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The boatneck collar of Pokey’s expensive new red silk jacket had slipped off her right shoulder, exposing a leopard-print bra strap and an unseemly amount of cleavage. Little Clayton was two years old, but Pokey was still struggling to lose her baby weight. She’d managed to pop one of the jacket’s rhinestone buttons, and the tight silk skirt had somehow twisted around so that the zipper was now in the front, rather than on the side. She was bare-legged, which was a scandal in and of itself, but now A
Pokey’s thin, poker-straight blond hair had already lost its beauty-salon bounce, and now hung limply on either side of her full pink cheeks. Her lipstick was smeared. But her eyes, her amazing cornflower-blue eyes, glinted with mischief.
“Busted!” A
“Christ!” Pokey muttered. “This is so not my fault. I couldn’t find a parking spot! The church lot’s full and the whole block is lined with cars on both sides of the street. I had to leave the Land Rover clear down the block in front of the gas station and run all the way here.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be up there with your mom and everybody else in the family?” A
“Screw that,” Pokey said swiftly. “I refuse to make nice with that woman. Mason knows I don’t like her. Mama knows it too. I’m taking a moral stand here.”
“Who the hell are all these people anyway?” she asked, glancing around at the packed church and zeroing in on the bride’s side of the aisle. “Not family, right? Since poor lil’ Celia is an orphan, and the only family she could produce is that elderly great aunt staying over at Mama’s house. Did Celia charter a bus or something?”
A
“Don’t give me that. You hate her as much as I do,” Pokey said under her breath.
“Not at all,” A
“Yippy-fuckin’-skippy,” Pokey drawled. “Happy, happy, happy. It’s fine for you. In less than a week, you’ll pack up your U-Haul and head for Atlanta and your nice new life without even a glance in the rearview mirror. New man, new job, new address. But where does that leave me? Stuck here in stinkin’ Passcoe, with my mama, my evil brother Davis, and good ole Mason and his new bride, Cruella de Vil.”
“Poor, poor Pokey,” A
“Third richest,” Pokey corrected. “Or maybe fourth. Davis and Mason have way more money than Pete, especially since people quit buying furniture made in America.”
“Speaking of, where is Pete?” A
Bo
Pokey saw the maneuver for what it was. “Bitch,” she said.
“It’s all right,” A
“Awkward?” Pokey laughed bitterly. “It’s freakish, is what it is. Who else but you would agree to show up at her ex-husband’s wedding?”
2
Out of the corner of her eye, A
“I had to come today,” A
“I still can’t believe you’re leaving Quixie,” Pokey said. “After how many years?”
“Too many,” A
“You spoil that child rotten,” Pokey said, tsk-tsking. “And Mason is even worse.”
But before she could launch into her lecture about the kind of strict parenting her niece really needed, the soft strains of organ music that had been playing as guests drifted into the church segued into harp music.
“A harp?” Pokey turned and craned her neck to look in the direction of the choir loft. “Where the hell did she find a harp in Passcoe?”
A
“I had one of my migraines,” Pokey said quickly. “I was all dressed and everything when it hit me. Pete gave me one of my pills and put me to bed at eight o’clock.”
“Migraine or not, you are officially on your mother’s list today, as if you didn’t already know that,” A
“I do not understand why Mama and my brothers have suddenly allowed Celia free reign with the company bank accounts,” Pokey said. “If Daddy were alive, he would be shittin’ kittens at the way they’re throwing money around. Pete doesn’t like it either. He says…”
Suddenly, the harpist was joined by a violin and a flute, the tempo of the music quickening.
“Shh,” A
A door beside the altar opened, and three men in dark tuxes emerged following the pastor, a personable young priest from Boston, Father Jolly, who’d only been at the church for a few months. He even looked the part, A
But it wasn’t the priest A
As Mason took his place to the right of Father Jolly, his younger brother, Davis, slid easily to his side. Pokey might have been the youngest of the three Bayless progeny, but Davis was now, and always, the baby of the family.
Twenty months younger than Mason, Davis was half a head shorter and easily weighed forty pounds more than his older brother. While Mason and Pokey had the Bayless blue eyes and dark blond hair coloring, Davis, alone among the children, took after his mother Sallie’s people. He had the Woodrow snapping dark eyes; thick, wavy dark hair; and the high cheekbones Miss Pauline always claimed came from their long-ago Cherokee ancestors. Davis looked eagerly around the room, tugging at the collar of his starched white tux shirt, nodding at friends and acquaintances, exchanging a sly wink with somebody, a woman, no doubt, seated on the far left side of the church.