Spring Fever

by Mary Kay Andrews

  Harold went back to the reception desk and fetched his bird-watching binoculars. He studied the set in question. “Ooh, look, here comes Mr. Harry Dix.”

  Annajane’s heart was pounding in her chest as she poked her head high enough to see out the window. Sure enough, a man had stepped onto the tiny porch of unit 12. His dark wavy hair looked damp. His white dress shirt was rumpled and untucked, and he carried his expensive pin-striped suit jacket over one arm. He glanced around furtively, ducked his head, and headed around to the back of the unit, in Celia’s wake. A moment later, the black Boxster came roaring from the rear of the unit.

  “Oh. My. God.” Annajane breathed. “I should have known.”

  “So you do know him?” Harold asked. “What’s his real name?”

  “His name is Davis Bayless,” Annajane said, standing slowly, hoping her head would stop pounding. “He’s the groom’s baby brother.”

  “Uh-oh,” Thomas and Harold said in unison. They did a well-choreographed fist-bump. “Undercover lovers!”

  40

  Pokey was fifteen minutes late, which was actually early by her own standards. She slid onto the cracked orange vinyl dinette bench opposite Annajane and automatically reached for the oversized laminated menu.

  “I already ordered your french toast and sausage,” Annajane said.

  The Country Cupboard was jammed as usual on a Saturday morning. There were other breakfast spots in Passcoe, but none as popular as the CC, as everybody in town called it. The long counter at the bar was filled with people tucking into their runny eggs, country ham, bacon, hash-browns, grits, and biscuits, and every table and booth in the restaurant on the town square was full.

  “What’s up?” Pokey asked.

  Annajane took a sip of ice water and looked around nervously. She should have picked a quieter, more private place, she realized. The tables were set close together, and everybody in the CC knew everybody else.

  “I have news,” Annajane said, trying to keep her voice low.

  Pokey eyed her best friend with unguarded curiosity.

  “You look different this morning,” she said.

  Annajane blushed.

  “Wait a second. Oh, yeah. I remember that look. You’ve got afterglow!” Pokey exclaimed. “Or maybe it’s beard burn. You did it, didn’t you? Finally.” She clapped her hands excitedly. “Yay! I’m so glad.”

  “Shh!” Annajane whispered. “Lower your voice! Everybody in here knows us, and they all think they know what we’re talking about. So, can we not talk about what they think we are?”

  Pokey leaned forward. “Okay, we won’t discuss. Just nod your head, or tap your glass once for yes, two for no. Did you or did you not? Do it with you-know-who?”

  “All right,” Annajane groused. She tapped her glass once with the side of her spoon.

  “Was it amazing?” Pokey demanded.

  “Pokey! None of your business,” Annajane said, and then, with a shrug, she tapped her glass once. “Now, can we change the subject? Because that is not what I need to talk to you about.”

  “Sure, after you tell me where the deed was done.”

  Annajane looked away. “Some things a lady doesn’t discuss.”

  “I’m no lady,” Pokey replied. “Despite Sallie’s best efforts. Did you do it at his house? Or did you go back out to the farm?”

  “No! God, no.”

  “Where? You might as well spit it out, because you know I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

  Annajane did know. “All right. It was at the Pinecone.”

  “Oooh,” Pokey said, rubbing her hands together gleefully. “Perfect. Your own little love nest.”

  Annajane glanced around the room and leaned her head toward Pokey’s. “Not as perfect as you might think. Guess who else was checked in at the love nest?”

  “The baby mama? For real?”

  Annajane tapped her iced-tea glass once with her spoon.

  “And she had company! When I saw him sneaking out of her unit this morning I almost wet myself.”

  “Who?”

  “It was almost a family reunion,” Annajane whispered.

  “Davis?” Pokey’s eyes widened.

  Annajane tapped her spoon once against her glass. “And he’d signed the guest register with a pseudonym. Harry Dix!”

  A plume of ice water erupted from Pokey’s nose.

  “Oh my God!” Pokey said, dabbing at her face with a paper napkin. “You can’t tell me that kind of stuff without a warning.”

  “I know,” Annajane whispered.

  “Day-yummm!” Pokey exclaimed. “Harry Dix! That must be his porn name.”

  Annajane snickered. “Wonder what Celia’s is?”

  “Lotta Lays?” Pokey offered. She reached for the basket of biscuits in the center of the table, selected one, and sliced and buttered it. She took a bite and chewed slowly.

  Annajane sipped her coffee and waited.

  “You have to tell Mason,” Pokey said.

  “No way,” Annajane said.

  “Somebody needs to. We can’t let him marry that, that, woman. Not now.”

  “I can’t be the person to tell him his brother betrayed him like that,” Annajane said. “And neither can you. He and ‘Harry’ might not get along all the time, but it would destroy Mason to find out that ‘Harry’ slept with ‘Lotta.’ Anyway, we don’t really know for sure what they were actually doing there.”

  “Oh, please. You saw good old Harry coming out of a room with you-know-who at the Pinecone Motor Lodge this morning. And we both know that’s where Harry has always stashed his girlfriends over the years,” Pokey said.

  “Maybe he was just dropping off some papers to her,” Annajane said. “Or they were plotting how to overthrow Mason at Quixie.”

  “And maybe I’ll be the cover model for next year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition,” Pokey said. “We always knew she was a skank. And now she’s a double skank—sleeping with brothers. Eeeewww.”

  The waitress brought Pokey’s french toast and set it down on the table. Pokey carefully drizzled maple syrup across her plate. “You’re not eating?” she asked.

  “Not hungry,” Annajane said. “I’m just so … sad and mad. And maybe a teensy bit hungover. I wish I knew how to save Mason. I wish he wanted to save himself. But he’s resigned to marrying her and making the rest of his life miserable.”

  “Don’t forget he’s ruining your life, too,” Pokey added.

  “I don’t have to live with her,” Annajane pointed out. She slumped against the back of the vinyl bench. “Are you going to the wedding?” she asked.

  “I’m not invited,” Pokey said. “Not that I’d go even if I were invited. I’m going to go pick up Sophie after I leave here and take her over to spend the night at my house.”

  “Sophie’s not going to the wedding, either?” Annajane asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Nope. According to Mama, it’ll just be her and the happy couple. Oh yes, and Bonnie and Matt Kelsey, who will be the witnesses.”

  “Interesting that old Harry Dix won’t be performing best man duties today,” Annajane said.

  Pokey gave a smirk. “My guess is, he’s already performed for Lotta.”

  41

  Mason sat behind the desk in his study, stone-faced, as his sister made one last attempt to change his mind.

  “Don’t do this, Mason,” Pokey begged. “Please? You do not have to do this. You do not have to marry Celia.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” he said quietly, “but I have to do what’s best for the child.”

  “You don’t even know that the child is yours,” Pokey said bitterly.

  “That’s enough,” Mason said, scowling. “You’re talking about the woman I’m marrying. I know you’ve never liked Celia, but you won’t make things any better for this family if you keep up this kind of talk.”

  “I don’t care,” Pokey said. “She’s a liar and a phony, and I’ll risk pissing you off if it means keep
ing you from marrying her.”

  “I have obligations,” Mason pointed out. “And I won’t run from them.”

  “Fine! Wait til the baby’s born. Get some DNA testing. Pay Celia a shitload of child support and buy her a house. But don’t, for God’s sake, marry her. Look, you never married Sophie’s mother, and nobody cared,” Pokey said.

  Mason clenched and unclenched his jaw. “That’s different. For one thing, Sophie’s mother didn’t want to marry me. She barely knew me. I took Sophie because her mother wasn’t equipped to raise her on her own. Maybe it was selfish of me, deciding to become a single father, I don’t know. But I know now that Sophie needs a mother and a father. Two parents. And so will this baby.”

  “Jesus, Mason!” Pokey shouted. “Do you always have to be the big brother? Always have to look out for everybody else? Always have to know what’s best? For me, Davis, Mama, the company? You’re so worried about doing the right thing and keeping up appearances, have you even noticed what you’re doing affects other people? And that maybe this one time you actually don’t know what’s best? What about Annajane? She loves you and you love her, and you’re going to just throw that away? You’re going to let her walk away—from you and her friends and her job?”

  “Annajane understands,” Mason said.

  “Bullshit!” Pokey cried, her hands on her hips. “Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.”

  “Aunt Pokey?” a small voice called from the hallway.

  Sophie peeked around the doorway. Her blond ringlets were a tangled mess, she had hot pink lipstick smeared around her mouth, and her sparkly pink glasses slid down her nose. “Are you and my daddy having a fight?” she asked timidly.

  Pokey held out her arms to the little girl. “No, punkin,” she said, looking shame-faced. “We weren’t really fighting, we were just discussin’.”

  “And cussin’,” Mason added. “But we’re not really mad at each other. Right, Aunt Pokey?”

  Sophie tiptoed into the room. She had obviously dressed herself in her second-best dress, a hand-smocked pink batiste dress she’d worn to her little cousin’s christening, which she’d managed to put on backward, so that the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons fastened in the front. She wore a pair of unbuckled white sandals on her feet, and slung across her chest was her pink plastic purse.

  “Don’t you look nice,” Mason said, looking down at her. “Are you all dressed up to go see your cousins?”

  “I’m dressed up for the wedding,” Sophie said. “But I can’t wear my wedding dress, ’cuz Letha said she had to throw that nasty thing out after I got sick on it.”

  Her impression of her nanny was, as usual, uncanny, and both Mason and Pokey laughed.

  Mason picked the little girl up and sat down on the sofa with her on his lap. “I’m sorry, Soph, but you’re not going to the wedding today. This is just for grown-ups. Me and Celia and your Nana. That’s all.”

  Sophie’s face crumpled. Her lower lip pooched out.

  “I’m not even going to the wedding,” Pokey said. “Who cares about a stinky old wedding, anyway? I bet they aren’t even gonna have any cake.”

  “We’re not,” Mason assured her. “Not a lick of cake.”

  “But I wanna gooooo,” Sophie wailed, huge crocodile tears running down her cheeks. “I wanna go with Daddy!”

  Pokey plunked down on the sofa beside her brother. She patted Sophie’s back. “Come on, punkin, don’t cry. You and me are going to have a girl’s night out. Do you know what that is?”

  “Nooooo,” Sophie sobbed. “I wanna go to the wedding. I don’t wanna go girl’s night out.” She buried her face in Mason’s starched white dress shirt. “I. Don’t. Wannna. Idonwanna,” came her muffled chant. “I donwanna. I donwanna!”

  “Sure you do,” Pokey said, attempting to shift Sophie onto her own lap. “It’ll be lots of fun. We can bake some cupcakes. Pink ones. I bought pink sugar sprinkles just for us. And we can watch The Little Mermaid. And I’ll make Uncle Pete sleep with the boys and it’ll be just you and me in the big bed. I’ll even make us pancakes for breakfast in the morning!”

  But the little girl wrapped her arms tightly around Mason’s neck and clung to him like a small, determined barnacle.

  Mason looked stricken. “Help,” he mouthed.

  Pokey reached over and gently disentangled Sophie’s arms, wrapping her in her own. “It’s just for one night, Soph,” she said. “And then tomorrow, Daddy will pick you up at my house and take you right back here to your own house and your own bed.”

  “Noooo,” Sophie cried. “I donwanna.”

  Mason looked down at the hot pink smears on his shirt. “She’s breaking my heart,” he said. “What should we do?”

  Pokey looked over Sophie’s head at her brother. “Let’s see if we can distract her,” she whispered.

  “Hey Soph,” she said brightly. “Let me see that pretty dress of yours, will you?”

  “No,” the little girl said. But after a moment she slid out of Pokey’s lap and did a slow twirl.

  “It’s bee-you-ti-full!” Pokey said encouragingly. Sophie did a faster spin, and the flap of her pocketbook opened, and a strand of silver chain slipped out and onto the carpet.

  “You dropped your necklace,” Mason said, picking it up to examine it. He frowned down at the chain. “Where did you get this, Soph?”

  “It’s my jewels,” Sophie said, tucking the pocketbook protectively under her arm.

  “Hmm,” Pokey said, reaching out her hand to take the chain. “This is white gold, and that’s a nice-sized sapphire stone. That’s an expensive-looking jewel for a five-year-old.”

  “It’s Celia’s,” Mason said. “I bought it for her at Christmas.”

  “Oh, Lawwwd,” Pokey drawled. “If Celia finds out Sophie’s been looting her stuff, you’re gonna have hell to pay, brother.”

  “Christ,” Mason muttered. “Like I don’t have enough to deal with.”

  “Sophie,” he said. “Have you been borrowing Celia’s treasures? You know you’re not supposed to get into her things.”

  “No,” Sophie said petulantly.

  “Sophie?” he said, a warning note in his voice. He held out his hand. “Can I see what’s in your pocketbook?”

  “It’s my treasures,” the little girl said, taking a step backward. “I found ’em.”

  “Okay,” Mason said pleasantly. “But can I see what you’ve found? Please?”

  Reluctantly, Sophie unwound the strap of the purse from her neck and handed it over to her father.

  “Let’s see,” Mason said, reaching inside. He held up a silver-cased pink lipstick with a missing cap.

  “Not mine,” Pokey said. “I don’t wear slutty shades like that.”

  Mason shot her a warning look, but reached back inside the purse and brought out a handful of silvery objects, which he dumped on the sofa cushion. “Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said, taking inventory.

  “Couple sticks of chewing gum, some Quixie pop-tops, an earring…”

  Pokey picked up the hand-tooled silver hoop earring. “I was wondering where that had gotten to.”

  Mason continued with the inventory. “Nail clipper, some kind of eye makeup thingy…” His voice trailed off and he held up a flat foil-wrapped package. “Pills!” He looked panicky. He grabbed his daughter’s hand. “Sophie, you didn’t swallow any of these pills, did you? Tell daddy the truth. Did you swallow any of these pills?”

  Pokey reached over and took the packet, turning them over and reading the fine print of the label. A slow smile spread across her face.

  “I didn’t swallow any,” Sophie said. “I only take pills Letha or Daddy gives me.”

  “Thank God,” Mason said. “What are they, anyway? I wonder where Sophie got ’em?”

  “They appear to be birth control pills,” Pokey said, holding up the back of the packet so Mason could see. “And according to the prescription label, they belong to Celia Wakefield.”

  “What?” Mason s
aid, taking the packet from his sister. “These must be an old prescription. Celia told me she was on the patch. That’s how she got, er,” he looked over at Sophie, who was listening attentively. “You know.”

  Pokey took the package back. “They’re not that old,” she told her brother. “According to the label, these were dispensed from the CVS Drugs out on the bypass, to Celia Wakefield, on April 1. That’s two weeks ago. She picked them up a week before your wedding. And look,” she said, pointing to the empty perforations in the foil. “There are ten pills gone. Seems to me Celia was on the pill, right up until three days ago.”

  She gave her brother a piercing look. “Isn’t that when she told you she was pregnant?”

  They heard the sound of the lock turning in the front door, and the sound of it opening and closing, and then the tap of high heels on the wooden floor.

  Celia stood in the doorway of the den, with a plastic dry-cleaner’s bag across her arm. “Mase? I picked up your suit from the cleaners. I knew you’d…” She saw Pokey sitting on the sofa beside Mason, and saw Sophie, seated on the floor, refilling her pocketbook with her treasures.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, sensing the hostility radiating from every pore of Pokey’s body.

  “Just a family conference,” Pokey said.

  “Giving it one last try, to convince your brother not to marry me, are we?” Celia asked, trying to sound lighthearted. “Mason’s a better man than you give him credit for, Pokey.”

  Pokey held up the silver package of birth control pills. “And he’s a smarter man than you give him credit for.”

  Celia snatched the pills from Pokey’s fingertips. “Where did you get these?”

  Pokey pointed to Sophie’s pocketbook, which was once more slung across the child’s chest. “Sophie has apparently been helping herself to some of your most secret treasures. We found these in her pocketbook, along with one of your lipsticks and some other things she picked up around the house.”

  “That’s absurd,” Celia said, but her laugh was hollow. She turned the package over. “I don’t know where she found these, but I haven’t been on the pill in months and months.”