Leslie Gentile - Elvis, Me, and the Lemonade Stand Summer

T he summer Elvis came into my life he drove right up to my lemonade stand in a Volkswagen a gold-colored Sun Bug Super Beetle. And nothing was ever the same after that.

Okay, so it might not have been the real Elvis. After all, it had been widely reported that he had been dead for almost a year. But then, you never really know for sure, right? A lot of magazines and newspapers at the Food Mart checkout claimed that he was still alive, and every once in a while, he was photographed hanging out in places like laundromats. So it was entirely possible that he had pulled up to my lemonade stand in a gold Sun Bug.

And this guy sure looked like Elvis. Sounded like him. And acted like him. Or how I imagined Elvis would act, if he got to live like a normal person and showed up for a glass of lemonade at a stand in front of a run-down trailer park on an Indian reserve.

So heres how the summer started. Andy El insisted that I set up a lemonade stand on the side of the road in front of our trailer park. She hauled out an old piece of plywood and set it up on some rickety old sawhorses that shed found lying out in the junk pile behind the shed beside her trailer. It looked pretty bad, even to Andy El, who is always so darned positive about everything, so she covered it with an old tablecloth she didnt mind me using outdoors.

Which is how I ended up with a Christmas tablecloth with dancing snowmen on it to cover my lemonade stand. Years before, someone had embroidered Have a Cool Yule Yall! in green thread along the frayed edges. And while it was festive, it did not exactly scream lemonade stand.

Andy El had even invested in six cans of lemonade to get me started, let me borrow her blue plastic juice jug and some mismatched plastic glasses, and provided ice cubes from the metal tray in the old fridge she kept out on her back porch. So I really didnt have much choice in the end. I tried to tell her that at eleven years old I was way too old for running a lemonade stand, but she just smiled, ignored my complaints, and kept setting it up.

Her name is really Ella Charlie, and she owns the trailer park. When I was little, just learning to walk around on the uneven ground in the trailer park, I heard all her relatives calling her Auntie Ella. I thought they were saying Andy El. Somehow the name caught on, and now everyone, even her family, calls her that. Even her grown nephew Raymond and her daughter Esther, although sometimes they call her Mama.

Andy El is Coast Salish. Clarice my mom is white, but I know that my dad is an Indian. Clarice has never bothered to tell me anything about him, so this is just guesswork on my part. As a natural blonde, Clarice sunburns easily and has fine,delicate features, as she likes to say. I have darker skin and hair, am short and a bit stocky. So I figure I must take after my dad, and the only thing I know about him is that he must be Native.

Anyways. Andy El is the nicest, kindest person Ive ever met, and is always cheerful. She sees the best in people. She also keeps an eye out for me, and shes always been someone I could count on ever since my mom and I moved in to the trailer park. Which is a good thing, because one thing Clarice cannot be called is maternal.

So, Day One of the lemonade stand, and there I was, miserable, bored, sitting in the hot sun at my stand, watching the ice melt in the jug of lemonade on the rickety, makeshift table in front of me.

No one will stop. No one ever drives down this road, I told myself.

Just then, to prove me wrong, that Volkswagen Sun Bug turned at the four-way stop and headed toward me. That stretch of road ran flat and straight, so I sat and watched the Sun Bugs progress as it made its way down toward Eagle Shores. I held my breath and watched as the gold car approached, slowed, and stopped in front of my table.

Now Ill never hear the end of it from Andy El, I thought. I had tried to tell her that it wouldnt work out, because one thing I knew about life for sure nothing ever worked out for me. But shed cheerfully insisted and had finally worn me down.

You need something to do this summer. Itll be fun, youll see, shed said as she kept setting things up. You can earn some money for yourself. Save up for something special, maybe.

And here I was, with my first customer driving up in a Volkswagen Beetle.

The car stopped, the drivers door opened, and out he stepped. It was the King. Elvis Presley. With aviator sunglasses, black hair, big sideburns, and all.

He stretched as though hed been stuck behind the wheel of that Bug for hours, then looked down at me and smiled.

How much? he asked in a quiet drawl.

I just sat there and stared stupidly at him. He took off

his sunglasses and smiled at me with the bluest eyes I have ever seen.

How much? For a glass of lemonade? he asked again. Polite, like all the magazines said he was.

I just pointed to the sign, which read: Lemonaid 10 cents.

I had half-heartedly made the sign that morning. It was only after Id opened the can of lemonade and read the label that I discovered that Id spelled it wrong. Up until now I hadnt cared. I didnt think that anyone would stop at my stand, much less notice my misspelled sign. Not this far off the beaten track, down an unpaved road that led past a couple of ramshackle fruit farms and ended at the Eagle Shores Trailer Park. On the edge of the Eagle Shores Indian Reserve.