The Comeback Route

by Jamie Bennett

  “Well, I’ve been seeing this life coach,” he explained to me. “She showed me how I was going astray a little, and I’ve been trying to clean things up.”

  I smiled for the first time that day, and I stayed pretty happy for the rest of the way home, except when the car went over a bump and Nico winced but tried to hide it.

  I could get my tools back later.

  ∞

  “Can I come in?”

  I thought about it. I didn’t really want him to, but Nico had invited him, and it was pouring rain down on his head. The beauty of Michigan weather meant that overnight, we had gone from living on a glacier to living in a mud puddle.

  “I guess.” I swung the door a little wider so Teddy Hayes, the Junior Woodsmen quarterback, could squeeze through. “You can throw your jacket in the closet, if it’s not too small a target for you. I mean, Nico’s six-four, but you had a hard time finding him yesterday during the game.”

  “Tatum!” Nico put his arms on my waist and physically removed me from Teddy’s personal space. Maybe I had been a little threatening, but I remained pissed off. I had been the one applying more ice packs and going out for extra arnica the night before, and I had been the one who had been upset enough about the bruises on Nico’s body to nearly have a very minor four-car accident. This Teddy could go and—

  “Tates, did you want to bring out the stuff you were making?” Nico asked, his arms still around me. “It smells delicious.”

  I nodded slowly. I had been talking with Lucy, Josefa, and María José all morning on the phone, and they had walked me through making El Asturiano-style empanadillas de setas y queso. “I’ll get them,” I said, and walked to the small kitchen, still keeping an eye on the quarterback. He and Nico sat on our kind-of comfortable couch and I put down a plate. “Here you go.”

  Teddy sniffed appreciatively. “What are those?”

  “Little savory pies with cheese and mushrooms,” I explained, and he ate a whole empanadilla in one big bite. I watched him chew for a moment then said, “I went and picked the mushrooms earlier in the woods behind the building. I’m pretty sure they’re ok to eat, but Nico and I will keep an eye on you for a while before we try them ourselves.”

  Teddy’s jaw stopped moving.

  Nico started to laugh. “No, she’s kidding,” he told Teddy. “They came from the grocery store. I think they’re even organic, right, Tates?” He took a big bite of empanadilla to prove it. “Jesus, honey, these are delicious.”

  “Really?” I preened.

  “Really, really good. And totally safe,” he assured the quarterback, who still hadn’t swallowed his mouthful yet. Nico and I both watched his Adam’s apple slowly move up and down, and I nodded at him and checked my watch, just to give him something to think about.

  I left them alone and went back to what I was slogging through, my business plan for El Asturiano la Continuación (Lucy had come up with that one, but it still wasn’t a good fit.) My business plan had to be perfect, just exactly right by tomorrow, so I focused on Nico’s laptop to work on it but kept one ear on his meeting with Teddy. Nico drew diagrams, showed him clips on his tablet over and over again, and talked and talked.

  “It would be easier to demonstrate in person,” I heard him say as I was taking a break and wiggling out some kinks in my back from sitting for way, way too long. I did better when I moved.

  “Tates, we’re heading downstairs. Want to come and help?” Nico asked me. Teddy Hayes eyed me nervously.

  I glanced at the window, which still showed grey clouds and steady, cold rain. “Sure, I’m up for it. What are we doing?”

  “Teddy and I are going to work on timing. Here.” He went to his bedroom and came back with a windbreaker for me. “This should be waterproof. It will come down to your knees and keep you nice and dry.”

  “Thanks! Mine wouldn’t fit in my bag.”

  “I see. You brought your shepherdess outfit back and forth from Florida, but not a raincoat,” he noted.

  “That crook took up a lot of space!”

  Nico was laughing as he found a football and we went downstairs, out to the flat area behind our building before the woods began. He and Teddy passed back and forth while I took pictures of both of them, sending the good ones to Chara. They were getting muddy and wet but they kept at it for quite a while. Nico was smiling, because he just enjoyed playing, but Teddy was very serious, listening closely and asking questions. I hoped he was learning something. Seemed like he should already have learned it, with his years of playing and going to college, but whatever. I hadn’t learned much in college myself, so I could get that.

  After a while, Nico gestured to me to come out to join them, and I tucked his phone into my pocket. “Ok, Tatum, I want to walk him through this, so you’re going to pretend to be me and we’ll run a comeback route,” Nico said, and positioned me by holding onto my shoulders.

  “If I played, I would be a wide receiver,” I said confidently. “If I ever turned pro, I meant.”

  “Sure. Watch me.” He took a few steps down the field. “See how looks like I’m going to take off into the sunset? But I’ll turn around and come back to you.” I held out my arms, and he did. I smiled. Yep, he was on a comeback route.

  “What?” Nico asked me curiously, but I just shook my head. “Ok, when I say go, take five steps then turn and come back, looking for the pass. He’ll throw it to you easy.” He moved back to Teddy, walking slowly and a little carefully, like he was still hurting. Stupid Teddy Hayes and the rest of the stupid Junior Woodsmen. I blamed them all. I saw Nico point to me, talk more to Teddy, then give him a slap on the back.

  “Ready, Tates?” Nico called, and I gave him a thumbs up, then yanked down my sleeve so that he could see my hand beyond the giant jacket. “Go!”

  I ran five steps, swiveled, and started upfield to catch the ball. I didn’t have to wait for it; I didn’t even see it coming. Before I even took the first step toward them, the ball hit me so hard in the stomach that I shot back like I had been pumped out of a cannon, and I went right onto my ass into the freezing mud. And since that surface was even harder than our Miami couch, I just lay back and thought for a moment about what I was going to do to Teddy Hayes when I managed to get myself up off the ground.

  Chapter 12

  Are you afraid of new things? Don’t be! What’s the worst that can happen, besides monetary decline, alienation of friends, loss of love, severe injury, permanent disfigurement, incurable pain, and death?

  So get out there!

  Yours in adventure, Mysti

  I dragged my upper half out of the mud before Nico reached me, with Teddy close behind him. “I’m ok!” I yelled, and spat out some dirt from my mouth. “Don’t run and aggravate your hip injury.”

  “You have a hip injury?” I heard Teddy ask him, but Nico didn’t answer as he picked me up and put me on my feet.

  “Why the hell did you throw it so hard?” he yelled at the quarterback, and shoved his shoulder so that Teddy stumbled backwards. “You could have killed her! Have you noticed how small she is?” He looked down at me. “Hang on there, Tatum.” He used his sleeve to squeegee off my face and studied me intently. “Ok? You’re really ok?”

  I spat more mud, this time in Teddy’s direction. “I’m fine. I’m more worried about your offense, with this guy running it.”

  “I didn’t mean to…sorry,” Teddy mumbled. “I’m very sorry. I’m pretty nervous about playing with Nico. And my control…and my timing…those were some of the reasons I didn’t get drafted.”

  “Yeah, I could see you not getting drafted,” I said. I had a terrible taste in my mouth. “I need to go take a shower.”

  “I think first we’ll need a hose,” Nico commented, looking me up and down. “You’re soaking too. That jacket didn’t hold up too well against this rain. Are you cold?”

  I sneezed an answer.

  “Ok, Tates, we’re done here. Teddy, I’ll see you at practice.” Nico put his arm around
me and pulled me next to his ribcage.

  “I’ll study everything you said,” Teddy called after us. “I’m really sorry, Tatum.”

  I graciously raised my hand to him without giving him the finger. “That’s ok. I’m sure you didn’t mean to take out my appendix with a football.”

  I could feel Nico laughing a little.

  “Do you think he needs glasses? I’m serious, Nico. Is this going to be some old-time sitcom thing where he puts on some coke bottles and then he suddenly wins the League Championship?”

  “I don’t think so. As he pointed out, his aim was only one of the reasons he didn’t get drafted. He was a fine player in college, but at the pro level, everyone is big, skilled, and fast. There’s no one there who isn’t good at his position, and there’s nowhere to hide if you’re fucking up. I watched a lot of tape of him last night while you were muttering on the couch about pterodactyls.”

  “That was a terrible dream,” I said. “They were trying to peck at you and the only weapon you had against them was a football. I was throwing carbayones, those delicious little puff pastry things, to distract them.”

  “That does sound bad. You were jumping around in your sleep until I patted your back.” He looked down at me. “We’re quite the crew. You look like someone dipped you in dirt and I’m limping like an old man.”

  “Probably a hot shower would loosen you up. You can come in with me and help get the mud off,” I suggested

  “Thank you for the offer.”

  He hadn’t immediately said no, so I considered it progress. And I did feel much better after standing for a long while under the hot water, even if Nico hadn’t joined me there. “Ow,” I noted, as I looked at my stomach in the bathroom mirror. Where I had gotten nailed with the ball wasn’t so pretty, but really, my ass hurt more than my stomach. I tried to turn myself around to get a peek at it when I heard Nico say something through the door. “What?” I asked as I opened it.

  “I said, how are you feeling?” he called from the couch. He glanced at me in the bathroom, then directed his eyes up at the ceiling. “When you come out, add a shirt to that outfit.”

  “I thought we could both start going top-optional.” I squeezed some water out of my hair and noted with satisfaction that it ran clear instead of brown. My hair color had also returned to mostly blondish, needing highlights, which was where it had been pre-puddle. “I’m feeling ok. I’m a lot cleaner.”

  “Look what I found in your jacket pocket,” he said when I came into the living room, now wearing one of his t-shirts. He held up his phone, and the screen was a spiderweb of white cracks. “It won’t even come on.”

  “I’m sorry! I forgot it was in there. It must have been underneath me when I fell.”

  Nico shrugged. “I was the one who called you up to play. I’ll get a new one.” He patted the cushion. “Come here and show me where you’re hurting.”

  “Here,” I said, and knelt on the couch next to him. I pulled up my shirt to expose my midriff and he made a face.

  “Ouch. That’s going to be a big one. I wish he had thrown that hard during our game.”

  “I must have fallen on a rock or something when I went down. Or maybe it was your phone! This hurts more than my stomach.” I hopped back off the couch and turned around, yanking down my yoga pants to expose the other incipient bruise.

  “Tatum, that’s your ass cheek.”

  “I know, and it hurts!” I twisted around, trying to get a good look at it. “I need those three-sixty mirrors that we had in Miami to really see the damage. Whoever built that apartment was an egomaniac. How does it look to you?” I twisted the other way and caught a glimpse of Nico’s face.

  “It looks…” He swallowed. “Your ass is like a perfect little peach. With a big bruise on it.”

  “A peach?” I tried to see what he did. “Hm. I never thought of my own body parts as fruits.” I had only thought of his that way.

  “Does this hurt a lot?” Slowly, he ran his fingertips over my butt, drawing a gentle circle. “The bruise is right inside of where I’m touching.”

  I didn’t feel the bruise, but his fingers were making me break out in goosebumps.

  “Right there,” he said, and cupped my ass in his hand. “Is this hurting you?”

  “Not at all,” I whispered. I watched his lips part as he squeezed a little more, until I gasped. Not with pain, with—

  “I’m going to get you some ice,” Nico said briskly, and stood up. “Lie down on your stomach.”

  I pulled up my yoga pants as I did, so that I wasn’t bare-assed on the couch. But for both of us to fit there together, I had to lay across him, and he held the ice right where his hand had been.

  Right on the perfect little peach.

  ∞

  I sneezed so hard I dropped the paper clip, then blew my nose. “There you go,” I said, straightening up. “I didn’t even need my tools. This is just a simple warded lock, very common on suitcases of this vintage.” I put my lock picking kit back into my purse, ready for another occasion.

  “Thank you, Tatum.” Archie Cavilieri leaned over my shoulder and looked at the suitcase. “I’ve dragged this around with me from house to house for more than twenty years, always wondering what my dad had left in here. This was the suitcase he used on all his sales trips and I could never let it go.” He patted the old leather affectionately. “Ok, the moment of truth. Let’s see what’s been hiding inside here for all this time.”

  He opened the lid of the old suitcase and we both looked at the bundle of towels. Archie poked through them a little, but that was all there was. “Well, that was my dad,” he shrugged. “He liked to take them from each motel he stayed at as souvenirs, as he used to say.”

  “I’m glad I could get it open for you so you didn’t have to mess up the bag, anyway,” I said. “It’s a great memento of your father. And mid-century hotel towels could be a hot collectible item, you never know. You could check on that.”

  Archie laughed. He was my dad’s friend, and I had known him since before I could remember. “I was glad when you called me and I’m very happy that I thought of your skill with locks. I had been messing with this bag, and when I heard your voice, it brought me back to when you got yourself into the middle school headmistress’s office—”

  “Yes, yes,” I said quickly. “But now I’m using my skills for good only. For good,” I stressed again. “In fact, I’ve been so busy with my two jobs that I hardly do anything else. But I just want to talk about the one business today.”

  “Let’s get to it, then.” Archie gestured to the seat in front of his desk in his big office in Woodsmen Stadium. I had played here as a little girl, because my dad and I had gone to the stadium all the time, since he was a part-owner of the Woodsmen. More recently, I had hung out in this very office with my friend Daisy, in order to watch her husband’s game on the huge TV that Archie had on the wall.

  He was the scouting director for Woodsmen and all his office furniture was huge, to fit larger-sized individuals who would play professional football for the team. I sat in the chair he indicated (careful of the bruise on my ass) and tried not to swing my legs like a toddler. “I’m happy to look over your business plan and give you my opinion,” Archie told me. “This is for a bakery, you said?”

  “A second location of a very successful, long-running Miami bakery,” I explained, and he nodded and glanced down at the papers I handed to him.

  “Do you have any experience with this type of business? Do you have any experience at all, Tatum? I’m not being snarky, but I do need to know all the details before I can give you any advice.”

  “Let’s start with this,” I suggested, and pulled out the container of cookies I had made using El Asturiano recipes after more conversation with Josefa and Lucy. Archie’s eyes lit up as I opened it.

  We spent more than two hours discussing everything and it was equally boring and exhilarating. We even called Lucy together in Miami and got her in on the conversa
tion, too. I was so excited when I left that I hopped instead of walking down the hallway past the other Woodsmen team executive offices. Archie had finished our conversation by saying, “I’ve never seen this side of you, Tatum, this serious side, and I like it.” I was enjoying it, myself.

  I looked at the name plates next to each of the doors as I hopped by them. The general manger, the CEO, the director of player operations. I hesitated for a moment, and then reached into my tote bag for my second container of cookies.

  “Well, if it isn’t Miss Tatum Smith,” a voice boomed down the hallway an hour or so later.

  I turned to see my favorite stadium security guard approaching. “Lyle!”

  “Seems like only yesterday that I was kicking you out of here for breaking into the players’ area and lighting that voodoo candle in Nico William’s locker.”

  “No candles today,” I told him. “I’m here on official business.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that.”

  Lyle knew everything. “I brought you some cookies,” I said, and brought out the third container. “I made them myself. I’m going to have the best bakery in northern Michigan and you’ll always eat for free there.”

  He had taken the lid off and was already eating for free. “Delicious,” he told me. “I’ll come to your bakery every day.” I grinned at him. He swallowed and asked, “What’s this I hear about you living with Nico Williams? He decided to give you a chance, even after the vials of blood?”

  “It was just food coloring, you know that. But yes, I am living with Nico. We’re a total thing.”

  “I’ve seen the pictures.” Lyle took another cookie. “Now, Tatum, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but why don’t you let me escort you out of the stadium. After I search your bag.”

  I let him, for old time’s sake.

  I had taken a ride share over to Woodsmen Stadium and Nico had driven our car to practice with the Junior Woodsmen at the other facility. It was parked in front of our building when I got home, and I ran up the stairs as fast as I could to see him. Nico was lying on the couch and I leaped on him, straddling him with my knees. “How did it go? How did the coach act? How did Teddy do? Did anyone apologize? How is your hip?”