by Lynn Shurr
“I think I can make out Ilsa if I look real close.” Tom stuck his nose in the general vicinity. “Man, you need a shower.”
“You’re lying, but probably not about the shower.”
“Only yanking your chain. It says Stacy.”
“I wouldn’t, couldn’t do that now. I mean we talked about it, but just joking. I’ll have to have it removed.”
Tom dodged around him and with pants down around his ankles Dean was unable to stop him. His brother stepped into the elevator car with a big shit-eating grin on his freckled face. “Don’t panic, Mr. Cool-in-the-Pocket. It reads Sinners. At least you love your team.”
“Thank God and all his saints. Please, tell Coach I’m sick. I can’t go in this way.”
“Make your own excuses, and pull up your pants before Krayola shows up.”
“Go on, then. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.”
“Until you can’t get the ball across the line and I’m called in to make the field goal. You know, I could really screw you over, Dean. Just shank one when you need the points, but I’d never do that because I play for the whole team, not only for you. Go screw yourself.”
The door closed on his brother, his best friend, his wingman. Flying alone, Dean made for his own bathroom to hurl the night’s alcohol into a clean, unstained toilet bowl full of blue water.
He did call in sick by himself. Dean held the phone away from his ear to avoid eardrum damage as Coach Buck reamed him inside and out. “Sick, my old shriveled ass! You got loaded like the rest of them last night. I would have expected this of your dad before he settled down, but not you. Sleep it off. Be here tomorrow.”
A cold shower hadn’t helped much, and he felt too unsteady to shave. Krayola found him in the darkened bedroom stretched out in nothing but a fresh pair of skivvies. He scrambled for his robe.
“I gots three grown boys. I know a hangover when I sees one,” she informed him with hands on her broad hips. “You done something to your hiney, son? I see a bandage sticking out of yo’ briefs.”
“It’s nothing. I’m okay.”
“Sure, you is.” She left but returned with a thick glass of tomato juice spiked liberally with hot sauce and bearing a sprig of celery. “You finish this, all of it. When you feelin’ a little better I’ll make you some eggs and bacon.”
Mercifully, his housekeeper refrained from vacuuming or running the washer, but he swore he could hear every swipe of her dust cloth across the furniture. At noon, Ilsa called. Exactly what he needed—her high, often sing-song voice sawing in his ear.
“My Dean is not feeling so well today, I hear.”
“Who told you that?”
“I call the Sinners office to make sure you got to work. They tell me you are ill. I be right over with a good cure.”
“No, no, that’s okay. Krayola is taking care of me.”
“That old Schwarze? Ilsa can do better. I be there soon.”
“No, ah…”
Gone. She’d hung up on him and not fifteen minutes later rang his bell. Where was Arturo when a guy needed him? Krayola ran interference by saying, “I’ll see if Mr. Dean is up to having guests.”
As soon as she turned her back, Ilsa marched in clutching two Lucky Dogs and immediately spotted Dean hunched over a second Virgin Mary in the dining area. She looked completely fresh in a variation of the Anchi Services outfit, this one a dress in pale gray with short sleeves and cinched with a thin purple belt that showed off her narrow waist. The accent scarf Stacy insisted upon wound blithely two times around her long, white neck. With her makeup subdued, her hair knotted at her nape, Ilsa seemed entirely professional and completely sober.
“You aren’t wasted?” he asked.
“What is wasted? Ah, der Katzenjammer, the hangover. No, beer is to me like mother’s milk, and I have only three, one at Mariah’s and two at Paco’s. This you have here is no good. Protein is what you need. That and pickle juice,” she proclaimed. Ilsa poured out the Virgin Mary, raided his refrigerator, and drained the dill pickle brine into a glass. “Drink! Drink it now.”
He tossed it down like a shot, the sooner to get rid of her.
“Now eat. I brought you a plain wurst, but sauerkraut would make it better. You got any?” Ilsa opened cupboards in her search for another cure.
“I don’t think so.”
“Next, a nice steam bath. Tom told me you have such a thing in your showers, but we did not have a chance to try it.”
“Sounds good. I’ll take one as soon as you leave for work.”
“Ach, some boring legal documents to put into Russian. Can wait. Finish and I will join you.”
Krayola blocked the doorway into the bedroom with her bulk and a laundry basket piled high with sheets smelling of lavender and Stacy. Stacy who had deceived him. Stacy who disliked Ilsa so very much.
“Excuse me, Miss Krayola. I’m going to take a shower.”
“You already done took a shower. I found yo’ wet towels on the floor. What you need another one for?” his housekeeper said to him, but her eyes arrowed in on Ilsa. “And those bloody slacks. You know you supposed to soak them in cold water right away. Just making more work for ole Krayola.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry. Now, step aside.”
“You the boss. Since you have company, I’ll be going. Do the wash tomorrow. Leave you in her hands.” Muttering, “Everybody know tomato juice is the best hangover cure, pickle juice, my Lawd,” Krayola moved down the hall with her burden of sheets and towels and bloody trousers.
Ilsa lost no time turning on the taps in the big, glass box of the shower. She figured out how to work the steam jets while Dean threw his robe aside and stepped out of his briefs. “Get in, and I join you soon.”
Easier not to resist. Dean entered the stall as the moisture swirled, and leaned back, eyes closed, against the smooth tiles. He knew when Ilsa entered by the small puff of cooler air. She went down on him instantly. He stared at her pale hair grown darker in the mist as it dampened. Her lips were thinner than Stacy’s but she knew what to do with them and her tongue and teeth. The urgency of his arousal surprised him. He thought himself incapable this morning and drained dry after last night.
Ilsa rose up on her long legs before allowing him to finish. “I do not so much like the taste.”
She mounted him easily in the standing position and braced her feet against the wall. He didn’t take long after that. Strange how the woman couldn’t dance yet performed so well doing the sexual act. Dean noted the two large hickeys on her white neck as he sank down on a teak bath stool and hung his head. He hadn’t marked a woman like that since high school. Talk about regression.
Weak from the heat and coitus, he braced his arms and heaved from the shower. Krayola had left huge, fluffy white towels behind on the heated rack. Ilsa reached for one and dried him well, patting his scratched back and sore behind and between the legs.
His bandage, peeled away in the steam, lay in the bottom of the shower like a spent condom. “I like this.” She traced the red heart with a fingertip. “Only so sad it does not say Ilsa.”
He had no answer for that and offered no apology. “I think I can rest now.”
“Ja, Ja. We both get some sleep.”
“Don’t you have work to do?”
“Stacy will not know unless you tell her. She is at the hospital again, and I work on my own computer. The job gets done sooner or later.”
Dean slept long and deep. Tom’s voice sounded in the hall coming straight at them through the open doorway. “You eating dinner tonight or still upchucking?” he asked as he reached the room. Ilsa surfaced from beneath the sheets.
Tom stood there, his long red hair still damp from a locker room shower, a look of disbelief on his face. “Never mind. I can tell you’re feeling better. I’m going to eat with Xochi.”
“You’re taking their side in this?” Dean said still half asleep and barely aware of Ilsa beside him.
“I’m not taking sides, not any more. Rememb
er, you’re on your own. Enjoy your evening.” Tom left, slamming the bedroom door and more distantly the entry to the condo they shared.
“So, are we ordering in or going out?” Ilsa coiled around Dean.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Stacy walked into her apartment still wearing what Xo called her uptight suit of feminine armor, though she’d given the other two women another fashion option as she’d promised to do. Cutting into a thick pork chop stuffed with cornbread dressing, Tom sat at their dining table. She raised her hands in surrender. “Ignore me. I’m going upstairs. I’ll get something later. Enjoy your dinner with Xochi.”
“Don’t leave on account of me. Dean the Dick is entertaining Ilsa at our place.” He buttered a piece of French bread that shed bits of crust on their grape-patterned tablecloth.
“Yes, stay and eat with us. I made a salad, and we picked up entrees from the Palace. I got you the redfish with a crabmeat topping, something rich but light. I’m having the same. You need a good meal.” Xochi patted the chair where Stacy usually sat to dine.
“Even the vegetables are good. What am I eating again?” Tom asked his sister.
“A mélange of roasted autumn root vegetables, but yours comes with green beans almondine,” Xo explained.
“Yeah, I love when my sisters invite me to dinner since none of you know how to get a meal on the table. Corazon spoiled y’all for cooking and cleaning, but your takeout is always great.”
Xo gave Tom a light punch on the arm as she got up and transferred Stacy’s meal from a Styrofoam box to their everyday pottery plates also patterned in grapes. “We do our own cleaning, unlike some lazy athletes we know.” She pressed Stacy into her chair where a bowl of salad waited before her and a small dish held a hunk of bread.
Because the food was there, Stacy picked up a fork and broke apart the broiled fish fillet. She hadn’t much appetite since last Friday. “Thanks for getting me something.”
“Thanks for taking the hospital job. You know how going there depresses me. I see illness everywhere. You want some white wine with that?” Xochi held the bottle poised over an empty glass.
“I find I like comforting people, making them less scared as they understand what’s going on around them. Who knew I had any nurturing instincts? No, no wine. I’ll stick to water.” Truthfully, wine reminded her of Ilsa—with Dean right now. Her food stopped halfway to her mouth as she felt a little queasy. As indifferently as she could, she asked Tom, “When did Dean become a dick instead of your best bro, your perfect prince of a man?”
“Get this right. Dean has never been my prince. He achieved dickdom last night when he stole Ilsa right out from under me, then shows up with the world’s worst hangover and a tattoo in the morning. He asks me to make excuses for him with the coach like I’m supposed to make up an imaginary illness so he gets off scot-free and rakes in sympathy for being sick. No way. I’m done being Dean’s wingman.” Tom gestured so emphatically with a deep red baby beet speared on the end of his fork it flew through the air and into Mati’s patiently waiting-for-something-to-drop jaws.
“Tom, he could choke on that!” Stacy leaned over ready to perform the Heimlich on her pet.
“Nah, he’s chewing it up. Probably good for him. I’d like Dean to choke on it. It’s one thing when women walk over me to get to him because I have the face and hair of a leprechaun and I’m only a kicker, but he doesn’t encourage that. He said I could have Ilsa if I wanted, then takes her back.” Tom stabbed another vegetable.
Stacy stilled his hand. “Tom, don’t desert him now. You are well rid of her, and if Ilsa has her claws sunk into him, he’ll need your help to escape.”
“Claws aren’t what Dean is sinking into Ilsa. Sorry, Stace, but they didn’t even bother to close the bedroom door. Right in my face, pow!” Tom jerked his hand away and lost a chunk of potato this time. Mati hoovered it up.
“Stop feeding my dog! Listen, from the pictures Angel so kindly sent me from Paco’s, Ilsa has made her move on Dean. Xochi went to rescue him as soon as we got the photos. I knew he wouldn’t accept help from me. He must have stayed over at her place instead of returning home.”
“Yes, he conned me. Ilsa gives off orange vibes like Prince Dobbs. You don’t want her back, favorite brother of mine.” Xochi sneaked Mati a tiny bit of fish while Stacy was distracted.
“Think of other times when Dean stood up for you. Like when you put the whoopee cushion on Sr. Mary Leo’s chair in the fourth grade. Dean saw you waiting in the school office and told the principal you suffered from Jester’s Syndrome and couldn’t help being the class clown.”
“Yeah, Sr. Mary Leo didn’t buy that. I had to clean the grill in the barbecue pavilion as my punishment. That’s a lot of grease.”
“Dean scrubbed the floor in there on his hands and knees for lying because it was the greater sin. He took the heat when both of you got stinking drunk in high school saying he’d bought the liquor.”
“No lie. He did buy the booze. I just chipped in for it. It’s the red hair and freckles. I always get carded, but Dean looked like a man before he turned seventeen.”
“I remember,” Stacy said softly.
“Dad took the keys to our truck, parked it in the barn under a tarp, and put a chain around it. I thought the chain was overkill. We had to go to school in the van with you girls and all the babies for the rest of the school year instead of driving ourselves. Took us months to get that privilege, and we blew it—just like Ilsa is probably blowing Dean right now. She’s good at it, too.”
“I think I’ll eat later and take Mati for a walk before it gets too dark. He needs to work off those scraps. Tom, please be there for your brother since I can’t.”
Stacy covered her plate and put it in the fridge. “Come, Mati. Walkies.” She jangled his pale blue leash, clipped it on, and moved out through the living room, but paused to overhear what they might say about her.
“I can’t believe you said that at the dinner table, dearest brother. Gross. I’d like to wash your mouth out with soap. You really upset her.”
“Sorry. I was out of line. I’m still really pissed at Dean.”
“But spill about the tattoo.”
“It’s on his butt, Dad’s old heart with the devil’s tail.”
“Tell me it doesn’t say Ilsa inside.”
“I let him think it did for a little while.”
Stacy counted her heartbeats waiting for Tom to continue.
“Only says Sinners, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Not what she would have liked to hear, but far better than Ilsa. Stacy quietly opened the door and led her cherished pet out into the twilight. Lights shone in Dean’s bedroom window, but nowhere else in the condo across the street.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dean apologized to his coach and his team, something his father never would have done, but then he tried hard not to be Joe Billodeaux anywhere except on the football field. Some of the newer guys smirked, but the seasoned veterans seemed relieved at his pledge to be careful of his alcohol intake in the future. He got down to work honing his passes and practicing some new routes with his receivers though they all agreed Cincinnati would be no trouble on Sunday afternoon.
If only the tabloids hadn’t come out and rattled him. He’d made the front covers again. No scenes from Mariah’s as she would have thrown out the scumbag reporters, but plenty from Paco’s, stuff he barely remembered. A long itemized bill from Jose helped him recall the trashing of the dance club. He sent it on to his attorney to be paid immediately, no quibbling.
The worst of the photos showed him slurping tequila shots off a woman’s belly under the headline Daddy Joe’s Boy and beneath it in smaller letters Like Father Like Son. Inside, a picture of him dancing awkwardly with Ilsa and the caption New Blonde in Dean’s Life spread across the page. Another tabloid portrayed him swaying precariously on a very small table as he bashed the football piñata to bits. Some ugly shots captured the mayhem that
followed. No one killed. Some injured. He alerted the attorney again to contact those who were hurt and take care of their medical bills before they turned into lawsuits. One paper suggested he had PTSD from witnessing the shooting of Prince Dobbs, which he hadn’t actually done. More like Post Traumatic Stacy Disaster if they knew the truth.
The only person involved with any ethics at all turned out to be Cyril who gave a brief interview to the yellow press saying he’d been honored to tattoo Dean Billodeaux whose speech had been slightly impaired at the time, but he was certain he’d given the quarterback exactly what he wanted. As to the nature and location of the tattoo, that remained confidential information.
Dean knew well his father’s early history. As teens, he and Tom googled Joe’s exploits documented with photos of the now legendary quarterback at the casino with two blondes on his arms and another of Dad offering his infamous black book for the ladies to sign for a sexual assignation. One great shot of the man who would become Daddy Joe to his team later in life offered up a cheesy grin and a black eye from a brawl as well as the quote, “I’m more of a lover than a fighter.” At the time, both he and Tom thought how cool. But, losing their driving privileges for heavy drinking and uncomfortable sessions with their mother about respecting women and themselves soon adjusted their attitudes. He’d let his parents down, dredged up his dad’s lurid past, and most likely hurt his mother.
This time he called before his parents tried to reach him. He confessed like a good Catholic and promised not to make that mistake again. Mama Nell asked, “What about Stacy?”
“What about her? We broke up after I found out she’d made a fool out of me and used Prince to do it.”
“That’s not what Xochi says.”
“You mean her co-conspirator. Sure, she’d stand up for Stacy.”
“I can see you are still angry. We’ll talk face to face on Sunday. The family is coming down for the game. The Rev and his wife will be there, too. He wants to pray over Prince and visit with his parents. He got a substitute minister to fill in with his congregation so he could get away. We will all have dinner together afterwards as usual. Then, we’ll go somewhere quiet and work this out.” He knew those were orders, not suggestions, no matter how quietly put by his dear mama.
