Noelle

by Greg Kincaid

  The message light came on again. He listened to his wife’s voice again—it never got old.

  “George, I forgot to say I love you.”

  “You’ve got the job, Mr. Robinson.” Those words kept reverberating in Link’s ear like a loud explosion. “You can start next week on Monday, right after Christmas.”

  When he was ready, he’d ride along and practice working the hand-controlled arm that reached out and plucked the large plastic trash containers from the curb. He wasn’t alone, the hiring manager, Eugene Brown, further explained. There were lots of men like Link. They had come from across the country, wanting to work and unable to find anything decent closer to home. The man was honest about it. “That’s why it’s hard for us to keep good employees. Men naturally want to be near their families, so we have a large turnover.”

  “Makes sense,” Link said.

  Eugene dug in his drawer, pulled out a sheet of paper, and handed it to Link. “You picked a good time to start work. Not many folks want to start over the next couple of weeks. That makes it tough for us to keep crews running. We lose a lot of drivers this time of year.”

  Link looked over the piece of paper. “So I can start training on December twenty-seventh?”

  “That’s right, and you get two extra Saturdays in January. Time and a half.”

  “I’ll take all the overtime you can give me.”

  After Link finished the interview, Eugene, who lumbered about with a bad foot, gave Link a short tour of the facility. He also gave him a list of other employees who were looking for car pools and roommates. Link looked it over quickly. He was anxious to get going. “I’d start now if there was anything for me to do.”

  “We’re a big company, Link. So it doesn’t work like that. It’ll take us a few days to get your paperwork processed.”

  Link thanked Eugene, confirmed the details of his signing bonus, and went back to his room at the Econo Lodge to take a shower and make some calls.

  Finding a roommate with some cheap space was first on his list. He also wanted to get a better phone, so he could video-chat—see his children while he talked. If needed, he would have to rent furniture, too. In the meantime the sleeping bag and blowup mattress would suffice. If he could find a roommate who would spot him rent for a week or two, at least until he got paid, he might make it on what he had left. Otherwise, he might be sleeping in his truck for a few weeks. Christmas or not, one thing was clear: there was no way he could afford to drive back to Kansas and return to Texas again. That would wipe him out. Abbey would be disappointed, but there didn’t seem to be any way he could make that work. Even if he could make the trip, he’d arrive empty-handed. No money for gifts.

  So here he was. Christmas at the Econo Lodge.

  The shame of it hung over him. The feeling of his failure as a father and a husband was rapidly eclipsing the momentary joy of finally returning to the workforce. As the evening progressed, the weight of his darkening mood grew oppressive. He closed his eyes, lying on the bed with his head resting on his hands, and an unpleasant memory intruded. A memory that hadn’t surfaced in a long time. Probably been busy pretending it had never happened. It wasn’t something he liked to think about. It was a strange time for it to crop up like this, wholly uninvited, demanding an audience. He wondered, Why now? And then he remembered. It had happened around Christmas, a lifetime ago. The same time of the year he’d lost his mom, so maybe it wasn’t too strange that he was thinking of the incident. He let it play out in his mind.

  He was nine years old and sick, nearly delirious with the measles. His mother was off somewhere, probably drunk, and his father was left caring for him, none too happy about it. Link woke frightened. He had accidentally wet the bed. He cried out. His dad took him out into the backyard, rolled up the soiled sheets, and whipped him, all the while raging on and on about how no boy of his age wet the bed. Then he dragged Link back into the house, threw him into the tub, turned the water on, and left him there. Before he slammed the bathroom door shut, he got down in Link’s feverish little face and, with cigarettes and booze on his breath, said, “Next time it’ll be worse for you.”

  Thankfully, Link’s mother never let his old man back in the house again. Those last words he heard from his dad seemed to echo: Next time it’ll be worse for you. Over the coming years, his mom would occasionally give him a card from his father. The postmarks were from faraway places like Oregon and Puerto Rico. He always said that he missed Link and was sorry for the kind of dad he’d been. Sometimes there were small gifts, mostly little wooden figures that he’d whittled into existence—bears, dogs, horses, even a leaping salmon. That was all Link had left from his dad. The cards stopped a long time ago. He was likely dead. Might as well have been.

  By the time the evening news came on the hotel television set, Link had painted himself with every shade of self-loathing he could wring from his palette. It was inescapable, a long, foregone, and inevitable conclusion. Link Robinson was as worthless as a man could possibly be. A trash hauler. A fitting job for some piece of poor white trash like himself. Not a dollar of his own. No family. No friends. A drinker. Separated and about to be divorced. And lonely. He figured he might as well just go crawl into a hole and get drunk. He could climb out of it on the twenty-seventh and try to start all over again, with his new job. Chances are, no one would even notice his absence. There was little he’d done right thus far with his life, so why not give up the ship? He’d end up just like his own father. His fate was sealed.

  He didn’t want to feel it. None of it, but he accepted it as the gospel truth. He opened his wallet and counted out, bill by bill, the last $307 he had left to his name. Truth was, not even that was his money. He set the bills he needed to pay for a few more nights at the hotel and some food on the dresser top. He needed to keep this, his reserve, separate. He put the rest, about forty bucks, back in the wallet, tucking it into his jeans pocket. Link grabbed his phone and the keys to his truck and slipped his coat on. Forty bucks wasn’t a lot, but if he wasn’t too picky about what he drank, it would be enough.

  He noticed the liquor store near the motel; he could go there, buy what he was looking for, and come back to the room. Drinking alone was nothing new. He paused for a moment as his phone vibrated. He considered throwing it into the toilet. He never wanted to speak to anyone again, so why have a phone? What was the point? Then again, it could be the trash company. Maybe they’d changed their mind. He could come in a day or two earlier. Maybe even tomorrow. Get started now. That would be good. He’d like that. He’d better grab this call.

  Without checking the number, he opened the flip phone and said, “Link Robinson.”

  The voice on the other end, which seemed vaguely familiar, said, “I need someone to stand up for me. Could you do it? Again?”

  Link was confused. “Who is this?”

  “It’s Todd. I’m getting married, and I need someone to stand up for me.”

  “A witness?” Link asked, still confused.

  “No. A best man.” The irony of this request was not lost on Link. He couldn’t help himself and laughed out loud. “You want me to be your best man? Why not one of your brothers?”

  “There are too many. I just need one.”

  Link thought of the old saying—no good deed goes unpunished. He’d helped Todd ages ago, stood up to a bunch of long-forgotten high-school bullies, and now Todd wanted him to drive all the way from Texas to be in his wedding. There had to be an easy way out. “When is the wedding, Todd?”

  “Tomorrow night. We’re kind of in a hurry.”

  “Tomorrow? Shotgun wedding?” Link asked.

  “No, it’s just at my parents’ house.”

  “Listen, Todd, I’d like to help you out, but I’m in Texas now. I took a new job. The shelter work was just till I found something with a paycheck, but I have to move on. I’m done with Crossing Trails. Besides, I don’t have the money to buy all the gas I’d need to drive up there and back down here again.”
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  While no geography whiz, Todd knew that Texas was a long way off. It didn’t make much sense to have the man drive that far for nothing. Todd was desperate. He had the ring. His suit was pressed, his white shirt washed and ironed, and he’d found his tie in one of the boxes that he and Laura had not yet unpacked. Everything on his list was accomplished except for this best-man, standing-up-for-him thing. He had to get that finished. Somehow close the deal. He’d seen his father haggle over buying and selling machinery, livestock, and alfalfa hay. Todd felt like he knew how to make a deal. “If I paid you five hundred dollars, would you stand up for me? Would that buy the gas?”

  “Cash?” Link asked. For that amount of money, he could justify the drive—he could even show up with presents for the kids. He set his car keys back down on the dresser and sat on the sagging bed to hear Todd out.

  “Sure,” Todd said. “Cash. Six, tomorrow evening. At my parents’ house.”

  Link’s wardrobe was even more limited than Todd’s. “I don’t have much by way of fancy clothes.”

  Todd thought a minute. “I don’t think that matters. I’m the one getting married. Not you.”

  Earlier that Thursday in Abilene, Anna Claus and Noelle had worked through more of those longer-than-expected lines that wrapped around the shopping mall like multicolored holiday ribbons of kids and parents, all excitedly waiting their turn.

  After all that, now Mary Ann faced another delay—snow, piling up fast on rural roads that were not often traveled. She was late. She wasn’t going to make it home by five, when she’d promised George she’d be there. She tried to drive a little faster, but she had to be careful. She hoped George would understand. What else could she do? Surely not turn children away or listen to them inattentively.

  When she finally bought a new charger in the mall before she started her slow drive home, she tried to call him several times both on the landline and on his cell phone to warn him of her late arrival, but he hadn’t answered either, and it was hard to tell if her texts had gone through. Now she had no cell service whatsoever. It hardly mattered—George probably wouldn’t check his messages anyway. He hated texting and voice mail, and he preferred using phones engineered by Alexander Graham Bell. Oh, George, Mary Ann thought, you are such a dinosaur.

  It was nearly 5:40 by the time she passed through Crossing Trails and turned south toward the McCray farm. She drove for another few miles before rounding the bend that approached McCray’s Hill. What she saw was strange. She slowed down to give herself a moment to adjust to the unusual sight.

  The top of the hill was illuminated like a crime scene or a rock concert, bright as day. After checking in the rearview mirror, she pulled over to the shoulder and got out of the car to take it all in.

  It was beautiful. The snow. The lights. Like a castle on a hill. Not just the house but the barn, the garage, the outbuildings—everything was lit, framed in twinkling white lights and falling snow. What in the world was her husband up to? Was he trying to out-Christmas Anna Claus? Mary Ann smiled to herself. She hoped so. Competition was healthy.

  She got back into the car, drove up the hill, and turned into the driveway. She wondered how Santa felt on the early-morning hours of Christmas, presents all delivered, descending from the airy reaches of the dawn sky and into the frozen wintry landscape of his own home. For her it felt very good to be home again.

  George must have strung Christmas lights from dawn to dusk. She liked it but hoped that his enthusiasm for the exterior of the house didn’t mean he’d neglected the interior. The beams of her headlights were reflected by the tail lamps from several vehicles. Why so many cars in the driveway already? It was now ten minutes till six. She was late, but not that late.

  It made her feel even worse for leaving everything to the last minute and then foisting it all on poor George. She knew he wasn’t getting any younger, and she was asking a lot of him. He had every right to be upset with her. She vowed to be extra nice to him and let him know that he was officially off the Claus sofa for the holidays—though in over forty years of marriage he’d never really spent a moment on it. She turned off the ignition to the car and looked down at her outfit. There’d been no time to change. How embarrassing. She gazed at the little dog resting peacefully on the floor of the passenger seat. At least she would not have to go in alone. “Elle, we’re home. Let’s go see what Santa and your buddy Christmas have been up to.”

  Mary Ann waited by the car for a few moments so that Elle had time to sniff about and stretch her stubby legs after the long drive. The dog seemed mesmerized by the snow. She tilted her back and leaped up into the air trying to catch the cascading snowflakes. She looked up at Mary Ann and curled her lips back. Mary Ann reached down and gave her an affectionate pat. “Does that grin of yours mean you’re happy?”

  The back door opened, and a brigade of unfamiliar cleaning ladies marched past her, carrying vacuum cleaners, mops, and other cleaning paraphernalia. One of them smiled as she saw Mary Ann’s outfit and said, “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Santa Claus.”

  Another one said, “And congratulations!”

  Mary Ann was too shocked at what they were carrying to wonder why she was being congratulated. She had always dreamed of being able to hire a cleaning service. Getting a house to that level of clean seemed to be something that was nearly impossible to achieve on her own. It would take a professional cleaning crew of four working all day. The blinds and every inch of the shelves dusted. Every floor in the house mopped or vacuumed. The porcelain sinks and toilets left sparkling clean. Was it possible that George was giving her this as a Christmas present? If so, he was definitely off the couch. George was cutting it close, with the party due to start in less than ten minutes, but maybe the extra cars belonged to these women.

  Mary Ann shook her head in a swirl of amazement and disbelief as she walked through the back door. It couldn’t get better, or could it? The inside looked fantastic. She could smell cedar logs burning in the fireplace. Through the kitchen door, she could see two of her children in the living room, standing on chairs and hanging the last of the ornaments on the seven-foot Christmas tree. Her only daughter, Hannah, waved, beaming. “Merry Christmas, Mom!” How had George found the time to do all this? Mary Ann was stunned.

  As he would explain much later, George had called the cleaning service earlier that day. It was clear to him that he was never going to get it done on his own. He also called in some favors with his friends at the Rotary Club and Laura’s family for help stringing the lights. Otherwise that wouldn’t have happened either. His kids, even Todd, helped set out the decorations in the house. George knew he just had to get better at asking for help. It had to start now. He hadn’t wanted it to be a surprise either; it just turned out that way. In typical George fashion—he just went with it.

  George had been taking cookies out of the oven when Mary Ann entered. He was dressed in his dark blue suit with the red-and-green bow tie that he saved for Christmas and wearing a giant pot holder on each hand. He gave her a huge smile as he set the baking sheet down, looking so handsome in that suit, Mary Ann thought, but tired. Even exhausted. Elle pulled ahead, so Mary Ann bent over and undid the leash. The small dog scampered off into the living room.

  The cookies, resting in lines on the cooling racks, were each uniformly sized. Something was up. She kissed George on the cheek and said, “I’m impressed. Those look and smell amazing.”

  Mary Ann peeked into the trash can—store-bought cookie dough. She looked at him and was about to tease that he was cheating but instead she sighed. “Am I glad to see you! It’s been a long few days in this outfit. I’m going upstairs to change.”

  “Do you have to?” George asked. “You just got here! I missed you, too. Don’t disappear to change—I’m fond of costumes, and our guests are about to pour through the front door. Besides, I haven’t told you about your early Christmas surprise.”

  Just as she was going to ask what it was, their daughter, Hannah, stepped into the k
itchen. “Anna Claus! You’re so beautiful!”

  George beamed. “Don’t you know it.”

  Hannah grabbed her mother’s purse from her and set it on the counter. Then she did exactly what she’d been told. Her brothers appeared and joined in the conspiracy. “Come play for us! Please, Mom. We need Christmas music—a live performance by Mrs. Claus.”

  Mary Ann felt as if she’d been absent from them this entire holiday season, so she could hardly refuse. Besides, she loved to play at Christmastime. Music was like giving. She looked to George, and around the house, trying to take it all in as they pulled her from the kitchen. “Okay, but I do have one Christmas wish—to change out of Anna Claus’s suit and into Mary Ann’s party dress. I promise I’ll be right back!”

  As soon as Mary Ann returned to the living room, she sat at the piano with her children all around her and soaked up her holiday surroundings, still a bit astonished that George had actually put the decorations together in a way that worked. Things weren’t at all where she would’ve put them. But there was a certain whimsy to the way he’d organized things, and it was fun. The elves with their long cotton legs weren’t on the fireplace where they belonged. Instead George had neatly arranged them along the edge of the old wagon-wheel chandelier that hung over the dining-room table, so that they seemed to be mischievously watching the evening unfold.

  As she ran her fingers along the piano to warm up for an evening of caroling and good cheer with friends and family, she finally felt herself surrendering to the Christmas spirit. But just as she began to relax, it occurred to her that something—or rather someone—was missing.

  “Where’s Todd?” she asked.

  “He’ll be here soon—he and Laura are getting your gift ready,” George answered. “And he has something he wants to tell you.”