Chapter 29: Damn, David!

Wednesday December 2

At breakfast, Caryn had copies of all the magazines that I’d done interviews with.

“I checked, and what made it to print was what they sent over. Frank has some more requests he wants you to do. The news of the changes in the film is making the rounds, and they want your comment about stepping in at the last minute. Frank emailed you talking points.”

“Okay, just send me what time,” I said.

“Already on your calendar.”

“Thanks.”

“Also, they had a cancelation for your hitting coach, so you can start today,” Caryn said.

Rita and Halle joined us for breakfast.

“I didn’t think I’d get to do that, with the change in my role,” I said.

“I thought you might enjoy it, so I left it in your new contract,” Rita said.

“I appreciate that.”

“Trip wants you to stop by the beach house this evening. He said Craig Wild is coming by and would like to see you,” Halle said.

I turned an enquiring eye on Halle.

“You wouldn’t know where my jeans went, would you?” I asked.

“I didn’t pack those,” she said defiantly. “I thought we agreed that you weren’t going out in public looking like a farm boy.”

“Blue jeans don’t make me look like a farm boy. If I wanted to look like that, I’d get out my work boots, John Deere hat and shit-kicker t-shirt.”

“I bet you’d look good in that,” Caryn weighed in.

“He might, but we don’t need him to look the part right now,” Rita said.

I stood up, turned around and pointed at my butt.

“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 into a nice 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 went 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,” she said as she pulled up 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 Rusty Camarillo. From what I’ve heard he’s one of the best in the business.”

“What do you mean?” Fritz asked.

“Rusty 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. Rusty’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. I quickly changed and we went to batting area one. I saw a man who was in his mid-20’s taking cuts with an older guy watching.

“Tony, just concentrate on the basics. Remember the five steps I taught you,” Coach Camarillo 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 Camarillo said.

“Yes, sir.”

“They tell me you’re a pretty good athlete, but need to look like a hitter for a movie,” he said, and didn’t give me a chance to tell him otherwise. “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 Camarillo asked.

“Little League and some high school ball.”

“You have the most common problem I see 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 players don’t hit that way,” he said.

I looked confused.

“Here’s the problem. It’s true that backspin causes the ball to fly further. 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 further, 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 backspun 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 Camarillo 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 Camarillo 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 a difference. He 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,” he 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 little bit of a Bad Boy isn’t the end of the world,” he said, and then paused. “Hear me, I said a little 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. I was sure if we ended up with a dead hooker, Fritz would know what to do with the body. Maybe I should ask him, to be sure. 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 look at the dailies with Emma, 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 look at the raw footage,” Rita said.

They ran through the scene for everyone to watch. I was surprised that I was a little embarrassed. I wasn’t normally body-shy, and I certainly wasn’t embarrassed about what I’d done with Emma. I actually hoped for an encore. I finally figured out it was because Rita and Caryn were watching it. I think I would’ve had the same uneasy feeling if my mom was in the room, even though we were open about these things.

“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 Emma.

This could affect her more than me. Women seemed to get the short end of the stick on things involving sex.

“I agree with Jessup,” her publicist said. “I think it would help her as long as it’s done right. I don’t think we admit that there was actual sex, but play the ‘we don’t talk about things like this’ card.”

“And then tell them a lot of steamy details,” Frank said.

“Exactly. Build the sizzle, but hide the bacon, so to speak.”

Everyone groaned at that one.

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Frank began. “Why don’t we take a couple of shots and make them look like they were taken from a cell phone. I can talk to my contact at TMZ and let them ‘break’ the story. TMZ follows up with something like a poll to see who their viewers would rather see in a sex scene, David or Zak.”

“Could TMZ add Craig and Ben from Star Academy? It’s about to come out.” Caryn said.

“You’d need to do that robo-vote thingy. I’d want to win,” I said.

Frank gave me a look, but I could tell he was fine with what I’d proposed.

“Could they do something similar with Emma?” her manager asked.

“We could do the whole ‘sexiest women I’ve been linked with’ thing,” I said.

I thought that was a brilliant idea.

“Just who would you put on this list?” Emma asked.

I could tell she wasn’t buying the idea that anyone would be interested.

“There’s you and Halle from this movie. From Star Academy, we could pull in Bree Steno and Elizabeth Paul. I got my start in modeling with a sexy kiss with Adrienne. I’ve done a bunch of shoots with models. Then there’s the sex scene that I’m doing with Kate Upton,” I said.

“I thought that scene was set with the baseball player,” Rita said.

“I talked to the writers and they agreed that it should really be with me,” I explained.

Rita looked at Jessup.

“Yes, he did,” Jessup said, confirming my ingenuity.

“While that sounds good, I think I should have a more prominent role in the media plans. This isn’t just about David,” Emma said.

“We could do a whole thing on how being in a movie with me makes you more sexy,” I suggested.

“I see a theme developing,” Frank said. “She’s right, not everything’s about you.”

I gave him my best hurt-puppy-dog eyes. Rita had two kids and didn’t buy it for a second.

“Quit goofing around. I’ll talk to the studio and get them to release a couple of frames. I want to see them before they’re given to TMZ,” Rita said.

“I’ll coordinate with your people and come up with ways to help you,” Frank told Emma.

Frank and his gal went with Jessup to pick out some shots, and Emma’s agent and publicist went with them.

There was a knock on the door. I opened it to see Halle, Zak, Tanya and Jessica. Halle pushed past me and the rest of the main cast followed her. I saw they weren’t shy about getting themselves drinks and plates of appetizers.

“We heard that you had some dailies from yesterday,” Halle said to explain the invasion.

I looked at Emma.

“It’s going to be in the movie, so I’m fine if they see,” she said.

“Even without the edits?” Rita asked.

While the video was going to be used, it needed to be edited with different camera angles so that you couldn’t actually see penetration.

“I already told the girls what happened,” Emma admitted.

Everyone looked at Zak.

“David never said a word. I just heard there was free food,” he said as he stuffed a crab puff into his mouth.

I smiled when Halle saved me a seat next to her on one of the couches. She was staking her claim, and I don’t think anyone missed her meaning, so I played along. Rita ran the video again. Emma told them what we planned to do with TMZ and how we wanted to handle it. They all agreed that if asked, they had heard rumors, but the set had been closed. They all planned to have their publicists talk to Frank and send him pictures that could be sent to TMZ.

Frank came back and put the shots they were using on the screen. They looked like they’d come from a cell phone. He explained that was why he’d brought his tech person with him. She’d Photoshopped it so it was laid out like a typical phone photo and made a little blurry. The first shot showed Emma kissing my stomach and the next was when I’d grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her close to roll us over. Both shots were PG-13, but showed enough to make people wonder if we were really doing it or not. Rita approved them and Frank quickly left to get working.

Rita announced that we had to go home. Zak absconded with the rest of my appetizers and a bottle of tequila and invited the rest of the cast back to his trailer. I would have to get the details tomorrow.

When we got home there were three paparazzi waiting by the gate. One tried to step in front of the car to get a picture, but Fritz gunned it and just missed the idiot. The cameramen tried to follow the car through the gate, but Paul and Flo were waiting for them. When they saw Paul and Flo were armed, they turned around and left so the gate could be closed.

I wondered if this was a sign of things to come.

I’d agreed to go to the beach house and hang out with Trip and Craig Wild, my co-star in Star Academy. I hoped Kent would be there as well. He and I had become friends, and he seemed to be the one who had common sense in Craig’s little entourage.

I was introduced to how scary paparazzi can be on the way to the beach house. Two motorcycles chased us through traffic on the highway to try to get pictures. I now understood why Rita had security and why the windows were tinted.

“Do you have your seatbelt on?” Fritz asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Fritz used the Bluetooth in the Range Rover to call 911 through his phone.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

Fritz explained the situation and where we planned to go. When we got onto the Pacific Coast Highway, two police cars were waiting and turned on their lights. One of the motorcycles decided to make a run for it, while the other was pulled over.

We pulled into the driveway of what I assumed was a one-story house. When I got out of the car, Trip looked down from the roof.

“Go in the front door and come up to the roof. We’re going to barbeque some steaks and then go surfing.”

I walked in and discovered this was actually a two-story home. The back of the house was glass from floor to ceiling and looked out over a large patio that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. I walked down the stairs to see the view. I understood why people loved this area. From the living room area I could see that over the kitchen there was a large bedroom that had a balcony. The rest of the bedrooms were at the front of the house, two downstairs and two more upstairs.

Fritz showed me how to get onto the roof. There was a complete outdoor kitchen, a large fireplace, and a hot tub. A portion was under an awning so you could get out of the sun.

“There he is,” Craig called out.

“Hey, good to see you. Hey, Kent.”

Craig, Kent and I caught up while Fritz and Trip made dinner. We had steaks and baked potatoes with a salad. After we’d eaten we went surfing. Actually, Fritz taught me to surf while the other three showed they’d been doing this all their lives. I was happy when towards the end I got up and was able to make a couple of runs without falling off. I’d just discovered another reason I loved it here.

When we were done, we started back. I saw a group of cute girls and walked up to them. The one thing I’d noticed about LA was there was no shortage of beautiful women. The three looked like they’d been enhanced, because natural tits are not that round and firm.

“We were just going to enjoy the sunset and relax in the hot tub. Would you ladies like to join us?”

The Asian girl tilted her head.

“Do you own the house?” she asked.

“I do,” Trip said, moving forward.

The look she gave him made me worried.

“You’re Craig Wild,” the brown-haired woman said, eyeing Craig with a slightly possessive look.

“I’m Kent, Craig’s manager,” Kent said to the blonde. She looked him up and down and smiled. We all went to the house. There was an outdoor shower on the lower patio. Trip asked us all to rinse off before going into the house and hot tub. The six went upstairs and Fritz and I relaxed on the downstairs patio to give them some privacy.

“I think they stole the girls I found.”

“I think you’re better off. All those girls saw were dollar signs,” Fritz explained.

“Do you think they’ll be okay?”

“Those three have been doing this for years. They’ll be fine.”

“I noticed there was no alcohol. Do you think Trip will make it this time?” I asked.

This rehab had been his third try in five years. Craig had gone prior to shooting our movie. I hoped Kent could keep temptation away.

“I can only hope. I know how much Rita worries about him,” Fritz said.

I was finding I liked Fritz. He was easy to talk to and had a good sense of humor. He also saw more than I realized. He warned me to be careful around Zak. While he didn’t have a mean bone in his body, he could easily lead me astray. Zak enjoyed everything you would imagine an actor would get up to. That included drugs, alcohol and plenty of women.

While I watched the sun go down, I called home and updated my mom about my day. I also called Tami, Yuri, Tim and Jim. I’d decided that I needed to be sure to rotate calling my friends when I got a chance. Uncle John had mentioned that it was important to not forget about them and how important their friendships would be in the future.

I also called my old high school friend Bill Callaway. We made plans to get together either Friday or Saturday. He promised to bring Sage, Ridge and Penny.

I thought of someone else and called Hunter Green. He’d been at the USC and Elite camps with Ridge and me. He was now at San Diego State. He said he would call Ridge and get the details. It would be nice to get everyone back together.

When Fritz and I got home, I found the three women in the TV room watching a movie and drinking wine. I sat down by Halle and she promptly put her feet into my lap, so I began to massage them.

“What did you and the boys get up to?” Caryn asked.

“We were chased by paparazzi and had to call the police. I found out why Trip lives at the beach, and Fritz taught me to surf.”

“It is nice there,” Rita said, and then asked what she was worried about. “Were they being good?”

“No drugs or alcohol. Trip did steal the future Mrs. Dawson from me with that fancy house.”

“If she was more interested in the house than you, I’d say you were better off letting Trip have her,” Halle said.

“That’s what Fritz told me.”

“Listen to him. He gives good advice,” Halle said.

We all watched the movie as I slowly massaged Halle’s feet. I began to arouse her, and I think she was surprised when she suddenly had an orgasm.

“Uh, I have to go read my script for tomorrow,” Halle said, and left.

I figured that since I helped her, she might want to return the favor. I was about ready to go discuss this with her when Caryn sat down next to me and put her feet into my lap.

“Me next,” she said with a big smile.

I figured I would goof around with Caryn. I found she had some problem areas.

“Are you in pain?” I asked.

“How did you know?” Caryn asked.

“I saw a massage table in the exercise room. Let me give you a full massage and see if that helps,” I suggested.

“You know how to give a massage?” Rita asked.

“My brother has a business doing them and he taught me a few things. Do you want one too?” I asked.

“If you’re giving them, I wouldn’t say no.”

They paused the movie so they could change into something I could give them a massage in. Caryn was in running shorts and a sports bra. Rita was in a robe. I looked through their supplies and only found some oil that smelled like coconuts. I would have to get something different, because this stuff smelled bad.

I took my shirt off because I was afraid I would get this junk on it and it would stain. Caryn gave me a funny look, but once I put my hands on her she forgot about it. Caryn’s back was a mess.

“This is going to hurt, but you’ll thank me in the morning,” I said.

I began to give her a deep tissue massage where I found problem areas.

“Ouch! Oh, oh, ooohhh,” she moaned when I would fix one.

I worked her over for an hour. I would have to give her regular follow-ups, so I figured she’d had enough for one night.

“Take some Tylenol and either a hot bath or shower before you go to bed,” I advised.

Caryn left and Rita gave me a funny smile.

“When I got ready, I think the wine had gone to my head. I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Rita admitted.