A Dixie Christmas (2 page)

Clay turned his back on the rambling old man
 . . .
and groaned inwardly as he recognized that his view from this angle wasn’t any better.
The Roustabout Suite. Hell!

The split-level suite had a miniature merry-go-round in the sitting room. As the carousel horses circled, a pipe organ blasted out carnival music. A candy cotton machine was set up in one corner, and the blasted thing actually worked, if the sickly sweet odor was any indication. Candy apples lay on the bar counter beside a slurpee dispenser in the small kitchenette. The walls were papered with movie posters from the Elvis movie “Roustabout,” and the bed was an enlarged version of a tunnel-of-love car. On the bedside table sat a clown lamp and a clock in the form of a Ferris wheel. Up and down went the clown’s blinking eyes. Round and round went the clock’s illuminated dial. Mixed in with this eclectic collection were quality pieces of furniture, no doubt from the original hotel furnishings.

If Clay didn’t have a headache already, this room would surely give him the mother of all migraines. “You can’t seriously think I’d stay in this
 . . .
this three-ring circus.”

“Well, it was the best we could do on such short notice,” the bellhop said, clearly affronted.

“Hee-haw! Hee-haw! Baaaa! Baaaa! Hee-haw!”

For a moment, Clay lowered his head, not sure he wanted to know what those sounds were, coming from outside. Walking briskly across the room, he glanced out the second-floor window
 . . .
then did an amazed double take.

“Oh! Aren’t they cute?” the bellhop commented behind him.

“Humph!” Clay grumbled in disagreement. Pulling his electronic pocket organizer from his suit pocket, he clicked to the Memphis directory where he typed in his observations, punctuated with several more “Humph’s.” It was a word that seemed to slip out of his mouth a lot lately . . . a word his father had used all the time. Am I turning into a negative, stuffy version of my father now? Is that what I’ve come to?

“Hee-haw! Hee-haw! Baaaa! Baaaa! Hee-haw!”

“Oh, Good Lord!” The headache that had been building all day finally exploded behind his eyes—a headache the size of the bizarre “inheritance” he’d come to Tennessee to investigate. Raking his fingers through his close-clipped hair, he gazed incredulously at the scene unfolding on the vacant lot below
 . . .
a property he now happened to own, along with this corny hotel. Neither was his idea of good fortune.

“Hee-haw! Hee-haw! Baaaa! Baaaa! Hee-haw!”

“What the hell is going on?” he asked the bellhop who was now standing in the walk-in closet hanging Clay’s garment bag.

“A live Nativity scene.”

“Humph!” Clay arched a brow skeptically. It didn’t resemble any Nativity scene he’d ever witnessed.

“Did you say humbug?” the bellhop inquired.

“No, I didn’t say humbug,” he snapped, making a mental note to add an observation in the hotel file of his pocket organizer about the attitude of the staff.
What does the imbecile think I am? A crotchety old man out of a Dickens’ novel? Hell, I’m only thirty-three years old. I’m not crotchety. My father was crotchety. I’m not.
“I said
humph
. That’s an expression denoting . . . oh, never mind.”

He peered outside again. The bellhop was right. Five men, one woman, a baby, a donkey and two sheep were setting up shop in a scene reminiscent of a Monty Python parody, or a bad Saturday Night Live skit. The only thing missing was a camel or two.

Please, God. No camels
, Clay prayed quickly, just in case. He wasn’t sure how many more shocks he could take today.

The trip this morning from his home in Princeton had been uneventful. He’d managed to clear a backlog of paperwork while his driver transported him in the smooth-riding, oversized Mercedes sedan to Newark Airport. He’d been thinking about ditching the gas guzzler ever since his father died six months ago, but now he had second thoughts. The first-class airline accommodations had been quiet, too, and conducive to work.

The nightmare had begun once he entered the Memphis International Airport terminal. Every refined, well-bred cell in his body had been assaulted by raucous sounds of tasteless music and by the even more tasteless souvenirs of every conceivable Elvis item in the world
 . . .
everything from “Barbie Loves Elvis” dolls to “authentic” plastic mini-flasks of Elvis sweat.

The worst was to come, however.

When Clay had arrived at the hotel to investigate the last of his sizeable inheritance, consisting mostly of blue chip stocks and bonds, he found The Blue Suede Suites. How could his father
 . . .
a conservative Wall Street investment banker, long-time supporter of the symphony, connoisseur of Old Master paintings
 . . .
have bought a hotel named The Blue Suede Suites? And why, for God’s sake? More important, why had he kept it a secret since its purchase thirty-five years ago?

But that was beside the point now. His most immediate problem was the yahoos setting up camp outside. He hesitated to ask the impertinent bellhop another question, which was ridiculous. He was in essence his employee. “Who are they?”

The bellhop ambled over next to him. “The Fallons.”

“Are they entertainers?”

The bellhop laughed. “Nah. They’re dairy farmers.”

Dairy farmers? Don’t ask. You’ll get another stupid non-answer.
“Well, they’re trespassing on my property. Tell the management when you go down to the lobby to evict them immediately.”

“Now, now, sir, don’t be actin’ hastily. They’re just poor orphans tryin’ to make a living, and—”

“Orphans? They’re a little old to be orphans,” he scoffed.

“—and besides, it was my idea.”

“Your idea?” Clay snorted. Really, he felt as if he’d fallen down some garden hole and landed on another planet.

“Yep. Last week, Annie Fallon was sittin’ in the Hound Dog Cafe downstairs, havin’ a cup of coffee, lookin’ fer all the world like she lost her best friend. She just came from the monthly Holstein Association meeting across the street. You know what Holsteins are, dontcha?”

“Of course, I do,” he said with a sniff.
They’re cows, aren’t they?

“Turns out Annie and her five brothers are in dire financial straits,” the bellhop rambled on, “and it occurred to me, and I tol’ her so, too, that with five brothers and a new baby
 . . .
her brother Chet’s girlfriend
dropped
their sweet little boy in his lap, so to speak
 . . .
well, they had just enough folks fer a Nativity scene, it bein’ Christmas and all. I can’t figure how the idea came to me. Like a miracle it was
 . . .
an idea straight out of heaven, if ya ask me.” The old man took a deep, wheezy breath, then concluded, “You wouldn’t begrudge them a little enterprise like this, wouldja, especially at Christmastime?”

Clay didn’t believe in Christmas, never had, but that was none of this yokel’s business. “I don’t care if it’s the Fourth of July. Those
 . . .
those squatters better be gone by the time I get down there, or someone is going to pay. Look at them,” he said, sputtering with outrage. “Bad enough they’re planting themselves on private land, but they have the nerve to act as if they own the damn place.” Hauling wooden frames off a pick-up truck, they were now erecting a three-sided shed, then strewing about the ground hay from two bales.

That wasn’t the worst part, though. All of the characters were made up as Elvis versions—
What else!
—of the Nativity figures, complete with fluffed-up hair and sideburns.

The Three Wise Men were tall, lean men in their late teens or early twenties wearing long satin robes of jewel tone colors, covered by short shoulder capes with high stand-up collars. Their garish attire was adorned with enough sequins and glitter to do the tackiest Vegas sideshow proud. They moved efficiently about their jobs in well-worn leather cowboy boots, except for the shepherd in duct-taped sneakers. Belts with huge buckles, like rodeo cowboys usually wore, tucked in their trim waists.

The shepherd, about thirteen years old, wore a knee-high, one-piece sheepskin affair, also belted with a shiny clasp the size of a hubcap. Even the sleeping baby, placed carefully in a rough manger, had its hair slicked up into an Elvis curl, artfully arranged over its forehead.

Joseph was a glowering man in his mid-twenties, wearing a gem-studded burlap gown, a rope belt with the requisite buckle, and scruffy boots. Since he kept checking the infant every couple of minutes, Clay assumed he must be the father.

“Hee-haw! Hee-haw! Baaaa! Baaaa! Hee-haw!”

Clay’s attention was diverted to an animal trailer, parked behind the pickup truck, where one of the Wise Men was leading the braying donkey and two sheep, none of which appeared happy to participate in the blessed event. In fact, the donkey dug in its hooves stubbornly—
Do donkeys have hooves?
—as the obviously cursing Wise Man yanked on the lead rope. The donkey got the last word by marking the site with a spray of urine, barely missing the boot of the Wise Man who danced away at the last moment. The sheep deposited their own Nativity “gifts.”

Clay would have laughed if he weren’t so angry.

Then he noticed the woman.

Lordy, did he notice the woman!

A peculiar heat swept over him then, burning his face, raising hairs on the back of his neck and forearms, even along his thighs and calves, lodging smack dab in his gut, and lower. How odd! It must be anger, he concluded, because he sure as hell wasn’t attracted to the woman. Not by a Wall Street longshot!

She was tall—at least five-foot-nine—and skinny as a rail. He could see that, even under her plain blue, ankle-length gown
 . . .
well, as plain as it could be with its overabundant studding of pearls. In tune with her outrageous ensemble, she sported the biggest hair he’d ever seen outside a fifties movie retrospective. The long brunette strands had been teased and arranged into an enormous bowl shape that flipped up on the ends—probably in imitation of Elvis’s wife.
What was her name? Patricia? Phyllis? No. Priscilla, that was it.
She must have depleted the entire ozone layer over Tennessee to hold that monstrosity in place. Even from this distance he could see that her eyelids were covered with a tawdry plastering of blue eye shadow and weighted down with false eyelashes. Madonna, she was not . . . neither the heavenly one, nor the rock star with the cone-shaped bra from a few years back.

Still, a strange heat pulsed through his body as he gazed at her.

Does she realize how ridiculous she looks?

Does she care?

Do I care?

Damn straight I do!
he answered himself as the woman, leader of the motley Biblical crew, waved her hands dictatorially, wagged her forefinger and steered the others into their places. Within minutes, they posed statue-like in a Memphis version of the Nativity scene. The only one unfrozen was the shepherd whose clear adolescent voice rang out clearly with “Oh, Holy Night.”

Already tourists passing by were pausing, oohing and aahing, and dropping coins and paper money into the iron kettle set in the front. It was only noon, but it was clear to Clay that by the end of the day this group was going to make a bundle.

“Not on my property!” Clay vowed, grabbing his overcoat and making for the door. At the last minute, he paused and handed the clearly disapproving bellhop a five dollar bill.

For some reason, the scowling man made him feel like
 . . .
well, Scrooge
 . . .
and he hadn’t even said “Humph!” again. It was absurd to feel guilty. He was a businessman
 . . .
an investment banker specializing in venture capital. He had every right to make a business decision.

“Thank you for your service,” he said coolly. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again during my stay here in Memphis.” Clay intended to remain only long enough to complete arrangements for the razing of the hotel and erection of a strip mall on this site and the adjoining property. He expected to complete his work here before the holidays and catch the Christmas Eve shuttle back to New Jersey on Thursday. Not that he had any particular plans that demanded a swift return to Princeton. On the contrary, there was no one waiting for him in the big empty mansion, except for Doris and George Benson, the longtime cook/housekeeper and gardener/driver. No Christmas parties he would mind missing. No personal relationships that would suffer in his absence.