Forget Me Not (4 page)

During the halftime show, Gideon found a quiet corner of the locker room and put an ice pack on his knee. He sat back, closed his eyes
,
and envisioned winning this game with his team. Once they did that, he could go home.

Going to see his mother consumed his thoughts. If he could see her, he would be happy. He would have to make sure she got through her surgery. Then he could worry about himself.

The last minute of the game tested Gideon. His knee throbbed each time he crouched down to get the ball. The Sharks got their second wind, and they seemed bound and determined to take out Gideon. Each play, they jumped on him harder and faster.

Gideon didn’t complain much, but it started wearing on him. The last few seconds of the game, Gideon pulled his team together.

He glanced at Dennis before he spoke. “Last run, fellas. We can do this.”

“The last twenty seconds, and they’re up five points.” Dennis pointed up. “Give me the ball. Once you get it in my hands, we’ve won the Super Bowl, baby!” He pounded Gideon on his back.

Relying on Dennis didn’t suit Gideon. He wanted to go in this game playing it to the very end. “Give me a 300.”

“What? That’s crazy. You’re going to run that play now when—”

“Watch my back.” No time for apologies. Gideon broke from the pack to resume his spot.

He spied the goal line. He needed to do more. After looking off to the sideline, he watched his other teammates staring at him like a savior. He saw panic and disbelief in each of their faces.

Gideon called the play. The center hiked the ball to him. The taut ball slid into his awaiting hands. Gideon watched Dennis faking out one of the larger Sharks players to coast down the field, but he never turned around to Gideon. Without seeing Dennis’s eyes, he couldn’t chance throwing the ball to him and expect him to receive it. Instead of throwing the ball, Gideon took off down the field around the outside where his team managed to corral the Sharks players and keep them in the center.

Gideon charged toward the goal line. He gripped the ball as though it contained the cure to whatever ailed his mother. He chomped down on the black mouth guard as he pushed his body to incredible limits. No one from the opposing team blocked his path. In the goal area, he saw Dennis jumping up and down and waving his hands. Too late.

Gideon kept running. From the side, he caught the image of an opposing team player catching up to him. Mustering every bit of strength he had, Gideon took a big leap over the player as soon as the man attempted to tackle him.

When Gideon landed with a crunch, his bones and muscles ached. He peered over and saw he had made it over the goal line. He couldn’t help but laugh out of sheer joy. His knee didn’t share in his happiness. He’d made it.

Dennis stood over him. “That was a dick move, man.” He hesitated before putting his hand out to him. Gideon accepted it.

“Looking out for the team.” Gideon walked alongside Dennis.

“No, you weren’t.” Dennis jogged ahead.

Gideon didn’t see his move as one to slight anyone. He wanted to see his team win. After their successful field goal kick and time running out, they did win. Colorful streamers, confetti and tickertape filled the arena. The team jumped around after dousing Brick with
a cooler full of a
bright orange drink.

Dennis, although he celebrated with his team, kept his distance from Gideon. In the loud arena, the silence from his friend drowned out everything else. He would have to get Dennis alone to tell him why he did what he did.

He had to call his mother and Gunnar first. He had to hear their voices. After getting his cell phone, he called his mother’s house.

“Queen’s not here,” Victor Dabu, one of his mother’s trusted employees at her flower shop, said. “She’s at the hospital.”

Gideon covered his free ear with his hand to make sure he had heard what Victor said. “What? Did you say hospital?”

“Yes. She’s fine.”

Gideon breathed a sigh of relief. He imagined that his last play may have caused her to have a heart attack. He glanced at Dennis, who now busied himself doing an interview with a popular female sports journalist.

“Why is she at the hospital?” Gideon hated shouting over the crowd, but he had to have this conversation.

“Gunnar was shot. He’s in surgery now.”

The sounds of the crowd faded away. For a moment, the movement around Gideon slowed down. Shot. His brother had been shot.

“Hey, son, the president would like a word with you.” Coach Brick held up the phone to Gideon.

“I can’t. I got to go home and see my mother.” Gideon ran from the sidelines and tried making his way through the throngs of people now on the field.

Gideon didn’t care how it sounded. He knew he had to make it home before he lost his family.

“Ugh, turn that off.” Janelle Gold moved a large glass vase filled with bright red roses that sat by the front door of her flower shop, Flowers Galore, next to the front counter. “That’s why I got into flowers and plants, to stay away from meathead jocks who can’t tell the difference between a tulip and a rose.” To illustrate her point, Janelle held a yellow tulip in one hand and a rose in the other.

She took a deep breath, inhaling the fragrant scents swirling in the air. Besides the smells, Janelle fell in love with the vibrant colors all around her. Reds, blues, yellows, oranges, greens. Beauty in every place she looked. Every day felt like she had fallen into a Monet painting that she never wanted to escape. Too bad her bank could be the turpentine that might erase her from her dreams whether she wanted out or not.

“Come on, Janelle. It’s the Super Bowl. I mainly watch for the commercials anyway. They’re hilarious.” Penny, one of Janelle’s employees and a friend since elementary school, stayed glued to the TV as she watched the Virginia Beach Wolves celebrating. “Look at that. Our home team won! Isn’t that exciting?”

“Not really.” Janelle locked the front door. “So a local team won. It won’t get customers in the store.” She pulled a dozen roses with baby’s breath from a vase and wrapped it in green paper so that the flowers trumpeted from the large open end.

“Maybe if you’d done like I asked and made a Wolves bouquet filled with red, yellow, and black roses.” Penny shrugged.

Janelle cocked her head. “Black roses?”

“I would have added dye to their water or spray painted them.”

Janelle laughed and shook her head.

Penny continued. “The point is, I made a suggestion and as usual, you turned it down.”

“I wouldn’t have turned down your suggestion if it was a good one.”

Penny screwed up her face and stuck out her tongue before staring at the TV screen.

Janelle shouldn’t have even bothered opening up and staying late on a Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday no less. No one wanted flowers then. No, her time would be in a couple of weeks when Valentine’s Day rolled around. She’d already gotten some orders in by phone and e-mail.

Although she didn’t want her friend Elizabeth Sommerville to be sick, she’d thought with Elizabeth being out of commission for a while, perhaps sales at Flowers Galore would go up a little. They hadn’t.

Janelle needed her business to turn around if she had any chance of making it. She’d only had Flowers Galore open for less than two years. Opening it up so close to Pick ’N Clip, Elizabeth’s business, hadn’t seemed like a wise thing to do, but the cost to lease the space had been right. The location worked for her.

As soon as she’d opened her doors, Elizabeth had come over, introduced herself and bought a bouquet of roses. Janelle never forgot how supportive Elizabeth had been, then and now. Elizabeth had become an unexpected mentor.

“You know I love seeing those men in their tights.” Janelle’s sassy friend grunted a sound of approval through her nose. “High and tight.” She lifted her hands and curved her fingers as though she could grab one of the guys’ backsides through the TV screen.
“You could bite one.”

“No,
you
can do that.” Janelle had found all through school that guys hadn’t gravitated to girls who loved learning.

The jocks had thought calling her a brainiac and nerd had hurt her feelings. She didn’t care about them. They might get million-dollar contracts, but Janelle knew in a few years they would bust up their bodies or lose the rest of their mediocre brain cells. Janelle would have her business and be doing something she loved, tending to her plants.

“You don’t find these guys hot?” Penny twirled her newly dyed red hair around her finger.

Janelle’s pale friend licked her lips. At one point, Janelle thought she’d caught Penny sliding her fingertips down the screen as though stroking a potential lover. Janelle shook her head.

“Athletes are blessed with great hand-eye coordination and halfway decent bodies.” Janelle tapped her finger against her temple. “The brain. That’s the sexiest organ.”

“You are such a nerd.” Penny shook her head.

“Thank you.” Janelle bowed her head and smiled as though her friend had given her a compliment.

“Let high school go. You’re a hot business owner.” Penny stopped and scanned Janelle from head to toe. “Strike that. You’re a business owner.”

“Hey!” Janelle picked a rose stem from her bouquet and threw it at Penny. “Not nice.”

“Look at you. Yes, it’s February, but you’re in a million layers of clothes.”

Janelle turned and stared at her reflection in the front door glass. Her long cardigan sweater went almost down to her knees. The pockets on either side looked like they drooped down out of exhaustion. She loaded her pockets with shears, rubber bands, pens, and tags.

Under her cardigan, she wore a black turtleneck sweater and jeans. She had to be comfortable in what she did, although she always wondered how Queen Elizabeth could work in a full skirt suit, high heels, and a face full of flawless makeup.

Janelle didn’t need a mirror to see she didn’t wear anything on her face. Applying tinted lip balm had been her only beautifying product. Her sneakers squeaked over the brown tiled floor.

She ran her hand over her naturally curly hair that she had styled back from her face with a hair clip on top of her head. Shortly after starting college, Janelle had stopped putting chemical relaxers in her hair to allow the natural texture to come through finally. Back then, she’d done it because of low funds. Now other African-American women adopted the look to be trendy.

“What I wear is appropriate for where we work. No one is looking at me to be some fashionista.” She held her hands up like a game-show beauty. “People come here to see these flowers and plants. They’re the stars.” She exhaled as she gazed around her business. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

Penny leaned forward to turn off the small flat-screen TV that sat behind the counter when she stopped. Local news broke to talk about a shooting not far from Janelle’s business.

“Police are on the lookout for a suspect who broke in and shot an employee at Press ’N Curl, a hair salon in Virginia Beach.” The news anchor spoke slowly, making sure to
emphasize certain words in a dramatic fashion. “The victim is none other than MMA champion Gunnar Wells.”

“
Holy shit
.” Penny covered her mouth.

Penny could best be described as dramatic. Their differences in their races didn’t matter. Back then, their tastes in boys matched. Now Penny kept up her admiration for the jocks, but Janelle had decided to expand her horizons and go for a well-rounded man with goals and ambition.

“Isn’t that horrible?” Penny shook her head. “What’s the world coming to?”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.” Janelle went behind the counter to retrieve her coat and purse. “It’s a shame though. Press ’N Curl is one of Queen Elizabeth’s businesses. She owns, like, three or four of them.”

“Okay, so what in the world is a champion MMA fighter”
—
Penny glanced at the screen again
—
“a fine one at that, doing in Queen’s business? Don’t tell me he’s there getting his hair done.”

Janelle laughed. “Wouldn’t that be a hoot? He would never live that down.” She wiped under her eyes. When the idea that a man had been shot registered to her again, she sobered to the situation. “Seriously, I hope he’s okay.”

“Any tips on this crime, please contact Virginia Beach police. Now we’ll return you to the Super Bowl, already in progress.”

The screen switched back over to the game, or rather, the end of the game. The Virginia Beach Wolves celebrated. Colorful streamers filled the screen, and screams filled the inside of Janelle’s store.

Janelle didn’t care to look at the screen until she heard a woman attempting to interview the team’s quarterback.

“Gideon! Gideon! Congratulations on the win. I understand the president is on the phone for you.” The savvy African-American journalist managed to get her microphone up to Gideon’s face.

Janelle finally glanced at the screen. She froze. The football player, covered in sweat with his blond hair stuck to his face, kept her hypnotized to the screen with his incredible blue eyes. No one
’s
look had rendered her immobile since her days in high school.

Janelle stared at him some more, then scanned the banner across the bottom of the screen that displayed his name.

Janelle swallowed hard. She couldn’t help but drop her gaze down his body to his crotch. Penny would have called Janelle a hypocrite if she knew Janelle checked out this man.

“I can’t. I got to go home and see my mother.” The player darted off screen and attempted to make his way through the sea of people.

“That was nice, right?” Janelle put on her coat and pulled her purse strap on her shoulder.

Nice? Yes. Janelle felt a strange tickling sensation going through her body. Since Gideon Wells played for the Virginia Beach Wolves, did that mean he lived in town? Would he be coming home to Virginia Beach?