Love Me Tender (16 page)

Chapter 28

MR. SINGER came out of the house wearing oven mitts and carrying a casserole. “We're eating in your grandma's garden, where it's cooler,” he said. “Why don't you come along and help me set things up?”

Like they heard the dinner bell, Aunt Clare and Kerrie came around the house. “Momma, come on, tell us what's broke and what's not,” Aunt Clare called.

We pulled some wicker chairs and this cute little love seat out of the garage and washed our hands under the garden hose. Mel and Mr. Singer readied a table in the grandmother's garden. Inside of ten minutes we had settled ourselves.

“Your momma said you girls like macaroni and cheese,” Mr. Singer said, “which just happens to be my specialty.”

Well, it really truly was.

It was, on the whole, like a holiday where wars are stopped, at least temporarily. There was a breeze, so the bugs weren't bad. It was quiet, except for talk of gardens and things we'd found in the attic.

The grandmother told us what might be found in some of the other trunks and boxes. She looked happy, even though she had a smudge of dirt on her cheek and her hair had tumbled down at the back of her neck.

“I think we need ice cream,” she said.

“I'll get it,” I said.

“No, I'll get it,” Mel said. “I'm saving you for the dishes.”

Mr. Singer followed her into the house to help. I was picking up our plates when I noticed this car coming slowly down the street. Although it was getting dark, the car didn't have lights on, so it seemed the driver expected to stop soon. And because I looked, Aunt Clare looked.

The car pulled up in front of the house.

Kerrie was bent over some leafy pieces of ground cover that broke off during weeding and the grandmother had pulled from her pocket. “They'll take root in a few days, if we're careful to water them,” she said. Then she and Kerrie heard the engine cut off and looked in that direction.

Daddy got out of the car, yet hung back, the way boys will. The streetlight flickered on and lit his white jacket with a ghostly glow.

After a couple of false starts toward us, he opened the door to the backseat and took out his guitar. I smoothed my hair down to make sure the earrings were covered.

Mel pushed open the back screen door and looked out. She couldn't see Elvis. “We're dipping double strawberry and butter pecan. Anybody want chocolate syrup?”

“Daddy's coming,” Kerrie said.

“He can't be.” This was Mel. But her voice was already full of hope. Her face lit up and she came out to meet him.

That is, Mel came on outside and sat down on the back steps so she wouldn't look too anxious. I knew exactly how she felt. Only she still held the ice cream scoop. Kerrie got up and ran to do the greeting.

Elvis held his guitar in one hand and swept her up under the other arm, swinging her in a circle the way Daddy always does. I kept my seat beside the grandmother. I'm too big for that swinging stuff, anyway.

And then they came on, Kerrie pulling and pushing, impatient with Daddy's slow swagger. I had this big wrestling match going on in my heart, never knowing what I wanted: to get up and say hey, or to sit there and see what happened.

“How did you know to come here?” Mel asked as Kerrie pushed Daddy around the corner of the house. “You're supposed to be in Vegas through the weekend.”

And he stopped there, not moving closer to anyone, with Kerrie dangling from the end of one arm and his guitar from the other. Maybe he was unsure of his welcome. Certainly I felt unsure.

The ice cream scoop dripped on Mel's foot, and she held it away, shook it. Then got up to wipe her foot side-ways across the grass.

“I called home over and over. At first, when you didn't answer, I thought you were still mad. Maybe mad all over again that I waited till Sunday afternoon to call.”

He looked ashamed of himself, the way my daddy would have been, but it was unconvincing in Elvis. “After a while, it worried me,” he said. “I thought to call in and check the messages. When I heard your sister say your momma was dying, I knew you needed me.”

I glanced over in time to see the grandmother give Aunt Clare a you-said-what? look. Aunt Clare pretended she was too caught up in Daddy's apology to notice.

“I can't believe you know how to call our machine for messages,” Mel said, getting up to meet him.

“I do it practically every day, when you're in the green-house,” Daddy said. “In case one of our girls needs to come home early from school or something.”

“That's never happened,” Mel said.

Too true. Kerrie and I hardly ever missed a day of school, let alone got sent home sick. Kerrie broke away from Daddy to turn cartwheels in the grass.

“Why, your momma hasn't aged a day,” he said, and came over to us. He wore that easy walk that belonged to Tony Ruggiero. “How are you feeling, ma'am?”

“Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated,” the grandmother said.

“I'm glad to hear that. What do you think of my little girls?”

“I'm pleased to meet them,” the grandmother said. “You must be a good daddy to have raised such fine people.”

“It was worth coming all this way to hear that,” Daddy said.

Mr. Singer came out of the house carrying a tray filled with dishes of ice cream. He had one for Daddy too. There were introductions to be got through, and then conversation happened in dribs and drabs between bites.

Mel said, “When did you perform? When will they announce the winner?”

“I didn't get onstage,” Daddy said. “You needed me, honey, so I came on home. Nothing else mattered.”

“Oh, Tony.” Mel looked miserable. “You missed your chance? I'm so sorry, I know you would've won.”

“The only win that matters is right here,” Daddy said.

This was echoed by answering sighs on the part of Aunt Clare and the grandmother.

“Do you mean you left early?” Mel asked, putting one hand to her head. “I've suddenly lost track of time. Could you go back and still be on time?”

“Who cares,” he said, and laughed. And I almost knew him. Unless Elvis also laughed like that. I couldn't be sure. “This isn't going to make sense, but I used to dress up like Elvis to feel like me. Only now I do feel like me. Except when I dress up like Elvis.”

“What do you mean?” Mel said. “Are you done with this?”

“When you've seen one Elvis, you've seen them all, isn't that what you told me before I left?”

“Oh, I was just mad at you.” Mel looked a little embarrassed. Then she rallied, saying, “The truth is, you have never been more able to deliver that Elvis experience. I know that. More important, you know that.”

Daddy shrugged. “I'm sorry for the way I left,” he said. “I'm sorry I left at all. But I had to do it to know the truth of how things stood, I guess. I hope you can forgive me.”

“I could try,” Mel said with the smile that always let Daddy off the hook. It was still weird to see her smile that smile at Elvis, but I kept reminding myself that Daddy was in there somewhere.

He kissed Mel on the top of her head. “Miss me?” he asked her.

“I did. I knew there were good reasons to be married to you, even after you left mad,” Mel said. “Even though I was mad at you too.”

“Elvira, you haven't said hello,” Daddy said, his arm still around Mel's shoulders.

“How long before that stuff comes out of your hair?”

“I'll wash it out tonight,” he said. “It's not permanent.”

“Good.”

“Elvira wants her daddy back,” Mel said.

“Elvis will never try to take your daddy's place,” he said to me. “See if you can't find a place in your heart for him, though. I'll sing you a song, if you like.” Daddy lifted the guitar and noodled around on it for a few moments. Then Elvis began to sing.

“My lands,” the grandmother said under her breath. She looked impressed. Aunt Clare looked like she was falling in love. I looked over at my mother, wanting to excuse myself and go into the house.

Mel was grinning, not impressed at all. She was looking at Daddy doing his Elvis act. That's what made it okay for me. I could watch him do his Elvis act too.

By the third song, I had to agree, he wasn't half bad. A yellow butterfly had come to hover in the air over him, probably drawn by the scent of Brylcreem.

“Love me tender, love me sweet, never let me go,” Daddy sang, and the butterfly twirled overhead. “You have made my life complete, and I love you so.”

When Daddy finished singing, I got up and hugged him. “I'm glad you're home,” I said. Only once the words were out did I realize I meant the whole of us. We were home. When we were all together, we were home.

“I have to tell you,” Daddy said to Mel as he handed me his guitar. “Las Vegas was a disappointment.”

“How so?”

“You remember how often we've read that they cleaned Las Vegas up, that it's become a family entertainment mecca?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that's all over. A few hours there and I knew it wasn't the place to raise our girls.”

“No?”

“I swear, I saw a girl Elvira's age, Mel, just opened my eyes,” Daddy said. “How long would it be before they'd be trotting around with glitter nail polish and a pierced something or other.”

I put my hand up, realizing for the first time that my ear had stopped hurting. There was an odd silence, all of us digesting this turn in the conversation.

“No time at all,” the grandmother commented.

Mel, who'd been the most silent of all, if such a thing is possible, laughed out loud.

“What's funny about that?” Daddy asked, standing before us in his black patent Elvis hair.

“Nothing until now, I swear,” Mel said. “Come sit beside me, sweetheart, and let me tell you about our last few days.”

Acknowledgments

SPECIAL JOYFUL thanks to Shana Corey, my editor, for recognizing the endearing qualities to be found under Elvira's spiky exterior, and to the team at Random House who supports us.

Very special thanks to Joanne Russell and Nicole de las Heras for their part in this one. It's just spectacular.

Still and always thanking my husband, Clark—uh, no, Akila—for reading, encouragement, and support. And for meals when I've used up every last particle of energy getting the words on the page.

Thank you to Susan, who read and encouraged and got Akila and me out of the house now and again for breakfasts at the donut shop and roofing projects and literary evenings at the local bistro, and to her daughter, Hannah, who read the manuscript all the way to the end in one weekend.

And my agent, Jill Grinberg, should know that the very thought of her causes Akila and me to do a little happy dance all around the house. I suspect I've said this before, but it's still true. Of course we thank her.

About the Author

AUDREY COULOUMBIS'S first book for children,
Getting Near to Baby
, won the Newbery Honor in 2000. She is also the author of several other highly acclaimed books for young readers, including
Say Yes,
an IRA Children's Book Award winner;
Summer's End,
a Book Sense 76 Pick; and
The Misadventures of Maude March,
a New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing Selection, a Book Sense 76 Pick, and a National Parenting Publications Gold Award winner. Audrey lives in upstate New York and Florida with her husband, Akila, and their dog, Phoebe. Audrey and Akila have two grown children. You can visit Audrey's Web site at
www.audreycouloumbis.com
.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2008 by Audrey Couloumbis

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Children's
Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Couloumbis, Audrey.
Love me tender / by Audrey Couloumbis. — 1st ed.
p.                           cm.
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Elvira worries about her future when, after a fight, her father heads to Las Vegas for an Elvis impersonator competition and her pregnant mother takes her and her younger sister to Memphis to visit a grandmother the girls have never met.
[1. Family problems—Fiction.                  2. Pregnancy—Fiction.
3. Elvis Presley impersonators—Fiction.]                  I. Title.
PZ7.C8305Lov 2008                  [Fic]—dc22                  2006033162

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