Hate to Love You [Elvis]

Chapter 24 - Let's Have a Party

Last Day of filming, and Rich wanted everyone to be there regardless if they had a role in the last scene or not. I had tried to avoid the set in any way possible because of... well, it was obvious. The way I shouted at him in my dressing room made me mortified to even be in the same building as him. I knew I hurt him, and I knew I wanted just the opposite to what I was requesting, but I had to do it. I had to put the plug on the story of Elvis and me.

"At least I was hoping to..." I muttered as I sat in my dressing room, mainly using it as a place to be away from everyone. I had the morning paper sitting on my lap as I sat on the sofa in the small room. There was a new article about me, and it mentioned the popular story of me running off the set after seeing Elvis kiss Jennifer Holden. "'She says she dislikes him, but it is not the truth, considering she ran off in a jealous manner after seeing Elvis kiss another woman, even if it was only acting. Witnesses say he ran after her.' Yeesh..."

Someone knocked on the door, but I didn't answer for a moment. "Sarah?" said a familiar voice, and my heart jumped.

"Come in!"

In came Judy, and she shut the door behind her. Like Nay, if she wasn't one of my best friends, I wouldn't like her because of her beauty. The lavender dress she had on for the scene complemented her hazel eyes, fair skin and brown hair. I looked pretty drab in my white blouse and brown slacks. Judy gave me a friendly smile.

"Hey, are you going to come out to watch the final scene of the film?"

I let out a breath through my nose and stared at the four-paragraph article in front of me, and I stared at my name and Elvis's name next to each other. Even now, it was still odd to see it. "I will... eventually."

She came and sat next to me on my right, and my nose filled with her nice perfume. She glanced at the article, then back at me. "The press is right in their assumptions."

"I know they are, but I'm just going to keep on saying nothing is going on."

"There wouldn't be any other reason for you to run off the set that time."

She was right, and it was irksome that she was. I folded the newspaper and tossed it into the corner of the room, and it fell to the floor. "It's just so annoying."

"According to the press, you're contradicting yourself—saying that you still dislike him, yet you ran off the set in a jealous rage." I said nothing to that, again, knowing she was right. She hooked her arm to mine, and she smiled. "Hey, just don't worry about it right now, okay? Let's get going to the set."

"I want to stay right here. Rich wanted me here for the party, so I'll go to that afterwards, grab a snack, then come right back in here."

"You can't avoid Elvis forever."

Also like Nay, she could figure me out easily. When I went to dinner at her and Greg's rather nice house the day before, after dinner, we chatted about this and that for two hours, and at least ten of those 120 minutes was spent talking about Elvis. She could tell that I didn't want to talk about him, but he came up naturally. He was just everywhere, in the world and in our lives.

"Yeah, I can't escape him," I breathed. "At least until he goes back to Memphis next month. I really can't wait for that."

"I think you're dreading it." I pressed my lips together, and she laughed. "Okay, okay, let's not talk about it anymore, okay? Now c'mon. I have to be on the set in five minutes, and I want you to be there, too. Be a support for me, at least. Hm?"

She leaned in close to my face, and her nose ended up touching my right temple. I giggled. "Okay, okay. For you, not for him."

She grinned that stunning smile of hers with her red lips, and we both got up and left the dressing room. Eventually, and arm-in-arm, we came to the set, and we saw that it was another living room set. It was supposed to be the living room in Vince's home, and it had a black grand piano in the center of it. As we came out and crew people were bustling about on the set and off it, I spotted Elvis as he was talking to Colonel Parker, and he was wearing a deep-red robe, black slacks, and a white shirt under that robe. He spotted me, and I looked away.