At the last minute, I decide to go home for my birthday. I tell Topper I miss Miss Mary, which is true enough. He says he understands.
“I think you should go alone,” he says. “I think you need quality time down there, and not have to entertain me.”
He’s standing by the desk, facing the window overlooking the beach. I walk up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “I would love to have you come with me. Honestly,” I tell him, and I mean it.
“Thank you, baby,” he says. “But really, you go, you have fun, and come back to me happy.”
“I am happy,” I half-ask.
I look at his beautiful, young, wise, clean face and fall in love with him again, like I do three times a day. I brush a lock of hair from his brow, admiring the sprinkle of freckles across his nose, those deep-set ocean-blue eyes.
“You really are perfect,” I hear myself say.
He grins and hugs me. “And I love you because you’re not,” he says. “You’re a real, unapologetic human being.
“Now, go get changed for dinner. I’m taking you out.”
I walk backwards, bowing. “Why, thank you, kind sir,” I say.
***
We talk about the future at The White Horse Tavern. I have an internship with the decorator John Elgin Woolf in Los Angeles after the holidays, set up by Cary, while Topper has agreed to work for his grandfather in New York and commute out to see me when he can get time off.
“We’ll be fine,” he assures me. “We’ve survived worse.”
“It’s only until Christmas,” I agree.
“You’ll learn so much,” Topper smiles. “I’m proud of you. You’ll do so well.”
I smile and drink my coffee.
Topper spots someone he knows behind me and gets up to greet them. I turn and see Jack and Jackie. They walk over to our table, and Jack asks if they can join us, they’ve been visiting with Eisenhower, they say.
“Of course,” I say, standing to greet them.
“There’s something I’d like to discuss with you,” Jack glances to Topper.
“Why, of course,” Topper says, gesturing for them to sit.
“Not here,” Jack says. “I’ll drop by the house tomorrow and discuss it in private.” He smiles at Jackie, then at me. “I don’t want the whole restaurant to hear this,” he says. “It’s not a secret between us friends,” he adds, smiling again before putting his arm behind Jackie’s back. “Anyway, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”
The men have cigars, which is such a gruesome smell that I tell Topper on the way back I hope he never develops a taste for them. He laughs and promises he never will.
“It’s just something that old boys do,” he says.
***
I head back to Memphis the following morning. I kiss Topper goodbye and ask him to call and tell me about Jack’s business with him later on.
“Of course I will.” He kisses me. “Let me know when you’re home safely,” he says.
The first thing I do when I get to Memphis is drive over to see the boy at his new house. Miss Mary comes with me. As we arrive through the gate, he comes running towards the car, hollering,
“Well, if it ain’t the Queen of England!”—all in reference to the engagement notice in The Times.
I hide in shame. “Shut it,” I tell him. “Please don’t.”
He laughs. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you was practically royalty?” he asks once we’re inside.
“I’m not. I’m just a lady,” I say, cringing. Even saying that mortifies me.
He grins and mocks, “Ooooh, just a lay-dee!” Then his tone shifts, serious now. “You ought to have told me, honey. I don’t much care for us havin’ secrets.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I never found it important.”
He snorts. “Aw, that’s a load of bull. But I forgive you.”
“I am so proud of you, boy,” Miss Mary tells him, squeezing his cheeks. “You and Miss Birdie have matching mansions now.” She laughs.
We’re greeted by Mrs P, who comes out with Mr P in tow.
“If only they’d saved the money and made do with just one,” Mrs P says, coughing. “I’d have been happier if these two had worked it out, got married, and been startin’ a family by now,” she says, setting the table for an afternoon tête-à-tête in the new dining room at Graceland.
Mr P excuses himself, saying he has work to do out back, but we all know he just wants to be somewhere without women talking.
The boy smiles. “Alright, Daddy.” He glances over at Mrs P. “If only life had worked out the way Mamma wanted it.” He winks. “I’d be firmly under Miss Birdie’s thumb, just a poor fella with nothin’ to do but say yes, ma’am. Now that wouldn’t do at all, would it, Mamma?”
She sighs. She looks tired, bloated, her eyes circled by darkness. I worry about her. She pretends she’s fine, but it’s clear she isn’t. She lights up when she talks about the chickens.
“Mamma loves them chickens,” the boy says to me, rolling his eyes but smiling. Then he takes Mrs P’s hand and listens while she tells us stories about the house, the move, and all that’s gone on in Memphis lately.
***
“You’re lookin’ real good,” he says when we’re finally alone in his room.
“Gee, thanks,” I say.
“Summer always did suit you.”
He grins. “Want your birthday present early?”
“Sure.”
He disappears into the office and returns with a small box, tossing it onto the bed.
I open it. A diamond bracelet.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, startled.
“You like it?” His voice is shy, almost boyish. “Is it your taste?”
“Yes,” I say. “Thank you.”
He exhales in relief. “Shoot, I was worried. You’re too high-class for me.”
“If there’s anything I’m not, it’s that.” We chortle.
“There’s an inscription,” he adds, and suddenly turns away. “It’s private. Don’t show it around.”
His face goes bright red. Before I can say anything, he slips back into the office.
I follow and find him shuffling papers, trembling slightly.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask gently. “It’s a lovely gesture.”
He presses a fist to the desk, jaw set. I know the signs: he’s trying to decide which version of himself to be. I place his fist around my waist, it relaxes as he holds me.
“Hey,” I say quietly.
He breaks, burying his face in my hair.
“I’m strung out,” he says, tears coming fast. “I’m sorry, Birdie. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.”
I guide him to the bed, sit him down, take off his shoes. He lets me.
“Will you stay with me a minute?” he asks.
I lie beside him. His breathing slows. He falls asleep. I stay still, staring at the ceiling, listening to the house breathing around us: chickens, cicadas, Mrs P downstairs. Nothing in my life feels more intimate and more wrong at the same time.
Mrs P knocks quietly. She peeks in, sees him asleep, and mouths, thank you.
Back in bed, half-asleep, he pulls me closer by instinct. I lie awake until the air-conditioning hum lulls me under.
***
In the morning, he’s draped over me, one leg across my hip, mouth open. He senses me waking and pulls me in.
“Let’s sleep a bit longer,” he mutters.
I breathe him in, sweat, grass, pool water, and his shoulder twitches when I brush a finger along his ribs.
Then, abruptly, he goes still.
“This is it,” he says. “I ain’t ever lettin’ anybody in like this again.”
“You always say that.”
“I mean it. I can’t be this soft. It’s too hard.”
I open my mouth, but he cuts me off.
“I love bein’ worshipped,” he says. “Not… this.”
I look at him.
“It don’t work for me,” he says. “Only two people get this part of me, you and Mamma. That’s it.”
He sighs.
“That’s why I like Anita. She worships me. I ain’t gotta work. She likes me the way I am.”
“Would you say you’ve worked very hard on us?”
“Yes, baby,” he says. “You always want somethin’ back. That’s fair. But it’s hard.”
He gives a crooked smile.
“If I ever get married, I’m pickin’ somebody younger. Somebody I can shape.”
“You sound awful,” I say.
“It’s the truth. Lovin’ you’s too hard on my heart.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“Never,” he says immediately. “I want you here. Always. Like what I put on that bracelet.”
He kisses me, needy and unbalanced. Then gets up, singing under his breath,
“I got stung by a sweet honey bee…”
He shakes it off, grabs his guitar, starts strumming.
“Fool, fool, fool… that I was to fall for you…”
He shoots me a look. “We could give it another shot, you know. Call it quits with what’s-his-name.”
I shake my head.
He keeps strumming, not looking at me now.
“Fool, fool, fool… what a fool I was to think you could love me too…”
“Let’s go for a drive,” I say.
“Sure,” he says, and the moment breaks.
***
We drive out of town onto the country roads, passing the field where we lost our innocence. As soon as we’re alone on the empty road, we both scream at the top of our lungs, letting out everything that’s been building up. Then we sing, loud and wild, until it feels like some sort of catharsis.
“I love you,” I tell him when he drops me off at my house, and I kiss him.
He grins. “I’ll come by and get you tomorrow.”
He has to go see Anita, who’s been wondering where he’s disappeared to.
“It must be hard, being him,” Miss Mary says as she lets me in and waves at the boy pulling out of the drive. “From obscurity to the most famous man in the whole country.” She shakes her head. “I do worry about him, I surely do.”
She looks at me.
“How was it?”
I hug her. “A mixed bag,” I say, and start to cry.
“Now, now, baby girl. Come on to the kitchen, let’s get you some real food. Let me take care of you.”
“I’m so tired,” I say, slumping at the kitchen table.
***
Before I head back up East, the boy comes round. He wants my help with something.
“Let’s go,” he says, opening the car door for me.
He takes us into a quiet Memphis neighbourhood and pulls up outside a house.
“See those?” He points towards two stone lions on the porch.
I laugh. “Of course. What about them?”
He grins. “You’re a Leo, just had your birthday, didn’t ya?” He gives me a look, half teasing, half proud.
“And?” I prompt.
He laughs. “I’m gonna get ’em for Graceland. So I’ll always have you there remindin’ me.” Before I can answer, he’s already out of the car, striding up to the door. I watch as he points at me, the car, and the lions while talking to the homeowner. After a moment, he shakes the man’s hand and comes running back.
“Done deal,” he says, planting a kiss on my cheek. “They’re comin’ home with us.”
He drives us back, arranges for the lions to be picked up, and soon enough, there they are, one on each side of the front steps at Graceland.
We stand outside with Mr and Mrs P, who both look a little puzzled.
“We’ll have to get used to those,” Mrs P says, shaking her head. Mr P just shrugs, but the boy is beaming.
He turns to me. “Now you’re here too, waitin’ for me every time I come home.”
I scratch my head and laugh.
At the airport, he drops me off and grabs my hand.
“I love you too,” he says. “That’s never gonna change, you hear?”
And with that, he’s gone, out the terminal doors and into the thick late August heat, leaving me to board my plane back north to my fiancé.
My novel GREAT ARE THE MYTHS will be serialised (one chapter each day) over the summer of 2026. If you would rather listen to the audiobook, the full story is available for free on all the usual platforms. Info and links HERE
My World of Interiors 