Losing to Win

by Michele Grant

  “Since when is telling the truth not allowed? Carissa Melody Wayne and Malachi Henry Knight belong together. Everybody in this town has known that since they were in junior high school!”

  “I don’t think Malachi got that memo, Mother,” I said in a quiet voice that indicated I was done talking about it. In fact, the whole wretched morning was starting to catch up with me.

  Mac caught my eye and nodded. “Why don’t we clear out and let you, uh . . . marinate on the morning?”

  The door to the office swung open and a tall skinny kid with thick-rimmed glasses, skinny jeans, and a nervous expression stepped inside. “Hey, Carissa, I’m Ren, your production assistant. Is now a good time?”

  “For what?” I said in not my friendliest tone.

  “Er. Uh. Well. To go over your paperwork and the filming schedule?”

  This was it. I was about to sign my life away . . . literally for the foreseeable future. Opening up parts of my life I had no interest in dissecting on film. For all to see. It was a nightmare. Ren slid a folder in front of me with the Losing to Win logo on it. Flipping it open, the first thing I noticed was a check made out to me in the amount of ten thousand dollars. I picked up the check and studied it. It was drawn from a local bank. With this check, I could afford to pay Mac to finish the upgrades on my house and maybe get Ruby Ann the new grill top she wanted for her restaurant. With a few more checks, I could restore the backyard jungle into presentable gardens. Buy my mama the grand piano she’d always wanted. Maybe I’d finally lease some space for the youth center I was to open someday. I could set aside a nest egg. I could travel.

  Suddenly, I got it. My miserable existence for the next few months equated to business and money for my hometown and those I cared about. It was a chance to get out from under, a chance to get ahead. This is what they called “taking one for the team,” and I could walk away in a better place physically and financially. I mean, how bad could it really be? I closed my eyes briefly and nodded slowly.

  “Sure, Ren. Now’s a great time. Come on in.” I pretended not to see the relieved looks my friends and family exchanged as they filed out the door.

  3

  This could be my shot

  Malachi—Monday, May 23—9:27 a.m.

  It took over an hour to extricate myself from all the Belle Haven well-wishers who wanted to chat me up, relive old times, thank me for doing the show, and generally just have a moment of my time. Then there was the matter of a short meeting with Pierre, my best friend and agent. Pierre Picard had been a business marketing major at LSU, one year ahead of me when I showed up on campus. Originally from Beaumont, Texas, his family had deep roots in Cajun country. Pierre was also popular on campus, tall and good-looking in an old-school Billy Dee Williams kind of Idris Elba way. He was heavily into student politics and president of his fraternity. While most people on campus were kissing up and trying to be my friend, Pierre just nodded an acknowledgment and kept moving. We met the first time Carissa came to campus. I was running late, and by the time I caught up with her, she was sitting in the lobby of my dorm talking to Pierre as if they’d known each other forever. I gave him my best “mess with my woman and answer to me” look. He just laughed, thanked Carissa for a pleasant conversation, and walked away. For some reason, that impressed me. I sought him out, realized he was probably about the most business-savvy guy I’d ever met, and asked him to be my agent on the spot. He not only became my advocate in all things business but a good friend to me as well. He was the one who approached me with the idea to do the show, and though it was unconventional, I could definitely see using this as a vehicle to get back to where I wanted to be.

  By the time I turned onto Climbing Rose Lane, I was still struggling to digest all that had happened in the past few weeks.

  Regardless of some current opinions, I wasn’t a bad guy. Really. I was just a guy who had lost his way and was trying to get back on track. Everything in my world was up the air. It was good to pull into the driveway and see that some things stayed just as you’d expect.

  My childhood home had looked the same for as long as I could remember. It was a tidy-looking, blue double-gallery-style house with wraparound porches on both stories. Painted iron railings of stark white adorned the house. Large windows facing north and south gleamed as though freshly cleaned. The stucco and brick structure had outlasted many a storm and attempts at destruction by me and my younger brother, Meshach. The house still stood as a stately and serene haven in front of the rolling acres behind it.

  I rolled to a stop at the curve in the paved portico of my parents’ home to see my father sitting on the aged walnut rocker on the front porch. Before I’d climbed out of the rental SUV, my mother stepped outside to join him. My parents were good, Southern, salt-of-the-earth, shoot-straight people. No matter how famous, wealthy, or worldly I became, they stayed the same: rock solid, rooted in Christian values, tolerant, full of unconditional love and steady advice.

  Henry and Valentine Knight looked at me with equal parts love and censure. My father was about five foot nine and my mother stood five foot seven in heels. They were both slight and slender. Where he was light, she was dark. They complemented each other in every way. He liked to say she was the cookies to his cream, both in looks and personality. Henry once shared with me that he still woke up every day tickled to be married to the woman of his dreams.

  They said I was a throwback to my grandfather, a Chickasaw warrior who stood well over six foot tall in his prime. My father, a mostly retired small-town doctor, had taken to dressing in dark jeans and a button-down denim shirt with lace-up boots. My mother, a fully retired schoolteacher, was dressed per usual: as if she expected a tea party to commence at any minute. Today’s pleated silk dress was in a soft shade of green. Pearls winked at her neck and ears.

  “Boy, what the hell was you thinkin’? Settin’ that gal up like this?” My father’s distinctive drawl reached me before he did.

  I put my hands up. “I had no idea they were going to spring it on her like that, Dad. Believe me, the last place I want to be is in Carissa Wayne’s doghouse.”

  “You mean farther into the doghouse, don’t you, son?” My mother laughed as I picked her up and spun her around, kissing her noisily on the cheek. She patted her short curly hair as I set her down.

  Henry cackled gleefully when I picked him up and gave him the same treatment. “What’s farther out than the doghouse, Malachi? The outhouse?” He slapped me on the back a few times and I set him down with a grin.

  “Maybe under the house, I don’t know,” I sheepishly acknowledged. “But Ms. Wayne clearly has nothing good to say about or to me. Did you see how she looked at me when I walked out on that stage? Whew. That death glare she sent me clearly broadcasted her wish that I was anywhere but near her and preferably six feet under.”

  “Whose fault is that, son?” my parents asked at the same time.

  “Don’t double-team me. The fault is probably 70 percent on my side and 30 percent on hers.”

  “You gonna fix it this time?” Valentine asked with a raised brow as we walked into the house.

  I followed her into the huge, recently renovated kitchen and sat down at the granite island. She handed me a glass of iced tea and I took a deep sip while I thought about Carissa and trying to “fix” the situation. Nothing quite like cool, sweet minty tea in the South. It was simple and expected. Unlike the issues between me and my former intended.

  The rift between me and Carissa was multifaceted and complex in nature. It wasn’t easily categorized as “we didn’t want the same things”; it was a complete breakdown of communication, goals, and trust. It was messy and I had enough on my plate without diving into messy right now. When I’d said it was 70 percent my fault, that might have been too conservative. I still didn’t fully understand what I’d done to make her leave, but the fact that she had left without a backward glance didn’t sit well with me. Yeah, it was messy and nothing I cared to share with my parents. “I don
’t know, Ma. One: I’m not sure if I can fix it after all this time. Two: It might be best to leave that water under the bridge. And three: She won’t want me to even try and repair our problems if things work out the way I think they will.”

  My parents exchanged glances and sat down across from me awaiting an explanation.

  “You both know when I got injured, I wasn’t ready to quit.” An understatement if ever there was one. My entire life up until two years ago had been about the chase of a Super Bowl ring. Until that point, I was a Pro Bowl wide receiver for one of the league’s elite teams. I was one of those guys who had played football since the age of six and been successful at every level. I won a high school state championship followed by an easy leap to a Division 1A college with a full scholarship. My sophomore team was the one that brought the Rose Bowl trophy back to Louisiana. I was runner up in the Heisman Trophy balloting in my junior year; supposedly I was a shoo-in to win it the following year, but I opted to leave and take my chances in the NFL.

  Chosen as the only first-round draft pick of the Houston Stars, it was a challenge to find myself on an expansion team that wasn’t supposed to go far. I was single minded in my pursuit of greatness. I wanted to break all the records, sign the most endorsements, and get my name mentioned with the greats. If I neglected Carissa or took her for granted along the way, well, I figured that’s what it took to be great. She knew I loved her and that if I kept pushing the wedding date back, it had nothing to do with how I felt about her. I thought she and I had all the time in the world to be together, but the shelf life of an NFL athlete is short. It took eight years to get there, but the high-powered Houston Stars offense had arrived at the conference championship game only to come up three yards short of the Super Bowl in the last forty seconds.

  The whole team imploded in the aftermath. My quarterback left, the running back quit to find himself, the coaches were fired, and a front-office shuffle began. The team was just pulling back together during a preseason game when The Incident happened. The details are hotly debated to this day. I believe I was the victim of a cheap-shot defensive back; others say I landed wrong. Either way, I tore both my MCL and my ACL. All of the specialists said it was a career-ending injury. I never announced my retirement; I just faded out of the spotlight. I isolated myself, packed on weight, and basically wallowed in self-pity for about a year. The only person I reached out to was Carissa. And by that time, she wasn’t having it or hearing it. Not from me.

  One night, after refusing to sign a fan’s T-shirt, I overheard him calling me a “fat washed-up coulda-been” and it hurt. Insults that ring a little true often do. So I started rehabbing and getting myself together, making plans for the future. According to the specialist, the knee was at 95 percent. I had less than forty pounds left to lose.

  I looked across at my parents and made my announcement. “I know the show is kinda stupid, but it accomplishes a few things for me. I want to use the exposure to show the league that I can come back. This could be my shot. I’m thirty-three years old. Most receivers are hanging up their cleats by now. I want one last shot at that ring. I want to go back.”

  “To the NFL?” my father asked with a small smile on his face.

  “Yes, why are you smiling like that?”

  He shrugged. “What took you so long?”

  I threw my head back and laughed. “I could never surprise you. I needed to be mentally and physically ready. I needed to make sure I could make a real run at it without making a fool of myself. When I was sitting on my sofa well over three hundred pounds, I wasn’t ready. I talked to Pierre; he says the Stars will give me a walk-on tryout whenever I’m ready. We’re shooting for mid-August.” Pierre wouldn’t let me take this shot if he didn’t think I could do it. He had stood beside me when no one else but my family could stand listening to me.

  Valentine came around and took my big hand in between her softer, smaller ones. “Mal, we only want you to be happy. If trying to play again makes you happy, so be it. But son, wasn’t your NFL lifestyle one of the reasons you and Carissa split?”

  I was not getting into that aspect of our breakup with my mother. Not today, not ever. “Like I said, Mom: I don’t know if I can fix things with Cari.”

  She squeezed my hands. “Since you were a teenager, you’ve talked about two things you wanted in life. One was to win a Super Bowl and the other was to marry Rissa Wayne. And I gotta say, it doesn’t sound to me like you’re 100 percent ready to give up either dream yet. Don’t lose one holding onto the other.”

  Not knowing what else to say, I nodded and changed the subject. “Are you two ready for the bright lights of Hollywood to shine down on Climbing Rose Lane?”

  My father sucked his teeth in disgust. “Boy, this is some damn foolishness you’ve dragged us into this time. Some woman came around and asked if I was going to need extra time for makeup on shooting days. Do I look like the kind of man who will allow them to put makeup on me?”

  I smothered a chuckle. “No, sir, you surely don’t.”

  My mom nodded her approval. “I think it will be good for the town. Goodness knows we could use the revenue.”

  “That’s the other reason I agreed to do it. Doesn’t hurt to give a little something back to Belle Haven. This town has been good to me. If having Hollywood folks following us around for a few months brings in a few dollars, the better for it.”

  Dad looked skeptical and shrugged. “I certainly hope this all works out, Mal. For you, Carissa, and the town.”

  “Me too, Dad.” More important, I hope it didn’t all blow up on a nationally televised stage. Even at our best, Carissa and I were a combustible combination. Add in lights, cameras, and action, and it could go thermonuclear in no time. “Me too.”

  4

  A brain in her head, ambition in her soul, and far more self-respect . . .

  Carissa—Monday, May 23—2:46 p.m.

  It had been a few hours, sixteen phone calls, half a sandwich, and a generous glass of wine since I’d been ambushed onstage at Havenwood. In that time, I’d spoken to family, friends, the mayor, half the town council, and almost everyone I’d ever passed on the streets of Belle Haven. My home phone was unplugged and I became really comfortable letting my cell phone calls go to voice mail. That “ignore” feature was a miracle of modern science.

  I sat at my kitchen table and enjoyed the relative calm before the upcoming storm. The past few hours should have acted as a cooling-off period, soothing my nerves and giving me some perspective. But it was not enough time to prepare myself for the imminent arrival of Malachi Knight.

  Malachi Henry Knight. The only man I’d ever really loved and the only one who I’d thought really loved me back, ever since I was fifteen years old. We had broken up and gotten back together more times that I cared to admit. At last count, maybe . . . eight times? Not sure; some of the breakups were just breaks. There was one semester where we were sort of broken up until he realized that meant I could see other people too. He showed up on the Howard campus during pledge week and announced in the middle of the quad, “This is my woman. Touch her, and me and my boys are coming for that ass.” That took care of me seeing other people for a while. The men at Howard were brave—bold, even—but not stupid. Who wanted to take on the front line of the LSU Tigers because of one semi-cute ex-cheerleader? Malachi 1, Men of Howard 0.

  Think the ladies of LSU afforded me the same respect? Hell no. For as long as Mal and I had been together, there was always a contingent of thirsty-assed women trying to get a long good sip of Knight water. For a little while, we’d had an unspoken rule: As long as we were apart and his “extracurricular activity” was not in my face and I didn’t hear about it, so be it. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that Malachi was staying faithful and true to me while he was in Baton Rouge and I was in DC, but later, when I packed up and moved to Houston, I expected—no, I demanded—a cease and desist of all nefarious shenanigans with other women.

  To this day, I don’t know
for sure if he cheated. But he damn sure didn’t act like a man with a fiancée. And that was just problem number one. Number two was his tunnel vision about winning a Super Bowl. Nothing was as important—not me, not our wedding (that kept getting postponed), not our future, nothing. Number three was the fact that he didn’t want me to work because that would “look bad” to his teammates. And number four, the killer, was what fame, stardom, and the NFL lifestyle had done to Mal. He became a persona—no longer my sweet best friend Mal, but “MALACHI KNIGHT, NFL Superstar!” His very presence was punctuated by exclamation points. There was nowhere we could go and nothing we could do without people wanting to be dazzled by him, and he was happy to oblige. This still could have been okay; I could have worked around it . . . except that he started believing his own press. When he was on that field, he was larger-than-life Number 84. When he was at home, I needed him to be just my man. But he couldn’t or wouldn’t be just Mal. He didn’t know how or he didn’t like to turn it off, at times treating me like more of an accessory than a future life mate. As he grew, I shrank.

  Living together was a period of adjustment for both of us. But I wanted and needed a life outside of being the future Mrs. Number 84. He wanted and needed me to be the obedient little woman who didn’t make waves, ask questions, or slow his roll. I put up with it for five years, telling myself that this was what it took to be with him. And wasn’t it worth anything to be with Mal?

  I’d known Mal almost all of my life and had loved him since high school, before I even knew what love was. In spite of any other ambitions I had for myself, my primary life goal had been marrying Malachi Knight, having two or three kids, and living happily ever after. Through all the suspected other women, the neglect, and the attitude, I still believed in my heart of hearts that he was worth it. This was Mal, after all. The guy who’d held me when I cried over my father’s callous indifference, encouraged me to go to Howard when I would’ve followed him to LSU, and been my best friend for as long as I could remember. All of my best memories to that point were wrapped up in Mal. No matter how unhappy I was, I knew that one day our life was going to turn back into the fairy tale we were destined to live. I was proven wrong when it all came to a head the night after his first playoff win.