Sinners Football 01- Goals for a Sinner (13 page)

“Can you move your toes, Mr. Riley? That’s great. I see your fingers are working a bit, too,” Jessie observed. “Good, good. Progress will come fast now, but remember, you still have to stay immobile until that neck heals. Now, you’ll be able to help us exercise these legs so it won’t be so much work for Stevie and me.”

“Yeah, you two-hundred pound side of beef. You can move your own legs from now on.” Stevie tried to sound tough, but her voice wavered. She felt another tide of tears rising.

Forgetting his mother’s presence, Connor smiled up at Stevie. “Hmmmm, sex in a wheelchair. Why Miss Jessie, I think you are putting ideas into my head. One other thing, though. Could you take the catheter out? It’s damned uncomfortable.”

Chapter Thirteen

Progress came swiftly, but not swift enough for Connor Riley. He stopped telling Stevie to go home and started haranguing his doctors to allow him to return to New Orleans. The doctors retorted that Seattle had some of the best medical facilities in the world and he was a lucky man to have been incapacitated here. They held him for eight interminable weeks until everyone from the neurosurgeon to the physical therapist made certain their patient could travel. Once out of the head and neck brace, Connor took his first steps held up by two sturdy male nurses with Mrs. Jessup looking on.

“You’ve lost weight and muscle mass, Mr. Riley.

Keep that in mind. Go slowly. Sit down when you must, and for God’s sake, don’t fall trying to be independent.”

“Yes, ma’am…Miss Jessie.” Connor stooped and gave his middle-aged therapist a peck on the cheek.

She blushed. He looked at the two male nurses. “For you guys, I got nothing.”

Laughter felt wonderful to him. Trying to comb back his bristly blond hair was a hoot. Holding Stevie to his chest and feeling her warmth against him outranked feeding himself and using a urinal ten to one on the fabulous scale. They would go home together and make love again. Of that, he was certain.

The day Connor Riley returned to New Orleans did not pass without its little humiliations, however.

His mother insisted on calling in a hair stylist to do something with his chopped locks.

“You know there will be cameras, Connor. There always are around you. Just relax and let Mr. Brice give you a new look,” Kris Riley fussed.

Unable to resist, Stevie photographed the ordeal, capturing every grimace as Mr. Brice evened, moussed and mussed Connor’s hair into standing up in pricks on the top of his head. The hairdresser waxed eloquent over working with a natural blond who had wonderful texture and built-in highlights.

He knew Stevie’s color photography would pick up the red in his face from neck to scalp. She got a good shot of his expression of horror when he looked in the mirror, too.

“I look like a marine gone gay,” he groused.

Deeply offended, Mr. Brice pouted. The hairdresser recovered when Mrs. Riley escorted him into the hall to hand over his check, plus a mighty tip, and add an apology for the all the trouble and the insult.

Back in the room, Connor said loudly to Stevie,

“I’d rather look just like a marine—or a football player, okay?”

The wardrobe he chose to wear home consisted of new running shoes, black jeans, a black turtleneck with a high collar to cover the marks of surgery and a black Sinners jacket that would be way too warm back in New Orleans. He tried to talk Stevie out of her Sinners cap, but Kris Riley whisked it away before her son could smash the hat down on his head and wreck his new do.

Riding out to the cab in the wheelchair rubbed against the grain of Connor Riley, but he understood rules had to be followed. He gave Miss Jessie a smacker that left her blushing again and a grin and a wave to the rest of the staff who had formed an entourage behind the chair wheeled by his mother.

Stevie brought up the rear without complaint hauling a duffel bag of get-well cards and letters, red devils—handmade and store-bought in cloth, clay, and china, one knitted by a granny in a nursing home—and hundreds of other tokens of luck and good wishes from fans and teammates that had blanketed the walls of his room.

Connor caused some trouble at the airport when he refused another wheelchair ride and disappointed many aides in waiting, but his mother diplomatically asked for a motorized cart for the three of them to negotiate the crowds. A well-meaning stewardess, who obviously cared nothing for football, made the situation worse as the three settled into the wide, comfortable seats in first-class by asking pleasantly if Connor was a big Sinners fan on the way to a game.

“I play for the Sinners, and it’s the off-season, lady,” he said through gritted teeth. As the flight attendant scurried off to bring him an orange juice, Connor turned to Stevie and asked, “Do I look that bad, that strange to people?” Stevie considered the question by making an imaginary lens with her fingers and focusing on Connor. “It’s the hair. People remember you as Goldilocks. And you are thinner. Those great Viking cheekbones are standing out. Marcello would say you have wonderful potential as a male model.”

“Why doesn’t that make me feel better?” He snatched his orange juice from the attendant.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you, Mr. Riley,” she fluttered.

The woman was attractively over thirty, very slim, nicely made up, and obviously knew a hundred complex ways to tie scarves and placate passengers as part of her job.

The attendant went on, “The man two seats behind you says you are quite famous and wonders if you would autograph his cocktail napkin—for his son, of course. I don’t follow football very much, but I’ll be looking for you this fall now that I know who you are. Do you live in New Orleans?”

“Mandeville,” Connor mumbled as he signed the napkin. Like a man used to sleeping on planes or one just out of a long convalescence, Connor closed his eyes and slipped into sleep as easily as he evaded defensive players.

Stevie exhaled. If she had been sitting with Joe Dean, he would have peeled off a corner of the napkin and gotten the attendant’s phone number by now, but not her Connor Riley.

****

Connor woke grouchy, his neck sore and stiff despite the pillow provided, as they landed in the Big Easy. The stewardess made sure they were the first off the plane, just as Kris Riley had made sure another cart would be waiting to take them up the concourse as the three emerged from the warm humidity of the connecting gate into the chilled air of the terminal. They approached a security area gridlocked with people in red and black and dominated by big men in team jackets. The Sinners had turned out for the homecoming of their fallen hero.

The team formed an escort through the crowd toward the waiting limousine allowing Connor to sit back, wave and smile like the queen of England in a glass coach. Reporters shouted out questions. “How you feeling, Connor? You going to play again?”

“Feeling great. Nothing can stop me now,” he answered ambiguously.

Joe Dean Billodeaux, trotting along side of the cart said, “Man, oh, man, what did those doctors do to your hair, boy? You look like some French Quarter faggot.”

“If I had a helmet, I’d be wearing it now. It’s good to be back.”

In an undertone, Joe Dean asked, “You
 
are
 
going to play again, right? I mean I got this promise to St.

Jude to keep if you do. I don’t have to start the celibacy thing until the regular season, right?

Exhibition games don’t count, do you think?” Quietly so that neither his mother nor Stevie who sat behind him could hear, Connor answered in a whisper, “Damn right, I’m going to play again. I think you should start the celibacy thing right now to be extra sure that happens.” Joe laughed nervously. “You’re kidding, no?” At the limo, Coach Buck leaned over his star player and patted him gently on the shoulder. “Good to have you home, son. We’ll take it easy and see how it goes.”

Those words of kindness worried Connor through the heavy I-10 traffic and across the twin spans over Lake Ponchartrain clear to his own gateway off the tar road running between the pines.

His mother and Stevie kept up a happy chatter during the ride that let him rest after the fuss of his return, but he kept thinking Coach should have slapped him on the back and said he’d be seeing him at training camp.

Eula Mae and her mother waited for him. “We got your favorite chocolate mousse in the refrigerator, Mr. Connor. Looks like you could stand some feeding up.”

“I think I’m off of mousse and pudding for awhile, ladies. On second thought, don’t throw it out.

No sense wasting good mousse.” They laughed wickedly in the way of servants who also changed his sheets. “Good to have you home, sir. Been right dull without you,” Eula Mae assured him.

Kris Riley stayed long enough to make sure her son had a good dinner and to prompt him to get to bed early. Tactfully, she did not give Stevie the same advice, but left them together with a promise that the whole family would be by to visit tomorrow.

“You heard Mom, Stevie. Early to bed.” He steered her toward his room.

“Are you sure you want me with you tonight, Connor?”

Now Stevie was treating him like an invalid, too. “I can’t promise much tonight, but I’d be happy for the company.”

Stevie gave him one of her softest smiles, the kind that came accompanied with tears. He hurried her to bed before that could happen.

****

Connor, regretting that all they had done last night
 
was
 
sleep, left Stevie dozing under the sheets.

The Sinners organization had promised to send a car for him early and it soon arrived. Their staff of professional trainers, therapists and kinesiologists waited to begin what would undoubtedly be weeks of pain and torture needed to bring Connor Riley back into playing condition. He braced for it as a necessary part of playing the game.

Joe Dean came to watch Connor work out. With a fat magazine tucked under one arm, the quarterback leaned against a piece of weight equipment and observed an exercise amounting to having Connor turn his head from side to side a little farther than felt comfortable. While the motion wasn’t exactly strenuous, beads of sweat formed on his forehead as if he were lifting weights. As his head swung towards Joe Dean, he grunted, “What are you doing in the city during off-season?”

“Oh, I came on down for your homecoming.

Thought I could catch up with Amber, the model, while I was in town, but she’s gone off with that Italian dude Stevie used to—” Joe Dean paused, taking in the grim expression on Connor’s face.

“Used to know. He’s taking her to see Rome. What she really wanted to see was Chapelle, but I don’t take ’em home to my mama, you know.”

“I know.”

“I guess Stevie and your mama got pretty close these last few weeks.”

“Yep.”

“I’ll bet they didn’t get you the
 
Sports Illustrated
 
swimsuit issue to look at while they hovered over your sickbed.”

“Nope. Stevie got recorded books. She wanted to share her favorite classics with me while I couldn’t get up. Would you believe
 
Tale of Two Cities,
 
unabridged?”

“That’s what a sucker like you does for love.

What I did for friendship is save you several copies of selected back issues, the one of Suggs doing the spear that Stevie caught on film. It cost him one hell of a fine and the Pats are going to trade him. You can take a look at it whenever you need to raise your aggression level. That was no accident.”

“Figured.”

“And I bought multiple copies of the swimsuit issue. I thought you’d want to save some for your grandchildren.” Joe Dean went over to the wall closest to Connor’s face, took a roll of tape from his shirt pocket and pulled a few pages out of the magazine he carried. He fastened some pinups to the wall at Connor’s eye level. When Connor’s head swung back that way, it stopped with a jerk.

“Damn you, Billodeaux, I could have hurt myself. Why didn’t you just tell me Stevie was in it?” Connor’s eyes roved over the body of a younger Stevie Dowd. The full-page photo taken on some tropical beach showed an overhead shot of the woman he loved clothed mostly in sand, a small dune covering her pubic area, her breasts coated with fine, white particles. Her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open, her hair wet and tangled, he recognized the ecstatic pose from his own bedroom.

If she wore a bathing suit, Connor failed to see it.

“Damn,” Connor said again in a breathless way.

A second shot portrayed Stevie from the back.

She looked out at an azure sea. Her hands held her wet hair up off her naked back. The eye was drawn down the lovely violin shape of her body to where the crack in her behind cheeks began. The crack showed slightly visible above a tiny turquoise bikini bottom.

Connor’s eyes continued down her long legs to her ankles buried in soft, white sand.

In the third photo, Stevie posed in the crotch of two palm trees growing in a V-shape. Her legs rested on one trunk, her back against another, while her arms clutched the rough trunk above her head. Both her bottom and breasts were barely covered by the turquoise bikini. Somehow, Connor felt disappointed more didn’t show.