by Connie Cox
He must have hit the right tone because Aaron clenched and unclenched his fists but finally looked away. “Sandy will be in the parking lot waiting for me.”
Mark stole a glance at the clock. He should make Aaron ride to the game with him, but he still needed to shower and shave and that would make the boy late. Aaron didn’t need trouble with his coach as well as trouble at home.
“Have Sandy bring you straight home from the game.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Aaron grabbed his equipment bag and sprinted for the door.
Mark watched Aaron’s friend squeal tires as they pulled out of the parking lot. The kid needed new friends.
He’d never realized how hard it was to raise kids until Aaron had moved in a few months ago. Where Mark was usually harsh in his judgment of his sister, and their mother before her, he had to cut her some slack. He could now see how doing the right thing, day in and day out, could wear a person down.
He should at least have made Aaron ride home with him, but now his whole weekend would include a recalcitrant teen in tow. He needed this one night for himself.
Libido. With his family issues, giving in to his libido was all the indulgence he could give himself where Eva was concerned.
Of course, he had to convince her of the merits of indulging, too.
She felt this attraction between them, too, right? By the way she jumped every time they touched, he was sure of it.
The memory of her mouth on his gave him a boost stronger than a jolt to the heart with the paddles. She had to think of that kiss as often as he did—which was several times a day. Sometimes several times a minute when he needed the lift.
Save two. Who was Eva bringing? Surely not a male friend?
Eva didn’t have a kid, did she?
Once upon a time he’d wanted to start a family with Tiffany, but it took two and she hadn’t wanted to stall the momentum of her career. So much for happily ever after.
Had Eva’s marriage been happy?
He was realizing he knew little about her, only what her public relations profile wanted the general public to know. Except for that night at the pizza parlor, she rarely talked about herself and only as it related to her job.
She might have a house full of little ones and a live-in nanny for all he knew.
He’d never dated a woman with a child. It had seemed too complex and would have taken too much effort.
But Eva was worth a lot of effort.
Besides, Mark didn’t mind kids in general, although he wasn’t too keen on teen boys right now.
Aaron’s supersized tennis shoes lay in the hall where he’d kicked them off.
As he nudged them towards Aaron’s room with his toe he realized he had a kid now, didn’t he?
He cranked up the shower, blasting hot water to work the kinks out of his neck. Aaron had him more tense than a full moon on Halloween in the E.R.
Thinking of the women he’d taken out, he’d known after their initial dinner and a movie that he would be wasting both their time taking it any further.
But Eva was different.
So different that satisfying his libido wouldn’t be enough?
It had to be enough. That’s all he had to give.
He finished off his shower by turning the hot water down until the water flowed icy cold over him. After not enough sleep, he could use the burst of energy the freezing water gave him.
As he looked into the mirror to shave, he couldn’t ignore the shadows under his eyes.
What was it Eva had told her producer earlier? “He earned them”?
She understood. He’d never had that in a woman—in anyone, actually. He tended to make friends outside work, so the dentist and the accountant and the landscaper he hung with didn’t get it. Death didn’t stare them in the face every day.
But Eva...
How did she get it? Did her empathy for her late husband’s work go so deeply that she had felt what he’d felt? If she had worked in the medical trauma field, she would have said so, wouldn’t she? Why did she seem incredibly reluctant to talk about her past career?
While Aaron worked on his paper tomorrow, Mark decided he would do a little internet research, too. A quick search should give him more info on Eva. Or he could just ask her.
Probably the better option.
But talking would mean sharing. Was he really ready for that kind of give and take?
He surprised himself when his answer was a definite maybe.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EVA LOOKED AT the moon overhead. The air was just cool and breezy enough to keep the mosquitoes away, which made the night perfect for football.
And for kissing under the bleachers. What sweet memories!
But she wasn’t even going to get to indulge in handholding tonight.
“Do you mind sitting on the sidelines?” Mark had asked when he’d met Eva and her niece Selma at the entrance gate and led them to seats on the field.
“Perfect,” she’d graciously answered.
And that’s the last she’d heard from him.
First, he’d left them to wrap an ankle sprain, then he’d been asked to check out a bruised rib. And then he’d had the inevitable concussion checks to perform after the players’ hard tackles.
A seat on the sidelines put Eva and Selma in the center of the action, definitely the best seats in the house. Not only were they the best seats in the house for watching the game but also for observing the cheerleaders up close.
Eva’s niece watched the cheer squad, entranced with their dance sequences, their uniforms, and their precision drills. To become a cheerleader was her biggest goal and her Aunt Eva was determined to help.
Good goals and good choices were important to have. Short term, long term, any term. The focus and discipline and, best of all, the pride in achieving that goal shaped psyches, which, in turn, shaped lives.
At her niece’s inner-city grade school, the same one Eva had attended, it was too easy to make bad choices.
Bad choices shaped lives just as strongly and the results from accomplishing those bad goals were very hard to recover from.
But there was always hope. Her brother with his thriving little family was proof of that.
Chuck had played a big part in turning her brother away from the street gangs and towards thinking for himself.
As the band took the field for the half-time show, Eva watched Mark follow the team into the locker room.
Nothing like attending a football game with a guy who didn’t have time for her. The upside was that her niece got one hundred percent of her attention.
Questions that all began with, “When you were a cheerleader, Aunt Eva, did you...?” kept her busy.
Most of the time the answer was no. They hadn’t had three different sets of pompoms. Their pep squad’s noisemakers had been made from dried beans stuffed into empty cola cans. They’d only had two sets of uniforms and most of them had been hand-me-downs from the graduating seniors.
Obviously, this first-tier school had a more prosperous booster club than her third-tier high school had had.
But the enthusiasm and heart for the game was the same for the players no matter what school claimed their pride. And a victorious whoop to celebrate a touchdown was the same no matter what part of town a person came from.
* * *
Mark took a long look back over his shoulder as he headed to the locker rooms. Wrapped tightly in her long red sweater, Eva looked luscious. He wanted to hold her close, whisper in her ear, make sweet promises to warm her up, to make her hot.
He almost turned to sprint back to her side. But then one of the television station’s crew jogged up beside him and asked if he was ready to make his short statement about the signs of concussion.
He�
�d forgotten. Last Monday, they had asked him to be prepared for this and now he’d have to wing it.
He could use Eva’s quick thinking and easy banter for this one.
Mark stopped that line of thinking in its tracks.
It had been a long time since he’d relied on a woman—on anyone—for help. This was his responsibility. He was more than capable of doing this by himself.
“Concussion is taken very seriously in high-school sports. This is one of the primary injuries that could take an athlete out of the game. Long-lasting damage could occur with re-injury. So no matter how key the player might be to our game, no matter how much we want the win, we have to remember that no high-school game, even a championship game, is worth a lifetime of disability.”
Even as he said the words he remembered taking risks he shouldn’t have during his football years.
“These teen athletes will probably not have the maturity to make such long-range decisions, especially if they are suffering from a brain injury. Parents have a responsibility to make the hard decisions and keep their athletes out of play, even if that’s for the remainder of the season.”
Mark remembered one hit he’d taken where his ears had rung for days.
His coach had tried to talk to his mother about taking him to the doctor but she had taken little interest in his athletics so she had succumbed to Mark’s pleas to let it go just to get him out of the house.
The coach had then demanded Mark’s father’s phone number and had called him at his private practice to explain and get his support in having Mark X-rayed.
His dad had been furious that his mother hadn’t been taking care of the situation. He had been doing his job by sending plenty of money for child support. She should have been doing hers by taking care of things like this.
Mark had heard the whole conversation since his mom had conducted it on conference call mode.
But Mark hadn’t wanted to go to the doctor, too afraid of what the tests might show.
He’d said a few strong words of protest—although nothing as bad as the way Aaron generally spoke to his mother—and his dad had agreed to “examine” him over the phone.
So his dad had asked questions. Dizziness? Fainting? Sensitivity to light? Being the tough guy he’d thought he was, seventeen-year-old Mark had told his dad that a couple of aspirin had taken care of any lasting effects and he was fine. Then he’d had to listen to a lecture from both his parents about letting other people meddle in family business.
In the end, the coach had benched him. It had cost him the state record for passes thrown. At the time Mark had been furious. He’d had to do a lot of growing up to understand his coach had made the right decision.
That reminded him. He’d left a note for the school counselor to call him about Sharona, the cheerleader Eva was worried about. How would her parents react to someone getting into their business, telling them they didn’t know their own daughter well enough to take care of her properly? But what choice did he have when they had refused to return his calls?
* * *
Eva wrapped her sweater tighter around her against the night-time chill as the band marched onto the field for the half-time show. The energetic cheerleaders weren’t feeling the cold, though, despite their skimpy uniforms—all except for Sharona.
While the team set up for their pyramid, the girl surreptitiously rubbed her arms as she jumped up and down as she had done at practice. Too thin. Eva’s gut instinct continued to shout anorexia. She’d held back as long as she could. Practicing physician or not, she was still a doctor. She had a moral obligation.
As soon as Eva saw Mark, she would ask if he’d talked to the girl’s mother yet. If he hadn’t, she would.
Interfering in a family’s life, uninvited, was always a difficult thing to do, but her years as a substance-abuse doctor had taught her that avoiding problems didn’t make them go away.
She sat up straighter. It felt good to think of herself as an experienced doctor. Maybe, someday, she could go back.
The cheerleaders showed off their prowess, making a two-high pyramid like they’d practiced the other day in the gym. With grace and skill the flyer took her pose on top to the wild applause of the crowd.
The team would be coming back to the field welcomed with plenty of school spirit from the crowd.
“One, two, three,” the head cheerleader counted, and the flyer dismounted in perfect form while the fans yelled and cheered.
But Sharona made a little wobble then sank to the ground.
Eva was up and racing towards her before she even realized it. “Stay put,” she told her niece over her shoulder.
From somewhere behind her she heard a fan yell to one of the girls, “Go get Dr. Mark.”
Sharona’s skin was pale and cold with the tell-tale sprinkling of fine hair signifying undernourishment.
As Eva was checking for pulse and pupils, the girl regained consciousness.
“Cold,” she whispered through blue lips.
Eva whipped off her sweater and wrapped it around the girl and scooped her up to hold her tight. The girl was way too light to pick up for her height and age.
“When did you eat last?”
The girl’s eyes went wide. “I’m sure it was just before the game.”
One of the girls behind her shook her head. “No, you didn’t, Sharona. We all did, but you said you’d already eaten and weren’t hungry.”
“Someone get me a sports drink,” Eva ordered.
Within seconds a plastic bottle was shoved into her hands.
She twisted off the cap. “Drink, sweetie.”
The girl took a sip. “That’s enough.”
“One more.”
The girl stared off into the night. “One hundred and twenty calories a serving. Two and a half servings in that bottle. I just swallowed at least sixty calories.”
Mark arrived at the same time as the girl’s parents.
The parents crouched over the girl, who was struggling to get up. Eva put her hand on the girl’s bony shoulder. “Sit still until you finish that drink.”
“I don’t want it.” The girl tried to pour it on the ground, but Eva grabbed it from her first.
“What happened?” Mark asked, squatting down next to Eva and the girl.
“We’re holding up the game.” The father scooped the child up and carried her to the sidelines. Mark and Eva followed him.
“She fainted.” Eva addressed the parents, who looked at Mark for answers. “I don’t think she’s eaten today.”
The father turned red in the face. “Of course she’s eaten. What do you think we do? Starve our children?”
The girl’s mother bit her lip. “She hasn’t been eating much lately. She says her jeans are getting too tight.”
“As you can see, the issue has gotten out of hand.” Eva fished into her purse and found a card for the clinic. “Tell the receptionist Dr. Veracruz recommended you.”
“I don’t want to see a doctor,” Sharona insisted.
“I know you’re a bit anxious about all this, but someone at the clinic will talk to you about it.”
Eva worked to keep her comments vague yet reassuring. Delivering a diagnosis in the middle of a football game wouldn’t be very helpful for the girl. A proper evaluation was needed then long-term therapy if Eva’s gut feeling was correct.
The man took the card, read it, then handed it back. “We don’t need a free clinic, especially one specializing in drug abuse. Does our daughter look like a druggy?”
Eva looked at the child who desperately needed help. “The clinic has staff that also specialize in eating disorders and other types of self-abuse teens might suffer from.”
With an embarrassed shrug the mother told Eva, “You know young girls. They get caught up in the
fun and forget to eat. Or it could be her time of the month. That often makes girls light-headed.”
With the lack of body fat the girl carried, Eva doubted the teen even had menses.
Mark knelt next to Sharona, cajoling her into drinking a few healthy swallows of the sports drink. Eva totally understood the hero-worship in the girl’s eyes.
Eva knew how hard it was for family to recognize a problem that had undoubtedly crept up on them, but she had to get Sharona help. “Maybe I should call an ambulance. It’s obvious she needs help.”
She whipped out her cellphone, determined to make good on her promise.
The father turned to Mark, “What do you think, Dr. O’Connell?”
Mark gave Eva a look she couldn’t interpret before he said, “I don’t think we need emergency services here. But I do think you need to have her checked out. Any time someone faints, a thorough exam is a good idea.”
Mark’s answer wasn’t the most supportive she’d ever heard, but the parents seemed to take him more seriously than her.
Finally, the mother said, “We have our own doctor. I’ll make an appointment tomorrow. Please, we need to stop drawing attention to ourselves.”
Shakily, Sharona stood and headed back towards her cheer team.
“Wait.” Eva reached out to the girl’s mother. “She needs to go home, have a good meal and rest.”
“But she says she’s fine. Her team needs her or they can’t do their routines.”
Eva propped her hands on her hips, barely holding her temper in check. “They can get along without her for the rest of the game.”
Mark reached out to touch the mother’s shoulder. “If she faints again, imagine the embarrassment.”
That was the prompt that turned the tide. “You’re right, Dr. O’Donnell. She might be coming down with something. I hear flu is going around.”
As they walked away, Eva said to Mark, “What she’s coming down with is starvation.”
Mark flipped over Eva’s card, which the father had handed back to him. “I didn’t know you specialized in substance abuse diagnosis and treatment.”
“I know. You think I only play a doctor on television.”