Nothing Personal (10 page)

And that had been
the end of that discussion.

“Do you need anything else?”
Desiree asked when she’d pulled on a pair of jeans and grabbed her jacket.

“No, we should be fine.
Plenty of leftovers from Christmas dinner.”

Yes, there was
some dry chicken left. And gravy that had come out of a packet, and cranberry sauce wiggling in the bowl, its cylindrical shape imprinted with the indentations left by its can, and frozen green beans mixed with undiluted cream of mushroom soup, with weird fried onions sprinkled on top. All of Grandma Dixie’s traditional Christmas favorites.

She’d buy a bag of lettuce at the store, Desiree decided, some fresh vegetables
, and make a salad to go with the chicken tonight. She loved her grandmother more than anyone else in the world. But no question, Dixie Lee Foster was nobody’s idea of a gourmet cook.

Desiree brought the car to a stop, set the brake and reached behind her for the big red plastic bowl, its lid carefully sealed to protect her grandmother’s decorative touches. She stepped out onto the tree-lined street as her grandmother did the same, a bit more slowly, beside her.

No sidewalks here. Smaller, older houses on big lots,
and none of the yards would be appearing in any ads for professional landscaping services. It was all a little shabby, a little sleepy. But there was nothing the least bit sleepy about the scene in front of her.

It was all motion and noise, the
thwack
of the basketball on the asphalt, grunts and exclamations and pounding feet. Alec’s brother and sister darting to left and right, juking and feinting, dribbling and passing a basketball to each other with obvious skill, guarded by Alec and Joe. Alec in Gabe’s face, aggressive, bumping his twin, his hands reaching out to grab a ball that Gabe, clearly not a bit intimidated, continued to deny him.

“Come on,
Dog Head,” Alec taunted as Gabe pivoted, dribbled around him in a quick series of moves. “Shoot.”

But Gabe
didn’t. Instead, he fired the ball to Alyssa. No match for Joe in size or strength, but with some skills of her own. She whirled, and the ball left her hands, sailed between Joe’s outstretched arms, arced up and fell through the basket with a
swoosh.

Alyssa whooped, did
a little booty-shakin’ dance across to Gabe, and bumped hips with her brother. “Nothin’ but net, baby. Nothin’ but net.”

The backboard
looked like it had seen some years of hard use. Covered with flaking white paint, it was fastened onto what must once have been a telephone pole that had been sunk into one corner of the big driveway, facing out onto the street. Desiree could easily imagine six or seven teenage boys out here, their size and their energy and their noise spilling out into the neighborhood. The silence must have echoed when Gabe and Alec had left home.

There wouldn’t have been room to play in the driveway anyway,
not today. Not with four cars in it. An older sedan that must have belonged to the siblings’ parents, an SUV with some splatters of mud, a little yellow subcompact. And the gleaming black Mercedes that could only have been Alec’s.

The man in question grabbed for the ball, turned to
throw it in to Joe, and saw Desiree and her grandmother for the first time. Sent the pass to his brother instead, who grabbed it with quick, sure hands, and jogged over to greet the women.

“Hi,” he
said with a grin as he approached. He lifted the neckline of his faded gray T-shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, exposing a few inches of flat abdomen that had Desiree staring despite herself. His dark hair was mussed from the game, and he hadn’t shaved yet today, the shadow of beard showing black against the tanned skin of his jaw. And yes, those dress shirts had been hiding some serious muscles. The bulge of biceps and triceps was barely visible under the edges of his sleeves, but the thin cotton fabric couldn’t conceal the shape of his shoulders, and there was nothing at all covering up the heft of his forearms. He wasn’t as bulky as Gabe, but those arms were
fine.

And the rest of him wasn’t bad either. He and his brother clearly had more than those blue eyes in common, because they could both sure fill out a pair of tight button-fly Levi’s.

“Good th
ing you showed up,” he told Desiree, interrupting her inventory of his . . . charms. “Excuse to retire with honor. Joe and I were getting our butts kicked.”

“
Only because Joe won’t guard me, because he’s afraid he’s going to hurt a girl. Or maybe just touch her,” Alyssa said, coming up with a laugh of her own. “Hi, Mrs. Foster. I’m glad you could make it. And hey, Desiree.”

Joe
looked down at Alyssa with his usual unreadable expression, his shaved head shiny with sweat. “Or maybe because I know that’s the only way you could beat me, and I know you want to win.”

“Oh, you were
letting
me win out of the goodness of your heart, because I’m such a delicate flower? I think not. You just got challenged to a game of H-O-R-S-E, tough guy. We’ll see who can shoot.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t shoot,” he said calmly. “I said you couldn’t beat me.
”

“
You’re on. Soon as lunch is over, I’ll be beating you with a stick. Prepare to whimper.”

He smiled a little at that
, but didn’t bother to answer.

Alec looked past Desiree and Dixie
, then back at Desiree again. “Not a white Corolla.”

“Nope.”

He laughed. “Not a Harley either. But you’re right. A red Mini . . . not what I’d have expected. Maybe I
don’t
know you as well as I think. Because I’d say you’ve got an unexpected frivolous side. And a feminine side too.”

“
Gee, thanks,” she said wryly. “Glad you noticed.”

“Oh, I noticed.” He reached out for the bowl in her arms, and she surrendered it
to him. “This must be the famous salad,” he said. “Come on inside. Cold out here.”

“You have a good Christmas, the two of you?” he asked as they walked behind the others up the long driveway to the house. Her grandmother really had lost a step, Desiree had already noticed, was a bright, bustling little sparrow no longer.

Still as cheerful as ever, though. “Oh, we had a wonderful day,” she assured Alec. “
Christmas dinner with my special girl, what could be better than that? How about you?”

“
Good too. Family time. And a chance to catch up with Mira, because as you’ve heard, our family’s getting a little bigger.”

“She not a basketball player?” Desiree asked.

Alyssa heard that and laughed. “Not nearly tough enough.”

“Hey.” That was Gabe. “She’s plenty tough. Just not ag
gressive. Two different things, tomboy. Plus, she and Mom are in there cooking and making wedding plans, and that’s serious business on both counts.”

He mounted the steps to the ba
ck porch, checked out the tread of his running shoes. “Better take off our shoes, or we’ll get it from Mom.”

“Oh.” Dixie looked around. “I’ll just find someplace to sit.”

“Not you, Mrs. Foster,” Alec said with a smile. “Just us disreputable types.” He pulled off his battered sneakers, tossed them into the pile next to the door. “In fact, I’m feeling a little embarrassed, being all grubby like this when you and Desiree came over looking so pretty. Going to have to go clean up before lunch.”

Desiree looked at him sharply.
Was he making fun of her grandmother? All right, the red acrylic sweater with its Christmas-tree applique might not be the most elegant fashion statement, but she knew with what care her grandmother had dressed for this lunch, how pleased she’d been at the invitation. Her best white blouse, her neatest pair of black polyester slacks, the brooch pinned onto the sweater that she pulled out of the closet with delight and ceremony every year, just before she got up on the stepladder to hang the lights. Her grandmother had always made it Christmas, no matter how little had been under the tree, and if Alec was laughing at her . . . she couldn’t
stand
it.

“I like your pin,” Alec
said now, holding the door for the two of them. “It looks like an antique. Is it special?”

“It is,” Dixie
beamed, stepping onto the shining yellow linoleum of the laundry room. “Special, I mean, but not an antique. Just old, like me. It was my mother’s. I think the best things are the ones that remind you of someone you love, don’t you?”

“
Yes. I do.” He smiled down at her, and Desiree breathed a sigh of relief. It was OK. It was going to be all right.

“This is really good,” she said when they were sitting around the dining room table, both its leaves, Susie Kincaid had told her, in place now to accommodate “my favorite time of year. When my kids come home.” The leaves were certainly needed today, with nine of them crowded around the tablecloth cheerfully printed with green holly sprigs.

“Just Turkey Tetrazzini,” Susie said. “A
pretty fancy name for turkey noodle casserole. And leftover everything else, too.”

“Hey
. You dissing my favorite meal?” Alec demanded. “I always asked for this when it was my turn to choose our birthday dinner,” he explained. “I never understood why my mom thought it was funny.”

“Just that it’s what you do with
leftovers,” Susie said with a laugh. “And we had plenty of those today, even with all these hungry men in the house. Plus Alyssa, who does her share too. But even so, Dave got a little enthusiastic on the size of the turkey this year.”

“It’s good,” Desiree said
again. “It tastes a little smoky?”

“That would be
the smoker,” Dave told her. “I do the turkey, and I like to try something different every time. And this year that was smoking, thanks to the new barbecue Alec gave me for Father’s Day. And even though I said I didn’t need the big one with all those bells and whistles,” he told his elder son, “I’ll admit that I’ve enjoyed it.”

Alec grinned.
“I had to contribute an equal amount to the Relief Fund before he’d even take it. Turned out to be the most expensive Father’s Day present I ever bought. Remind me never to give you and Mom a cruise, Dad, because it just might break me.”

“Speaking of
the Relief Fund,” Dave said, “I wanted to tell you, Desiree, congratulations on that scholarship fund of yours. You’ve made quite a difference to at least two girls that I know of.”

“Really. That’s terrific.” That was Mira, Gabe’s fiancée
, a quiet woman with a warm smile. “How does it work?”

Desiree shrugged with embarrassment. “It’s still small. It’s
just something I set up with our old high school a few years ago, for a girl who’s planning to major in business.”

“The Henry and Dixie Lee Foster Scholarship Fund,” Dixie pronounced proudly. “
Although why on earth she’d name it after two people who were lucky even to graduate from high school, I can’t imagine. I wanted her to give it her name. She’s come so far, I thought that’d be an inspiration to those girls.”

“
I named it exactly right,” Desiree said. “And I’m pretty clear that I was able to go to college because I had a place to live so I didn’t have to pay for a room, and a scholarship to pay for some of the rest. I just want to give some other girl that same chance. It doesn’t take that much to make the difference between going and not going.”

“Betw
een believing,” Mira said, “and not.”

“That’s it,” Desiree said. “That’s it exactly. When I opened the envelope, when I saw that somebody was willing to give me all that money.
Me.
That they believed in me. I’ll never forget how I felt when I first read that letter. That’s when I knew it was all going to happen.”

She stopped, embarrassed
at the passion that had risen in her voice. “But it’s still small,” she repeated lamely. “Just a start.”

“
Can you tell me how to contribute?” Mira asked. “I’d like to help.”

“Sure,” Desiree said with surprise. “It’s always just been me, but that’
d be great.”

“I’ll contribute too,” Alyssa said. “Not that I’ve got much, but I’ll give what I can. Better than nothing, right?”

“You don’t have to,” Desiree said. “Not if it’s a hardship.”

“No,” Alyssa said. “I want to.
Because, yeah, the true riches are in the wealth of the spirit,” she said with a laughing glance at her parents, “but try telling yourself that when you’re sixteen, and you’ve got the wrong clothes anyway, and then you get changed for P.E. and you’ve got the
completely
wrong underwear.”

“
‘Hello, Fruit of the Loom,’” she mimicked. “’Three for five dollars! Special on Aisle Five!’ Man, I wanted some of those lacy matching bra and underwear sets, didn’t you, Desiree? I
coveted
them. Don’t you buy them these days and wish you had a couple of those cheerleaders in the dressing room with you, so you could show them how much better your body looks than theirs now? Don’t you think they should have that event at high school reunions? We should suggest it, because we’d both totally win. Booyah.” She pumped a slim fist.

“
Thanks.” Desiree was laughing now, and so was Mira. “The Lacy Underwear Revenge Derby. That would be an
awesome
event.” And that made the other women laugh harder, and Susie and Dixie were chuckling too, and Alec and Gabe were grinning, and even Dave was smiling a little. And Joe was frowning across the table at Alyssa again. Oh, well. Joe was always frowning.

“
Here’s what I want to know,” Desiree asked. She was probably getting way too relaxed here, and she’d probably be sorry on Monday, but too bad. “Why doesn’t it matter to guys, the clothes, I mean? Why didn’t it matter for you, Alec? Because you were obviously cool, and hot, and all that good stuff back then. That was fairly clear. I’m sure you were too,” she told Gabe. “Sorry. I never saw you, so I don’t know.”