Finally, someone who could answer her questions. Vada tugged herself away from Lisette and hurried up the stairs, thankful for the relative privacy of the stairwell. “Doc, can you please tell me what’s going on?”
As an answer, he beckoned her to follow him up the final steps and into the hallway to the first room on the left. Her room. The door was closed, but he opened it and stepped aside, allowing her to enter ahead of him.
At first it seemed little more than a scaled-down version of the scene downstairs. Just three men were in the room, each wearing the signature knicker uniform. They stood with their backs to the door, one shoulder to another, their feet at a wide stance, their heads bowed, caps in hand.
Doc cleared his throat. “Step aside, gentlemen. If you would.” Silently, the three stepped back and parted, making way for Doc to get closer to Vada’s bed. “Come see.” He beckoned and Vada stepped forward.
On any given day, her narrow bed would be covered with a lavender quilt patterned with scattered peonies. Now, lying atop her pristine bedding was a man dressed in a tattered brown suit. Someone, at least, had thought to remove his shoes, which fell short of a blessing as it forced them all to see a pale, white toe jutting through a hole in the well-worn sock. The pants were frayed at the hem, and the shirt was coarse cotton, but clean. His hands lay perfectly still at his sides, knobby wrists poking out of cuffs fastened with twine.
Her gaze followed, up to his pale neck, riddled with an angry-looking red rash, to the face framed by the pure white linen of her goose-down pillow. He had broad, soft lips topped with a thin fuzz of mustache and a narrow nose with the tiniest hook at the top. But above that nose—that was the image that caused Vada to gasp.
“Oh, dear Lord!”
The man’s eyes wore a mask of bruising. Deep purple orbs extended to the top of his cheeks, filtering nearly to the temple. And his forehead, where thick, blond hair had been slicked away with water, was equally discolored—a marbled pattern of red and purple and green, with a distinctive mark just above his left eye. Vada leaned closer.
Lace marks. Like someone had molded a baseball right into the flesh.
“What on earth?” She reached forward but kept her fingers aloft.
“Got hit with a clean line drive.” The voice behind her was rough but warm, and it held the last three words just long enough to indicate the speaker was from somewhere south of Cleveland. Maybe Texas? And he spoke with an air of admiration, although she couldn’t decipher just what was being admired.
“First home run of the season,” said the second man at which the third snorted.
“Quite a price to pay for a silly game.” Her father spoke from just behind her, and she felt his hand on her shoulder.
“Oh, Doc. Is he…?”
“He’s unconscious,” Doc said.
“Knocked clean out.”
“Dropped like a sack of hammers.”
“Poor sucker never saw it coming.”
“Unfortunately neither did my outfield.”
The ensuing laughter enraged Vada, and she spun around only to find herself inches away from a Bridegroom, according to the letters stitched across the expanse of dark gray fabric. BRIDEGROOMS. Faint lines crisscrossed each other creating a field of perfect squares, and the center was laced up in a pattern identical to the wound on the unconscious man’s head.
The shirt was open at the top, revealing a triangle of sun-bronzed skin. She had to take a step back to take in the breadth of him, and she lifted her gaze to look up and up and up, past a strong, clean-shaven jaw, not stopping until she found a pair of warm hazel eyes—a mischievous marble of brown and green—poised on the cusp of a wink. Never, in all the time she’d known him, had Garrison ever looked at her in quite that way.
She squelched the unwelcome flutter his gaze invited and tried to remember why she was angry. Oh yes. The man on the bed.
“How can all of you laugh? A man is dying here.” She managed to tear her eyes away from those tipped with ginger-colored lashes and looked to her father. “Isn’t he, Doc? Is he dying?”
“I don’t know.”
Her father’s words brought a quiet to the room that her outburst never could, and Vada took the opportunity to study the other men in the room. Neither stood as tall as the one directly behind her, though the three of them served to dwarf her father in their midst.
“Gentlemen, allow me to introduce my daughter. Vada, this is Mr. Oliver Tebeau.”
“Most call me Patsy.” He had a face as round as a chipmunk and wore a rough woolen shirt that long ago lost its battle to be white. The word SPIDERS crossed his chest in a rainbow arc of square block letters interrupted by a vertical row of black buttons.
She hesitated to take his outstretched, chapped red hand, but her self-taught good manners trumped the aversion and she took it, forcing a smile as his skin chaffed against hers.
“Third base and manager for Cleveland.”
“And this is Mr. William Barnie.”
“Call me Billy.” He reached out a hand as soft and moist as Mr. Tebeau’s was rough and dry. Mr. Barnie was bald as an egg on top of his head, with a fringe of salty blond encircling the rest of it. His eyes were pale blue, his mustache tipped with gray, and his uniform so precise—down to the crisp bow tied at the base of his throat. Probably hadn’t seen a speck of dirt in years.
“And this young man,” Mr. Barnie said, taking the burden of introductions away from her father, “is about the most powerful hitter you’re gonna see in this league. Lucky LaFortune.”
She snatched her hand away from Mr. Barnie, but not in time to conceal the most impolite snicker at the ridiculous name.
The bearer of the amusing moniker offered an odd, adorable smile that started at the center of his mouth and extended up toward his left ear, creating a half-moon of white, straight teeth.
“That ain’t but my name on the field,” he said, the accent more pronounced. “My given name’s a whole story, but you can call me Louis.” By the time he’d finished speaking, his smile was a blinding crescent in the midst of a clean-shaven, sun-kissed face. A smattering of pale freckles graced his cheeks and nose—to be expected given the red-ginger color of his close-cropped hair.
She wasn’t exactly sure when her palm landed squarely in his, but there it was, nestled in a warm, strong grip. Suddenly it seemed as if all eyes—save for the ones closed behind bruises—were staring at her.
“Very nice to meet you, Mr. Tebeau. Mr. Barnie.” She turned her head to acknowledge each one. “Mr. LaFortune.”
Clearly, if she waited for him to release her, they might all have to bed down for the night on her floor. Resisting the urge to outright yank herself away, she slid her fingers from within his clasp and asked why the man hadn’t been taken to a hospital rather than her bedroom.
“Bit more privacy here,” Mr. Tebeau said. “We don’t need the press snooping around, trying to make their slugger look like some sort of killer.”
“Now, that is uncalled for.” The corners of Mr. Barnie’s mustache blustered in his outburst. “I think you are simply more concerned with maintaining this ill-gotten reputation of being a field of goody-goodies—”
“Our team has a spotless record—”
“Until a certain player of yours goes on his drunken rampages—”
“Sockalexis is ten times the player of any man in your uniform!”
“Gentlemen, please!” Her father nearly jumped out of his shoes to break up their conversation. “There is a critically injured young man here. I expect a little decorum. If you must continue this conversation, I insist you take it outside. And I don’t mean downstairs. I mean out of my house and down the street. And take your men with you.”
Mr. Barnie and Mr. Tebeau eyed each other uneasily, spun in slow unison, and wedged themselves through the door.
“If’n you don’t mind, mon vieux, I’d like to pass some time here to see if the boy wakes up.” LaFortune’s smile was gone. His eyes were cast
down, and he shuffled uneasily from one foot to the other.
“Of course, son.”
Vada’s heart ached at the tenderness in her father’s voice. Maybe it was the utterance of the word son and the way it seemed to clutch at the top of his throat.
“I do have things to tend to downstairs. Vada?” Her father paused at the doorway, waiting for her to follow, but she still had so many questions. Now that the dueling managers had been dismissed, maybe she could get some answers.
“I’ll be right down, Doc.”
Thankfully he didn’t press the matter, only issuing her an unmistakable warning glance before pushing the door open wider before leaving.
“He a good man, your pa-pa.”
“He’s an excellent physician.” She focused on the wounded stranger. It seemed the best way to keep her thoughts straight. “So he was hit with a ball.”
“Yes, that.”
“But he’s not a player?”
“No, ma’am. Was sittin’ in the stands. Must-a had him a good seat too. Right up front. Beg pardon…” His voice caught, and whatever words that were to follow were swallowed up in his welling emotion.
The sight of this tall, strapping, handsome man seemingly moved to tears and the plight of this helpless wounded soul made Vada swell with an overwhelming need to offer solace.
“Oh, you poor, poor man.” Vada resisted the urge to offer a comforting touch. “Are you the one who—”
“Yes, ma’am. It was my hit. A good ‘un too. Not too high. Sailin’, sailin’ until…boom!” He slammed his fist between his eyes. “Frappe-à-tête and I reckon he just gone down.”
His words meandered from one language to another. French, from what she remembered from school. The poor, wounded one temporarily forgotten, she tilted her head and batted her eyes. “Vous êtes français?”
“Pas du tout.” He puffed with pride. “Slithered out of Louisiana swampland, bayou born.”
Vada’s mind leaped to stories of ports and pirates, powerful, dangerous men. She tried to picture Lucky Lou LaFortune sporting a red head kerchief and gold earring and found it a surprisingly easy picture. After all, here he was, tall, broad shouldered, able to knock a man unconscious with the swing of a bat. Once again, she dragged her thoughts back to the matter at hand.
“Did you…see him fall?”
“Too busy runnin’. But I hear tell after that he just dropped.”
He was once again overcome, bringing the back of his hand to his mouth to stifle what might have become a heartfelt sob. This time, Vada did not resist.
“There, there…” She put a gentle hand on his forearm, right where he’d pushed his sleeve up to his elbow. The feeling of his skin seemed too intimate for this setting, however, with only a comatose chaperone, so she moved her hand up, resting lightly on the firm bicep.
Perhaps he too was uncomfortable with her touch, because he flexed his muscle not once but twice. The feel of it was thrilling. Too thrilling, and she took her hand away after the fourth. “I’m sure there was nothing you could have done.”
“Maybe he couldn’t. But I could.”
Startled, she spun around, but nobody was behind her. Nobody in the open doorway either.
“I shoulda caught that ball. Didn’t even call it.”
The muffled voice came from behind the open door. Vada moved it aside to see yet another young man in a Spiders uniform—himself a rumpled mass against the wall. Long, dark hair fell into a red-blotched face. He’d been crying for some time apparently, and he was crying now, though he attempted to stem his tears with balled fists thrust into his eyes.
“Ah, see here bougre.” Lou walked over and crouched down to come nearer to speaking with him face to face. “You don’ know you coulda caught that ball.”
“I didn’t even try,” the Spider said. “Didn’t even put my glove up. Didn’t even see it. I was too busy looking at her.”
“Who?” Lou asked.
“Vad-aaa!” Lisette’s singsong voice announced herself. “Papa says for you to come downstairs!” She skipped into the room wearing a naughty grin that grew more mischievous as she looked between Vada and LaFortune.
At Lisette’s entrance, the young Spider scrambled up the wall, bringing himself to his full height, which put him just to Vada’s shoulder. The poor boy looked terrified as he worked to smooth the hair from his face and plunk the cap back on his head. His eyes, dark brown pools of leftover tears, drank in the vision of Vada’s youngest sister.
“Actually, Papa says both of you should come downstairs and let the guy have some quiet.”
“What—” The Spider cleared his throat and tried again at a lower octave. “What about me?”
Lisette looked at him, her eyes trailing from cap to toe, as if deciding whether or not to squash him. “What about you?”
“Should I stay here? Or go downstairs with you?”
Lisette shrugged. “I hardly think it matters.”
She flounced out of the room. The Spider, none the worse for the slight, trailed behind her.
Vada followed suit, assuming Mr. LaFortune was in tow, but a gentle sound brought her up short. She didn’t recognize the tune, or the words, but the essence was unmistakable.
She turned to see Mr. LaFortune sitting square on his haunches, his hands gripping his cap loosely between his knees. He leaned close to the wounded man’s ear—as close as his posture would allow—and half whispered, half sang:
Fais do do, petit frère,
Fais do do ce soir.
La lune t’aime, et moi la même
Fais do do, petit frère.
“That’s beautiful,” Vada said when the last note—such as it was—faded away. Her mind scrambled for a translation. “What does fais do do mean?”
He smiled that crescent smile and stood, crushing his cap in his hands. “It mean, ‘go to sleep.’ I singin’ ‘go to sleep, little brother.’ But I guess that don’ make much sense, singin’ such to a man already sleepin’. But it what my maman sang to me many a night, and it just seem—”
“It’s beautiful,” Vada repeated. “And that line about the moon.”
“Ah, that.” He took a step closer, ostensibly toward the door, though she stood in his path. “The moon love you.”
“Yes.” If she’d taken one more step back, she wouldn’t be this close to him now, wouldn’t be smelling the scent of sweet grass on his shirt or noticing the single dark freckle on his earlobe.
“Et moi la même.”
“And so do I,” Vada said, translating.
“You parlez bon français?”
“Oh, I don’t speak it as well as I understand. Besides, it’s a simple song.”
“Did your maman sing such simple songs to you?” Mr. LaFortune asked.
All that had been flowing warm and loose within her froze and grew tight in her throat. “No. Not since I was very, very little. I suppose I outgrew such things.”
“Pah! How do a child outgrow a lullaby?”
“That’s easy, Mr. LaFortune.” She placed one foot behind her, and the rest of her body followed suit until she could freely breathe the air of the open hallway. “When she’s forced to start singing them.”
7
It was Molly Keegan who decided that the first course of action to be taken with the comatose spectator was to strip him of his tattered clothing and bathe him the best they could.
“No matter what happens,” she said, filling a clean bucket with boiling water from the kettle. “If he wakes up, he’s not bearin’ the shame of such filth. And, Lord forbid, if ‘twere to go the other way, it’s a clean soul we’re sendin’ to meet Saint Peter at the gate.”
Hazel, Lisette, and Vada all sat at the kitchen table, where the two older sisters peeled and sliced potatoes for that night’s beef stew, and Lisette, at Vada’s insistence, read the second act of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest to make up for having missed that day’s lesson at school.
“You’d better check with Doc,” V
ada cautioned, wishing somebody would have thought to do so before soiling her pretty bedclothes with this stranger. “We might need to be careful in how we treat him.”
“Ach.” Molly made a guttural noise at the back of her throat and slammed the empty teakettle back on the stove. “Not enough now I have the four princesses to see to, I’m takin’ on the care of foreign invalids.”
The kitchen had a door leading down to the doctor’s office, and Doc had warned Molly several times not to disturb him during his working hours with household questions. Still, without hesitation, Molly flung it open and stared down the dark staircase before turning to Hazel. “You. Run downstairs and see what your father has to say.”
Hazel, who hadn’t said more than two words since leaving Vada and Garrison at the corner, set down her knife and wiped her hands. Once the sound of her footsteps faded, Molly took her place and began digging out potato eyes.
“Now tell me, Miss Vada. What’s gotten into that one? She hasn’t been the same since you got home from your mysterious outin’.”
Vada shifted her gaze to Lisette, whose mouth silently twisted around the words of the Bard. “Lissy, why don’t you take your homework upstairs to your room? It’s much quieter up there.”
Lisette wrinkled her nose. “It’s too quiet, if you ask me. And what if that guy,” she looked from side to side before leaning over the table to whisper, “dies? And it’s just the two of us up there?” She shuddered. “No, thank you.”
Vada sighed. “It’s nothing.” She returned to the task at hand, managing to peel off one long, curling piece of skin while leaving much of the potato itself intact. “Hazel and I just thought it would be fun to have lunch at some fancy place downtown, and it was…well…awkward.”
“And why wouldn’t it be? What business do ya have goin’ to some stranger’s kitchen when you can get the best of all cookin’ right here in your own home?”
“Oh yes.” Lisette’s voice was primed for sarcasm. “Beef stew. Quite the culinary accomplishment.”
“That’s enough with you.” Molly gestured with the knife, a small chunk of potato clinging to its tip. “I’ll have you know I had something a wee bit grander planned before those ones come trampin’ in with Sleepin’ Beauty upstairs.”
The Bridegrooms Page 7
