A Kiss From Elvis

He is wearing his white jumpsuit; the one with the cape and the rhinestones and the split down his chest. He is more handsome in real life than I could have possibly imagined. Our table is not one of the ones right by the stage, but we are near enough that I can see his smile, see his cheek dimple and see the sheen of sweat on his skin. Yes, Elvis is in the building and so am I. I can’t believe it. I can’t stop smiling. Jimmy thinks that it is him and this hotel and being in Vegas that make me smile and it is, but it is also Elvis. It is mostly Elvis. Jimmy is smiling too because he has done this, he has brought me here with the Barrowmans, Bob and Sue-Ann. He has let himself drink a Jim Beam bourbon and smoke one of Mr Barrowman’s cigars. Now that dinner is over he is relaxed. I asked Mrs B.., I mean Sue-Ann, about her children and the museum (she is a patron) and she prattled on pretty much all evening, until Elvis came on stage.

Elvis has sung for us and he is so funny and handsome and is more than I had imagined him to be, which seems impossible because I have imagined him a lot. He is singing Suspicious Minds but something is happening. Suddenly there seem to be women queuing up along the stage and he is kissing them. He has stopped singing and although the band is still playing, he is working his way along the line actually kissing the women, his lips on their cheeks, on their lips. A kiss from Elvis.

I am not the only one who can’t believe it. There are gasps and titters from the audience that is still seated. Elvis seems to know this, he is laughing too but the girls aren’t aware of anything but him. Some of them aren’t that young either.

Could I kiss him? Could I have a kiss from Elvis? With a flush of guilt I think about Pricilla, is this why she divorced him? I flush again when I realise that I only think of Jimmy and what he would think second.

It is the turn of a beautiful woman next. She is blond. She has dressed her hair with diamond pins and her dress is a sheath of sky blue. Perhaps Elvis will fall in love with her. Would Elvis fall in love with me? Lots of boys liked me back home and I’m the one that got Jimmy. Jimmy is good looking, not like Elvis but still a good catch, everyone knows that. He has a car and a good job working for Mr Barrowman and his parents holiday in Lake Tahoe. I know for a fact that Tammy Bishop cried for two days when our engagement was announced. I look at Jimmy, sitting as he has since we finished our meal, his chair pushed back slightly from the table, his legs crossed, a foot tapping in time to the music , his cigar between two fingers of his right hand and his left hand lays protectively over mine on the table.

I catch sight of a man at the next table roll his eyes in a kind of mock exasperation and nod with an indulgent smile at the woman sat next to him. She jumps up and joins the queue. She must be forty if she is a day and I bet that is the quickest she has moved in a long time. The man and his companions all laugh, I think they are thinking ‘silly women’ but I can’t be sure. They quickly return to their drinks and each other, not even her man’s eyes follow her. How could he let her go so easily? How will she feel tomorrow or next week when Elvis’s spittle has long since dried and she is left lying next to a man who let her go so easily?

I look at Jimmy, he is steadfastly looking ahead at the stage, his hand still protectively on mine. We are not married yet, do I need his permission to go up and join the queue for a kiss from Elvis? I don’t strictly need his permission. Shall I leap up and finally kiss those lips; lips I’ve kissed a thousand times in dreams and in my room with the door shut and no one to see me kiss those pictures. But what if I got there and he didn’t want to kiss me? What if he said no to me? And Jimmy wouldn’t like it. How would I get home? What about our wedding? What would the Barrowmans think and how soon would it be before Tammy Bishop wheedled her way towards Jimmy, promising that she would never kiss another, even if it was Elvis.

The queue is getting shorter and the music seems to be winding up. One woman makes a final dash for the front and more people laugh at her. Jimmy tuts, “does she have no respect” he says to the room because he still will not turn his head towards me afraid to read my eyes. I don’t know whether he means respect for herself, for the man she is with or for Elvis. Maybe he means all three. Maybe none of them have any respect for themselves or maybe they are all just having fun, I can no longer tell. I have sat and thought about this for too long. Women are coming back to their tables now, having snatched their kiss from Elvis. Some are in love, some are defiant, some embarrassed, some finding the whole thing a hoot and carry straight back on to their drinks and cigarettes as if this always happened. It is just a kiss. But when is a kiss not a kiss? When it means too much to a person. When they will think about it again and again. When they will watch it again and again in the movie in their mind. When it becomes the key to an imaginary world that they will never visit for real, and they will spend too much time dreaming about what ifs and not enough time living. I move my hand from beneath Jimmy’s and finally he turns to me. I am pleased to see hurt in his eyes, he does not want me to kiss Elvis. Fear turns to relief when he realises I needed my hand back to join in the applause ringing around the room. And then I put my hand back on the table ready for him to cover if he wants and Elvis, kisses forgotten, sings on.