“No.” His voice rose. “Come in and sit down.”
I entered, but didn’t sit. “I don’t know what could have happened. I’m so careful.”
“I know.” He closed the door and carefully lowered the blinds on his window looking out on the newsroom. He passed the row of muted TVs tuned to cable news and took a seat behind his desk. “How old are you?”
I hesitated. Trent and I were the same age, and it wasn’t fun to be reminded. “Thirty-one.”
He nodded. “And how long have you worked here?”
“Five years. Are you firing me?”
He gestured to one of the empty chairs in front of his desk. “Take your coat off and have a seat? We need to have a serious talk.”
I sat down without unzipping my jacket. I was sweating like a pig, but didn’t think flashing the Care Bears would help me hold on to my job. “Are you firing me?”
He shook his head. “Don’t be silly.”
“But last night you said . . .”
“Forget last night.” He picked up the latest management stress toy and squeezed the gooey ball. “You take better pictures and work more overtime than anybody else, but the last six months has been one disaster after another. You have to get your act together. I don’t care what it takes. Am I being clear?”
“Yes,” I said out of habit.
“Before Jake left, you were my best shooter and I hope you will be again.” Trent switched the ball to his other hand and leaned back in his chair. “You won’t, however, be our new chief photographer.”
My eyes whipped up from the floor, where they’d been appropriately downcast. “Chief photog? What are you talking about? You’re hiring from outside.”
“We’ve gotten by with a crew of six since Jake left. If we don’t hire a seventh shooter, we can pay for equipment upgrades with money saved on payroll. Before your recent problems, you were a leading contender.”
“But I could never replace Jake. Nobody here could.”
“I’ve already interviewed an internal candidate. He’s been here almost as long as you and wants more responsibility.”
My breath caught. Only one shooter fit that description. “Not David.”
“I’m waiting for approval from upstairs before I offer it to him.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Next to you he’s the best I’ve got, and people respect him.”
I stiffened. “Are you saying people don’t respect me?”
“Aside from your recent sloppy work—”
“I’m not sloppy. It’s been bad luck.”
“You have other issues too. The chief has to be someone the other photogs will listen to, someone who can coach them and referee disputes. David can do that.”
“There has to be someone else. What about that new guy on nights?”
Trent sprang forward. “He’s been here for three months and you don’t even know his name. Right there is half the reason you can’t be chief. You make no effort to have any kind of relationship with the other shooters. When your buddy Jake was here, it was okay, he smoothed the way, but now you have to get by on your own—and you’re doing a lousy job of it. Am I being clear?”
I shook my head. “I’m not running for Miss Congeniality and I never asked to be chief photog.”
“And that’s the other half. You’ve got no ambition. The minute Jake gave notice, you should have been beating down my door trying to get the job. You’ve been here longer than anybody else and you’re the best shooter.”
“What happened to nobody respecting me?” I yelled, not caring who heard.
“Respect is the other half.”
I jumped out of the chair. “That’s one hundred and fifty percent of why I can’t get a job I don’t want!” I stormed out and slammed the door behind me.
I took large, quick steps out of the newsroom. I walked straight to my van and ripped open the back door. My camera rested between two sandbags. I flipped it over. All my anger vanished. The camera was set to black. After staring at it for several moments, I flipped the switch back to normal.
I spent the next several hours posting video to the station website and editing tape off the national feeds. It allowed me to hide in an edit bay while being productive.
Eventually I heard the sliding-glass door open and looked up to see Marcie. “How was your show?” I asked.
“Fine.” She pointed to my feet and smiled. “No more blue bootees?”
“I keep an extra pair of boots in my locker.” Along with the station-logo shirt I was now wearing.
She paused. “You okay? About this morning?”
“Sure.”
“If you need to talk or something …”
“I’m good, but thanks for the offer.”
She nodded and slid the door back into place. Marcie was the closest thing I had to a friend and I should probably have confided in her. But talking about it was the last thing I wanted to do.
An hour later, one of Callum’s desk assistants banged on the glass and said they needed me. I finished the piece I was working on and left the safety of the edit bay. The newsroom was busy now. Most of the desks were taken and people were working. No one looked at me or acknowledged my early-morning disgrace, but they all knew.
At the assignment desk, one of the Wonder Twins stood next to a female reporter while the other one—I had no idea which was which—hung back watching.
They both chomped on cookies from Smith’s Bakery. The one in back saw me and held out the bag. My longing for one of the sun-shaped butter cookies, with yellow icing and a brown smiley face, reminded me that I’d skipped breakfast. But I shook my head and stepped up to the assignment desk.
“I thought we weren’t doing the sick kid’s stories anymore.” The other Wonder Twin spoke while still chewing. “The mom is, like, from hell, okay? I mean, I can get bossed at from my own mom. I don’t need it from her.”
The reporter rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter, Freddy. You’re coming with me to shoot my crime-on-the-rise package.” She glanced at her watch. “And we’re late for the first interview.” She grabbed Freddy by the arm and they exited.
Callum picked up a piece of paper and offered it to me. “And you get over to the ballpark. Shoot some B-roll and a couple sound bites.”
I took the paper. It was a press release from the local baseball team about their hosting a little sick kid. I glanced over my shoulder, then lowered my voice. “I’m shooting a puffy D-block feature story and Freddy is shooting the hard-news piece? Reporters would actually rather work with Freddy?”
Callum shuffled some papers and avoided looking at me. “What can I say?”
I threw the press release back on his desk and raised my voice. “I thought the little boy went into remission?”
Teddy, oblivious of the tension, stepped forward while brushing cookie crumbs off his shirt. “He did. This one’s the little blind girl. She’s way cuter.”
“The kid’s throwing out the first pitch at practice today,” Callum explained. “The team is making a donation so the kid can get …stuff that blind kids need. It’s going to be a ‘KJAY Cares’ piece.”
“If she’s blind, how’s she throwing out the first pitch?” I asked.
Callum raised his voice in frustration. “She’s not actually blind. She’s going blind.”
“But, like,” Teddy stammered, “she’s totally cute. The sugar-and-spice quotient is so ginormous, it makes up for her not being, like, you know, totally blind.”
“Get out of here, Teddy,” Callum ordered. “They want a live shot from the murder scene in the noon show. I already texted Valley Farm’s address to your cell phone. And I don’t want a repeat of this morning. Get me a good, clean signal.”
“Yes, sir.” Teddy exited.
Callum handed the baseball fax back to me. “If you get a chance out at the ballpark, there is something you can shoot for the crime-on-the-rise package.”
“What? Some kind of community outrage/reactio
n thing?”
“Not exactly. The package is about criminals using foreclosed or secluded properties without the owner’s permission—like the orchard last night. Ideally we’d have a sound bite from Valley Farms.” One of his phones started ringing and he reached for it, but didn’t answer. “But of course Valley Farms won’t comment because Leland Warner likes his privacy.”
Callum took an extra second to shake his head in disgust at people who like privacy, then answered the phone. “KJAY, we’re on your side.” He listened, then glanced at Trent working in his office. “Yes, he does. May I ask who’s calling?… How big is the leak?” Callum listened, then frowned. “I’ll tell him. . . . I’m sure he’ll come right home.”
Callum hung up the phone. I started to ask a question, but he cut me off. “So here’s the deal, Warner also owns the baseball team. While you’re there shooting the little sick kid, make sure you interview someone from management. The higher up the better. In the middle of all the ‘we love charity, we love kids,’ ask about the murder. Just get somebody from management to say crime is bad and they’re all upset it happened on company property, yada yada yada. It might earn you some goodwill around here.” Callum got up and started walking toward Trent’s office. “And get me a nice VO/SOT about the little sick kid. Make it heartwarming and here by noon.”
I turned off the road at Drillers’ Park—the home of the Bakersfield Drillers for the last sixty years. The modest ballpark has a large concrete grandstand with two smaller stands running down each baseline. An abundance of trees and shrubs around the structures, and the emptiness of the parking lot that day, made it look like an oasis in the center of an asphalt desert.
A few cars were parked near the entrance, and I recognized a Valsec Security car similar to the one at the orchard entrance. What I did not see were other news vans. This was bad for the little sick girl. At the height of tearjerkers’ celebrity, every news organization in Bakersfield would turn out to watch them pick their nose. Clearly this kid’s star was fading.
I sound cynical, I know. My first little sick kid died. The whole town went into mourning. Reporters walked around the newsroom crying. Hundreds of people, most of them strangers, turned out for the funeral. All that raw human emotion was genuine. I’ve never had the least doubt of that. But in the midst of all that genuine emotion people had time to primp for the cameras and angle themselves so they’d be in the background of my shots. The tears are always real and the grief is always real, but people want their tears and grief to be seen. They want to get credit for it.
I parked next to a giant inflatable Santa awkwardly placed near a palm tree and got out. The morning sun had chased off the last of the fog, but a chill still hung in the air. After double-checking every button, setting, and connection on my equipment, I locked the van and entered the ballpark through an unmanned turnstile.
I turned into the passageway leading to the field and passed a security guard. He wore the same tan uniform as the man I’d met at the orchard entrance, but was much younger. He saw my camera and smiled. “I’ll let them know you’re here.”
“Thanks.”
I continued and emerged in the stands on the third-base side. Even on that December day, with the grass brown and the temperature low, I felt a rush of nostalgia seeing the men warming up in the outfield. Our ballpark is authentic—the tickets are cheap, the mustard is bright yellow, and the field is close enough to see the players’ faces. When God created baseball, this is what he intended.
I quickly carried my gear down to the seats behind home plate where the sick girl’s mother stood videotaping the players in the field. Her daughter, in a sweet yellow dress, devoured an ice cream cone nearby.
“I don’t know if you remember me,” I said to the mother. “My name’s Lilly. I’m from KJAY.”
She put down the video camera. Her hot-pink Jackie O ensemble stood out against the blue stadium seats and complimented her platinum blond hair. “You came to our house when Stenson’s donated that wonderful new TV, right? So my baby could hear the special video descriptions.”
I glanced at the little sick girl. Her thick, black glasses, pink ribbons, and general aura of adorableness hadn’t changed. “That’s right. About two months ago.”
“I remember.” The woman folded up the video camera and placed it in her purse. “The new TV has been such a help.”
“That’s a nice-looking camera.”
“Isn’t it? The people at Camera Barn donated it.” She looked down at her daughter, then back up at me. “My baby’s touched so many people’s hearts.”
I started to ask how an expensive camera would help her daughter, but was interrupted by the arrival of two men.
“Howdy there,” the younger one said, and waved the cowboy hat he carried in his hand. He wore a dark brown suit with white piping around the edges, a gaudy bolo tie in the shape of a horse and rider, and a ridiculous belt buckle with the words REMEMBER THE ALAMO. Despite the good-old-boy greeting I hadn’t detected an accent.
The second man, about fifteen years his senior, followed in conventional slacks and dress shirt. I recognized him from previous shoots as the general manager of the team. I offered my hand to him. “I’m Lilly Hawkins from KJAY.”
The would-be cowboy intercepted me and vigorously shook my hand. “I’m Tom Sinclair, general manager of the Drillers.” He gestured dismissively to the other man. “And this is my assistant Bob.”
A ghost of a frown shot across Bob’s face.
Sinclair’s palm was damp and clammy so I tried to withdraw my hand. He responded by bringing his other hand up and locking me in. He made eye contact and leaned in. “The Drillers love the press. You guys at”—he looked at the logo on my camera—“you guys at KJAY are my favorite station. I watch you all the time.”
“That’s very kind, Mr. Sinclair.”
“Please call me Tom.”
I gave a strong tug and freed my hand. “So what’s the plan for today? This is only a training session, right?”
“That’s right. The league isn’t playing this time of year.” He gestured to the little girl. “This precious angel will throw out the first pitch and then we can move on to the important part of the story—the part where I make a generous donation to her care.”
“Do you mind if we go ahead and start.” I glanced at my watch. “I’m on a tight deadline.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for the other stations?” the mother asked. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence her perkiness faded. “Unless you don’t think they’re coming.”
“Sometimes signals get crossed,” I explained. “Stories fall through the cracks.”
Sinclair scanned the empty grandstands. “I thought some fans would come out today, but I can’t really blame them for not showing. The Drillers are boring.” He turned to me. “But that’s all going to change. I’ve been brought in as a fix-it man to get us back on track.”
Bob stared daggers at him, but remained silent.
“But it isn’t just today,” the mother said with growing outrage. “More and more, the press is ignoring my baby. The public must be so disappointed. My baby is in the hearts and prayers of the entire community.”
Sinclair ignored her and continued on his own topic. “I’m really going to shake things up around here and bring in a younger crowd.”
The mother jumped toward me. “I know! How about your station does a special just about my baby?”
“Let’s head down to the field.” I picked up my gear and didn’t wait for anyone to agree. I stepped onto the field and made a beeline for the players in the outfield.
Sinclair followed at my elbow. “We’re going to turn this place around. I’m putting in a sports bar and—”
“That’s just in the idea stage right now.” Bob rushed to my other elbow. “Please don’t put that on TV.”
“And we’re going to have a million-dollar raffle at the end of the season,” Sinclair continued. “The more games you attend, the more tim
es your name goes in the pot.”
Bob’s face turned red. “Oh, please don’t put that on TV. That’s really, really in the idea stage.”
The mother came from behind and pushed through the gap between Bob and my elbow. “Maybe the special could air after the news. It could be an hour of local interest.”
“Those time slots are spoken for,” I said. “We have contracts.”
Sinclair jumped out ahead and stepped in front of me. “The Drillers could sure use the media’s help getting the word out.”
The mother took my arm. “The community is desperate for news of my baby. She’s a precious part of Bakersfield that won’t be forgotten.”
As if a lightbulb turned on over our heads, we simultaneously turned around. The little sick girl stood where we’d left her, still eating her ice cream cone in the stands.
The mother laughed nervously before hurrying back for her daughter. “Baby. We’re throwing the ball now.”
Sinclair placed a clammy hand on my shoulder. “So anyway, I’d like to partner with the media and get the word out.”
I escaped his grasp by bending over to set down my equipment. “Which player is going to catch the girl’s throw? I should probably interview him.”
Sinclair and Bob exchanged nervous glances.
I took my first good look at the players. Suspicious strands of gray peeked out from under several Drillers caps, and some of the men sported unusually large guts. “Those don’t look like professional ballplayers.”
Sinclair passed his cowboy hat from one hand to the other, crushing it. “Sure they are.”
I looked at Bob. “What’s going on?”
Sinclair didn’t let him answer. “Okay, okay. You got me. It’s December and the team isn’t here.”
“Then who are those men?”
“Amateur enthusiasts,” Sinclair said proudly. “They play every week for their company softball team.”
I stared at him without speaking.
“This is the season of giving,” he continued. “It’s much more appropriate to do something like this now than in the middle of the summer.”
I still didn’t say anything.
Sinclair dropped his hat and his air of confidence. “Okay, okay. I thought we could do something nice for the kid and get the team some publicity. Is that so wrong?”
A Bad Day’s Work Page 4