“I bet you’d look good in that,” Caryn weighed in.
“He might, but that’s not the image we want for him right now,” Rita said.
I stood up, turned around, and pointed at my behind.
“Do these pants make my butt look fat?” I simpered.
“Shut up. You look fine,” Halle said.
“No, I think he has a point. His butt does look fat,” Caryn teased.
“Rosy, does my butt look fat?” I called across the kitchen.
“No speak English,” she called back.
I narrowed my eyes at all the women in the room who thought my butt looked fat and stomped off.
◊◊◊
Fritz pulled the SUV into a facility that reminded me of STIC in Chicago. Pro Baseball Instruction (PBI) was geared only for baseball, though, while STIC catered to all athletes. Fritz and I walked into a modern lobby and stepped up to the reception desk where a pretty girl greeted us.
“How may I assist you gentlemen?”
“David Dawson; I have an appointment with a hitting coach,” I said.
She checked her computer.
“Ah, yes. I see this is your first time with us,” the receptionist said. She pulled out a map of the facilities and put it on the counter. “The locker room is here, and you’re in Batting Area One. You’ll be working with Juan Revilla. From what I’ve heard, he’s one of the best in the business.”
“What do you mean?” Fritz asked.
“Juan isn’t really one of our coaches. He took some time off because some of his players live out here and he comes in to coach them during the off-season. Juan’s the hitting coach for the Chicago Cubs,” she said.
I must have gone into shock because Fritz had to grab my arm and start to guide me to the locker room. I’d have to call Tami; she’d be sooooo jealous. After I quickly changed, we walked over to Batting Area One. A man who was in his mid-20s was there taking cuts with an older guy watching.
“Tony, just concentrate on the basics. Remember the five steps I taught you,” Coach Revilla said. “I’ve got a new student today. Go work on what we talked about, and I’ll see you this afternoon.”
“Sure thing, Coach,” the man said, and gathered his gear and left.
“You must be David,” Coach Revilla said.
“Yes, sir.”
“They tell me you’re a pretty good athlete, but need to act like a hitter for a movie,” he said. He didn’t give me a chance to tell him otherwise, just kept going. “Why don’t we have you get into the batter’s box? There’s no better way to learn than doing.”
I’m not sure what I expected, but complete silence wasn’t it. For the first few minutes, I was nervous, and since I hadn’t swung a bat in several months, I was rusty. Then I gradually felt better, and it showed in my results. I felt like I was hitting the ball well when he had me stop.
“You play some ball?” Coach Revilla asked.
“Little League and some high school ball.”
“You have the problem I see most often in young players. The conventional wisdom is that you need backspin on the ball to hit for power. Hence, you need to chop down on the ball to get that spin. The only problem with that is most elite hitters don’t hit that way,” he said.
I guess my confusion showed.
“Here’s the issue. Backspin does, in fact, cause the ball to fly farther. If you want the entire scientific reason, you can Google it. Physics tells us that air resistance and the spin of the baseball have an effect on the baseball’s trajectory. It’s called the Magnus effect, and it’s the reason that a pitcher can throw sinkers, sliders, and curveballs. It’s the same with batting. If you use the chopping method to hit the ball farther, you have to be perfect every time. If you don’t hit it right, you clip it. It’s on the ground, or it’s a foul out, or it’s a backspin fly ball that goes nowhere.
“The opposite is topspin. That will cause the ball to be hit into the ground,” he explained.
“So, what is the best way to hit the ball?” I asked.
“A level, slightly uppercut swing path is most desirable. To do that, you need to have good mechanics. A natural byproduct of good mechanics is solid contact, and you’ll achieve backspin.”
Coach Revilla pulled out a batting tee.
“A pitch is going to have a natural downward arc to the ball as it comes to the plate. Your goal is to hit the bottom half of the ball with a very slight upward cut,” he coached as he put the first ball on the tee.
I hadn’t hit off a tee since I was little. Coach Revilla quickly showed me that I’d been foolish in disregarding this tool. He explained that he wasn’t going to change how I hit, just make sure I did all the things a good hitter would do.
By the end of my time, I could already tell the difference in my hitting. Coach Revilla suggested that I practice with a tee and a net. That way, I could do it almost anywhere. On the way to the set, Fritz took me to a sporting-goods store, and I bought everything I needed. I wanted to be ready for our next session on Friday.
◊◊◊
Between scenes, I did interviews with TV Guide and Eonline.com, an entertainment news website. Frank had contacted Caryn to let her know that I needed to call him as soon as possible.
“Did you have sex on screen?” he asked without preamble.
“You want the honest answer?”
“That’s how this works.”
“The short answer is ‘yes,’” I admitted.
“Have you seen the dailies? Is it graphic, or could it be misinterpreted?”
“You want me to have Rita show them to you?”
“I think you’d better. I need to see what we’re dealing with,” Frank said.
“Why is this such a big deal? Jessup and Rita both seemed okay with it,” I said.
“Our message has been ‘All-American Boy.’ Having sex on set is not consistent with our message. Rumors have started to slip out about what happened, and I need to construct the narrative we want the public to hear. To do that, I need to know exactly what happened.”
“So this is bad?” I asked.
He chuckled.
“Not necessarily. You being a bit of a bad boy isn’t the end of the world,” he said, and then paused. “Hear me, I said a bit. Try not to do anything like the cops pulling you over with a dead hooker in the trunk in the next few weeks, and we should be good.”
I felt better. Surely, if we ended up with a dead hooker, Fritz would know what to do with the body. Maybe I should ask him, to be certain. I didn’t want Frank to worry.
◊◊◊
At the end of the day, Frank showed up with one of his people. We’d arranged to view the dailies with Leah, her publicist, and her manager. Rita and Jessup were also there. We all met in my trailer, so I had Caryn make sure there were drinks and appetizers for our little party. It was amazing what you could get at a movie studio.
“Let me hook up to the TV so we can watch the raw footage,” Rita said.
They ran through the scene for everyone to watch. I was surprised to find myself a little embarrassed. I wasn’t ordinarily body-shy, and certainly wasn’t ashamed about what I’d done with Leah; in fact, I hoped for an encore. I finally figured out it was because Rita and Caryn were watching it. I suspect I would’ve had the same uneasy feeling if my mom was in the room, even though we were open about this sort of stuff.
“As you can see, they really were doing it,” Jessup said. “There are a couple of spots where we’ll need to do a little work to conceal their naughty bits. The good news is the studio is actually excited about it and would like to use this as a teaser to sell tickets. While they’re not Disney, where this would be frowned upon, they don’t want to go over the top, either.”
“What do you think?” I asked Leah.
This would most likely affect her more than me. Women seemed to get the short end of the stick on anything involving sex.