I glanced at it for a moment longer, then headed out of the diner, squinting against the sun.
I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill.
—Elvis Presley
SEVEN YEARS EARLIER
My father swung the car around into a spot in front of the Raven Rock tennis complex and leaned back so that I could reach over and honk the horn. I used the honk we always used for Charlie, honk-honk-honkhonkhonk, what my father for some reason called “shave and a haircut.”
We sat back to wait, and a moment later, From Nashville to Memphis, the CD that had gotten us from home to 21 Choices and then to the tennis complex ended, and started over at track one. This was not permitted in my father’s car. In his mind, once you started listening to a CD on repeat, you stopped hearing its nuances. “Maestro?” he asked, turning to me.
“I’m on it,” I said, opening up the glove compartment and flipping through the Elvis CDs. I pulled out Elvis at the Movies, bringing us solidly to the sixties. “All That I Am” started playing, and my father tapped his fingers along to the rhythm of the song, smiling.
“Nice choice, pumpkin,” he said, looking over at me with a nod of approval. “You know, I think this is my favorite of His songs?” The way my father said it, Elvis’s name was always capitalized. He’d told us once, scandalizing my grandmother, who happened to be visiting, “I hope there’s a God. I know there’s an Elvis.”
“It’s my favorite song too,” I said, making the decision on the spot.
My father laughed, leaned over, and ruffled my hair, causing me to scowl and smooth it down.
There was knock on the back window, and I turned to see Charlie tapping on the glass, his racket in its case slung over his shoulder, looking tired and grumpy. My father unlocked the car, and Charlie got in the back, buckling himself into the middle seat.
“Hey, champ,” my father said as he started the car. “How was practice?”
“Lame,” Charlie said.
“Why lame?” I asked, turning around to face him.
“It just was, okay?” he said, pushing his hair, dark with sweat, back from his forehead. “I don’t know if I want to play anymore. I mean, what’s the point?”
“The point,” said my father, “is that you can do something extraordinary, and something that a lot of people can’t do. And if you have the opportunity to work on your gifts, it seems like a crime not to. I mean, it’s just weakness to quit because something becomes too hard. Am I right?”
Charlie slumped back against the seat. “How come Amy doesn’t have to play tennis?”
I rolled my eyes. Charlie had been using variations on this argument whenever he threatened to quit, for about two years now, and it was getting old.
“Because Amy didn’t like tennis,” my father said with a sigh.
“I liked the clothes,” I pointed out. I had stuck with it for a few years because my mother had bought me a new tennis outfit every year, and I’d really liked them. After a while, though, I’d decided that it wasn’t worth spending hours trying to hit a fuzzy yellow ball just to get a white shirtdress.
“That’s right,” my father said with a smile and a shake of his head.
“Did you guys go to 21 Choices already?” Charlie asked, leaning forward, looking at the crumpled napkins on the console. “I thought we were all going to go after practice!”
“Sorry, champ,” my father said, casting his eyes into the rearview mirror. “Your sister wanted to go beforehand. But how about we make a quick stop right now?”
“Forget it,” Charlie muttered, slamming himself back against the seat and staring out the window. “I don’t want to go anyway.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror and looked back at my brother. We’d never had that secret twin connection I read about in books, and more often than not, it felt like we were battling for something that had never even been named, so couldn’t ever be won.
“Do we have to keep listening to this?” Charlie asked petulantly after a few minutes of Elvis’s crooning. “We’re always listening to Elvis. And I’m sick of it.”
Saying this, in my father’s car, was akin to swearing in front of your teacher, and I felt my pulse begin to quicken a little, wondering what Charlie thought he was doing.
“Hey now,” my father said, as he made a left, and I realized that we were passing University, heading for downtown and away from our house. “You can’t insult the King like that. You have to pay him his proper respect.”
“I just think his music’s stupid,” Charlie muttered, but more quietly, and I had a feeling that he realized he’d gone too far.
“It’s not just the music, son,” my father said. “Though it’s mostly the music. But it’s what he represented. You’ll see. Someday we’ll all go down to Graceland, and you’ll see.”
“All three of us?” Charlie asked.
My father laughed, and I began to relax a little bit. “Maybe even all four of us, if we can talk your mother into it. I was there once years ago. I even wrote my name on the graffiti wall.”
I turned to my father, and out of the corner of my eye, saw my brother grinning in surprise in the backseat. “You did graffiti?” I asked, shocked. “At Elvis’s house?”
“Everyone does it,” my father said with a laugh. He made another turn, and I realized where we were going, but I didn’t think Charlie had yet. “It was probably sandblasted away years ago. But I’d like to go back and see if it’s still there.”
“Awesome,” Charlie said. “Can I do it too?”
“Sure,” said my father. “You too, Amy.”
“No, thank you,” I said firmly, causing both my father and Charlie to laugh. I didn’t mind, though. Sometimes it seemed like the only time the three of us could all get along was when they were teasing me.
“All right,” my father said. “You can be the law-abiding one. But I’m telling you, kids, when I die and go on to the great classroom in the sky, I want you to scatter some of my ashes at Graceland. Because that’s where I’m going to be. Hanging out in the Jungle Room with the King.”
“Don’t talk about that,” I said, more sharply than I’d intended to.