fresh out of hope,” Alice countered, wondering how Lorene would feel if Jay had left her high and dry at the altar. But then, Jay Hobert was not that kind of man. He had integrity and he loved Lorene. Cranking the car, she waited for it to sputter to life then looked up into Lorene’s disappointed face. “I’m sorry, Lo. I should be more like you, but I can’t see the bright side of this.”
Lorene leaned in close, as close as her growing stomach would let her. “Honey, he read your story. That means your words made a difference to someone, and this particular someone isn’t a fly-by-night drifter out to do us in. Didn’t you write that story so people would remember Bayou Rosette and all that our ancestors did to make this a good town, and to make people more aware that we’re still alive and kicking around here?”
Alice looked out over the garden, remembering her parents sitting in the old swing, smiling and giggling. The yard was becoming dormant now, shutting down for fall and winter. She wished she could just shrink away and hibernate, too. Why was she being so stubborn about this? “Yes, I did write about our history to attract visitors. I just wanted people to see us, to notice us.”
Lorene rested her hand on her stomach. “Well, somebody did. And I say more power to the man.”
“Power—that’s what scares me,” Alice replied. Then she patted her sister’s hand. “I’ve got to get to work. I’m sure Dotty will be all over this like a duck on a june bug. I might not like the man, but if anyone gets this story, it’s gonna be me. I have to convince Dotty of that.”
“You’ll do it justice, I know,” Lorene said. “You’re always fair. Just try to have an open mind, okay?”
“Okay, all right,” Alice said as she shifted into Reverse and backed the car out of the driveway. “I’ll behave, I promise.”
Lorene didn’t look so sure. Alice had given her sister plenty of reason to doubt over the years since their parents had died in a car wreck out on the interstate. Alice had been thirteen, Lorene eighteen, when it had happened. They had clung together and refused to leave their home even though friends and relatives from around the state had offered them shelter. Lorene had finished high school, but instead of going to Tulane as she’d always dreamed, she had taken classes at a nearby community college so she could stay with Alice. Then she had worked it out so that a retired aunt could come and help out with Alice while Lorene worked at night at a local restaurant. Somehow, between the modest inheritance their parents had left and their combined work money, they’d managed to hang on to their house and land—even through a major storm and even through Alice’s devastation after Ned Jackson’s lies.
So much sacrifice. Lorene had worked at night to make extra money, just so they could keep Rosette House and so Alice could get the degree at Tulane that Lorene never had the chance to pursue. Between her scholarships and her own job, Alice had managed to get through college, but she came home the minute she graduated, armed with a journalism degree and a restless spirit. She didn’t want to be anywhere else, she reminded herself now. She owed her sister so much. Maybe she could try to change her attitude, for Lorene’s sake, at least. And to remind herself that she’d come home hoping to make changes, hoping to create her own niche here in the place she loved.
What if Jonah Sheridan could help her do that? Would that be so wrong? Alice didn’t have the same strong convictions as her sister. She prayed, same as Lorene, but she wasn’t so sure her requests were always as pure as her sister’s. But in spite of her doubts and her cynical nature, Alice still held out hope, too. She didn’t like to admit that, but if she looked closely she knew she’d find a little glimmer of hope somewhere deep inside her bruised heart. How else could she have written that story only months after Ned had broken her heart? She wasn’t so sure she was ready to nurture that hope, though.
“We need to follow up on this, Alice,” Dotty Tillman said later that morning. “You need to follow up on this. So why are you sitting here?”
Alice lifted an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting I stalk the man, Dotty?”
Dotty stuck her pen into the thick auburn-colored bundle of wiry hair surrounding her café-au-lait face, then looked down through her pink bifocals. “Isn’t that what a good reporter does?”
Alice was suddenly having doubts regarding her abilities to remain neutral about Jonah Sheridan. “But…by the time our story comes out next month, he might be long gone anyway.”
Dotty again looked through her bifocals, a hand moving in the air. “Okay, kid, what’s really going on? You come in here and tell me about this Jonah Sheridan person and how he’s out to rebuild practically the whole town, but you don’t have that enthusiasm I like in a reporter. In fact, you seem downright depressed about this scoop. Spill it, Alice.”
Alice sank back in her chair then glanced out the front window of the tiny cottage where the Bayou Buzz offices were located on Bayou Drive. Everything around here seemed to have the word bayou in it, one way or another. Maybe because all the people around here had bayou blood running through their veins. She could see the Bayou Belle Inn across the square.
The blue Victorian house that had become an inn and restaurant over twenty years ago sat back from the road, surrounded by ancient live oaks and tall magnolias on the street side and bald cypress trees and trailing bougainvillea vines on the bayou side. Leaves from the nearby red oaks and tallow trees floated by in graceful symmetry each time the fall wind blew. Alice shivered, feeling that wind like a warning inside her soul.
“I guess I don’t buy it,” she finally admitted. “He just shows up one day all gung ho about a place he’s never even seen before. I don’t trust this man.”
Dotty let out a huff of breath. “Suga’, you don’t trust any man, not since—”
“Don’t remind me,” Alice said, getting up to pace around the square office, where her own big desk behind the reception counter served as her home away from home. “I don’t want to make the same mistake twice, Dotty. I vouched for Ned. I convinced people to hire him. And even though Jonah Sheridan seems like the real deal, I just can’t get excited about this. Maybe I am being too negative, but it’s hard right now.”
Dotty dropped her glasses on Alice’s desk. Her gold hoop earrings shimmied as she shook her head. “We all make mistakes, you know. Especially when it comes to men.”
“Is that why you’ve never married?” Alice asked, hoping to glean a bit of information from her tight-lipped boss. No one really knew much about Dotty, except that she had grown up in Texas and lived in New Orleans until a few years ago. She’d started a multicultural magazine there, but something had gone wrong and she’d wound up here. A blessing for Alice, since she’d needed a job, but a mystery for the whole town. More fat to chew, more fodder for bayou legends. “Dotty?”
Dotty’s exotic chocolate-colored eyes widened. “We were talking about you, kid, not me.”
And that was as far as she usually got with lovable, stubborn, opinionated, exotic Dotty. No denial, no explanation. Dotty didn’t talk about Dotty. But she lived to write the truth about everyone else.
“I’ll get the story. You know that,” Alice said, wishing Dotty would allow other human beings close. Her boss was a loner. And she never darkened the church doors. Dotty didn’t seem to need God in her life. And that made Alice sad. And determined to help her friend and mentor.
“I want the story, no doubt,” Dotty said, getting back to business. “But I want a good, solid story. Not just some notes and an attitude.
