Chapter 113: Patty XII—Not That Kind of Girl
"So you were able to find one?" Patrick asked as that as he walked into the card shop, he could barely contain the nervous flutter in his throat. "Remember, I said do not even call if you don’t have one!"
Gary, a graying, black eyed sports card veteran grinned through the many wrinkles of his mouth and took off his reading glasses. "Yup," he said. "I called you and I remember what you said.
Patrick stopped and raised his eyebrows. "So you have one?"
"No," Gary replied, putting on his glasses and peering into a cardboard box that was open on the counter. Patrick narrowed his eyes and felt himself flush but he stayed calm. "I found three out of the set. The three you don’t have."
Patrick could feel all systems come to a stop within his body and he knew his mouth had dropped open. "No!" he said.
Gary reached into the box and pulled out the three, small, rectangular, plastic display cases protecting the treasures within. "LeSeour, Moran, Vezina, and they’re in wonderful condition, they were left in as bookmarks and forgotten on a shelf, you can still whiff the cigars from the boxes they used to be in, I was told. They seem pretty keen to me. Printed 1920."
Patrick almost felt as if he were skipping all the way to the counter, his eyes never leaving the pieces. They were light and cool and smooth on his palm and he pulled each piece close to his face. The prints were clear and the watercolor sketches of Percy LeSeour, Georges Vezina and Paddy Moran, old clippings off a cigar box, were wonderfully detailed. There was no sign of staining or tearing on any of them and even the fraying he could see was at a minimum.
"Mon Dieu!" he whispered. "You have outdone yourself."
The old man laughed a liquor beaten laugh and he stood back from the counter. "It was dumb luck really, I was just looking for the LeSeour and the other two just happened to tag along."
Patrick laughed and reached into his pocket for his wallet, "Well that’s how things go sometimes eh? Just twists of dumb luck."
Patrick couldn’t stop whistling as he drove home from the card shop, and every so often he would glance at the passenger seat where the brown paper sack was sitting quietly. It looked innocent did it not? This little brown bag. Anything could be in there. There was a whole realm of possibilities but yet it was all hidden with brown paper. He knew what it was though and he couldn’t stop smiling. Maybe he wouldn’t tell Michele about this one, it always killed her the price he would pay for these old sheets of moldy cardboard as she put it. Not moldy! Patrick thought with a grin, Almost in mint condition.
Michele’s car was gone as he pulled up in the driveway, and he noted the time. She would be picking the children up from school now, and Jonathan had a hockey game tonight, Patrick couldn’t wait for that. He had missed the boy’s last two games because he had been on the road and then home at his own games. Tonight he would actually have a chance to be there.
There was a strange car in front of the house, and Patrick squinted at it before he remembered that it was Cecile’s little white car. The girl was here, this early? It didn’t make much difference, Patrick supposed as he continued to whistle and he unlocked the front door.
There was no yapping fluffbutt to greet him this time, to tear at his ankles. Michele had probably taken the dog with her to pick up the kids. Mimi’s Mascot, was what he was thinking of dubbing the whelp. She was always at Michele’s feet, wagging her tail and growling and recently Michele had taken to allowing the puppy to sleep with them in the bed. Patrick had tried protesting but he only got a steely glare from her and she turned her back to him, hugging the fluffbutt.
Patrick yawned as he opened the basement door noticing the light was off. Cecile wasn’t here then? Danny was quick to get her wasn’t he? The stairs creaked under his feet as he walked down them slowly in the darkened room. The room where Cecile slept was right at the stairway, the basement was much bigger with a complete bathroom, a sports room, a pool room, an indoor hockey room for the children to practice, and a room just for Patrick where he could display and store his hockey cards.
There was two ways to get to the room; one being through the stairway at the opposite end of the house that led into two other rooms before opening to his card room. And then there was this way, through the guestroom that went straight into it. Since Cecile was not here he had decided to take this way.
When Patrick had got to the bottom of the steps he felt the warmth at his elbow and his senses instantly telling him that something was off, he immediately jumped to his right.
"YAH!" the voice squealed and Patrick felt a heavy blow strike his chest and he gasped as he fell to the ground, momentarily unable to breathe and he squinted in anger at the slim form above him. They had something square and dark lifted high as they were about to strike him again.
Wasting no time, Patrick groaned and lurched his body forward, hitting against the person and the scream reinforced his notion of who it was. "Stop it girl!" he hissed, covering her mouth. "It’s just me!"
He heard Cecile moan, her lips soft and damp against his palm and Patrick sighed as he rolled off her and lay on the carpet.
"Oh my God!" she whispered as she stood up, flicking on the light. "Mr. Roy I’m so sorry! Oh God are you OK?"
Patrick squinted at her as she kneeled down next to him, trembling all over. "I didn’t... injure you did I?" she whispered and he saw a tear sliding down her cheek.
Patrick grinned weakly and brushed the tear from her face, letting her grab hold of his wrist with her warm long fingered hands. "Please tell me you didn’t call the police?" he said.
"I thought it was "him" again!" Cecile gasped squeezing onto his wrist. "I didn’t know what to do! I just turned off the lights and hoped that... and when you came down I just grabbed something... I was just trying to protect myself!"
"I gather," Patrick murmured, "But the phone?"
Cecile shook her head to his infinite relief. The last thing they needed here were more police on a false alarm. That would really endear his family to them wouldn’t it?
"That was stupid of me!" Cecile said with a nervous laugh. "It didn’t even cross my mind to call the police."
Patrick tried to sit up and took some satisfaction in the girl’s trying to help him, her hand on his shoulders and back trying to nudge him up. But the pain twisted on his chest again and he groaned. He fell back to the carpet and Cecile buried her fingers in her ebony hair. "Oooooh no!"
"What did you hit me with?" Patrick muttered, trying not to glare at her. "A sledgehammer?"
"Oh," Cecile said with a blush. "Please I didn’t hurt you too bad did I?"
Patrick closed one eye and made another effort to sit up, this time successfully. He slouched forward and noted that the pain was beginning to subside some. That still didn’t hide his irritation and this time he did glare at her. Her pink mouth, which had been gaping open shut tightly and she cringed from him, but she didn’t drop her gaze. She merely looked remorseful. She picked up a familiar, metal box that sent a disgusted chill through him. "I used this," she whispered. "I didn’t know what else to use."
Exhaling and shaking his head, Patrick took the box from her hands and looked at it. "Clever," he said. "And you just happened to notice it on the fly?"
The red returned to her cheeks and she shook her head. "I’d seen it before... I mean I wasn’t snooping or anything I was just..."
Patrick smiled at her, all girls were nosy creatures he thought remembering a tale his mother used to tell him about a pirate trying to trust his new bride and unable to. "Is OK," he said keeping his voice soft. "You have not stopped the world, you were only trying to protect yourself, like you said."
Her eyes sparkled in tears as she looked back at him and gnawed on her bottom lip. "Je suis desolee," she replied.
"Here," Patrick said opening the box and it squeaked loudly. "Do you know what this is?"
"A jersey?" she said so quickly that Patrick knew she had snooped into it before.
Patrick laughed. "Yes of course. An old one."
He pulled it out seeing the spatters of rusty blood on it and the name cutting into it.
"Whose was it?" she asked. "A friend?" How large and curious her eyes were, like a kitten when it slinks to your hand, unsure of what to expect.
"He was my roommate," Patrick said. "A well respected man. An icon, if you will, a man such as this, is important to keep a memento of him, you know?"
The girl’s black eyebrows straightened. "But you hated him?"
Patrick’s gut jumped as he looked at her. "What makes you say that?" he asked.
"I can see it in your eyes," she said. "They didn’t look happy when you looked at it. You almost looked angry when you touched it."
Patrick sighed and felt a blush in his cheeks. "Oui," he replied. "I hated him more than anyone could safely hate someone."
"But why do you keep it?" she asked, still a childish lilt in her voice.
Patrick closed the box. "It commemorates something I would like to remember. That is why we keep things, is it not?" He noticed the sparkling emerald crucifix at her breast as he spoke. Seeming to sense it, the girl covered it with her pale hand.
"Yeah," she said. "That’s why we keep things."
"And now a pretty little slip of a girl has used the object of my hate and slammed me in the chest with it, there is irony here no?" Patrick grinned at her.
A smile slid onto her face and she looked down at the carpet as she laughed. "I’m sorry!" she exclaimed. "Really I am! Are you OK?"
"Yes," Patrick nodded, "I am."
Groaning despite himself, he stood back up, and the girl was quick to grab onto him and help him. He could feel how wiry and sturdy her body really was as she pressed against him and Patrick suddenly thought how fortunate she probably was that she had hit him. At this point he was in too much pain to do much.
"What are you doing down here anyway?" she asked curiously, without any accusation.
Patrick noticed that his paper bag had been flung on the bed and he picked it up. "Cards," he said. "My card room is next door, and I have some new additions."
"Is that’s what’s in there?" Cecile asked brightly. "The door is always locked!" And then she reddened and covered her mouth.
"And you’ve been trying to open it eh?" Patrick jibed, absolutely amused now. "Are you Bluebeard’s little ingenue reincarnated?"
"Well no one told me not to go in there!" she exclaimed defensively, obviously embarrassed with herself and getting angry.
"You’re not forbidden," he said simply, "Come on."
He pulled his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door. Cecile didn’t follow him at first and when he flicked on the light and strolled into the room, he heard her light steps on the carpet.
"Wow," she said. "And I thought the jerseys were all you had! Danny would really love a collection like this!"
Patrick nodded at her as he pulled the cards from the bag and set them up on the shelf in the empty slots he had been reserving for them. Complete! He sighed with satisfaction.
He looked at Cecile who was peering at a plaque of hockey cards on the wall. "These new ones," he said, getting her attention, "Are from 1920."
"Really?" Cecile said. And she trotted over to him, looking at the new cards. She was silent for a bit, the way girls usually are when they humor men about the things they find important and it annoyed him.
"Of course it may seem silly to you," he muttered.
"Not at all," Cecile said quickly, those eyes of hers shining bright. "I collect porcelain cats, I have a few from the 1780’s, these things are important."
Patrick smiled back at her. Porcelain cats? He suddenly remembered the shelf full of them that his teammates would talk about. The shelf in her mother’s bedroom.
"Most women don’t understand," he said. He took a step closer to her and the girl suddenly backed up, almost skittering back like a startled cat.
"Are you still scared of me?" he asked, amused and annoyed.
Cecile smiled nervously.
"You don’t trust me," he said, "Why?"
Cecile took a deep breath, a breath that caused her glorious bosom to move up and down. "A friend told me about you." She said. "She said that... she said that you...."
Patrick frowned. "Who told you what?"
Shit, he thought who was trying to cause him complications?
"I’m sorry," she said. "It’s none of my business how you live your life and all. Just don’t expect me to... you know..."
"Know what?" he said, hiding the bulk of his anger.
Cecile pursed her lips. "Expect me to be like the others. I just want to lay it out right now to avoid any misunderstandings. I’m not that kind of girl."
Now Patrick was truly pissed but he smiled at her. "Who was this friend? I promise you that any misunderstanding is on her part. I don’t live my life in any way other than what is... normal."
"I can’t tell you," she said. "That would be a miscarriage of trust on my part."
"You are a wonderful sort of girl," Patrick said quietly. "And don’t worry, I am not thinking of you in any way that you wouldn’t want me to little one."
Damn, Patrick thought. As if it wasn’t difficult enough he was going to have to find out who was making this job harder. And he would have to find a way to shut her up!
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