Sinners Football 02- Wish for a Sinner Read online

  While hot dishes simmered on one side of the vast grill, the men gathered around the built-in crawfish boiler and debated whether the peanut oil had gotten hot enough for the whole fresh turkey to be lowered and fried. Gary Abbott seemed fascinated with the concept of frying a whole turkey. Nell’s mother sat contentedly with the women and talked recipes and children.

  There being no eligible men to flirt with except the eighteen-year-old college student who kept calling her ma’am, Emily soon grew bored. The college kid was no Jared Forte whom she’d hooked up with at one of the Sinners’ parties. She could have helped Nell who flitted back and forth from the house carrying autumn floral arrangements to sit on the lemon-colored linens her sister was determined to use indoors or out. Em wandered off toward the barn where she could get away from the hoard of screaming children and her sister’s sudden and stifling domesticity.

  Joe noticed her exit. He stepped back from the group of men and told his father-in-law he wanted to check on the horses since Bijou had gone up to Toledo Bend to be with his parents. He found Emily stroking L.B.’s long blazed nose and murmuring, “So you’re the big stud, you pretty boy.”

  “Figured that out by yourself, Em?” Joe asked her.

  “Well, that one is a mare, the blue-eyed horse has his balls cut off, and it certainly wasn’t either of those ponies. I know a stud when I see one.”

  She looked Joe up and down. A year ago, Emily would have had him reaching for his black book or saying the hell with it and doing a quickie before the party. Now, this woman simply made him uncomfortable. He had come out here to talk to her in private and that he would do.

  “Em, you know there’s a good chance Nell won’t be able to have kids.”

  “I knew that long before you did.” She continued to stroke L.B.’s nose. The horse blew his warm breath into her hair and she laughed.

  “We haven’t been using any birth control since we got married and nothing’s happened yet.” Joe leaned against the stall.

  “What’s the matter? Afraid it’s your fault, big boy?” Emily insinuated.

  “Seeing as how Deanie is sitting in his granny’s lap right now, no. But, I’d like to have more children, children with Nell. I’ve been reading.”

  “Oh, do you read?”

  “Yeah, I been to college.” He gave his standard answer to the dumb jock inference.

  “What did you major in?”

  “Kinesiology. You know—physical movement.”

  “I’ll just bet you did.”

  “I wasn’t interested in academics. All I ever wanted to do was play football and that’s what I’m doing. Em, could we cut the crap? I want to ask if when we’re ready for another child, you’d be an egg donor for Nell. You look a lot alike and I know you donated your marrow for her transplant. Could you help your sister again?”

  “Who’s asking, you or her?”

  “Me. Nell doesn’t know about this. I’d like to tell her at Christmas you’ll do this for us one day. I can’t think of a better gift for the woman I love.”

  Emily snorted much like L.B. “What was I going to say when the doctors told my parents I was the best bone marrow match in the family, only one fucking antigen off? No, let my miserable little sister die. So, I save her life and what does she do—makes us move because, boohoo—she can’t make friends at her school since they all know about her disease.”

  Joe shrugged. “Moving isn’t that big a deal.”

  “Think not? I was a senior in high school. My boyfriend, too lazy to drive to another town to see me, dumped me. I don’t go to the prom, but little Nell goes because she’s putting out for Brady, another dumb jock. I don’t get to go to LSU because my brother is halfway through up there and we’re still paying Nell’s medical bills. I have to commute to Southeastern and live at home. I don’t think I owe Nell any more favors. Go harvest your eggs somewhere else.”

  Emily dropped her hand from L.B.’s nose and started to stroke Joe’s arm. “Unless you want to consider getting another child the way you got Dean.” She cocked her head provocatively and waited for his answer.

  “That would be breaking my vows. I don’t do that.”

  Emily kept her hand on his arm and looked into his eyes. “It’s up to you.”

  Joe took a deep breath. “I’d be willing to pay you to donate those eggs, all the expenses of course, and a nice sum of money.”

  “How much.”

  “One million dollars.”

  Emily smiled. “Let me think about it. When are you free to discuss this some more?”

  “We have a home game Sunday. Monday afternoon would be best.”

  “Great. Meet me in the restaurant of the Hilton at noon, lover boy. We’ll see what we can work out.”

  “Joe, are you in here?” Nell called.

  “We’re here,” Emily answered. She didn’t drop her hand from Joe’s sleeve until Nell came upon them. She gave Joe a conspiratorial smile and sauntered, hips swaying in tight jeans, back to the pavilion. No one could imply hanky-panky like Emily.

  “What were you talking about, Joe?” Nell questioned, watching her sister go.

  “Nothing. We talked about the horses.” He felt like the old Joe Dean, the one always caught with a hand up a woman’s skirt.

  “Strange. Em has never been interested in horses before.”

  “Oh, she knows more than you would think. They get that turkey in the oil yet?”

  “It’s coming to a boil, your daddy said.”

  Joe stared at a clean stall deep with straw, but Nell tugged his arm. “We don’t have time. Tonight after we’ve hauled out the garbage, I promise.”

  The Sinners won at home and Joe, feeling confident, went to meet Emily on Monday. She sat alone lapping up a bottle of wine like a cat with a whole dairy at her disposal. Joe ordered the blackened redfish and helped himself to the beverage Emily had chosen. He was more of a beer man, but this wine had a dry, crisp taste with no harsh edge. He imagined the bottle would be expensive when the waiter presented the tab.

  Emily told the waiter she would have the crab au gratin and a house salad, dressing on the side. Her first words to Joe were, “Two million.” She took another sip of her costly wine.

  “Two million to do something nice for your sister?” Joe shook his head with disgust. “I’d give any of my sisters a kidney for nothing.”

  “You aren’t the one who has to have shots nearly every day for a month at some hospital. I could lose my job if I took that much leave.”

  “I’m considering the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. They have a high success rate with in vitro fertilization. I’d pay for the process and your stay. With a million dollars you can quit your job and do whatever you want, go your own way.”

  “I intend to. Nicole, over here!” Emily smiled across the table at Joe. “My lawyer. Nell said she’s a real barracuda. I thought, that’s exactly who I need.”

  Nicole Everard slithered into the third seat at the table. Amazing her forked tongue didn’t poke in and out testing the air for prey, he thought.

  “Joe, so glad we could do business again. No, no food for me, only a glass of this lovely wine,” she directed. “I am so sorry your stable, trustworthy wife isn’t a complete woman. Giving birth to my own boys meant so much to me, my poor boys—victims of a nasty divorce.”

  “For this price, I can get a hundred donors, Nicole. I’m sure Nell has cousins I could contact.”

  “Just two young men on my dad’s side. Mom was an only child. No, if you want the right genetics, there is only me, the sister whose mother stayed at a far away hospital while Nell got her chemotherapy. I got my first period while Mom sat with Nell. I stuffed my pants with toilet paper for three days because I was too embarrassed to tell my dad. My gym teacher found out after I soaked through my shorts. She cleaned me up and sent me home with a note. That’s the kind of pain Nell has caused me,” Emily claimed.

  The waiter served Emily and sat Joe’s redfish in front of him. Joe pushed it asid
e.

  “When your attorneys got through red-lining my expenses on behalf of Margaret, I ended up with fifty percent of the total, Joe.” Nicole rapped his hand with her sharp, manicured nails and left small marks in his skin.

  “You had Margaret cremated in Mexico. You paid for an urn and a niche in the cemetery, not for the shipment of a body and a plot. Did you think they wouldn’t check? I went out to see for myself in case Dean ever wants to visit. They allowed you a reasonable amount for your time. You got a fair deal, Nicole.”

  “I want a better deal. My fee to negotiate this contract will be five hundred thousand.”

  Joe stood to go. He was half way to the exit when Emily called him back. “Two million and I’ll pay Nicole ten percent of that myself.”

  He returned to the table. “Five-hundred thousand before the donation, the same after and another million if the procedure results in a live birth. You pay your own legal fees. Take it or leave it, Em.”

  Emily inhaled sharply. “Done.”

  “A toast, then.” Nicole filled their glasses and stepped aside as Emily clinked hers against the one Joe held in his hand. A camera flashed and whirred. Joe looked up only to be caught by second blinding flash. The Hilton’s security guards converged and escorted a paparazzo outside.

  “What a shame,” Nicole declared. “They let that riff-raff inside on such an important day in your life, Joe. I’ll draw up the contract and get it to your attorneys. I still have their address.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Joe warned her there might be more trouble before he took off for an out of town game, but he declined to worry her with specifics. Nell made guesses: that Nicole had found new grounds to take the baby, that another paternity suit had been filed by an opportunistic list lady. Joe insisted he didn’t want to ruin Christmas unless absolutely necessary.

  “Believe in me,” he said when he kissed her good-bye.

  Because of the distance involved, Joe would be coming back Monday morning. That early December day dawned sunny and bright with the heat and humidity down to what in northern latitudes would constitute a lovely day in spring. Nell put Deanie in his stroller, tucked a light blue cotton blanket around his increasingly active little body and went out to enjoy the weather. She wheeled the baby along the River Walk through parks and plazas and around fountains, the great, gray Mississippi on one side, the sunken French Quarter on the other.

  Taking her café au lait and beignets out of the crowded Café du Monde, Nell sat on the edge of a planter filled with the pansies and snapdragons that loved Louisiana’s light frosts and winter sunshine. A humpbacked saxophone player wailed out a bluesy version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas on one street corner and magazines held down with bricks fluttered in the off-river breeze at the newsstand on the other.

  Nell decided to take the sidewalks home and enjoy the Christmas decorations, the blaring carols and window displays in some of the often strange and off-beat shops. Deanie’s dark bright eyes winked closed while they sat in the sunshine. Perhaps, she could buy a few gifts before he woke hungry for a bottle. She guided the stroller to the crosswalk. The tabloid headlines at the newsstand pierced her to the heart before she got half way across the street.

  “Joe Dean Trysts with Wife’s Sister.”

  Paying for a copy, she pushed the stroller to a bench in Jackson Square even though a bum slept on the other end with a copy of the same tabloid spread across his face to keep out the light. In the front page picture, Emily smirked at the camera and held a wine glass high in a toast. Joe wore the same expression he usually had after being sacked by two three-hundred pound linemen.

  The article said nothing and implied much. The couple had been seen wining and dining at the Hilton Hotel rather than at any of the famous French Quarter restaurants. The hotel management declined to confirm if they had spent the night. The occasion for the toast remained a mystery—but could Joe Dean be planning to divorce his wife of three months and wed her sister? An attorney, Nicole Everard, had been present at the festivities. Known to be one of Joe Dean’s list ladies, could the lawyer be part of a bizarre ménage à trois?

  “No, no, no,” said Nell to the baby and herself so emphatically she woke the bum who demanded a dollar for having his nap ruined. She gave him the white paper bag containing a remaining beignet and he seemed happy with that. Nell moved out of the park and along the broken walkways propelling the stroller so fast Deanie’s head wobbled. He was howling by the time she reached the condominium complex. She took a moment to pick him up and give comfort while Gregory brought the stroller to her door.

  Inside, the phone rang. Nell hesitated to pick up. If the press called, she could take Stevie’s advice and give them a terse statement that she was very happy with her marriage. The voice on the other end, however, spoke with Althea Alexander’s mellow contralto.

  “Mrs. Billodeaux, you need someone to listen this morning? Is there trouble in River City, honey?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. Joe warned me a problem might be coming up, but I never expected my sister to be involved. She comes on to Joe all the time, but it’s just her way of getting at me. Joe and I, we joke about it. I saw them at Thanksgiving in the barn.”

  “Doing what, dear?”

  “Talking, but Emily had her hand on Joe’s arm. She was rubbing it.”

  “Circumstantial evidence, I’d say.”

  “I need to go over to the training center and meet the bus from the airport. This can’t wait.”

  “Want me to come over and watch the bebe? It’s too fine a day to spend behind a mountain of paperwork. I can justify it as a home visit. After those headlines, no one will question me.”

  “I’d appreciate that. Truly, I would.”

  When she disconnected, Nell kept the phone in hand. She could make one call before she met her husband. “Hello, Emily. I need to know what’s going on between you and Joe.”

  Thumping the folded tabloid against her leg, Nell sat near the entry to the training center. She stayed slightly apart from the other wives and they honored her isolation.

  “You see this, Precious?” Sharlette Dobbs whispered. She surreptitiously showed her friend the front page of the tabloid held by her side. “That dawg did it with Nell’s own sister and then celebrated in public.”

  Nell overheard but pretended not to notice. Jason Forte, newly out of his cast, spotted Nell as he came from the gym after working on his leg. He sat next to her and leaned over close to say, “Looks like Joe Dean has put his foot in some shit again, and this time the PR people will have trouble to putting a positive spin on the mess. Joe’s fight to keep the baby and his marriage to a sweet, cancer-surviving wife has gotten all kinds of positive publicity. The fans ate it up. Hell, they hung banners over the railings in the Dome reading ‘We’re on your Side, Daddy Joe’ or ‘Win one for Nell and Dean.’ Pretty sad he couldn’t keep it in his pants, huh? Waiting to give hell to the old man?”

  “Something like that,” Nell said.

  “You know, that’s some sister you have there. Em and I got it on a few times after some of the Sinners’ parties. Lazy though. After I broke the leg, I didn’t see her again. She didn’t want to do all the work. Joe says you’re twice the woman she is even if you are smaller.”

  Nell stared at the door and willed Joe to arrive and make things better. Jared slid even closer and put one arm on the back of Nell’s seat. “Ole Joe, he said I’d never get the chance to compare the two of you, but I don’t know. I can’t think of a better way to get even with a cheating hubby than to take a ride over to my place.”

  Nell stood up to move away without answering, but Forte seemed to take that as a yes. He put a steering hand on her elbow and a heavy arm around her shoulders and push-shoved them toward the exit to the parking lot. Nell dug in her heels, but on the slick surface they were crossing, it made no difference. Forte appeared to think of her resistance as part of the game. He swooped in to kiss the back of her neck and still nuzzled
while Nell struggled to push him off with her elbows. The team bus pulled up with a screech of airbrakes.

  Joe, shoving teammates aside, was the first off. He lunged straight for his wife and Jared Forte, separated them with one swipe of his arm and punched Forte in the jaw on the return. Forte slammed back into a concrete pylon and doubled over grasping his right arm.

  “Goddamn, I think it’s broken.” Forte rocked back and forth cradling his receiving arm.

  Coach Buck and Connor Riley got between the two men. The coach waved two trainers from the gathering crowd of Sinners, waiting wives and center staff. Riley held his friend back before Joe could make matters any worse.

  “You trade that bastard, Coach! You trade him. It’s him or me!” Joe shouted and jerked out of Connor’s hold, but the Rev came up and grabbed the quarterback in a way that said he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Get Forte in for X-rays,” Coach Buck directed the trainers. “Joe, you’re out of line. Take your wife home. There will be disciplinary action for this whether you take us to the playoffs or not. No one tells me how to run my team.”

  Forte, grasping his arm and leaving behind a small puddle of puke, hustled off between the trainers. The Rev released his grip on Joe Dean. Joe shot forward to where Nell huddled in a small circle of team wives.

  “How could you let that jerk touch you, Nell? How could you?” His arms flailed, but clearly he wasn’t going to hit her.

  “I thought I could shake him off, but he outweighs me by a hundred pounds,” Nell answered biting off each word.

  “Why didn’t you yell? Why didn’t you scream?” Joe shouted in her face.

  Nell stood on her tiptoes and poked a finger into Joe’s chest. “Because unlike you, I didn’t want to make a scene.” She punctuated each word with a jab.