Hail Mary

by Nicola Rendell

  “Listen,” I say, now standing between him and the television. “I’ll get the cash. I’ll bring it to you today.”

  “The fuck you will.” He presses the power button, and the cable and TV come alive. “Move your ass, James. I’ve got some poker to watch.”

  That’s when I hear the sound of the bedroom door passing over the carpet. My heart drops. She cannot conceive of what she is walking into, and neither can I. Michael is capable of the most horrible, hurtful one-liners of anybody I’ve ever met. She comes out almost timidly from the hallway, as if she doesn’t want to interrupt. I reach my hand out for her and she comes to me. Fortunately, she’s dressed, but it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here. Michael’s eyes go from her, to me, and back again, and he gets this horrible grin on his face as he gives her the up-and-down.

  I level him with a stare over my shoulder. Don’t you fuck this up, you piece of shit.

  Mary looks to me, waiting for an introduction, looking embarrassed. She studies Annie with a kind of panic in her eyes, almost like she doesn’t know what to say, or how.

  “This is Annie,” I tell her. “My niece.”

  Mary, still clearly confused and worried—you could cut the tension in here with a fork—puts on a big smile. “Annie, this is Mary.”

  Annie looks at her blankly and chews her yogurt like she loves to do.

  And Mary says, “Hello,” extending her hand. It’s so sweet, so awkward, that it just makes me fall for her a little harder.

  Annie extends her hand too, a natural mimic. Only her palm has yogurt all over it. Mary doesn’t flinch and shakes it warmly, smiling down at her.

  But my attention is on Michael. The guy is whip-smart and cold as ice. I watch him scan the kitchen. The dining table. He picks up a container of Icy Hot from the coffee table. He looks at the empty bowl of popcorn and the melted ice bag. He stands up from the couch and comes into the kitchen, tossing the warm gel in his hands.

  “Hello,” Mary says, sweet and kind and polite. Everything Michael loves to destroy. “I’m Mary.”

  Michael lets her hand hang out there, cold and unshaken. He flings open the fridge, taking a second beer from the door. Then he looks at her, slams the fridge shut, and says, “I don’t care who you are. He plays house with all of them. I stopped trying to remember names years ago.”

  23

  Mary

  I’m horrified. It’s very clear that this guy is Jimmy’s brother. Same eyes, same hairline, close to the same build, but this guy looks like a bar brawler, not an athlete. Cruel, not kind.

  And the words take my breath right out of my lungs. I look to Jimmy, who’s put his face in his hand. Then I watch the brother open the bottle of beer, hooking the edge of the beer bottle over his molars and biting down.

  Now, I’ve been in some tense situations in my life. And I don’t understand this one well enough to know what’s going on here. But I do know I want to get away from Jimmy’s brother. Right now. You don’t have to be a trained canary to know when there is trouble in the mine.

  I back up into the bedroom, and Jimmy follows me, closing the door behind him.

  “Ignore him,” he says. “He’s an asshole.”

  But those words, whoa. It makes me feel like I’m one of a long line of Barbies or something. A long single file line of women running down the hallway and out onto the street.

  “You know, I’m going to let you two sort it out.” I start gathering up my things. “I need to go home to feed Frankie, anyway.”

  Jimmy winces. “Let me explain.”

  “Are there lots of women?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “But there were?”

  His sigh is long, pained, and slow. “People change, Mary. But I made some mistakes. Yeah.”

  I gaze up at him. The fog of the last few days starts to clear. I don’t know this guy at all, do I? I’ve been “playing house,” just like the brother said. And now he’s got me working for his team? All the conflicts of interests and no idea whatsoever what I’m doing, except a slow bubbling panic that this is a very, very bad idea.

  “Don’t jump to any conclusions,” he says. “Okay? Until I can explain?”

  “Of course I won’t,” I tell him, trying to suppress the growing, panicky doubt. “So I’ll see you at the ballpark later…” I see him smile and trail off.

  “Stadium,” he corrects.

  “Right.” I try to smile up at him, doing my best not to look horrified at how close we felt last night compared to how very far away I feel now. “Stadium. I’ll see you there.”

  With my bag over my shoulder, I head for the door. I step into my boots, which he’d hidden in the closet. It all makes me feel very uncomfortable, and ashamed almost. Secrecy is bad enough, but secrecy here, in his own house, is a different kind of awful.

  I hear the low voices of Jimmy and his brother talking in the living room. I glance over my shoulder as I’m putting on my coat. I can just see Jimmy’s eyes, watching me, looking worried and sad.

  “Call me,” he mouths.

  “Of course,” I mouth back as I watch him pick up little Annie in his arms. She clings to him hard, burying her face in his shirt. The brother says something about money, about the mortgage, about bets. I see such hatred and anger in Jimmy’s eyes, suddenly, in the set of his jaw and the tenseness of his neck, that it makes my heart drop.

  Of course he’s more complicated than I imagined. Nobody can be as sweet as he is all the time. Who is he really? What’s he all about? Is he really and truly too good to be true?

  My questions unfurl out in front of me, and more and more doubt creeps in. That I opened my heart too fast. That I’ve been stupid. That yet again I trusted someone with the softest parts of myself, which I should have left protected.

  But fortunately, he’s not your ordinary man. He’s a celebrity. There is information out there about him, I’m sure. So as I head out the door, I grab my phone. I punch the button for the elevator to open and step inside. I press the G for the garage and then say, “Okay, Google. Who is Jimmy Falconi?”

  James Theodore “Jimmy” Falconi (34 years old) nicknamed “The Falcon,” is an American football quarterback. He has played in the NFL for 12 seasons. After winning a college national championship at Ohio State University, Falconi started his NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals, where he played for the next five seasons. After a shoulder injury, he was traded and spent five years with the Dallas Cowboys. While with the Cardinals, he lost three NFC West championships, and has been plagued by injuries since.

  I scroll down through the Wikipedia page past a whole litany of incomprehensible statistics, most of which are nearly a decade old.

  Early life: Falconi was born to Frank Joseph Falconi and the late Sarah Lee Zambrisi Falconi in Odessa, Texas, in the Permian Basin. Falconi has an identical twin brother, Michael Steven Falconi.

  His mom is gone. My heart tightens in my chest because I know that terrible pain all too well. As for Michael, I wouldn’t have pegged them for twins, but I can see it now that I know. One has lived pretty clean. The other? Probably the very opposite, and it shows. Rough around the edges, a beer belly, and an anger that petrifies me.

  Falconi expressed an early interest in sports, and his father, a roughneck oil rigger, enrolled him in youth football because the soccer team was full.

  And now more statistics, an absolutely astonishingly detailed explanation of what games he lost, what games he won, and how. I literally have no idea how to process any of this information, but I am astounded at the sheer quantity. Football fans, they’re the real deal. I’ve got a guess that Dr. Curtis could probably recite almost all of this verbatim to me if I asked.

  Then, as I scroll down a little further, there’s a ringing in my ears. I know it’s what I was after all along, but just seeing it there on the page makes me panic. To think that a man I’m sort of interested in—okay, fine, very interested in—has a “Personal life” section on his Wikipedia page. Oh boy.
“Here we go,” I say, and take a deep breath like I’m diving into a pool.

  Personal life: Falconi has been embroiled in a variety of relationships with cheerleaders…

  Oh no.

  …actresses…

  Why, oh why, am I reading this?

  …and supermodels.

  I close my eyes. What I should do is close this window right now. I should let him explain. I should not jump to any conclusions. But it’s right here. All this information, his whole life, at the flick of a finger… I open one eye just a crack, to read:

  Falconi has been outspoken about wanting to remain a bachelor, saying that he loves women too much to pick a single one.

  A strangled croak bubbles from my mouth. His brother, even though he looks kind of like an axe murderer, wasn’t kidding. All his pretty, pretty girls are probably busy blowing up his Facebook fan page at all hours of the day.

  I hurl myself into the Wrangler. The feeling is somewhere between dread, fear, and wanting to cry. He seemed so nice. He seemed so sincere. I flip over to Facebook and to Twitter. On both, he has that little blue check next to his name. I scroll through his feed and see a litany of hashtags in tweets to him from lady fans: #GoDeep. #GreatpAss. #AGameOfInches

  What am I doing? What in the world am I doing? Me, with a social media verified celebrity and fangirl hashtags? Am I out of my mind? I’m only Mary Monahan, MPT. He is Jimmy “The Falcon” Falconi. What was I even thinking? I flip through the pictures. There’s a whole bunch of super sexy action shots of him catching and throwing balls and being generally gorgeous. People have tagged him in memes all over the place and shared them everywhere. (“HEY GIRL… I’M FREE AFTER THE GAME. WANNA NETFLIX AND CHILL?” which has six thousand likes). But there’s also a smattering of him with assorted women. One in this killer black dress with a V-neck that comes damn near to her bellybutton and is so skinny, so beautiful… I peer at the screen.

  Oh my God. That’s Kate Moss.

  I slam my phone into my lap and let my head hit the seat behind me. I can’t compete with that. I can’t compete with international supermodels, for the love of God. I can’t. I just can’t. It’s like apples and…I don’t even know. Raisins. Apples and raisins. No, not even. Those are both fruit. Apples and sesame sticks. Apples and chicken soup. There is nothing about me that is in his league. Nothing at all.

  But then, like I've lost all self-control, which of course I have, I pick up my phone again and go back to Wikipedia, my face hot and my anger rising.

  In 2013, he declined participation in ABC’s The Bachelor, stating that involvement in the show would not only be a distraction but would also mean, “I’d have to pick one woman. And I've got no plans to do that.”

  My lips start to tremble a little as I fire up the Wrangler. Stupid, Mary. So, so stupid. You’re an idiot. First, you think he’s a Gillette model. Then you think he’s a Gillette model with a car dealership. Then you think he’s a professional athlete who is a perfectly nice guy! What is wrong with me? What was I thinking? The Bachelor! Of course he’s a playboy. Of course he is. Just look at him. No mortal woman could resist. Of course he’s that guy. He owns a whole building and runs around in tight white pants for a living. I’m sure he has women throwing themselves at his feet every week, asking him to sign their jerseys or hold their water bottles or whatever dreadful euphemism they’ve got. I throw the Wrangler in reverse and the gears grind at me.

  “Oh, I hear you,” I growl back and put her in first. I peel out of the parking lot, tires squealing on the dry concrete. I rumble up the exit toward the garage door, but then it hits me.

  Why. Why is my life like this? Why?

  I am stuck, here, in his parking garage, in his building. I look at my phone, at his texts from yesterday, and think for one second of messaging him.

  But I can’t. I feel disgusting. I feel horrible. I cannot trudge back up those four floors to ask for help.

  I place my head to the steering wheel and breathe. I can’t face him. Not now. I couldn’t possibly. My phone has slipped a little and flipped to a new meme. Jimmy holding not just one but two footballs, palming each one and curling them upwards like dumbbells. And the caption?

  HEY GIRL…

  WANT TO TOUCH MY BALLS?

  No. Just, no. I have to get out of here. I stare at the closed door and grip the wheel a little tighter.

  There’s only one solution to this one. I thrust open the door with my shoulder and go around to the trunk.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do,” I mutter to myself, pulling back the carpet over the spare tire. “I’m not going to that ballpark today. No way in hell is that happening.” And then I take a screwdriver in one hand and the jack in the other.

  Back at the gym, I wrap my hands carefully, trying to regain my calm and forgive myself for thinking that a guy like that and a woman like me ever had a chance in hell. I pull my hair back into a ponytail, adjust the height of the speedbag, and get to work.

  About a minute into my workout, Manny comes over and stands on the other side of the bag, watching me and eating a piece of beef jerky crusted in red pepper flakes.

  “Boy, you’re pissed,” he says, watching the bag as I settle into a calming triplet rhythm, the belly of the bag glancing off my upstrokes with three rebounds at a time.

  “I’m not.”

  “Pffffft.” Manny crams the rest of the jerky into his mouth with a huge, sausage-like finger. “You never hit the bag like that unless it’s tax season or you had a real bad date. Was it the guy from the ring? The big gringo with the pecs and the jaw?”

  It knocks me clean out of my rhythm and I whack the bag hard so it ricochets off the frame half a dozen times. Wiping my nose on the edge of my wraps, I go over and grab my water bottle. With the back of my forearm, I wipe the sweat from my forehead. “It’s not taxes, I’ll say that much,” I tell Manny.

  He sits down on the bench right next to me. He smells vaguely of aftershave, and I notice a shaving nick on his cheek. “Get under your skin, did he?”

  I gulp down a few mouthfuls of water. “A little.”

  Manny opens up his sandwich bag of jerky and offers me a slice. I pluck one out with my fingertips. It’s about as soft as a roofing shingle, and so hot I feel it in the back of my nose. “Oh my God.”

  “Extra-hot today,” he says. “Pretty good, right?”

  My nose stings and I hiccup like my whole stomach is roaring, What in God’s name have you done to me?

  As tears start welling up, I glance up at the big clock over the window. Jimmy and his shoulder are expecting me in an hour, but now I’m resolved for sure. I’m not going. So I open my phone to my favorites and give Dr. Curtis a call.

  “Hooah!” he bellows. “Morning, sarg. How’s it going?”

  I swallow my beef jerky, shut my eyes, and let go of the little glimmer of hope I’d had, the misguided lunacy that has overtaken me for the last few days. “Colonel. I need a change in the battle plan. Copy?”

  24

  Jimmy

  The trip to the bank is like something out of an episode of Law and Order. Michael hovers over my shoulder in line so closely that I see the rent-a-cop place his hand to his gun. By the time we get to the window, things are so tense that the lady behind the glass says to him, “Sir, please. Step back,” as her hand moves under the counter for her emergency buzzer.

  Michael is no stranger to the wrong side of the law, and he knows that move as well as I do—of course, I know it from Forensic Files and he knows it from a totally misguided stint in his 20s that we still don’t talk about, but whatever. Knowledge is knowledge. So he does step back, angrily snatching a handful of lollipops from the complimentary candy bowl. Then he shuffles off to the waiting-area chairs where he left Annie. I watch her looking at the lollipops expectantly, but what does Michael do? Shoves them all in his pocket and sits down a seat away.

  Asshole. The guy is a total, unmitigated asshole.

  Annie lets her head drop
and her legs go limp, dangling from the chair. A clump of slushy snow falls to the linoleum, and I hear Michael bite down on the lollipop like a cube of ice. I hate him. I hate that motherfucker so hard.

  Michael has never worked an office job because he can’t get along with, you know, people, so he’s made his living as a kind of traveling bar bouncer. The guy that hauls drunks out to the street and tells them never to come back unless they’d like to take a bite out of a curb sandwich. Suits him to a T.

  The teller adjusts her glasses and says, “Just one moment, sir. Let me get logged in. Computers are slow this morning.” According to her nametag, her name is MARGE. She is an explosion of yellow. Yellow glasses string, yellow shirt, yellow earrings, yellow hair, painted yellow fingernails.

  I take a Dum Dum for Annie, strawberry, and one for me. Mine has a question mark for the flavor. I watch the teller log in to her computer as I put the lollipop in my mouth.

  Coconut.

  God help me.

  What a fucking disaster that was this morning. I could just feel the temperature of everything plummet between Mary and me. And now, here I am, sucking on sweet coconut that doesn’t come close to her at all.

  Refocusing on the world around me, I zero in on the teller. She finishes typing something in and says, “How can I help you today?” She fiddles with the string of yellow beads that decorates her glasses chain.

  “Marge, I need to withdraw ten thousand dollars from my primary checking.”