Kicks for a Sinner S3

by Lynn Shurr

  “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 inv
estigator 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.”

  Joe handed his cell phone to his bathing beauty. She held it carefully above the bubbles as she scanned the list of names. “You know, you could erase some of these women now. This the one?”

  “That’s him. I didn’t want to keep all those names, but they transferred them over when I got the new phone.”

  “Remind me to show you how to delete after we’re through here.” Nell punched the number, and the signal winged directly to the source.

  “Yeah, what do you want, Billodeaux? No retractions. No retractions ever.”

  “This is not Joe Dean. I lifted his phone. I’m an informed source.” Nell lowered her voice into conspiracy mode. “The Sinners rookie kicker, Howard McCoy, is in a slump and hurting the team over breaking up with his girlfriend. She’s a grad student at LSU. Her name is Cassie Thomas. This is where you can find her in Baton Rouge.” She rattled off Cassie’s address and disconnected. “That should get her attention.”

  “In a big way. Can’t wait to see the headline. How is this going to help exactly?”

  “It will let her know how much he needs her in his life. Now, can you get us skybox tickets to the first game? We’ll make sure he knows Cassie is up there cheering for him.”

  “Us—who is us? I’ll be down on the field. You will be in bed watching me play. Think of it this way, sugar. Only six more weeks to go. You’ve done a great job of carrying these babies. You don’t want to blow it now.”

  “I want to go to the game. If Cassie gets to go, I do, too.”

  “Tink, you know pregnancy makes you irrational.”

  “I’m not irrational. I’m stir-crazy. I’ll go in a wheelchair. Nurse Wickersham can come along to watch me. I swear I’ll only sit there overflowing my seat like Jabba the Hut. Please, please, please.”

  She stood up and all the bath foam dribbled off the crest of her belly. Joe helped her out of the tub and put his arms around her from behind or tried to. He had to admit, only to himself, she’d gotten so big he could hardly lace his fingers over her stomach anymore. Just below her navel that stuck out like an air tube on a beach ball, one of his babies kicked beneath his hands. He kissed his wife’s neck. “I’ll see what I can do, but only if your doctor allows it. Say, is Harry Connick, Jr.’s number still in my contacts?”

  Nell checked. “Yes.”

  “Good, after we get you dried off I’ll give him a ring and see if he can get Howdy’s mom a place in Musician’s Village down in the ninth ward. No matter what the boy says, he does not want to live with his mother.”

  “Amen to that. Hand me my muumuu.”

  “It’s not a muumuu. This is a plus-size piece of lingerie I bought for my sexy wife. Let me towel you dry. You know it’s been a long time for me, too, and I have more than another six weeks to hold out. Add more for your recovery time.” Joe took a heavy towel from the heated rack and began stroking it over her body. “That you are full of my babies is kind of a turn on.” He pressed his erection hard against the curve of her back as he reached around and wiped the bubbles from her belly, lifted each swollen breast and gently patted them with the soft terry, making sure no soap remained on the sensitive nipples by going round and round them.

  “I can tell. I’d love to invite you in, but that’s a big no-no right now.”

  “Not inside, can’t do that, no. Maybe this?”

  He draped the towel over her shoulders in order to unzip his fly and probe between her legs from the back where her stomach would not get in the way. Warm and thick, he slid back and forth between her thighs. She grew wet and not from the bath. He moved his hands beneath her bulge and found her most sensitive spot. No stopping him or either of them now.

  A single sharp wrap on the bathroom door made them freeze in position. A deep, authoritative female voice said, “Mrs. Billodeaux, you really need to get out of the tub now. I have a lovely cup of custard for your snack. Do you need help getting out?”

  “No, Joe is helping me. I don’t want any custard.”

  “She wants cream,” Joe answered. Nell snickered.

  “Ice cream? We have several kinds.”

  “No, just cream. I want to satisfy her cravings, Nurse. Say, do we have any rocky road?”

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  “Great. Why don’t you go out and find us some because everything is under control in here, completely under control.

  “Very well. I might be gone for half an hour.”

  “Sounds about right. Better get going.”

  Nurse Wickersham walked away and closed the front door to the condo quietly.

  Nell tightened her thighs and moved her hips back into their former rhythm. Joe’s hands got busy again beneath her belly. Nell pressed her head under his chin and arched for him. “So you’re in control.”

  “Sugar, I lied. This ain’t gonna take half an hour. And just think, we can get our strength back with a little rocky road.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  In her high-heeled
white sandals, Cassie strode across the Louisiana State University campus. Never wear white after Labor Day—who cared anymore? The early September weather remained sweltering hot. She wore a pale gray pencil skirt with a significant slit up the back to free her long legs and topped it with a buttoned, short-sleeved white linen jacket over a silky, bright yellow chemise, more of her “impress Joe Dean” collection. She’d be paying the clothes off for the next two years and might as well enjoy them. While going into debt, she should have gotten a better bag to tote her laptop and papers than the old, battered one she’d used all through college.

  Passing the student union, she unbuttoned the jacket. She’d taught her Psych 101 class and attended another she needed to graduate in December before noon. Her afternoon opened before her with no demands other than to work on her master’s thesis, the one she had second thoughts about now. Entitled The Need to Know: The psychological necessity for adoptees to find their heritage, she’d intensively interviewed fifty adults adopted as infants or very young children. Her findings urged more people to accept open adoptions and government and religious agencies to loosen the restrictions divulging parentage once the child reached twenty-one. Most of her subjects wanted to obtain this information if they had not already. Some gave up after meeting many roadblocks but remained unsatisfied, incomplete. A rare few stayed content, happy with the families who raised them, wanting nothing more.

  Honestly, she thought she’d done right by pushing Howdy to discover his mother and father, not simply as names in a Bible but in person, flaws and all. She had no idea how great those flaws would be or the devastation that would cause to the world’s nicest guy. Doubting her ability to counsel anyone anymore, she would finish the degree she’d by started by emulating Nell and ended hoping to help troubled young women, only to discover she was still one of those girls herself. What a mess she’d made.

  The aroma of pizza and expensive coffee tickled her nose as one of the lower union doors opened and closed revealing some of the selections available at the small restaurants and cafes inside the building. No money for five-dollar iced mochas or tempting pastas, she’d be better off financially making a sandwich back at the apartment. She kept on walking, considered cutting across the parade ground and taking a shortcut back to grad student housing, but the extreme heat of the day convinced her to stay on the sidewalk in the shade of the massive live oaks lining the way.