Unchained Melody-Elvis 2022

Rubberneckin'

❝ Stop, look and listen baby
That's my philosophy
It's called rubberneckin' baby
But that's all right with me ❞
_______________

1955

IT WAS A blistering summer day in Memphis, Tennessee when the July sun was beating down on us with all the heaviness of a drum.

Unworried about societal rules and expectations—they were irrelevant to me anyway—I had decided it was the perfect opportunity to ditch the long skirts and debut my new shorts, no more than a stretch of high-waisted, black denim and only running down half the length of my thighs. They were paired with a vibrant red top that looped around my neck, plunged at the neckline, and left little to the imagination. Was it bold? Definitely. Outrageous? Maybe. Sinful? Just enough to paint my face with a Devil May Care grin a mile wide.

The attire was better suited for California beaches in all honesty, but I was too sweaty to care and more than determined to tan that summer.

We had sought refuge for a short hour in a little diner packed onto a corner. It was the kind of place people fell into when the day was too long or the last drag of a cigarette wasn't as relieving as the first, when the only thing to brighten your mood was a malt shake and too-salty fries. Clara sat opposite me in a wide booth and together we listened to stories of gossip told by unknowing strangers and slurped down glasses of cold strawberries and cream.

Clara Bowman had a trying personality—difficult, stubborn, troublesome, and unafraid of telling strangers where to shove their prejudices (a quality I could respect when the occasion called for it)—and had been the only person to talk to me all through the months I'd spent away from home.

The previous June my parents granted my wish to "please let me visit Grandma Eloise, pretty please!" upon my seventeenth birthday. But it wasn't the comfort of my one remaining grandparent and her quiet lifestyle that first prompted my brief travels, nor was it the steady current of existence away from the west coast. Rather, it was the honey-sweet breath of freedom from my demanding family and the real-world problems they hoped to cram down my throat before shipping me off to marry the highest bidder.

Those eight weeks I had away the summer before were bliss, and the best opportunity I had to reestablish the fiery rebellion that seemed to keep suitors at bay—and which my mother was still so resolute to stamp out—until the next spring season. Why my parents continued to send me back, I had no idea, but I was overly grateful for my latest trip, determined not to let my unchaperoned antics go to waste.

Which is exactly the type of thinking that prompted me to befriend Clara in the first place, who possessed the same aversions to marriage and all adulthood had to offer as myself. We were trouble, crafty enough to evade the authorities, but daring enough that our chances for causing mischief were always within reach.

She was the very reason I found myself lounging in a diner on Beale Street, wearing little more than beachwear, and listening to blues trumpet from a barely-working jukebox.

She and I locked gazed over mountains of whipped cream, both of us daring the other to surrender first. The shake froze my tongue and my teeth were aching but I still didn't draw back. Unfortunately, I was stuck in a losing war. Everything was a losing war once Clara made up her mind, and she had it in hers that I'd give up this challenge before her.

Like usual, she was right and I was one headache richer.

"Gah!" I exclaimed, letting the straw plop back into the fruity mix. I clutched at my forehead, hissing, and tried to ignore the victorious smirk pulling at the edge of Clara's mouth. No one looked up at my outburst, all clamoring to be heard over each other, but that didn't stop me from lowering my head like I'd just been reprimanded for yelling in a library. "How do you do that?" I wondered lowly, fingers tapping the icy glass.