Elvis and Ginger: Elvis Presley's Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells Her Story (15 page)

I placed the pictures on the vanity chair, not knowing what else to do with them, and walked out, sliding the door shut.

Back in the bedroom, I sat down beside Elvis, feeling disoriented and upset. Again, he read my emotions easily.

Elvis took my hands in his. “You know, I never could picture myself married to Linda,” he said. “She kept asking me, but I always thought that it was the man’s place to ask.”

He added that Linda had been pursuing a career in California, saying, “Poor Linda. She’s gone Hollywood.”

I began to relax a little. I had never been there though and said, “I think it would be fun to see Los Angeles one day.”

Elvis shot back, “You going to Hollywood would be like throwing pizza to hungry lions!”

I certainly had no plans to go to Hollywood and appreciated that he was being protective of me. Elvis’s pronouncement was a little confusing though. Hollywood had been such a big part of his life when he was making movies. Did Elvis disapprove of it? Had something happened in Hollywood to make him feel that way?

Elvis turned on the television and took my hand again. “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “I told you before. Linda and I are over. I’ll see to it that the things in the bathroom are out of there. That bathroom should be for you to use.”

I relaxed. Clearly Elvis intended for me to be spending a lot more time at Graceland. I was glad to hear it.

I had a strong feeling that I was going to be more on Elvis’s schedule now and knew that I wouldn’t be able to continue working and spend time with him. I drove to the dress shop and spoke with the owner about leaving my job. It had been only part-time work, and I decided it was worth putting my career on the back burner to spend as much time as possible with Elvis to see how our relationship developed. Luckily, the owner was understanding and wished me well.

One thing I wanted to do was see my grandfather. I let Elvis know and headed to Arkansas with my mother for a quick overnight trip. It felt good to be driving alone with her. I rarely had her all to myself, even when I was home, and I always treasured our time alone together. Never one to pry, she had always been there to listen.

This trip was no different. As the miles flew by, we talked about what was happening in my life. I knew from an early age that my mother and father had always enjoyed Elvis’s music and had a positive opinion of him as a person. I didn’t get any sense that my mother had any reservations about our dating or questioned Elvis’s character. However, although I didn’t really feel the age gap between Elvis and myself mattered, I decided to bring it up with her because I wondered if she had any concerns about it.

“I know there’s a big age difference between Elvis and me,” I said, stating the obvious, then fell silent to see if she had anything to say about it.

She replied, “I wondered about that, but I didn’t say anything to you because it didn’t seem to matter to you.”

She was being diplomatic, I realized, and doing the same thing I was: trying to assess my feelings before she gave me an opinion. “I don’t feel that it’s an issue at this point, Mom,” I said.

Luckily, she seemed to agree. “Elvis does seem to act like a much younger man. He reminds me of someone more your brother’s age,” she said, adding that she trusted Elvis and didn’t feel any reason not to believe he was sincere about his feelings for me and would treat me right. “As long as you’re happy, both your dad and I are happy for you,” she said.

It was wonderful to see my grandfather. His illness hadn’t progressed, and I hoped our visit to the nursing home lifted his spirits. Because of his age and him having been ill, it was difficult to say good-bye when the time came. I hoped he would be well as we lived far apart and I wasn’t sure how soon I would be able to see him again.

“Tell Elvis he’d better take care of you,” my grandfather said in parting.

When we returned to Memphis, Elvis called and invited me back to Graceland. Upon entering his office, I noticed the bathroom door was open and, peeking inside, I saw that the toiletries were gone and all of the women’s clothing had been removed from the closet. Had Elvis taken them out, or had he asked someone else to do it? Either way, I was happy, feeling that this was a big step. Elvis was letting me know he was serious about us and committed to our relationship as I was. Soon after that, Elvis gave me his private phone numbers and began calling my house daily. Sometimes I phoned him, but this was still Elvis Presley, a busy and important man, so I generally waited for him to call me. As close as we were becoming, I still didn’t feel comfortable enough to just pick up the phone on a whim and call him. What if he was working or had other obligations? I wanted to respect his time and privacy.

Now that we were back in Memphis, I wondered if Elvis might switch back to a more normal sleep pattern, but he didn’t. Consequently, I alternated between his schedule and my more ordinary hours. I slept at home some nights but mainly found myself at Graceland until early morning hours when Elvis went to sleep, then I’d go home to nap during the day because the odd hours sometimes took a toll on me.

Whenever I arrived at Graceland, Aunt Delta or one of the maids would usually greet me at the front door. The housekeepers were Lottie Tyson, Mary Jenkins, Nancy Rooks, and Pauline Nicholson. They referred to Elvis as Mister Elvis or Mister P, and as time went by, they even began calling me Miss Ginger.

Once in a while, Charlie or Billy Smith opened the door and greeted me. Charlie occupied a room on the first floor of Graceland. Billy lived with his wife and children in a trailer out back. Although they were around Graceland on a regular basis along with aides and a few other family members, my focus was on Elvis, and because he liked keeping me near him, I wasn’t spending time alone with any of them at Graceland, the same as in Las Vegas. When I arrived, I was typically told to go upstairs, where Elvis would either be in his bedroom or Lisa’s, visiting with other people or watching television alone. I soon met more family members and employees. Minnie Mae Presley, Vernon Presley’s mother, lived in the house and slept in a bedroom back by the staircase. She was a tall, thin, sweet, soft-spoken woman whom Elvis called Dodger. She got her nickname when Elvis was young and threw a ball at her, missing her by a few inches. I was very touched when one of the first things Dodger ever said to me was how much she loved Elvis.

Tish Henley, a nurse, worked for Dr. Nichopoulos, and her husband, Tommy, was a caretaker at Graceland, so I saw them every once in a while. Tish and Tommy both lived in a trailer on the property, as did Vernon’s younger sister, Nash. Harold Lloyd, a first cousin to Elvis, also worked at the front gate, like Vernon’s brother Vester.

In fact, as I gradually sorted out faces and names, I realized that Elvis seemed to have taken on the responsibility of supporting a great many people. Uncles worked as guards, family and friends lived on the grounds, and stepbrothers were on the payroll. Elvis’s generosity was legendary, and nowhere was it more evident than at Graceland with his extended family and friends.

Elvis may have had members of his family and some friends living in Graceland and on the surrounding property, but he seemed to prefer staying upstairs in his pajamas and have others visit him. When I came to see him, he never directly asked me not to wander around the house or hang out with the other people, but I strongly sensed he wanted me to be at his side.

This was fine with me. I didn’t blame Elvis for wanting to stay in his pajamas and be comfortable. The ornate suits he wore onstage were heavy, tight, and constricting. He once showed me raw spots on his back caused by one of his stage costumes. He also liked to keep the temperature in his bedroom on the cooler side and, when sitting with him in bed, I usually kept a blanket over my legs.

Even in his pajamas, though, Elvis still liked some flash. He often wore a blue-jeweled robe, even over regular clothing. He used a cologne called Zizanie and Neutrogena face soap; even today, those scents make me think of him.

We would often sit on his bed and read for hours. Sometimes we would take turns reading to each other or sit side by side reading to ourselves. Whenever we were reading to ourselves, if the two of us happened to take a breath at the same time, or even sigh at the same moment, Elvis always noticed. Once he said, “It’s almost as if we’re one.”

If I did start reading alone, Elvis would usually put down his own book to see what I was immersed in, and he’d end up asking me about it. I was impressed with his insatiable curiosity and appreciated his continuing efforts to both instruct me and find out what I was thinking.

Elvis and I also spent hours watching television and movies in his bedroom. He had the first Betamax tape machine I’d ever seen, and I loved the novelty of being able to watch any movie on demand. Elvis adored the British actor Peter Sellers, and got the biggest kick out of Sellers’s portrayal of Inspector Clouseau in director Blake Edwards’s Pink Panther films.

We watched these movies many times, and Elvis would often try to squint his eyes the way Sellers did and mimic Sellers’s phony French accent, saying the word
minkey
for “monkey.” Elvis also loved to repeat that famous line from
Casablanca
, “Here’s looking at you, kid.” I was never bored while Elvis and I were watching television because Elvis couldn’t watch a TV without talking back to it. I found this quite entertaining. He’d often repeat dialogue, and if a man got rejected by a woman in a film or on a television show, Elvis often shouted out, “Burned!”

He loved comedies like
What’s Happening!!
and especially got a kick out of a character named Fish played by Abe Vigoda on the show
Barney Miller
. Elvis found Abe amusing, he said, because “he always looks so disgusted with the world.”

He loved the comedy of Redd Foxx, too, and said that I should see him perform live in Vegas someday. Sadly, we would never get the chance.

Whenever we weren’t watching something or reading together, Elvis and I listened to music, or Elvis would sit at the organ and sing. In this way I learned something about his personal musical tastes. Elvis especially admired the American tenor Mario Lanza, and the baritone singer Brook Benton, frequently playing their albums for me. Before that, I’d only heard Benton singing “The Boll Weevil Song” and “Rainy Night in Georgia,” and I’d never known about Mario Lanza before. I quickly grew to appreciate his great voice.

When it came to singing, Elvis believed he had been given a divine gift. In his view, he was a messenger meant to bring joy to others.

Even before meeting Elvis, his voice and music had brought happiness to my family for years. One of my favorite albums while I was growing up was Elvis’s
His Hand in Mine
. With gospel music rooted so deeply in his soul, I wasn’t surprised that Elvis wanted to spend early Sunday mornings watching gospel shows. He loved listening to the singers.

Whenever the TV was off, Elvis left the radio on and tuned to a music station. Music of almost any kind seemed to comfort him. As he often told me, “Music is the universal language.”

If Elvis was trying to get me to understand something and a song happened to be playing with lyrics that correlated with a point he was trying to make, he would stop and nod his head toward the radio. “Listen,” he’d say, “it’s talking to you,” as if the song were backing him up.

Not all music was for him, though. Once, a heavy-metal song with a shrieking guitar began to play on the radio. Elvis got up to use the restroom, and as he passed by the radio, he paused for a second, looked at it, and said, “Boy, I’ll break your Goddamn fingers!”

I cherished those early mornings when it was just Elvis and me alone upstairs at Graceland. If he got an idea for a song, he’d go over to the organ in his office and ask me to sit beside him. I sometimes sat on the floor to give him more room on the bench.

Elvis loved playing around with the various instrument sounds built into the organ. Once, he turned on the drums and joked, “Someone better let that guy outta there.”

As the drumbeat pounded away, he laughed and started singing, “You poor worthless, foolish . . . foolish . . . fool.”

Other times, he was serious, putting a great deal of emotion into different songs as he experimented with them. Elvis sometimes tried reaching various notes he thought he never could hit, too. Thrilled one time when he hit an unexpected bass note, he said, “My God, I’ve never sung that low before.”

The indirect lighting along the edge of the ceilings in his bedroom and office was always on. Many times as I watched him at the organ, where he was bathed in soft light and lost in song, dressed in his jeweled robe, I’d feel like one part of me were there and another part of me were viewing this scene from a distance. I still couldn’t quite believe that I was with Elvis, and hearing him sing never ceased to be special.

While Elvis and I were upstairs, his aides mainly hung around downstairs on call. This seemed to be a relatively undemanding job when Elvis wasn’t on tour. Dean Nichopoulos, Al Strada, Steve Smith, and either David or Ricky Stanley alternated work shifts. I no longer saw Elvis’s stepbrother Billy around.

David Stanley, Elvis’s youngest stepbrother, called Elvis Boss. David was married to a young girl named Angie, whom I had yet to meet, and sometimes when he was on duty, he would come upstairs to talk to Elvis about his marital problems. Elvis told me it bothered him that David was going through this; he had faith in the sanctity of marriage. I would give them privacy as Elvis tried offering David the best advice he could. As David began to do this more frequently, however, Elvis told me that he was getting frustrated because none of the advice he gave David seemed to be changing things or helping David resolve things in his marriage.

Although I didn’t see much of Aunt Delta, her Pomeranian, Edmund, had free rein of Graceland and periodically wandered around upstairs. Charlie occasionally popped in and out of Elvis’s bedroom, usually telling dirty jokes, and often I could tell he had been drinking. Billy Smith, Elvis’s cousin, was a frequent visitor upstairs as well; he and Elvis shared a similar sense of humor, and Elvis often called him Marble Eyes.

Dr. Nichopoulos had stopped by a few times, nervously jingling his car keys against his pant leg while chatting with Elvis. Elvis referred to him as Dr. Nick, and I thought how nice it was to have your doctor check in on you.

Before leaving Graceland to go home after spending an evening with Elvis, I sometimes noticed sleep medication packets left for him. This surprised me because Elvis wasn’t on tour. Why would he have difficulty sleeping if he was at home? I didn’t think much about this at first, though; I trusted Dr. Nichopoulos to keep an eye on Elvis’s health and felt reassured knowing there was always a nurse on the property.