Back home in Memphis for Christmas 1955, the world feels different. The newspapers are still full of the bus boycotts beginning down in Montgomery, and the air is uneasy, watchful. I write a cheque to the local branch of the NAACP and drive it over in person to Hosea Lockard’s office, intending to thank him for what he’s doing for humanity.
In my opinion, it goes badly.
Mr Lockard is clearly an intellectual giant compared with me; I stumble over my words, acutely conscious of myself and what I represent to him. I cut the visit short, not wanting to waste his time. I tell him I’d like to help in any way he deems useful, then retreat, wishing him and his family a happy Christmas, a gesture that feels suddenly absurd.
Driving away, I’m overtaken by a new kind of shame: the realisation that decency is not absolution, and that my whiteness has been an inheritance of silence. For the first time I see how comfort itself is a form of complicity.
Perhaps self-awareness only comes when the illusion of innocence becomes impossible to maintain.
I tell myself I want to be a responsible citizen of the world now, to lend whatever voice I have to something bigger than myself. Miss Mary calls it admirable but advises focus, better one cause followed deeply than ten in passing. She may be right.
***
“It’s time I got a new car,” I tell Miss Mary. She agrees, after all, I gave my old one to the boy a year ago.
I rush down to Beale Street Cadillac and order a 1956 Eldorado Biarritz on early release, in lipstick red.
“Go big or go home,” I say as I sign the cheque. The salesman promises delivery within the week. I ask him to put a rush on it, tomorrow morning, if possible.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says.
When the boy comes home from tour and drops by, he finds the Cadillac sitting in the drive, chrome glinting in the winter sun. He whistles, circling it.
“Hot damn,” he says. “Can I drive it?”
“Sure thing, pretty baby,” I tell him, tossing him the keys.
We take it for a spin, stopping by his parents’ new rented house. Everything feels, briefly, as it used to, easy, suspended.
***
I’m on the phone with Topper, who’s calling from his family’s home in New York to wish me a merry Christmas and check if his presents have arrived.
When I hang up, the boy asks, “What’s goin’ on with the Ivy League ra-ra boy?”
He’s clearly jealous, though trying not to show it.
“He sends his regards,” I say, sitting down at the kitchen table where he’s been chatting with Miss Mary.
Miss Mary rinses her coffee cup and sets it in the sink.
“See you kids later,” she says. “Need anything from the store?”
We both shake our heads.
The boy watches her leave, then turns back to me.
“Does he really know about us?”
“He sure does,” I say, kissing him on the cheek.
“And he ain’t angry?” he asks. “That’s crazy.”
“I know. It’s mad. I don’t get it either.” I pour myself a coffee and top up his cup.
“How’s that even possible?” he says. “I mean, I gotta live with you havin’ a life, but only ’cause I couldn’t possibly ask you to sit around waitin’ for me, not the way things are. But if life was different…”
He takes my hand.
“…I wouldn’t let you outta my sight.”
“I know,” I say. “Same. I don’t know how he deals with it, really. I don’t lie to Topper, and I don’t withhold anything if he asks. And I can assure you, we are not in an open relationship.”
The boy frowns. Something in that last sentence has triggered him.
“But does he know I’m your one true love?” he asks, completely serious.
I smile but keep my eyes steady. “I honestly don’t know.”
“I mean, you and me, this whole thing. It just calls for a different approach, that’s all. I know I’ll always love you. You’ll always love me.” I say.
“Yes,” he says, “we belong together.”
“But this guy, what does he get out of it? How does he see the situation?”
He shifts, restless.
I tell him what Topper once said:
“I live with your relationship with this friend of yours, because if I don’t, we’ll be three unhappy people, you, me, and the boy.”
The boy looks shocked, “What?”
“He means that if he doesn’t respect the bond we have, it’ll just lead to heartbreak all around.”
The boy shakes his head, baffled.
“Jesus,” he mutters. “Imagine that.”
“I honestly think he sees it differently,” I say. We sit in silence for a few moments.
“Who would you choose,” the boy asks suddenly, “if you had to choose one of us?”
I look at him. “I might ask you the same thing,” I snap. “Who would you choose, all the girls on the road, or little old me?”
“You. For sure, you.” He grins. “And you’re neither little nor old.”
He says it so fast I can’t help smiling. But he doesn’t let it go.
He asks again, softer this time, but more pressure behind it.
“You,” I say matter-of-factly. “Obviously. It’s always been you. I can’t escape you. I can’t erase you. And I can’t stay away.”
He grins. “Same. It’s crazy, this business of you and me. I’ve never been able to work it out. It’s too big, too all-encompassin’ and profound to understand completely.”
Then he takes my hand and leads me upstairs to my room.
“Let’s take the afternoon off,” he says. “Put on some records, and just be.”
***
The boy tells me about his new manager, Colonel Parker. Says things are going to get crazy real soon. Parker’s bought him out of his contract with Sam Phillips and negotiated a real deal with RCA Victor.
“Oh my God!” I say. “That’s wild.”
“I know,” he says. “Are you ready for things to take off?”
“Me?” I laugh. “This isn’t about me, it’s about you. Are you ready for nationwide fame?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. I hope so.”
He pauses. “I’m kinda sad to leave Mr Phillips.”
“I hear you,” I say. “I find him and Miss Keisker so inspiring, creative, kind.”
“They’ve done a lot for me.” He agrees.
***
We go down to Beale Street to watch B. B. King play. It’s wonderful, we’re both wild about him. We sit in the back where no one can see us; we don’t want to upset any of the coloured punters by our very white presence.
The boy, who’s not used to alcohol, has a couple of drinks. He makes me laugh, gets a little rowdy, very silly. It’s only when he starts getting moody that I ask him, gently, to stop drinking.
On the way home, he turns sentimental, melodramatic. He keeps calling me the sun to his moon and his North Star, and says he won’t like it one bit if I ever leave him again.
Head out the window, sobbing, he yells, “This is why I don’t drink!”
“Take it easy,” I laugh.
Back home, we listen to more rhythm and blues and dance around my bedroom to My Babe. He’s in the mood to talk all night.
***
This is the last Christmas we spend together before the boy goes stratospheric. And I’m not sure he’s ready for it, or if I am.
It’s also our last New Year’s before officially becoming adults, his twenty-first birthday’s just around the corner. So I go to Lansky’s and buy everything Mr Lansky says he’s been wanting to try on. I have it all wrapped for his big day, which I host at my house.
Miss Mary prepares all his favourite dishes.
“That boy has the palate of a child,” she says, going through his handwritten list. “Are you sure he doesn’t want me to make something more flavourful and interesting?”
I shake my head. “No, Miss Mary, I’m sure. It’s hopeless trying to teach that old dog new tricks.”
She thinks we should at least try, and I leave her to plan it with Mrs P. I stay out of it. I know how stubborn he is.
***
“Maybe you two should get a move on?” I say, surly and sharp.
We’re leaving the Hayride to fly back home to Memphis so the boy can celebrate turning twenty-one. I’m here at his insistence, he got needy at the last minute, said he couldn’t sleep without me, and I caved. Red’s here too, and they’re both being ridiculous, laughing at nothing, teasing each other like overgrown, overtired toddlers.
And suddenly, it hits me: I’ve outgrown going on the road with the boy.
“I don’t want to babysit grown-ass men,” I mutter, but they just laugh. The boy pulls me in, wraps an arm around my shoulder, kisses me mid-complaint to shut me up.
“You little sourpuss,” he grins, then he’s off, running to the cab, flinging open the door for me like it’s all a game.
***
We arrive in Memphis in the early hours of his birthday.
“I know what I want for my birthday,” he says, crawling under the covers and flashing that grin that gets me every time.
I’m not tired, not even a little.
So, “Yes, siree!” I tell him, giving him a proper jump-start to his twenty-second year.
***
I wake before him.
He’s asleep beside me, one arm sprawled over the covers, face soft with dreams. I lie there quietly, just watching him.
He’s grown into the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, truly. It’s almost obscene. He was always cute, adorable, even, but now? Jesus Christ. He’s unreal.
It might be the confidence, the crowds screaming for him night after night. Or maybe it’s the way he’s stepping into himself, becoming this magnetic, unstoppable performer. He’s building something, someone, I’ve never seen before.
And I’ve loved him since day one. That love has stayed steady. But now he’s changing so fast it makes my chest ache. New layers of him show up every day, like he’s blooming at a speed I can’t follow.
And for the first time in all our years together, I’m afraid I’ll lose him, not when he had other girls, not when he was too distracted or too busy. But now. Because now I’m afraid he’ll outgrow me. That this bright, blinding path he’s on will lead him somewhere I can’t go. That I’ll be left behind, in the dust, a relic to the boy he used to be.
I stare at him sleeping in my room, in my big white house down South, and I hope I never forget this moment: him like this, young, glorious, mine, for now.
When he finally stirs, I’ve already laid out his presents and brought him breakfast in bed.
“Happy birthday, baby!” I sing, crawling on top of him, kissing his warm face. “Welcome to twenty-one!”
My World of Interiors 