Love Me Tender

by COULOUMBIS, AUDREY

• ISBN13: 9780375838408
• ISBN10: 0375838406
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2009-04-28
• Publisher: Yearling

Summary

Love doesn't always look like it does on television. . . . Elvira's family has never been the warm, fuzzy type. Most of the time, Elvira can't stand the sight of her little sister, Kerrie. Elvira and her mother, Mel, fight more often than not. Mel hasn't spoken to her own family in years. And when Mel announces she's pregnant again, Elvira's daddy storms off to Las Vegas to enter an Elvis impersonator competition. When an urgent phone call sends Elvira, Mel, and Kerrie on an unexpected trip to meet Mel's family for the first time, Elvira discovers that love doesn't always look like it does in television commercials. But it's there, all rightyou just have to know how to look for it. Written by Newbery Honor winner Audrey Couloumbis,Love Me Tenderis a lovely, lyrical look at a multigenerational family of strong, stubborn women working to untangle the ties that bind them together and uncover the love that's always been just underneath. "Couloumbis' winning, witty portrayal . . . encapsulates universal truths about family relationships."Publishers Weekly,Starred

Author Biography

Audrey Couloumbis is the author of several highly acclaimed books for young readers, including the Newbery Honor—winning Getting Near to Baby. She lives in upstate New York and Florida with her husband, Akilla, and their dog, Phoebe. They have two grown children.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpts

Early Friday afternoon, Daddy left mad.
He carried his guitar. The weather had turned so hot, the sweaty circles on his T-shirt looked like the wings of an insect against his back.
I followed him, dragging his duffel and panting. "Daddy, this thing is too heavy. What all are you carrying in here?"
What, besides his blue suede shoes and tight white jeans, did he need?
"Stuff," he said, and kept on going.
Okay, he needed a round brush and his diffuser and this tube of hair gunk he called "the genuine article." He'd dyed his honey-colored hair so black it made me think of fur, only I couldn't name an animal that would gleam navy blue in the sunlight, coated in Brylcreem.
Daddy always walked with a swagger as soon as he combed his hair in this rolled-over way. But this time it was a fast ticked-off swagger; I had to move it to make the driveway with any time to spare for questions.
I only had one: You're coming back, aren't you? Only I couldn't get up the nerve to ask.
I let the duffel drop next to his feet. He'd hung his white Elvis jacket from a curtain rod installed in the cab of his pickup truck. I saw a yellow butterfly had been trapped inside, drawn to the little rainbows bouncing off the shiny sequins.
That butterfly clamped itself to the back of Daddy's shoulder as he set his guitar case into the leg space of the passenger seat. He took no notice, saying, "I'm relying on you, Elvira."
"Me?" I lost my breath a little bit.
He threw the duffel into the back of the truck. He said, "Don't let things fall apart once I'm gone."
"Like what?"
Daddy looked like he shouldn't have to tell me. He went around and got into the truck. That yellow butterfly was blown off a ways as the truck started up, then came back to flutter around like it was lost. I watched Daddy till he turned the corner, taking the back road out to the airport.
Now my breath came too fast. What did he expect me to do?
I went back into the house.
The minute Daddy started packing, Mel, my mother, took to the recliner like soap to a sponge. She hadn't moved. I said to her, "He would have taken you along if he could."
"He could have taken me if he wanted me along," she said. Her straight dark hair had been twisted up off her neck while I was out there with Daddy, and the ends stuck up at the back of her head like the bristles of a broom.
"Okay, but then we'd've of all had to go. By car. Lots more luggage, and about a million bathroom stops." She shot me a dirty look. "For Kerrie, of course," I added, but I'd been thinking about this. If this was Daddy's logic, it was, well, logical.
"I took care of my little sister when I was thirteen," Mel said.
"That was in the Dark Ages," I said. "There are laws against abandoning your children now."
"My folks went out of state to a funeral," she said, her eyes on the TV screen. "They left me in charge."
"That was more in the nature of an emergency, I guess."
"Miss Nelda would look in on you."
My eyes went wide. "She uses a walker. You can't expect her to jog over here every couple of hours."
"Okay, then. You could report to her."
"You don't mean that," I said, wondering how else to reply to a woman who had recently turned into a walking time bomb. "If you did, you'd have said it before Daddy left."
There were gunshots on TV.
Mel settled more deeply into the recliner. She's a movie junkie--that's what Daddy calls her, anyway, when she shells out for extra movie channels. Personally, I never thought this was a bad trait in a mother, just I had never seen the junkie part take such hold of her.
"I hope I don't have to tell you not to mention this idea to Kerrie," I said. "She'll have to be peeled off you like a Band-Aid

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Excerpted from Love Me Tender by Audrey Couloumbis
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