Priscilla couldn't sleep despite her exhaustion. Sometimes she drifted off for a few moments only to remember where she was and once again become overwhelmed with the thoughts running through her head. The quiet she had been longing for ever since her arrival wasn't as pleasant as she hoped it would be.
It was the stereotypical calm before the storm. She tried not to think of all the tasks and potential disasters waiting for her in the morning but failed.
Once the first birds began to chirp outside and the first peel of sunrise peered over the horizon, Priscilla gave up. At home she more often than not had a personal stylist, but out here she would be forced to do her own hair and make up. But being stuck with the Lynns wasn't a reason not to look good, so she rifled through her bags until locating all that she needed and tackled the task at hand.
Her stomach churned as she thought of the woman who had birthed those six heathens at Graceland, with Elvis' children. Roxanne's behavior could only deteriorate further with such influences.
Sometimes Priscilla wished that they would just all go away. The children, the Mafia, the fans, even the staff- it was never just her and Elvis anymore. They could have spend two weeks on a Hawaii vacation- instead she was here and he was at Graceland with some Hillbilly who somehow, inexplicably, caught a lucky break.
Once finished, Priscilla went through her clothing to check what hadn't gotten wrinkled during the journey and her short stay here. She sneaked downstairs, turning on all the lights as she went. Priscilla eventually found herself settling down in the family room.
The feeling of dread within her intensified with every second that passed. She wasn't sure if she ever dreaded something as much as she did the awakening of the Lynn children.
Tears gathered in her eyes as she thought of Graceland. Then Elvis popped into her head and along with him the strange mixture of juxtaposing emotions she felt toward him.
Priscilla nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a bang on the window.
"Who is this?" she demanded, her voice shrill due to her panic.
"Open the goddamn door, woman," Mooney Lynn's voice slurred. Priscilla's head snapped in its direction. Upon making out the silhouette of his figure, Priscilla's legs carried her over against her will. Mooney's fist connected with the glass of the window just as she drew back the curtains. Priscilla inadvertently jumped back, a yelp escaping her.
"This is my goddamn house," Mooney yelled. "You let me in my goddamn house or I'm gonna-"
"You can't do anything to me."
"I could beat the shit outta you."
"Do I look like Loretta to you?"
"Are you sayin' that I beat the shit outta my wife?"
Priscilla wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if he did, but fear prevented her from saying anything else. Afraid that he would break the window with his incessant banging, Priscilla wondered what she was supposed to do. Mooney's face was as red as a tomato, from both anger and alcohol. His beady eyes were swollen and bloodshot. Going through scenarios in her head, Priscilla wondered if calling the police would be the best course of action or not.
Mooney ceased his banging out of nowhere, staggering backwards slightly before his form disappeared from her line of vision.
"Mooney?" Priscilla squeaked. She eased open the window, which creaked the way the staircase and most of the doors seemed to as well. Her eyes scanned the ground while her heart hammered inside of her chest. A scream tore out of Priscilla when Mooney pounced up, presumably having hidden underneath the window. She stumbled backwards until her back hit the wall. Once she realized that she should have closed the window, Mooney was already busy trying to climb inside.
"I'll open the door." The words tumbled out of Priscilla's mouth. "Just...I'll open the door."
She hurried over to the backdoor and threw it open but by the time she did she heard a thump in the other room. Running back over, she found Mooney sprawled out on the floor.
"Woman," he slurred as he made an attempt to stand, "When I say to open the goddamn door you open the goddamn door the moment I say it. And you got..." Mooney trailed off as though he had forgotten what it was he wanted to say. He braced himself against the wall, finally managing to pull himself to a standing position. "You got some nerve."
"So do you," Priscilla muttered.
"You already painted your face again."
"Some people have to get up in the mornings to do things. Not everyone can spend all night at a bar."
Mooney snorted a ragged laugh through his nose. "Do things? What kind of things do you do anyway? Sit and watch TV? Paint your goddamn nails?"
"Excuse me?" Priscilla shrieked. "Don't you dare talking about me when you don't even know me."
"I know your kind," he spat.
"I know yours too," Priscilla shot back. She knew that she hovered at the edge of a figurative cliff but the anger and humiliation was overwhelming. "You don't get to treat me like that. I'm a person, Mooney. Do you hear me? I am-"
"Oh just shut the hell up," Mooney cut into her rant, his voice overpowering hers.
Priscilla's body shook, shock running through her veins. This could not possibly be real. She couldn't really be there, being treated like she was nothing but a piece of dirt.
"No," Priscilla choked out, still shaking like a leaf. "No, I will not. You don't tell me what to do."
"This is my goddamn house. I sure as hell tell you what to do at my goddamn house."
"Your house? Only that it was all bought with your wives money because you don't have a job."
Mooney lunged forward, making Priscilla think that he was going to attack her. Maybe that had been the plan and he simply did not due to being physically incapable. Instead he dragged himself over to the couch, letting his heavy body fall into it.
"I need my keys," Mooney barked. "I dropped em somewhere out there and-"
"I won't help you find your keys," Priscilla cut him off in a shrill voice. "Do you really think that you can treat me like you just did and then expect me to go and help you find your keys? I am a human being, Mooney."
"You're just some annoying, stupid little Yankee girl. You don't know nothin'."
"You can go looking for your own goddamn keys," Priscilla snapped at him before storming out of the room, still struggling to come to terms with what had just taken place. Priscilla came to a halt at the staircase, where she spotted the figures of two little girls climbing all over the banister.
"Mornin' Piscilla," one twin said.
"Yeah, mornin' Piscilla," the other echoed.
"Good morning, Peggy and Patsy," Priscilla forced out. "What are you doing up?"
"We pway. I'm pwayin' with Patsy," Peggy said. "You was screamin'. Screamin' is no good."
Priscilla forced a smile onto her lips. She couldn't very well claim the opposite when she had spend the better part of yesterday evening scolding Peggy and Patsy for screaming.
Priscilla bent down in front of the stairs to face them. "Why don't you two go to your room and play for a bit like good little girls?"
One twin turned to her with a scowl on her face and proclaimed, "No" while the other didn't even bother sparing Priscilla a glance.
Little Elvis, who drove her crazy half the time, was downright easygoing compared to the twins.
"Now come on," Priscilla said through gritted teeth. "It's not time to get up yet."
"No."
They were interrupted by the whirlwind of the other children who had presumably been roused by her argument with Mooney. Their voices were a combination of laughter and arguments that made Priscilla weary.
"Did Daddy come home?" Cissie asked as she made her journey down the stairs.
Betty snorted behind her. "Who do you think she was screaming around with?"
"Just get yourselves ready for school," Priscilla told them, once again finding herself near tears.
Priscilla felt physically sick when Ernest grinned at her, as if he had something planned for her yet again.
She might as well have been speaking into thin air for all the response her words garnered. How did this Loretta live like this? She could be trying to seduce her Elvis now for all Priscilla knew. The fact that Loretta couldn't possibly be even remotely attractive was some consolation, but it wasn't enough.
Priscilla had the feeling that this was going to affect her for a long time to come though she was hoping and praying to simply forget about the experience when it was over.
If only it were over already...
~*~
For the first time in a very long time, Loretta was awoken not by an alarm clock (human or mechanical) but by the chirping of birds outside. For a moment she wondered what in the world had happened, if she had missed some sort of commitment or if something had happened to her twins, who rose at the crack of dawn.
Then her eyes fluttered open and she remembered. She was at Graceland.
Elvis walked her through everything she was meant to be doing in the mornings yesterday and according to the clock, it wasn't time for any of that yet.
She slowly got herself ready for the day but found that the house was still eerily quiet and it was not yet time to wake up Roxanne for school. Loretta tip toed down the hall to Little Elvis' room, easing the door open in case he was still asleep.
The little boy was sitting cross legged on his crib (the rails had been taken down) with blocks scattered all over the comforter.
A grin spread over his face when he spotted Loretta. "Hi, Etta."
"Hey, honey," she cooed. "Good mornin', little boy. Is no one up with you yet?"
He responded by throwing a block in the direction of the wall opposite of his crib. Little Elvis then jumped to his feet, his arms stretched into the air and without thought, Loretta swung him onto her hip and snuggled him.
"No no, honey," she warned him gently when little hands grasped a fistful of hair. She braced herself for the pain of a pull when she moved to disentangled his fingers from her hair, but he let go easily enough.
"You wanna put on some clothes?" Loretta asked.
"No."
"No? But we gotta put on clothes so we can start the day." She placed the toddler on the ground so she could proceed to dump his blocks into the toy chest she hoped they originated from. "You get that one you threw over there."
"No."
"Is that your favorite word?"
He bounced on his feet, letting forth an adorable baby giggle. Priscilla, at least according to her schedule, did not deal with Little Elvis until she'd dealt with Roxanne. Technically Loretta was supposed to be doing things exactly the way Priscilla did for the first week but at wasn't as though anyone was supervising her.
Loretta went over to the closet to select an appropriate outfit for the day. Little Elvis ambled after her, watching with great interest.
"Do you want a blue shirt or a white shirt, Vissy?" Loretta asked, holding both up for him to see.
He looked up at her with his head tilted to the side and a finger hooked in his mouth before pointing at the white shirt.
Loretta grabbed little jeans overalls, underpants and tiny socks before migrating to one of the bathrooms with Little Elvis in tow. While getting him washed up and dressed, she thought of how strange it was to care for just one two year old. By the time her first was Little Elvis' age, she had a newborn and a one year old to tend to and Peggy and Patsy, of course, were twins.
Maybe hers would have been just as easy going if they'd been blessed with her undivided attention when they woke in the morning. Children were often better for someone unfamiliar, she knew that much, but she still couldn't fathom Priscilla's apparent struggles with the toddler. He just stood there, let her brush his hair and teeth as well as dress him, listening to her talk all the while.
"I think that we're gonna spend lots of time together," Loretta told the toddler while securing the clasps of his overalls. "Are we gonna go wake up Roxanne now?"
"Ya." He grabbed hold of Loretta's hand, swinging it as they walked along. She swallowed as she thought of her own kids, particularly her twins. Then her thoughts drifted to the elusive Priscilla and she wondered if the other woman worried about her children just as much as Loretta did about hers. The idea of Priscilla at her house, with her children, didn't quite sit right with her.
"Roxanne?" She rapped on the door to the little girl's room, which had a sign that read "Roxanne's room. Keep Out" attached to it. "I'm gonna keep out just as long as you get up and ready for school now."
Loretta gently grasped Little Elvis' hand when it reached for the door knob. Not a sound came from within the room, so Loretta ignored the sign just as she ignored the ones Ernest Ray wrote with red marker in an effort to keep the girls out.
She located Roxanne's bed in the back of the room, right by the window and across from a writing desk littered with school books, paper and magazines.
"Roxanne?" Loretta tried again, but the lump on the bed didn't make a peep. She scooped Little Elvis up to ensure that he did not somehow get into Roxanne's treasures. "Come on now, it's time to get up or else we're just gonna have to rush and that ain't fun."
A groan escaped when Loretta shifted Little Elvis on her hip to pull down Roxanne's blanket to reveal a head full of mussed curls.
Loretta placed Little Elvis on his feet. "Can you check if Miss Mary is here yet?"
Elvis had told her that Mary came in the mornings to make breakfast for the children and Priscilla. Little Elvis trotted off willingly enough, taking his time to stride across the room and then play peek-a-boo in the doorway.
"You're gonna have to get up," Loretta said. Upon receiving no response, she gripped the edges of the bedding between clenched fists to tear the comforter off Roxanne, exposing her to a bare, blanket less existence.
Roxanne flipped onto her stomach, her butt in the air as she buried her head deep in her pillow. If this was one of her own, Loretta would have given said butt a little smack in an attempt to rouse her.
"If you don't get up you're gonna be late."
"Go...away..." Roxanne spoke in fragments, curling into as tight a ball as she could possibly manage.
"I will go away once you're out of bed. Come on now, you don't want me to drag you outta bed and dress you."
"I'm tired."
"I know you are but you gotta get up."
"Etta?" Little Elvis chimed from the doorway. "Come? Pweese?"
"You gotta wait a moment now, honey," Loretta told him. She grasped Roxanne under her armpits and dragged her into a sitting position like a rag doll.
"I don't wanna get up," Roxanne protested, her body slumping against the wall behind her bed.
"Are you gonna pick your clothes or do I have to? Cause I will dress you if you won't."
"No!" Roxanne yelped, suddenly wide awake. "I'm up! I'm up!"
"Well, good mornin'." Loretta watched as the little girl finally got out of bed and stumbled over to her closet.
Little Elvis came toddling back into the room. His appearance caused a groan to roll of Roxanne's tongue. "He's not allowed in here, Miss Loretta."
"I'll take him out if you pick out your clothes and then get yourself ready."
Roxanne's blue eyes were half narrowed. "You don't wanna check if my outfit is okay first?"
"I told you how the weather is gonna be so I think that you're old enough to figure out what you wanna wear. Or do you think that I need to check your outfit?"
"No," Roxanne said without missing a beat. "Just take Vissy."
"Alright." Loretta took Little Elvis by the hand and led him out of the room.
~*~
Breakfast at the Lynns was like dinner, only worse. The children rushed back and forth, trying to locate shoes, clothing, homework, lunch money and god knew what while the housekeeper made them bacon, eggs and toast. Mooney was sleeping on the couch a few rooms away, not at all bothered by the hustle and bustle.
"Priscilla, I need fifteen dollars," Ernest said. "I told you five times-"
"What would you need fifteen dollars for?" Priscilla demanded.
"I need to pay some people at school back."
"For autographs," Cissie piped up.
"Yeah," Ernest admitted. "My mama said I have to give the money back."
"So why are you asking me for the money? I don't have the money. I don't have any money. You're supposed to give back the money you took from the other kids."
"But I already spent it."
Priscilla blinked at him, unsure whether the boy really believed her to be quite that stupid. "You are not getting any money from me Ernest." She turned toward the group seated around the kitchen table just as one of the twins spilled a glass of milk.
"Oh no," Priscilla exclaimed as she hurried over, pulling the girl away from the mess by her sleeve when eager little hands reached out to dip into the milk. The twin let out a sound of protest.
"Can you please get this Gloria? Peggy or Patsy spilled some milk."
"There's rags over there," the housekeeper said while continuing to turn bacon and eggs in their pans.
"Do you know what you do with rags?" Ernest spoke up. "You-"
"Ernest, I don't want to hear from you right now," Priscilla forced out.
"None of us do," Betty said. "But he'll just talk anyway whether you wanna hear him or not."
Priscilla's anger toward Mooney was stronger than ever. At least Elvis did have a bit of an excuse for sleeping in and leaving her to deal with his children every morning. Mooney couldn't come up with one if he tried, which she was sure he wouldn't.
Cissie threw a rag at her, leaving Priscilla no other choice but to wipe up the worst of the spills with it. Exhaustion that had been replaced with adrenaline when Mooney came home at the crack of dawn made itself known again. At Graceland Priscilla would often go back to bed after Roxanne had gone to school, but she doubted that this was an option now.
"I don't got lunch money," Jack complained.
"I don't have any money," Priscilla said. That wasn't entirely true. She did take money as well as her credit card. She'd figured that she'd never know when and if she'd be in need of some cash. She however did not have any she was willing to give these ungrateful children.
"I got your lunch money, Jack," the housekeeper called. "All of yours. You come in and get it when you get your food."
"What we do today?" One of the twins asked cheerfully, while Priscilla was still busy cleaning up her mess.
"I don't know." Priscilla tried not to snap at the toddler. "Are you Peggy or Patsy?"
"That's Patsy," Ernest said, his outstretched pointer finger landing on the little girls head. Patsy protested in response, prompting Ernest to repeat the process several times.
"Just how long can you go without teasing each other?" Priscilla exclaimed, desperation leaking out of her exhausted voice.
"Miss Piscilla!" The other twin- Peggy- was standing in her seat, bouncing up and down on the cushion. Priscilla dropped the rag and hauled her off the chair.
"Don't do that. If one of you ends up in the emergency room-"
"I got to go poo poo," Peggy shrieked, cutting Priscilla off.
"Then why don't you go?"
"They need someone to wipe them," Betty told her.
Thankfully the housekeeper took over yesterday night, when Peggy had an accident in the tub, saving Priscilla from having to clean both the excrement and the child.
"Why don't you take her?" Priscilla suggested, grabbing Peggy by the arm to nudge her toward Betty.
"No way. Why me?" Betty protested.
"Cause you wanna get married and have babies," Ernest said, sticking his tongue out at her.
"The twins are not my babies. Mom said that I didn't have to do any of that."
Cissie scoffed. "Are you too good to call her Mama now?"
"Why don't you go and wipe Peggy Jean's butt so you can brag to your dear mama."
Before Priscilla could think of a way to intervene, Peggy took off down the hall, tearing at her pants all the while. Priscilla rushed out after her, cursing the lazy housekeeper and the even lazier excuse for a 'man of the house'.
~*~
"Good mornin', Miss Loretta," Mary greeted the other woman with a smile. "And good mornin' Vissy," she cooed at the little boy on Loretta's hip. "How was your night?"
"It was good," Loretta said.
"Did you manage to get Roxanne up?"
"I sure did."
"What do you want for breakfast?"
"Oh, I don't really mind. What does he get?" Loretta asked, referring to the baby.
"He eats a toasted peanut butter sandwich and banana slices every mornin'."
"Ya," Little Elvis chimed.
Mary laughed softly. "He's his daddy's son in that way. Except Elvis wants his sandwiches fried and with the banana put on em."
They both turned when Roxanne stumbled into the room. It looked as though she did wash up but her hair was no less tousled than it had been when she got out of bed.
"Do you need some help with your hair?" Loretta asked.
Roxanne frowned at her. "No."
"If you do there ain't no shame in it."
"I don't," Roxanne said firmly, then turned to Mary. "Morning, Miss Mary. Can I get some french toast?"
"You sure can," Mary told her, wasting no time getting started.
"I can make Vissy's breakfast and my own," Loretta said, though she somehow suspected that Priscilla did no such thing.
"Do you want juice or milk?" Mary asked Roxanne, who sat with her head sprawled out on the table.
"Pepsi," Roxanne said.
"Your daddy said none of that for breakfast."
"He's asleep."
"He's my boss whether he's asleep or awake." Mary set out peanut butter, toast and a banana for Loretta to make Little Elvis' breakfast while grabbing two slices of toast for Roxanne's french toast.
"Come here, honey," Loretta said to Little Elvis, swinging him up in her arms to place him on the kitchen counter. "You gotta show me how to make your breakfast."
It turned out that there wasn't much to it and soon enough the three of them sat at the kitchen table to eat. Roxanne went to 'do her hair' after breakfast, which translated to throwing it into a ponytail without so much as running a brush through it. Roxanne protested Loretta's decision to take Little Elvis outside as she was running to catch the bus. Elvis told Loretta that the school bus stopped just in front of Graceland for Roxanne at his request, but he insisted that she wasn't meant to know that it was so because so far she just accepted that this was where her bus was while some of her friends had to walk to their bus stop.
Some of the fans that had already gathered in front of Graceland asked for Loretta's autograph and she obliged before heading back onto Graceland property. They had almost made it up the driveway in Little Elvis' slow pace when she spotted the figure of Elvis Presley on the front porch.
"Daddy!" Little Elvis thrilled. Loretta released him, allowing him to race over to his father as fast as his little legs would carry him. Elvis scooped the boy up and planted kisses on his face as Junior descended into a fit of laughter.
"Everything going okay?" Elvis asked, his voice still laced with tiredness.
"What are you doin' up?"
He was in his pajamas, feet shoved into a pair of slippers, squinting at the brightness of the morning sun. Self consciousness over his appearance came to him and he looked down, running a hand up and down the back of his head.
"I was just...I wanted to check how everything was going. Cilla's always talkin' about how much trouble she's got with em in the mornin'. Roxy go to school okay?"
"Yes, she did. Didn't let me brush her hair though."
Elvis chuckled. "That's Roxy to you."
"You look..." Loretta hesitated before settling on "tired".
Elvis pulled a face. "Yeah, it's too early for me to be outta bed."
"Well if you wouldn't be up if Priscilla was here instead of me, why don't you go back to bed?"
"He not givin' you any trouble?" Elvis indicated his son, who was twirling the fabric of Elvis' pajamas in between his fingers.
"He's been good as gold." Loretta reached out to stroke Little Elvis' hair. "We had no trouble at all."
"No," Little Elvis agreed, interjecting himself into the conversation.
Elvis handed his son over to Loretta. Though he stuck his bottom lip out as far as he could, Little Elvis did not protest beyond that.
"You have fun with Miss Loretta while Daddy sleeps, yes?" Elvis asked his son before turning to Loretta. "If you need any help just ask Mary or Dodger but if you feel like you need to get me for either of the kids..."
"I know where your bedroom is."
Elvis gave a curt nod before starting his journey back inside the house. Once inside, he spied through the curtains to see Little Elvis crouching on the ground, having found something to admire. Loretta seemed to be keeping a watchful eye on him, so Elvis proceeded to go back to his bedroom for a few more hours of sleep.
~*~
I know, such a long chapter with so little Elvis. But I couldn't really think of any other way to do it since he was well...asleep. I said that things wouldn't be so freaking slow anymore and now I wrote over 4000 words just of the first morning...whoops. Don't worry there won't always be this little of Elvis since he is obviously my favorite. But I like how everything in this chapter could have happened in exactly that order just that some of it happened in Memphis and some of it in Nashville/Hurricane Mills. I enjoyed the Priscilla/Mooney part waaay too much. And yes the twins call her Piscilla without the r, because I get my kicks were I can.