Purple Blues [Elvis]

Chapter 8 - A Bit of Truth

"Ow!"

Sharon pulled my hair as she tried to style it the next afternoon, three hours before I had to be at the Ed Sullivan studio. "Just hold still and stop trying to take my hands out of your hair," she demanded, and I saw my face grimace in the bathroom mirror. Maxie stood at my feet, looking up at me, his fluffy tan tail wagging.

"They'll have stylists there doing my hair. It's okay, really."

"You don't want me to do your hair?"

"The last time you did, my purple showed and that got me noticed."

"Why dye it purple if you don't want people notice it, then?"

"When I dyed it, I didn't think it would become a national icon, just like Elvis's smirk. I regret dying my hair now. I'll have to find some chemical to take it out."

Sharon's eyes widened, and she yanked my hair again, only she did it on purpose. I had known her for only a few days, but she already felt like an older sister. We were bickering like sisters, even. "Don't you dare! Just like Elvis's smile, you can't get rid of it." She twisted my hair and started pinning it in the back. My purple streak stood out prominently. "So, his smirk is a big thing in 2021?"'

"Yeah, it's always been a thing. Whenever people smirk, raising their lip like this..." I demonstrated. "They call it the Elvis smirk."

"I see." She poked the back of my head with a pin, and I winced. "Tell me other things about him, like why you don't want to talk about him on the show tonight."

That was horrible, when we talked about that in that office. They all stared at me as they waited for an answer as to why I didn't want to talk about Elvis's future. I didn't want to tell the world that he dated a teenager in his mid-twenties, married her years later, had affairs as he was married to her and didn't treat her as well as he could have, causing a divorce, and I especially didn't want to say that due to the stresses of fame brought upon his manager, he abused sleeping pills and other prescription pills, ultimately causing his death by heart attack at age forty-two. No. No way.

"Well?" Sharon prodded, still sticking pins into my hair.

"I just... I don't want to say."

"It must be bad if you almost cried in that meeting."

Elvis was so sympathetic when I started tearing up. Like Sharon, he was most likely curious about why I almost cried when they all demanded that I tell the world about his future. He most likely suspected that it was bad. He would probably ask about it later. What the heck should I tell him? You shouldn't know too much about your future? But maybe I could hint that he needed a different manager... A lot of the stresses Elvis faced, as well as his unhappiness in life, all started with the Colonel pushing him like a slave driver.

"I... well, nevermind," I said. "I don't want to talk about it."

"But you can tell me. I promise I won't say anything."

She finished my hair, and I stared at myself in the mirror. "Thanks for doing my hair." I picked up Maxie and held his fluffy body in my arms. "Well... okay, but promise you won't say a word."

She wrote an X over her chest with her finger. "Cross my heart."

Maxie started liking my chin. "Okay. So... the Elvis that my world knows about, yes, he is famous throughout the years, even in my time, but... he's not around."

"Not around, meaning that he has passed away? That makes sense. He would be nearing ninety if he was still alive in 2021."

I just needed to say it and get it over with. "Yes, he has passed away. In the year 2021, he's been gone for forty-four years. People still mourn him."