Kicks for a Sinner S3 (30 page)

By the time he emerged with a towel wrapped around his hips, his mother had left, but a bevy of maids giggled as they shoveled out the mess in his suite. He raided his suitcase for clean clothes, called Robson, got talked into lunch, and ignored his new sisters’ calls. He’d never wanted to leave any place as badly as Vegas. Checking out, he went to bond with his brother. Then, he planned to head directly back to Oklahoma and figure out on the way how a guy going to hell in a handbasket could get back into paradise.

THIRTY

Joe Dean Billodeaux watched Brian Lightfoot punt the football deep. His return squad formed a protective V around the punt returner and ran the ball back into the wall of the defensive line. Good, they looked good—all except for his placekicker who shanked one field goal attempt after another no matter what the distance. How could a guy who won the Lou Groza award and made ninety-seven percent of his kicks his rookie year go so sour? Howdy McCoy sat on a bench icing his leg as if that would make his performance better.

Joe answered his own question. Woman trouble, the same kind of crap that caused Connor Riley’s slump half a dozen years ago, and now he’d have to deal with it again. Sure, when Nell broke up with him during their courtship, he’d been down, but he’d gone out there and done his job on the field just the same. His own fault, he never should have pushed Cassie on that nice kid to solve his own problems. Howdy couldn’t handle her. Now, he had to fix the situation.

Coach Buck whistled for a break. The men trotted in to suck down water and athletic drinks of choice, take off helmets that sometimes seemed more like saunas for the brain than necessary protection, and mop the sweat from their faces with cool, damp towels. A few of them threw glares Howdy’s way. The kicker had cost them a couple of pre-season games already, made the team look bad, and the players weren’t very forgiving. They expected better from last year’s top kicker in the league.

Joe signaled to Lightfoot to join him. “You’re Howdy’s friend, but nothing else, right?”

Amused, Brian replied, “That’s right. He is so not my type.” He gave Joe a salacious grin.

Joe did not return it. “Glad to hear that. You need to talk to him. I’ve tried. Nell has tried. He won’t open up about what happened in Las Vegas. I mean we know he broke up with Cassie, but there has to be more. It’s killing his game. Coach Buck is thinking we might have to call Ancient Andy Mortenson out of retirement and see if he has any kicks left in him if Howdy can’t straighten himself out. Failing that, the boy might be traded early in the season if anyone will make an offer.”

“I’m no psychologist, but I know Cassie is who he’s missing. She caused a big mess with his family and walked away, I presume. However, I get the impression that’s not the whole problem. Ah well, let me get out some of my magic fairy dust and sprinkle it on the situation,” Brian said, probably to make Joe wince. He got the desired result.

“Whatever it takes. Now is a good time. Go get ’im.”

Brian sauntered away and took a seat next to Howdy. “Hey, bro, what’s with the shank-itis? Hate to bear bad news, but Joe says they might bring Andy back because you can’t do the job. Worse things will happen if you don’t shape up. How about spilling to Uncle Brian?”

“I don’t have any uncles. Turns out I have a half-brother who wants season tickets to our games and two half-sisters, who once they found out I didn’t want a share of the family fortune, would like to be introduced to some of the players, even though one is divorced and the other is still married. My father is a dead Las Vegas real estate magnate, and my mother looks like the kind of women Joe used to date. I want her to move here so I can take care of her, but she says she won’t do that unless I find her a singing gig because she earns her own way. I shouldn’t do anything for her because she never did anything for me—except give me life and settle me with a decent family, my words, not hers. I want her to break with that slimy agent of hers and the guy who owns the lounge where she works. No dice unless she can work here. Is that enough to distract me from the game?”

“Might be, but I sense there is more.” Brian put two fingers to his forehead as if he were a swami divining the thoughts of his friend.

“Brian, I don’t deserve my good fortune, to be on this team. Not after the things I said to Cassie, words I can’t take back. Football players might break bones, but words can maim, too. I tried doing good deeds all summer. Thought she might notice, that Tommy might say something when she called, but she never asked to talk to me. I think she’ll hang up if I call her, but I’m afraid to find out.”

“Ah, so you are punishing yourself by kicking that ball so hard, so off center, it always shanks. I noticed that.”

“That obvious?”

“Only to those of us who know you well. Don’t Baptists believe in forgiveness?”

“Sure, but we also believe in hell for those who have hurt others. Hell is where I’m located right now.”

“Maybe it’s only purgatory, and your friends can pray your way out. Oh right, Baptists don’t believe in purgatory. I’m not sure I do either, but I’ll bet Joe believes. Let’s see what we can do to put you back in paradise. And by that, I mean in Cassie.”

Howdy punched Brian’s arm hard enough to hurt but at least didn’t kick him in his punting leg. A good sign, Brian thought, that his friend wouldn’t hear anything low about the woman he loved.

“Ease up, Howdy. You know when you hurt yourself, you hurt the team. Besides, if the management trades you, Ancient Andy will refuse to room with me on road trips. He thought I lusted after his shriveled old shanks during our short acquaintance. Not so, definitely not so.” He returned the punch with a pat on the back and trotted back to Joe.

“Well?” the quarterback said.

“We need to get his mother a gig in New Orleans. You still have some influence at the clubs, right? I seem to remember you got that comedienne, Tabby Johnson, her start.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t sleep with her either. I’m still proud of that. She sends me tickets to her shows. Most times I give them to charity auctions. But, if I guar-an-tee I’ll show up for the opening and bring some of the team, I guess I can get Howdy’s mama a show.”

“See, everyone is able redeem themselves. We also need to get his newfound brother season tickets and introduce his half-sisters to the team.”

“Easy.”

“Next, we bring him and Cassie back together. Evidently, he said some pretty foul things to her and drove her away.”

“Howdy doesn’t know how to be foul. After he came back from his ranch, he spent all of June and July helping us with Camp Love Letter. I cleared a field and put up miniature goal post for the kids. Even the ones in wheelchairs played flag football, and he taught those that could how to kick. He stood in as lifeguard at the pool since Nell wouldn’t put on a swimsuit. Said someone might mistake her for a beach ball. I could tell he was down, but he never took it out on the children, even when Tommy and Macho followed him around non-stop.”

“Evidently, what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas. He seems to think that town brought out the beast in him and what he said cannot be forgiven when it comes to Cassie.”

“That’s the trouble with Baptists, no confession to make them feel better. They have to stew in their guilt. Hey, if I can be saved, Howdy should be easy. Let me talk to Nell. She always has an opinion about how to handle Cassie.”

* * * *

Nell Billodeaux spent the afternoon soaking in the round, black platform tub in Joe’s New Orleans condo. Big enough to accommodate four, she certainly took up at least two places, maybe three. The bubbles slid down the sides of her pale, mountainous belly like snow in an avalanche. Being in water alleviated the weight of her pregnancy and two jets aimed at the small of her back relieved some of the ache. In one of her grouchy moods, she’d complained to Joe about his wretched taste in choosing ebony fixtures and dark mirror tiles veined in gold during his bachelor years. Big mistake.

“I despise bathing in stygian gloom,” she had to say when she really meant she hated being on extended bed rest, loathed the size of her baby-bloated body, and could not stand Nurse Wickersham installed by Joe in his pale blue Madame Pompadour bedroom to watch over her for the duration. While Joe probably had no idea what “stygian” meant, he got the general idea.

The next day while Nurse Wickersham coaxed her to stuff more applesauce into a stomach pushed up against her esophagus by the triplets so she always had heartburn, an electrician arrived. He installed a blazing gold chandelier hung with little teardrop crystals exactly like the one in the ranch’s bathroom over the black tub. Now, she could see every pink stretch mark veining her engorged stomach with extreme clarity.

When Joe asked her how she liked the new fixture, she replied, “Perfect,” trying very hard to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Like most men, her husband tended to take her words literally, and he did mean well. Her long baths gave her respite. She listened to music, read escapist literature in the now glaring light, called her children when they came home from school and listened to each and every one tell about their day. She missed them so, even knowing two of Corazon’s cousins of which there seemed to be an endless supply took good care of them.

Corazon did not have this luxury. Carrying only one child, she remained on her feet bossing the others. Gestational diabetes had set in and with many of her favorite foods now forbidden, bossing took over as her favorite pastime. Knox probably wished she’d spend time in the pool instead.

Until Joe insisted his wife come to stay in New Orleans in order to be closer to Ochsner Hospital in case she “popped”, the one good part of bed rest had been time shared with Xochi. Despite her origins, the child showed intelligence and an eagerness to learn. While the other children ran wild and free outdoors for the summer, Xochi tucked in against Nell’s belly and read from primers designed to improve her English. She used a small iPad to learn her kindergarten math and glowed at every correct answer. In the fall, she would go the Episcopal day school a few miles from Chapelle where the girls attended. Tommy and Dean endured the rigors of Ste. Jeanne d’Arc Parochial in the town because Cassie wanted her son to have a Catholic education. As for Dean, don’t get her started on the pressure brought to bear by his MawMaw.

Though Nadine made an argument to send Xochi with the boys since the child had been raised Catholic, Nell held out for a more liberal environment. On the single visit they’d managed to the day school before the doctor sentenced Nell to bed rest, the principal treated Xochi more like an interesting exchange student than a kid who couldn’t speak English perfectly. In fact, when they talked on the phone, the child delighted in telling her she’d been asked to teach her class a few Spanish words a day. Nell only hoped the teacher vetted the words in advance. She could only imagine Xochi standing before the group and saying, “My Mama used to be a
puta
. Repeat
puta
after me. It means whore.” Joe’s investigator found that much out when untangling the child’s place of birth and her parents’ marital status. Surprisingly, Bijou had married the woman.

A heavy, masculine knock sounded on the door she was forbidden to lock. Could be Nurse Wickersham or Joe, back from practice. “Sugar, I’m home. Can I come in and talk to you?”

Joe, then. Nurse Wickersham would have rapped hard once, bulled her way in, and told Nell she had to get out now and eat her snack or take a vitamin. “Sure, how did practice go?”

Her too-gorgeous-to-be-legal husband entered and sat on the edge of the tub next to the bidet where a green and yellow pothos vine thrived in the formerly dim light from the tiny windows above the tub. Even Joe couldn’t kill it because all he had to do was turn on the little spigot to create a small fountain to water it. She hoped the brilliant new lighting scheme would not do away with the hardy plant she’d installed during the first weeks of their marriage.

“
C’est bon,
pretty good. Everyone looks ready to take on the Falcons in the opening game except Howdy. He’s still shanking his kicks, distracted by his new family and the loss of Cassie. That’s our fault. We need to fix it.”

“Now he knows the dubious joys of having relatives. You can’t fix that. I tried to get him to open up all summer about what happened in Vegas once he found his family, but he’d only tell me he’d said some unforgivable words to Cassie. When I suggested I invite her to the ranch so they could talk it out, he turned pale and said he couldn’t look her in the eye ever again.”

“Kickers. No guts,” Joe said with disgust.

“Come on. He went into Mexico with you and showed quite a bit of bravery as I recall. It’s women he can’t handle. I had no better luck with Cassie. I called and invited her to celebrate the Fourth with Tommy, but she said she’d stay away until Thanksgiving as agreed. When I said that ban had been lifted, she told me she’d dragged a nice guy through the mud and couldn’t face him again. Howdy was right about her being dirty and pushy, so right, but she swore she’d never slept with anyone but Bijou. Then, she apologized again about hitting on you and hung up. I gather finding his family was her idea, not his, and the stress caused him to throw Bijou in her face. In a way, her interest in you showed a sign of healing, being ready to trust another man. This has set her back again, I’m sure.”

“Always the psychologist.” Joe kissed the top of her head. “I can handle Howdy’s family demands, but I have no ideas on how to get him and Cassie back together.”

Nell’s hand tapped a stack of celebrity magazines stacked by the tub. “Got an idea. You recall how Cassie loves the tabloids and gossip sheets? You tried to use them to get Connor and Stevie back to together.”

“Yeah, what a disaster.”

“You still have the number of that editor you tried to intimidate when his rag focused on me?”

“Sure, I have it stored in my phone. You never know when you’ll have to kick someone’s ass again.”

“Like that worked the first time. Gimme. Let me try something.”