“Maybe we can stop at the beach on the way to the Art Institute,” Mr. Schafer said.
Jeff’s face fell. “Art Institute? Do we have to?”
“Dad promised Claudia,” Dawn reminded him.
“It has the best Impressionist collection,” I added.
Kristy eagerly leafed through her book. “How about Lincoln Park Zoo? Or the Bicycle Museum, Chicago Children’s Museum, Field Museum of Natural History?—”
“Yyyyyesss!” Jeff said. “All of them.”
Mr. Schafer exhaled. “It’s lunchtime. Let’s stop, and then we can negotiate.”
He drove off the highway and found a multipurpose fast-food place (with a salad bar for Dawn, of course). As we pulled into a space, my mouth was watering. I unbuckled my belt and quickly went over to my bunk bed to fetch my wallet. My backpack was sprawled on top of the unmade sheets, and I reached for it.
At the edge of the bed I saw a small spiral notebook. I’d brought along a couple of them, with unlined pages for doodling. But this one didn’t look familiar. I opened it up and saw some handwriting:
Oops. Stacey’s book, not mine. It must have fallen from her bunk above. I shut the book and reached upward.
“What are you doing?”
I turned. Stacey was standing behind me, hands on hips.
“Here,” I said. “This is yours.”
She grabbed the book out of my hands. “No kidding. Find anything interesting?”
“I wasn’t reading it, Stacey?—”
“Just looking at the artwork, huh?” Stacey snapped.
“But — but?—”
She flew out the door, leaving me alone in the RV.
Great. We weren’t even halfway across the country and my best friend was mad at me.
This trip had already been too long.
I didn’t know how we were going to make it to California in one piece.
* * *
Well, Stacey didn’t talk to me in the fast-food restaurant. I tried to explain what had happened, but she wouldn’t listen. It didn’t help that Jeff, the gossip-in-training, kept asking me to recite every word I’d read.
The trip into Chicago was grim. Stacey kept her back to me the whole time. Mary Anne knitted her fingers off. Dawn and Jeff fought. Kristy seemed oblivious to the whole thing and kept reading aloud from her guidebook.
Just inside the Chicago city limits, on the highway alongside Lake Michigan, we hit a horrible traffic jam. How horrible? I was able to make a detailed sketch of the Chicago skyline.
Since the Art Institute was closer, Mr. Schafer decided to drive off the highway and stop there first. I won’t even tell you Jeff’s reaction. (My hearing has still not recovered.)
No matter. The Art Institute was fantastic! It’s one thing to admire paintings in a book, but seeing them live is an entirely different experience. Like eating chocolate for the first time after hearing someone describe the taste.
At least that was how I explained it to Jeff. His response? “Can we go now?”
“How about the arms and armor exhibit?” Mr. Schafer suggested.
Jeff and Kristy liked that idea. Stacey and Dawn wanted to go to the gift shop. We all agreed to meet at the front entrance in two hours.
The only one who stayed to look at the paintings with me was Mary Anne. “My dad loves the Impressionist collection,” she said softly as we wandered among the Monets. “He’s only been here once, though. He really doesn’t have the time.”
“Too bad,” I said.
“I mean, with his work schedule and all. He really does work so hard.”
I thought about Mary Anne’s conversation with Mr. Schafer in the RV.
“I believe you, Mary Anne,” I said. “You were really taking Mr. Schafer’s jokes seriously, huh?”
“I guess.”
We passed silently from room to room. We had a couple of hours before leaving for Wrigley Field, and I think we were both happy for the quiet. And the space.
“It’s him!” Karen screamed.
She stared at her Graceland pamphlet, then back out the RV window.
“It’s who?” I asked.
“Elvis! Look! In that pink car!”
I pasted my face to the window.
I could not believe what I was seeing. A pink Cadillac. Exactly the kind of car the King used to drive. Unfortunately, it was making a turn onto a side road, and I couldn’t see who was in it.
“The King,” by the way, is Elvis. In case you haven’t guessed. As far as I’m concerned, the King rules.
I know I should say ruled. Most people believe Elvis is dead. But not everyone. I’ve read about so many Elvis sightings in the tabloids while waiting in the supermarket checkout line. I ask you, can they all be wrong?
Sure they can. But it’s fun to think they’re right.
On the way down to Memphis, I presented my case to everyone in the RV. Jessi was still skeptical, and I could tell Watson and Mrs. Brewer were just tolerating me, but I was working on Mallory.
The little ones — David Michael, Karen, and Andrew — were with me all the way.
Now, early in the morning (after a night at a campsite and breakfast at a diner), we were heading straight for THE PLACE. The number-one most important stop of the trip: Elvis’s estate, Graceland.
Well, not all of us. Watson announced that he and Mrs. Brewer needed “time off.” He agreed to drop us kids at Graceland while they went to take a tour of a World War II bomber. (Hey, there’s no accounting for taste.)
Why do I love Elvis so much? He’s retro. He’s cool. His voice is amazing. And those eyes! That smile! (Forget about those pictures of him as a fat, middle-aged guy in a white leisure suit. Look at the film clips of him when he was starting out. Whoa.)
Anyway, at the diner that morning, I had picked up lots of Graceland brochures. That was when I found out about Elvis Week.
“What’s a candlelight vye gill?” David Michael asked, looking up from one of the brochures.
I turned away from the window. “Vigil. It happens on the night of August fifteenth, during Elvis Week. People march with candles past his grave, to commemorate the day he died.”
“But we just saw him!” Karen insisted.
Andrew’s face was pale. “He was a skeleton, driving the car?”
“No, he was alive,” Karen insisted. “Really. He looked just like the picture.”
“He’s a ghost?” Andrew whimpered.
“Uh, kids, can we drop the subject?” Mrs. Brewer asked.
“‘There are almost five hundred Elvis fan clubs worldwide,’” Karen read. “‘If you put all of Elvis’s albums ever sold end to end, they would circle the earth twice….’”
We heard Elvis trivia all the way to the entrance of Graceland.
I was amazed when I saw the place up close. It’s huge. It makes Kristy’s mansion look like a pup tent.
And people were lined up around the block to get in.
“Are they giving away free burgers?” Watson joked.
“Good thing we made reservations,” I said.
“It’s only a dumb house,” David Michael remarked. “Can’t we see the bomber instead?”
Watson said a quick no to that suggestion. “We’ll pick you up at one o’clock, in the parking lot of the mall across the street. If you’re done early, have lunch there.”
He let us out near the end of the line and drove off.
About an hour later, we were inside. Breathing the same air Elvis had breathed. Walking on the same carpet.
We took a guided tour and then wandered on our own. Frankly, Elvis’s taste was pretty gaudy. I thought the jungle decor in his den was a little strange, but I did like the hall decorated floor to ceiling with gold records.
Jessi and Mallory liked it, too. And David Michael walked around singing “Jailhouse Rock” at the top of his lungs. But Karen lost interest, and Andrew started whining with hunger pains.
As we left, I glanced at my watch. It was 12:20.
“We have half an hour,” I announced. “How about lunch?”
“YEAAAA!” It was unanimous. We were off to the mall across the street from Graceland.
Except Karen. She was standing still, looking back toward the mansion.
“There it is again!” she cried out.
I turned. A pink Cadillac was driving slowly away from Graceland. The same one we had seen on the way in.
“Hold up, guys!” I said.
David Michael let out a loud sigh. “A yucky pink car. So?”
The Cadillac circled the grounds. It came to a stop outside a motel near the shopping center. The door opened, and out climbed the driver.
My jaw dropped so fast it nearly hit the sidewalk.
It was HIM.
The King himself.
His hair was jet black and moussed back on the sides. He was thick around the middle — okay, fat — and was wearing a white, rhinestone-studded jumpsuit, with matching wraparound sunglasses.
He took a large box out of the backseat of his car. Walking briskly with it toward the motel, he glanced our way.
He flashed a smile. Well, more like a half smile with a curled upper lip.
I froze. I’d seen that smile a million times, in photos and movies. Pure Elvis.
“He saw us!” Karen exclaimed.
“He looks just like Elvers,” Andrew remarked.
“Too old and fat,” David Michael said.
“He was chubby in those photos before he died,” I spoke up. “Or supposedly died. That was in nineteen seventy-seven.”
“So he is a ghost!” Andrew exclaimed.
“Some people say he’s still alive,” Mallory said, “but he wants people to think he’s dead.”
“Why?” David Michael asked.
“So he can have his privacy,” Karen explained.
Andrew looked confused. “Can’t he just close the bathroom door?”
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Andrew’s hand. “Let’s see where he’s going.”
“This is ridiculous,” Jessi said.
Jessi was outnumbered. We all scurried to the corner and crossed the street. The side of the motel came into view. Elvis was standing in the shadow of the building, lowering his box to the ground.
He knocked on the nearest door. It opened a moment later, and Elvis picked up the box and walked in.
“Why is he staying there?” Karen asked.
“Maybe he’s delivering something to his neighbors,” Mallory said. “Remember what the tour guide said? Elvis always gave stuff freely to friends and family and poor people.”
“I don’t believe this,” Jessi murmured.
“Let’s knock on the door!” David Michael suggested.
“That’s silly,” Karen said. “Besides, if he’s just delivering something, he’ll come out anyway.”
We were inching toward the Cadillac. “What if he does come out?” Jessi whispered. “What are we going to do?”
Click!
The motel door flew open again. My legs locked.
Out came Elvis. Behind him was another man.
This one had slicked-back black hair, too. But he was younger and thinner, and he wore a fifties-style jacket.
Behind him was … another Elvis, carrying a guitar case.
And another.
Last of all was a balding man in a business suit, with a stack of flyers. He smiled and handed a flyer and a business card to me. “Hi, there! Come see us!”
Jessi, Mallory, David Michael, Karen, and Andrew all gathered around as I read aloud the words on the flyer: “‘Elvis International Impersonator Contest, August 11–14 …’”
“Still alive, huh?” Jessi said, raising an eyebrow.
“He was a fake?” David Michael asked.
“Well, uh, yeah,” I said. “I mean, I never really believed he was alive.”
Which was true. Sort of.
Jessi started howling. David Michael joined her. Then Mallory and Karen and Andrew.
As for me? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Okay, so the King is dead.
That doesn’t mean you have to stop looking.
“Hi, Grandma!” I said into the pay phone.
“Mary Anne, dear! How lovely to hear your voice,” my grandmother replied. “Where are you?”
I was standing in a phone bank in a place called the Woodfield Mall. Stacey had heard someone talking about it when we were in Water Tower Place in Chicago.
This mall looked a lot like the other mall, except bigger.
Frankly, I was growing tired of malls. Ballparks, too. I couldn’t wait for a nice, quiet visit to Maynard.
“I’m in Shaumberg, Illinois,” I said. “I wanted to call to tell you we’re going to be a day late. There was so much to do in Chicago that we stayed an extra day. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh, that’s just as well, dear,” Grandma said. “The painters are still working on the house. It’s a dreadful mess. In fact, I was thinking of meeting you at a restaurant. Although the restaurants in Maynard may not seem so wonderful compared to Chicago. So when will you be here?”
“Well, first my friend Kristy wants to see the Milwaukee Brewers’ baseball stadium — Brewer is her stepfamily’s name — and then the stadium in Minneapolis?—”
“The Metrodome? Terrific. You know, your grandfather was a Twins fan. We saw many a game there.”
“Well, don’t worry, we’re only stopping long enough for Kristy to buy a baseball cap. Then we’re going straight to Maynard.”
“No,” Grandma said abruptly.
“No?”
“No. Let me meet you in Minneapolis. This is your vacation, Mary Anne. Why should you go all the way north to Minnesota then rush all the way down to Iowa?”
“Well … isn’t it out of the way for you?”
Grandma chuckled. “A few hours in a car doesn’t faze us Midwesterners, Mary Anne. Besides, my house is a shambles, and I need a good excuse to get away. Now, where could we meet that you all might enjoy?”
“Well, I don’t know the city….”
“I know the perfect place! You’ll just love it! It’s in Bloomington, just outside the city. Do you think your driver would make the trip?”
“Sure!” It would be so much fun to visit an out-of-the-way place that someone actually knew!
“It’s called the Mall of America,” Grandma continued. “Meet me at the entrance to Camp Snoopy.”
I could feel the blood draining from my face. “A mall?”
“The biggest and best you’ve ever seen.”
I swallowed. Suddenly the sights and sounds of the Woodfield Mall were crowding in on me. I watched a little boy throw a temper tantrum outside an ice-cream store. Through the speakers I could hear the dreadful Muzak version of an old Madonna song. I wanted to scream.
“Okay, Grandma,” I said. “We’re supposed to arrive in Minnesota the day after tomorrow. I’ll call with an exact time.”
“I can’t wait!”
“Me, neither.”
I hung up.
I felt awful.
Why couldn’t I have insisted on going to Maynard? How selfish of me to make her travel all the way to Minneapolis, just to go to a mall.
It was her suggestion, I told myself. Maybe she had a good reason. Besides, I should be grateful and happy that I was seeing her at all.
I bought absolutely nothing at the Woodfield Mall. Stacey and Claudia were pretty restrained, too — mainly because Mr. Schafer told them the RV had no more room.
On the ride to Wisconsin, the RV was very quiet. Stacey and Claudia weren’t talking to each other. Kristy, Dawn, Jeff, and I played a low-energy card game the whole way.
After awhile, Mr. Schafer began cracking jokes and trying to start sing-alongs.
That was about the last thing I wanted. As far as I was concerned, that just added to the tension.
Now, I don’t mean to be a spoilsport. I know Mr. Schafer meant well. And I appreciated how patient and fle
xible he was. I’m sure it’s not easy to be the only grown-up in an RV full of kids.
But Mr. Schafer is one of those adults who likes to say teasing things — about the East Coast, for instance, or about Stoneybrook. Or about my dad.
I thought I knew Mr. Schafer pretty well. I was a bridesmaid in his wedding. Back then, Jeff was going through a stand-up comedian phase. He couldn’t stop joking, even after everyone’s patience faded.
Now I knew where that came from.
I do have a sense of humor. I can laugh about myself just fine. But Mr. Schafer was going overboard, just like Jeff. I couldn’t help wondering why. Was he mad at Sharon for marrying Dad? Was he mad at me?
Ease up, I kept telling myself. It’s just the pressure of the long trip.
We stayed overnight in Milwaukee, because Kristy wanted to see a Brewers game. Outside the stadium, Dawn began lecturing a vendor who was serving bratwurst (“stuffed animal entrails,” she called it).
We spent Friday exploring the city, then drove straight to an RV park in the woods of Minnesota. On Saturday we headed straight for Bloomington — and the Mall of America.
What was it like? Pretty cool, actually. Camp Snoopy is an amusement park in the center of the mall. It has rides and a roller coaster.
We were half an hour late, but Grandma was waiting patiently by the Camp Snoopy entrance.
“Hiiiii!” I cried out, running into her arms.
“My baby!” Grandma said.
We hugged and hugged. All my strange, tense feelings that had built up during the trip were flying away.
I introduced everyone. The first thing Grandma asked was, “Lunch first, or rides?”
The rides won out. We went on the roller coaster and the Ferris wheel and the Mystery Mine Ride. We even rode the train. It was a blast.
Well, I guess there are malls and there are malls.
After awhile, we were starving. Dawn led us all to — what else? — a health food restaurant. She made us order food we’d never heard of. I had “succulent sauteed seitan cutlets.” Seitan is wheat gluten. It’s supposed to taste like steak.
It doesn’t.
I must have made a face while I was eating the seitan, because Mr. Schafer laughed at me. “Used to that heavy red-meat diet, huh?” he asked.