Seems Like Old Times (38 page)

"An appeal is coming up soon. If I get a Triple
A
job, even a nibble, it could help big-time." The
quiver in his voice was slight, and those that didn't know him well probably
wouldn't even have noticed. But she did.

The many hours she’d spent thinking about Tony’s
predicament and ways to help suddenly gelled, and without analyzing it any
further she said, "I've been thinking of doing a segment about Little
League on my show. I'd like to feature Ben in it. He's a great little guy, and
epitomizes a lot of what sports and children are all about. I wouldn't do
anything to hurt him, trust me. But would you be willing to give me a release
to talk with him and film him?"

"I guess
it's
okay with me.
I don't know if Catherine will agree, though."

"I'm sure she wouldn't even listen to anything I have
to say. I'll get the network to work with her. We've got people who can talk
Santa Claus into coming out against Christmas."

"I don’t know..."

"I need you, too."

"Me?"

"You had a career in baseball, and now you’ve gone
back to it as a means to get your son once more."

"No way, Lisa.
I’d be a
laughingstock!"

The concept quickly grew clearer in her mind. "People
will see this, Tony. Our ratings are good. People will see how much you care.
They’ll talk--they’ll apply their own kind of pressure on the case, maybe even
on the judge. I’ve seen it happen before."

"You want to put my custody fight on TV?
No way!"
His decision was firm.

"I thought you said you’d do anything to get Ben
back? Was that true, or is your pride more important?"

"No, of course not, but still..."

Excitement over the idea bubbled up within her.
"Listen to me, Tony. My perception of what I can do to help you is a valid
one. I’ve been in this industry for over thirteen
years,
I do have some insight on public opinion. You’ve got to understand, though,
that this won’t be a hit piece against Catherine either. It can’t be. It’ll be
about Ben and Little League, but the audience will learn about you, too, and
that Catherine also wants her son. But this way, everyone will know how much
you want him and how hard you’re trying. Trust me, Tony, please. Trust me...in
this at least."

His breath seemed to catch. "I do trust you."

"I can give it a try, then?" she asked, her
voice filled with hope.

"Yeah.
Give it a try."
He gave her information on how to contact him, Catherine and Ben.

When he was finished, she expelled a breath of relief.
"Thank you. After"--she hesitated to bring it up but left unspoken
made it even worse--"after the way we parted, I’m surprised you
phoned."

"The way I talked to you was uncalled for," he
said. "I was expecting you to hang up soon as you heard my voice. You’ve
got every right to hate me, but I was upset and--"

"Stop.
You don't have to
explain to me, Tony. I'm the one who owed you an explanation.
And...and
perhaps there was truth in what you said, as much
as it hurts to admit it."

"I shouldn’t have been so hard, so critical of you.
You were still a kid. After you left, I thought a lot about what you said. I'm
sorry, Lisa. I never wanted to hurt you."

"I know. Memories of you were the only bright spot
for me during that time. It’s hard to imagine we were ever so young," she
said with a lilt, needing to lighten their emotions. She had had years of
grieving, but for Tony this was all new and shocking and, she realized, also
painful. "At least you had your time in baseball just like you wanted, and
I’ve got the career I wanted." Her voice sounded a little too bright.

There was a long silence. She clutched the phone tight.

"You’re right," he said finally. "It all
turned out." His voice rang hollow and empty. "No regrets," he
added.

"No regrets," she whispered.

There was more silence. The awkwardness of unspoken
emotions, of words they dared not say, stretched out between them.

He spoke first. "Well...like I said, I called to wish
you a happy birthday."

"Thank you."

"Take care, Lisa."

"You too, Tony."

With that, they said good-byes and hung up. She sat a long
while. They hurt, these feelings about him, and there wasn’t a thing she could
do about it.

She stood and paced. At least she could do her damnedest
to help him with Ben. She had no idea where her concept of a TV special on Ben
and Little League had come from, but the more she thought about it, the more
she knew it was perfect. Her gut
reaction,
honed by
years of TV reporting and observing public opinion, told her it was good.

Painted against a background of a small, all-American
town, she'd show a cameo of Little League, zeroing in on one boy. She needed to
bring Tony and Catherine into the story as well--her producers would earn their
pay to get the two of them to agree, or at least to make sure lawyers went over
the piece so that, without agreements, the show didn’t get sued.

She needed to be fair. Catherine wouldn't be all evil and
Tony wouldn't be all good, but they would be two people who both had faults and
positive qualities, and who both loved and wanted their child. At the same
time, she wanted a tribute to the love of a divorced father for his son, to
show that it’s wrong to simply dismiss fathers out of hand as custodians of
their children in divorces, and that the mother or the one with the most money
isn’t automatically the best custodian.

She'd show a custody fight’s effect on that child and on
his team and friends, but also, she’d be giving a message of love.

She envisioned the entire segment, including the ending.
Maybe it was a little corny, but she wanted an uplifting ending that would show
Ben’s strength of character, and that he would do fine. As in baseball, there
was always a new season, and with it comes new beginnings, a chance to right
wrongs, or simply to learn from mistakes of the past, and to go forward a
better, stronger person.
Springtime, baseball, a clean slate,
and hope.
That was Ben’s story. That was what she wanted to show.

She kicked her shoes off and stretched out on the sofa,
lost in thought. She remembered that some parents had video camcorders at the
games. If any of the films were halfway decent, she'd borrow or buy them, clean
them up and use them to show actual footage of Ben playing.

The piece should be heavy on nostalgia--field of dreams
and all that.
Something to tug at the heart.
She
hadn't done a segment like that yet for the show. It'd make a nice contrast to
the celebrity paeans or gory murder-related stories they usually had.

Yes, nostalgia. That was good. She shut her eyes to try to
visualize how she wanted the Little League piece to begin.

She called Vic Santos the next morning for two bits of
information. The first was about Miwok’s Little League organization--the
coaches, the main office, all the people whose permission would be needed
before a project such as the one she proposed could happen.

The second was the date of Tony's appeal on the custody
decision. It was February 28, only eighteen days away.

"I want to do a piece on Little League," she
told One Hour Report's honcho, Jake Metcalf, a half-hour later.

"It's been done." He didn't even look up from
his desk.

"Not the way I want to approach it. Kids are big
business, and team sports are becoming more and more important in their lives.
Even girls play on organized teams, and Little League's the biggest of them
all."

"No way.
All
that nostalgia, fresh air and sunshine crap.
Nobody cares anymore."

"I care. You people owe me, if you recall. This will
be a great piece, and I want it. I've already talked to people about it. I want
it on the February 26th broadcast."

He straightened and caught her eye.
"The
26th?
Impossible."

"No, it isn't. It’ll be a small piece. I need the
legal team to get all the clearances and a production crew to get out there and
do some filming! I'll help edit it myself. I've got a good idea of what I want
it to look like."

Jake looked at her shrewdly. "Why does this piece
mean so much to you?"

"Spring's coming.
A time for
renewal.
Didn't you ever hear that 'life begins with spring training'?"

"I was a
Tiddly
Winks man,
myself. Forget it."

"I won’t forget it. I want this segment."

"It’s a bad idea."

"I don’t care!"

"I do! I’m not showing any crap on this
program!"

"Then you’re not showing me either! You told me I could
go with my own ideas. Well, this is my idea. I want it."

He stared at her hard, his jaw muscle twitching. "If
it bombs, it’s your neck in the noose, you hear?"

"Fine."

"And it’s the last story of the night. We don't want
people switching channels until the show is almost over."

She folded her arms. "My, but it's nice to have your
confidence, Jake."

"You got my okay. My confidence is my business."

o0o

With her busy schedule, Lee had no time to travel to
Tucson to see Tony, or to Miwok to pick up Little League tapes of Ben’s games,
or to Los Angeles to film Ben or Catherine. Catherine refused any contact, and
refused to allow the reporters to speak to Ben. Lee sent her crews to film and
interview Tony, and to Miwok to talk to coaches and parents. She got Gene and
Miriam to talk to parents who had videotaped Little League games into lending
their tapes to the TV crews to be copied for TV viewing. Lee couldn’t actually
pay for the tapes, but she sent new, top-of-the-line digital camcorders and
blank tapes as gifts to everyone who helped.

Finally, since shots of Catherine, Ben, and the
Durelle
estate in Beverly Hills were taken, Lee had the
network’s attorneys go over every camera shot and scripted word to be sure no
one was liable for a lawsuit. She was going to do this right--for everyone
else, if not herself.

It was ironic that she’d built a career on the image of
cool, classy intellect and geo-political sophistication. If Metcalf was right,
she was going to nosedive it with all-American nostalgia. Knives were out for
any new show, and this one was on the receiving end of constant
protological
examination. Strangely, that didn’t bother her
half as much as did her fear that her concept for the show might backfire on
Tony, or that he’d hate her for the realism with which she would be forced to
portray his attempt at getting back into baseball.

Although Tony was looking for a job coaching, the film
crew made tapes of him playing ball with the team as well as giving the players
direction. Watching Tony playing baseball with men who were, for the most part,
between nineteen and twenty-five, was painful. Watching it over and over in the
studio, analyzing his plays and emotional ups and downs as the game progressed,
hurt even more.

Through most of the game he played first base. The
remarkable agility and speed that made Tony Santos special before, when he
played shortstop and second
base,
were gone now. As
Lee watched a ball get past him "through the gap" between first and
second base and into the outfield, she knew that, in days past, Tony would have
fielded it. In the fifth inning he moved to right field. A ball was hit deep,
over his head, and although he ran back, gloved hand outstretched to catch the
ball, he couldn't quite reach it, and it landed at the foot of the fence for a
double. Lee's heart sank. She couldn't remember ever seeing a ball get past him
that way.

At the plate, he wasn't much better. He was seventh in the
line-up. Lee could tell, by his stance and swing, that he was one of the few
players never surprised by the pitch thrown. He could anticipate a curve, a
slider, a fastball; inside, outside, or straight down the middle--which would
make him an excellent coach. The one thing he couldn't do, though, was catch up
to a good fast ball. The opposing pitchers soon realized it was foolish to try
to finesse a pitch. They could simply blow a fast one down the middle of the
plate, and Tony Santos didn't have the bat speed anymore to get it out of foul
territory.

How much of this could she, or should she, show? To show
him playing the way she saw it, to show the misses and the slowness--even if
they helped get Ben back--might be devastating. She couldn't strip Tony of his
pride.

She began the film again,
steepled
her fingers and watched again. She could all but hear him railing against
himself, disgusted over what he'd surely say was a pathetic performance.

But it wasn't pathetic. It was noble. He was like a Roman
gladiator who'd aged and slowed and had fought and won too many great fights,
but wouldn't give up, even though he knew he wouldn't survive this last
challenge. His pride wouldn't let him give up,
nor his
beliefs, nor
his courage.

Courage...determination...spirit...in
the face of overwhelming odds.
Heroic.
That was
Tony. Yes! That was the man she'd portray in her film.

She leaned back in the chair, weary, but feeling a little
better, a bit more hopeful. She knew the tack she wanted to take. She only
hoped she had the ability, the pure talent, to weave the story and the emotion
together so that the viewer would understand and sympathize. With Tony, with
Ben, and yes, even with Catherine, the woman who decided, perhaps a bit too
late, that she did want to be a "mom."

Night after night, she stayed at the studio, working with
the tapes of Tony, as well as home videos of Little League games that parents
in Miwok had given her, and the footage that had been shot of Ben in Beverly
Hills. She edited the sound on tape, the B-roll of background scenery and
noise, then wrote a script and made a track of it.