Sources of Light by Margaret McMullan Read Free Book Online

showed us her most prized possession: a Doublemint chewing gum wrapper signed by Elvis, framed in a gold-colored frame. Mary Alice said that two summers ago her daddy heard that Elvis was back home in Tupelo and the McLemores had a cousin who lived there, and that McLemore cousin called over to the one hotel in town and said, "What room is Elvis staying in?" When the cousin went over to the hotel, there were two white Cadillacs parked out front with I LOVE YOU in red lipstick covering the cars. A real pretty blond woman came to the door and said, "Would you like an autograph?" All that McLemore cousin had was a gum wrapper. And when Elvis himself came to the door, he signed it. Elvis signed Mary Alice McLemore's cousin's Doublemint chewing gum wrapper, and that little gum wrapper is what got Mary Alice hooked on celebrity signatures.
    "How do we know you're not making all that up?" one girl asked. "How do we know Elvis signed it and not you?"
    "Because he did and I don't lie and you're just going to have to believe me."
    I stared at Mary Alice then, watching her every move. I would never be one of those girls who screamed at the way Elvis moved when he sang, only because I was too shy, not because he didn't do me the same way. But if I had a chewing gum wrapper signed by Elvis Presley, I would have said a lot of other stuff to defend it. Mary Alice only said what she said, and you had to admire that.
    We spent the rest of the night painting one another's fingernails, a luxury my mother had never allowed. I could hear the wind outside blowing and laughing, trying to tell me something, warn me maybe. I thought of the cicadas already buried deep in the soil, sleeping, maybe getting geared up to come out again in seven years. All the other girls were still so chatty on the floor in sleeping bags and pallets, which was good, because all I had to do was listen to their voices until I fell asleep while outside the last of the cicadas hummed.

CHAPTER 4
    T HE FOLLOWING MORNING at Mary Alice's house, we ate breakfast in a glassed-in patio the McLemores called their Florida breakfast room, because that's where they had breakfast. I couldn't imagine having a room just for one meal. We drank instant Tang, and they could even afford grapefruit juice in a can.
    I thought of how Mrs. McLemore must have seen her life, as if she were in some TV commercial:
Mrs. Jack P. McLemore enjoys making breakfasts in their sunny Florida room.
"There are plenty of outlets and it's more relaxing here," she told us, as if she were addressing her fans. She fried up a mess of sausages and pancakes in an electric skillet on their glass coffee table. Still, it was nice that she went to so much trouble just for us girls. I'd never seen a mother do so much for her daughter.
    Mary Alice's father and Stone took their breakfasts in the kitchen because, I guessed, they didn't want to eat with all us girls. I peeked in at them while they were both reading the morning paper, talking to each other in low, serious voices about world events. Mr. McLemore looked up and said good morning. Then out of nowhere, he said, "I understand your mama is a school person and your daddy was a war hero. He was from a fine family, your daddy was." The way Mr. McLemore said this made me both proud and uncomfortable. For some reason he singled me out and I didn't like being singled out for anything.
    "We always have pancakes on Saturdays," Mary Alice told us girls back at the table. She said she also got to watch
Lawrence Welk, Gunsmoke, Bonanza,
and anything with Jim Nabors while she ate her dinner. My mother occasionally let me watch Hallmark or Disney specials, but I didn't tell anyone this. I ate up. My mother never made me pancakes on any day.
    ***
    My mother didn't even ask me about Mary Alice's birthday party when she came to pick me up an hour later. She hurried out of the car and ran up the walkway while most of the other mothers sauntered and chatted leisurely with Mary Alice's