Celia knew she’d won. She leaned back against the headboard, allowing the sheet to slip downward again. “I’m tired,” she said, raising her arms over her head for an exaggerated stretch. “It’s much too late for a woman in my condition to be driving around at night. Anyway, we have a wedding to plan, don’t we? How’s Saturday for you?”
“I’ll leave that up to you,” Mason said. “But no church. No reception, none of that. Just you, me, and a justice of the peace.”
“You really know how to romance a woman,” Celia said bitterly.
“This isn’t about romance. It’s about duty. And decency,” he added. “If you won’t leave, I will. Just make sure you’re gone before Sophie wakes up in the morning.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Celia demanded.
“Anywhere but here,” Mason said.
33
Annajane smelled baked goods as she opened the door into the Pinecone’s office-slash-lounge. “Well, hello!” Harold was dressed in a different Hawaiian shirt and baggy blue jeans. He wore a faded baseball cap, and he was setting a tray with mugs and saucers on one of two bistro tables by the window. “I’m so glad you came in.”
“Thomas?” he called out.
Another tall, skinny, bald man with a long nose came bustling out from what must have been the kitchen. He looked enough like Harold to be his twin brother, but he was wearing a white butcher’s apron, and he held an enormous napkin-covered basket of muffins.
“You’re just in time; these are still warm from the oven,” the baker said, setting the basket down on the table with the mugs. “These are date-nut muffins. My grandmother’s recipe.”
“Thomas, this is Annajane, the young lady I told you about earlier. She’s going to stay with us for the week. And she works at Quixie. Isn’t that fun?”
“Very fun,” Thomas agreed. He held out his hand, which was dusted with flour; wiped it on his apron; and then extended it again. “So nice to meet you. I guess Harold told you we’re complete Quixie fanatics. I’m serious. It’s … so essentially southern tasting. Like grits or homemade peach ice cream. It tastes like Dixie, right?”
Annajane’s eyes widened. “What did you just say?”
“What? The part about it being better than grits? Or the part about it tasting like Dixie?” Thomas asked.
“Ohmygod!” Annajane breathed. She reached for the pen on the reception desk and started scribbling. Then she turned around, waved the paper under Thomas’s nose, and proceeded to kiss him on the mouth.
“What was that for?” he asked, clearly startled.
“I think you just came up with our new slogan,” she told him. “Quixie—the Taste of Dixie!”
“I did that?” Thomas said, looking pleased.
She nodded enthusiastically.
“I did that!” Thomas told his partner.
Harold rolled his eyes. “There’ll be no living with the man now. He’s been tinkering with making Quixie muffins, you know. He’s gone completely bonkers over the stuff.”
“Totally kooky, right?” Thomas said. “So far, I can’t get the consistency right, but I’m not giving up. I know there has to be a way to bake with that stuff.”
Annajane sat down at the table, and Harold and Thomas joined her. Thomas poured her a mug of coffee, and she inhaled the fumes gratefully before taking a sip.
It was funny. Her life had come apart at the seams last night, and yet here she was, calmly having coffee and muffins with a pair of total strangers, still chatting about Quixie, selling the product for all she was worth.
Later on today, she would have to figure out how to start rebuilding a life for herself. But for right now, indulging in a decent cup of coffee and some hot sugary treats wasn’t a bad beginning to a new day. Plus she had a new slogan. So maybe the day didn’t totally suck. Yet.
“You know,” she said, reaching for a muffin and peeling the paper liner off. “The company did a Quixie cookbook, way back in the ’60s, I think. It has all kinds of crazy recipes in it—Quixie Jell-O salad, Quixie layer cakes, Quixie barbecue sauce. I’m sure there must be some kind of muffin recipe, too. I think there’s still a box of them somewhere around the office. I’ll bring you one if you like.”
“I’d love that,” Thomas said. “How long do you think you’ll be staying with us, Miss Annajane?”
“Just long enough to figure out what comes next.”
34
Annajane sat at her desk and forced herself to go through the motions of doing her job. It was the one thing she was good at. Doing her job. She dashed off a memo to Davis about her proposal for the new Quixie slogan and sent another to route sales, asking them to drop off six cases of soda at the Pinecone Motor Lodge.
Celia Wakefield had taken her man, but, so far, she hadn’t succeeded in destroying that last piece of her life.
She had decided on the drive in to work that she would keep her promise to Mason. And she intended to go out with a flourish. The summer campaign, she’d decided, would break all sales records. And then she would hit the road. Annajane had no intentions of hanging around to watch Celia’s belly grow and expand with Mason’s child.
As luck would have it, she was just pulling into her slot in the parking lot when Mason drove up. There was no time to duck down in the seat or pretend she hadn’t seen him. She took a deep breath and got out of the car and locked it. She could maintain her dignity and act as though nothing had happened between them. Because essentially, nothing had. Or would.
“Good mor…” she started to say, but she thought better of it when she got a good look at him.
Mason’s eyes were heavily shadowed, his hair uncombed. He obviously hadn’t showered or shaved, and he was dressed in the same clothes he’d worn to dinner the night before.
“Are you all right?” she asked, picking a pine needle from the sleeve of his shirt.
“Fine,” he said, hoisting the strap of his briefcase onto his shoulder.
“You look like hell,” Annajane said. “Didn’t you go home after you left me last night?”
“I did,” Mason said, trying unsuccessfully to smooth his hair. “But Celia was there. In my bed,” he added, with a scowl. “So I took an impromptu camping trip.”
“Camping?” Annajane asked, bewildered.
“I slept at the lake house,” Mason said, his tone sour. “Or tried to, anyway. Between the raccoons and the pigeons roosting in the rafters, I didn’t get much rest.”
He eyed her warily. “How about you? How was the Pinecone?”
“Delightful,” she said. “I slept like a baby.”
“Glad to hear somebody did,” he muttered. They were standing at the employee entrance to the plant. He held the door open for her.
“Annajane,” he started.
“Mason, I really need to get in and get started on my work,” she told him. She squared her shoulders and headed down the hall. “We’ve gotta sell some cherry soda today.”
* * *
Once at her desk, she spent half an hour scanning online job listings for marketing positions. She e-mailed her résumé to a couple of former colleagues from her Raleigh days and called Joe Capheart to let him know she’d used him as a reference.
Then she got back down to soft drink business. She went to the break room and begrudgingly fed four quarters into the vending machine for a can of Quixie, hoping for some kind of inspiration.
As always, the combination of carbonation and the sharp-sweet taste of cherries gave her a start. Quixie was something special, she reminded herself, something worth saving.
She got a begrudging “Good idea” e-mail back from Davis, approving the new “Taste of Dixie” slogan. Then she spent the morning on the phone, talking to bottle manufacturers about copying the Quixie glass bottle from the ’50s. She’d located the old molds from the bottles in a dusty corner of the warehouse, and now her challenge was to find a company willing to copy the old molds and start producing new bottles immediately.
; There was a soft tap on her office door. Before Annajane could call out, the door opened and Voncile stepped inside. “Annajane? Can I talk to you?”
“Sure,” Annajane said, rolling her chair away from her desk. “What’s up?”
Voncile closed the door and locked it, then sat nervously in a chair opposite the desk, pulling the skirt of her sensible brown cotton skirt even farther down over her knees.
She folded her hands in her lap and blinked rapidly, opening her mouth, then closing it again, before finally the words came out in a torrent, her voice shaking with fear and indignation.
“I have worked for this company since I was fifteen years old. I worked for Mr. Glenn, God rest, and then I was so happy to go to work for Mason. And when he brought Sophie home, I prayed about that, and I called up my sister-in-law, Letha, and told her he needed a good woman to take care of that precious baby. And I have been with this company for thirty-two years.”
“I know that,” Annajane said reassuringly, wondering what this was all about. “And I know Mason and the rest of the family appreciates you and Letha’s dedication.”
Voncile nodded. “Last year, Mason said he was gonna have to quit naming me Employee of the Month because I’d already won it so many times it was making some people jealous. He said he was just going to go ahead and name me Employee of the Millennium and be done with it. But I never did get a certificate or anything.”
“I think that was just Mason’s idea of a joke, Voncile,” Annajane said.
Voncile shrugged. “You know, Annajane, I’ve been praying for you and Mason to get back together. It was a sad day for all of us when you two split up. Miss Celia is nice, and she certainly seems to know a lot about business, but just between the two of us, I think you would make a better mama for Sophie. Not that it’s any of my say-so.”
“That’s very sweet of you to say,” Annajane said demurely. “And I appreciate your prayers. But I think it’s best if Mason and I go our separate ways.”
Voncile gave Annajane an appraising look. “You know I do not listen to gossip. The Bible says, ‘A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoideth a man who talks too much.’ That’s Proverbs 20:19. You could look it up. But Troy Meeks is a good man, and he said the talk around town is that you and Mason have gotten back together again. Is that true?”
Annajane felt herself blush. “Well, uh, not really. I think maybe Troy misunderstood. Mason and I are just friends.”
“But you didn’t marry that boy down in Atlanta.” She nodded pointedly at Annajane’s left hand. “You’re not wearing your engagement ring. And you didn’t take that job down there,” Voncile protested. “I thought that meant Mason was going to ask you to marry him.”
“I’m afraid not,” Annajane said, fervently wishing for an end to the conversation. “Was there something specific on your mind, Voncile?”
The older woman stared down at the floor. “One of the girls in accounting told me the company is in such bad shape, we might get sold off. She said she heard Davis is already talking to some company in New Jersey that wants to buy us.”
Mason had sworn her to secrecy, but obviously news of the Jax Snax offer had begun to leak out. She didn’t want to lie to Voncile, but she also didn’t want to keep the rumor mill going.
“Yes,” she said finally. “I do know that there is a company that’s approached the family about selling Quixie. But as you may know, Glenn Bayless established an irrevocable trust shortly before he died that prohibited a sale for five years after his death.”
“It was five years this past Christmas that Mr. Glenn passed away,” Voncile pointed out.
“Right. And next week, I think, Thomas Norris, Glenn’s attorney, is going to let the family know how Glenn wanted the company left to his heirs. Until the family finds that out, any talk of a sale is premature,” Annajane said, trying to choose her words carefully.
“Mason wouldn’t sell us out,” Voncile said flatly. “He knew what this company meant to his daddy. And his granddaddy. He wouldn’t let that happen. Right?”
Sometimes, Annajane thought, doing the right thing means doing the wrong thing for the people you care most about.
“Mason cares deeply about his responsibilities,” Annajane said. “But I’m afraid it isn’t just up to him. Davis and Pokey and Sallie will probably all have a say in what happens.”
Voncile’s breathing grew rapid, and two bright pink splotches appeared on her heavily powdered cheeks. “I was afraid of that. If outsiders buy Quixie, what will happen to all of us?” She nervously chewed her lower lip. “I need this job, Annajane. My Claude, rest his soul, didn’t leave me hardly anything when he passed. If we get bought out, those New Jersey folks won’t want a fifty-nine-year-old like me with bad knees and fallen arches, even with all my Employee of the Month certificates. And I’d lose my health care. Annajane, I have the sugar diabetes. And hypertension. I can’t afford those pills without my health care plan.”
Annajane nodded in sympathy. “Nothing’s been decided yet, Voncile, so please don’t go getting yourself all upset. It’s true that Davis is in favor of the sale. But Mason doesn’t want to sell, and neither does Pokey.”
“And what about their mama? Miss Sallie? She wouldn’t let them sell Mr. Glenn’s company, would she?”
“I’m not sure,” Annajane admitted. “Really, nobody knows how this will all be settled until Mr. Thomas meets with the family next week to explain about Glenn’s trust.”
Voncile clucked under her breath. “Rest his soul. This company was Mr. Glenn’s baby. I just pray he fixed it up good with the lawyers so things can stay the way he intended.”
Annajane stood up and patted the older woman’s shoulder. “I hope your prayers get heard, Voncile.”
Voncile raised her eyes heavenward. “My faith is in the Lord,” she said solemnly. “But sometimes, the lambs of the flock have to rise up and take care of themselves. Sometimes, it is up to the righteous to do the Lord’s work here on earth for him.”
“Okay, then,” Annajane said, walking Voncile back out into the hallway. She wondered, for only a brief moment, what kind of measures the righteous would take to cast somebody like Celia out of Passcoe. And then she got back to work.
At midmorning, she ran to the ladies room down the hall, pushed open the heavy door, and ran smack into Celia herself, who was standing in front of the mirror, touching up her already-flawless makeup.
Annajane nearly did an about-face. But after drinking all that Quixie, she desperately needed to pee, and there was only one lady’s room in the plant, and this small, two-stall bathroom was it.
She nodded curtly at Celia and went to open the door of the nearest stall. It didn’t budge. She glanced downward and saw that it was occupied. As was the one next to it. There was nowhere to hide. Annajane crossed her arms over her chest and stood with her back to the paper towel dispenser, staring up at the ceiling as though it were the Sistine Chapel.
Celia was in no particular hurry. She took a large brush and dusted her face with tinted mineral powder. Rummaging in her cosmetic bag, she brought out an eyebrow pencil and applied short, feathery strokes to her pale brows.
A toilet flushed, and Patsy, one of the girls from accounting, emerged from the stall. She looked from Annajane to Celia and scurried out of the bathroom without even stopping to wash her hands.
Grateful for a reprieve, Annajane ducked into the stall. The toilet next to hers flushed, and she watched while a set of cheerful red ballet flats walked out of the stall. She heard water running, and then the sound of the bathroom door closing. She waited for another two minutes, just to make sure the coast was clear, before emerging.
Her heart sank when she saw Celia, standing at the mirror, fully made up, an odd, fixed smile on her face.
Annajane stood at the sink and washed and dried her hands. She stepped past Celia and reached for the door handle, but Celia neatly stepped sideways, effectively blocking her exit. “Excuse me,” Annajane said.
> “I’ll only take a moment of your precious time,” Celia said. “And then I’ll let you get back to packing up your shit and getting the hell out of this company.”
“This is not happening to me,” Annajane muttered. She reached for the door again, but Celia slapped her hand away.
“Oh, honey, it is happening,” Celia said. “So you better pay attention. Because I need to have a few words with you.”
“Whatever,” Annajane said. “What’s on your mind, Celia?”
“You are on my mind,” Celia said, poking her index finger into Annajane’s clavicle. “Every time I turn around, Annajane Hudgens, there you are. At my wedding,” she poked Annajane. “In the ambulance on the way to the hospital.” Another poke. “At the freakin’ hospital.” Yet another poke. “Fucking my fiancé in a fucking cornfield. And, oh yes, at a restaurant, last night. Did you think I wouldn’t find out about that?” She poked Annajane again. “Did you?”
Annajane caught Celia’s hand roughly. “Do. Not. Touch. Me,” she said. “Ever.” She squeezed Celia’s fingers together tightly and then released.
Celia laughed. “You have been messing with Mason’s mind for months now. Making an exhibition of yourself. The whole town is laughing at you. Yeah. But that ends right now. I saw the two of you talking out in the parking lot this morning. Very touching. Heartbreaking, almost. Was he telling you good-bye? Did he mention that we’ve rescheduled the wedding for tomorrow?”
A wedding? Saturday? Annajane felt as though she’d been slapped across the face, but she would not give Celia the satisfaction of registering her shock.
“No,” she said lightly. “He didn’t get around to a wedding announcement. But he did tell me that last night he slept on the floor of the lake house, with the raccoons and the pigeon poop and the mildew and the roaches, rather than share a bed with you.”
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