I faked being sick the next day. It was Friday, so that meant I would have a three-day weekend, and three days without the mean jailbird comments. Grandma knew what I was up to. I had done this plenty of times before.
"Katelyn, you need to go to school, honey. I know you're not sick."
I hid myself in my comforter and faced away from my bedroom door. "Please, Grandma, let me stay home."
"Not if you're not sick." She sat on my bed and put a hand on my shoulder that was covered by my comforter. "Maybe those boys will give you a break today."
"A day won't make a difference. They'll always make comments."
"Is it just one group of boys who bully you?"
"No, a lot of people do, mainly the populars. Everyone else whispers."
She let out an agitated sigh. "If only people just minded their own business."
"It's not possible. Just as long as I'm the daughter of murderers, I will always be stomped upon. Now... can I please stay home?"
"You'll have to go to school on Monday," she said in that tone she used whenever she was trying to make a point. I said nothing to her comment, knowing she was right. I hated it when she used logic on me.
"Five minutes?"
"Okay, and maybe when we get to your school, I can have a talk with your principal and get in contact with those boys' parents. This has gone on long enough."
I felt her get off my bed, but the door didn't close. I flung the comforter off of me as I lay there, but the comforter went only down to my waist. I huffed through my nose as images of the kids at school came to mind, and their laughing faces made me actually feel sick. I pulled the comforter over me again and lay down.
"I don't want to do this..."
I snuggled there in the blanket, and I felt my eyelids droop. I didn't stop the sleep that came over me suddenly. Grandma would just shake me awake anyway. She probably set a timer on her phone.
My mind started to wander as that sleep came, and fuzzy images took over my mind. I heard a loud bang and jumped awake. I groaned. Grandma did that on purpose. She did that sometimes, slammed doors when I should get up in the morning. I opened my eyes and something unfamiliar came into focus. I blinked several times and saw a picture of two dogs, or more a painting. Creasing my brows, I sat up, but only to find that I wasn't in my room, but a room that had wood-planked walls, yellow carpet, and a desk sat in it, with a brown typewriter on top of it.
"What the...?" I hollered, alarm shooting through me. "Where the heck am I?!"
I heard talking outside the door to this strange room that was about the size of my own bedroom and gasped, my heart hammering. The door opened, and I frantically looked for anywhere I could hide but found nowhere. So I sat there on this... orange sofa? Talk about tacky! The wooden blinds on the window had clash written all over them as well, but I wasn't focusing on that or the green potted plant in the corner that was the only other pop of color in the room, other than that that dog picture, I was focusing on the two people who came into the room. One was an older man with greying hair and dressed in a gray suit, and the other was a middle-aged man, balding, wearing a white collar shirt and tan pants. He had a pipe in his mouth.
"He needs to do this show, Colonel Parker," said the older man in what sounded like a New Yorker accent. "Can you imagine what would happen if he doesn't show up on the screen?"
"I think the fans would survive," said the younger man after taking the pipe out of his mouth, and what he said was in some European accent. "He needs the publicity, yes, but I would like him to be moving on to California as soon as possible. He can be on the air there. We're on a tight schedule."
"Go to California when he is already here in New York?" asked the older man with an amused look. "You two might as well stay here. He's just going to do few songs and that's it. They're all huge hits."
"Yes, but he can sing them in California. Then it's off to Kentucky, and then..." The balding man looked over at me, and I held my breath as heat rode up my neck. "Hey, who's this?"
The older man looked over at me and made a little jump from surprise. "Miss! How'd you get in here? This door was locked!"
"Um..." was all I could get out. Well, this is a random dream...
The two men stared at me, looking at me up and down. I could see that I had on - black leggings and a white Elvis T-shirt a size too big for me, the one with his young black-and-white face on it - my sleeping attire.
"She's a fan!" the balding man shouted and looked at the older man, pointing at me. "You let a fan in here when you knew we had a meeting with you today?! Who is she? Your daughter?"
"I've never seen the girl before in my life, and even if she was my daughter, I would never allow her to have an unnatural color in her hair!"
"Well, she needs to go! He's going to be back any minute."
The older man came up to me as I sat there frozen on the sofa. "Miss, how did you get in here?"
"That... is a very good question. I have no idea."
The balding man ran a hand down his face. "It doesn't matter how she came in here, she needs to get out!" He looked outside the door but then came back in. "Right now, please!"
That man's face was flushing with fury and impatience. The older man said, "Yes, yes. Well, miss, if you would, please exit this office promptly."
He gestured for me to stand, so I did. "I would be very happy to, but I am curious of something. I gather that this is New York since you said so, but where is this exactly?" I waved my arms around, indicating the room and the building the room was in. "Honest to God, I just woke up in here. I have no idea how..."
My words faded as another man entered the room, but a young man, a young man of around six feet tall, dark brown hair in a pompadour, shocking blue eyes and sideburns... a young man whose face was plastered on my shirt. I forgot to breathe.
"Sorry about that," he said in that very familiar Southern drawl that I had heard in over thirty movies and hundreds of songs. "That took longer than I..." He saw me, and there emerged that iconic smirk. "Oh, who do we have here?"
My tongue and mind were disconnected at the moment, so I couldn't form words. I just stared at the person who made my life better, and who wasn't supposed to be around anymore!
"Yes, she snuck in," said the balding man. "As you can see, she's a fan of yours. We tried to shoo her out before you came back but were obviously unsuccessful.
"Nah, you don't need to shoo 'er out," said the star in a tan suit jacket over a black shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, and he had black slacks on. He came over to me, that smirk still there, and a hand held out. "Hello, miss. It's a pleasure meetin' ya."
I still stared at him, my mouth opened in utter shock. "You're..." I gulped, trying to moisten my throat so I wouldn't cough. "You're Elvis Presley."
"That I am." He took my hand as I slowly rose it, and I immediately felt warmth and a strong grip. "What might your name be?"
The feeling of his hand, this room, the two men, him... it was far too real. It seemed too real to be a dream. I only saw the young Elvis in my dreams.
"This is a dream, right?" I muttered, my hands still holding his. "I'm dreaming this."
"Well, if you are, I'm dreamin', too."
He let go of my hand as my gaze locked on those blue eyes. His gaze shifted down to my chest. "I like your shirt, but I admit that's not one of my better pictures." He turned his head to the balding man. "Hey, Colonel, I didn't know they put my face on shirts."
"That doesn't matter, Elvis. Now, miss, you need to go."
"I didn't get 'er name, though," Elvis argued. He turned back to me. "What's your name, miss? You put forth the effort to get yourself in here, so I think you should at least get your name and give you an autograph afterwards."
"It's, um..." His face even shined in the overhead light! "It's Katelyn. Brier. I'm from California."
That smirk remained. "It's a pleasure to meet ya, Katelyn Brier from California. Where abouts?"
"Madison. It's a tiny town of about 100 miles north-east of San Francisco."
"I see. You're quite a ways from home."
I stared at him, my body numbing in shock, and my mind not really registering what he said. I had to see if this really was a dream. Without a second thought, I wrapped my arms around his neck in a hug. I felt everything on him, like his clothes, and I smelled a really sweet and intoxicating cologne. The skin on his neck felt soft and warm, and the hair that I was touching felt like real hair.
He wrapped his arms around me. That felt real, too... as did the feelings that emerged in result of a guy holding me. "You're real."
He chuckled and patted my back. "I hope so."
I let go of him and stood away from him. The Colonel came up to Elvis and moved him by the shoulders. "Alright, alright, now that you got to meet him and hug him, now you have to go."
I didn't move. "Could I have an autograph first?"
The Colonel let out a large sigh in frustration as Elvis went over to the desk that had two chairs in front of it and one behind it and took off a thick pen. He took the cap off of it. It was a marker. I didn't have paper on me. I looked down at my shirt. I turned around a pulled my hair off my back. "You can sign my shirt."
"I would be happy to."
I felt a pen run over my back, and when it left, I let my hair down. "Whoa, I love that purple hair. Ain't that somethin'?"
"Thanks." I turned around. "Um, so..." I had to clear things up. "Where is this? When is this?"
The older of the men looked at one another, a crease in their brows, and looked confused. Elvis said, "Back offices to the Ed Sullivan studios, October 26, 1956."
"1956?" I squeaked. "What? Really?"
"Yes, Miss Brier."
This time, Elvis seemed confused. He wasn't the only one. I sat down in the sofa again, a new sort of shock filling my system. "1956..." I looked up at them. "Really, it's 1956, not 2021?"
The older men chuckled, and the Colonel shook his head, amused. Elvis said, smirking, "Well, Miss Brier, if it was, I would be nearing ninety years old, wouldn't I?"
He had a fair point. "Oh my gosh, no way... I traveled back in time?" No one said anything to that. I stood up. "Well, I'm going to go. I have to figure this out."
I went to the door but turned and met eyes with Elvis. "If you're really you and this really is 1956, it's great to meet you. I love your music. I listen to nothing else."
"Thank you, Miss Brier. I'm flattered."
I left the room, and once out, the door immediately shut. I heard from the Colonel, "Seriously, these fans. They really do everything they can. Did she come through the window?"
"I never opened it," said the older man with his accent. "Or maybe I did. But no matter. Let's get to business."
It sounded like they sat in the chairs since I heard scuffing on the floor and the air let out of a cushion when sat on. The Colonel said, "That girl has either lost it or was making up stories. Wouldn't be the first time. And did you see what she was wearing? No girl would be seen wearing anything that tight. And that hair! I had no idea girls could dye their hair that color. She was clearly wanting attention."
"I thought she was pretty swell," said that famous voice. "I've never seen a girl like 'er before, that's for sure. She was really somethin'. I liked the bit about bein' from 2021."
"For sure, she was peculiar," said the older man. "She didn't scream like the other girls do, right?"
"I admit, that was a welcome relief," said Elvis.
"Alright, moving on now," said The Colonel. Wait. If that was Elvis... and this was 1956 right after he gets a new manager... that was his manager Colonel Tom Parker. It looked like him, from the pictures I had seen. He was the man that a lot of people thought was the cause of Elvis's downfall and ultimately his death.
I slumped down to the floor, staring off down a hallway of doors. "Oh my gosh, what's happening? This has to be a dream. It has to be."
But it was so real. He was real. I felt him, his blue eyes sparkled, and his dark-brown hair shined in the light. I slapped my face and pinched myself. I felt the pain.
My insides turned over and heat drained from my face.
This wasn't a dream.