Poor Daddy. I reckoned she hadn’t minded a whit about his being a man before this Harpies madness started up.
The Hitching Post Restoration and Preservation Society, the Harpies for short, was a small group of five influential townsfolk, who were well-known for their successful fund-raisers, restoration projects, and elitism. Primarily consisting of uppity women, it had taken twenty years for them to admit the first man into their folds—Haywood Dodd had joined six months ago. And if the rumors were to be believed, he had been allowed into the group only because of his relationship with Hyacinth Foster, the long – standing president of the Harpies who, despite being an off-the-charts philanthropist, was more well-known for having buried three husbands. There were whispers around town about her being some sort of Black Widow, but no one had ever dared to out-and-out accuse her of wrongdoing.
If Haywood had heard the whispers, he paid them no heed. He was head over heels for her.
Hay and Hy. The cuteness factor was enough to make me a little nauseous.
In addition, gossip had been circulating all week about a big announcement Haywood planned to make at tonight’s event. Speculation ranged between his popping the question to Hyacinth in front of God and everyone to announcing his resignation from the group.
Admittedly, I was quite curious about it myself, as Haywood was rather shy and not one to seek a spotlight. It had to be something really big. Enormous. And I wanted to know what.
I was nothing if not nosy.
All I knew was that the announcement was giving him anxiety, as he’d come in earlier for a calming potion. I’d tried to wheedle information from him, but he hadn’t given me so much as a hint to go on. He had just kept saying, “You’ll find out tonight.”
Running low on air, Mama sucked in a breath and started on me again. “As you darn well know, tonight’s masquerade ball is an audition of sorts to see how your daddy fits in, and how’s it going to look if you don’t attend to support him? His only child! His flesh and blood! I’ll tell you how it’ll look. Bad. Horrible. A slap in the face of all that is good and righteous!”
My mama was in quite the tizzy, and Veronica “Rona” Fowl in a tizzy was quite entertaining, let me tell you.
But no matter how fiercely she tried to spin it, I knew this was all her idea. She was jumping through these Harpie hoops for one reason and one reason only.
Daddy was driving her batty.
Ever since his hours had been slashed at the public library, he’d been a bored, mopey mess of a man, and my mama was ready to sell his soul to get him out of her hair.
She’d filled out all the Harpie paperwork and forced Daddy to fork over an enormous donation to the Ezekiel mansion’s restoration fund . . . and browbeat him until he made one in my name, too.
It was the only reason I’d been invited to the masquerade ball, which was being held to celebrate the recent completion of the project. All donors were expected to attend. Otherwise, my name would not have made the cut on the invitation list due to my contentious relationship with the vice president of the Harpies.
Patricia Davis Jackson, the most uppity of them all.
Oh, fine. I suppose she had the teensiest bit of a soft side. After all, her nearest and dearest called her PJ—and had done so since she married Harris Jackson at age twenty-two, when she was fresh out of college.
I called her Patricia Davis Jackson.
Or plain ol’ Patricia.
Or the Face of Evil.
It was a toss-up most days.
She’d almost become my mother-in-law (twice), and we had a long history of hating each other. I’d once poked her in her butt with a pitchfork, and she’d retaliated by ruining my first attempt to marry her son, Dylan Jackson, and had played a big role in the fiery failure of the second marriage try, too.
My mama knew all this, which spoke volumes about her desperation for my father to find a hobby.
“You know how I feel about the Harpies,” I said.
“Carly, this isn’t about you. It’s about your daddy. And you know very well that you don’t have issues with all the Harpies. Only one. You can suck it up for one night, buttercup.”
Her sympathy was heartwarming.
But she was right about my feelings for the group. As stodgy as the Harpies might be, their work was quite beneficial to the community, as evidenced by the refurbishment of the historical Civil War–era Ezekiel mansion. Before they’d gotten their hands on the place, it had been destined for collapse one crumbly brick at a time. Now it was a showpiece.
Patricia Davis Jackson made my blood boil, however, and I couldn’t easily overlook that fact. “She is enough.”
After our second failed attempt at getting married, Dylan and I had split up. He’d moved away, and I was left trying to pick up the pieces of my broken heart.