Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [168]
After that first visit to her apartment, he came every day, often at odd times, sometimes for meals or talks with the family, and sometimes to take Elisabeth to the movies. Her family felt comfortable with him, and he liked the close, homey atmosphere. When his maneuvers were over, and he was about to return to Bad Nauheim, he gave her parents a 365-day gold clock. Elvis and Elisabeth’s stepfather, Raymond “Mac” McCormick, spent hours putting it together.
It was a calculated gift, of course: He told Elisabeth’s parents he had about fifty duffel bags of fan mail, and he needed a secretary who could read and write both German and English. Elisabeth was perfect for the job, since she had lived in the States for a time and was fluent in both languages. She could stay in her own private room at the Hotel Grunewald, he told them. “I assure you that she will be in good hands with me and my father and grandmother, and we will take full responsibility for her.”
“You think about it,” he said to Elisabeth as he left. “You don’t have to give me an answer now, darlin’. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”
But she didn’t have to think about it, and neither did her parents. Elvis had said her duties would start at the first of the year, but three days later he called and asked how soon she could come. “I can be there in one week,” she told him, and arrived on the train the first part of December. Bad Nauheim was 351 kilometers from Grafenwöhr, or 218 miles, and she’d never been away from her parents for any real length of time, or even taken a train ride that far by herself. It was all a great adventure.
Vernon, Lamar, and Red picked her up at the station and drove her to the Hotel Grunewald, and on the way, Vernon explained that she would be working for him, not Elvis, at a salary of thirty-five dollars a week, paid on Fridays. Minnie Mae would be her foremost companion. The old woman, who perpetually parked a toothpick in the side of her mouth for dipping snuff, was looking forward to some female companionship, and she insisted that the teen call her Grandma. Elisabeth thought she had a grand sense of humor.
“We hit it off that night, and I knew we would be great friends. She accepted me right away like one of the family.”
But Elisabeth wasn’t precisely sure what her relationship was with Elvis, since they’d only kissed in Grafenwöhr. That first evening, he made it clear. He came downstairs to her room and said he would be spending the night with her. Elvis saw a look of worry cross her face and told her not to be concerned, that he didn’t have full intercourse with girls “he was going to see on a regular basis,” because he didn’t want to run the risk of getting her pregnant. “Such a risk would damage his reputation and image,” Elisabeth remembers him saying. “That first night we sort of played around. Over the course of the next weeks and months, I went to bed with him almost every night.”
He called her “Foghorn,” because her voice was so low in the mornings, and she took it as a term of endearment. She worked hard on answering the mail, practicing his signature for a week (though eventually reverting to a rubber stamp), but she also wondered how long she would be on the job, or even if he would continue to be her lover. As she soon learned, “No woman could hold Elvis Presley’s attention for very long.” Only days after her arrival, he took another girl to bed, and after he dispatched Lamar to drive her home, he knocked three times on the wall between their bedrooms, signaling Elisabeth to come to him.
At first she had her reservations about seeing him at all. He was still involved with Margit, and often Elisabeth had to be the translator between them, which hurt her heart. “He was the man I adored, and the last thing I was interested in was helping their relationship blossom.