Spring Fever (20 page)

“I knew they were big, but not that big,” Mason said, wondering why they were having this discussion.

“They just bought out Cousin Ruth’s Old-Tyme Chips and Pretzels, that company out of Knoxville,” Celia informed him. “You’ve seen their stores; they’re in all the malls.”

“Yeah, maybe I read about that somewhere in one of the trade magazines,” Mason said, trying to sound noncommital. “Didn’t they buy another company at around the same time?”

Pole beans would be good. He could make tepees from bamboo for them to climb on. Pole beans weren’t trashy looking, were they?

“Monster Cookie,” Celia said. “They sell those enormous chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies you see in those jars at the convenience stores.”

“That’s the one,” Mason agreed. “Looks like Jax is on a buying binge, huh?” He was mentally surveying that scraggly patch of lawn outside the kitchen window. Maybe he’d take a ride over to the garden center next weekend; if the weather stayed decent, he could put in a garden by Good Friday, which was when his granddaddy always planted.

Just how well did Celia know Jerry Kelso?

“A huge Dutch grocery conglomerate just bought a big chunk of Jax,” Celia said. “They’re pretty flush with cash right now. Jerry was saying they’d really love to add a soft drink company to their business mix. You know—Pepsi and Frito-Lay are the same company, so it makes sense.”

That got his attention. “You’ve been discussing selling Quixie with Jerry Kelso?”

“No,” Celia said hurriedly. “Of course not. Jerry just mentioned it. So I thought it would be worth mentioning to you. I mean, with Jax’s saturation of the chip market—especially in convenience stores, where we’re trying to grow Quixie, I thought it was an interesting idea. There’s the potential for amazing synchronicity. That’s all.”

“Synchronicity, my ass,” Mason said, his tone sour. “They’d like to gobble us up, spit us out.”

“It’s just something to think about. Don’t get yourself all worked up,” Celia said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I don’t want us to talk about business tonight. It’s our wedding night, remember? Forget I even mentioned it.”

“I will,” he assured her. “Quixie is not for sale.”

She changed the subject in a hurry. “I saved some of your chocolate groom cake from the wedding. It seemed like such a shame to throw it out. I thought we’d have it for dessert.”

“Fine,” Mason said, leaning back against the counter. “Sorry I jumped on you. Need me to do anything?”

“Not a thing,” Celia said, unwrapping the steaks. “I have everything completely under control.”

“As always,” Mason said. He regretted it the minute the words were out of his mouth.

She wheeled around to face him with a mock pout. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Mason said. “It’s a compliment. You’re the most organized, efficient woman I’ve ever met.”

She frowned, and a deep crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Honey, it doesn’t exactly sound like a compliment to me. You make it sound like I’m some kind of control freak or something.”

“Not at all,” Mason said. “Look, let’s not fight, okay?”

Celia centered the romaine on a cutting board and began whacking at it with a large sharp knife. “This isn’t a fight,” she said, slamming the knife’s edge against the hapless romaine. “It’s a constructive conversation. If we’re going to make this marriage work, we have to get things out in the open, Mason. So, I need you to know that it hurts me when you make derogatory comments about me.” She took another whack at the lettuce, sending bits of it flying.

“I’m sorry,” Mason said, picking a piece of romaine from his eyebrow. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“See?” she said brightly. “Communication. It’s the key to everything.”

“Right,” he said, feeling his jaw muscle twitch.

She sighed dramatically. “Sweetheart, while we’re on the topic, I really think we need to talk about Sophie, and the way she spoke to me today, at the hospital. She treats me as though I’m the wicked stepmother—and you know I’ve gone out of my way to treat her like my own child.”

Mason winced, and his jaw twitched again. Twice. “She’s just a little girl, Celia. And remember, she just had surgery.”

“I know, poor little angel. I just think you need to be a little stricter with her. Or let me deal with her, when it’s an issue that affects me.” She gave that little laugh again. “Honestly, I know everybody means well, but between you and Pokey and Annajane, you’ve all managed to spoil the child rotten.”

“Spoiled?” One of his dark eyebrows shot upward. “Sophie’s a nice, normal little kid. Somedays she acts out, cuts up. But that doesn’t make her spoiled.”

Celia began scooping the lettuce into a wooden bowl. “Look. I get that she feels threatened by me. I mean, Sophie’s been daddy’s girl her whole life, and she’s had you all to herself. Until I came along and changed everything. I totally understand that. But I need you to back me up when it comes to disciplining her.”

“Let me get this straight,” Mason said, his fists clamped tight on the countertop. “You’re calling Sophie spoiled and me spineless? Is this your idea of a constructive conversation?

“No!” Celia cried. “Oh, I’m just no good at this. You know I adore Sophie. But I think she’d be happier with some guidelines. I want her to see me as an equal in her parenting. Mason, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. Never mind. I don’t want our nice evening spoiled.”

Celia gathered up the discarded steak wrappings and lettuce bits. She flipped the trash can lid to dump them in and spied the large Smokey Pig takeout bag. She held the bag up for Mason to see. “What’s this?”

“Lunch?”

“Mason!” She dropped the bag back into the trash and put her hands on her hips. “You’ve already eaten dinner, haven’t you? Why didn’t you say something?”

“More like a late lunch,” Mason protested. “But it was hardly anything. I’m still starved.”

“You’re just trying to humor me,” Celia said. She dumped the bag and food scraps into the trash with a huge, martyred sigh. “Never mind. I’ll just fix myself a salad. Will you still want dessert?”

“I had lunch hours and hours ago,” Mason said. “Besides, you haven’t eaten, have you? Come on, let’s fix dinner together.” He picked up the steaks. “You want me to grill these?”

“No,” Celia said petulantly. “It’ll take too long for the coals to get ready. I’ll just pan sauté them.” She grabbed a skillet from the pot rack hanging over the kitchen island and dropped it onto the range.

Mason took a step backward. “I’ll open some wine. White, right?”

“Never mind the wine.” Celia drizzled olive oil into the pan and turned on the burner. “I’m getting one of my stress headaches. The last thing I need now is wine.”

But wine was what he really, really needed right now, especially if she was getting one of her headaches. He opened a bottle of burgundy and poured a hefty serving into one of the fancy ultrathin Riedel wineglasses they’d gotten as a wedding gift. At the last moment, the lip of the wine bottle clinked against the goblet.
Ching
. A wedge-shaped chunk of glass fell neatly onto the countertop.

“Damn,” Mason said. He opened the cupboard and reached for his favorite cut-glass old-fashioned tumbler and transferred the burgundy out of the ruined Riedel.

Before he could stop her, Celia swept the wine glass into the trash. “It’s all right,” she said. “I can always order more from the store in Charlotte.”

“Sorry,” Mason said under his breath. “I’m gonna get out of your hair now. Call me if you need me to do something.” He picked up his wineglass and retreated to the study.

But not a lot of studying got done. He made notes on the margins of the reports, began working on a draft of a memo to Davis, and read more e-mails, but from the clatter of pots and pans and the slam of cupboard doors coming from the kitchen, he could tell things were not going well.

He googled Jax Snax on his computer and was amazed by the number of hits his search brought up. Jax had been on a shopping binge for sure. Just within the past year, in addition to the cookie company and potato chip outfit Celia told him about, Jaz had bought up a family-owned soft-pretzel baker out of Pennsylvania called Dutch Uncle and a popcorn outfit from Iowa called Poppinz’. As he scrolled down the list of stories mentioning Jax Snax, he spied a reference from
Beverage World
that was only two months old. He clicked on the citation and read with alarm.

Jax Snax CEO Jerry Kelso confirmed that his company is on the hunt for a small-to-average-sized regional soft drink bottler to add to their mix of businesses. “We’ve got the expertise, the distribution channels and the proven success story in the convenience food business,” he said in a recent interview. “We’re looking at several options right now, including one novelty soft drink bottler in the Carolinas that we think could be ripe for the picking.”

Mason slapped the cover of his laptop.

“Celia,” he hollered.

She didn’t answer. She was still out in the kitchen banging pots and pans around. He didn’t get the big deal about dinner. He didn’t get her compulsion to prove to him that she could cook. There were restaurants in Passcoe, not a lot, but enough that they’d never starve. They belonged to the country club and could eat there any night except Mondays, when the club was closed, and, anyway, he was a pretty decent cook himself. He’d fended for himself all those years after he and Annajane broke up, hadn’t he?

“Damn!”

He looked up to see Celia standing in the doorway, holding her cell phone and looking supremely pissed off.

“Something wrong?”

“Your mother just called,” Celia said. “It’s my aunt Eleanor. She was napping in her room, and Sallie went to check on her, and according to your mother, there’s something wrong with Aunt Eleanor’s breathing.”

Mason stood up abruptly. “Do we need to get a doctor? Take her to the hospital?”

“Who knows?” Celia said. “She’s in her nineties. I don’t know why she insisted on coming down here all alone for the wedding if her health is this precarious. I could just strangle my cousin Mallery for putting her on the plane.”

Mason reached for his car keys. “Come on. I’ll drive you over to Cherry Hill. We can call Max Kaufman, and if need be, he can come over and check out the old girl.”

“I don’t want to bother you,” Celia said. She had her pocketbook over her shoulder and her car keys in hand. “It’s probably nothing. I’ll call you if I need you.”

“What about your dinner?” Mason asked. “Can I just put it in foil or something for later?”

She glanced in the direction of the kitchen, her lips pursed. “I’m sorry, darling. Just pitch it out.”

16

Mason exhaled slowly. Was Celia upset with him? She was usually so sweet and accommodating. What had gotten into her lately? She’d left in a huff. If she’d stayed, he would have had it out with her over this Jax Snax thing. She knew more about the subject than she’d told him. This was no casual bit of gossip. Celia didn’t do casual. Maybe she just thought it best to alert him to the fact that they were being checked out by another company. No harm, no foul, right?

He should feel bad about their dinner, he knew. After all, her wedding had been spoiled, and her prospective stepdaughter was being a little bit of a pill, and now her great-aunt might be sick. Really sick.

Upon reflection, he realized he didn’t actually feel bad at all. Probably this made him a terrible person, certainly a terrible husband-to-be. He should call and apologize, at least drive over to his mother’s house and insist on helping her take care of her aunt, or
something
. But right now he really just wanted to do what he wanted to do. And hadn’t she just called him spineless and his daughter spoiled, in a roundabout kind of way?

So he strolled out to the garage, found his golf clubs and some whiffle balls, and went out to the side yard, to that scruffy future garden plot. For an hour or so, he practiced putting because his short game sucked. He didn’t think about postponed weddings, or pissed-off brides, or why he seemed to take such perverted pleasure in pissing off his bride to be. But he did feel something, unease, maybe, about the fact that he was actually feeling relieved that Celia’s big night with him was probably not going to happen. He was a totally shitty husband-to-be, for sure.

After he’d worked on his putting, it was still daylight, and there was still at least another hour of warm, buttery sunshine left. Without giving it much thought, he got in his car and drove over to the bottling plant. He let himself into the garage, found a clean rag, and dusted a film of thick yellow pollen off the red Chevelle. Had it been that long since he’d driven the fun car? He got in and fired her up, doing a silent fist-pump when the engine throbbed to life. He put the top down and carefully backed it out of the garage.

Ten minutes later, he was tooling around Passcoe, seeing the sights, tooting his horn at anybody and everybody he recognized. He felt really, really good. But, and this surprised him, maybe a little lonely.

What he needed was a passenger. Somebody who could share his appreciation for just how cool it was to drive around on a beautiful spring evening with the top down. He reached for his phone, and without giving it much thought, tapped the icon for Annajane’s cell.

Wrong. He disconnected before her phone could even ring. He drove another block and reconsidered. Why the hell not? It was just a car ride, for God’s sake. He tapped the icon again, and at the next block, swung the Chevelle back in the direction of her loft. All she could say was no, right?

*   *   *

Annajane’s cellphone rang once. The screen lit up, and she saw that it was Mason calling, but he’d disconnected before she answered.

She held the phone in her hand and stared at it. Should she call him back? Act as though she didn’t know he’d called? She felt like a stupid teenager. She started remembering all the Friday nights she’d spent, staring at the phone, fantasizing about picking up the phone and hearing Mason’s voice on the other end of the line. She remembered the sleepovers at Pokey’s house and how she’d sneak into his empty room when the rest of the household was asleep, studying his books, his bed, the football and baseball trophies casually lined up on the shelves. She remembered the notebooks she’d filled in high school, practicing her signature: Mrs. Mason Bayless, written in stupid, girly flourishes. While she was remembering all the things she missed about being a stupid teenager, the phone rang. Mason, again. She let it ring three times and then answered.