Walter Payton strides past the living room, his flipflop sandals smacking against his heels, a quick, tight smile flashing across his face as he acknowledges the people sitting on the long white sofas.
”Honey, can you come in and talk for just a little?” his wife, Connie, calls.
He pauses and gestures with his thumb toward the master bedroom wing of the house, where the closets are undergoing reconstruction. ”They`ve made a mess back there,” he says. ”I don`t like it. They shouldn`t mess things up like that.”
”They don`t mean to; they`re doing the best they can,” she says.
Silence for a moment. The Chicago Bears` running back cracks his knuckles, pulling each one quickly, poised to keep moving but waiting for whatever questions might be coming.
How does he like this house, this huge, 12,000-square-foot home he and Connie built? What is it about this house that he likes so much?
He reflects for a moment and his body loses some of its forward-motion tension. ”When I`m outside, when I`m out there,” and he motions outside the window, ”sometimes I feel like I don`t belong to myself. But when I walk through this front door, I`m me. It`s like I`m the real Walter Payton in here.”
What about the atrium in the middle of the house? Connie says this was all your idea, you had to have this atrium, this greenhouse-like structure that rises 30 feet between the living room and dining room.
”Walter sketched out the plans; he said, `I`ve got to have an atrium in the center of my house,` ” Connie had said. ”I said, `Why?` and he said, `I don`t know, but I`ve got to have it.` ”
He laughs and starts in on the knuckles again. ”Well, I`m from Mississippi, and maybe that`s part of it. I think it really adds to the house, it makes it unique. Outside, everything can be bare and dead, and then you come in here and have all this green. And there`s something about it that makes you want to reflect. It`s peaceful.”
Connie speaks up. ”Call your mother, Walter. She said she hadn`t spoken to you for a while.”
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The Paytons moved into this 17-room house about two years ago, and people remark at how ”finished” it already is. Usually it takes people a lot longer than two years to get things right in all this space; it takes some people a couple of years just to get the right cabinet for a particular corner.
But Connie Payton is already itching to start resanding her floors, to laminate the fabric on the kitchen walls so it will be easier to clean up what the kids spill, to start redoing things that have already been done.
”We know what we like, and when we see it, we buy it,” she says. ”One of my neighbors, she`s a good friend, but she can go to the (Merchandise) Mart every day and not make up her mind. That would drive me crazy. If you see what you like, go for it, don`t keep thinking, well, maybe I`ll see something I like better tomorrow.”
On this particular morning, the house is busy, but probably no more than usual.
Walter is in and out, restless energy in motion. Two-year-old Brittney, looking snuggly in a pink one-piece sleeper, is cranky; she has just given up her bottle, and she`s letting everyone know she`s not happy about it. Nanny Luna Picart is trying to get her to take a nap. Meg Fischer and Cathy Hayes from Foliage Design are taking care of the lush plants inside the atrium, watering, snipping, talking about heat and sunlight. A young man comes in and announces that he`s about to start working on the evergreens outside the house.
Walter leaves and accidentally triggers the alarm system. Sirens go off.
”What are you doing, Walter?” Connie calls.
”Just testing the system,” he calls back, going out the front door.
Moments later, several of the suburb`s finest pull up in front of the house, lights flashing. The police come to the front door.
”That Walter, he sets it off and then leaves me to deal with all this,” Connie says, going to talk to the police. ”They fine you, you know, if you have too many false alarms.”
— — —
When you have a name like Walter Payton and live on 5 1/2 acres, good security is essential. They`ve had two mailboxes stolen, and the new one is firmly rooted in concrete.
Their newspapers weren`t around one morning, and Connie Payton learned the reason while she was driving 6-year-old Jarrett to the school bus and listening to the ”Murphy in the Morning” show on WKQX-FM. A woman on the program was talking about her niece, who had told her how a couple of friends had taken the morning papers from the Paytons` property–they were so excited about it; these were Walter Payton`s newspapers!
”There I am, in the car, hearing this,” she says. ”And Murphy said,
`So if you`re listening, Walter Payton, and you wondered what happened to your newspapers, that`s the story.` Those newspapers didn`t even have our name on them; they were just tossed in the driveway. Why would anyone want them?” To get to the house, visitors must first go through electronically controlled gates and then, of course, not trigger the alarm system that brings the police force almost instantly.
Once inside, the atrium immediately catches the eye.
The glass structure is filled with the kind of lush growth one expects to find in Florida. Designed and installed by Foliage Design Systems in Lombard, it received the 1986 award for outstanding interior landscape architecture from the Florida Nurserymen Growers Association.
”I`m glad we have it now,” Connie says. ”When I grew up, everything we had (plants) was plastic. But his mother, you should see her home. She`s got the magic touch; there are plants and flowers everywhere. In the winter, when she brings the plants in, you can hardly get in her bathroom because of all the plants.”
Walter`s favorite plant, however, isn`t one of those in the atrium.
He loves gardenias and has one delivered twice a week (he puts it in a bud vase next to the bed, Connie says) and has a gardenia plant growing in his trophy-filled office. It`s a sweet-smelling flower for the man whose nickname is Sweetness; ”I`ve always liked it,” he says.
(That nickname, by the way, was attached to Walter during high school, Connie says. ”It had to do with the way he moved, graceful, that sort of thing, not how he acted,” she says.)
Everything in this home, with its emphasis on Oriental design, is in place, completely neat.
Visitors are asked to remove their shoes, an Oriental custom that makes perfect sense; why transfer dirt from the outside to the inside?
”I`m a perfectionist,” Connie says. ”I don`t ever feel things are quite right. . . . I guess that comes from being the oldest; I have three brothers. My mother and father worked, and I was the one in charge.
”I`m changing, though. I used to be, you know, a little Susie Homemaker; I was always home. I loved to cook. Now I have this beautiful kitchen, but I don`t like to cook so much anymore. I think I wouldn`t mind having a cook. I go to exercise every day, . . . but Walter likes me home during the day, even when he`s not here. He calls and then later he says, `I called you and you weren`t there.` And I say, `Walter, you`re not there either, and you always say how important exercise is.` ”
— — —
Brittney clearly has her famous father in the palm of her tiny hand.
”See, she likes purses with straps,” he announces proudly as Brittney marches into the kitchen, a little purse dangling from each hand. ”Come on, Miss B., let`s go have our picture taken.”
They go into the atrium, and Walter patiently tosses a bright balloon up for Brittney to catch, over and over, as the photographer snaps from above.
”Catch the balloon, Miss B., that`s it,” he says, until she tires of the game and snuggles on her daddy`s lap. ”Daaaaddy,” she says, putting her head on his shoulder and he hugs her.
Jarrett rushes in from school, ready for food, for the skateboard, for the bicycle–and definitely ready to have his picture taken when he sees all the attention Brittney is getting.
He sits in his father`s chair, feet up on the desk, thumbs lifted in an exuberant expression. One of the many game footballs on the shelves is inscribed to him: ”Awarded to Jarrett Walter Payton by Dad. 10,009 yards rushing.” He`s a natural for the camera, alternating mugging with giggling as the shutter clicks.
It`s late in the afternoon. Connie leans against the kitchen counter, cuddling Brittney while Jarrett graphically describes the most recent soccer game.
The question that seems more appropriate than ”How do you like this house?” is ”How do you like being a mother?”
A wide smile cuts across her face. ”There`s nothing like it. Being a mother is what it`s all about.”
