Jennifer sidled into Michael’s chair and leaned close. “Can you believe it? He knows Jimmy Blue! He probably knows other famous people, too—do you think? Oh...” A startling thought had obviously just occurred to Jennifer. “Do you think he knows Keith Urban?”
“You can ask him,” Laura said, still picking at her dessert.
But ask him soon because we won’t be here much longer, and we’re not coming back
. She couldn’t make herself say that aloud.
Jackie was making the rounds, picking up the few remaining dishes. She really should thank him for the fabulous meal, but she was having a difficult time, after the stunt he’d pulled at his restaurant. When he arrived at her table, he winked at her. “You get hungry while you’re in town, you come see me. Don’t let Michael feed you any of the crap they serve here.” It sounded like an order from a strict uncle, or a demanding teacher.
He lifted his head as he reached out to snag the plate that had once contained the best spareribs she’d ever eaten, and stopped dead still. “Ma’am?” he said softly. “Your little girl...” He nodded his head toward the bar, and then he grinned widely.
Laura didn’t want to look, but heaven help her, she had no choice. She turned her head so she would be forced to see Michael and Susan deep in conversation. Susan was leaning in close—too damn close—and Michael was listening attentively and nodding his head.
And Megan was on the floor at Susan’s heels. The woman had cocked her leg seductively and slipped one shoe half-off, a high-heeled black shoe that Megan was very silently, very deliberately, filling with ketchup from a red plastic squirt bottle.
“Megan!” Laura shouted, pushing her chair back as she stood. Megan stood quickly, Michael looked at Laura, and Susan stepped back and into her shoe.
Susan made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a scream as she kicked off her shoe. Megan quickly moved the ketchup bottle to her back, where she held it tight with both hands, but it was much too late. She’d been caught.
The cocktail waitress looked as though she wanted to scold Megan, but she stood very still and said nothing at all. Michael had jumped in quickly, promising Susan ten pairs of shoes in return. Laura insisted that Megan apologize, and she did—with the utmost insincerity. Michael took it a step further. He told Megan to shake Susan’s hand and apologize as if she really meant it.
Megan stepped forward as if she really might do as he asked, but her right hand came from behind her back with the ketchup bottle aimed right for Susan’s white blouse. What followed was a deliberate and carefully planned maneuver, as Megan popped the bottle up, wrapped her other hand around it, and squeezed. Laura was shouting “No!” when a stream of ketchup flew up and landed smack-dab in the middle of the woman’s mountainous breasts.
Michael soothed a fuming Susan while Laura took the weapon from Megan. Most of the ketchup was gone. In order to do more damage, Megan would have had to reload.
They left the club, Megan securely bound with one hand in Laura’s and the other in Michael’s. She was silent, but definitely unrepentant. They were on the street before Laura spoke.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said in a hiss, leaning down slightly.
Megan, eyes forward, answered calmly, “I’m not ‘shamed of myself,” she said with her nose in the air. “I don’t like her. She has a sneaky face.”
Michael laughed, and Laura shot him a warning glare. His laughter died abruptly, but his smile went on.
“Whether you like someone or not,” Laura said calmly, silently agreeing with Megan’s assessment of Susan, “you can’t go around squirting ketchup in their shoes and at their clothes.”
“Well, the mustard was on your table, and the barbecue sauce was by Jennifer’s plate...”
Michael started to laugh again, and Laura had to bite her tongue to keep from joining him. “You can’t go around attacking people with condiments of any kind,” she said calmly. “I’ve told you this before.”
“Okay, Mommy,” Megan said, easily putting the incident behind her. “Jennifer!” she shouted, glancing over her shoulder to her cousin, who followed behind. “Watch this!” She held on to their hands tightly and jumped, hanging in the air for a long, magical moment.
Megan was, for the moment, caught between the two people in the world who should love and protect her above all else, who should be there for her whenever she needed them. She was sandwiched safely between her parents, and no one but Laura knew it.
They had to stop to watch the living Nativity scene next to the hotel for a few minutes before returning Megan and Jennifer to the hotel room. Megan was entranced by the baby and the Elvis impersonators, though she voiced the observation more than once that the real Elvis was not in attendance.
Just inside the hotel door, Laura gave Jennifer the room key and sent the girls on their way. No doubt she planned to say good-bye here and now, in a busy hotel lobby with the Hound Dog Café jukebox playing “Love Me Tender” in the background and a skinny bellhop in a uniform two sizes too big lurking nearby. She couldn’t say good-bye yet; she still hadn’t told him about Megan.
He preempted her. “I’ll pick you up in two hours.”
“I really should—”
“You promised me the whole day, remember?” he interrupted. “We’ll keep it simple. Dinner and then back to the club for a while, if we feel like it.” He smiled at her. “I can take tonight off, too, if I need to. That’s what Susan was complaining about when Megan decided she looked sneaky and needed ketchup in her shoes. Her tips suffer when I’m not playing, and I’ve been gone the past couple of nights. I promised her a huge Christmas bonus to make up for this time off, so I plan to make the most of it.”
Laura nodded. “All right, but I can’t be out late. My mother will expect us tomorrow, and my sister will kill me if I keep Jennifer away on Christmas Eve.”
It was a grudging acceptance, but he was almost sure he saw the light of something promising in her eyes.
Chapter Seven
Michael had tried to lose himself during the hours he had to wait, playing “Rainy Night” as early customers drifted in for a drink and a listen. No matter how hard he tried, though, the last stanza wouldn’t come together. He didn’t sing, but he heard the words in his head as he played, and no matter how hard he tried, the song remained unfinished.
Even the music couldn’t take his mind off Laura tonight, and he was fifteen minutes early to collect her, fifteen long minutes he spent pacing in the lobby.
Laura had been right when she’d said this was a strange place. He hadn’t noticed last night. The decor was a marriage of old elegance and Elvis mania, and the clientele blended right in. In the lobby there were old ladies and Elvis impersonators, tourists who eyed the Elvis-on-velvet paintings that hung on every wall, and bellhops in once-proper uniforms that were now faded and too worn to be anything but dreary.
“They’re thinking about closing this place, you know.” The voice, an Elvis-like soft drawl, came from a man in a white jumpsuit who had sneaked up on Michael while he’d been thinking about Laura.
“I didn’t know that,” he said, trying to look into the man’s face. A bright light on the wall was directly behind the Elvis impersonator, so Michael’s view was less than perfect. Still he had to admit an uncanny resemblance to the King.
“It’s a shame, a real shame.”
Michael nodded and waited for the man to move on. He didn’t. Instead the Elvis impersonator began to sing “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” softly, but plenty loud enough for Michael and anyone else in the vicinity to hear. He was surprised no one stopped to watch. People walked past without so much as glancing at the singing man. Well, Laura had said this place was strange.
The soft words rang too true, and they reminded Michael much too clearly of the days and nights that had passed without Laura at his side—sad days, each and every one. In two days it would be Christmas once more. Was he going to spend the day alone again, playing at his piano and blindly ignoring mistakes of the past?
The elevator doors opened and Michael held his breath and waited for Laura to get off, but he was disappointed. Instead it was a family who stepped into the lobby, a man and woman and three little boys who came off the elevator in a hurry. The mother scooted the smallest one along, straightening a cowlick as they rushed to the door.
They brushed so closely by Michael that he felt the breeze their rush created. When he looked back to the man beside him, he saw a smile on an uncannily Elvis-like face that remained indistinct thanks to the harsh backlight.
“You got kids?” the man asked.
Yesterday he would’ve said no. “Yeah,” Michael said softly. “I do.”
“Me, too,” the man said softly. “A little girl.”
“I have a daughter,” Michael said, and it felt so right he grinned. He hadn’t said the words aloud until that moment. They sounded good.
“Don’t let her slip away,” the man in white advised, as if he knew more than he should.
Michael looked toward the elevators as the doors parted once again. This time Laura was there, and she didn’t say a word as she stepped off the elevator and walked straight to him. The expression on her face was one of determination, resolution, and perhaps just a little bit of fear.
He was relieved to find that the Elvis impersonator had made off silently. It wouldn’t do for the man to ask about his daughter in front of Laura.
Beyond the hotel door all was dark, and the living Nativity scene had disbanded for the night. As Michael led Laura past the deserted lot he stopped before the quiet plot and stared at it for a long moment before saying anything. This was it; tonight was his last chance. If he couldn’t convince Laura that what they had was too good to throw away, he was going to lose her for good.
Don’t let her slip away
. Hell, he was taking advice from an Elvis impersonator! He slipped his arm through hers. No matter who it came from, that was good advice.
“There used to be a photography studio here,” he said, hanging on to Laura’s arm as if she might decide to break for the hotel and safety.
“What happened to it?”
He glanced at her, at the golden hair she’d swept off her neck and the simple and flattering gray dress she probably thought was severe and plain, at the wary eyes and the stubborn mouth. Now or never.
“It burned down, oh, probably fifty years ago. Maybe more.”
She looked over the barren lot as if she could see something he couldn’t. Maybe she just didn’t want to look at him. “Why didn’t they rebuild?”
“I don’t know what happened after the fire.”
She watched him silently, waiting...
“I only know what happened before.” There were ghosts here, dammit; he could feel them. They were in the shadows, in the soft moan of the breeze. They were in Laura’s eyes.
“What?” she whispered.
He told her the story, the mixture of legend and rumor and romantic supposition, of Elvis and the lady photographer who’d died in the fire. She’d taken several photographs of the superstar over the years, and word had it that he was crazy about her. She was apparently just as crazy about him.
“Why is it that I never heard of this alleged romance? Everything concerning Elvis is public knowledge, and I never heard anything about any lady photographer,” Laura said skeptically.
“There was no romance,” Michael said as he turned her away from the spooky lot. “Evidently he never told her how he felt, and she never told him. They loved one another for years, but neither of them ever came clean about their feelings. They kept it locked inside, afraid, maybe, to confess all.”
She shuddered; he could feel it in the arm he held. “That’s very sad,” she whispered.
“Yes, it is.”
They began to walk, arm in arm, and had taken several steps before Michael spoke again. “It’s just a story, one of a million stories about Elvis,” he whispered. “Who knows if it’s even true?”
Laura clung to his arm, and the fact that she held on so tight gave him hope. Then again, maybe she was hanging on because she knew she’d never have the chance again. That thought made his mouth go dry with fear. They were at Beale Street before either of them spoke again.
“What do you want for dinner?” he asked.
She stood very still beside him, clinging possessively to his arm. “I’m not very hungry.”
“Neither am I.”
The rain began then, one light, cold drop and then another. Surely they should run for cover, but they were both motionless on the corner while people rushed past to get out of the cold rain. Neon signs shone all around them, bright lights in a black night, garish colors breaking the darkness. The rain was steady and chilling.
“I don’t want to make a mistake like that,” Michael said, his eyes on the reflections of neon on a wet street. “I don’t want to play it safe and keep everything locked inside until it’s too late.” He faced Laura and placed his hands on her wet face. “There hasn’t been a day to pass in the last five years that I haven’t thought about you. Some days I was angry with you for leaving, for not believing in me. Other days I wondered what I did wrong.” He thought maybe she was crying, but with the rain on her face it was hard to tell. “Most of the time I just missed you.” He kissed her wet lips, quickly, too quickly, and then he drew away just enough to whisper. “I love you.”
Laura wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight. “I love you, too,” she whispered against his mouth. “I never stopped. Never,” she said. She pressed her body more snuggly against his. “Believe me, Michael.”
“I do.”
This time when he kissed her he could taste the tears.
***
Walking quickly in the rain, they hurried back in the direction they’d come from, back toward the hotel. Laura barely felt the cold rain, she was so elated. Michael loved her, still, and any doubts she might have had about her own feelings were gone.
She loved him, she belonged with him, and she had faith that no matter what happened, life would be better for both of them if they stayed together.
Soaking wet, they entered the lobby of the Original Heartbreak Hotel, the odd place that had, in the past two days, earned a warm place in her heart.