. Stu was the same age.

I slam the mental drawer on that memory. He knew. But I hadn't been ready to face the truth. I'm still not.

Stu always felt a connection to Elvis. In college he told me as an adolescent he'd felt awkward and geeky. “I was a loner,” he told me. “But I didn't want to be. I learned how to be cool through Elvis.”

I focus on Stu's note again. Was he thinking about Elvis at the end of his own life? Or was he thinking of me? I force myself to read the rest.

I regress it now.

Regret? I wonder. Regret what?

I figure once I've left …

Like it was his choice.

… you'll say bye to Elvis.

But can I?

Will you refund it for me?

Return?

It belongs at Faithland. It was his fault. He was
so real.

Who was real? Who was at fault? And for what? Maybe Stu had been hallucinating. Faithland? Did he mean Graceland?

Rae must go too. She can help. I miss you. Miss your laugh. It's been gone a while now. I miss the you and me. This dizeez has changed both of us, hasn't it? Hold me, like you used to do, in your dreams. I don't want to leave.

Always yours,
Stu

I fold the note over, rub my thumbnail across the crease. My eyes are dry, my heart cracked like the ground during a summer drought.

A knock at the back door jars me out of my stupor. I should have relieved Rae before now. How long have I been inside? I stuff Stu's note in my back pocket just as the door opens. Ben steps inside my house carrying one of Stu's golf clubs.

I salute him with my Diet Coke. “Need a drink?”

He walks into my kitchen, his face shadowed beneath the A&M baseball cap he wears. “You don't have anything strong enough.”

“Bad day?”

“I'm okay.” He rubs his hand over his face as if trying to ease the tension, erase the worry lining the corners of his eyes. “How's the garage sale going?”

I rub my thumb around the edge of the soda can. “What did Rae tell you?”

He balances the golf club between his hands like he's about to mimic Gene Kelly's soft-shoe routine. “Why?”

I shrug. “Let's just say sales isn't my forte.”

“I want Stu's clubs.” He lays the one club—a driver, I think—on the counter.

“You can have them.”

“See, you made a sale.” He grins, planes of his face creasing like a paper fan.

“No, they're yours. I should have asked if you wanted them. I wasn't thinking.”

“Stu would make me pay.”

“Yeah,” I laugh, “he would. I'll give you a good deal on a bunch of record albums.”

“Are they warped?”

“Not the way you mean. But some of Stu's collection was a bit twisted.”

A wry smile tugs one corner of his mouth. He readjusts his baseball cap, lifting it off his head and settling it back a notch. “So what's going on with the garage sale? From what Rae said, you sound like my daughter. One minute Ivy says this, the next minute the opposite.” He studies me like a pimple might pop out on my forehead. “Are you a teenager?”

“You better stay back then,” I warn, my tone light and airy. “I've got the hormones for some scary behavior.”

His laughter is a short burst, then silence expands between us. I sip my Diet Coke, which foams up like the tension building inside me. “Are you having trouble with Ivy?”

“Depends on the moment.” He grins, but there's tension around the edges. “She's normal. I think. But I don't
have a lot to compare her to. It's times like this when I miss Gwen.”

I don't know how to respond. I don't know how to help. I know the damage Gwen caused, the anger and betrayal. Ben rarely mentions his ex-wife anymore; but when he does, it feels like a shovel jabbing at a pile of hurt, anger, and betrayal.

“There's no guarantee if Gwen had stayed that she and Ivy would be close.” Case in point: my relationship with my mother. “There's no such thing as a perfect teenager. Or the perfect parent.” Or a perfect life. Over the past few years I've discovered uncertainty is the one certainty.

“That's true.” He leans against the kitchen counter, one shoulder tilted downward. “Thing is, I've been meaning to talk to her about her mother. Explain some things she should know and understand. But it's never a good time. She's always angry or upset. Usually at me. And this would make it worse.”

Despair washes over me. There's so much hurt in the world, in this very room. Sometimes I feel as if I'm drowning in it. “Do you ever wonder why this has happened? Gwen … and Stu? Why she abandoned your family? Why Stu had to die? I mean, what's the point?”

“Are you asking why God allowed it?” His brown eyes narrow on me.

I shrug, shift from one foot to the other. Maybe that's what I've been asking but secretly was afraid a lightning bolt would hit me if I dared. “Maybe I am.”

“I'll tell you, Claudia, I haven't a clue.” His answer stuns me. Then he laughs, a caustic sound. “I've wrestled with that
question a lot. Sometimes I think it's my fault about Gwen.

The consequences of sin and all that.”

“Your fault?”

“Sure. Did I miss the warning signs? Looking back, there were things about Gwen that I should have noticed, should have worried about. Before and after we married. But I ignored them.”

“It's not your fault that Gwen walked out.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But maybe I could have spared all of us this pain if I'd paid attention to the signs. Then again, I wouldn't have Ivy.”

“So what's the reason for Stu suffering, dying so young?”

He leans back against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest. “I don't have an answer. I don't have answers for all
my
questions. I trust there's a reason.”

“Trust,” I scoff. “Like trusting Santa's going to come down the chimney?”

“God isn't a myth. Or some jolly elf that brings presents.”

Maybe that's why I'm disappointed. Maybe I expected more. But then what or who is this God who's supposed to be running things?

The back door opens and bangs against the wall. Rae rushes into the kitchen, her face reddened, her fists tight.

“What's wrong?” I ask, rushing forward.

“I caught someone stealing!”

Ben grabs the golf club like a baseball bat.

Rae slaps a baby rattle on the counter. “Can you believe that?”

“Someone stole a baby rattle?” Ben asks. “Where'd—”

“Where's the money box, Rae?” I ask, thinking of the Monkees lunch box I'm using for a bank.

“I gave it to Ivy to watch.” She shifts her gaze to Ben, then back to me. “Was that okay?”

“I'm sure it'll be fine.” I ignore Ben's frown. “Ivy's trustworthy.”

Even if Santa isn't.

“I was telling Claudia,” he says, “I've been having trouble with Ivy.”

“Stealing?” Rae asks.

“No.”

“Drugs then?”

“Nothing like that. Angst. Mood swings. Boys. They're here one minute, gone the next. Which I prefer.”

“Love isn't easy on a young heart,” Rae says. “Claudia, you should spend time with the girl.”

“That would be great.” Ben's eyes fill with hope.

“Uh …” I stall, feeling a band tighten around my chest like the tiny yellow ribbon tied around the rattle's handle. “I'm not the motherly type.”

“You have a woman's heart,” Rae says, as if that's the only requirement.

Remembering Ivy's birth, her childhood years when Stu and I babysat often, I ache for the girl who knows even less of her mother than I do about mine. At least my mother was able to make bologna sandwiches for me to put in my Monkees lunch box.

“She needs a woman's influence.” Ben watches me.

“Of course,” I say. “I'll help Ivy anyway I can. You know that.” I place a hand on his arm, then pull back. “But you need to find a time to talk to her about her mother.

Everyone needs to know as much as they can about their own mother.”

“Knowledge like that,” Rae says, a flutter of emotions flying over her features like a butterfly's course, “is overrated. I better get back to the garage sale. Check on that money box.”

* * *

“THAT IS THE ugliest thing I've ever seen!”

I don't have to see the Elvis bust to know that's what Ivy is talking about. Still, her blatant honesty rankles me. I don't know why I feel defensive about Elvis. Maybe I'm protecting Stu even now as I step back into the heat of the garage.

Rae surges past me and grabs the lunch box, which rattles with change, from Ivy. “I'll take care of that now.”

Ivy glares at Rae, her chin jutted forward.

I'm surprised by Ivy's appearance. I haven't seen Ben's daughter in a few months or since she dyed her blond hair black. She now wears heavy eyeliner, making her look older and wearier than her fifteen years.

“Sorry, Claudia.” Carrying the golf club, Ben steps down onto the concrete floor. He shrugs as if saying, “What can you do with a teen?” I wonder what I can do with an aunt who lacks diplomacy.

Ben's tried his best to be father and mother to Ivy. He even started Abandoned Families, a nonprofit organization, to help others who've experienced devastating losses the way he had. But obviously Ivy needs a little feminine advice.

“It's okay.” I offer a smile to Ivy like a pact not
blaming her for the sentiments we both share. “Elvis
is
rather nauseating.”

She gives me a sideways glance but no smile when I walk up beside her and put a casual arm around her shoulders.

“It's good to see you, Ivy. Like the color.” I flip one of her locks off her shoulder. “Very chic.”

“Dad hates it.”

“I never said that.” Ben drops the club into the golf bag and heaves it onto his shoulder.

“Whatever.”

A group begins to form around us, everyone staring at Stu's pride and joy. It almost looks like those gathered are worshipping a shrine of the late King.

“It's amazing,” an older man says.

“Unbelievable,” someone else adds.

“Very true in its likeness, don't you think?” Rae joins in.

Irritated once again at the King for his intrusion into my life, I cross my arms over my chest. Slowly customers saunter away to look at the rest of my junk for sale.

“Brings back memories.” Ben clunks the golf bag on the floor at his feet and drapes an arm around my shoulders.

Uncomfortable walking down memory lane with anyone else, I move out from under his arm. “Too many.”

Ivy steps sideways, then back the other direction. “I swear his eyes are following me.”

“Ivy thinks every hot guy is watching her.” Ben winks.

His daughter rolls her gaze heavenward in that forever-old teenage prayer of disdain.

“I think he's creepy, too,” I say for Ivy's benefit.

“Stuart loved this,” Rae says. She makes a statement, not a question, making me wonder all over again what she and Stu discussed about Elvis. She places a handful of change into the Monkees lunch box, pressing her palm against Davy Jones's smiling face as she closes the lid. Seeing her next to Ben, I realize how tall and elegant she looks, if a bit gypsyesque with her free-flowing clothes and assorted rings and charm bracelet.

“Who does Elvis belong to?” I ask Ben.

“What'd you do?” Ivy looks at her dad with a mixture of teen rebellion and cool admiration. “Steal it?”

He lifts his baseball cap and settles it further back on his head. “Not me.” A gleam of mischief sparks in his brown eyes. “I wouldn't have done such a thing.”

“But Stu would have,” I say.

Ben shrugs, not confirming my suspicions but not denying them either. “That's not what he told me.”

Didn't I have confirmation in my back pocket? Elvis belonged in Memphis, according to Stu. Obviously to someone else. What else could that mean?

“I'd forgotten all about the King.” Ben peers closer at the bust. His athletic build is apparent in his running shorts and tank. Stu and Ben were about the same height, but Stu was slender as a two-by-four while Ben is broad and husky— not overweight, just ex-college-football-player big. “Where's he been hiding all these years?”

“The attic.”

“Elvis has left the attic,” Ben's voice rumbles through the garage.

“Dad!” Ivy huffs a sigh and rolls her eyes.

Customers glance up from jumbles of linens and sports
equipment. Ivy edges away from us, meandering through the garage. She walks along the far table, her nose crinkled at the collection of my mother's knickknacks that are as far from a teen's tastes as garden teas are from MTV.

Ben shrugs. “I've always wanted to say something like that.”

“That guy,” a customer nods toward Ben, “has left his brain.”

Ben and I share a laugh. For a moment, it's like we're back in college, joking around. But one important element is missing—Stu. In moments like this my laughter freezes in my chest, hard and heavy.

A crash makes me turn. Ivy curses, rubs her knee, then kicks the crib she knocked to the floor. “Why would anybody put a stupid crib here?”

“Ivy,” Ben says with a warning note.

“Why do you have this?” Ivy asks, her face red with embarrassment and the flush of anger, as if the crib jumped out like a rabid dog and bit her. “It's not like you have a kid.”

“That's enough, Ivy.” Ben steps toward his daughter.

My pulse thrums in my ears. I stare at the piece of furniture made to hold a baby and wonder what I was made for.

“So … what?” Ivy crosses her arms over her chest. “Did you lose it or something?”

“Claudia,” Ben says, “I'm—”

I put a hand on his arm to let him know it's okay, I'm okay. But I'm not sure I am. I feel the repercussions of Ivy's jab echoing through my body. At that moment all sympathy for the little girl whose mother left her drains out of me.

A hardness tightens within me. A nasty part of myself wants to lash out at her.

“Actually,” I say, looking straight at her, “I did.”

She stares back for a moment, then shrugs and mumbles, “Probably for the best.”

Heat surges to my face, makes my eyes fill. I blink. I know she's right. I'm not the motherly type. But the pain lingers and picks at an old, forgotten wound.