Spring Fever

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “You’ll see,” he said.

  Without the tangle of fallen pine trees, kudzu, and privet, the old stone cottage stood proudly now on its point looking out over the lake, which could also be seen now. The blue she’d glimpsed earlier turned out to be a huge tarp that had been secured over the roof.

  Annajane breathed a sigh of relief. “At least they didn’t tear the house down,” she said, turning to Mason. “If they’re fixing the roof, maybe they’re planning on trying to save the house?”

  “Maybe,” he said, bringing the fun car to a stop at a new graveled parking court that had been laid to one side of the cottage. “Whoever bought the place has obviously got more dollars than sense.” He pointed past the house, and, even in the twilight, she could see the stacks of lumber and building materials and, beyond that, what looked like new pilings stretching out into the lake. “They’ve started rebuilding the dock. You believe that?”

  “We used to talk about doing that,” she said quietly. “Remember? We were going to build a two-story boathouse? With a fireplace and a deck on the top level?”

  “And a screened-in sleeping porch,” Mason added. He got out of the car and came around and opened her door. “Come on. Let’s take a peek inside.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want to see. This was our special place, Mason. Even when it was rotting and falling down, I always thought, at the back of my mind, maybe someday we’d find our way back here. Knowing that can never happen now, even if it wasn’t ever really realistic, it’s just so unbearably sad.”

  “Just one look,” Mason cajoled. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

  “No,” she said stubbornly. “Honestly, can we just go back to the Pinecone now? So I can wallow in self-pity for an hour or so?”

  “Later,” Mason said.

  She reluctantly allowed herself to be escorted to the door, noticing, along the way, the new flowerbeds; the new walkway constructed of worn, antique bricks; and, finally, the cottage’s front door, which had been newly sanded and painted a gleaming periwinkle blue.

  “At least they kept my color for the door,” Annajane said. She pointed at the worn brass hardware, which had been buffed up, not to a garish bright gold, but to the mellow color of good old brass. “And they saved the old hinges and even the old knocker.”

  Mason produced a key from his pocket and, noting her surprise, said only, “The new owner’s a decent guy.”

  He let her walk in first. If the outside of the cottage was mostly unchanged, it was a different story inside. The tiny, cramped entry hall was gone. In fact, all the walls were gone.

  She was standing in one large, airy room. It smelled of sawdust and cut pine, and what remained of the day’s light poured in through a wall of new windows overlooking the lake. The windows were open, and a slight breeze blew in off the lake. The water-stained plaster ceilings were gone, exposing age-darkened ceiling beams, and the old wooden floors were scarred and dusty, but intact.

  “Oh my God,” Annajane said, her voice echoing in the empty room. “They’ve gutted it!”

  “Look at the views of the lake,” he suggested. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Unbelievable,” she agreed. It was then she noticed a large old brass bed, situated in the right corner, near the fireplace, which looked like it had been recently reworked. The bed was dressed with white linens and an old quilt, which was neatly folded at the foot. A table had been fashioned from two-by-fours laid over a pair of sawhorses, and a couple of bright orange sheetrock buckets had been upended to use as chairs. There was a picnic basket on the table and a stub of a candle stuck into an empty wine bottle.

  “Mason, look,” she said, pointing at the bed and table. “The new owners must be staying here. Now I really do feel like a trespasser. We need to go, before they come back.”

  But he wasn’t listening to her. He walked over to the table, picked up a box of matches, and lit the candle.

  “What?” But she knew. Maybe she’d suspected as soon as she saw the bank of new windows.

  “The new owners are right here,” Mason said, giving her the brass skeleton key he’d used to open the front door. He took her by the hand and seated her on one of the buckets. He began extracting a number of foil-wrapped packets from the picnic basket, opening each one for her inspection. It wasn’t the stuff of a romantic picnic. No imported cheeses or fresh fruit, pâté or crusty french bread. Instead, the meal he offered consisted of ham sandwiches on mushy white bread with bright yellow mustard and crunchy pickles, individual bags of potato chips, and store-bought chocolate chip cookies.

  “You remembered,” she marveled.

  “Our first meal out here,” he said. “You packed the food and I brought the beer. A very deliberate seduction on my part.”

  “Except the cookies I brought were oatmeal raisin. That was before I knew you were a raisin hater.”

  “A rookie mistake. Could have happened to anybody,” he said graciously.

  He sat on the bucket opposite hers and reached into the picnic basket one more time, bringing out two chilled bottles of Quixie. He unscrewed the caps and handed her one.

  She took a drink. The essence of cherries lingered on her tongue and the bubbles tickled her nose. This taste thrilled her just as much as her first one had, nearly thirty years ago, at Pokey’s birthday party. It still tasted new and full of promise. Mason was watching her. He held up his bottle, and they clinked them together.

  Annajane got up and walked over to the windows. The sun was setting on the horizon, and the calm waters of the lake reflected the last amber glow of daylight. Mason stood by her side, and she nestled her head against his shoulder. They could hear the thrum of cicadas through the open windows and, from nearby, the soft hooting of an owl.

  “You bought the cottage?” she asked. “And had all this work done?”

  “Actually,” he said. “Sallie gave it to us. As a wedding gift.”

  Startled, she turned to stare at him. “No way. She hates me. After the things I said the last time I went to Cherry Hill…”

  “I was as shocked as you were when she sent the deed over,” Mason said. “When I called to ask her about it, she just said she’d had a change of heart about us. And she said something about a down payment on self-respect, which I didn’t get, but which she said you would.”

  Annajane shivered, and he put his arm around her, thinking she was cold. She’d actually been thinking about Sallie Bayless and her self-imposed exile from Passcoe. Was this, the gift of the lake house, Sallie’s passive-aggressive way of admitting her guilt and asking forgiveness? Or was it the genuinely kind and thoughtful act of a loving mother?

  “I didn’t want to do too much to the place before I brought you out here,” Mason was saying. “Mostly I’ve just been cutting back the jungle, planting some trees, and shoring things up. I knew you’d always wanted bigger windows looking out at the lake, so I went ahead and did that. And I had to evict the raccoons and have the fireplace relined and the masonry redone. All the rest, I thought we’d plan together.”

  She turned and kissed him. “You did all this for me? And kept it a secret?”

  “For us,” Mason corrected her. “But Sophie was in on it. She’s already picked out the paint color for her bedroom. Princess pink.”

  “What would you think about adding a second story?” Annajane asked. “We’ll need more bedrooms. And bathrooms. And a home office for both of us…”

  They stood and looked out at the lake for a long time, eventually switching out the Quixie for a bottle of good red wine. As they watched the new moon come up over Hideaway Lake and marveled at the clarity of the stars in the night sky, they talked about their plans. For their new old house, for the company, for their all-new life together. When Annajane shivered again, this time from the chill seeping in off the lake, Mason went to the fireplace and lit the wood he’d already stacked there.

  When he turned to remark on the lateness of the hour, he found that Annajane was alr
eady standing by the brass bed. She’d pulled back the covers, slipped off her shoes, and was pulling the lucky jersey over her head. He admired her smooth bare skin as the candlelight began to flicker out.

  “Come to bed,” she said.

  And so he did.

  Epilogue

  The ruckus in the hospital room was close to deafening. Pokey Bayless Riggs was making a valiant but fruitless effort to look beatific while surrounded by her brood. Three little boys clambered onto the hospital bed, pushing and elbowing each other out of the way in hopes of being the first to hold their new sibling. “I wanna hold her.” “No, me. I’m the oldest,” “You’re too little.” “Mama! Make him stop!” while their father, who was trying to capture the whole scene on video, called out directions. “Look at the camera, Petey. Clayton, take your finger out of your nose. Denning, be careful, you’re squishing your mama.”

  “Peterson Riggs, don’t you dare shoot a second of film with me looking like this,” Pokey cried above the din. She reached for her lipstick and a hand mirror and gasped when she saw her reflection. “I look like I’ve been rode hard and put up wet.”

  “You look beautiful,” her husband declared, zeroing in on his wife’s face. “Now hold her up a little higher, so I can get a shot of those big blue eyes and all that gorgeous red hair.”

  Pokey grinned and gently cradled the baby in the hollow of her shoulder. “Isn’t she amazing?” she cooed, looking directly into the camera. “World, meet our daughter. Olivia Pauline Riggs.”

  Sophie stood close to her aunt’s bedside, holding Annajane’s hand tightly in her own. “My first girl cousin,” Sophie said, not for the first time that day.

  “That’s right, Soph,” Pokey said. “And you’re going to have to help me figure out what to do with a little girl now. You can help me shop for dresses, and dolls, and all that girly-girl stuff for Livvy.”

  “I brought her a present,” Sophie said, her eyes shining with pride. She reached into her pink pocketbook and brought out a lumpy package of pink tissue wrapped in what looked like a mile of cellophane tape. “I wrapped it myself.”

  “She wouldn’t let me help at all,” Annajane put in, squeezing Sophie’s hand.

  “I wanna open it,” Petey clamored. “No, me,” Denning hollered, shoving his younger brother completely off the bed, which set off a fresh set of howls from the injured party.

  “That’s it,” Pete said, putting the camera down. “We’re outta here.” He leaned over and kissed Pokey and his brand-new daughter and extended a hand to the two boys remaining on the bed. “Come on, guys. Thanksgiving is only three days away. We’ve gotta get to the store and buy our turkey.”

  “And pies!” Denning said. “I want pecan. And pumpkin.”

  “And coconut custard,” his father said, swinging Clayton onto his shoulders. “That’s my favorite. Your mama makes me one special every year.”

  “But everybody’s eating at our house this year,” Annajane reminded him. “And I’ve already bought the turkey.”

  “Pete has to cook his own turkey, remember?” Pokey said. “He hordes his leftover turkey like it’s a treasure from King Tut’s tomb.”

  “My turkeys are a treasure,” Pete proclaimed. “Wait til y’all taste what I’m doing this year. Deep-fried and injected with my supersecret sauce. Sweetest, juiciest thing you ever put in your mouth.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Mason said. “Wait til you see what I’ve got up my sleeve. I bought a farm-raised free-range beauty from a farmer near Carthage. Then, I’m brining it for two days ahead of time. Kosher salt, cracked peppercorns, a bunch of other herbs Annajane’s got out in the garden, and a whole liter of white wine. I got a bastin’ sauce worked up with just the right essence of Quixie, too. You might as well leave that pitiful bird of yours at home, Riggs, because nobody’s going to want it after they get a load of the bird from Maison de Mason.”

  “A brine?” Pete said derisively. “That’s all you got?” He looked over at Pokey. “Honey, would you please tell this fool why my turkey rules?”

  “Oh, good,” Pokey said. “Dueling turkeys for Thanksgiving. This oughtta be interesting. Nothing like a good old-fashioned family food fight for the holidays.”

  “Speaking of family,” Mason said, “What have you heard from the rest of our clan?”

  “Sallie has been calling on the hour, demanding pictures and videos of Livvy,” Pete said. “Says she’s thrilled about us naming her Pauline after her mama.”

  “But not thrilled enough to leave Palm Beach to come see her new grandbaby,” Pokey added, not bothering to hide her disappointment. “She wants us to come down for Christmas, even offered to buy us first-class plane tickets. As if! Like I’m going to load up all of us, plus a newborn, plus all the Santa Claus stuff, for a quick trip to Florida just to see her new house and meet her new boyfriend.”

  “She’s got a boyfriend?” Mason asked, startled. “She’s never said anything about that to me.”

  Pokey made a face. “Sallie doesn’t come right out and call him that. His name is Brewer, and she claims he’s her investment guy. But every time I talk to her, it’s ‘Brewer took me to this fabulous new restaurant’ or ‘Brewer thinks I need a nicer car’ or ‘Brewer and I are taking a cruise in February.’ From what she says, he’s semiretired, and, I gather, just a teensy bit younger. Most importantly, to Sallie, anyway, he seems to have his own money.”

  “What about Davis?” Annajane asked, “Has he been by to see the baby yet?”

  Pokey sighed and gestured toward a mammoth flower arrangement sitting atop a dresser near the window. It was a towering affair of pink lilies, orchids, tulips, and roses that was only dwarfed by the five-foot-tall stuffed bear sitting beside it.

  “He sent those last night,” she said. “With a very sweet card. Signed Davis and Celia.” She wrinkled her nose. “Although I’m certain Celia has no idea her name was signed to that card.”

  Annajane shrugged off the mention of her former nemesis’s name. Although Celia and Davis were living in a grandiose new subdivision on the outskirts of Passcoe, she rarely ran into either of them, and when she did, she managed to grit her teeth and smile graciously. “Do you think Davis will ever actually marry her?”

  “Gawd, I hope not,” Pokey exclaimed. “He’d never admit it to me, but I get the feeling there’s trouble in la-la land. He stopped by the house last week, and I got the distinct impression he was running away from home because he’d had another big fight with you-know-who. After a couple drinks, he told me that lawsuit the Baby Brand people brought against her is starting to heat up. He was complaining about the huge legal fees, which, of course, she expects him to help pay. And, he mentioned, her daddy and her two trashy sisters showed up out of the blue two weeks ago for a ‘visit,’ and, so far, they don’t show any signs of leaving. The poor sap. Her mother and her mother’s boyfriend only just went back home to Nebraska. After showing up uninvited, eating them out of house and home for nearly a month, to top it all off, they backed into Davis’s car on their way out of town and never offered to pay for the damage.”

  “Wait a minute,” Annajane said. “Didn’t Celia tell everybody she was an orphan? And an only child?”

  “Wishful thinking, apparently,” Mason said.

  “Davis did call the house this morning while I was in the shower,” Pete said. “He left a message on the answering machine with some lame excuse about why he wasn’t going to be able to get over to the hospital to see you and the baby for the next few days. Something about his pool contractor and a gigantic screwup.”

  Mason scowled. “He’s adding a pool now? Because a tennis court and a stable and a riding ring and a frickin’ guesthouse aren’t showy enough for two people?”

  “He had to add a pool,” Pokey said. “Because we had a pool growing up at Cherry Hill. And he had to build the biggest, gaudiest, most ostentatious house this county has ever seen, just to show everybody how rich and successful he is, since we bought out his share of Qui
xie. And to house all these freaky relatives of Celia’s who keep showing up.”

  “And to demonstrate that he has the biggest pecker in Passcoe,” Pete said.

  “Way bigger than mine,” Mason added, with a wink.

  Annajane clamped her hands gently over Sophie’s ears. “Little pitchers!” she reminded her husband and brother- and sister-in-law.

  “Sorry,” Mason said, glancing over at his nephews. “Sorry, guys.”

  But the boys and Sophie were busily helping themselves to the gift box of chocolates that had come with their Uncle Davis’s flower arrangement and hadn’t heard a word the grown-ups were saying.

  “I better get these kids outta here before they start eating the flowers,” Pete announced. “Sophie, would you like to come help us pick out the turkey that’s gonna make your daddy’s bird look like a Colonel Sanders reject?”

  “Okay,” the little girl said, polishing off a piece of candy. “But can we wait til Aunt Pokey opens my present?”

  “Of course!” Pokey said, tearing at the multiple layers of tissue. A moment later, she held a small yellowed cardboard box in her hands. Lifting the top, she found a glittering object nestled on a bed of cotton.

  She held it up for the others to see. It was a green rhinestone brooch in the shape of a pixie—a pixie holding an uptipped and intricately wrought ruby-red Quixie bottle.

  “Sophie!” Pokey squealed. “Where on earth did you find this? I haven’t seen one of these since my daddy gave me one when I was a little girl just your age. Of course, I lost it almost immediately. It’s perfect. I love it.”

  Sophie beamed and wriggled with delight at her aunt’s praise. “I have one, too,” she said, reaching back into her pocketbook to produce an identical pin.

  “Annajane found a box of them when we were going through stuff from the attic over at Cherry Hill,” Mason said, his arm thrown across his wife’s shoulders. “According to Sallie, Granddad had them made as Christmas gifts for the top distributors’ wives back in the sixties.”

  “There are only a half-dozen left in the box,” Annajane added, “but we found a jeweler in Asheville who’s copying them for us. They’ll be great little holiday giveaways for the women at the office.”