Be the One

by April Smith

  Nora checked a gold watch with heavy overlapping links.

  “At the beach, naturally. He’s got my daughter, Sophie, and we have to make a plane.”

  She had begun to gather up the money on the game table.

  Cassidy asked, “How do you two know each other?”

  “Luis owns a taxi and messenger company.”

  “Oh right,” said Cassidy, putting it together. “Your nephew told me that he also drives for the big hotels.”

  “Everyone is in a panic to get out because of Hurricane Gordon,” Nora was going on. “Yesterday we were booked. Today you could shoot a cannon through this place. Luis had to come up with an entire fleet—”

  “Even one ambulance!”

  “—Some very funky,” Nora agreed, patting his wrist in a familiar way. “To get our guests to the airport.”

  “Monroe right now is driving to the airport, a hundred times, back and forth like a cockroach!”

  Cassidy appreciated the image.

  “We were thrilled Luis could help out.”

  “Always a privilege, Señorita Galinis.”

  They climbed the black-carpeted stairs and exited the casino, exchanging frigid darkness for savagely dense humidity. The General shook their hands in turn, nodded respectfully, and left. No erections, Cassidy noted. This was business.

  Cassidy and Nora had climbed into a golf cart parked in a tiled courtyard. As Nora twisted the key and stepped on the pedal Cassidy could not help watching her feet in black patent leather sandals with tiny white daisies stitched along the straps. She had never seen such refined feet, long and white with square scarlet toenails, soft as a pair of snowy ermine. By the time Cassidy’s feet come out of sweat socks and athletic shoes they look like crumpled paper cups.

  “I do not manage the hotel,” Nora was quick to clarify in a markedly less cordial tone, swinging the golf cart onto a service road. In the daylight her face had looked fresh as a high school kid’s. “I am not the person who puts a Godiva chocolate on your pillow.”

  Cassidy was thinking it would have been really great if she had been wearing her bimbo cap. It is pink and in sequined silver letters it says B-I-M-B-O. Too bad she left it home.

  “I’m vice president of the resort corporation but”—jabbing at the air like a politician—“I have an M.B.A. from Harvard!” Nora laughed, then kept talking. “I have to say that or you’d think it’s nepotism. Although most people would not identify my father with the Gran Caribe.”

  “I thought he ran the place.”

  “That would drive him nuts. He has no patience for the petty day-to-day. He’s always been like that. He wasn’t the kind of father who would sit on the floor and play games. He’d take me to a construction site and let me drive a bulldozer, or to his office and show me reports and memos that were way over my head, and explain what was going on. His big thing was, ‘Always look at the big picture.’ His office was up on the twenty-third floor. I’d look at the view from the window. It was big. No, no,” she said, her hair in a snarl from the wind, “once my dad puts a deal together, it’s on to the next. He’s a visionary, really.”

  As they skirted the complex through low-lying gardens she pointed out oranges, tangerines, tamarind, yucca, casaba, string beans and a saffron tree loaded with red pods.

  “It was funny. We had to promise the environmentalists the Gran Caribe would be self-sustaining. What do they think? Please. We still have to get foie gras from somewhere.”

  Cassidy once knew a girl like Nora Galinis, her roommate freshman year at UCLA. Cassidy had been on full athletic scholarship, playing shortstop for the Bruins and training for the 1984 Olympics; Andie Bigelow was Connecticut money, not deigning to date Jewish men because “yid boys are all short.” Mysterious and intimidating, Andie shopped at Saks and had her nails done—stuff Cassidy dismissed as for old ladies—and kept her distance, undoubtedly afraid the she-jock was a lesbian. After one semester Andie moved to an apartment in Beverly Hills, where, it was rumored, she was kept by an Iranian jeweler.

  Nora, too, wore the brittle gloss of a much older woman (she couldn’t have been more than twenty-eight), prematurely trapped in an aging woman’s fears—dark hair deftly highlighted with auburn, thin angular shoulders and narrow hips inside a little white suit with a fitted jacket woven in a provincial floral like a fancy tablecloth. But the suit, for all its deftness, hung off an undeveloped frame, and Nora Galinis, a Greek princess living on who knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, looked as if she were starving.

  “They gave us a hard time—”

  “The environmental people?”

  “The government. The politicians. My dad won.” Nora shook her hair until the wind and forward motion tangled it up in her face. “Nobody beats my dad. He’s the smartest, most competitive man in the world. When he wants something he locks on like a low-flying missile and nothing stops him, trust me—”

  “I believe it—” Cassidy began, but her voice became lost in the roar of the ocean as they suddenly crested a hill and stopped beside another golf cart on a bluff overlooking the beach, a wide crescent of black sand between huge dramatic formations of dark charcoal lava boulders. On a calm day it would have been an enchanted hideaway, but then, before the storm, the black cove seemed a cauldron of tempestuous power.

  Below them the Caribbean Sea, mad luminescent green, was throwing twenty-foot swells against the black rock towers, spraying fine shimmery mist through sea grape and wild sage. One lone pelican was gliding across acres of multilayered inky cloud through which the sun presented its last pale yellow rays, aimed, it seemed, at two figures weaving just as madly through the foamy shallows—Joe Galinis dribbling a soccer ball with his five-year-old granddaughter against a surf slope of molten gold.

  He must have been one hell of a soccer player, she remembers thinking, in control, graceful as a dancer, he trapped it, floated above, teased with a fusillade of naked feet, then popped it off the instep high into the air as Sophie shrieked with laughter. All of this bare-chested, a shining compact competent torso, strong good arms extended, linen trousers soaked to the knees while the child raced around him, sprite’s body corkscrewing with joy, hurling herself with great crescendo into the obsidian mud.

  Cassidy followed Nora down a trail to the beach. The little girl abandoned Joe and ran toward her mother, who held her at arm’s length until a middle-aged nanny, who had been sitting on a blanket, came to wrap her in a towel.

  “I booked us on the last flight out,” Nora told her father. “It wasn’t easy.”

  “Can I wear my sparkle shoes on the plane?” Sophie wanted to know.

  “Yes. Get her out of that wet suit.”

  “Will do,” sang the nanny, English, wearing an awful caftan.

  Joe shrugged into a shirt and smoothed his hair.

  “You’ve met?”

  “We’ve met,” Nora answered bluntly.

  “Are you leaving, too?” he asked Cassidy.

  “I can’t. I’ve got to finesse a visa for Alberto Cruz. In fact I need your help.”

  “We’ll drive to the capital tomorrow.”

  “Dad, it’s crazy to stay. We’re supposed to get hundred-mile-per-hour winds.”

  “Propaganda,” said Joe. “We’ll only see the tail end of it.”

  “Cassidy could fly out with us. I can scrounge another ticket—”

  “I appreciate that,” said Cassidy. “But—”

  “—Hard to leave paradise,” Joe finished.

  Nora looked back and forth between them, realizing her calculations had been flawless.

  “Enjoy,” she said at last, removing the sunglasses in the silvery dusk.

  Her large dark eyes were full of pain.

  “Watch out for my father,” she had added with attempted nonchalance. “He won’t always let you win.”

  The enchantment of seeing him from the bluff in the cove with Sophie made the earth seem to fall away from under her feet. Giddy, she was abo
ut to call out over the wind, I’m in love!—maybe he would have looked up and their eyes might have met, and everything might have been different.

  But she had not called out, and suddenly it seems urgent to remember why—as Edith, having waited in the usual spot for Cassidy’s return, streaks toward her, barking and getting tangled up in her legs—and her ability to recall brings it back with clarity: Nora, it was Nora who somehow got in the way, so the dreamy possibilities of calling down to Joe had snapped with a sudden shift in perspective, like coming out of this lung-busting oxygen-deprived overdrive to discover the Laguna lifeguard tower, a moment ago a matchstick in the haze, is suddenly here—big and round and present in all its dimension, like the raw ache pounding undeniably in her smashed bones.

  19

  Cassidy arrives for the 9 a.m. western regional meeting in the director’s room at Dodger Stadium fifteen minutes early. Most of the other scouts have been there since eight, accustomed to getting to the field well before the game.

  They fill the awkward spaces around the oak conference desk with a heavy-footed male presence like a pack of steers herded together, hindquarters nervously backing into each other. Computer cases and overnight bags are strewn around. Two fans keep the air moving in the windowless room.

  Dulce bustles in with a fresh pot of coffee.

  “¿Cómo está, Señora?” Cassidy inquires cordially.

  “I’m fine,” Dulce replies sharply in English, cutting off the possibility of bridging the cultural thing that still divides them.

  Just for that, Cassidy chooses not to help her with the string on the pink jumbo-size bakery box, although the Swiss Army knife in her backpack would have sliced right through that baby. Anyway, she thinks, standing back with the men while Dulce reaches into the box and draws out one sweet roll at a time, carefully holding each underneath by its paper, setting out the pastries is a devalued feminine task that she should take pains not to be associated with in this room.

  Travis reaches past with a whiff of woodsy deodorant.

  “For you.” He picks a donut. “Cream in the middle.”

  “Aren’t you nice,” says Cassidy, ignoring it.

  “What happened to your wrist?”

  “Busted it Rollerblading.”

  “Never heard of wrist guards?”

  “I’ve heard of them.”

  She smiles pleasantly. It throws him.

  “So,” says Travis. “How many cards did you ultimately manage to get up there?”

  A large white board is divided into columns headed RHP, LHP, 1B, 2B, 3B, C, SS, LF, CF, RF. Beneath each position the names of the top prospects are posted on over two hundred color-coded magnetic tiles, gold meaning first-round picks, blue second, on to green and gray. Even having made it this far is no guarantee: every player on the board now faces one-in-thirty odds of ever playing in the bigs.

  “I’ve got a bunch of greens and gray and three blues, but Parker is the guy I really want.”

  Travis’s narrow eyes seem complacent.

  “You like Parker as much as you like Cruz?” he asks.

  “With Cruz you’re talking phenom.”

  “Aren’t you Miss Confidence?”

  “He made Double A, he’s in San Antonio, didn’t you hear?”

  “I also heard he’s having health problems.”

  “Oh, you mean that stomach flu—?”

  “No. Something else. Hey, Raymond. What’s the deal with Cruz? What’s he got, some stomach condition—”

  “They don’t know,” Raymond replies. “Still doing tests. My guess, it’s psychological. Adjustment problems. Are we ready to start?”

  Cassidy sits down uneasily. Okay, it’s not CF like her brother had, but it’s also not impossible that Alberto’s body’s tripping him up, causing him to fail. She wouldn’t wonder if she hadn’t seen him play, but the distraction she saw on the field, the histrionic exit from the restaurant, seem to fit the picture of a young man who has made a serious mistake; who could perhaps bury it in his heart and in his mind, but whose body would behave according to the guilty truth. The body, Cassidy has learned, never lies.

  She finds herself next to old-timer Skip O’Donnell—white hair, glasses, white shirt over a potbelly—who ignores her, complaining as usual.

  “I took the kid off the list, he lied about his age.”

  “How did he think he could get away with that?”

  “Thought I’d never ask to see his birth certificate! Well, he sees everyone else lie, cheat and steal.” Big sigh. “Baseball’s gone to hell in a hand-basket.”

  “It’s war,” says B. J. Backer without looking up from a laptop.

  “It’s a slaughter,” agrees Skip.

  Cassidy takes out her notes, places the knapsack at her feet. She keeps her left hand, in the wrist brace, in her lap. She is wearing loafers instead of Jack Purcells, a light tweed jacket to go with the khakis, a velvet headband in blow-dried straight hair and Nora’s silver bracelet. The rest of the guys, in short-sleeved knit shirts mainly blue or beige, jeans, cowboy boots, buzz cuts, could be a bunch of burly in-shape firemen or telephone repairmen, except if you noticed the weighty World Championship pendants and rings.

  For them the regional meeting is a milestone in the year, a hassle, a stress, a hot lunch.

  For Cassidy, every moment on the job is life-or-death.

  At ten past nine Raymond closes the door.

  “When you go over a player, stick to his tools, intelligence, does he want to go out and play. When you discuss signability, don’t tell everyone what a pain in the ass his father is and whatnot—do you have a good feeling about the parents, can you trust these people? Is there a medical condition, is there an agent? Above all, what is your gut feeling? Be thorough with your comments but stay to the point. Everything we discuss in here stays here.”

  Randy Elkins, based in Seattle, a soft-handshake feet-on-the-ground type father of three, starts it off with a gold card right-hander. No argument here. Every club in America wants this kid.

  “Big strong guy with thick thighs, got a chance to have a plus-plus fastball. Best thing about him is his arm action,” says Randy. “I don’t think he has any idea what is going to happen to him. To me he’s a solid first-round guy, I can’t say enough good things about him.”

  Raymond asks, “Is there school in the picture?”

  “Washington State, fifty percent ride.”

  They go on a bit, then Raymond cuts it off. Logged in. Next.

  Patrick Herald, kind of a noir mystery, black hair slicked back and pockmarked cheeks, takes the second gold card, a pitcher from Baldwin Park.

  “This kid had arm surgery but solid number one stuff, 91 and 94 on the jugs, power curveball, aggressive on the mound, not a great body, somewhat fleshy, I’m not sure he’s a great athlete, but boy, he had some kind of good stuff for four and a third innings. He’s going to have an agent and he’s going to be a first-rounder. I don’t think he’ll be there for us in the second round …”

  Cassidy tries to focus on Roy Campanella’s jersey in a Plexiglas box on the wall. They are getting through the gold cards quickly: thirty-five blues until Parker. It will be afternoon before they get to greens and grays. The scouting staff has been seated twenty minutes and already there is a lot of leg shaking and toe tapping and chairs bobbing up and down. This is not a group that likes to stay indoors on a sunny day.

  At ten fifty-five Raymond interrupts. “I’ve got to take a lunch order. Pork chops, halibut, Cobb salad, mixed fruit salad. How many for pork chops?”

  At eleven-thirty, to raised eyebrows and head shakes, Skip O’Donnell changes his mind and disqualifies one of his own picks:

  “He puts you to sleep, this guy, but every once in a while he’ll wake you up with some power. I never did like this guy, he’s a dead guy for me.”

  Raymond: “You don’t want him?”

  Skip: “He’s not much of a competitor. There’s something there but I’m not going to fight for th
e guy. He’s played like he’s got mono all year.”

  Bubble gum is being passed along the back row, everyone absorbed in reading the fortunes. Cassidy leans forward. Thirteen cards until Parker. Her stomach is tight. She counters with a deep breath for relaxation, narrowing the focus: internal, rehearsing the speech. The door opens and Dulce slips in, giving a folded yellow sheet to Randy, who is sitting closest, whispering to him to pass it on. When the note reaches Cassidy she is shaken to discover it has her name on it.

  Cassidy reads the message and looks up, dumbfounded, but Dulce has already withdrawn.

  Whatever calm she has achieved ignites into four-alarm panic. But she is forced to wait while Raymond methodically grills B.J. about a shortstop whose dad is ambivalent about the Dodgers because “he doesn’t want the boy to play in the smog.”

  “Let’s start over,” Raymond is saying. “Tell me if you want the guy or not, B.J.”

  “That’s a hard one.”

  “Would you take him in the seventh round?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  “How much is he worth to you?”

  B.J. chews his gum. “Thirty or forty.”

  “Fine.”

  Cassidy raises her hand.

  “Raymond, sorry, security needs me to take care of something, could we jump ahead—”

  “If nobody has any objections.”

  Which is a way of saying everybody probably has. But they all keep doing what they’re doing.

  Raymond shifts impatiently on his feet. “Okay, let’s go to your top guy.”

  “Parker,” Cassidy says, pointing.

  “Do it.”

  Travis sits up. She doesn’t like it, going on with a tight gut, head full of snow.

  “This is the guy I really want. I liked him early. He didn’t show everything you want to see in the beginning but he’s come a long way.” She can tell she is going too fast. “Good pitcher’s frame, loose, has a quick arm, some deception to the hitter. Throws across his body a little bit. You talk about projecting a player, this guy is starting to put it all together. I think he’s got a chance for a good breaking ball. Good mound presence. Confdent.”