Chapter 19 Alice
The girls were acting strangely, Alice noted as she sat between them at dinner.
This wasn’t out of character for Georgiana, but Eloise’s behavior alarmed her. She was jumpy and tense, accidentally salting
her coffee instead of her food.
It had to do with Clyde, Alice was sure of it. Eloise must be feeling awkward since she’d turned him down. But she’d done
the right thing. There was something a bit much about the Scottish author. He was charming, he was successful, but he certainly
wasn’t an islander. Alice suspected he was going to exploit the island with his novel, clog it up with his cultish readers.
The media would publish articles about what a hero he was, how he’d stimulated economic growth. As if growth was always a
good thing. As if things hadn’t been better before, back when no one outside of a hundred-mile radius had ever heard of Mackinac.
Besides, the last thing Eloise needed was to fall for someone who was leaving. She put forth an image of strength, of durability,
but Alice wasn’t fooled. Her daughter was vulnerable. She always had been, ever since she’d been born. Only four pounds and
eleven ounces. Eloise had shared the womb with Penelope, then lost her twin that very first day. It impacted Eloise, even
as an infant. She didn’t do well when Alice left the nursery for more than a couple of minutes, shrieking and shrieking, tiring
out her tiny lungs. Some called it colic. Alice called it coping.
“Look at them,” Georgiana pouted, watching James and Lillian on the dance floor.
She was clearly smitten with the doctor but wouldn’t admit it, lest she gratify her mother. Georgiana was more stubborn than
any mule Alice had met, and she’d met quite a few. She and David used to have a whole barnful to haul the construction equipment.
“How anyone can dance to this music is beyond me,” Eloise said.
“It’s not even music,” Alice said. “It’s a synthetic explosion. I should have brought earplugs.”
“I’ll go request something more your style.” Georgiana bounded over to the DJ booth. As she walked, she dropped her beach
towel.
Alice heard the shudder of her own gasp. Georgiana was wearing a string bikini beneath a barely there cover-up. She’d never
seen a less appropriate outfit.
“Here we go,” Eloise said grimly. “She’s got her sights on Ronny.”
Alice prayed it wasn’t true. “She’s just trying to make someone jealous.”
“Perhaps.” Eloise was unfocused. She kept glancing over at Clyde.
“He’s not staying,” Alice said gently. “Just remember that.”
“I’m aware.”
Alice blamed herself for what happened with Gus. She and David were so quick to give their blessing. (Well, David was quick;
Alice hadn’t been consulted, but that hadn’t bothered her at the time.) She should have asked questions, should have given
Gus a lecture when he’d run off. She couldn’t go back and change it now. All she could do was make sure she didn’t take her
eye off the ball again.
A big band tune from the fifties came on. “Finally, a song that doesn’t feel like a jackhammer grinding into my skull,” Alice
said.
It was one of David’s favorites. What she would give to be able to dance with him one more time. Excusing herself from the
table, she went to the bar and ordered an old-fashioned, David’s favorite.
Liam Townsend appeared at her shoulder. He was bald with a beer belly, but Alice still saw the boy in him, the strapping teenage heartthrob who’d won her over with Glenn Miller serenades and wildflower bouquets.
His ebony eyes landed on Alice’s and stuck.
“How about joining me for a jitterbug?” he asked.
His voice had gotten huskier with age. Alice couldn’t help but note how it suited him.
“You don’t dance,” Alice said. Liam had always been a curmudgeon on the dance floor. Silly as it seemed, it had been one of
the things early on that had made seventeen-year-old Alice confident in her decision to ditch Liam for David. She’d found
a metaphor in choosing a partner you didn’t need to teach to dance, someone who already knew the steps.
“Well, our taste buds change every seven years,” Liam said. “Perhaps the same might be true for my ability to dance. Shall
we find out?”
Alice was tempted to take him up on the offer, but it felt too intimate, especially with all the islanders looking on. “Not
tonight, I’m afraid,” she said, taking a sip of her old-fashioned and wincing as it chafed her throat. She hated whiskey,
always had. But drinking it reminded her of her husband.
“Worried your granddaughter is onto us?” Liam said, nodding in Georgiana’s direction.
Alice wanted to blame Liam’s brazenness on the alcohol, but he was speaking coherently, his eye contact firm and sober.
“There is no us to be onto,” Alice whispered. “I do wish you would stop talking like that.”
She wasn’t trying to be rude, but really, what was Liam doing? They’d had such a good thing going recently.
“You don’t think about it?” Liam asked. “What we could be now, after all these years wondering.”
Guilt reared up in Alice again. “There have been no years spent wondering,” she said, and she felt good about how true that
was. Alice had not even lost hours, let alone years, wondering if she should have left David for Liam. She had known back
then she had made the right choice and she knew that now.
“You are a good friend, Liam,” Alice said. “A very good friend.”
Liam shook his head. “I’m not,” he said. “I never was. I’ve always wanted more, Alice, from the time we were kids. I never
figured out how to stop. But I can see your heart is still with David.”
Alice wanted to get out of her own way. She wanted to lead Liam out on the dance floor and see if he surprised her. But she
couldn’t do that, not when David had been her forever dance partner. She didn’t want to stop wishing for him in the vaults
of her brain, the veins of her body. It was how she kept him alive.
And also how she absolved her own sin.
“Yes,” Alice said, unable to look Liam in the eye as she said it. “It is.”