by Dana Black
She laughed. “We may get a vacation sooner than we expect. Today’s word is that if the ratings aren’t up there the first week, our whole crew may be flying home to look for new jobs.” Briefly she told him about her talk with Cantrell, UBC’s owner.
Keith emitted a low whistle. “Risky business you’ve got here,” he said. “Ever think of getting out?”
“Not on a night like this.” She smiled again, not wanting to break the mood with memories of other nights, or of the days when she had been happily out of television, the days when she had been a doctor’s wife with two small children and an apartment on Central Park West in Manhattan. Then she added, “Besides, Ross Cantrell’s really been good to us. Whatever comes, I’m sure he’ll make every effort to keep us here.”
“I hope he does. If the team bombs out and we get sent home early, you’re my only chance for a ticket to the finals.”
“You think it’s likely you’ll need it?”
“It’s hard to be truthful, when you want something so badly. Our kids have all the hustle, all the desire—but compared to the teams we’re going up against, they’re only kids. And the opposition isn’t exactly unmotivated. I figure to be catching a lot of shots.”
“C’mon, now. I saw the tape of your interview.” Sharon had watched the edited version going on to the master tape for tonight’s broadcast only a few minutes earlier. Dan Richards had been there to do the introductions and voice-overs. The work had seemed to take forever, so Sharon hadn’t reviewed the edited version of Dan’s Russian documentary, and neither had Dan. Cindy Ling and Wayne Taggart, however, had verified that all the required cuts had been made. Sharon added, “I thought our ‘kids’ were going to run the other teams into the ground.”
“I said they had a chance. Hell, I couldn’t go back to the team hotel tonight and look ’em in the eye if I’d said anything different. Besides, Americans expect you to hype the team. If I even hinted that we might lose, people would think we didn’t have a prayer. Nobody’d tune in, and your ratings would drop like a cement lifejacket.”
He said it with a smile, as though he didn’t for one moment think he had really influenced any future viewing patterns, but Sharon knew there was an element of truth to what he had said. Nobody wanted to watch a losing team; box-office figures and local-coverage ratings had proven that time and again. By the same token, Sharon thought with a feeling of discomfort, nobody wanted to watch a losing network. Those had been Wayne Taggart’s words tonight as they were taping.
He contended that by giving in to the Russians, UBC was starting off with a defeat; that the controversial documentary would have attracted new viewers to tomorrow’s show, while the edited, “milksop” version would be forgotten; that if Larry Noble had any sense, he would reverse Sharon’s decision while there was time to do it. If Sharon had not been on hand to defend her actions on grounds of journalistic accuracy, Larry would doubtless have made the change, and Sharon would have had some painful explanations to make to Yuri Zadiev.
The little cab had slowed after a right turn and was now stopping in front of the Palace. The hotel faced the still-illuminated Plaza de Cortes, matching the monumental pedestal of that Spanish hero with its own massive columns, a latter-day temple of opulence. Five white stars on a small blue shield beside the entrance indicated the hotel’s official government rating: the highest. In all of Spain, a country where tourists outnumbered the native population, and hotels were a major source of revenue, there were only a few comparable five-star hotels. One of them was the Ritz, the ornate, cathedral-like sister hotel of the Palace, visible across the open plaza.
“Cantrell stays here too, does he?” As they left the cab, Keith nodded toward a sleek black Rolls Cornische with an “RC” crest, parked discreetly around the corner from the entrance. The car had become a familiar fixture around Bernabeau stadium the last few days.
Sharon wondered briefly why the car was waiting outside instead of being garaged for the night. “He says he wouldn’t want us staying anywhere he wouldn’t like to be himself,” she replied. “At first I thought he just wanted to keep an eye on us, but now I think he really means it. I think he sees himself as a kind of father to the people who work for him.”
“Just so he doesn’t try to sit at the head of our table.”
Inside the hotel, the lobby area was quiet. The small shops that sold leather, chocolates, antiques, and other commodities to tempt the traveler were closed, darkened behind their illuminated window displays. Farther inside, lights still burned in the famous, glass-domed Great Hall, but the couches and chairs visible from the entrance were empty.
As they passed the desk, Sharon’s eyes automatically scanned the mail slots, where she saw three letters above her room number. Keith waited for her while the clerk handed them over, and explained that the forwarding postage due had been added to Sharon’s bill.
“Three of my babies,” she said, showing him the envelopes. “They write me once a month.”
The postmarks had been stamped in Venezuela, Mexico, and Chile. Keith looked at the labored, smudged handwriting on all three envelopes. “You’re supporting three foster children?”
“Sponsoring. It’s the easy way to have a family. I just send in my contributions and write back, and the agency people see that they’re fed and clothed and taught. I’ve been doing it since college.”
Again, not wanting to give the mood of the evening a serious turn, she did not mention what she could have told him: that there had been a period of four years—the time she had been married—when Sharon had sent letters and contributions for only two children, but that after the hit-and-run accident that had killed her husband and two little girls, the number had steadily increased. Now Sharon received two or three letters every day of the month. She mimeographed a monthly letter that she sent to each of the children, along with hastily written personal notes at the end. Seventy-four children, in thirty-two countries, and each time she saw one of the magazine ads that proclaimed, “. . . or you can turn the page,” she wanted to take on another.
A Manhattan psychiatrist had told her she was afraid to face the risk of taking on a new family of her own; she had stopped seeing him. It was her money, she felt, and if she didn’t give it to the children, it would only go to taxes and end up in a new bomber or some loafer’s welfare check.
She put the letters into her purse. “Let’s see if the grill’s open,” she said, changing the subject before Keith had time to ask any more questions.
The grill was closed, but room service was on duty day and night. Soon Keith and Sharon were in her room, with a bottle of Gonzales Jerez—the hotel wine captain’s favorite sherry— two hotel goblets, and a dinner ordered from the room-service menu on the way. The room was spacious and comfortable, overlooking the plaza, with large windows open to catch the night breeze.
Sharon poured the drinks, suddenly feeling that they could make love right here in this room, in the large double bed only a few feet away from where she stood, that it could happen not the next time, or the one after that, but tonight. Here in her room, Keith seemed even more masculine, more attractive, than before—and yet, paradoxically, he also seemed to radiate a softness, an understanding concern that put lovemaking in perspective, like a birthday gift that could be unwrapped some other time. She wondered if she was imagining things, if perhaps he was simply being polite and indifferent. But he was here, she reminded herself. If he wasn’t interested, he’d be somewhere else at 2:00 a.m. in a strange city.
She handed him his drink, hoping she didn’t seem nervous. “What made you get started in soccer?”
“Stickball,” he said without hesitation. “I put one through an apartment window one morning when I was about ten years old, and my dad made me knock on the tenant’s door and offer to replace the pane of glass myself. The tenant turned out to be an official in one of the Brooklyn men’s industrial soccer leagues, and after I got to know him, he found me a job with one of the teams as a water b
oy. They weren’t pros, but most of them had grown up playing the game in Europe. They taught me a lot.”
“You didn’t tell Rachel Quinn that.”
“She didn’t ask.” He raised his glass to Sharon. “Now let’s talk about how you got started in TV.”
“C’mon,” she said, “we’re not on the air. We don’t have to have equal time.” But he said no, he really wanted to know what got her started and what she thought of the business now that she was in it. He was looking around now for his next career, and some offers had been made by two of the networks, so he had a practical reason for asking. . . .
And inwardly he kicked himself for saying that, as though it weren’t enough of an important thing just to know about her, as though he planned to use her evaluations, translate them into numbers in a little black “career options” book, and total them up.
Sharon thought what the hell, she might just as well tell him the truth, so she took a deep breath and laid it all out. She started with the Gillette “Friday Night Fights”, which had been the high point of her grandfather’s week, especially after he became bedridden: she told about the “Camel Caravan” nightly news, with John Cameron Swayze, that her parents never missed; about the Wednesday nights when family troubles would be forgotten during an hour of “Disneyland.”
She had reached college still thinking television was magic, taken all the journalism and broadcasting courses her state university had to offer, and directed two student projects her senior year, one of which got an award from a New York State journalists’ association. One of the judges was a producer at WOR, a Manhattan independent TV station. Six years later, when she was a widow in Manhattan looking for a job, he remembered her well enough to take her on as a production assistant. She fetched coffee and cigarettes and typed and answered the phone . . .
“And after three years I felt I was qualified to move up,” she concluded. “It took me one year to find a producer who agreed with me.”
I didn’t know you’d been married, he wanted to say, but caught himself, because he didn’t want to bring up what must be a painful memory. He just wanted to savor this new thing he had learned about her: that she was the marrying kind.
Or had been, before she’d gotten so wrapped up in her work.
“What happened to the guy who hired you?” he asked. “Didn’t he want to move you up for promotion?”
She shook her head. “He took medical retirement three months after I started work. Not because of me, I hasten to add. A long-standing battle with ulcers.”
“And you still think it’s magic?”
“Yep. Only I’m looking at it from the magician’s point of view, where the work is. Out there in the audience, I know there are still people like Grandpa, waiting for the time to pass till they can tune in to their favorite show.”
“You don’t think they pass too much of that time in front of the TV, watching crap?”
Her chin came up. “I think people can make up their own minds and set their own limits on TV. We don’t have limits on radio, magazines, newspapers, or library books, do we? And what seems like junk viewing to me might be your favorite light entertainment—”
“Hold it,” he said, laughing. “I’m not the FCC or the CIA or anybody—I just want to know how you feel about the business you’re in.”
“I guess I’m thin-skinned,” she admitted. “I get tired of reading all the criticism. Sure, we’re boring to some and we can be misused, just like Cokes and Hershey bars can make you fat and sick. But if we weren’t doing something right, people around the world wouldn’t be watching American TV more than they watch their own programming. That’s a fact most people don’t realize, but it happens to be true.”
Dinner came: thin, dark red slices of sun-cured mountain ham, jamon serrano, with a rich Spanish omelette and—since Keith was more or less in training—mugs of leche caliente, hot sweetened milk. As they ate, Sharon wondered if she had sounded foolishly one-sided in defending television. So she talked of some of the problems Keith might encounter if he chose to enter the field: union walkouts, personality conflicts, survival by ratings and marketing studies.
“I’m sure all that’s true,” he said when she had finished, “but the same things apply in any other business that sells a product to the public, don’t they?” And watching her nod in agreement and sip delicately at her milk, watching the smooth, controlled way she moved her hands, the changing surfaces of her bared neck and throat, he thought, She’s happy enough without you.
Suppose he did fall in love with her, marry her, get a job in TV, or just tend to his own investments—would she want to stop traveling and stay home for him? Or would he tag along, idling away hour waiting for her to finish work, falling asleep on her sofa or watching TV in her hotel room? She seemed to him suddenly a separate world, sufficient unto herself, almost as though she were another man’s wife. Which she had been, he reminded himself. He glanced around the room, momentarily expecting to see pictures of the lost family, but there were none. Except for a miniature TV-clock-radio on the table beside the bed, and a small gold statuette on the dressing table, the room might have been vacant.
“What’s the statue?”
She smiled. “That’s my unofficial Emmy. From Larry. If you look up close, you can see it’s got a little purple heart.”
Married to her work, he thought. The digital readout on her bedside TV clock said 2:45. “I’d better let you get some sleep,” he said, and pushed his chair back from the room-service table cart. “Next time, maybe I can take you out and catch some of the local color. I’m told the flamenco shows here in Madrid are really worth staying up for.”
He doesn’t want to stay, she thought, and had a moment of self-pitying loneliness before she realized the impression she must have given him. Dummy, she thought, you’ve been talking to him as if you were at an on-campus recruiting program. Talking work so you wouldn’t discover anything you might be afraid to lose.
She was on her feet too, walking with him to the door. What was about to happen was so clear in her mind that she could almost see it: the smiles of thanks for the dinner and his doing the interview, the light, almost-chaste kiss, the “sometime real soon,” the door closing and her alone with Larry’s Emmy and her two TVs and the wake-up call at six-thirty from the Spanish switchboard operator to look forward to. How many times before had she done the same thing? Four times in New York with Keith, and before that, during the six years with others she could scarcely remember, how many promises of “sometime real soon”?
She linked her arm with his and stopped walking. He turned, momentarily off balance, his dark eyes surprised, his face almost touching hers.
Then she kissed him.
So what if I fall in love, he thought, and drew her close.
When Sharon awoke sometime later, Keith was asleep beside her and the room was cold. The breeze snapped the curtains; the air smelled like rain. She got up to close the window. Hello, world, she thought, looking down four stories at the still-illuminated plaza and Ross Cantrell’s limousine. Hello, world, I’m back.
She was closing the window when she noticed that now Cantrell’s limousine had its uniformed chauffeur standing beside the passenger door. She looked at her clock: nearly four-thirty. Didn’t Ross Cantrell ever sleep?
Then she saw the explanation, and smiled to herself. A tall, statuesque brunette in evening dress, visible only for a moment, crossed the sidewalk in a few quick steps to the door the chauffeur had instantly opened. So Ross Cantrell is human too, Sharon thought. She watched the Rolls glide away from the curb.
PART TWO
June 14-25
1
Alone in the soft double bed of his hotel room, UBC producer Larry Noble woke at just after half-past five with the feeling that something was wrong.
Automatically he sat up in bed and reached for the cigarette pack he kept on the bedside table with what he called his waking-and-sleeping paraphernalia, the little collection he car
ried around from one sports event to another, from one hotel room to the next. The pocket lighter, gold-plated, a gift from his wife the Christmas before she died; the wide glass ashtray that each morning he lifted from its leather-covered stand and took with him into the bathroom to empty; the miniaturized Sony TV and digital clock radio like the one he had given Sharon; the box of cherries in cognac, covered in bittersweet chocolate shells.
Now that he was sleeping alone, Larry liked to munch on cherry cordials at bedtime and then, again, before getting up. The cognac, he had explained to Sharon as they went through Spanish customs together, helped him to unwind at night, and the caffeine and sugar in the chocolate helped him to get started in the morning. She had looked at his one-month supply—twenty-five boxes, each with a dozen cordials—and scolded him properly: his weight, his sweet tooth, his smoking. . . . He took the chiding as he took everything else, showing only an outward serenity.
The clock said it was thirty-three and a half minutes past five. In New York the eleven o’clock news would be over, in Los Angeles it would be 8:33, and the UBC broadcast would still have twenty-seven minutes to run. Larry blinked at the clock as he lit his first cigarette of the day, searching his memory of last evening for a clue as to what was bothering him. As he put the lighter back on the table, he felt a twinge of pain in his left arm; as he plucked two cherry cordials from the box, he felt another. He popped both cordials into his mouth, savoring the warmth of the cognac.
It couldn’t be that he was late for work, he thought, though that was how he felt—as though he had overslept and missed something urgently important. Yet he was not due at the stadium until well past noon. Sharon was handling the morning: the taping of the American practice session, the evaluation of the replacement cameraman, the sideline interviews with the players. When Larry came in, there would be the program conference for tonight’s broadcast; the scramble to tape the highlights of the afternoon games from Zarragoza and Oviedo; then, later, the same scramble for the night contests from Valencia and Gijon. Four important teams in those four games: France, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina, all strong contenders.