Also Known as Elvis Read online

  For my brother Doug

  Twelve years later . . .

  Dear Little E,

  Okay, so your name is going to be Elvis. But since your mom calls me Elvis (which is not my real name), I hope you don’t mind if for now I call you Little E.

  Man, how did I get to be twenty-five and having a kid? It’s crazy! It seems like yesterday that I was hanging out at the Candy Kitchen and got called Elvis for the first time because of my slicked-back hair and black leather jacket.

  The Candy Kitchen is this soda fountain and sandwich kind of place that’s been around forever in our little town of Paintbrush Falls. My parents went there. My grandparents went there. And my best friends, Bobby, Addie, Joe, and I went there. Over the years, the only thing that changed was, they took out the jukebox. Otherwise, it was like a time capsule. And eventually they brought back the jukebox. Or I did. But hey, I’m getting ahead of myself.

  And anyway, maybe you know all this already. I don’t know how much you can hear in there. By the time you’re born and old enough to read this, you’ll know a lot of it. But I still need to tell you, because it’s the story of the summer that changed my life. I keep thinking that if things had worked out differently, I wouldn’t be here today and you wouldn’t be here in three weeks and six days. (That’s when you’re supposed to be born. If you’re like me, you’ll show up when you feel like it.)

  The story begins twelve years ago, the end of June. Bobby, Joe, Addie, and I were hanging out at the Candy Kitchen, where we always hung out, in the last booth on the right with the torn red leatherette upholstery. We were having a Forum, which is what Addie called it when we talked about “Important Stuff.” Addie wrote down every word, like we were the United Nations or something.

  Oh, and just so you know, your mom is the only one who calls me Elvis anymore. To everybody else, I’m Skeezie.

  Like I said, it was the end of June, the summer between seventh and eighth grade.

  FORUM: “What I’ll Be Doing on My Summer Vacation”

  Skeezie:

  If the service gets any slower in here . . .

  Addie:

  Relax, Skeezie. It’s summer.

  Skeezie:

  Meaning?

  Addie:

  Meaning, it’s okay for things to move slower.

  Joe:

  Besides, in case you haven’t noticed, HellomynameisSteffi is the only waitperson working today.

  Skeezie:

  “Waitperson”? Really?

  Addie:

  It’s the nonsexist term.

  Skeezie:

  Well, this “eat person” is hungry and can’t wait anymore.

  Addie:

  Skeezie! Please stop snapping your fingers!

  Bobby:

  Change of subject. Can you believe seventh grade is actually over? Now all we have to do is survive eighth grade.

  Joe:

  And high school.

  Skeezie:

  And life. Oh, good, here she is. Hey, Steff.

  Hellomy

  nameis

  Steffi:

  Hey yourself, Elvis. You snapped?

  Skeezie:

  Yeah, I was thinking, should I try these new sweet potato fries you’ve got on the menu?

  Hellomy

  nameis

  Steffi:

  I’m glad you’re doing some deep thinking, Elvis. Why don’t you keep it up and answer that question for yourself?

  Skeezie:

  In the words of the King, don’t be cruel.

  Hellomy

  nameis

  Steffi:

  I’m sure a lot of people other than Elvis Presley have said that, but in the interests of my other customers, I’ll cut the cruelty and say, Yes, Big E, try the sweet potato fries. They are awesome.

  Skeezie:

  Sold! And Dr Peppers all around!

  Bobby:

  With a scoop of vanilla ice cream in mine, please.

  Joe:

  And mine.

  Addie:

  How is it that you’re the only one working today, Steffi?

  Hellomy

  nameis

  Steffi:

  We lost two employees. Adam’s going to college in the fall and is biking across the country this summer.

  Bobby:

  Cool!

  Hellomy

  nameis

  Steffi:

  Right? And Tina got a better job at that new frozen yogurt place at the mall. Listen, I’d love to keep chatting, but before other people start snapping their fingers . . .

  Skeezie:

  Yeah, yeah.

  Hellomy

  nameis

  Steffi:

  Be right back.

  Addie:

  That is so cute. She called you “Big E.”

  Joe:

  I don’t get it. You don’t have big ears.

  Bobby:

  Or elbows.

  Joe:

  Yeah, your elbows seem pretty normal to me. Although I have noticed that your eyeballs pertude.

  Addie:

  Protrude.

  Joe:

  Whatever.

  Skeezie:

  One, my eyeballs do not protrude. Two, it was not cute. And three, can we move on from the subject of HellomynameisSteffi? And four, if I owned this place, the “waitpeople” would not have to wear those dumb hellomynameis badges.

  Addie:

  Whatever you say, Big E. So today’s topic is—

  Bobby:

  Addie! School’s over. Can’t we just hang out for once and not talk about Important Stuff?

  Addie:

  All I was going to say is, today’s topic is “What I’ll Be Doing on my Summer Vacation.” I’ll start. I am going to volunteer at the public library!

  Skeezie:

  Wait. That sound you just heard was my brain going to sleep.

  Addie:

  Just because you’ve never read a book in your life.

  Skeezie:

  That’s not true. I read your copy of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Somebody back in the fourth grade.

  Addie:

  It’s “Frankweiler”—and that’s where it went! May I have it back, please?

  Skeezie:

  Um, I’m not quite finished with it. I think I have, like, a hundred pages left.

  Addie:

  If I weren’t using my hands to write this down, I would throttle you. Oh, and next month I’m going to stay with my grandma for a week, and then in August my parents and I are taking a two-week road trip. New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC!

  Joe:

  Ooh, will you bring me something from Broadway? T-shirt, snow globe, cute chorus boy . . .

  Skeezie:

  You are so gay.

  Joe:

  You are so not and should only be so lucky. So, do you want to hear what I’m doing this summer? Well, Kelsey and me. We’re going to be art counselors at the day camp.

  Bobby:

  Kelsey didn’t tell me you were doing that with her. You’ll be really good at it.

  Joe:

  Thanks. And then my family’s going to Montreal for a week, where I will parlezvous français and change my name to Jacques. Oh . . . oh . . . oh! And I forgot. Addie, you don’t have to get me any of that stuff from Broadway, because—drumroll, please—I am going by myself (with a little help from the fabulous Trailways bus system) to visit Aunt Pam in the Big Apple. What about you, Bobby?

  Bobby:

  Well, since I’m no longer working at Awkworth & Ames . . .

  Skeezie:

  Department Store of the Living Dead.

  Bobby:

  Um, yes, it is kind of quiet.

  Addie:

&nbsp
; I heard it might close. I hate that. I know it’s kind of an anachronism and nobody ever shops there, but it’s just such a part of Paintbrush Falls. I can’t imagine it not being here.

  Joe:

  A what-ism?

  Addie:

  Anachronism. That’s something that doesn’t fit the time period it’s in, like it belongs in an earlier time.

  Joe:

  Oh. Like Skeezie.

  Addie:

  Precisely.

  Skeezie:

  Sound of me laughing. Not.

  Addie:

  Anyway, the point is that sometimes change is hard.

  Bobby:

  I know what you mean. But I like my new job so much better. I’m working with my dad out at the nursery.

  Skeezie:

  The one near the Stewart’s where my mom works?

  Bobby:

  Uh-huh. I’ll be outdoors working with plants and all. Who knows, I might even lose some weight. And it’s really good for my dad and me to have the time together. At the end of July we’re going on a camping trip to Indian Lake for a week. We’ve never had a vacation together, just the two of us. Never. So what are you doing this summer, Skeezie?

  Skeezie:

  Sleep. Maybe finish that book of Addie’s. Eat ice cream. Sleep.

  Addie:

  Seriously.

  Skeezie:

  I’m being serious.

  Joe:

  Well, it’s nice to know you have ambitions, Skeeze.

  Skeezie:

  Hey, our food!

  Hellomy

  nameis

  Steffi:

  Here’s your sweet potato fries, Big E.

  Addie,

  Joe, and

  Bobby:

  Awwwww.

  Skeezie:

  You guys. Shut. Up.

  Hellomy

  nameis

  Steffi:

  So I was overhearing your conversation. What are you doing this summer, Elvis? Hanging out at the pool, driving the girls crazy?

  Skeezie:

  Not likely. Yeah, no, I’ve got plans, sort of, I just . . . hey, these sweet potato fries are excellent.

  Hellomy

  nameis

  Steffi:

  I’m glad you like them.

  Bobby:

  You look tired, Steffi. You should take a break.

  Hellomy

  nameis

  Steffi:

  No kidding. But as Elvis put it: Not likely. Well, eat up, you guys. And give me a yell—I mean, snap—if you need anything.

  The truth, Little E? The truth is, I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do that summer, but I was pretty sure there were some things I wasn’t likely to be doing:

  1. go on vacation with my family

  2. spend any time with my dad

  3. have fun

  My mom (your future grandma) had already told me that she needed me to help out even more than usual with my sisters because she’d taken on a second job, and she wanted me to get a job because my dad was behind in his payments and times were tough. How was I going to tell that to the gang? I mean, I could pretty much tell them anything, but when Bobby was sitting there going on about being best buds with his dad and everybody was talking about the fantastic vacations they were going to take with their families, well, I hope you can appreciate—as much as it’s possible for anybody to appreciate anything before they’ve even been born—how hard it was for me to be honest.

  And that’s the other part of the truth: There were things I wasn’t being honest about with my friends. I’d never let them know just how bad things had gotten at home. I’d stopped inviting them over. I didn’t want them to see that I wasn’t the same Skeezie at home as the Skeezie they knew and loved in the outside world. I didn’t want them to see my mom and me go at it, which we were doing more and more.

  Like that day, when I got home from the Candy Kitchen.

  When Your Dad Leaves, Part of Your Mom Leaves, Too

  So I get home after hanging out at the Candy Kitchen with my friends, and my mom is waiting, already furious at me, and I haven’t even done anything yet.

  “You were supposed to be home thirty-seven minutes ago,” she goes.

  “It’s just five,” I say.

  “It’s five thirty-seven. If you wore the watch I bought you, you would know that. And you would also know that I have to be at the store in twenty-three minutes. I needed to talk to you, Skeezie. You said you’d be back in time so we could talk. And I need your help with supper for the girls.”

  “I’ll make supper for the girls, geez. Since when don’t I make supper for the girls?” It’s true. I could have my own reality show: Underage Chef.

  “Fine. But we still need to talk.” My mom is in the bathroom off the kitchen while she says this, tossing back a couple of drugstore-brand aspirins and sighing after she closes the medicine cabinet and catches sight of her own tired face in the mirror. “God, I look old,” she says. I have to agree, although I know enough not to say it out loud.

  My mom used to look like the kind of mom your friends would meet and say they couldn’t believe she was your mom. She used to be young and pretty. She used to look happy. Now she looks old, and if she is happy, I guess I don’t know what that looks like anymore.

  “So talk,” I say.

  “Right. In the two minutes I have before I have to leave. Okay, Mr. I Won’t Wear a Watch . . .”

  “Because you bought it at the dollar store and it broke.”

  “Whatever. In the two minutes we have together, here’s what I have to say. You’re not in school, we can’t afford a vacation, and I need help because there’s stuff around the house that needs fixing. I need you to get a job, Skeezie.”

  “I know. You’ve only told me, like, a hundred times. But I’m thirteen. What kind of job am I going to get? And besides, what about my unpaid job as full-time nanny to your snot-nosed daughters?”

  “That’s just helping out. And talk nice.”

  “Yeah, well, who’s going to cater to Megan’s every wish if you and me are both working all the time? Who’s going to hear her snap her fingers?”

  (I do not pause to consider that finger snapping may run in the family.)

  My mom puts on her lipstick like it’s the last thing she wants to do. “For god sakes, Skeezie. I’m talking about a part-time job to bring in a few extra dollars. You keep half, give half to me for the house. You want to keep listening to the back door banging every time we forget to latch it? You like having to use the plunger every other time we go to the john?”

  “Okay, okay,” I say, deciding not to point out the lipstick she just got on her teeth. “But there are child labor laws. You never heard of those?”

  Now she begins to cry, and I immediately feel guilty about the lipstick, even though I had nothing to do with putting it there. “What about mom labor laws?” she chokes out. “I never knew that when I went into labor with you I’d never get out of it!”

  “If Dad hadn’t left . . . ,” I start to say.

  “Stop right there! If your dad hadn’t left, we might have killed each other by now. It’s a lose lose, Skeezie, so let’s not go down that road, okay? Let’s just leave it. And now I’ve got to leave. Our two minutes of quality time is up. Please. Find something, anything, just help me out here. Talk to Bobby. He works to help his family out.”

  I hate it when she does that. Brings in my friends as role models. It’s so stinkin’ unfair.

  She glances in the mirror, yanks a tissue off the top of the toilet tank from the crocheted box she made back in better times, and wipes the lipstick off her teeth. And what can I say, she looks so sad and even older than she did two minutes ago that I tell her, “Okay, Mom. I’ll get a job. I’ll help.”

  I feel older now, too.

  The back door slams. And as soon as she hears the car start up in the driveway, Megan shouts from her bedroom, “What’s for supper? I’m starving!”

  I hate my dad s
o much I want to punch the wall. I look into the bathroom mirror, half expecting to see my mom still there, but what I see is my own skinny face with its most recent acne acquisitions and an expression I don’t even recognize. I don’t like the me that’s looking back.

  “Spaghetti!” I shout.

  “Again?”

  Jessie, who’s five and not nine-going-on-twenty-five like Megan, appears out of nowhere, grabs me around my legs, and squeezes real hard. “I love spaghetti!” she says, like it’s “I love you!” I wish my friends could see this moment of Jessie hugging my legs, but not what went before it. I don’t want them to see that. I don’t want them to see the me I just saw in the mirror.

  Nails Sticking Out of the Walls Where My Dad Used to Be