Страница 5 из 96
Finally, the logs caught, too. She could feel fingers of warmth creeping into the chill, stale air. She sat back on the sofa, watched and waited. Waited for what, she asked herself? Some catharsis? A cleansing? A healing? Coming here had been a mistake. She stood, stripped off the fla
She let herself out the window, closed it, and drove off without a backward glance.
* * *
Three years later, A
* * *
Everybody in town said that if you were born in Passcoe, North Carolina, the home of Quixie and the Quixie Beverage Company since 1922, you were born with the cherry-flavored cola ru
Ruth, her mother, always claimed she couldn’t stand the taste of the stuff, but A
A
A
Her mama had thrown the pink engraved invitation right into the trash. “Think they’re better than us and everybody else in town,” she’d overheard Ruth tell Leonard. “Probably only asked A
“Ruth, for Pete’s sake, the girls go to kindergarten together. They’re friends,” Leonard had protested. “Just ’cuz you can’t stand the parents, that don’t mean those little girls can’t play together.” In the end, A
It was a tea party, and for the event a caterer set up a big round table draped in pink tulle on the front porch at Cherry Hill, the Baylesses’ rambling old Greek Revival estate.
The table was set with a child-sized bone china tea set that had been one of Pokey’s birthday presents, and there were real sterling silver forks and spoons and cloth napkins. Each of the six guests—all girls—was presented with her own silver sequined tiara and a pink feather boa. And at every place setting on the table stood a perfectly chilled chubby little bottle of Quixie soda with a pink and white striped straw sticking out of the neck.
A
To her, Quixie didn’t taste like cherry Kool-Aid or cherry Life Savers, or even cherry Popsicles. The fruit flavoring was bold and spicy and tart and sweet all at the same time, like a sour cherry exploding on her tongue with sparkly after-notes, and A
Besides the bottles of Quixie, the party refreshments included trays of tiny little crustless tea sandwiches and cookies and petit fours and a three-tiered Care Bears birthday cake that Mrs. Bayless had ordered from a bakery in Pinehurst, but for A
Pokey’s daddy, who’d played butler and head waiter at the party, had been delighted at A
When the party was over, each girl in attendance was given a huge goodie bag containing a full-sized Cabbage Patch doll, a monogrammed grosgrain ribbon hair bow, and yet another bottle of Quixie cola, this one with a special commemorative label that said: IN CELEBRATION OF POKEY BAYLESS’S FIFTH BIRTHDAY. A VERY SPECIAL DAY.
Even at five, A
But the upset stomach did nothing to dim A
Pokey was as blond and fair-ski
As for Sallie Bayless, she was always cordial to Pokey’s best friend, but as A
At the Bayless house, Pokey’s brother Davis was an a
On the handful of occasions when she’d been around Mason as a kid, A
Every summer, the Baylesses would invite A
But Leonard had his orders. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bayless,” he’d say firmly. “But August is when we get together up in the mountains with A
So every summer, A