Spring Fever (16 page)

It was early yet, not even eight o’clock, so the town’s worshipers were still presumably at home, polishing off their bacon, grits, and eggs; pressing their dress shirts; or dabbing on a final bit of makeup. Because that’s the kind of town Passcoe was, a nice southern town where nice southern men and women still wore suits and dresses to church on Sundays.

Two blocks past First Baptist, she finally came to the Quixie Beverage Company, which, in its own way, was just as much of a temple of worship as the real churches in town. The sprawling red brick complex even looked like a church from the front, with two-story columns and a peaked roofline. The building had been added onto so many times since Mason’s great granddaddy founded the company in the 1920s, it now took up an entire block, fronting on Church Street and backing up to the railroad tracks.

Annajane skirted the front of the building, where a perky red-and-green-striped awning shaded a set of big plate-glass entry doors to the reception area. Instead, she walked around to the east side of the building, to the loading dock. A pair of boxy Quixie delivery trucks were parked at the dock, nose out, and she could hear the rattle of hand trucks and the soft murmur of voices as she climbed the worn wooden steps up to the dock.

“Hey, Annajane,” called out a husky middle-aged man in a Quixie driver’s uniform. He had a hand cart loaded with cases of Quixie poised at the open doors at the back of one of the trucks. “Thought you’d done moved off to Atlanta. What are you doin’ round here on a Sunday?”

She’d known Troy Meeks since she and Pokey were kids playing hide-and-go-seek around the plant. He’d given them rides on his hand truck, bought their Girl Scout cookies, and turned a blind eye when they pilfered dented cans of Quixie to sell for a quarter apiece at school.

“Hey Troy,” she said, giving the older man a hug. She reached out and gave his stubbly gray crew cut an affectionate rub. “I’m not gone just yet. I’ve still got a bunch of stuff to tie up in the office. That’s why I came in this morning. I can never get anything done with Davis popping in and out all day long, giving me orders and trying to boss me around. I just need a few hours of peace and quiet.”

“It’s a sure bet you won’t catch Davis Bayless in here on a Sunday morning,” Troy agreed. “Especially not the day after his brother got married.” He gave her a knowing wink. “That musta been some party.”

“Well, that’s a funny story,” Annajane said. “The wedding didn’t exactly go off as planned.”

His mouth gaped. “You’re kidding me. What’d you do—trip the bride as she went up the aisle?”

She shook a mock finger at him. “Careful. Celia’s management now, you know.”

He grinned. “Are you serious? The wedding really didn’t happen?”

“Nope,” she said. “Sophie got sick—right as Celia was walking up the aisle. They had to call the wedding off and rush her to the hospital. She had an emergency appendectomy.”

He shook his head. “Appendectomy! Poor little thing. Bet old Mason was fit to be tied.”

“He was. We were all pretty worried about Sophie. But Dr. Kaufman says she’ll be right as rain. I talked to the nurse at the hospital this morning, and she’s awake and demanding ice cream, so that’s a good sign.”

“Called off the wedding,” Troy repeated under his breath. “Ain’t that something.” He gave Annajane a cockeyed smile. “Maybe there’s still time for you to snag the boss. Again.”

Annajane blushed. “Sorry, Troy. That ship has sailed.” She held up her left hand so he could see her ring. “Anyway, I’m engaged.”

“Damn shame, too,” he muttered.

*   *   *

The thick, sweet smell of cherry syrup hung heavy in the air of the quiet plant. Annajane passed only two more workers, which was worrisome. At one time not so long ago, the plant would have been humming, even on a springlike Sunday morning.

But times had changed. The economy had soured. People were fickle. Their tastes and preferences in soft drinks and soft drink flavorings had changed. Quixie had lost market share to the spate of “energy drinks” flooding the market. Even their demographic had changed, from young and upbeat to, well … not.

When she’d been in college, Quixie had been the mixer of choice at parties. She and her friends had drunk Quixie and Captain Morgan rum, Quixie and vodka, Quixie and Southern Comfort, even—she shuddered to think of it now—Quixie and natty lite.

Somehow, though, the Quixie brand had gotten stodgy. Davis had commissioned market studies and focus groups to seek the root of the problem, but the answers hadn’t been encouraging. Quixie just wasn’t cool. Not that they hadn’t tried.

The company had spent millions on surveys and focus groups and ill-fated ad campaigns. They’d overhauled everything, from the original flavoring formula to the size, shape, and color of the bottles, cans, and packaging, to the look of the brand itself. But nothing worked.

Annajane pushed open the heavy metal double doors leading from the plant into the office building. She followed a narrow corridor past a slew of closed office doors before pausing in front of her own.
ANNAJANE HUDGENS, ASST. V.P. MARKETING
, said the plaque on her door. She slid the plaque out of the slot and dropped it an empty trash basket. By the end of the week, it would be Tracey’s office, not hers.

She drew a spare key to her office from her pocket and unlocked the door. She flipped on the light and sighed at what she saw.

More cardboard boxes were scattered around the office. Stacks of books were piled on top of her desk, and even more stacks—of boxes, files, and miscellaneous papers—stood piled at precarious angles. There was a coatrack in the corner, and from it hung a couple of her old, threadbare sweaters, a Quixie Beverage Company red-and-green-striped driver’s uniform shirt with her name embroidered on the breast pocket, and, yes, shrouded in an age-clouded plastic dry cleaners bag hung the dreaded Dixie the Pixie costume.

Annajane lifted a corner of the plastic bag and inspected the green felt tunic and red tights. Somebody—her mother, maybe?—had done a neat job of mending the rips from her Fourth of July fall all those years ago. She had a corresponding scar on her knee. You couldn’t even tell—unless you looked really closely.

She smiled wryly and let the plastic drop. Old wounds. They faded, but they never really went away, did they?

No good worrying about that now, she decided, clearing a path to her desk. She sat down in front of her computer and plunged herself into her work.

Two hours later, she sat back in her chair and paused for a moment. The end-of-quarter sales figures she’d been scanning were depressing. Fountain sales, canned sales, liter bottle sales—all were down.

Her department was gearing up to work with supermarket chains around the region for an important summer promotion. The ad agency’s art department had worked up sketches for the supermarket displays, but to Annajane they were uninspired and, worse, downright ugly.

She sighed and kneaded her forehead with her fingertips. Davis had already approved the sketches with an enthusiastic “looks great” scrawled in the margins. Annajane was only the second in command in marketing. The final okay was up to Davis—and Mason, to some extent. She had one foot out the door, so why should this matter to her?

It just did. She hated the idea of stores all over the region flooded with the tacky cardboard displays featuring a likeness of Quixie’s new spokesman—a second-rate Nascar driver—holding the Quixie bottle. The colors were garish, the production quality mediocre, and the driver, Donnell Boggs, whom Annajane had met on his one and only stop in Passcoe for promotional purposes, was a skeezy drunk who’d instantly become Davis’s new best friend.

She jotted some quick notes on a Post-it and attached it to the sketches before returning her attention to her e-mail.

A woman’s voice echoed down the hallway, and Annajane looked up, startled.

Celia Wakefield’s slightly nasal Midwestern accent was impossible to miss.

“No,” she was saying to somebody. “No, we haven’t discussed a new date yet. It just happened last night, for heaven’s sake!”

Annajane felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle. Her office door was closed, but she found herself slumping down in her chair, just in case.

Celia’s heels clicked on the linoleum hallway floor. She was coming closer, and apparently she was having a discussion on her cell phone. “No, Jerry,” she said sharply. “You don’t understand how things are done down here. It’s not just a business to these people. We have to finesse this. It’s a courtship, you know?”

“These people?” Was she referring to the Baylesses? And was Quixie the business under discussion?

Celia started to say something, but then she was quiet, probably listening to the unseen Jerry on the other end of the line.

“Mmm, actually, I think the younger brother is amenable. He’s the middle child, and you know how they are. Starved for approval. I get the feeling he’s interested in exploring his options.”

Annajane sat up straight now.
Davis? Exploring his options? What the hell was going on here?

Celia had passed Annajane’s door now, and her voice was starting to fade. Annajane got up and pressed her ear to the door, feeling guilty even as she did so.

“Well, the sister is definitely
not
president of my fan club,” Celia was saying.

You got that right,
Annajane thought.

“Mmm-hmm, no, she doesn’t participate directly, kids and all that. But yes, I think it’s likely she does have a stake in the business. No, unfortunately, that’s a bit tricky since she’s best friends with Mason’s ex.”

Annajane bristled.

Celia laughed at something her caller said. “You don’t even know the half of it,” she drawled.

The footsteps receded, as did Celia’s voice.

What the hell is she up to?
Annajane wondered again.

She went back to her computer and tried to concentrate on the memo she was writing for Tracey, but her mind kept drifting back to the conversation she’d just overheard.

*   *   *

Ten months. That’s how long it had taken Celia Wakefield to get her claws into first Quixie and then Mason Bayless. Knowing Celia as she did now, Annajane was only surprised that she hadn’t managed it any faster.

Like everybody else in Passcoe, as well as at the company, Annajane had been thoroughly charmed by her first meeting with Celia.

Davis had been singing the praises of the hotshot management consultant he’d met on a business trip to Chicago for months.

“Mama actually met her first, if you can believe it,” he’d told Annajane at a meeting the day after he returned.

Sallie often tagged along with both her sons on business trips after Glenn’s death. Not that she had much to do with the day-to-day operations of Quixie, but she’d made friends over the years with people in the soft drink business, and Annajane suspected she was eager to go along on the trips because it gave her a chance to get out of Passcoe, stay in the best hotels, catch up with old pals, and shop. Sallie Bayless was a world-class shopper.

“Mama was sitting in our suite, leafing through the program for the marketing meeting, and she got all excited when she saw that Celia Wakefield was on a panel about brand building,” Davis said. “Turns out, she’d just bought a little dress for Sophie from a company called Gingerpeachy at some ritzy boutique up there and went crazy over them,” Davis said. “Of course, Gingerpeachy is Celia’s company. Or was, until she sold it. Sallie insisted on sitting in on Celia’s panel, and she was so impressed, afterwards she invited Celia to meet us for dinner. I had drinks with her in the bar first, you know, just to see if she checked out.”

Davis rolled his eyes dramatically. “Of course, I took all of this with a grain of salt. I mean, come on, what does Sallie know about brand building, or marketing? I tried to get out of it gracefully, but you know Sallie. Damned if she didn’t force me to go to dinner, and damned if she wasn’t right. Wait until you meet this gal, Annajane. She’s the real deal!”

“This is a woman who really understands branding,” he told Annajane. “She built her own company from scratch—kids’ clothing, starting from the time she was twenty-one years old, working as a sales clerk at a little boutique in the middle of nowhere. She was the designer, the manufacturer, the marketer—everything. Last year, she sold the company to a big retailer. Believe that? Ten million dollars! Guess she’s gotten bored with the good life, because she’s doing consulting work these days.”

A few weeks later, Davis called her into his office and introduced her to Celia.

Annajane’s first impression had been that this was the most exquisite creature she’d ever met. The chair she was sitting in seemed to swallow her whole. Even with five-inch stiletto heels on her lime-green pumps, she was barely a notch above five feet tall. Her blond hair was silvery against a deep tennis-player’s tan, and her pale lavender suit and low-cut lime-green silk shell should have been too girly for business. But on Celia, it was perfection. She reminded Annajane of a hummingbird. The only thing missing was a tiny pair of wings.

“Annajane!” Celia had said, leaping up to shake her hand. “Davis has told me so much about you. He says you’re the heart and soul of the company. How can I lure you into going to lunch with me and sharing your insights on Quixie?”

Of course, Annajane had been flattered. Flattery was one of Celia’s many talents. She was warm and bubbly, so easy to talk to. They’d had a hilarious lunch, laughing and talking about the quirks of working for a small-town family-owned company. Celia had seemed surprised to learn that Mason was Annajane’s ex-husband.

“Really? And you still work for the company after all that? How do you stand it?”

Annajane winced now at how easily it had been for Celia to draw her into her confidences. For a few weeks, they’d been best buddies, sharing drinks, lunches, even a shopping trip to Charlotte.

Everybody, it seemed, loved Celia. Everybody except Pokey.

“She’s a phony,” Pokey said, after the first and only lunch date with Annajane and Celia. “If she’s so rich from selling her own company, why is she piddling around with contract consulting work for Quixie?”