Spring Fever (42 page)

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 said, 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.”

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.”