The Backup Plan

“Haven’t your friends pumped me for every bit of information they’d care to hear, Mother? No one wants to know what it’s really like over there.” Dinah was a hundred percent certain of that. “It’s not great dinner table conversation,” she added. “They’re content knowing it’s happening on the other side of the world.”

“Not everyone here is shallow, darling,” her mother scolded. “You’ve always sold us short.”

Dinah sighed. It was true. She had. But she’d heard nothing since coming back to change her impression of her parents’ friends. They lived in their monied, insulated world and were happy enough if it didn’t rain on their golf games.

“Forget the fund-raiser, Mother. I’ve never been any good at that sort of thing. And please don’t plan another dinner party. I came home for some peace and quiet. As it is, I’ve barely had a minute alone with you or Dad or Tommy Lee and his family.” Not that she was all that unhappy about missing out on the questionable joy of being around her brother’s children. From what little bit she had seen, they were holy terrors.

Still, there had been precious little of the quiet she’d anticipated. Aside from the dinner parties her mother had held at their house, she’d been trotted out to lunch with her father’s business cronies half a dozen times. She had yet to see a single one of her own friends, not that she’d kept in touch with that many of them since she’d left for college.

She wasn’t exactly excited about seeing anyone at all. Every chance she got, she stole off to the solitude of her room or sat in the back garden with an unopened book in her hands. She’d told herself the inertia was only temporary, that she’d snap out of it in a few days, but she was beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier just to give in to it.

Judging from the worried frown that creased her mother’s otherwise unlined face, Dorothy had taken note of Dinah’s reluctance to leave the house.

“Is something going on that you haven’t told me?” her mother asked. “Sitting around in this house all day is not like you.”

“I don’t just sit in the house. Sometimes I sit in the garden.”

Her comment drew another chiding look. Dorothy Rawlings Davis had never known what to make of her only daughter. Dinah had scoffed at tradition. Though she’d reluctantly agreed to go through with it for her mother’s sake, Dinah had made a mockery of her debutante ball. She’d attended private school under protest and, worse, had chosen to go to college out of state, to New York, no less. It had grated on her father, who’d attended the Citadel and then Clemson, and her mother who’d graduated from the University of Charleston without ever leaving home.

Her brother had thankfully followed tradition or her parents would most likely have died of shame. Dinah’s celebrity had allowed them to hold their heads up just a bit higher these last few years. She wondered what they would think if she told them she was thinking of giving it all up forever.

Even at eight o’clock in the morning the vast differences between Dinah and her mother were apparent. Her mother was wearing an expensive, tailored suit, antique gold jewelry that winked with diamonds, Italian designer pumps, a perfect French manicure and had every strand of her perfectly highlighted hair in place. Dinah wore a favorite pair of old shorts, a halter top and she was barefooted. She hadn’t had a manicure or pedicure in years and her hair was cut in a haphazard style that could best be described as wash-and-wear. In less than a week she’d fought off six attempts by her mother to change that with a spa day. When it came to style Dinah was still a bitter disappointment to her socialite mother.

Even so, her mother did seem to be touchingly happy to have her home. Dinah could even understand her desire to cash in on Dinah’s reflected celebrity. She wasn’t a bit surprised that her mother wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Darling, it’s just that you’re so rarely here,” her mother said. “I want to be sure that everyone gets a chance to see you before you go gallivanting off on your next assignment.”

Dinah told herself she should admit that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but she wasn’t ready to do that. Silence allowed her to go on pretending that this was a temporary sabbatical. It would be another few weeks before she started to wear on her mother’s nerves. Then her parents would start asking the really tough, unanswerable questions about how such a fabulous career had wound up in the toilet. Right now they were proud of her and it was nice to bask in that, at least in small doses.

She forced a smile. “I know, Mother, but let’s put it off a few days, okay? Let me catch my breath. I haven’t even seen Maggie yet or any of my other friends.”

Maggie Forsythe was the one person Dinah truly was anxious to see aside from Bobby. She was the only one Dinah dared to mention. If she uttered a peep about tracking down Bobby Beaufort, her mother would draw the wrong conclusions. The prospect of a wedding was just about the only thing that might distract Dorothy from her daughter’s news about being all but kicked out of Afghanistan by her worried boss.

“Okay, if you insist, I’ll reschedule for the week after next,” her mother finally relented. “You will still be here, right?”

“I’ll be here,” Dinah assured her.

Satisfied, her mother rounded the dining room table and pressed a kiss to Dinah’s cheek. “I’m so glad you’re home. Your father and I have missed you.”

Dinah’s eyes stung at the sentimental tone in her mother’s voice. She had always shunned her mother’s overt displays of affection, but all of a sudden the little impromptu hugs and kisses made her weepy.

“I have to run. I have a meeting about the renovations at the plantation this morning. It’s likely to drag on all day,” her mother said. “What will you do today? If you don’t have anything in mind, you could come with me and take a look around. We’re making excellent progress. I think you’d find it fascinating.”

Dinah knew her eyes had probably glazed over at the suggestion, so she tried to feign enthusiasm for her mother’s latest pet project. “If you’re involved, I know it’s bound to be amazing,” she said. “I promise to get there, just not today.”

Her mother hid her disappointment well, but Dinah knew she’d hurt her. It had always driven her crazy that Dinah showed no interest in any of her favorite civic or historical preservation projects.

“Okay, then, I’m off,” her mother said. “Will you be here for dinner?” “Of course,” Dinah said. “If that changes, I’ll call or leave word with Maybelle.”

“I’ll see you later, then.”

When her mother left, the sound of her heels tapping on the hardwood floors, the scent of Chanel lingered in her wake. Dinah felt the tension in her shoulders ease the minute she was finally alone.

Coming home had been harder—and easier—than she’d expected. She’d been welcomed like the prodigal daughter, pampered by their longtime housekeeper, and treated like a celebrity by her family’s friends.

The hard part was lying and keeping the pretense that she was just fine, that her career was perfect, her life amazing. She kept it up because she wasn’t ready to admit the truth, not to them, not even to herself.

Some days she could convince herself that she was fine. As if her body sensed that she was in a safe haven at last, she hadn’t had a major panic attack since she’d arrived. The nightmares had even diminished. She’d only awakened a couple of times in a cold sweat with her heart hammering so hard she’d felt it might burst from her chest.

She’d managed to accommodate her parents’ meet-and-greet dinners as well as the thankfully brief lunches at her father’s club. Increasingly, though, the mere prospect of leaving the house had made her palms turn damp. Although she’d been able to face the possibility of a roadside ambush or a car bomb a mere week ago, she now could barely stand the thought of walking down the comparatively safe, familiar streets of Charleston. She knew that hiding out wasn’t smart, or healthy. Nor was it one bit like her. Always full of energy, Dinah was determined to recapture some of her old spirit.

She decided to start by looking for Bobby. It would be good to see him, catch up a little, figure out if there was a single spark that could be fanned into a conflagration that might help her forget what she would have to give up to stay here.

She gathered up her dishes and took them to the kitchen.

Maybelle Jenkins, who’d run the Davis household Dinah’s entire life and her mother’s family’s before that, immediately rushed to take them from her. “What do you think you’re doing?” she scolded. “You trying to get me fired? Tidying up is what I do around here.”

Dinah grinned at her. “We both know you do a whole lot more than that. You keep this place running. You hold this family together.”

Maybelle swept her into a hug, one of many she’d readily dispensed since Dinah’s homecoming. “Lordy, but I’ve missed you. You’ve been away too long, girl. It’s about time you came back to see us. Some of us, we ain’t getting any younger, you know.”

Though she looked ageless with her smooth brown complexion, Maybelle had to be at least seventy-five. She’d been almost twenty when she’d gone to work for Adelaide Rawlings when Dinah’s mother was born. That was fifty-five years ago.

Dinah grinned at her now. “Who’re you kidding, Maybelle? You’ll outlive all of us.”

“Especially if you keep getting in the way of them guns and bombs,” the housekeeper chided. “That close call you had ‘bout gave me a heart attack. Never saw the sense of you doing such a thing. Thought we raised you to be smarter.”

Dinah met the dark brown eyes of the woman who’d been such a constant in her life. A sudden need to unburden herself nearly overwhelmed her. Maybelle had always patiently listened to every one of her childhood hopes, dreams and heartaches.

“Can I tell you something you can’t repeat to anyone? “ Dinah asked.

“You askin’ if I can keep a secret? I’ve kept enough for you and that brother of yours, don’t you think?”

Dinah laughed. “Yes, I suppose you have.”

“So what’s one more?”

“I might not go back,” Dinah said, testing the words.

“Well, praise the Lord and hallelujah!” Maybelle said exuberantly. “That’s the best news I’ve had in years. Why you want to keep such a thing a secret?”

Dinah regarded her sadly. “Is it good news?”

“If it means my baby’s gonna be safe, then it’s good news to me.” She gave Dinah a penetrating look. “You don’t seem too happy about it, though. You quit or get yourself fired?”

“I quit, but no one around here’s to know that. I don’t expect you to lie for me, but hem and haw if anyone asks, at least for now.” She gave Maybelle a stern look. “Promise?”

“I gave you my word, didn’t I?” She hugged Dinah again. “Whatever’s going on with you, you’ll work it out. I know how you like to mull things over in that head of yours. But if there comes a time when you need someone to talk to, I’m here, same as always.”