For Better or Cursed

“You guys have to stop,” she told everyone. They instantly backed off.

When Cate stuck her head in the car, Rudy smiled up at her like a helpless puppy. He sat in the back seat, sideways, with one leg stretched out along the seat and the other one hidden somewhere in front of him. His arms draped over the front seat as if they were no longer part of his body.

“Hurt much?” she asked.

“Only while I’m awake,” he said.

“So, tell me, only kids and small animals fit in this back seat. Which did you think you were?”

“I got hungry.”

“Rosebuds delivers.”

“Aunt Flo had other plans.”

“Oh, so this is Aunt Flo’s fault. Then why isn’t she in the back seat?”

“I was being a gentleman.”

“Don’t say that too loud, I might hear you and get the wrong idea.”

He smiled. “Look, Cate, I’ll do anything you want, just don’t let cousin Charlie near me.”

She had to smile back. He looked too cute. “So tell me, Sir Gallant, aside from your general maladies, why can’t you get out of here?”

“My foot is stuck under the front seat.”

“Not quite as much room back there as your limo, huh?”

“Do you ever stop?”

Cate dropped her gaze for a moment and took a breath, and that’s when she remembered the problem with the front passenger seat. It had a bolt missing and a gaping hole in the slider thing. If you put anything near it or around it when someone slid the seat back, that anything would get gobbled up. She’d lost a new pair of shoes once and it had torn a pair of Gina’s best pants right off her leg just two weeks before.

Both Gina and Cate had intended to have their dad fix it in his body shop, but neither of them had made the effort to get it over to him, and as long as no one sat in the back seat…so much for that theory.

She looked up again, and was about to tell him the missing-bolt story, but he was staring at her. He had the most gorgeous eyes, with thick long eyelashes, and the way his hair fell across his forehead reminded her of the reason she had fallen in love with him in the first place. Rudy had the ability, with just one sweet look, to make a girl believe everything he said.

It was that other Rudy, the evil-twin Rudy, who had been in her office earlier; aggravating her temper, causing irrational behavior in an otherwise completely rational person. He was the Rudy she knew.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. So…you’re stuck.”

“A temporary condition, I’m sure.” He twisted himself around to face the front.

Aunt Flo stuck her head in the car. “Your dad says we’re gonna have to call the fire department. Vinney McCally is on tonight. He knows how to work them Jaws of Life.”

“That might be a little extreme and I’ve got…” Cate said, but before she could finish her sentence the sound of sirens echoed through the neighborhood.

“Oops, too late,” Aunt Flo declared and pulled herself out of the car to look down the street. Cate stepped out, as well.

“Ya know, it’s times like these that I don’t blame Rudy for leaving this place,” Cate told her aunt.

Rudy rolled down the back window. “Tell me there’s an actual fire somewhere and that sound isn’t for me,” he said with genuine concern in his voice.

Cate smiled down at him, then turned away as the hook-and-ladder pulled up alongside the tiny car and three burly firemen jumped out, Vinney McCally being one of them.

“It’s for you,” she told Rudy.

Rudy sat back and sighed.

Vinney walked over to Cate, dressed in complete catastrophe gear. “Cate, is it the old man? Don’t worry about a thing. I’m here now. Where is he, Cate? It’s gonna be all right.”

Vinney McCally was one of those short but powerful kind of guys. The gymnast type who worked out more than he should and had to buy his clothes three sizes too big just to fit across his double-wide chest.

Cate had dated him for a little while until he started talking marriage. That’s when a tree fell on him one Sunday afternoon in Lincoln Park while he walked his mother’s schnauzer.

The schnauzer got away without a scratch, but Vinney was pinned under a limb for two hours. When it was all over and he was lying on a table in the emergency room with a fractured pelvis and a broken arm, Vinney whispered into Cate’s ear, “I’m breaking up with you. Please go home and take your curse with you.”

It was during that time, while he lay there in a broken heap, that he decided to become a Chicago fireman. He told everyone that if he could survive dating Cate Falco, he could certainly survive fires and dangerous accidents.

“It’s not my father. It’s Rudy Bellafini. He’s trapped in the back seat,” she explained.

“Get out!” Vinney said as he hunkered down to get a better look inside.

Rudy smiled and finger waved.

“What d’ya know. Now, that’s a guy I never thought I’d see in this part of town again. But what’s he doin’ in the back seat of your car?” Vinney asked and waved back at Rudy. “You got him trapped in there or somethin’? Trying to get your revenge?”

“No. He did it on his own. His foot is stuck.”

“Geez, Cate. That curse thing just don’t want to let you go, huh? He didn’t propose again, did he?”

Cate’s temper reared up and she lashed out.

“No, Vinney. There were no proposals. He’s just stuck. Can’t a guy get his foot stuck without it being related to some damn curse?”

“Hold on. Don’t have a coronary. I was only kiddin’.”

He leaned inside the open door on the driver’s side of the car. “Hey, man. How ya doin’? It’s been a while.” They shook hands.

“Been better,” Rudy said. “Can you get me out of here, dude?”

Cate had to smile watching laid-back Vinney deal with uptight Rudy.

“Oh, sure, man. Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll have you outta here in no time.”

“Can we do it before the press finds out?”

“They ain’t gonna find out if I don’t tell ’em, now are they?”

“Thanks, dude. I owe you one.”

“Just doing my job, man. Now let’s see what’s going on under there.” He turned around and yelled for one of the other firemen to get a light, and suddenly the whole street lit up like the sun had just come out.

FOR THE NEXT TWO HOURS, Vinney and his rescue team from the Loomis Street Station worked to set Rudy free.

In the end the front passenger seat had to be removed through the roof, which, of course, required a hole. Cate actually cried a little when she saw the roof come off and the seat come out in tiny pieces.

“Don’t worry about it,” Aunt Flo said, as chunks of Cate’s car hit the pavement with a sharp clank. “Rudy told me he’s still got plenty of loot. He’ll get you a brand-new one of them bug cars.”

The ’79 classic Beetle had more sentimental value than retail value, so the replacement idea had little impact. Cate had bought it secondhand when she was a teenager. She had worked a whole year in a hot bakery and saved every dime. She loved that car and had a hard time lending it to her sister…who had promised to take good care of it, which, until Rudy Bellafini came along, she had.

But it wasn’t her sister’s fault, it was Cate’s. She was sure of it now.

When Rudy finally came limping out of the car, using Vinney’s right arm for support, the group, which now consisted of the entire neighborhood plus a couple of lost tourists, cheered.

A male paramedic checked out Rudy’s foot. Cate could tell Rudy was anxious about something, which was good. The sooner she could get him into that ambulance, the better.

“Can you walk?” the paramedic asked.

“I think so. I just want to get inside somewhere.”

He started to take a step but he stumbled. Vinney grabbed Rudy under one arm for support, and the paramedic grabbed the other.

“Easy there, fella. Put your weight on me,” Vinney commanded, his tone official. That was something Cate wasn’t used to. It gave her a new sense of respect for her former boyfriend.

“I guess I’m in worse shape than I thought,” Rudy said with a slight edge to his voice.

“Maybe you should lie down. Take it easy. You might do better at the hospital,” Vinney told him.

“I’ve had enough of hospitals. They can kill ya. No telling who they let in there. I’ll call a cab and go back to my dad’s old house. I’ll be fine there,” he said, but then gazed over at Cate with his “save me” look that she never could refuse.

“Bring him inside,” she told Vinney, guilt oozing into her reasoning. She told herself it would just be for a few hours, just until he was steady on his feet.

“But—” Vinney started to say.

Cate broke in. “He’ll be fine. Nothing’s broken.”

“Whatever you say.” Vinney helped Rudy across the lawn and up the stairs. Gina led the way, opening doors and moving anything and anybody in their path.

“We’ll put him down in a chair in the living room for now,” Cate said, but the living room was crowded with neighbors admiring Henry’s indoor garden, and the dining room was filled with hungry relatives, so they took him to the one place in all the world where Cate thought she would never, ever see Rudy Bellafini again.

Vinney walked him up the stairs to Cate’s bedroom and put him right down in the center of her queen-size, antique, walnut bed.

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