Happy Birthday (2 page)

“I don’t think that’s going to happen. She works harder than I do. She doesn’t even have time to date. She’s not married, and
I’m not at all sure she wants a husband or a child.” Nor was Valerie anxious to be a grandmother—that was definitely not on her wish list or her radar screen, and fortunately it was not on her daughter’s either. Alan was off on that one.

“I think she might surprise you,” Alan said, as Valerie turned over five more cards and the reading continued. It was similar to what he always predicted for her, success in business, a new man on the scene, and an assortment of small warnings about upcoming projects and deals and people she worked with. But this time the new man came up several times. Alan was adamant about it, and Valerie sighed as she listened. People always told her that she couldn’t have everything, a fabulous career and romance in her life too. Life just didn’t work that way. No one got everything they wanted, they said, and Valerie hadn’t either. Like most people, her success hadn’t come easily, and in her case she had wound up alone. The two of them chatted as she continued to turn over the cards, and Alan told her what he saw ahead for her. Most of it was good. Her health wasn’t a problem, he said, and as usual her ratings would soar. He saw some kind of production deal in the Far East, possibly a line of furniture, that would be advantageous for her, and it was obvious as he read for her that he genuinely liked her. She was honest, direct, and fair. Some people said she was tough, but it was mostly a standard of excellence that she applied to herself and everyone else. Valerie drove herself and everyone around her hard. She hadn’t gotten to the top of her field by accident. She had crawled up the mountain for thirty-five years, with sheer hard work and a certain
kind of genius and unfailing instinct about what she did. Alan admired her for that. He loved how straightforward she was. She didn’t play games, or hide. What you saw was what you got. And he didn’t need the cards to know how upset she was about her age today. Valerie said several times that sixty just seemed so goddamn old, and now everyone was going to know. He could see that the very thought of it made her want to cry.

As Valerie listened to Alan’s reading in his West Side apartment, Jack Adams literally crawled across his bedroom floor with tears in his eyes. He had never experienced pain like this in his life. Never. Well, maybe once or twice while playing professional football in his youth, but not since then—and surely not in recent years. He felt like someone had planted a tomahawk in his back. The shooting pains went straight up to his brain and down his legs. He couldn’t stand up or walk. He made it to the bathroom and pulled himself up slowly, clutching the sink. He grabbed his cell phone off the counter and sat down on the toilet seat with a scream.

“Oh my God,” he said, as he found the number in his phone. When he saw himself in the mirror, he looked like he’d been shipwrecked, and felt a thousand years old.

Jack had been to a Halloween party the night before and had met an incredible girl there at the bar. He’d been wearing a Superman costume, and she had been Catwoman, wearing
skintight patent leather, hip boots, and whiskers. She had an unforgettable body, and when she took the mask off, her face wasn’t bad either. She said she was a model, but he’d never heard of her. She was twenty-two years old, with dyed jet-black hair and green eyes. He was six feet four and she had been only a few inches shorter than he was. And the sex they had later when they got back to his apartment was beyond acrobatic. They’d both had a fair amount to drink, and he couldn’t remember having that much fun in a long time. She was typical of the girls he went out with, always in their early twenties, often models, sometimes actresses, and usually any pretty girl who crossed his path. Jack had never had trouble meeting women, or seducing them. Girls had been throwing themselves at him since his teens, more than he knew what to do with at times. And like candy, he could never resist them, and Catwoman had been no exception. The only thing different about her was that the last time he made love to her the night before, something in his back had snapped and he couldn’t move. He had let out such a terrifying shout of pain that she had offered to call 911, but he was mortified and refused, and tried to pretend it didn’t hurt as much as it did. He had suggested she go home, and she had. And he had spent the rest of the night in agony, waiting to call his chiropractor, which he was doing now. The receptionist answered and promised to get the doctor immediately when she heard that Jack Adams was on the line. He sounded terrible even to her. And he said it was an emergency.

The man who answered Jack’s call sounded jovial and happy to talk to him. Jack Adams had been a patient for a dozen years. “What’s up, Jack? My nurse said it was urgent.”

“I think it is,” he said in barely more than a whisper. Even talking hurt. Breathing hurt. He had visions of himself in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. “I don’t know what the hell I did last night. I think I pulled a muscle in my back or something. I may have torn a ligament. I can hardly walk.” He could see himself paralyzed. The pain was beyond belief. He had almost thought it was a heart attack at first. Whatever it was, it was killing him.

“How’d you manage that, or do I want to know?” Frank Barker teased him. He knew how active Jack’s sex life was. They laughed about it at times, but Jack wasn’t laughing now. He was on the verge of tears, and the chiropractor could hear it.

“Probably not. Can I come in?”

“How fast can you get here?” Jack Adams was a very important patient, and Frank was happy to fit him in, particularly for an emergency like this.

“Twenty minutes,” Jack said through clenched teeth. He had no idea how he would leave his apartment, but he’d get there somehow. He hung up and called the car service he used, and crawled into his gym clothes that were on the bathroom floor. He would have gone in his underwear if he had to. He wondered if he should be going to a hospital, but Frank would know what to do. He always did. And this couldn’t be as bad as it seemed.
That just wasn’t possible. He had passed a kidney stone once, and this was worse.

He was downstairs ten minutes later, moving slowly and bent over. The doorman saw him and helped him into the car. He asked what had happened and Jack was vague. Ten minutes later, they were at the chiropractor’s office and the driver helped him inside, where they led him into a room. Frank was with him in five minutes, and examined him. Jack could hardly move, and after the examination, the chiropractor looked at his chart and smiled.

“It’s your birthday, Jack! Happy birthday!”

“Oh please … don’t even say it … what the hell did I do to myself last night?” He wanted it to be something minor, but it didn’t feel that way. This felt like major damage. He told the doctor exactly how and when it had happened, and Frank couldn’t resist teasing him a little.

“It’s these young girls, Jack … they’re a handful!”

“I think she’s a gymnast or something, or a contortionist. I’m in pretty decent shape, and she damn near killed me. What did I tear?” It made him feel ancient that a night of acrobatic sex had left him in this condition, and on his birthday yet. He had turned fifty today. Such an ugly number. He suddenly wondered if he’d ever have sex again. Maybe not the way he had the night before.

“I’m going to send you for an MRI. I have a feeling you may have ruptured a disk. I hope not, you may have only herniated it. Let’s take a look.”

“Shit,” Jack said, looking as though it were a death sentence. “Will I need surgery?” He looked panicked.

“I hope not. We’ll see what the MRI tells us. I’ll get you in right away.” Frank was a genius at getting technicians and physicians to accommodate his important clients. “One thing’s for sure, I think you’d better take it easy for a night or two.” He smiled broadly as Jack sat up, wincing in pain. He had invited friends to downtown Cipriani that night, among them several young models, but he already knew he’d have to cancel. There was no way he could sit for dinner. And he had to go to the office, at least for a few minutes. He’d called on his way over to tell them he’d be late, but didn’t say why. He didn’t want to admit to the condition he was in, at least not until he knew more.

Jack went back to his car and went to the hospital for the MRI. Frank had set it up for him, and as he walked into the hospital, bent over like an old man, two men asked him for an autograph, which was even more humiliating. He had been one of the most important players in the NFL, had won six MVP awards as starting quarterback, was a twelve-time pro bowler, had won four Super Bowls for his team, and was in the Hall of Fame. Now he could hardly stand up or walk after one night with a twenty-two-year-old. He told the two fans he signed the autographs for that he’d been in a car accident. They had been thrilled to see him, in no matter what condition.

The MRI took an hour and a half, and they told him he’d been lucky. From what the technician could see, the disk was probably herniated not ruptured, and he didn’t need surgery,
just rest, and physical therapy once it calmed down. It was a hell of a way to start his birthday. He was fifty years old, and his career as a wild and crazy lover had ended with a major bang and a herniated disk. It made him feel even worse.

He had taken a painkiller by the time he got to work, still wearing his gym clothes and looking ragged. He hadn’t shaved or combed his hair, but dead or alive, he had to go in for a few minutes. He had to see the producer about what to prepare for a special the next day. Jack had been one of the most important sportscasters on TV since he retired twelve years ago, at thirty-eight. He had a serious knee injury that finally put him out of the game for good, but even that had been nowhere near as painful as this. It had been an illustrious career and a respectable end. And his career as sportscaster and network hero had been satisfying too. He liked what he did and the network, fans, and ratings loved him. He had a personable on-camera presence that added new fans to his old ones, and he had always been irresistible to women, and equally unable to resist them. His marriage had ended in divorce five years before he retired. He had cheated on his wife constantly, and he gave Debbie credit that they had parted friends. He had been a lousy husband and he knew it. The opportunities and temptations constantly put in his path as an NFL superstar had been too much for him and their marriage.

Debbie had married one of the team doctors within a year of their divorce, and was happy and had had three more kids, all boys. And she and Jack had a son who was twenty-one, a senior at
Boston University, and he had absolutely no interest in football, except to admire what his father had accomplished. Basketball was his sport, since he was tall too, but he was a better student than Jack had ever been and wanted to go to law school. He had no interest whatsoever in pro sports. He didn’t even watch football on TV.

Jack hobbled across the lobby when he got to the network, almost crawled into the elevator, and stood doubled over after pressing the button for his floor. He couldn’t stand up straight, and didn’t see the face of the woman who got into the elevator after him. All he saw were high-heeled black shoes, a red coat, and good legs. But he didn’t want to think about that now. A monastery maybe for his golden years.

The woman in the red coat and black shoes pressed the button for her floor and stood near him. “Are you all right?” she asked with concern.

“Not really, but I’ll live,” he said, and tried to look up at her and winced. She looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t remember who she was, and then it hit him. She was the gracious lifestyle guru of the world, and he was hunched over like Quasimodo, in gym clothes, flip-flops, uncombed hair, in need of a shave. He was in so much pain he almost didn’t care. He had always thought she looked a little too perfect on TV, but there was a sympathetic look in her eyes now, which confirmed to him just how bad he looked. It was pathetic. And as he looked at her, he noticed a tiny pinprick of blood on either side of her mouth, barely noticeable, but it caught his eye. “I herniated a disk,” he
explained, “and I think you cut yourself shaving,” he added. She looked startled and touched her face.

“It’s nothing,” she said vaguely about the pinpricks, as they stopped at his floor. That didn’t always happen, but it had today. She had gone to get her Botox shots after seeing the psychic, and before work. She had no intention of explaining it to him, and wondered if he knew anyway. She knew who he was too, and had seen him around the network, looking handsome. He was a mess today, and seemed very sick or badly injured.

“Do you need help getting out?” She seemed sorry for him. It was obvious just how much he was hurting.

“If you could just keep the door open till I get out. If I get hit with it, I’ll probably be a quadriplegic. I had a little too much Halloween last night,” he said as he shuffled through the elevator door. He had been hoping to have a little too much birthday celebration too, but that was clearly no longer in the cards for him, and maybe never would be again, he thought mournfully, as he thanked her, and the doors closed behind him.

He could hardly move by the time he got to his office and collapsed on the couch and lay down with a loud moan. His favorite production assistant, Norman Waterman, came in and stared at him in amazement. Norman had worshipped him as a kid and knew all the statistics on him better than Jack did himself. He still had all his football cards, and Jack had signed every one of them for him.

“Holy shit, Jack! What happened to you? You look like you got hit by a train.”

“Yeah, I did. I had an accident last night. Herniated disk. Is George here? I have to see him about the show tomorrow.”

“I’ll get him. Hey, happy birthday by the way!”

“How do you know?” Jack looked at him, distressed.

“Are you kidding? You’re a legend, man. I’ve always known your birthday, and they announced it on the news this morning.”

“My birthday or my age?” Jack asked, looking panicked.

“Both, of course. People know anyway. Anyone who ever followed football knows how old you are. You’re NFL history.”