Free All Shook Up by Shelley Pearsall Page B

would just drop the topic altogether, I pretended to concentrate on how to move a five of diamonds to another spot in my game. But my dad took a long swallow of coffee and said, “Maybe you could hang out with her at school or go to the movies with her or something like that. Just to be nice.”
    “Dad—” I gave him a disgusted look. “Just stop it.”
    I think he got the message. Changing the subject, he began describing how great the show had gone after his costume had arrived. How the bride and groom were completely surprised.
    Note to Dad: I’ll bet they were.
    “They thought they were just getting a little video show with photographs from their families and childhood and that kind of stuff. They didn’t know their friends had hired the King to perform!” my dad said, switching to his Elvis voice. “You shoulda seen the bride’s face when I walked over to her table and sang ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ at the end of the set. Man, I didn’t even screw up the line about how the river flows surely to the sea. I always forget ‘surely,’ but this time”—he snapped his fingers—“perfect.”
    Before he started performing the whole song for me, I figured I would point out the Harpy’s application, which was still sitting on the table. Tugging it out from underneath the salt shaker, I explained how I had seen a great job on my way home from school. “I got off at the wrong stop,” I lied, not wanting to reveal the whole story of the Post-it notes on my locker, “and I was walking past Harpy’s when I saw the sign about needing help in the store. The guy told me they could probably hire you this weekend if you wanted.”
    Dad spent about five seconds skimming the top page and didn’t even turn to the second one, which was the application itself. “Thanks, Josh,” he said, sliding it back across the table, “but I’m having way too much fun with what I’m doing now.” Breaking into a smile, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You know what some old guy told me last night? That I sounded exactly like Elvis. He said if he closed his eyes, he couldn’t tell the difference.”
    I wanted to shout at my dad:
Don’t you get it? I found you a job. A real job. With benefits (whatever that meant). They said they could hire you tomorrow. At least you could give it a little thought instead of going on and on about how much you sound like some old guy’s idea of Elvis.
    Sitting there, I had the strange feeling that my mom had probably been in this same chair once, looking at the same blue-checkered kitchen wallpaper, feeling the same frustration at my dad. I’d heard stories from my mom about how little money they’d had when they were first married. Nobody could break a leg or hit a tree, Mom told me, because they had no cash to fix anything. Sometimes, we still used that saying with each other. “Don’t break a leg or hit a tree,” we’d joke whenever either one of us was going out somewhere.
    I made one last attempt to convince my dad. “Couldn’t you just go in and talk to Harpy and find out what the job is?”
    Dad set his coffee cup on the table and stood up, stretching out his back. “Thanks for thinking of me, Josh, but things are going okay with my Elvis shows. I’m making pretty good money and business is picking up a little each week. The more people hear about me, the more gigs I’ll get.” He smiled confidently. “You’ve got to take chances in this life, Josh. You’ll see. If you want to do what you love, you’ve got to take chances.”

16. Winning and Losing

    There were a lot of similarities between my dad and his neighbor Gladys. Stubbornness, for one. Having visited Gladys several more times with my dad to pick up scarves or check on how she was doing, I had learned you couldn’t convince her to do anything she didn’t want to do. Like eating, for instance. Her stubbornness about eating regular meals and taking care of herself had begun to worry my