The Last Noel (29 page)

As soon as Noni turned the corner into the waiting room, she spotted Austin Fairley and his son Zaki standing by the counter in their down jackets, waving at her. At the sight of them, Noni's smile broke out like the sun. To see the Fairleys was to see Heaven's Hill, their shared home, and she ran forward to embrace them, waking the baby. “Austin, Zaki! I'm so glad, so glad to see you!”

“Noni, how's it going?” Zaki Fairley was fond of Noni, and not only because she'd given him her old green Alfa Spider two years ago when he'd turned sixteen. “Hey, this your little boy?”

“This is the one and only.”

The little boy yawned widely when Noni handed him to Zaki, stared at the stranger hard, then snuggled his tight blond curls into the teenager's shoulder and went back to asleep.

Zaki's father Austin was grumpy. “We've been here a half-hour, no traffic at all. Pop Tat's waiting in his van out at the curb with a special lift for your mama, Noni. Let's get going. Hey there, Mrs. Tilden. Zaki, put that baby in his stroller and wrap him up. It's freezing out there.” Austin took over the wheelchair and sped away.

As it turned out, there were only a half-dozen people at the gate, and few anywhere else in the terminal. Amma, who had flown on planes only twice in her life, both times to Philadelphia, had been wrong. Far from crowded, by seven P.M. on Christmas Eve, the airport was in fact nearly deserted.

As they waited for the bags, Mrs. Tilden grew querulous. She'd been on two long flights; her nap, the movie,
Hannah and Her Sisters
, and her book,
The Prince of Tides
, had not been enough to keep off the discomfort of even first-class seats. She complained now that her back hurt and the airport was overheated. Where was their luggage, how was she going to ride in this van of Uncle Tatlock's, how was she going to get up all the steps at Heaven's Hill?

Rocking the sleeping baby back and forth in his stroller, Noni answered each question with a patient matter-of-factness, only half listening. She was home. It was Christmas and she was home.

The phone rang at Clayhome; it was the man selling Tat's paintings now; a “rep,” Tat called him. Somebody from New York. Amma didn't like the man. She told him Tat was gone to the airport, and don't call him back 'til after Christmas. Christmas was a holy day and a family day. The man laughed like she was telling jokes.

Wasn't it something how, after all those years when you couldn't shove Tatlock Fairley out of the house with a bull-dozer,
all of a sudden he'd used his painting money to buy himself that big special van with all its lifts and levers and the fanciest motor-wheelchair you ever saw, one that would do just about anything you'd want it to except bake your bread?

Once he had those wheels, that man was gone like you'd shot him out of a cannon at the circus. And just as well, so she didn't have to listen anymore to him laughing 'til he choked over
Night Court
and those
Golden Girls
on TV, or watching the baseball games that had their own channels now. He had Austin's boy Zaki driving him all around the state meeting rich folks in the “art business,” he called it, showing off his paintings to them. Take your breath away what people would pay for a picture of an old black man standing beside a pile of pumpkins painted on a piece of beat-up door frame.

Tat used to always be saying you never know what life was going to do to you. Well, he sure proved that right. Seventy-seven years old, no legs, and all of a sudden here he was, written up in a magazine. Plus, it truly made that old man happy painting those pictures of himself in front of everything ever built in Moors County and spending the money he got for them. His share up to three, four hundred dollars a picture now, sometimes more. And not just from folks that knew him—like Kaye and that girl Bunny Breckenridge—but from strangers. Tat had two of his pictures hanging right this minute on the walls of the new Moors Savings Bank. And you know old Mister Gordon would've had one of his fits if he'd lived to see a colored man's pictures up on the walls of his bank. Well, like the song says, it's no secret what God can do.

Tat got all his money in cash and kept it in a big iron safe he'd bought and hid in the bedroom closet. Mrs. Goldman at that gallery hadn't been able to do a thing with him about investments and taxes and all. And this New York “rep” didn't even try. Tat spent every cent he got. He had more gadgets than Kmart. Even got himself a telescope to watch Halley's
comet coming back, not that the little blur he showed Amma through that thing looked like much worth making such a big to-do over.

A Child, a Child shivers in the cold

Let us bring Him silver and gold…

Amma slid her pecan pie into the oven, checking the clock above the stove. Yes, Judy and Noni and that baby would need a little Christmas to welcome them home after being gone so long and things so tough. Judy in the hospital with a broken collarbone after she'd had that fall down the stairs in their place in London. Somehow she must have lost control of her wheelchair while Noni was bathing the baby. It was hard to understand. Amma had been worried sick, despite Kaye's claiming how some hospital off in London, England, was going to be just as good as University Hospital in Hillston where everybody knew Judy's family.

But what with the smoke and water damage and the new construction, it had taken Carolina Restoration almost a year to get Heaven's Hill back in shape. And nobody could live in the house while they worked on it, and that's how the stay in California had gotten started. Judy didn't want to come back to Wade's—not that Wade probably even asked her—unless Noni would come too, and Noni and Wade just didn't get along. So they'd stayed out in California where Doctor Jack could talk Judy into better treatment than old Dr. Schillings had.

But then Doctor Jack sent Judy to see some expert back in Boston for a bunch more tests, and that man thought there might be something called Pick's Disease causing her troubles, so he sent her somewhere else. Judy didn't mind the travel. In fact, the more traveling Noni did with her, the better she seemed to like it. So bless Noni's heart, the whole first half of her pregnancy, she was taking Judy all over everywhere, getting her some test or other or seeing some new specialist. Nobody could have done better or sweeter than Noni, and Amma was
sure it hadn't been easy, not with Judy getting so hard to manage. Sounded like those gentle moods of hers didn't happen much anymore.

Wrapping a cloth over the big turkey, Amma nestled it on its rack high on a counter where the dog Tina couldn't get at it. Tina was the daughter of the long dead black Lab Philly that Noni had given Kaye back when they were in seventh grade; Kaye had named her Tina Turner, because when she'd been a puppy he'd stand her on her hind legs and pretend like she was dancing. Of course, who'd ended up taking care of the dog because Kaye was never around?

Amma set the turkey aside, ready for the oven just before dawn. Nine for Christmas dinner. Not as many of her brothers' children as other years. But young folks have their own plans these days. Like Kaye's arranging his party tonight at his new house over in his fancy neighborhood in Glade Lake. Of course he had invited her and Tatlock, too. But she'd said no. What were they supposed to do over there with all that dancing and loud music and fast-talking young people not even half their age?

Here at Clayhome tomorrow they'd at least be able to hear each other speak when Kaye brought his girlfriend Shani over. Shani Bouchard that he'd met up in New York. She was so fast-and sharp-talking, it was hard enough trying to understand her even in the quiet. When Amma had gotten introduced to Shani's folks back at Thanksgiving, when they'd come down to meet everybody, they'd talked just like their daughter. The way they talked made everything sound like they were mad at you even though they weren't. Kaye could imitate them to a T. New Yoikers, he called them.

Of course, Tatlock had wanted to go to Kaye's party tonight. But he wasn't about to get back from the airport with the Tildens 'til eight at the earliest. Plus, even with Austin and Zaki right there helping with Judy's wheelchair and their luggage, even with Tat's special van, it was still going to take a
while to get them settled in here. And you'd think—angrily Amma snapped off the tips of beans—you'd think that Judy's only living son, Wade, that had claimed to love her so much, would have put off taking Trisha and Michelle to Disney world (which he was doing just because he wanted to play golf anyhow) so he could be around to pick up his own mama and sister at the airport. 'Specially if his mama and his sister had been gone this long and had ended up stuck in a London hospital with broken bones.

But that was Wade. Love was just something for Wade to talk about at his Baptist men's prayer club breakfast.

Everybody talkin' 'bout heaven ain't goin' to heaven, heaven…

“Noni? Oh my god, Noni! It's been forever!”

Noni turned at the baggage carousel and found herself in the arms of her old friend Bunny Breckenridge, just flown in from New York City, home for Christmas. Hair wilder than ever, wide warm smile, shawl dragging the floor, Bunny rocked Noni back and forth, then she bent down to the sleeping child in the stroller. “Oh my god! Is this your baby? I heard you had a baby in London!”

“This is Johnny.” Noni knelt, pulled back the knitted blanket so Bunny could see the child's face, the tight blond curls and long dark lashes, the golden skin and tiny perfect features.

“He's beautiful.”

“Yes, he is, isn't he?”

“Oh, you're lucky to have a baby!” Bunny hugged her. “Happy Birthday. It's your birthday today, right? How old are we?”

“I hate to be the one to tell you but we're thirty! Oh, Bunny, this is wonderful, how are
you
?”

Bunny's briefcase stuffed with books and papers slid off her
shoulder with the shawl. “Sameo-sameo. Somebody told me you'd moved to London for good.”

“No, no. My mom had a fall and was back in the hospital, so we had to stay longer than expected.” Noni knelt again to let her mother know that this was Bunny, remember Bunny, her girlfriend from school? Bunny lived in New York now, she was a college teacher.

Bunny bent down to her. “Hi, Mrs. Tilden.”

Judy Tilden covered the right side of her mouth with her hand as she always did, embarrassed by its drooping, when she talked to anyone but Noni. “Noni's friend, yes. Whom did you marry, Bunny?”

“Not a blessed soul.” Bunny laughed.

Mrs. Tilden picked at Bunny's shawl. “Noni and Roland are divorced. You probably heard that. But at least she was already pregnant with Johnny when they separated and so we have my little grandchild.”

“Well, he's sure a beauty.” Bunny kissed Mrs. Tilden, who then started complaining that she couldn't breathe the horrible air in the terminal. She plucked at Noni. “Where's Wade? Why couldn't Wade come get me?”

Zaki Fairley, back from taking the carry-on bags to the curb where Tatlock waited in the van, offered to wheel Mrs. Tilden out there to see him. After they left, Noni asked to hear all her friend's news.

Bunny shrugged. “Still live on Riverside with a cat and a fish. Still looking for a biped. Still need to lose twenty pounds. Well, thirty. Still call myself a feminist, that's the kind of old-fashioned girl I am. But you, Noni, you look fantastic!”

“Oh god, don't be silly.”

“So this is what having a baby and leaving your husband does for you? I gotta get married so I can get a divorce! How
is
Roland Turd?” She hugged her friend. “Oh, I'm sorry. Kaye and I were mean to call him that. We were probably just jealous.”

Noni smiled. “It's okay. Well, let's see. Roland said I'd destroyed his life and he'd never get over it and then he married his CFO's daughter a month after our divorce.”

“Holy shit, you just made fun of somebody for the first time in your life!” They laughed together. “But is it still Noni Hurd?”