Elvis and Ginger: Elvis Presley's Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells Her Story (22 page)

I didn’t even give my family any advance warning of our arrival. They were plainly surprised when they opened the door and saw Elvis and me standing together on the front porch.

I kept my hand behind my back until we were in the den, where Elvis turned to me and said, “Show them your hand.”

I was still finding it difficult to hold my hand steady as I brought it from around my back. My parents looked at the ring, then back at us, speechless.

“We’re engaged,” Elvis said, effectively making what he had told my mother on the phone in Las Vegas an exciting reality. I was touched to see that he seemed a little anxious as he waited for their reaction and approval.

I wish I’d brought a camera to capture the completely stunned look on my parents’ faces. My mother broke the silence finally, smiling and saying, “I’m so happy! And what a beautiful ring! I’ve never seen a diamond that large!”

My parents hugged the two of us. Serious, Elvis then said to them, “I’m going to take good care of Ginger, don’t you worry.”

Making direct eye contact with Elvis, my father smiled and said, “I’m sure you will.” He shook his hand.

Then Rosemary and Terry came in, and when we’d announced our news to them, the elation and congratulations started up again!

Elvis and I stayed another hour or so, relaxing at my house and basking in my family’s excitement. When we returned to Graceland later, I couldn’t help but wonder what Vernon really thought, so I asked Elvis, “What was your father’s reaction to our engagement?”

He replied, “My daddy only asked, ‘Son, does she do little things for you?’ And I told him yes.”

It felt good hearing his answer, since I had tried to pamper Elvis in small ways, such as ordering food for him, rubbing his back, reading with him, and even placing cotton balls in his ears so he could sleep better.

According to Elvis, his father had then responded, “Good. What could a forty-year-old woman do for you, like what can a sixty-year-old do for me? Nothing.”

I didn’t agree with what Vernon said, but didn’t comment. Of course I was glad that Vernon was comfortable with the age difference between Elvis and me, but hearing his words made me think that maybe Vernon brought Elvis up believing that’s what a man needed, a younger woman to take care of him since Elvis was with me and Vernon was with Sandy. I was glad to take care of Elvis—but equally glad that Elvis seemed keen on taking care of me, too.

A few nights after our engagement, Elvis returned to my family’s home to visit and, while he was there, invited his jeweler to come over.

When Lowell arrived, he brought TCB and TLC necklaces with him. As he had done with me, Elvis slipped the symbolic necklaces over the heads of each of my family members. He wanted my family to know they were now part of his inner circle and family. And this was his way of making sure that others knew it as well.

Impulsive, extravagant gestures remained the norm for Elvis. On the spur of the moment, he invited my whole family to Las Vegas again. He called the sheriff, and the sheriff called the mayor of Memphis to see if the district chief would give my brother permission to take the following day off from the fire department.

The power of Elvis worked and the chief said yes.

We flew to Las Vegas, where we all stayed at the Hilton and Elvis gave each member of my family a hundred dollars for gambling in the casino. Elvis preferred to remain in his room with me again and I now felt that Elvis got bored sometimes and just a change in location relaxed him. It would have been nice to see one of the Las Vegas shows, but I understood that, if Elvis went out, it would be a big deal. I was confident that one day, if I asked him, we would see some shows together. I didn’t mind staying inside with him that night, and I felt especially happy knowing my family was being treated to a wonderful time.

The two of us kept to our usual patterns and spent our time watching television and reading together in our hotel room. This time Elvis had brought
The Impersonal Life
, a book by Joseph Benner. It was a small book about self-discovery and looking within for true spiritual guidance. Elvis was seriously interested in the concepts and eager to share them with me.

One never knew what Elvis might say or do, and at one point during the night, Elvis asked me to sit with him, close my eyes, and practice saying, “Be still and know that I am God.”

As we sat, chanting this phrase in an attempt to bring inner peace, Elvis suddenly got a cramp in his toe that didn’t let up. So much for inner peace! He finally jumped up from the bed and, still holding on to his foot, began hopping around. He was laughing and cursing through the pain, which made me get tickled, too.

It took a little while for the cramp to go away, and it was pretty funny to watch how Elvis kept his sense of humor while in agony. As others were being entertained in showrooms across Las Vegas, I was getting a uniquely private performance as Elvis danced for me!

Later, we connected with my family and visited with them for a while. We were in Las Vegas for only one night and before I knew it, we were on our way back to Memphis.

•   •   •

Not long after we returned to Graceland, Elvis again brought up his wish to buy my family a new home. He also mentioned again that I should have my own room and phone line, so he could “easily get in touch with me.” I was still uncomfortable about Elvis buying a house for my family.

I hadn’t pursued the idea, nor had my family, but Elvis remained determined to follow through with this. He decided to take matters into his own hands one day and contacted his cousin GeeGee, asking him to set up an appointment with a Realtor to look at a home. Elvis also invited my parents to come to Graceland so they could go with us.

My mother showed up, accompanied by Rosemary and my niece Amber. My father was working a late shift. We rode along with GeeGee and Patsy to a two-story home in the Whitehaven area, a neighborhood closer to Graceland.

Two Realtors gave us a tour of the home. It was an older house and still occupied. As we walked around the first floor, Elvis said, “Well, don’t look at it as it is, because there will be a lot of repairs that will need to be made on it. Picture it in a different light, with new carpeting and bathroom fixtures.”

We went upstairs. When I saw that the house had five bedrooms, I realized the house must be much more expensive than the one we lived in now. Elvis peered at the backyard through one of the upstairs windows. “You need a pool,” he said. “The backyard looks small, and there’s no room for a pool.”

Elvis had been holding my hand the whole time. When he let go, Amber quickly took my hand. Elvis shot her a look. “Amber, watch it,” he said with a grin. “You’re getting too close.”

Before we left, Elvis told my mother, “Keep looking to see if you can find one in the neighborhood with four or five bedrooms. I’d like you to have one closer to Graceland, but you have to live in the house. It should be something that pleases you and has a room for each of you.”

With the difficulty that my parents were having in their marriage, I knew the last thing they would be focused on was looking for a new house, but we could all tell Elvis was extremely serious about doing this. His benevolent spirit continued to astonish me.

Learning how to be part of Elvis’s life was like running next to a fast-moving train, grabbing a door handle, and jumping on board. That express train showed no signs of slowing down.

His new tour began in Florida on February 12. Elvis wanted me to see how he prepared for his shows, so at one point he asked me to join him in his bathroom on the
Lisa Marie
. There he mixed up a saline solution, tilted his head back, and poured the salt water down each nostril. This made him cough and helped clear his throat.

Another time aboard the
Lisa Marie
, Elvis asked me to come into his bathroom before that night’s show. He leaned against the sink and handed me a black eye pencil. He wanted me to touch up a few gray whiskers on his sideburns and a couple of gray hairs in his eyebrows. I never thought of his gray hair as detracting from his sex appeal in any way, but Elvis obviously didn’t like it.

I started to pencil in a small area. Our faces were close together; Elvis began staring at me and making subtle, comical facial expressions. He wouldn’t stop even when I begged him to, and I started laughing so hard, my hand shook in the middle of giving him his touch-up.

When I was finished, Elvis turned around to look in the mirror. “My God,” he said in mock horror. “I look like Groucho Marx!”

Needless to say, he had to tone it down a bit. We laughed as he wiped some of the color off and then Elvis shared a tip he’d learned working in films, showing me how to apply mascara a certain way to make your lashes look longer. I never could have imagined that I could learn makeup tips from a man, but here I was, still learning something new from Elvis every day.

•   •   •

Because we were touring from one city to the next, Elvis and I usually didn’t know what day it was. However, on Valentine’s Day I got a pleasant surprise: Elvis gave me not one, but
four
different Valentine’s cards!

I knew someone else must have picked out the cards, but it still touched me that he’d thought to do this. Inside the cards, Elvis had underlined certain verses and written some beautiful personal words.

A few nights later, I again looked over the cards Elvis had given me. Maybe because of the romantic things Elvis had said and done, I started thinking about my parents’ marriage crumbling, reflecting on how their love had gone wrong and wondering why it hadn’t lasted. Here I was with Elvis, both of us looking forward to marriage, while theirs was possibly coming to an end. The thought made me sad.

Elvis could tell something was bothering me. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

I hadn’t wanted to burden him with any discussion about my parents’ marital problems before, but I felt that part of being in a loving relationship meant being honest with someone. I hoped he would open up to me if something was bothering him, so I decided not to hide it anymore. I broke down, telling Elvis that my parents just weren’t compatible with one another.

Elvis was surprised. After I’d described what was going on at our house, he said, “Those are unpleasant conditions to be living under, and I don’t want you living in that.”

I appreciated his sympathetic ear and concern, but I wasn’t asking Elvis to do anything about it. He had asked me what was on my mind, and I had honestly opened up to him, I explained, adding, “Elvis, this is a situation that I believe only my parents can solve.”

I learned it was impossible for him to be a passive listener, as he seemed determined to want to help. “I’d like to speak with your mother about what’s going on,” he said. “I want to invite her and your sisters to see my last few shows.”

On February 19, Elvis flew them first-class on American Airlines into Johnson City, Tennessee. During his show there, Elvis introduced me to his audience, along with my mother, Rosemary, and Terry.

The next show was in Charlotte. On the flight between Tennessee and North Carolina, Elvis took time to talk with my mom about her marriage. He listened patiently to everything she was willing to share.

I knew Elvis couldn’t change how my parents felt about each other, but I deeply appreciated how much effort he was putting into trying to comfort her. He told my mother that he hoped things would work out, and asked her to keep looking for a house.

“It will be one less thing to worry about,” Elvis promised her.

During the Charlotte show, he introduced me again. This time, going down the line with my family, he said, “and all the little Aldens,” acknowledging Terry as Miss Tennessee. With a mischievous look, he then started walking toward Terry.

Terry began shaking her head and, under her breath, I heard her say, “No . . . No.”

Elvis ignored this. Looking straight at her, he asked Terry to join him onstage. He had stopped his whole show to single her out.

Terry finally stepped up onto the stage beside him, blushing furiously.

“Play that weird piece you play,” Elvis teased.

“No,” Terry said.

But Elvis motioned for her to do it, and finally she took a seat behind the piano, where she quickly played part of “Toccata.”

As Terry stood to leave, she turned to Elvis and jokingly said, “I’ll get you for this,” forgetting his microphone was in his hand. We later had a good laugh wondering if any others had heard her.

The performance in Charlotte was Elvis’s last show of the tour. We flew back to Memphis afterward, where he could enjoy nearly a month off.

Once we were back in Memphis, Elvis continued to visit my parents’ home, sometimes by motorcycle and not always under the cover of darkness. I never knew when Elvis might appear. If I was at home sleeping and heard the roar of a motorcycle, I always woke up wondering if it could be him.

I could tell he was getting real comfortable with my family, which made me feel great. Occasionally, Elvis would enter our house and, right off the bat, would ask, “Where’s Rosemary?” Looking for her, he’d march down the hall and flip on her bedroom light.

One time my brother happened to be at the house when Elvis came to visit, and Elvis brought up the possibility of training Mike as a guard to work for him. My brother thanked him and said he would certainly consider it.

On another occasion, Elvis decided to approach my father about my parents’ marriage. He sat with my dad in Rosemary’s room and talked with him for a little while. Later, Elvis told me he didn’t know if their conversation had helped fix anything, but it was a start. I was amazed by how caring and good-hearted he was with both of my parents.

Elvis really seemed to be taking them on as his own family now that we were engaged. I thought that boded well for our future as a couple, because family was so important to both of us.

•   •   •

I had never lost my love of motorcycles. I was thrilled, therefore, when we were at Graceland one night and Elvis finally asked me to ride with him. He called for Billy Smith and, when Billy entered the room, Elvis looked at him and said, “Saddle up the Harley hogs.”

Billy left, and figuring that Elvis must own a few Harley-Davidson motorcycles, I asked him why he called them that. “Because they hog the road,” he said.

As usual, he left his pajamas on, stepped into his blue jumpsuit, buckled his black stage belt around his waist, and tucked one of his guns inside it. Going into his dressing room, he returned with his black leather jacket and handed me another one, saying, “Here, I want you to have this.”

It was a beautiful jacket in silver leather, with multicolored flames and a black eagle painted on its back. Elvis handed me a helmet and we walked downstairs.

Stopping by his grandmother’s bedroom, we said a quick hello and continued out back. I thought it was sweet that Elvis usually checked on Dodger whenever he was going out.

The minute I put the helmet on, Elvis looked at me and began to laugh. “You look like a lollipop head,” he said.

I was amused as well, knowing my head was on the small side and the helmet was huge on me.

Billy and a couple of the guys got on motorcycles and, straddling his own, Elvis said, “Come on, Chicken Neck. Get on.”

I did, and we slowly took off down the driveway. My neck couldn’t support the weight of the helmet and I kept banging my head into Elvis’s. He started laughing, and pretty soon we were nearly hysterical because every time he slowed down, my helmet would go
clank
against his.

We rode up and down Elvis Presley Boulevard, where Elvis playfully yelled to a couple of passing cars, “Get off my street!” He was enjoying himself, and I was having a blast.

At one point, Elvis had to use a restroom, so we stopped at a gas station. Some fans had followed us; stepping off the motorcycle, Elvis signed a few autographs. He always took time with his fans.

Before long, we were back on the motorcycle and we rode around some more, circling through parking lots, then returned to Graceland. It had been a fun night, and I hoped there would be many more like it.

•   •   •

I was now actively envisioning a future with Elvis, and I delighted in imagining the life we would share, a life that I hoped would be enriched by pets and children. Soon I took one step closer to that future. I’d always loved Great Danes, and I’d been entertaining the idea of getting one. I was surprised when I mentioned this to Elvis one day and he told me he’d owned Great Danes in the past. I thought it was neat that we both liked the same breed.

Excited by the prospect of sharing and caring for a pet together, I told Elvis that, when the dog was a puppy, I could keep it at my parents’ house, and after he and I were married, it would have room to run at Graceland. This got us talking about dogs, and I could tell Elvis had a soft spot for animals by the way he reminisced about some of the pets he’d owned over the years. My parents had allowed us to have a variety of pets and, as we traded stories, he suggested that we get one.

I later found a listing in our local paper for some puppies. One day, unbeknownst to Elvis, I drove to a home in Sayreville, Tennessee, and purchased a black male Great Dane with a small white star on his chest. In honor of Elvis’s opening theme to his concerts, I decided to name him Odyssey.

I couldn’t wait to show him to Elvis! I brought the puppy to Graceland. Gawky, with large paws and long legs, Odyssey was big at just a couple of months old. The puppy didn’t have any experience with stairs, so, hoping no one would see me, I stood over him, took one paw at a time, and slowly helped Odyssey walk up the front stairs.

Elvis and Billy were chatting in Lisa’s room when I arrived. I entered the doorway, lugging my new puppy with me, and said, “This is Odyssey.”

Surprised, they started laughing. Billy began joking around, calling the dog Oddball.

I was a little sensitive about it, which Elvis noticed. He gave Billy an annoyed look and said he thought Odyssey was cute. Billy left the room then and Elvis apologized. He said he’d looked in the paper, too, where he’d seen the same ad and was going to call.

Over the next few days, I divided my time between trying to train Odyssey at home and going to see Elvis. He was clearly thinking about what our future would look like together, too, because one day, Elvis said, “You have to learn that you are the lady of the house.”

“Okay,” I agreed. It warmed me to hear this. Although I didn’t live at Graceland yet, it was wonderful to know that Elvis was already thinking of me in this way.

At the same time, I was a little worried, wondering how I could easily slip into this role without disturbing or offending those who were running Graceland behind the scenes. I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. I hadn’t had any opportunities to hang out downstairs and visit with the other people who were regulars in the house, so I hadn’t formed a close relationship with any of them.

In addition, I also came from a middle-class upbringing, one where you cleaned your own house and cooked your own meals. Having maids and aides at your beck and call any time of day or night was still a novelty for me, one I’d been trying to get used to while being with Elvis. I was confident, though, that the more time I spent at Graceland, the more comfortable I would start to feel that I would know the right things to say and do as his wife.

Meanwhile, Elvis continued to demonstrate his growing trust and commitment to me by giving me the remote control for an electric gate that opened onto the back of his property. A side road led to the gatehouse at this rear entrance, where a guard was always on duty. Elvis often used this road when he wanted to come and go from Graceland privately. Now he wanted me to be able to arrive or leave without notice whenever I wanted. It was a small step, but a big gesture; one more way of him saying, “I want you to have full access into my life.”

Another evening, Elvis glanced about his bedroom with a thoughtful look and suddenly announced that he wanted to redecorate his home. He grew excited as we started talking about the possibilities.

“Graceland should come alive again,” Elvis said cheerfully. “After we’re married, I want to redo my bedroom first.” He paused with a sigh. “Then comes the monstrous task of downstairs,” he said, turning to me then and taking my hand. “I want it to be a lot of what you like, too,” he said.