Chapter 31: Mimi IV--Everything Will be Fine

A/N: As always, remember this is only a work of fiction and has at the best only a hogwash grain of truth in it, point in fact: I do not know if Chris Chelios speaks French so that is further proof that this is fiction!!!!

Chapter 31: Mimi IV—Everything Will Be Fine

"What were you and Joe doing on Lookout Mountain!" Michele exclaimed.

Debbie put her face into her hands and moaned through her fingers. "Mimi, what do you think?"

Michele let the phrase sink in for a moment. She already knew, but she just couldn’t bring herself to believe it. "Nooooo," she said. "Joe? Was it his idea?

Michele could see Debbie’s eye peeking through her fingers. Michele smiled.

"I think it was his idea," Debbie said, "but I may have helped some."

Michele sat back, still stirring the coffee that Debbie had made for her. She couldn’t stop grinning. "You helped out some?"

Debbie sat up and glared. "Stop laughing at me!" she exclaimed.

Michele swallowed the grin. "Oh I’m so sorry Debbie, it’s just...most exciting place foot of the bed? Aye?"

A small smile twitched at a corner of Debbie’s mouth. "Yeah....I have to give him points for trying I guess."

Michele picked up the coffee, blowing across the surface. "Well, what happened?"

"I was trying to give him....I was trying..." Debbie reddened and looked away.

Michele raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"

Debbie closed her eyes. "I was trying to give him a blow job and he panicked!"

Michele almost dropped her coffee as she brought it back down on the table. "He panicked?!"

Debbie nodded.

Inside, Michele was dying of laughter. She had always wondered what Joe’s tastes were. Patrick said frequently that he never saw Joe with any type of extra-curricular sex life that he knew of. Sometimes she wondered if Joe was perhaps gay, and that was the root of poor Debbie’s troubles. But if the prospect of a blow-job panicked him then he definitely was not gay. He was just a prude. Poor Debbie.

"What did I do wrong? Mimi, you have to help me here!" Debbie held her hands out.

Michele sighed, looking as serious as she could. "It’s a delicate situation, this. Perhaps you came on a bit strong, no? How did you approach him?"

Debbie grimaced. "I told him that I was going to give him a blow-job and I pounced on him."

Michele couldn’t help it. She collapsed forward on the table laughing.

"Aw come on!" Debbie almost cried. "Stop it!"

Michele sat up, wiping tears from her eyes. She could see the whole scenario now in her mind. It was priceless! "Yes," she said. "You did come on a bit strong. Next time, be a bit more subtle. In fact don’t tell him or grab at him or anything. Just sort of...slide down on him...it’s a bit like trying not to spook a virgin."

Debbie smiled weakly. "I’ll remember that," she said with a sigh. "At any rate it’ll have to wait until Joe gets better. He’s got a pretty good concussion. Worse than Danny’s, the boys will have to do without him."

"Aww," Michele said. "Is he upstairs? The poor dear......Peter really carried him up twenty feet on his back?"

Debbie nodded. "Yes, he was such a dear."

Michele put her hand over her breast. "There is no end to what Peter can do!"

She took a sip from her coffee and Debbie narrowed her eyes. "You and Peter haven’t......"

Michele looked back at Debbie and widened her eyes. "Mon dieu!" she exclaimed putting her cup down. "I’m not a machine, Debbie!"

Debbie laughed. "Sorry."

Michele held her hands up. "No harm done. So what are you telling officially? I mean the papers aren’t going to be printing Lookout Mountain are they?"

Debbie shook her head. "No, no, no," she said. "We took him to the hospital and said he slipped on a baby toy down the stairs."

"Good one!" Michele said.

"He’s sleeping like a baby now. Kept him up all night and he was weeping like a baby," Debbie said. "You’d love this, Mimi. He was raving that Patrick’s goalposts were starting to talk to him! Is that the most ridiculous thing you’d ever heard?"

Michele didn’t think that was funny at all. A weird feeling flipped in her stomach and she frowned. "He says they’re talking to him?"

Debbie shook her head. "No not talking to him....he said he just heard them talking. He thinks they were talking to Patrick and he just overheard.....what am I saying? It’s just concussion jibber jabber anyway!"

A tight smile crossed Michele’s mouth. "Well sometimes it isn’t," she said.

Debbie laughed carefully. "Mimi, you’re not serious? Those posts don’t talk!"

Michele rolled her eyes. "I’ve never heard them, but Patrick is under their spell, and I’ve never been quite convinced that that’s a good thing. How about this, when Joe is feeling better, tell him never to answer back to them, OK? Good to be safe."

Debbie leaned forward. "Mimi," she said. "You’re starting to scare me here."

Michele sat back in her chair and looked out the kitchen window. She wondered if the children were at Mrs. Allison’s or terrorizing Cecile. "Don’t mind me," Michele finally said. "You’re right, Joe was probably just raving a little."

Michele stayed with Debbie for the rest of the morning, forcing cheer and smiles. Inside, she had begun to hurt. Why did Debbie have to bring up those goalposts? Michele rarely thought of them, but when she did, it was hard to get them out of her mind. Why would Joe talk about hearing them? And if he had heard them, why was he able to?

When Michele came home, there was a note from Cecile that the children were with Mrs. Allison and that she had gone out. She knew Patrick was home. His car was in her spot in the driveway. Since he didn’t greet her as she came in, she knew he was asleep. Michele sighed and walked into the kitchen to make Patrick’s spaghetti.

What she really felt like doing was finding a corner to sit and cry in. Sharp pain was beginning to take hold of her chest, and she knew it wasn’t a physical pain. It was the ache she only felt when she was grieving. It was almost heartbreak.

It was easy for her to drift mentally as she prepared the meal. So many times she had made this dish, so many game days that it was almost a robotic function for her. And she couldn’t help remembering the past.

It was after Patrick had told her everything about Tremblay and what he was going through. He didn’t bring it up again and after a few weeks he seemed to become more cheerful and less haunted. Michele wondered if he had solved the problem, but she didn’t want to bring up the subject. Why mess with something that was going good?

Michele was pleasantly surprised when Patrick asked her if she would like to start going to at least one of his games on every roadtrip, just so they could be together. He missed her too much, he said to be separated from her for an entire trip.

"Patrick!" Michele had said. "I couldn’t afford that!"

"I’ll pay for it then," Patrick said, his eyes sparkling earnestly. "Please just say yes!"

Michele had only smiled in answer.

So it went like that for a month. Michele would meet Patrick one game per roadtrip. It was lovely. For one she got to visit cities she never thought she would see, and see his games...as nerve wracking as they were. He even paid for her stay in nice hotels. That was the better part.

Patrick always managed to be free for the afternoon hours before games and Michele would be waiting for him in the room. She would never remember anything about those hotel rooms. All she could remember was his slender, pale body as he held her tightly, so tight sometimes that she would be a bit bruised later. It was always as if he was afraid that somehow she would escape from his arms and never come back. So he would hold her down on the bed, kissing her frantically sometimes, or kissing her long and deep.

Remember the hotel rooms at all? It was impossible. Sometimes he would be sad when he came in to see her. His large blue eyes would be full of tears and he would get testy if asked about them. So she wouldn’t ask. At times like those he wouldn’t hold her tightly. Usually, he would sit on the bed, a rather dull look on his face and Michele would initiate the contact. He would be softer then, lightly running his hands on the small of her back as she sat in his lap. Sometimes she would tease him. He was so ivory, a result of countless hours spent in artificial rinks, sleeping, and making love indoors. Michele had darker skin than he did and she wouldn’t let him forget it.

There were no goalposts then, just a silly head bob that Patrick assured her was just because he disliked the itchy feel of his mask and not from any neurological defect.

Michele often saw his teammates, sometimes when she and Patrick were eating lunch together, and they would exchange cordial greetings. Often she caught glimpses of Mario Tremblay. He never greeted them. He would take a seat at tables across the restaurant from them, eat his lunch, his chin jutted and his eyes glittering. Michele never failed to make eye contact with him at those times, and she would smile. Then she would grab Patrick and kiss him, just to show Mario who Patrick belonged to. It was satisfying to do that.

Black clouds rolled in soon enough, in the form of a young teammate of Patrick’s.

Michele had opened the door to her room a short time after Patrick had left her when she heard some knocks. At first, she thought it was Patrick come to retrieve some forgotten item or a quick kiss. So she was smiling brilliantly.

Her smile disappeared when she opened the door to see someone else. She recognized the Grecian face and olive skin. It was Chris Chelios, a young Montreal defenseman. What was he doing here?

"Can I come in?" Chelios asked in English.

Michele stayed where she was, she hadn’t understood a word he said. A twinge of fear tickled her gut.

"Speak English?" Chelios asked in French.

Michele slowly shook her head.

Chelios stood for a few seconds, his black eyes seemed rather soft, but she didn’t trust him. He looked up and down that hallway as if he was making sure no one was around. That was enough for Michele and she moved to close the door. Chelios quickly got his foot in the door and held it open.

"Wait," he said in French.

"Piss off!" Michele said. "Before I call the police."

Chelios kicked the door open the rest of the way and Michele screamed, trying to scramble for the phone. Chris had her by the arm within the second and he was speaking rapidly to her in French. "Easy, easy I’m not going to hurt you! Calm down! Calm down!"

"Let go then!" Michele snapped as she slapped him hard on the cheek.

"Dammit!" Chris yelled jumping back from her and holding his cheek. "What’s wrong with you French girls? Worse than friggin Siamese Cats!"

Michele stayed where she was holding her hand up as if it were a lethal weapon. It was all she had, she could see how much bigger he was than her. "What do you want?" she asked him.

Chelios stopped rubbing his cheek. "Listen," he said. "If I were to ask you right now to lay down on that bed and let me screw you, what would you do?"

Michele knew her mouth had fallen open, she didn’t know how long she stood there before she reached for the phone. "I’m calling the police," she said.

"Then you’re not just a groupie? You’re Patrick’s exclusive girlfriend?" Chelios asked, unfazed.

Michele put down the phone and looked at him, confused. "Yes," she said. "I’m his girlfriend. I’m not a whore."

Chelios sat down on one of the beds. "Then why are you here?" he asked.

"Because we’re in love. We don’t want to be separated for too long." Michele answered.

Chris nodded. "Look, that’s sweet but it’s not smart."

Michele shook her head.

"You should let him be free on these trips, you shouldn’t be tying him down." he said.

"It was Patrick’s idea," she said. "And I don’t see how it’s any of your business."

"Whatever happens to any member of this hockey club is the team’s business, especially when he’s a rookie and especially when he’s on the road," Chris said.

"What’s the problem?" Michele asked.

"The problem is," Chelios continued, "Is that it looks like to the team that Patrick is letting himself be run by a girl. And that doesn’t reflect well on the team to have a cat-licked rookie."

"You’re disgusting!" Michele snapped. "Go away! Who brought this up to you? Tremblay? You can tell that perverted swine to lick his own trough!"

Chelios shook his head. "Darling, I like Patrick a lot, I’m only looking for his best interests here and if he has any affection for you it would be better if you stayed home on roadtrips and perhaps got into better acquaintance with the chicken coop. It’s safer with the wives and girlfriends."

Michele raised her eyebrows. "Are you threatening me with something?"

Chelios shook her head. "Don’t be so goddamn stubborn. Just take my advice and everything will be fine." With that he stood up and stormed out of the hotel room, slamming the door behind him.

Michele batted back some tears as she continued to stir the spaghetti sauce. Should she have listened to him? Should she have taken his advice or would it have happened anyway? All she knew, was that she hadn’t taken his advice and Patrick was talking to goalposts within the next month.

Michele sighed. People have the funniest ways of coping with things.