Love, Alice

by Barbara Davis

  “You had a daughter out of wedlock and raised her on your own. That’s not something a coward does.”

  “When she needed me, I turned my back on her. There’s a coward for you. When I should have—”

  Her voice fell away as the coughing came, rattling and wet, racking her slight frame until Dovie feared she would topple off the bench into a heap in the grass. Instinctively, she reached for her cell, wondering if this time she would need to dial 911, but the cough eventually subsided.

  “I’m sorry,” Dora said, giving one last wet rattle. “It just comes on like that, all of a sudden, like something’s got me around the chest. It’s better now. When will you come again?”

  Dovie eyed her closely. Her breath was still coming hard, but the bluish tint around her mouth was beginning to fade. “I was going to come tomorrow, but I think we should wait a few days. Today was a lot to absorb. The letters aren’t going anywhere.”

  “No waiting,” Dora wheezed. “I’m running out of time.” She paused and looked away. When her eyes came back her lashes were spiked with tears. “No waiting. Please.”

  Dovie had no way of knowing if Dora was referring to her return ticket, or if she had used running out of time in a more existential way, and it really didn’t matter. She understood. Dora needed to fill in the blank places of her daughter’s life, and finally know the truth. All of it—for better or worse.

  “All right. But not tomorrow. Saturday. Is there anything else I can do for you before I go? Some tea, maybe? Is it time for your medication?”

  “Not for hours yet. And I can make my own tea, if I want any. There is something you can do for me, though, now that I think of it. You could take me to her on Saturday.”

  “To Magnolia Grove?”

  “To the cemetery, yes. And bring the letters. I’d like to be near her when you read them. I was planning to go on my own, but I’d like it if you were with me.”

  Dovie ran through the potential pitfalls of the request. She had no idea what the next letters contained, whether they would finally answer Dora’s questions about her lost grandchild or simply lead to more heartache. But more to the point, she had serious doubts that sitting beside Alice’s grave would be beneficial to the poor woman’s spirits.

  “How about I pick you up Saturday morning and we go to breakfast and then down to the Battery instead? It’s supposed to be a pretty day, and the park is lovely. And of course, there’s the harbor, which you probably haven’t seen.”

  Dora laid a hand over Dovie’s. “I don’t care about pretty days, and there’s a harbor back in Sennen Cove if I want to look at the water.”

  Dovie nodded. “All right, then. Saturday. But we do breakfast first, and if I decide you’re overdoing it, we’re leaving. Now let’s get you back to your room.”

  The sun was all but gone when Dovie left Dora and stepped out into the parking lot. She still wasn’t sure about the cemetery on Saturday—Dora’s condition was going to require a close eye—but she was glad she had left work early to come tonight. Or maybe she’d just been looking for an excuse not to go home. She had worked late for the last three nights, tweaking and retweaking the details for the new spring exhibits, then laying out the schedule for the summer lecture series, neither of which were due until after the holidays. But it beat going home to an empty house, and another dinner of cold leftovers.

  She’d been numb for so long she couldn’t remember ever feeling any other way, comfortable in her aloneness, where no one asked too many questions or forced her to look too hard at herself. But now, with her quest for answers at an end, grief had turned to glaring self-awareness. It was time to rejoin the living, as Josiah put it. She knew it—even wanted it—she just wasn’t sure how to go about it. And until she figured it out, it felt better, and safer, to stay busy.

  The realization was an unsettling one. So unsettling that she was almost grateful when her cell went off. She answered without looking at the caller ID as she started the car, one eye on her mirror as she prepared to back out of the Palmetto Moon’s sparsely populated parking lot.

  “It’s Austin. Is this an okay time?”

  “This is fine,” she lied, fumbling to put the car back in park. Just the sound of his voice had her flustered. The last time they spoke, she’d been such a mess she had nearly slumped over in her soup. “I was just . . . leaving a friend’s. How can I help you?”

  “I was calling to see if you’d come up with any ideas for my mother’s birthday. It’s coming up pretty quick, and I don’t want to look like the proverbial bad son. It’s okay if you haven’t. I know you have a lot on your plate. I just need to have a fallback plan, is all.”

  “Oh God, the present. I’m sorry. Things have been a little crazy at the museum, and I’ve been working late all week. I honestly forgot we even talked about it.”

  “No worries. You weren’t exactly in peak form the last time we saw each other.”

  Dovie smothered a groan. Of course he remembered. “No, I wasn’t. And you were very kind. I can’t remember if I said thank you. In case I didn’t, thank you. For lunch, and for listening. I don’t usually dump my sob stories on total strangers.”

  “I wouldn’t call us strangers. And it was no big deal. So, how are you. How are . . . things?”

  “They’re good,” she mumbled. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine. So, listen, I do have an idea for your mother. There’s an artist whose work I happen to know she likes. His name is Ivey Clark. He’s local and I know him a little, through the museum. I could give him a call and see if he’s got anything finished that’s not commissioned. What does your budget look like?”

  There was a brief pause before Austin’s smoky laugh filled up the silence. “I knew you were going to ask that.”

  “It’s a perfectly valid question.”

  “Yes, it is. But it forces me to say I don’t have a budget, and that makes me sound a little pretentious. Not exactly the kind of thing that’s going to make you like me—and I’ve decided I want you to like me.”

  Dovie let the words sink in, the warm, almost honeyed weight of them setting off a little bloom in her belly. She closed her eyes, pushing the feeling down, and steered toward safe ground. “Okay, then. I think I have a pretty good idea what she’d like. I’ll touch base with Ivey in the morning and see if he’s a possibility, then ring you back.”

  “Sounds good. And I really do appreciate this, Dovie.”

  “I’m happy to help.”

  There was silence then, not the kind that came after the line went dead, but the empty, clumsy kind that yawned awkwardly when neither party knew how to end the call. It was Austin who finally broke it.

  “I guess I’ll wait to hear from you.”

  “Right. Hopefully tomorrow. Good night.”

  Dovie put the car in gear but couldn’t seem to press the gas. Instead, she sat staring at the phone, trying to deny the quivery schoolgirl feeling in the pit of her stomach. The last thing she needed while trying to put her life back together was a crush on Austin Tate.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Fridays were always crazy at the museum, but today was shaping up to be one for the books. A busload of eighth-graders on an art-appreciation field trip had descended on them at ten a.m., disrupting a morning that had already gotten off to a rocky start when a visitor knocked over a large handblown vase, shattering it into atom-size fragments and forcing the closing of an entire exhibit room. Next, a bus tour that was scheduled for the weekend had shown up a day early, to find their appointed docent out having a root canal, leaving Dovie to fumble her way through the first half of the presentation until another guide became free.

  When the dust settled, she made a beeline for her office, where she planned to close her door, slip off her shoes, and scare up a couple of ibuprofen for the drums beating in her head. She was halfway down the hall when Jack flagged her down.

&n
bsp; “Last time I saw juggling like that the guy was wearing floppy shoes and a big red nose. Nice work this morning.”

  “Thanks,” she said with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “Is it too early to start drinking?”

  “Not today, it isn’t. Seriously, though, way to be on the ball.”

  Dovie was still smiling as she sank into her desk chair and kicked off her heels. He hadn’t said it out loud, but the sentiment had been there, just the same. Good to have you back, Dovie. And it felt good to be back, to feel competent and confident again. To feel . . . hopeful, as if the fog she’d been living in was finally beginning to lift and some part of her was whispering that it was time to turn her face to the sun. Now, if she could just shake the nerves she got every time she thought about picking up the phone and calling Austin. It was business, and nothing more. Wasn’t it?

  “. . . And I’ve decided I want you to like me.”

  The words had been tumbling in her head all morning. Though maybe not so much the words themselves as the way he’d said them. Even now, replaying them for the hundredth time, she felt an almost visceral impact, as if something that had been sleeping for a very long time had suddenly begun to stir. She didn’t like it. She hadn’t felt this way since . . .

  She couldn’t even finish the thought. She’d never felt this way. Growing up, and all through school, she’d been immune to the schoolgirl crushes her friends seemed to fall prey to every other week, choosing instead to keep her nose to the academic grindstone. And then, with William, it had all been so comfortable, so safe. No butterflies or lightning bolts, just an easy companionship that never seemed to demand too much from either of them.

  And now, inexplicably, there was Austin—handsome playboy and consummate charmer. How had he managed to fly in under her radar? She wasn’t sure. But the one thing she was sure of was the sooner she wrapped up her business with him, the safer she would be.

  She picked up the phone and dialed his cell. He answered on the second ring.

  “I’ve got good news,” she blurted before he even finished saying hello. No need for chitchat. This was business. “Ivey Clark has two pieces that might work. He’s getting ready for a show in Miami next month, but when I told him who the painting was for he said no problem. He’s heading to Charlotte for the weekend, but said he’ll drop them off at the museum on his way out of town. That’ll give you a chance to swing by and look them over, then choose the one you think she’ll like best.”

  “Wow. You pick up the phone and just like that, he’s dropping off two paintings. I’m impressed. There’s only one problem. I can’t get there before the museum closes. I’ve got something scheduled that I can’t miss. Is there a way I can see them tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday, and I have plans in the morning. All day, really. But I guess I could bring them home with me, and you could stop by and take a look. Would that work?”

  “When’s a good time?”

  “I should be home by noon. I’m out in Heron Marsh—number seven.”

  “Number seven. Got it. See you then.”

  Dovie ended the call feeling more rattled than when she had picked up the phone. The idea had been to put a quick end to the business. Instead, she had invited the handsome playboy and consummate charmer to her house.

  Saturday had dawned clear and bright. Dovie was glad the warm weather had held for their outing. She had settled on Denny’s for breakfast, mostly for its close parking and easy access. Dora had been too fidgety to eat, managing only a slice of toast and half a glass of orange juice, before asking if they could go.

  Now, as they wound through Charleston’s quiet weekend streets, she realized she should have known better. Dora had one thing on her mind this morning, and it wasn’t bacon and eggs. She was wearing the gray wool suit she’d had on the day she first appeared at Magnolia Grove, along with her hat, and sat looking straight ahead, clutching the familiar black patent leather handbag in her lap.

  There were plenty of parking spaces available at this early hour. Dovie chose one as close as she could get to their destination. There would still be a walk, but not a bad one, so long as they took it slow and steady. But Dora wasn’t taking anything slow. Her pace quickened as the weathered stone wings came into view.

  “It’s so lovely,” she breathed, staring up at the angel’s tearstained face. “Every time I see it, it gets more beautiful. Someone must have loved her, don’t you think, to put up something like that?”

  Dovie nodded. She had no idea if the Tates or anyone else had loved Alice Tandy, but she liked the sentiment, and saw that Dora did, too. But there was something else in Dora’s expression. An eagerness to get on with what they’d come there to do.

  “The letters,” she prodded.

  Dovie led her to her usual bench, then sat down beside her, careful to look everywhere but at William’s grave. It felt strange coming empty-handed. Saturday was flower day, after all, and part of her had been dreading the thought of William’s grave devoid of flowers, but the time had come to shed old rituals, and perhaps even create new ones. William didn’t belong to her now. In truth, he never had.

  Finally, she could avoid it no longer. She must have let out a breath or a sound of some kind, because she felt Dora’s gaze turn in her direction. She had expected the grave to be barren. Instead, there was a bright burst of orange and yellow mums in the little vase at the foot of William’s headstone, as fresh as if they’d just been picked.

  Perhaps William’s mother had brought them. If so, it would have been a first. As far as she knew, neither of William’s parents came to visit their son’s grave. But then, maybe their conversation had at least brought Amanda around. She hoped so.

  Dora was still watching her. “Is something the matter?”

  “No, I . . . No, everything’s fine. I just . . . never mind.” Dovie reached into her tote, pulled out the letters, and laid them in her lap. “I only brought two. I thought that would be enough for today, and we agreed that if I think you’re getting tired, we’ll leave. I know you think I’m being bossy, and that these letters belong to you, but someone has to look out for you, and I’m that someone.”

  Dora nodded, resigned. “Have you . . . read them?”

  “Not these, no. I was afraid I’d be tempted to go back on my word if I knew ahead of time what they said. It’s hard to see you hurting and know that I’m the one who started all this. I’m still not sure which would be worse—breaking my promise to you or breaking your heart.”

  “You really are a good girl, you know, to care what happens to an old prat like me.”

  “Thank you,” Dovie said, giving Dora’s frail hand a squeeze. Only she didn’t feel like a good girl as she opened the first letter and smoothed it out on her knees. She had meddled in something that was none of her business, and because of it, there was a very good chance that before it was all over, Dora Tandy was going to wind up paying the price with a broken heart.

  THIRTY-THREE

  9 East Battery Street

  Charleston, South Carolina

  March 2, 1963

  My dearest little one,

  Forgive me for not writing sooner, but I’ve been busy getting my bearings and learning my new duties. The hardest part, aside from learning which doors went to which rooms, was learning the names of the other people who work here. It took a full month to sort them all out—names like Eulie and Lindy and Elron that still feel strange on my tongue—but I have them now, or at least think I do. However, I do still occasionally blunder into the wrong room, carrying a tea tray into the nursery, or a stack of freshly laundered nappies into Mr. Tate’s study.

  I’m rather like a carnival attraction in the Tate house, an oddity among the familiar. It’s because I’m white, you see. And in places like Charleston, white women don’t look after the children, or the laundry, or the silver. That’s left to the colored women. It’s
a tradition in the South, or so I’m told, the way things have always been done, though it feels like something else to me—something puffed up and faintly condescending.

  And so I’m not well liked by the rest of the help. They say I have no business taking a job that should have gone to a colored woman, taking food out of her mouth, and out of the mouths of her children. Not any specific woman, mind you, just a colored woman in general. But it isn’t only that. I’m an outsider here, an intruder encroaching on their territory with my English manners and funny way of talking. I hear them when they don’t know I’m nearby, making fun of the way I speak. It never occurs to them that they might sound just as silly to me. Probably because they were here first. That’s usually the way it works. There’s a pecking order, and someone’s got to be at the bottom.

  And it isn’t only the help who have an opinion.

  I’ve seen Mrs. Tate’s friends give me sideways glances now and then as well. They smile their pointed little smiles, and whisper behind their gloved hands, teasing Mrs. Tate about her little prince being too good to be raised by a colored woman, warning her that if she isn’t careful I’ll have her child singing “God Save the Queen” and eating crumpets instead of corn bread. They say other things, too, when her back is turned, about how if she doesn’t keep a sharp eye out I’ll have Harley Tate eating crumpets, too, and not the kind you eat with jam. The man’s known to have a taste for sweets, after all, and if they’re waved right under his nose, well, what does she expect?

  As if they all lead such spotless lives. Sometimes it’s hard to hold my tongue when I know whose husband came home at three in the morning reeking of cheap perfume, or who recently toppled headlong down the stairs because she’d been at her husband’s bourbon. You learn a lot eating in the kitchen with the help, where the table is always humming with what goes on in Charleston’s finest homes.

  And yet there are more reasons to be happy than unhappy. Austin said “Mama” today. He didn’t say it to me, of course, but to his own mother. Still, it made my heart smile, and perhaps ache a little, too, because it made me miss you even more than I normally do. He’s such a clever thing, walking already and getting into everything. I know it’s silly, but I’ve come to think of him almost as your brother. In my mind, his accomplishments are yours. And in sharing those moments with him, I am somehow sharing them with you.