Elvis Lives

Chapter 22 - Ballroom Show

The visit to that hotel was enough to keep Elvis in a good mood for the trip home, but as soon as we got to the house, he said, "Excuse me for a time," and shut himself in his room for the remainder of the day, even during dinner an hour after we came home. I had almost knocked on his door to invite him to come down and eat some taco salad, but I heard muffled cries. My heart dropped at that. He was able to hold it in on the outing, but he let it all out as soon as he got home. He was hurting. I wanted to do something, but there was not much I could do for him, other than leave him to mourn his mother before she even passes away.

I blew air out of my nose as I lay in bed that night after dinner, with my door shut and earbuds in, and music played from my phone. And it was not Elvis's music for once. Since I knew him and could hear him sing in person, listening to his music from my phone was a bit pointless. I listened to my country mix. I grew up in a country town, so I naturally liked country music. I was mainly listening to music with my door shut because I wanted to drown out the disheartening cries coming from Elvis's room. They were not loud, but if I heard the littlest bit of it, I would start crying myself. No doubt the poor guy would fall asleep crying. History did say that he was inconsolable when his mother passed... it just came early. Maybe that meant he would be better prepared for when it actually happened.

My phone's text message notification sound came through my earbuds loudly since they were plugged into my phone. "Ow!" I protested and pulled them out. I paused Carry Underwood and saw my text message. It 2qw from Drake. My heart started racing, knowing what it might be about. I opened the message.

Hey, Hannah. I really would like to talk to you about today. Can I call you?

I knew it. I typed back, Sure. I'm just chilling at the moment.

I instantly saw his picture on my phone after I sent that, and my "Got A Lot O' Livin' To Do" ringtone came on. I waited a couple seconds, and then answered, turning on speaker phone. "Hey."

"Hey, so... I thought we could talk about what happened today. I wanted to talk to you after we all talked about the show happening on Friday, but you left before I got the chance to pull you aside."

I did that on purpose. I just wanted to get out of there. "Yeah, sorry about that. Aaron and I had somewhere to go afterwards. He wanted to see the motel over in Kalama, you know, the one that Elvis stopped at in 1962 on his way to Seattle to film It Happened at the World's Fair."

"Oh yeah! I want to go and visit that place. It's on my list of things to do when I'm here."

I figured white lying would be alright. We didn't leave to go to that hotel, obviously. "Yeah, he thought it was pretty cool. The lady running the place was shocked out of her mind when she saw him standing next to the pictures they have on the wall of that event. It's like Elvis himself was standing next to his own pictures. She showed us the rooms he stayed in, too. I think she actually believed that Aaron was the real Elvis come back from the 50s."

I, of course, said all that on purpose. Elvis and I wanted to ease Drake into the shocking fact that Elvis was Elvis. "Yeah, I admit that I thought the same thing for a split second when I first met him. He's just someone that won the genetic lottery. He's related to Elvis for sure. He really needs to find out how."

I really just wanted to blurt out the truth, but Elvis wanted to tell him in person. "Yeah, we still have yet to get on a genealogy website. So... about what happened at the hotel..."

"Yeah, look, I'm so sorry about that. I've never done something like that before – I'm not that kind of guy. I mean, I was just trying to comfort you a little, you know, be a friend, but I ended up making a mistake. It's just..." He let out a sigh. "Hannah, I like you. Like, a lot. But I know that you and Aaron have something going on. That's why I feel so horrible about this.