Love, Alice

by Barbara Davis

  But then, he didn’t know, and wouldn’t—unless she told him. And maybe she should. Maybe, if she explained that her interest had nothing to do with his family’s past, that she was just trying to help an old woman find some peace before she died, he’d understand, and even want to help. But then, that wasn’t likely, was it? After he’d made it clear that poking around in his family’s business was off-limits. And there was another reason she was reluctant to tell him about the letters and her involvement with Dora. Part of her—a part that scared the hell out of her—wanted him to like her, too. And he wouldn’t if he knew what she’d been doing behind his back.

  He had been muttering for several minutes, scrubbing his chin and shaking his head. “Okay, I give,” he said, swinging his gaze in her direction. “Which one’s better?”

  Dovie laughed. “It isn’t about better, Austin. Good art almost never is. It’s about choosing the one your mother will enjoy the most. Which one will speak to her. Which one feels like her.”

  “And if I told you I still didn’t know?”

  Dovie moved to his side. She hadn’t planned on giving an art lesson today, but she’d miss the whole game if she didn’t step in. “Well, they’re very different, aren’t they? One’s a cityscape, lots of movement and strong contrast. It feels bright and vibrant, like the bustle of downtown. The other is a marsh at sunset. The colors are soft and muted, and the light feels almost watery. It’s remarkable, really. There’s a stillness to it, but there’s life, too, underneath. A warmth you feel rather than see.”

  Austin had shifted his gaze from the painting and was looking at her now, his eyes searching her face. Dovie felt herself flush. “What?”

  “It sounded like you were describing you, just then. Still, but with a life underneath. Warmth you feel rather than see. That’s you to a tee.”

  “I was describing the marsh.”

  “If you say so.”

  His voice was low and warm as he continued to hold her gaze, as if he’d just discovered some secret and was still trying to digest it.

  It was Dovie who looked away. “So, what do you think? About the paintings, I mean.”

  “Which is your favorite?”

  “That’s the wrong question.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re not choosing a gift for me. You’re choosing a gift for your mother. But I guess, if it were me doing the choosing, I’d go with the cityscape. It’s a better fit with the other two she has. Does that help?”

  “Enormously. Who do I make the check out to?”

  Dovie handed him Ivey Clark’s business card. “There you go. It’s called Weekend Downtown, by the way. It’s right there on the back of the card, if you forget.”

  “Oh, you can count on that.” Austin grinned as he handed her the check. “Seriously, you have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

  “Like I said, I’m happy to help, and I’m sure your mother’s going to love it. Oh, and Ivey said he’d frame whichever you chose at no charge and drop it back by the museum. I can give you a call when it’s ready.”

  “That would be great.”

  Dovie stole a quick glance at the television, grimacing when she realized she had missed the entire first series. Without meaning to, she inched closer to the set, watching as the Gators lined up to punt the ball away. At least they hadn’t scored.

  For the first time, Austin seemed to notice the snacks set out on the coffee table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize . . . Are you expecting company?”

  “Company?” Dovie shook her head. “Not unless you count Vern Lundquist from CBS. It’s my Saturday afternoon ritual, nachos and beer and college football. And today’s a big game. We’re playing Florida, which just happens to be our coach’s alma mater, so it’s this weird love-hate rivalry for them.”

  Austin eyed her shorts and Gamecocks T-shirt with obvious approval. “That explains the attire. It’s a good look for you, by the way.”

  Dovie looked away, flustered by the undisguised appreciation in his tone. Carolina had the ball, or would as soon as the punt was away. She watched as it sailed high but short, then held her breath during the return. “Yes! Out to the forty-six. Now do something with it!”

  “You’re a Carolina fan.”

  “Die-hard. My father played fullback back in the day.”

  Austin unzipped his jacket, exposing an enormous orange paw print emblazoned across his chest. “I played QB for Clemson.”

  Dovie let out a sigh. “Bless your little heart, of course you did.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” she said, all wide-eyed innocence. “Someone’s got to go there. Not everyone can get into Carolina.”

  “So it’s going to be like that, is it?”

  “I’m afraid so.” She turned back to the game as Carolina lined up in the shotgun, then aired one out for a twenty-two-yard pickup. “Yes! Did you see that bullet?”

  “Your dad get you interested in football?”

  Dovie smiled, but with just a touch of the old bitterness. “I was the son he never had.”

  “No brothers?”

  “No. Just my sister, Robin, and she hated football. That left just Daddy and me on Saturday afternoons. We didn’t win much back then. That was before Spurrier, though. Now we’ve got an offense, and recruiting’s getting better every year. The four and five stars are actually giving us a look.”

  Austin’s brows notched up. “I’m impressed.”

  “Why? Because girls don’t know football?”

  “Because of how intense you are about it. You’re like that about everything, though. You take everything so seriously. It’s . . . impressive.”

  Dovie eyed him suspiciously, surprised by the compliment—if that’s what it was. “I thought you said once that I was too serious.”

  “That was before I knew you. I teased you, but now I can’t help wondering. Maybe if I’d been a little more serious I could have avoided some of my more spectacular mistakes. I guess we’ll never know.”

  His pensive tone caught Dovie’s attention. “What kind of mistakes?”

  Austin shrugged. “Not important. By the way, your boy Mitchell just threw a pick, and it looks like Florida’s about to take it in for six.”

  “No!” Dovie dropped to the arm of the couch in time to see Florida’s Demetrius Webb high-step into the end zone. “Well, damn. Not a very auspicious start.” She stifled a grin as she turned to him. “And don’t you dare stand there looking smug, you . . . Clemson fan.”

  Austin smothered a grin of his own. “It’s way too early for smug. But the guy needs to stop telegraphing his throws, or that won’t be the last one of those we see.”

  Dovie cringed as she watched the replay. Austin was right. Number fifteen had read Mitchell’s eyes the whole way. Sighing, she pushed to her feet.

  Austin cocked an eye at her. “Where are you going?”

  “To the kitchen. We’re down seven points, and I’m a nervous eater.”

  In the kitchen, she pulled a Coke and a Bud Light from the fridge, then grabbed the plate of nachos. Austin was perched on the edge of the couch when she returned, cell phone to his ear. It was impossible not to overhear his half of the conversation.

  “Hey, Ted, something’s come up, and I’m not going to make it. I need to sit with a friend who’s going through kind of a rough time. No, it isn’t serious. Just a nervous condition.” He paused, throwing Dovie a wink. “I’ll be keeping the four o’clock with Tyler’s father, though. Bet on that. I’ve been trying to pin the guy down for weeks. Today, he’s going to listen to what I have to say.” He paused, nodding at whatever was being said in his ear. “Sure thing. I’ll call you when it’s over.”

  Dovie set down the nachos and passed Austin the Coke before curling up in the corner of the couch with her beer. “Dig in,”
she said, pointing to the coffee table spread. “As you can see, there’s plenty. I always do enough for an army. Chalk it up to my nervous condition.”

  “Again, I’m impressed. You’re an art expert, a football expert, and you cook. Is there anything you don’t know how to do?”

  Dovie made a face as she took a sip of her beer. “Let’s leave that list for another day, shall we? Is everything okay? I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation, and it sounded intense, like maybe poor Tyler’s father’s in for an earful.”

  “Tyler’s father deserves an earful.”

  “Who’s Tyler, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “A kid I’ve sort of taken under my wing at the Outlook Club.”

  “Outlook Club?”

  “It’s a youth center I started with a friend of mine a few years back. It’s for troubled kids from rocky homes—boys mostly. And when I say rocky homes, I don’t necessarily mean they come from the wrong side of the tracks. Kids with trust funds can have crappy home lives, too. At risk is the term they use now, I think.”

  “And you started this center on your own?”

  “Not on my own, no. I have a friend, Ted Atkinson, who worked with me on the concept and helped me navigate the organizational hurdles. I bought the land, but he did most of the rest. We’ve got a certified counselor on staff, and a handful of volunteers. It’s not a lot of kids, but we try to be hands-on. We won’t change the world, but we do what we can.”

  “This boy, Tyler. He’s in trouble?”

  “Not legal trouble, no. But there are worse things than getting busted for shoplifting or breaking into cars. His mother died when he was seven. For years, it’s just been him and his dad. Then, about six months ago, his father remarried. He’s so busy with his new bride that he seems to have forgotten he has a fifteen-year-old son who still needs him. Needless to say, Tyler’s been feeling a little displaced. He feels like he’s lost his whole family, which is why he’s been acting out.”

  “Acting out, how?”

  “That time I had to run out on you at your office—the day we met—I’d just gotten a call from Ted telling me he’d run away. I found him, eventually, out on the dock where I take him sailing. It took some doing, but I got him to agree to go home.”

  Dovie thought back to that day, and that call. When he mentioned the word club she’d just assumed he’d meant country club. Clearly, there was a side of Austin Tate she hadn’t seen. One she was starting to think she’d like to see more of.

  “What did you say that finally convinced him to go home?”

  “I told him things would never get better if he kept taking off, that he needed to stay and learn how to talk to his father. He didn’t like that part very much. He’s pretty angry. And hurt.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “And I told him there are all kinds of families. That family isn’t just something that shows up on a blood test, that there are people who care about him.”

  Dovie swallowed an unexpected lump in her throat. “You keep surprising me. I wouldn’t have pegged you as a softie, but here you are, doing this amazing thing. Not just writing a check, but actually touching lives. That is how you change the world, by the way.”

  Austin shrugged. “It’s my mother’s fault. She’s big on strays and charity cases. Always has been. I guess it rubbed off on me.”

  Dovie nodded, thinking about Alice. She had been one of those strays, an at risk youth long before the term became part of the landscape, and Gemma had taken her in. He did come by it honestly. But she couldn’t help thinking that there might be more to Austin’s involvement with Tyler than just his mother’s kind example, that in helping this boy he was trying to rewrite his own history with a cold and unloving father. It made her sad, and a little angry, too.

  “Why doesn’t anyone know this about you? The papers like to make you out as this hard-partying playboy. Fancy sports cars and a blonde on every arm. They never, ever talk about this.”

  Austin smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “The other stuff’s sexier.”

  “Maybe it’s time you set the record straight.”

  His smile was a bitter one. “And have the Outlook Club look like some sort of publicity stunt? No, thanks. Ted’s the front man, and I’m fine with that. I’ll just keep doing what I do—quietly.”

  “But why? It’s not a publicity stunt if it’s true. And you can’t tell me you enjoy people thinking of you as a male version of Paris Hilton. Famous, for being . . . famous.”

  Austin’s face hardened unexpectedly. “I don’t want people to think of me at all, Dovie. That’s what no one seems to get. I don’t need anyone keeping score. And speaking of keeping score . . .” He paused, pointing to the television. “You might want to pay attention. Your boys are in the red zone.”

  Dovie let her gaze linger a moment before deciding to let the matter drop. If there was anything she had learned about Austin Tate, it was that when he was done talking about a thing, he was done.

  Near the end of the third quarter, Austin stood, announcing that it was time for him to go. “I need to get over to Sullivan’s Island by four, and I don’t want to be late. I’m not giving Tyler’s father any excuse to run out on me.”

  Dovie stood, too, feeling a pang of disappointment as she walked him to the door. “Thanks for hanging out and watching the game,” she said, feeling shy all of a sudden. “It was nice to have company for a change. Even if it was a Clemson fan.”

  “What would you say to a little company later on? Say, dinner?”

  Dovie froze, feeling like the proverbial deer in headlights. “You mean, like a date?”

  “I mean, like an experiment. A chemistry experiment, to be precise. I’m interested to see if we can share a whole meal without there being an explosion of some kind.”

  Dovie managed a grin. “If it’s in the name of science, I don’t see how I can say no.”

  “You pick the place. Whatever you’re in the mood for. Just not McCrady’s. I’m not sure my reputation could take it if you walked out on me again.”

  “God, I really am sorry about that.”

  Austin reached out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, his fingertips warm where they brushed her cheek. “Then make it up to me.”

  Dovie’s breath caught as she met his gaze. “How?”

  “Stay for dessert.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  It was Saturday night, and the Porch was packed. But then, Dovie couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t. Opened twenty years ago, by Theda’s grandmother and two of her aunts, the place had quickly become a local landmark, drawing tourists and locals alike, and well worth the numbing stretch of highway connecting Mount Pleasant and Georgetown.

  By anyone’s standards, the Porch was a hole-in-the-wall, a weathered clapboard shack with a sagging wraparound porch and a long, listing dock that knifed out over the marsh. Dovie glanced at Austin’s face as he pulled into the rutted dirt parking lot. He wasn’t frowning, exactly, but he was definitely taking it all in. He might be wary now, but he’d soon change his tune. The place might not look like much at first glance, but when it came to authentic Gullah cuisine, no one offered a more mouthwatering experience than Mama Hettie and her daughters.

  Patrons hovered in clumps on the peeling front porch, some making use of weathered rockers while they waited for their names to be called. Austin eyed the crowd, not bothering to hide his surprise. “All these people are waiting to get in there?”

  “Yup.” She led him up a set of creaky steps and onto the porch. “Mama Hettie doesn’t believe in reservations. She does believe in haints, though,” she added, pointing to the blue shutters all along the porch.

  “In what?”

  “Haints. It’s Geechee for ‘ghosts.’ That’s why the blue paint. It symbolizes water, and since everyone knows haints can’t cross water, they use
it to confuse the spirits and keep them from crossing over into their homes, or in this case, businesses.”

  “Like kryptonite,” Austin said, craning his neck to study the pale blue ceiling. “But for ghosts.”

  “Exactly. Let’s go put our name on the list.”

  Inside, the air was warm and thick, heady with the aromas of exotic spices and down-home cooking. Every table was full, and then some, with chairs and high chairs spilling into the aisles, so that servers had to squeeze between diners, trays of food held above their heads.

  Dovie paused to point out the walls, rough-hewn boards darkly stained, studded with sweetgrass baskets and colorful Gullah art pieces, many of which bore price tags. “The artwork is Theda’s mother’s contribution to the family business. She’s all about supporting local artists and showcasing Gullah culture to visitors.”

  Before Austin could reply, Theda’s Auntie Jevet had spotted Dovie and was elbowing her way through the throng. She was as regal as ever, tall and sturdy as a tribal totem, though carved of stronger stuff. And beautiful, with wide almond eyes and skin like polished ebony.

  “You should’ve called to let us know you was coming, baby girl!” Her full mouth pursed as she looked Dovie up and down, then subjected Austin to the same scrutiny. “Look at you, always so pretty. Your fella ain’t bad, either.”

  Dovie opened her mouth to protest but thought better of it. It was far too noisy to go into explanations about who Austin was and wasn’t. “It was sort of spur-of-the-moment,” she said instead. “We don’t mind waiting.”

  “Nonsense. What you think Theda’s going to say if she comes out of the back and finds you standing here like some stranger?”

  Dovie felt the first niggling of unease. “Theda’s here?”

  “Sure is. Back in the kitchen. Mama Hettie likes for her to keep a hand in. Not that she’s ever goin’ die. Eighty-four, and she goin’ to her grave with all those recipes in her head. Won’t write ’em down to save herself. One day she’ll drop over, and the joke goin’ be on her. Wait and see. I’ll go tell Theda you’re here. And Hettie, too.”