Mary Leo - For Better or Cursed

“It wasn’t so bad when you was going to school and working out in California. I don’t know those people, but now that you got your own business right here in the neighborhood, I don’t like it. I gotta see these people every day.”

“Then don’t go out.”

“See what I mean? You don’t care about the shame I gotta live under. It ain’t right. You should be married to Rudy Bellafini and have a million bucks.”

Cate grabbed her bowl and cup and put them in the sink. She hadn’t really let herself think about Rudy in years, and now he was back, like lint in her dryer. “I have to go to work,” she said, and kissed her father on the cheek.

“And tell that sister of yours it’s time to get up. She does this every morning. Always late, that one.”

Cate obeyed her father and knocked on Gina’s door, but that was all she would do. She wanted to get out of there quickly and had no time to coax her sleepy sister awake. Not this morning. Not with Rudy Bellafini on the front page of the sports section.

As soon as Cate stepped out of the house, she walked straight to the newsstand on the next corner, bought her own copy of the paper and sat down on a cold, worn-out bench at the bus stop to read all about Rudy Bellafini, the man she never could shake. The man who had single-handedly cursed her entire adult love life. The putz.

The story read like it should have been inside a tabloid rather than a reputable newspaper. The focus of the piece was Allison Devine, Rudy’s latest squeeze. According to insider sources, Allison had a temper that most of Hollywood tried to avoid. They listed her many outbursts: she had thrown a chair across a movie set; trashed several dressing rooms; assaulted an unnamed costar; and backed her BMW right into her last boyfriend’s Ferrari. The article went on to say it was highly unlikely that Rudy had fallen without some assistance from the “Shrew of Hollywood.”

As if anybody cares!

Cate threw the paper into the overflowing trashcan next to her and proceeded to walk to work. Part of her thought he deserved Allison Devine. She was perfect for him. Maybe they’d get married and live miserably ever after.

She could only hope.

But the other part of her wished he’d come back to Chicago, just once, so she could somehow expunge this curse thing and be done with Rudy Bellafini once and for all.

FORTUNATELY FOR RUDY nothing was actually broken, but the two-hundred-pound amazon therapist who currently pulled on his very sore legs only made matters worse. He had been in therapy for almost a week. Granted, he was older now, thirty-one, and it took longer for him to heal. His knees were shot, so he didn’t expect much healing to go on there, but she really didn’t know what she was doing.

“Dude, this is crazy. Do we really have to do this now?” Rudy asked in between bouts of shooting pain. He was on the floor lying across a very thin mat.

“It’s good for the spine,” she said, smiling at his agony.

“I’ve got a great spine. A perfect spine. It’s my hip that’s hurting.”

“That’s why I’m pulling on your leg.”

“But it’s my other hip.”

“Oh,” she said, and dropped his leg, then picked up the other one. The heel of his foot hit the mat with such force that it took all that was in him not to howl in pain.

“Look,” he said trying to yank his leg away. “Could we do this some other time, like when you’re at home and somebody else with more experience is on duty? I’m too tired for all this pulling and hurting right now.”

“Nope. We have to do it now. Can’t let that hip lock up. I’ve got a whole routine planned for you. Once I finish with your leg, I move up to your neck.”

“Look,” he glanced at her name tag, “Linda. You seem like a nice enough girl, a little rough around the edges maybe, and it could be, a lot unprepared, but, hey, there’s a whole group of guys who like rough, incompetent girls. Gives them a mission in life. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. Let’s get this straight. There’s nothing wrong with my neck. It’s my shoulder.”

She stopped pulling and looked at the clipboard she had carried in. “That’s not what it says on my chart.”

“Well, your chart’s wrong.”

She flushed, then looked from left to right. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bellafini, but I’m not really a therapist. I work in the front lobby, but when I heard you were recovering here, I thought I could get the real story on how you fell off that lift. I mean, like, I don’t want to be a receptionist forever. I’m studying to be a journalist. I go to night school. You’re this week’s assignment. So, tell me, Mr. Bellafini, did your girlfriend really push you off that lift?”

“No. It was an accident.” But he wasn’t so sure about that himself. Rudy tried to remain calm, tried to move away from her and ring for a nurse, but the red emergency alarm was in the middle of the wall, well out of his reach. “All I want is some rest. Can’t a guy get some rest?”

“Sure, if you’ll just answer a few of my questions. I’m your biggest fan. I was rooting for you when you won your first gold medal. By the way, when you hang all three medals around your neck, are they heavy?”

“Where’s the nurse? Who let you in here?”

“Mr. Bellafini, please don’t get upset. Just one little question.” The woman straightened up, cleared her throat and said, “Is it true that you were caught messing around with some other Hollywood actress and that’s why your girlfriend, Allison Devine, pushed you off the lift?”

She smiled at him and waited for her answer, as if he would actually give her one. Rudy stared at her, trying to imagine what kind of insanity ran through this woman’s mind. When she opened her mouth to begin her next question, Rudy lost it. “Nurse,” he yelled. “Help! Nurse!”

The journalist-in-training got scared and stood up, turned on her heels and quickly walked out of the rehabilitation room, carrying the chart but leaving Rudy sprawled across the mat, entirely unable to move.

IT HAD BEEN a little over a week since Cate had seen Rudy’s picture in the paper, and so far she’d been unable to think of anything else. She blamed it on her new vow of celibacy. She was positive once she fell into the rhythm of this self-imposed, sex-depravation thing, all men would completely vanish from her thoughts, and she’d become as saintly as her aunt Flo, her mother’s fifty-eight-year-old, silver-haired sister.

“I heard Joey’s left nut blew up to the size of a melon,” Aunt Flo said while she lay on her stomach on a table at Cate’s Wellness Center.

Cate stopped the massage. “I’m not going to treat you if you keep this up.”

Cate had been working on Aunt Flo’s neck and shoulder every other day for the past month, but she still wasn’t getting any better. Cate didn’t know if the kink was real, or if Aunt Flo just wanted the attention. Cate was hoping for a little of both. She didn’t want to believe that all her hard work wasn’t helping.

“What?”

“Can we talk about something other than my love life?”

“Sure, doll. Anything you want.”

Cate continued with the massage. “How about the weather? That’s a neutral subject.”

“What’s to talk about? It’s winter. There’s not much conversation about ice and snow. And speaking of ice, at least you still got Henry O’Toole. He took care of Rocky pretty good. And come to think of it, you probably never would have met him if poor Rocky hadn’t croaked on your wedding day.”

“Rocky passed on, Aunt Flo. He didn’t croak.”

Cate speeded up her treatment. She wanted to get Aunt Flo out of there.

“You’re right, but them undertakers sure do make good money, and he’s Irish. The curse won’t take him. And even if Henry is old enough to be your father, sometimes that’s what a girl needs…another father.”