All About Charming Alice (20 page)

“You … you liked him?” Alice wasn’t certain she was standing on firm ground in this exchange.

“Liked him!” Mick snorted. “Fair went mad over the man. No way I was gonna live down in Three Stones though. What with my daughter up here and all.”

“What happened?” Curiosity was getting the better of her.

“Died, he did. That’s what.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Mick.” She was embarrassed.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” said Mick gruffly. “Harry was hitting ninety by then, and we’d had a good run of years together. Still, sometimes I wish I’d gone down there to live with him every day, like. Wouldn’t have seemed so romantic that way. Not when you got pots to wash day in and day out with cold barrel water, and all them dead rats lying around.” She took another slug of beer.

Alice looked down at the floor. She didn’t want Mick to know she was damping down the wild urge to laugh. “I suppose dead rats do chill out the atmosphere somewhat,” she finally managed to mutter.

“On a daily basis, they do. Sure enough.”

“Well,” said Alice, wanting to make amends for the way her mouth was twitching. “Distance wasn’t the only problem Jace and I were facing.” She wanted to kick herself just as soon as she said that. In another minute she’d be pouring her heart out.

Mick scrutinized her. “Folks here say you was getting on fine together. Never know what really happens between two people when the lights go out and they slide in between the sheets, though.”

Alice blushed deeply. “Good heavens, Mick.” When people here in Blake’s Folly wanted to get earthy, they went for it directly. “Things were just fine when the lights went out,” she answered stiffly. “But Jace is a city boy, you see. He doesn’t like the desert. Not really.”

“It bother him much being out here?”

Alice rolled the question around in her mind for a minute. She’d never really thought about it. “No. I don’t think it did bother him. In the beginning, it did. Not at the end, though. But it
did
bother me. I kept wondering if he was dreaming about being in Chicago. With his friends, the fancy life, all his interests.”

“So what’d he bother with you for?” Mick grinned her smile of crooked fangs. “Things like place don’t make no difference, not when you really love someone and they love you right back. Don’t get caught up on silly ideas, girl. Life just ain’t long enough. Besides, that man don’t look like no fool to me. He wanted city life and city glamour, wouldn’t have started messing around with you. Wouldn’t have given you a second glance, he wouldn’t have.”

Which made sense, all right. Too much sense. Unless she was snatching at any illusion of hope that was etching itself onto the horizon.

Which also meant that if there was a future for her with the man she loved — very deeply loved — then the next move was up to her. So what was she supposed to do? Give up her new job? Move to Chicago after all? Look for a job there? Farm the dogs out? All the solutions seemed so drastic.

Yet life without Jace was also hard. Every corner of her house, every inch of her bed, every square foot of the desert reminded her of him. Even out at the Winterback Mine Conservation Area and Wildlife Refuge, people constantly asked her if she’d heard from him.

“A nice man. This project might not have gotten off the ground without his support,” Pete Wilkens, the botanist, had said to her just that afternoon.

A nice man, Jace? More than that. A lovely man. Did she have the guts to go back to Chicago, try and fit into his life — even though the situation might eventually end badly? Did she? It might be better than dreaming about him all the time, and then feeling like a failure. Move to Chicago when she loved Blake’s Folly? Loved the excitement of setting up the snake protection area?

Her heart felt as if it weighed a ton. There was another solution, of course. It was so big and so obvious, she’d been an utter fool not to see it:
why not talk this over with Jace?

“Okay,” Alice muttered to no one in particular. “Here we go. Rats and all.”

Mick Fletcher lifted her beer can in a mock salute. She didn’t have the faintest idea what Alice was on about now, but it sounded good enough to her ears.

“You show ’em, honey,” Mick mumbled.

• • •

Alice got Jace’s answering machine for the sixth time. She didn’t bother leaving another message. After the first two, she’d feel foolish repeating herself.

Where was he? Why did it always seem that when you really wanted — or needed — to talk to someone, they vanished off the surface of the earth? Had he given up on her? Was he now sitting in some luxurious gourmet palace, talking to a dark-haired and sleek creature in designer togs?

“Of course, if you’d had the guts to stay in Chicago instead of running away, you wouldn’t have to deal with a machine!” she muttered to herself. And he wouldn’t have been out dipping his steamed lobster into lemon and butter sauce, eyeing the brunette over candlelight.

When she got the machine again at eleven that night, she slammed down the receiver. She had begun a serious hate relationship with that distant thing. After that, there was nothing left to do but toss and turn in bed for the next eight hours until it was time to get up and catch the bus that would take her out to the Winterback Mine Conservation Area.

She was just locking the dogs into the kennel in the morning when she heard the telephone ringing back in the house, and she almost broke her neck in her haste to get to it.

It was Jace. Thank goodness it was Jace.

“Is everything all right?”

God, she loved the deep, rich tones of his voice. “Just fine,” she answered, breathlessly. She was also rather unsure about how to begin. “It’s just … I sort of wanted to talk to you. Sort of urgently, sort of … ”

“I gathered that,” he said dryly.

“What do you mean?”

“You called seven times.”

“Oh.” She felt embarrassed. “How do you know that? I only left two messages.”

“My phone keeps numbers. This is the big city, you know. Modern sort of place.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t get in until two, or else I would’ve called earlier.”

“Oh.” Her repartee was just short of brilliant, she noted. What was he doing out until two in the morning? She felt a sudden stab of jealousy. Then hoped the lobster had been hard to digest. What if her proposal was going to be an unwelcome one? What if he was no longer interested? What if …
Oh, cut it out
.

She took a deep breath. “Jace, I want to see you. I think we should talk. I miss you too much. I was a fool to leave so quickly. I … look, if you want, I can come back to Chicago.” She stopped. “Jace … more than anything, I want to be with you. Live with you. I hate being so far … ”

There was a long — or so it seemed to her — silence.

She tried again. “Jace? I mean, maybe we could make a go of it. Maybe I can find a job in Chicago or … ” She took a deep breath. “At least we should try. Or, at least talk about it.”

“Forget it, Alice.”

“Forget what?” Her heart dropped so low so quickly, it hit the floor with a bang. She’d made a ridiculous fool of herself.

“About coming to Chicago.”

She fought back a wave of disappointment and nausea. She’d lost him. It was all her fault. Her fault. Still … it hadn’t taken him much time to get over her. No sleepless nights lost over Alice Treemont and the reptiles. How much was such a fickle man worth? Not much. Perhaps it was better to be rid of him after all.

“Oh.” Once again, it was the best she could come up with. She took a deep breath. “The brunette?”

There was a second’s hesitation. “What brunette?” At least he sounded genuinely puzzled.

“You know. Lobster and champagne. Et cetera.”

“Lobster?”

“Forget it, Jace. Just a private joke that Killer and I share. So, how’s tricks?”

“Alice. You were right in leaving Chicago, you know. What would you do here if you stayed? I was being totally self-centered and selfish, thinking I could keep you locked up in my apartment forever. Waiting for me to come home.”

“Well, I just thought … ” Her voice trailed off.
Oh, why go on humiliating herself. He didn’t want her there. Wasn’t it obvious?

“I’ve been waiting for this call, you know,” he said. There was softness in his voice, although she couldn’t interpret what it meant.

“You were?”

“I was. I was starting to think it would never come.”

Meaning, she had waited too long? Meaning, now it was too late for them? She swallowed. “You really have fallen in love with someone else. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Right.” His voice was dry. “That’s my style. In and out of love with someone new every half-hour or so. You always this trustful?”

“Oh. Sorry.” She glanced anxiously up at the clock. The morning bus would be passing through Blake’s Folly in five minutes. “Jace, the bus. If I run, I can just about make it. I have an important meeting out at the Winterback. If I miss it, there’s no way of getting out to the mine today. Unless I hitch. And
if
a car just happens to pass this way — if someone gets lost enough, that is. Look, could we talk this evening. I get home at seven-thirty.” Although, heaven only knew what there was to talk about, she thought. Since there was probably no viable solution to their particular problem.

“Fine, Alice. I’ll speak to you this evening.” To her ears, he sounded as though he were about to start laughing. For the life of her, she couldn’t see the humor in the conversation. Horror, yes. Humor, no. And if it was humor, why? What on earth was so funny? Or was he just relieved, happy to be getting off the phone?

“And Jace?”

“Alice?”

“I love you.”

“I know.” He was chuckling.
Damn him
.

“What do you mean, you know that I love you?” Indignation was sneaking right back into the picture again. “How can you be so sure?”

“If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have offered to come back and live with me in Sin City.”

“Oh.” She swallowed with difficulty. “Uh … you … ” She stopped, unable to continue.

He really was laughing now, no mistaking that. “Yes Alice,” he said, his voice low, deep, thrilling. “Yes, I love you too. Remember that.”

• • •

At twenty minutes after seven, Alice stepped off the evening bus that had carried her back from the Winterback Mine Conservation Area, and down onto the dry, dusty earth of Blake’s Folly.

In front of her, lit by a bleak setting sun, the main drag of the village stretched out in all its grim glory: rusty corrugated iron roofs, broken down cars, trailers, shacks, clapboard horrors, thirsty trees, straggling dry weeds and cracked windows. She sighed as she took in the whole scruffy, bedraggled landscape.

“You really expected Jace to love this place?” she chided
.
Then felt like punching herself.

There was a little knot of people grouped together up near Ma Handy’s; she could make out Ma, Pa, Jane Grimes, Mick Fletcher, Sam Foster. All of them were just standing there, watching her. Alice raised her hand in greeting. They continued to stare, silently. Pa looked like he was gloating about something. She had half a mind to go over, ask what was up.

But there was no time for that now. Turning left at Ed Baker’s shanty, she quickened her steps. Jace would be phoning soon. The one thing she wanted, just at this moment, was to be talking to him. To hear his voice, even if that made her seem like a silly teenager waiting for a call from a first boyfriend. She didn’t in the least mind the comparison. Who cared? If being in love made you juvenile, well then, that was all right with her.

Of course it would be better, a hundred, thousand,
million
times better to be in his arms. But that was impossible.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a huge black animal heading, full speed, down the road in her direction, leaving a swirling haze of dust and flying stones in its wake.

“Killer!” she shouted in amazement. “What in heaven’s name are you doing, running free like this? You should be locked up in the kennel!”

Perhaps she hadn’t closed the kennel door properly before she’d left for work this morning? Her heart sank.
Damn
. It was all the fault of that ringing telephone. She’d been careless, pressed for time, and hadn’t bothered to go back and check.

With all his usual loving violence, Killer threw himself into her arms, liberally covered her face with kisses, as if she’d been gone for at least an ice age. Alice had to fight to keep standing. Within seconds, several other wriggling dogs surrounded her. “Oh no! You bad dogs.”

What had the animals been doing all day? Making pests of themselves in the village, most likely. Riffling through people’s garbage, killing chickens, trampling flowers, mauling cats, running amok. That was probably the reason everyone had been staring at her. The whole village was probably, right at this moment, getting ready to ostracize her. Ban her from the Annual Snail Race, the Square Dance Club, the Adopt-a-Highway Association.

“That’s all I need …
persona non grata
in the only place I can call home.” Excluded from all the Get-Togethers and Garage Sales, Old Boy’s Concerts and Bake-Ups for eternity and then some.

She couldn’t even run away to Chicago. Jace had said to forget it. But why? She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know.

The dogs trotted happily beside her as she covered the last stretch of dusty trail that led in the direction of home. Rounded a nasty toothed snatch-it shrub. Started up the path.

Stopped dead.

In front of her, in the dusky light, was the veranda. In a shadow on the veranda, was the rattan settee. And sitting on the settee was …

Impossible!

Jace?

Just sitting. Sitting, as if that was where he belonged. There he was, all right. Looking just as wonderful as she remembered, his long, muscular legs in their faded jeans stretched out in front of him, the ever-errant lock of reddish brown hair curling over his forehead, inviting her fingers to touch.

Of course she was seeing things. She had to be. Jace couldn’t really be here. Not here in Blake’s Folly. Not really. Life wasn’t like that. She was finally going absolutely, irrevocably nuts. Having visions.