I didn’t want to open Julie’s letter from Elvis any more than Mama E wanted me to, but Aunt Hattie’s eyes brightened as she eyed it. There was no excuse I could give for not reading it to her. Mama E and I exchanged looks that spelled doom. Taking my cue from a slight shrug of her shoulders, I slipped a fingernail under an edge of the flap and slid it across the envelope, taking care not to tear it, and not to let Aunt Hattie see that my nail polish was chipped.
A little thrill wiggled through my innards as I withdrew the folded note. Elvis Presley had touched it, held it in his hands, written it to me! I paused. Actually, he had written it to the real Julie, but for now I was she, as Mama E had taught me to say. It got my goat when she answered the phone and the person on the other end asked for her. She always said, “This is she.” Drove me nuts. I told her, “It don’t sound right.” For which I was given a hearty scolding and made to write, “It doesn’t sound right” two hundred times.
“Hurry up,” Aunt Hattie said, nudging my arm so hard it caused me to leave a tiny rip in the last inch of the flap.
“Cool it!” I exclaimed. “I’m keeping it for posterity, and it’ll be worth a lot more someday if it’s intact.” Maybe it could be glued back and Julie would never know it had been opened.
“Speaking of which, are you still ‘intact,’ young lady?”
“Intact? You mean . . . ?”
I could feel the flabbergasted look on my face. Never in all my born days had I heard anybody talk like that. And these folks I was hobnobbing with were supposed to be high classed. Maybe I wasn’t squatting in such tall cotton after all.
“Well?” Aunt Hattie’s bifocals made her scrutinizing eyeballs the size of walnuts.
In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought.
“If you mean have I had sexual intercourse, the answer is no.”
I thought to goodness she’d fall out on the floor.
When she caught her breath again, she said, “We don’t use language like that in proper society.”
“What do you want me to call it? IT?”
“Call it what Elizabeth has taught you to call it.”
Mama E said, “Petting gone too far.”
“In the backseat of a car?” I asked.
Aunt Hattie drew herself up. “Or anywhere else?”
“The answer is still ‘no,’” I said and flipped open the note Elvis had sent.
June 12, 1957
Dear Juliet,
Aunt Hattie interrupted. “What’s this Juliet business?”
I sat there in a clueless state.
“He calls her that,” Mama E said, automatically reaching for her cigarettes that were no longer there. I couldn’t help snickering at the defeated look on her face.
Aunt Hattie poked my arm. “Read on.”
I am still out in California shooting Jailhouse Rock, but we’re taking a break, so I have a minute to write to you. In only two more weeks I’ll be moving into Graceland. Mama and Daddy and Grandma are already living there.
On June 28, I’m doing a benefit appearance in Memphis at Russwood Park for St. Jude’s Hospital. There’ll be other celebrities appearing with me: Lou Costello, Jane Russell, Ferlin Husky, and even that gorgeous actress, Susan Hayward. (She’s not as gorgeous as you, however.) I wish you could come up for it. Ever been to Russwood Park? Maybe you know, that’s where the great Babe Ruth played ball.
Can you believe I am a real celebrity now? I remember not too long ago having a pig sandwich with you at the Old Hickory in El Dorado. These are dazzling days for me, but you have no idea how often I wish I was back there in that little town that so represents America, just having fun with the gang. You’re so lucky to live there. Everything I wished for that night has come true. That’s how I know I was right when I got the notion you were my good luck charm. I’m even a movie star now! Jailhouse won’t be released until the fall, but you gotta put it on your calendar and see it. This summer you can see me in “Loving You.” It’s scheduled to be released in early July.
Listen, honey, I gotta run. They’re getting ready to shoot a real important scene of mine. You take care, you hear? And write! Send it to Graceland. 3764 Highway 51 South, Memphis, Tennessee, and Mama’ll hold it for me till I get there.
As always, remembering,
Elvis
Everybody was quiet when I finished. I knew Mama E felt the same way I did—like Julie had died or something, and we were here reading a letter meant for her that we had no business seeing. Even Old Aunt Hat, in her ignorance of the situation, kept silent for about a minute and a half.
“Well, well, well,” she said at last, smoothing the lap of the polka-dotted dress. “He sounds like a fine young man. That letter has made me revise my opinion of him. He must be a good person to have for a friend.”
She patted my arm. “And I’m glad to hear that you’re a nice, honest girl with high moral standards. Your grammar could use a little touching up, but I’m sure we can attend to it.”
With that she began the struggle to get to her feet from the couch, which wasn’t low, but for an elderly person with maybe arthritis or something the cushiness made it not the easiest seat to get up from. I reached out to steady her.
“I don’t need any help,” she said. “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up if I sleep longer than an hour, Elizabeth.”
At that very minute, the telephone rang. Mama E jumped, and so did I.
“I’ll get it,” I said, bounding past Aunt Hat to the extension in the breakfast room.
“Hello.”
I wasn’t expecting the voice that answered me. My knees went flimsy, and before I could get a grip, the one word that could taint all my efforts popped out of my mouth.
“Julie?”
Mama E’s face registered shock, and Aunt Hattie, I’m sure, nearly dropped her drawers.
The next instant, my brain performed emergency resuscitation on my tongue and shot lifesaving words out of my mouth.
“This is Julie. I mean, this is she.”
A look of pride accompanied by relief came over Mama E’s face. Her efforts to polish me up had not been in vain. Aunt Hattie looked confused but said nothing.
“Carmen, what’s going on?” Julie demanded over the phone.
“Can I call you back later? My Great-Aunt Hattie just got here from New Orleans.”
“Oh my God,” Julie said. “But I need to talk to Mama.”
“Not possible at the moment,” I said, throwing a smile to Aunt Hat. “It would be rude of me to talk on the phone now. Maybe while she’s taking her nap I can call you back.”
Julie’s voice sagged. “Oh. Okay. Carmen, is everything all right?”
“I hope. Till later, then.” And I hung up.
Mama E looked like she was about to have a stroke, and Aunt Hat looked pleased enough to call the lawyer and leave more than a little to Elizabeth. She hobbled the rest of the way through the den, left a kiss on my cheek when she passed me in the breakfast room, and went for her nap.
When we heard the click of her door shutting, I staggered to a couch and fell on it, totally wiped out. I had just survived what Aunt Hattie would call a situation similar to the siege of Atlanta. I hoped with flying colors. I looked questioningly at Mama E, who, slumping in her easy chair and fanning herself with her hand, looked none too able herself to plow the south forty, like Scarlett O’Hara.
I squirmed. “Did I do good?”
“You mean, did you do well? Yes, except for a few close calls. Was that Julie on the phone?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“As soon as we hear Aunt Hattie snoring, we’ll call Julie back. Did she sound all right to you?”
She hadn’t, but I didn’t want to tell Mama E. It might upset her so much it would be the last straw, and the last straw could not fall now.
“She sounded fine. We shouldn’t risk a call back with Aunt Hattie here. She mustn’t pick up even a fragment of the conversation. After all, it isn’t every day the opportunity comes to inherit a little something, is it, Mama E?”
“What did you call your mother?” came a voice from the dining room.
My heart paused, then fluttered. How much of what I’d said had Aunt Hattie heard?
“She called me ‘Mama E,’” Elizabeth said, picking up the ball and running with it. “I forgot to offer you a toddy, Auntie,” she said, obviously to distract her. “Would you like one? It’ll help you fall asleep.”
“That’s what I came back for,” she said. “The Champagne they served on the train had a moreish flavor.”
Elizabeth’s smile was too bright. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you Champagne, but how about a mint julep?”
“If you have the silver goblets to serve it in,” Aunt Hattie said.
Elizabeth got up and headed to the kitchen to dig out the Kentucky bourbon.
“I have the ones my mother left me, engraved with an L for Lawrence.”
“Thank goodness they aren’t engraved with an M for Morgan,” Aunt Hattie said.
My temper flared. “Would an M change the flavor of the booze?”
Both Aunt Hattie and Elizabeth raised one eyebrow at me.
Being like Julie was harder than I had ever imagined, but I had to keep working at it so in the eyes of everyone I’d do more than be like her, I’d be her.