Mason stood up and took the package from Celia. “According to the label, you had this prescription filled two weeks ago.” He pointed at the perforations from the missing pills. “What does this mean, Celia?”
Celia pulled herself up to her full five feet one inches of height. “It means I don’t appreciate being interrogated like a common criminal.” She shot Pokey a glance of unmitigated venom. “For your information, I was on the pill, months and months ago, but I switched to the patch right after Christmas. Anybody could have called the CVS and had this prescription refilled, and then planted it with Sophie to make me look bad. Darling, this is obviously some farce your sister has cooked up, to keep you from marrying me. But it won’t work.”
She turned on Pokey. “I just bet Annajane Hudgens is in on this nasty little plot of yours, isn’t she? She’d do anything to try and get Mason back.”
Mason glanced down at Sophie, who was watching the brewing storm with interest.
“Pokey,” he said, keeping his voice pleasant. “Maybe you and Sophie should get started on that girl’s night out.”
“I don’t wanna,” Sophie protested, even while Pokey was taking her by the hand and attempting to lead her out of the room. “I wanna go to the wedding.”
“Come on, Sophie,” Pokey coaxed. “I don’t think there’s gonna be a wedding today.”
“Over my dead body,” Celia called.
Pokey turned and gave her a dazzling smile. “Oh, trust me, that can be arranged.”
42
Celia stood by the fireplace, still clutching the plastic bag of dry-cleaning. But Mason had retreated to his desk. He had the package of birth control pills, and he kept turning it over and over. “Mason,” she said, pleadingly. “You can’t believe I would lie about the baby. Pokey did this. And Annajane. I swear, they refilled that prescription just to make me look bad, and then planted them with Sophie, so that you would find them. They’d do anything to keep us apart.”
“Enough,” Mason said. “You lied. Please don’t make it worse by blaming my sister.”
“You don’t know them,” Celia said, flinging the suit onto the back of a leather wing chair and marching over to the desk. “You think your baby sister is so perfect. And Annajane! You have no idea what that woman is capable of.”
Mason kept staring down at the birth control pills.
“There never was any baby, was there?” he asked, when he finally looked up at her.
“Of course there was!” Celia cried. “Would I make up something like that?”
The muscle in Mason’s jaw twitched. “I think you did,” he said, in disbelief. “I don’t know why, but I do believe you cooked up a phony pregnancy because you knew that was the one way in the world I would go ahead with marrying you.”
“No,” Celia insisted. And then, her voice fainter. “No. This is Pokey and Annajane. They’re out to get me. They refilled those pills…”
He sighed. “What would you say if I asked you to take a pregnancy test? Right now?”
“I’d say that proves you don’t trust me,” Celia said, her face growing pale. “That you’d take the word of your sister and ex-wife over mine.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think I can trust you,” Mason said. “I just can’t understand why you would do something like this. You know I’m in love with another woman, but you’d go to this kind of lengths to trap me into a loveless marriage?”
“It wouldn’t be loveless,” Celia said. “Once we’re married, and you see how good we are together, how happy I’ll make you, you’ll forget about Annajane. We’ll sell Quixie, start a new business, have a family. I’m perfect for you. Everybody says so.”
“No,” Mason said. “Enough lies, Celia.” He picked up the telephone.
“Who are you calling?” Celia asked, her voice panicky.
“I’m calling Sallie,” Mason said. “To tell her the wedding’s off.” He held up the receiver to her. “Unless you want to call her yourself?”
43
Mason Bayless was a man who lived up to his obligations. And the one he dreaded nearly as much as he’d dreaded going through with his wedding was telling his mother that he hadn’t.
By four that afternoon, he’d arrived at Cherry Hill, removed the festive wreath of orange blossoms and hydrangeas from the front door, and poured his mother a stiff scotch and water and briefed her on the most salient details of the breakup.
“I don’t understand,” Sallie repeated, for the fifth or sixth time. “How could this happen? Are you sure this wasn’t just some misunderstanding between the two of you?” She took a deep drag on her cigarette, tamped the ashes into the kitchen sink, then turned on the tap to wash them down the drain.
“No misunderstanding,” Mason said drily. “There was never any pregnancy. Celia made it up, because she knew that was the only way I would marry her.”
“That’s just not like Celia,” Sallie protested. “Such a lovely girl. With a wonderful head on her shoulders. I’m heartbroken. Really devastated.” She studied her oldest son’s lack of expression.
“Aren’t you the least bit upset? About the baby, at least?”
“Relieved is the word I would use,” Mason said. “Relieved and grateful.”
Sallie sighed deeply. “And I was so looking forward to a Bayless grandchild.”
“You have four grandchildren,” Mason said sharply. “Remember?”
“Of course,” she said quickly. “But Pokey’s boys aren’t Baylesses. They’re Riggses. And Sophie, well, you know what I meant.”
“No, Mother,” Mason said, his voice icy. “What did you mean? That Sophie isn’t a Bayless, because I never married her mother? Is that another reason you were so hot for me to marry Celia, so that you’d have a legitimate grandchild from me?”
“Stop it, Mason,” Sallie demanded. “I won’t have you speak to me like that. You know perfectly well that I’ve accepted Sophie as one of our own. I’ve always treated her exactly as I have Pokey’s children. And I wanted you to marry Celia, and for her to have your children, because I believed she would make you happy and be an asset to this family. Is that so wrong for a mother to want?”
She took another drag on her cigarette and let the smoke curl from her nostrils, waving it away, as though she could wave away anything unpleasant or displeasing in her life.
“Whatever,” Mason said. “It’s done.”
“But where will she go?” Sallie asked. “You’ll let her stay on at the company, won’t you? She has a consulting contract.”
“Celia is gone,” Mason said emphatically. “She’s moving her things out of my house as we speak. As for Quixie, no, of course I’m not going to keep her on. We’ll pay out what we owe her, but under the circumstances, it would be disruptive to business to allow her to stay on.”
Sallie’s eyes flared. “And yet you kept Annajane on. Even after the divorce.”
“Yes, and thank God I did,” Mason said. “No thanks to Davis. Or Celia.”
Realizing that she was on shaky ground, Sallie quickly changed tack. She flicked a fingertip at the tray of plastic-wrapped crab bundles, the caviar-topped deviled eggs, and the bacon-wrapped chicken livers. “All this food,” she said with a sigh. “For the second time in a week. And there are six bottles of champagne in the refrigerator and half a case of expensive-looking red wine in the dining room. And should I even mention the wedding cake? What on earth am I supposed to do with yet another wedding cake? I still have the top layer of the first one in the freezer down in the basement.”
Mason shrugged. “I don’t give a damn. I told Celia I didn’t want any of it in the first place. Feed it to your bridge club. Throw it out. Or better yet, send it over to the nursing home, why don’t you?”
Sallie winced. “I am not looking forward to explaining to the girls in bridge club about this latest debacle in your personal life. And as for sending caviar and chicken livers to a nursing home? Certainly not.” She picked up the telephone on the kitchen counter
. “We’ll just have a particularly extravagant family dinner instead. Pokey and Pete and the children will come, of course, and I’ll call Davis, too. You’ll stay, of course.”
“No thanks,” Mason said. “There’s somebody I have to see tonight. If she’ll see me.”
* * *
When she finally stopped laughing, Pokey hung up the phone.
“Was that Sallie you were talking to?” Pete Riggs asked, looking up from the DVD player he was trying to repair on the kitchen table.
“It was,” Pokey said, still chuckling.
“What makes your mother such a laugh riot this afternoon?” Pete asked. He stabbed the Shuffle button, but the machine didn’t move.
“Poor Mama,” Pokey said, sitting down beside her husband. “I know I shouldn’t have laughed right in her face like that, but she’s really so clueless.”
“What’s she so clueless about this time?” Pete asked.
“Life. Family. All of it. She actually wanted me to call Mason and try to ‘make him see the light’ about his breakup with Celia.”
“Like that was gonna happen,” Pete said. He picked up a screwdriver and jabbed at the DVD player.
“And then when I told her I was thrilled that the bitch had been caught in her own web of deceit, she invited us all over to supper tonight—to eat the appetizers Celia ordered from the country club, for a wedding to which we were specifically uninvited.”
Pete sniffed the DVD player and wrinkled his nose. “Does this thing smell funny to you? I think it smells like something crawled up here and died.”
Pokey inhaled. “Eew. Rancid peanut butter. Probably Petey. I don’t know what it is with that kid and peanut butter.”
“So what did you tell her about dinner?” Pete asked.
“I said hell to the no,” Pokey retorted. “Then she got her panties all in a wad because I told her I didn’t think caviar and deviled eggs and chicken livers were ideal food for three little boys.”
“But I love caviar and deviled eggs and chicken livers,” Pete said plaintively.
“Pete! We are taking a stand here. We are not eating any food that has any connection to Celia Wakefield or her foiled attempt to drag my poor brother to the altar. Besides, we’re having pizza tonight. And then Sophie and I are baking cupcakes. Pink ones.”
“Okay, fine,” Pete said. “I’m good with pizza. Also cupcakes, pink or otherwise. What does Sophie think about her father’s canceled wedding?”
“Not fazed in the least.” Pokey said. “She’s really more upset about the fact that Mason made her give back that sapphire necklace of Celia’s that she had in her pocketbook.”
“Not to mention the birth control pills,” said Pete, who’d already heard his wife’s triumphant blow-by-blow account of the demise of Celia Wakefield. “Soph really saved the day, didn’t she? If the kid hadn’t found those pills and stashed them in her purse, and you guys hadn’t found them when you did, poor old Mason would be celebrating his wedding night right now.”
“Not a chance,” Pokey said, jabbing at the back of the DVD player with a butter knife. “If Mason hadn’t called off the wedding himself, I still had plan B.”
“Do I want to know what that was?” Pete asked.
“Probably not,” Pokey said. She got up, sat on her husband’s lap, and patted his cheek. “Know this, Riggs. When it comes to messing with my family, Pokey don’t play.”
44
Celia Wakefield was an unholy mess. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, and a nasty patch of acne had spontaneously erupted on her chin and was working its way north toward both her cheeks. She was hot and sweaty from lugging all the belongings she’d packed up from Mason Bayless’s house and cramming them into the back of her Saab. She’d broken two nails and twisted her ankle.
And the very cherry on her parfait of personal misery was that she had gotten her period within the past hour. Two weeks early.
She’d been examining her options, and they didn’t add up to much. If it weren’t for the money she’d be losing out on, she’d have been positively giddy at the prospect of seeing Passcoe, North Carolina, in the rearview mirror. Where to next? Not Kansas. The lawyers from Baby Brands were making noises about a lawsuit, so she wouldn’t be launching another children’s clothing business anytime soon. Hmm. Texas? Or maybe Florida? Lots of wealthy men with lots of lovely money. It was something to ponder. Now, she was already late for her meeting. Her cell phone rang and she snatched it up and answered without checking the caller ID, an impetuous decision she immediately regretted.
“Hey, honey,” Cheryl’s voice, coming live over the phone from South Sioux City, Nebraska, sounded like she’d been gargling with broken glass and battery acid. “Vernonica tells me you’re living in North Carolina now. I hear it’s real nice down there.”
“How did you get this number?” Celia demanded.
“Veronica give it to me,” Cheryl said. “But that’s not a very nice way to talk to your mama.”
“Sorry, I’m having a really shitty day,” Celia said. “What do you want?”
“Why do you assume I want something everytime I call you?” her mother asked.
“Because you always do. What is it this time? I hope it’s not money, because I don’t have any to spare. I just lost my job.”
“Oh.” Silence. “I wasn’t calling to ask for nothing,” Cheryl said, sounding hurt. “I just wanted your new address, so I could send your birthday present. Gene’s got these real nice Louis Vuitton purses now, and I know you like that kind of stuff.”
Her mother’s boyfriend for the past ten years was a grifter named Gene, who spent more time in lockup than he did in the house he shared with Cheryl.
“My birthday isn’t until November,” Celia said. “And how would Gene get his hands on Louis Vuitton handbags?”
“He’s got his ways,” Cheryl said airily. “Anyway, it’s too bad about your job. I was thinking it might be nice to come visit you. I’ve never been to North Carolina.”
“Why would you suddenly want to visit me now?” Celia asked. “Did Gene kick you out of the house?”
“Hell, no!” Cheryl said. “I just thought it would be nice to see you. It’s been a real long time.”
Not long enough, Celia thought. It had been six years and counting. She’d dropped in and out of college and was waitressing at a steakhouse when a good customer there offered her a job as a traveling sales rep for a company that sold a line of hospital linens. She’d “borrowed” her sister Veronica’s car and headed out that night for St. Louis, with nothing more than the clothes on her back. The wad of cash she’d found in the glove box was a pleasant and unexpected bonus.
“Now is not a good time,” Celia said flatly.
Never would be the perfect time to be reunited with her family.
“Maybe you could come on back here, while you’re between jobs,” Cheryl suggested. “There’s plenty of room in the house. You hadn’t even seen Jaymie’s twins, and they’re almost six. And Terri’s boy Richie, he’s a big old thing. Nearly twelve, I think. He’s already started shaving, you believe that? And Jasmine, she’s nine and just as tall as her mama.”
“Are they all still living with Daddy in the double-wide?” Celia asked.
“I don’t ask,” Cheryl said. “Those girls don’t care nothin’ about their mama. I don’t even get a card on Mother’s Day. Doyle’s the only family they care about.”
Most likely, Celia thought, what her two youngest sisters cared about was their father’s latest disability check. Neither Jaymie nor Terri had bothered to graduate from high school, or to marry the various fathers of their children. Instead, they’d gotten an early and thorough education in the art of scamming from Doyle Wakefield.
Celia peered through the Saab’s windshield, at a booth near the window of the restaurant. “Look, Mama,” she said. “I gotta go now. I’ll give you a call with my new address when I get settled.”
And when hell freezes over, she thought. S
he really was going to have to get a new phone number now.
“You do that, precious,” Cheryl said. “And you know, if you did happen to have a few extra bucks laying around, you could send ’em my way.”
* * *
Davis Bayless sat across the table from Celia at the Waffle House on the bypass and wished he were somewhere else.
“You have to do something,” she told him.
“What?” Davis said. “I can’t hold a gun to his head, Celia. I can’t make him marry you if he doesn’t want to.”
“He did want to,” she insisted. “Right up until the minute that Annajane Hudgens crooked her little finger and decided she wanted him back.”
Davis shrugged. “What can I say? My big brother is a big sap. Ole Annajane must know some tricks in the sack that we ain’t heard of. Anyway, I’m the last person he’s likely to listen to these days. My advice is, take what you can get and move on down the road. He offered to buy out your contract, right?”
“That’s peanuts. If we’d gotten married, and the Jax deal had gone through, it would have been worth millions. To all of us. Now, I walk away with what? Maybe fifty thousand dollars? Screw that!”
Celia glared at Davis. “You have to make this right, Davis. I’m the one who brought Jerry Kelso and Jax to the table for this deal. Kelso had never heard of Quixie until I met him in that hotel bar in Atlantic City. I’m the one who made them understand what this brand is worth. Most importantly, I’m the one who sucked up to your mother, gained her trust, and then hammered it into her silly southern belle head just how much cash she will get out of this sale, and just how much she needs to get out of the godforsaken town of Passcoe, North Carolina.”
“I know what all you did, and I appreciate it, Celia, I really do,” Davis said soothingly. “And don’t you worry. Once we get that deal with Jax inked, getting Celia Wakefield on board in an executive position, that’s gonna be my number one priority. Jerry and I have already discussed it.” He winked and then reached under the table and squeezed her thigh. “Davis is gonna take good care of you, baby.”
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