His neck began to flush red.

“You see?” Sallie went on. “Annajane was all wrong for you. I know you think it’s snobbish to say so, but it’s the truth. There’s a reason these kinds of marriages never work out. Ruth Hudgens is little more than white trash. Annajane’s real father was a high school dropout, and Leonard, bless his heart, never was the sharpest knife in the drawer. I’ll give her credit for this: Annajane was always determined to marry up. And she succeeded in that, even though the two of you had nothing in common. But Celia is different. She’s perfect for you. She’s clever, she’s ambitious, a hard worker, and she sees the big picture. It’s a brilliant match. It will be a horrible tragedy for you and Quixie if you let this girl get away from you.”

“A brilliant match?” Mason repeated. “What did you do, Mama? Set up an Excel spreadsheet with all the attributes of a corporate wife, and then set out to find her?”

“No,” she shot back, “but if I had, I couldn’t have done better than Celia. Nor could you.” She leaned across the desk, her dark eyes snapping with intensity. “Mason, your daddy and I did not raise you to shirk your responsibilities. You have got to marry Celia and be a father to her child. And the sooner you do, the better. Celia’s not going to wait around for you forever, you know. If you don’t marry her, she’ll surely leave Passcoe, and take my grandchild with her. Is that what you want?”

Mason winced involuntarily, and Sallie saw that her last remark had hit home.

Sallie opened the drawer in the desk and slid out an opened pack of cigarettes, an engraved silver lighter, and a heavy cut-crystal ashtray. She closed the drawer, lit the cigarette, then sat back in her chair and inhaled deeply.

Mason stared. He’d never actually seen his mother smoke. She saw him watching her, and she smiled, tilted her head back, and blew a perfect smoke ring.

“What? You think I’m too old to be misbehaving?” She held the cigarette at eye level for a moment, then tapped the end neatly into the ashtray.

“Did you ever smoke in front of Dad?” Mason asked.

“Of course not,” Sallie said. “And don’t change the subject. We’re not talking about my marriage; we’re talking about yours.”

“No, we are not,” Mason said. “Was there anything else, or can I go back to work now?”

“Just one other thing,” Sallie said. “We’ll find out the final disposition of the estate when we meet with Norris Thomas next week, but I think we can pretty much anticipate how Glenn will have divided up the company. In the meantime, I want you to give serious consideration to the offer from Jax Snax.”

He started to protest, but she waved him off.

“Your father is dead, Mason,” Sallie said. “I know he had some sentimental notion about keeping the company in the family, but five years have passed, and the state of the economy has changed, drastically, and not for the better. Glenn could not have anticipated the way our costs have escalated while our sales have dropped. And if you won’t consider it in light of your own best interests, think about me. You and your brother are young enough to go out and start new businesses. On the other hand, I’m a widow. If Quixie fails, what am I left with? This house? It’s a damned mausoleum. Do you have any idea of what it costs in maintenance? Seven bedrooms, five bathrooms? For a woman who lives alone? The pool needs to be relined, the tennis court needs resurfacing, and my heat and air man tells me we barely have enough BTUs to cool the living and dining room. I need a whole new system, dual heat pumps, the works. Twenty-five thousand dollars! I’d sell it in a minute, but to who? We’re the only people in this town with any real money.”

Mason looked around the study and tried to see it through his mother’s eyes. There was a somewhat threadbare oriental rug on the wide-planked wood floor. The heavy linen drapes that hung at the windows had been there as long as he could remember. An oil portrait of his grandmother Bayless hung over the fireplace. He’d never once considered that Sallie might have come to resent the family homeplace. But clearly, she had.

“Now,” Sallie went on. “I’ve talked to several people in the industry, and they assure me that the Jax offer is a good one, probably the best we’ll ever get.”

“I disagree,” Mason said. “We should hold onto Quxie. It is what Dad wanted. That’s why he put that five-year moratorium on a sale. We’ve had challenges, I know, but I really believe we can turn things around now, especially if we expand our brand with the new drinks Dad was considering. I won’t support you on a sale, Mama. And neither will Pokey.”

She took another drag on the cigarette. He found it fascinating and unsettling to watch a parent indulge in such a taboo. It felt like watching Santa Claus read a copy of Hustler. Unseemly.

“Davis is in favor of it,” Sallie said. And Celia knows it’s for the best, too. You should try listening to her, Mason. She has a really fine head for business, you know. Don’t discount her just because she’s a woman.”

He stood up. “If we’re done here, I need to go pick up Sophie.”

“Oh yes,” Sallie said, stubbing out her cigarette and stashing the still-smouldering ashtray back in her desk drawer. “Poor little Sophie. I have some ice cream for her, out in the kitchen.”

She came around from behind the desk and gave her son an awkward hug. “Think about what I’ve said today, Mason, will you? Patch things up with Celia, and let’s get this wedding rescheduled.” She gave his cheek a pat that was very nearly a slap. “And whatever you do, stay away from Annajane Hudgens.”

26

When he finally made it into the office, Mason found a thick pile of phone-message slips and an endless stream of e-mails. He was exhausted, guilt-wracked, and pissed off at Annajane Hudgens, whom he blamed for plunging his usually well-ordered life into a maelstrom of doubt and indecision. He was clicking his way through the e-mails, when he came to a long one from Joe Farnham, expressing his regret about the termination of the Quixie account and wishing the family well, that set his blood boiling. He called Farnham and had a brief conversation with the ad-man. As soon as he hang up, he stormed into Davis’s office without knocking, slamming the door closed behind him.

“Hey, bro,” Davis was dressed in his customary custom-tailored suit, heavily starched white dress shirt, and an expensive Italian knit tie. He was on the phone.

“We need to talk,” Mason said, and he felt his jaw muscle twitch. He glanced at Davis’s computer screen—and saw what looked like a page of real estate listings. Davis quickly tapped the mouse and the Quixie logo appeared on his screen saver.

“Hang on a minute, can you?” Davis said, covering the phone with his hand. He gestured toward the wingback chair in front of his desk.

“Look, I’ll get back to you on that,” he said and hung up. He swiveled his chair around and gave his brother a searching look.

“Dude,” Davis said, with a merry chortle. “I hear you had yourself quite a night last night. So. You and ole Annajane out at the farm, scaring the livestock. Congratulations, buddy. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

Mason clenched the sides of the chair with both hands. “Shut the fuck up,” he said fiercely. “I mean it, Davis.”

“Okay,” Davis said, shrugging. “Don’t get so bent out of shape. I was just messin’ with you.”

“You’ve been messing with a lot of people lately, haven’t you, Davis?” Mason said. “I just got an e-mail from Joe Farnham. He tells me you’ve terminated our account with them?”

“Well, hey-yullllll,” Davis drawled. “You know, it’s just one of those things. If we do this deal with Jax Snax, they’ve got their own in-house agency. And I know you’ve been on a cost-cutting tear, so it seemed to me that now was the time to cut Capheart loose. We’ve got the summer promotion plans, and it’s no biggie for me to cherry-pick the best parts…”