High Noon (20 page)

“Good memories or bad?”

“Oh, both. But I've always liked the area, the mix of styles in the houses, kids everywhere.”

He pulled into the already crowded drive of a lovely craftsman-style home, with its big front yard tidily mowed and edged with flower beds. “Me, too,” he said.

He came around the car to take her hand. She heard the shouts and shrieks of children, the motorized thunder of a lawn mower. She smelled peonies, and meat cooking on someone's backyard grill.

She'd grown up like this, she thought, for the first little while. Then everything, everything had changed.

The screen door opened with a happy slam. The woman who stepped out onto the big front porch was hugely pregnant, with skin the color of semisweet chocolate and hair in a glossy profusion of dreads.

A boy dashed out behind her, scabs riding both knees. “Dunc, Dunc, Dunc!” He shouted it as he streaked like a little bullet down the walk. “Catch!” And flew.

Obviously an old hand at the game, Duncan caught the boy in midair, then flipped him upside down. “The strange creature you see below is Ellis.”

“How do you do, Ellis?”

“Hi! Do it again, Dunc.”

“Ellis Tyler, you let Duncan get in the house before you start jumping all over him.”

The boy might've been upside down, but he managed a dramatic eye-roll. “Yes'm.” When Duncan flipped him to his feet, he grinned. “We got cherry pie. Come on in, Dunc. Come on! You can come, too, ma'am.” With that he made his dash back into the house.

“My son likes to be the welcoming committee. You must be Phoebe. I'm Celia. I hope you came hungry.” She tipped her face up for Duncan's kiss. “I know you did.”

“How many cherry pies?” Duncan asked.

“Just you wait. Duncan's here!” she shouted as she scooted them inside.

There was an army of them, Phoebe realized, in all shapes and sizes. Babies, toddlers, gangly teens, and an ancient old man they called Uncle Walter, men, women, and all the noise that went with them.

Most were congregated in the backyard, sprawled in chairs, on the grass, chasing kids, pushing them on the bright red swing set. A couple of men stood by the grill, watching it smoke with all the pleasure and delight they might have shown were it a centerfold.

By Phoebe's estimate five generations were represented here, but the center of power, the magnetic north, was obviously the woman who stood supervising as younger family members hauled two picnic tables together to form one long space.

She was comfortably round in the way that made Phoebe imagine every child would want to crawl into her lap, would want to rest their head on her breast for comfort. Her handsome face with its deep-set eyes, strong nose and mouth, was capped off by a puffball of ebony curls.

Both hands fisted on her generous hips, and when a big yellow dog streaked by after the blur of a gray-striped cat, she threw back her head and laughed so her whole body shook with it.

Then she turned toward the ancient old man, her hands moving. It took Phoebe a moment to realize she wasn't merely gesturing but signing. The old man wheezed out a laugh, signed back.

Duncan's arm draped around Phoebe's shoulder, and when she glanced up to smile at him, she saw he was looking over at the laughing woman. On his face, deep in those soft blue eyes of his, was absolute and unconditional love.

It struck her suddenly, and with a little curl of terror, that this was a
moment.
Not just a backyard barbecue.

She had to fight the urge to streak away like the cat when Duncan led her forward. “Ma Bee.”

Bee took hold of him first, her big arms going around him, pulling him into a hard, full hug. When she pulled him back, she patted his face with both hands. “You're still skinny, and you're still white.”

“You're still the love of my life.”

She gave that full-body laugh, but her eyes were tender on his face. Then they shifted, turning speculative, to Phoebe.

“Ma Bee, this is Phoebe Mac Namara. Phoebe, Beatrice Hector.”

“It's wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Hector. Thank you for having me today.”

“Somebody's ma raised her right.” She winked at Duncan. “You're welcome here,” she told Phoebe. “You brought me daisies? I've got a fondness for daisies, thank you.” She took them, cradled them. “They've got such happy faces. Tisha? You take these daisies in for me, and get that blue glass vase Arnette gave me last Mother's Day. It's in the right-side cupboard under the big server. That blue vase is just what these daisies want.”

Bee made introductions as one of the teenage girls came over for the flowers. Phoebe got a polite if measuring look—Duncan a wistful one.

“Uncle Walter here's been deaf since he got hurt in the Korean War,” Bee explained, and signed Phoebe's name for him. And snickered when he signed back. “Says you're prettier than the last one this skinny white boy brought by.”

With a smile, Phoebe gave the sign for thanks. “It's one of the few I know,” she said as Bee pursed her lips. “Hello, goodbye, thanks.”

“You decide you need to converse with him, he can read lips if you talk straight to him, and slow. Mostly, he's going to sleep anyway. And this here's my daughter-in-law, my second boy Phin's wife. Loo—”

“I know you,” Phoebe and Loo said together.

“Lieutenant Mac Namara.”

“Louise Hector, for the defense. Small world.”

“Seems like, and previously we've been on opposite sides of it. Welcome to Ma's.”

“Since you're acquainted, you get Phoebe what she drinks, and introduce her 'round the rest of the way.” Bee lifted her chin toward the picnic tables. “We've got to get food out on the tables here.”

Excellent, Phoebe thought, busywork. Just the thing to ease herself into the social. “Is there something I can do to help?”

“Guests don't haul out the dishes. That's for family. Duncan, we need some more chairs.”

“Yes, ma'am. Get you ladies a drink first?”

“We'll take care of it,” Loo told him, and led Phoebe away. “What do you drink?”

All right, alcohol, another way to ease into the social. “What's handy?”

Phoebe ended up with a plastic cup of chilled chardonnay, and so many names in her head she tried to alphabetize them to keep them straight.

“I didn't put the Phoebe Duncan talked about together with the lieutenant from the Hostage and Crisis Unit.” Loo glanced over as they crossed the lawn edged with cheery flower beds and chunky shrubs. “I'm sorry to hear you were hurt a couple weeks ago.”

“I'm doing fine now.”

“Well, you look fine. Love the dress. Let me introduce you to the grill masters. Phoebe Mac Namara, my brother-in-law Zachary, and my husband, Phineas. Phoebe's a cop, so watch yourselves.”

“Off duty.” Phoebe lifted the wine cup as she shifted to avoid the smoke billowing from the grill.

“Can you fix speeding tickets?” Zachary asked, and had Phin punching him in the arm.

“Pay him no mind.”

“I'm not kidding. Tisha's had two since the first of the year.” Zachary sent Phoebe a wide grin. “After you eat my chicken, we'll talk about it. You'll be softened up.”

“Your chicken?”

“Boy, you couldn't boil the egg this chicken started out as. That right, Loo?”

“I take the Fifth.”

“Couple a city lawyers,” Zachary said to Phoebe, wagging his thumb between them.

“The lawyer with the empty wallet,” Phoebe said.

“You will
never
live that down.” Loo belted out a laugh, did a shoulder and hip wiggle as she wagged a finger at her husband. “Deadbeat.”

“I thought the story illustrated his innate sense of honor,” Phoebe put in, and had Phin flashing his teeth.

“I like her. Leave her here. You”—he pointed at his wife—“can go.”

“Mom!” A girl sprinted over. Curly tails sprung out over both ears. “Hero won't come down out of the tree! Make him come down.”

“He'll come down when he's ready. Say how do you do to Miz Mac Namara, Livvy.”

“How do you do.”

“Just fine, and how about you?”

“The cat won't come down.”

“They like being up high,” Phoebe told her.

“Why?”

“So they can feel superior to the rest of us.”

“But Willy said he was going to fall and break his neck.”

“Oh now, Livvy, you know he just said that to get a rise out of you.” Loo gave her daughter's pigtail a tug. “You wait till this chicken's on the table. That cat'll come down quick enough. You go on and wash up, 'cause it's almost time to eat.”

“Are you sure he likes it up there?” the child asked Phoebe.

“Absolutely.” She watched Livvy run off. “How old is she?”

“She'll be seven next June.”

“I have a little girl, just seven.”

“Boy!” Ma Bee's voice boomed over the yard. “You going to finish up that chicken anytime today?”

“It's coming, Ma,” the men called back together, and began to heap it onto a platter.

There was potato salad and black-eyed peas, collards and red beans, corn bread and cole slaw. She lost track of the platters and bowls, and how many were passed to her. Arguments—mostly good-natured—and jokes jumped and jostled around the table as frequently as the food. Many went over her head—family history, which appeared in several cases to include Duncan. Kids whined or complained, mostly about one another. Babies were passed like the bowls and platters, from hand to hand.

Nothing like her family, Phoebe thought, the tidy number of them, the overwhelming female tone of even the most casual meal in Mac Namara House. Poor Carter, she thought, forever unnumbered.

There'd never been an old man at one of their courtyard picnics to be fussed over until he dozed in his chair, or a couple of sparking-eyed little boys dueling with ears of corn.

A bit out of her depth, Phoebe chatted with Celia about her children—she already had two—and the one yet to come. She shared a smile with Livvy as the high-climbing feline inched his way down the tree to come beg at the table.

At one point Duncan and Phin debated heatedly about basketball, the sort that involved the jabbing of forks for emphasis and the slinging around of uncomplimentary names. As they insulted each other's brains, manhood, everyone else ignored them.

Not just friends, Phoebe realized as the insults reached the point of absurd. Brothers. Whatever their backgrounds, upbringings, skin color, they were brothers. Nobody ragged on each other that way unless they were siblings—of the blood, or of the heart.

She was having a Sunday barbecue with Duncan's family.

Not just a moment, Phoebe realized. A monumental moment.

“Are you kin to Miss Elizabeth Mac Namara, lived on Jones Street?”

Phoebe jolted out of her thoughts to meet Bee's steady eyes. “Yes. She was my father's cousin. Did you know her?”

“I knew who she was.”

Because the tone translated Bee's unfavorable opinion of Bess Mac Namara, Phoebe's shoulders tensed. There were any number of people in Savannah who enjoyed painting all family members with the same sticky brush.

“I used to clean for Miz Tidebar on Jones,” Bee continued, “until she passed, about, oh, a dozen years ago now.”

“I didn't know Mrs. Tidebar, except by name.”

“I wouldn't think. She and Miz Mac Namara Did Not Speak.” The phrase came out in capital letters.

“Yes, I recall a feud. Something about a garden club committee.” Which was an old rift before she'd come to Mac Namara House. As age had only ripened it, no one who lived under Cousin Bess's roof was permitted to speak or associate with the Tidebars.

“Miz Tiffany? She had her own people to clean, but I did for her now and then when she had a party or just needed another hand. She still living?”

“She is.” And Phoebe relaxed again. The odd and delightful Mrs. Tiffany was much safer ground. “And as colorfully as ever.”

“Was on her fourth husband when I did for her.”

“She's had one more since, and I believe is currently on the prowl for number six.”

“She always kept her name, didn't she? Tiffany, no matter how many she hooked down the aisle.”

“Her second husband's name,” Phoebe explained. “She stuck with that, however many came after, as she likes the sparkle of it. Or so she says.”

Bee's lips twitched. “Your cousin, as I recall, didn't have much truck with Miz Tiffany.”

“Cousin Bess didn't have much truck with anyone. She was a…difficult woman.”

“We are what we are. I'd see your mama now and again, enough to say how do you do, when I did for Miz Tidebar. You favor her.”

“Some. My daughter more. Carly's the image of her grandmother.”

“She must be a pretty girl. You tell your mama Bee Hector sends her best.”

“I will. I think she'll enjoy the connection. She's very fond of Duncan.”

“We're fond of him around here, too.” Bee leaned in a little while the men continued to argue. “What're you going to do with that boy?”

“Duncan?” Maybe it was the wine, the steady beam from Bee's eyes, but Phoebe said what first came to mind. “I'm still deciding what I'm going to let him do with me.”

Bee's laugh was an explosion of mirth. Her thick finger tapped Phoebe's shoulder. “He's brought other pretty girls around here.”

“I expect he has.”

“But he hasn't brought any of them around for my approval before today.”

“Oh.” Phoebe decided she could use another sip of wine. “Did I pass the audition?”

Bee smiled easily, then she thumped her hands on the table. “Y'all want pie and ice cream, we have to clear this table.” Under the general scramble, Bee looked back at Phoebe. “Why don't you grab some of these dishes, haul them into the kitchen.”