by Lynn Shurr
My mom and Aunt Helga will want to frame it. You know how moms are.”
“Sort of. My mother doesn’t approve of my lifestyle. I think footloose and Bohemian are two of her favorite words when describing me. Maybe I’ll have the photo laminated and send it to her anyhow.
A Sports Illustrated cover may not be another grandchild, but it is big deal to me.”
“My mom still has my Peewee football trophies.
I guess each family is different. Anyhow, we heard you were getting out and came to take you home.” Stevie looked up from where she had been sitting fully dressed in the clothes she had worn to the game and awaiting the doctor’s permission to go home for the past hour. The Rev dwarfed a wheelchair in the hallway while Joe Dean flirted with a nurse.
“Do you guys always hang together?”
“Well, the Rev’s season is over and he lives just up the bayou. Joe comes from the same place, but keeps an apartment in the city. He follows us older guys around like the hound he is.”
“Hey, I heard that,” Joe Dean replied without breaking eye contact with the nurse.
The Indian doctor cleared his throat from behind the wall of men and they got out of the way for his entry. He signed off on Stevie’s release, cautioned her to take it easy for the next six weeks and to come in if she experienced any problems. He disappeared in under five minutes.
“Here.” Connor heaved the bundle of magazines toward the Rev who caught it close to his chest and tucked it under an arm. Joe Dean brought the chair up to the bed, scuffled with Connor for possession, and then stepped back as Riley helped Stevie into her ride to the front door. “Joe, how about bringing the flowers?”
The quarterback cradled the large black vase with his throwing arm and snagged the daisies and Dex’s tribute with the other arm. He managed to break off one of the roses and pass it to the nurse on his way out. “I’ll call you, sugar.”
“Oh, yes,” Joe Dean muttered on the way down the hall in the wheelchair’s wake. “I do love nurses.
They know their way around the human body.” They all ignored him.
In the lobby, Stevie asked if the players would call a cab. “A friend drove my car home from the Dome parking lot. I rent an old house over near the racetrack where they hold the Jazz Festival. You wouldn’t believe the rent I pay for that ramshackle place, but hey, it survived Hurricane Katrina. I have enough space for a darkroom, a studio, and an office on the first floor with the kitchen, and a bedroom, bath, and sitting room upstairs. I can pull my car around the back and lock the gate…so it has some good points. Being able to walk to the Jazz Festival is another.”
“You have a ride. The Rev has gone to get his SUV from the garage. Is there anyone home to stay with you?” It seemed like a natural question to ask, Connor thought.
“No, my mother is in Houston. She’s afraid of flying and doesn’t like long drives, but I guess she would have come if I asked her. She moved to be near her grandchildren after my dad passed away a few years ago. My sister has two girls and is married to a pharmacist there. Dex and I shared my place for a while until we had this misunderstanding about one of my pictures. Funny, I missed the extra rent money more than Dex.”
“That’s good,” said Connor as the Rev’s mammoth black Cadillac Escalade pulled up under the canopy. “I mean, that’s not good—for you to stay alone when you’re injured.”
“I’m fine, just a little creaky. The headache is nearly gone. My bruises are turning yellow around the edges and my ribs are okay as long as I don’t take a deep breath.”
“Still…” Connor insisted as he helped her up into the front seat and snapped her seatbelt into place.
“I’m used to taking care of myself, thanks.” The Rev followed Stevie’s directions and maneuvered through the lethal New Orleans traffic without swearing once. They pulled up in front of Stevie’s place. Her house had a certain charm with its peeling pale yellow paint and dark green louvers over the windows. A flight of twelve worn wooden steps and two wobbling cast iron handrails with an acorn pattern led up to a small porch raised well above the flood level for that part of town. A window air conditioner hung over the alley running along side of the house to the parking area gated with the same oak leaf and acorn patterned wrought iron.
She stood at the bottom of the steps, denied herself a deep breath and started to ascend.
Suddenly, she was flying through the air, a bit like she had at the Sinners’ game, but painlessly.
Connor Riley, careful of her ribs, scooped her into his arms and carried her toward the door. Billodeaux followed like the flower girl at a wedding. The Rev set his car alarm and pounded after them. The aged stairs trembled beneath their weight.
“Ah, that was exciting and unexpected,” Stevie said. “Really?” Connor answered, looking pleased with himself.
“You can put me down. I’m no light weight, I know.”
“I can handle you.”
“Connor, I have to get my keys out now.” Stevie slithered down his front and dug in her vest for the keys. She opened two deadbolts and the regular door lock and invited the group inside where another tall, dark staircase to the second floor dominated the hall.
On the left sat her studio filled with lights and drapes, a worktable holding her mat cutter and a clutter of frames. On the right, a small office held a good computer and an excellent printer/scanner.
Another door led to her darkroom. A fifties-era kitchen filled the back of the house.
“You need to go upstairs and rest,” Connor insisted.
“Don’t even think about carrying me. One slip and every Sinners’ fan will hate me like they despise the guy at the Cubs game who reached out for a ball and blew their chances for a World Series.” Stevie edged up the steps with the three men following her. Immediately she became embarrassed by the unmade bed and the abandoned lunch dishes on a coffee table in front of the television in the sitting room. None of the guys seemed to notice her less than great housekeeping. The men looked at her photographs decorating every wall—sepia shots of the horserace in Siena, a Sports Illustrated cover of a baseball player, a series on Jackie Haile, the golfer—
whatever Stevie was proud enough of to put into a frame.
“Nice work,” said the Rev. “Very nice work.
There’s a good one of me taking Connor down on the inside of the magazine. I look ferocious. That’s good for my image.”
The Rev stretched the plastic bands on the magazine bundle and pulled a copy from the stack.
“See here.” He flipped the pages. “You can almost hear the bones crack. Oh, sorry.” A small inset showed Stevie buried beneath Connor and the Rev. The credit line belonged to Dexter Sykes, as did the one shot of Joe Dean Billodeaux throwing the pass Connor caught on the cover. Somehow, Dex always managed to profit from her work.
Joe Dean looked over the Rev’s shoulder. “Nice one of me, too. I sure am glad I wasn’t the cover shot, Connor…because of the curse, you know. The cover curse.”
“Bullshit, you’d give your left nut to be on the cover.”
“Not me, you know what happened to Smokey LeBlanc after he was on the cover.” Joe Dean tapped the framed cover of the baseball player, the shot that had split Stevie from Dex.
The Rev seemed puzzled. “I don’t remember anything happening to the Smoke.”
“He got married. And he was so young,” the quarterback replied in the same tone he would have used to mourn a friend who had gone to an early death.
The Rev rolled his big brown eyes. “Not likely to happen to you. No decent woman would have you.
It’s time we had the celibacy talk.”
“Got to take a leak.” Joe Dean disappeared into Stevie’s bathroom and locked the door.
“You fellows have been so great. Can I offer you something to drink? I think I have Diet Coke, Bud Light, and maybe some milk, but that might have gone bad by now. You could go on down to the kitchen and I’ll catch up with you.” Stevie collected the
dirty dishes from her coffee table.
Connor peered out the sitting room windows to the small yard filled with frost-browned banana trees and dead tropical plants. He stepped on to the tiny balcony accessed by a French door. The balcony overlooked two whiskey-barrel planters filled with ivy, rose-colored snapdragons, and yellow and purple pansies, the only flowers blooming at this season in a New Orleans winter. The flooring sagged a little under his weight. He looked over to an identical balcony in equally bad repair jutting out from Stevie’s bedroom and returned shaking his head.
“This is no good. You could get vertigo on those balconies and fall, or trip trying to get up and down the stairs. How are you going to put up groceries with all those steps to climb? Since I’m responsible for your condition, I think you should come home with me until you feel better. I have six bedrooms each with their own baths, two on the ground floor, and a great Jacuzzi on the deck that would be good for your bruises. My maid does all the cleaning and her mama cooks when I’m home. You could rest with me until you feel better.”
“Look, Connor, you’re not responsible for what happened. I got in your way. Let’s just go downstairs and see what there is to drink.” Connor Riley shrugged and started down the steps followed by Stevie and her dishes. The toilet flushed, even though Joe Dean had probably done nothing more than hide in the bathroom. When he came out, all Stevie’s flowers were arranged precariously on the top of the commode. The Rev turned to look at the display and knocked against Stevie with one of his outsized elbows. She went tripping into Connor who caught her neatly in both arms. Her coffee mug crashed and broke to pieces at the bottom of the staircase.
“This is just what I meant,” said Connor. “Why don’t you pack a bag and come see my place? I swear I’m not putting the moves on you. We’re in heavy training now and will be on the road most weekends.
I won’t be around much. Eula Mae and Miss Essie would take good care of you.” Stevie had to admit her heart was pounding, either from the close escape or the fact that Connor hadn’t released her and she was still pressed against his chest—his broad, hard, warm chest. Sort of made a girl want to put her head down, close her eyes, and listen to his heartbeat. She gave in. “I’ll pack a bag.
Chapter Four
Connor remained as good as his word. After installing Stevie in the downstairs guestroom with the king-sized bed and pink marble bath next to his suite, he went back to his training sessions and rarely spent much time at home. If Stevie felt a tiny bit disappointed, she could deal with it.
Miss Essie, the wiry brown chef, did not cook for invalids. She cooked for football players. She heaped Stevie’s plate with food at each meal—mammoth portions of spaghetti with large oven-baked meatballs, rich Alfredos full of sliced chicken breast, jambalayas with chunks of lean ham or small, pink shrimp. The salad bowl remained ever full and a container of fresh fruit medley stayed always available in the refrigerator.
Fresh vegetables reigned, whatever looked good to Miss Essie in the French Market when she made her weekly trip. Dinner without exception finished with a dessert—a smooth sweet potato pie topped with whipped cream, strawberry shortcake with huge out-of-season berries, bread pudding six inches high with a cascade of hard sauce sluicing off the sides. Eula Mae, the maid, sacked containers of leftovers to take home each night and still gargantuan amounts remained for Connor to snack on when he came home tired and aching.
Concerned that Stevie seemed to have little appetite since she ate about a quarter of what he did, Connor asked one night, “Don’t you like chicken Alfredo?”
“The trouble is I love chicken Alfredo, and it loves me so much it goes right to my hips and stays there. I sort of stick to a high protein diet and deny my love of carbs. I thought you’d be more of a steak and eggs man.”
“I would be if I could be. Got to carbo-load before the games. Essie can make you something else.”
“How ungrateful would that make me? I don’t even have to do my own laundry here.”
“Eula Mae says you pick up after yourself and aren’t any trouble. Sorry I’m not around much to keep you company.”
“That’s not your job. Winning games is. I’m fine, just a little antsy. I usually run every day and won’t be able to do that until these ribs heal.”
“I run during the off-season. Maybe we could train together some of the time.” Stevie laughed and brushed him off. “Like I could keep up with Connor Riley.”
****
Intimate moments were few outside of meal times with the exception of sharing the Jacuzzi on a couple of occasions. Because Connor mentioned the Jacuzzi while trying to tempt Stevie to stay with him, she’d thrown an old tank suit into her suitcase along with any clean clothes she could find. She hated that suit, but the high neckline covered most of her bruises. So what if its lack of support allowed her breasts to plumb down and showed every bump in her nipples. She used the whirlpool for therapeutic reasons, not seduction.
Stevie kept a towel handy to wrap around her waist when she stepped out of the water. The electric blue fabric tended to stick in her crack, outlining each butt cheek perfectly. Connor did not seem to notice. He said little, just closed his eyes and leaned against the edge of the tub. Sometimes, he dozed off. So much for her sex appeal. She learned he had a light snore and slept like the dead without spending a single night with the man—more knowledge than many women who had casual sex knew about their partners.
On several evenings before the next big game, Joe Dean Billodeaux came over to watch and re-watch endless recordings of Dallas Cowboys’
games on the big hi-def TV dominating one wall in the recreation room. The time to play billiards or foosball, pinball or video games came after the season playoffs ended. They invited Stevie to sit with them. Stifling her boredom as they tore the games apart minute by minute, she still enjoyed the company of two gorgeous men, especially when they ragged on each other.
The quarterback crowed when the next issue of Sports Illustrated arrived. “We got ’em nailed now.
There’s Shay Peyton on the cover, the Cowboys’
quarterback in all his pretty boy glory. They’ve been cursed for sure.”
Joe Dean could not contain his glee. He whooped several times and pounded Connor on the back.
“I thought I was the one who was cursed,” Riley reminded him.
“This wipes out your curse, I think.”
“I cannot believe even a Cajun could be this superstitious.” Connor shook his head sadly.
“And you aren’t? So how come you never get a real haircut during the season, just get your girly split ends trimmed, huh? And the Rev who trusts in the Lord so much he never takes off that cross his daddy blessed for him. If that’s not superstition, I don’t know what is. What do you say, Stevie?” Stevie tended to sit quietly reading while they hashed over games and strategies and she refused to enter this debate. “To be honest, I think everyone has some small thing they hope will bring them luck.
As for the cover curse, as a photographer I repudiate it utterly.”
“She repudiates it utterly. What you t’ink dat means, mon ami?” Joe Dean scratched his head and did his dumb Cajun routine.
“It means she thinks you are a stupid, superstitious coonass who doesn’t have a chance with her,” Connor interpreted happily for him. Joe could be very appealing to women when he played dumb.
Stevie laughed at them both, gave each a sisterly peck on the cheek and a shoulder hug, and wished them a victory before she headed off to bed.
They would be traveling to Dallas tomorrow and she would be watching the game on the enormous TV alone.
****
The game was an upset, a blowout, a tremendous victory for the supercharged Sinners.
Connor carried the ball for three of the four touchdowns scored by his team, the other being made on an interception by defensive player Jerrol Whitney who scooped the ball out of the air and ran for it. The Cowboys managed only one touchdown and two field goa
ls. In the after game interviews, Joe Dean shouted AAAA-EEEE into the mike and punched the air in his elation.
“This one’s for Artie. I know you’re watching, Art. I couldn’t have beat them if you had still been on their team.”
A female sportscaster shoved the mike in Connor’s face. She asked who his game was for.
Connor Riley looked directly into the camera. The close-up was so sharp Stevie could see his summer sky blue eyes and his blond curls dark with sweat.
“This one’s for Stephanie,” he said and quickly stepped back behind Coach Marty Buck so that man had to field the next question.
All over America, women wanted to be Connor Riley’s Stephanie, she was sure. Sitting in his rec room, Stevie wished he hadn’t called her Stephanie.
Even so, her heart gave a small flutter in her bruised chest.
Chapter Five
The Sports Illustrated feature editor rarely missed a good story. Always being urged to increase readership with his selections, he knew Connor Riley was a guaranteed way to sell a few million newsstand copies to female readers who would never buy a subscription for themselves because they were offended by the swimsuit issue. He dispatched his most aggressive and fearless female reporter to request an interview with Riley at his luxurious home on Lake Ponchartrain outside of New Orleans.
Rita Fortunado always got her story. This time would be no exception.
The reporter caught Joe Dean Billodeaux leaving as she arrived for the interview. Stevie, who had gone to the door with him, ducked back and peered out the sidelight. Joe Dean went right up to the reporter and demanded, “What has Riley got that I don’t?”
Rita scraped a long, red varnished fingernail lightly down his cheek and promised, “Maybe I’ll do you later.”
“Maybe you will.” Joe Dean bit her fingertip lightly and went away happy.
Stevie raced to the guestroom to hide out. She had a slight acquaintance with the reporter and had no intention of becoming part of her story. Still, if a girl needed fresh air on this mild January day when the air conditioners weren’t running, the logical solution was to crack open a window. Not her idea to conduct the interview on the deck right outside of her bedroom.
