Page 57 of Playing for Keeps

Henry nods. “Fine. We’ll see what Sarina can get from Fontanna.”

Snapping my eyes to his, I know it’s a calculated move, aimed at my jealousy nerve in a deadly strike. He’s on Twitter and Instagram and sees what’s going on. He hasn’t asked me about it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe the gossip. I’ve been careful at the studio and at the stadium, not like my normal self, frankly, but Henry’s a cagey guy.

In spite of the tremor quaking through me, making me want to scream, I remain calm and say nothing. I can warn Tate about Sarina, but I know he needs no warning, know he’s more immune to her charm and underdeveloped interviewing skills than anyone I’ve ever met.

“Knock yourself out, Sarina.” I walk out the door, taking everything with me.

* * *

It’s late,well past midnight and I’m still at the office. Still have everything with me at my desk. The entire paper file with source material and my notes, the zip drives and my tablet. I have everything there is on Tate and how he’s playing injured and why he’s driven, not just for the money. Closing the door behind me and locking it doesn’t make me feel any better. Because it’s all on the servers at the studio. Thank god I never put it in the cloud. We hardly kept anything proprietary in cloud storage mainly because of paranoia.

Pacing around the dimly lit office, not caring that it’s stifling hot, not caring that I’m still wearing heels and my feet are starting to get angry, I contemplate my options. I pull a red Twizzler from the jar on my desk and start chewing my dinner as I move.

Everything in the file reveals Tate’s story, gives the Perspective about why he plays even when he shouldn’t. I included his relationship with his uncle and the guilt over his death and how he feels his uncle should have been the one in the NFL. But his uncle Frank got hurt in college and when he was supposed to return for his senior year as the team’s star linebacker, he didn’t. Instead of rehabbing his injury and getting back into condition, he’d got hooked on drugs. Frank had been in and out of drug rehab since then for several years until Tate was in his sophomore year of high school.

Tate was going to quit football and his mother was worried about him, so she asked her brother to help. That’s when his uncle took over, made it his mission to see that Tate got where he should have been. Frank coached him through school, and worked with him to get into the best college, working with recruiters, sending out film, the whole works. He went to every game and helped Tate work out in the off season and then went to the draft combine with him and finally sat with him in the audience at the NFL draft, celebrated with him later—until he left to drive home, a long drive Tate knew he shouldn’t have taken.

It was my fault he got so involved in football again instead of finding another passion. I knew it gnawed at him, it had to. It was my fault he had so much to drink, my fault that he got in the car to drive when he shouldn’t have. My fault that he died.

Tate’s words haunt me like a bad ghost. I want no part of spreading that bad karma, or piling onto and exploiting those guilty feelings. It’s all wrong. Even if he’s over it, even if words can’t hurt him, it’s wrong. And I have a bad feeling that the story might still be able to wound him.

There’s also the fact that the story would hurt his contract negotiations and that makes me tighten the circle I’m pacing.

I have clips galore from news stations and photos from press clippings all through his youth, interviews of him with his uncle standing at his shoulder and his mom and dad in the background. I had it all, the whole story perspective about what made Tate Fontanna play, even when he was hurt. I even had information on the drugs he was taking, the painkillers that had been prescribed and the injections. I have the evidence proving Tate’s guilt, piles of spin for the show, proof that guilt is the driving force of Tate’s punishing success. Perspective?

Lies. Bullshit. A spin of poisonous webs leaving out anything good or sane to create the tragic story.

But I know Tate Fontanna is anything but a tragic story. He’s no more tragic than I am. Unless I let the station air this Perspective bullshit. Then I turn into a tragic loser who should be a decent broadcast sports journalist. Or hell, any kind of decent journalist or decent human being.

The file is large even compressed. I sit down in front of my computer, staring at the screen, staring at the paper file, the scattered thumb drives on my desk. It’s dark and everyone’s been gone for an hour.

My phone rings. It’s Sarina.

“Where’s the file, Chloe? I asked you to send me the whole thing today so I could work on the narrative. All I have so far is a skeleton outline and very few details and no images or video clips. I need this file tonight.”

“I know you do.”

“Where are you? At the studio? I’m coming in— “

“No. Don’t bother. I’m not sending the file. I’m not giving it to you.”

What the—why not? What’s going on? You can’t do this—I’ll give you credit.” She pauses and I let her go on, gather herself. “I’ll give you a guest spot, bring you in for a thirty second interview— “

Now I have mercy and stop her, “No, you don’t understand. I’m not blackmailing you for credit. I have no intentions of handing over the file to you or Henry. I won’t let it air.” There’s dead silence for a beat and then a scream.

“You have a job to do,” she yells into the phone, but I keep it to my ear to hear her hysteria, make sure I know, get the full picture of what I’m in for. “I’ll see you’re fired if you don’t— “She goes on, enraged, but I don’t blame her.

When she finishes, I laugh. “Don’t worry about getting me fired, Sarina. Because I’m giving my resignation. Tonight.” I hadn’t realized I would say this until I do. The weight of misery lifts, but it’s replaced with fear and the odd sensation of being untethered, floating with no direction. Who the hell am I if I’m not a sports broadcaster, a reporter, the daughter of Oscar the mouth Smith? His darling little girl Smitty?

You’re my little girl. I hear my mother and grandmother’s voices but it doesn’t comfort me. I want to be my father’s daughter. Of course, I still am, will still be a broadcaster and all those things I’ve dreamed of, worked for, strived to be—just like my father.

This is nothing but a hiccup along the way. He’d said the same words to me when he’d been fired once when I was nine. I didn’t know what it meant back then, to be fired, to have that rug pulled from under your life and your dreams, but I know now he must have been terrified and in true Oscar Smith form, he never let on.

Working quickly, I delete the files from my computer and the shared file system, wiping it clean because I know how. Dad had one of his IT friends tutor us in hiding the evidence a while back and I’ve kept up to date ever since, understanding the value in the ability to defeat forensic computer investigations and file recovery.

Knew I’d need it someday. Someday is today. Gathering up the files and flash drives, I grab my bag and sweep the rest of the paraphernalia on the desk that’s mine into it. Taking one last look around, I breathe in the air, push my eyes past the studio set to the exit where I head now. Hitting the stairs, I concentrate on the sound of my heels clicking as I make my escape.

Fully aware Henry could claim all the information I’d gathered belonged to the station because I was on the job, and that he could sue me and make life otherwise difficult, I can’t help the shaking of my hand as I grip the stair rail at the bottom and pause. It wouldn’t take long for Henry and Sarina and whoever my replacement is to piece the story back together and run the show and I can’t stop them from doing that. But fuck if I’m going to be part of it.