Chapter 86: Special Treatment

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In a corner of the underground parking garage, the suspension on Penny Webb’s gray-blue old Chevrolet wagon kept rocking.

The intervals grew shorter and shorter until the old car began making a strained, tooth-rattling squeak.

Every so often, another car or a pedestrian passed nearby. One look at the wagon was enough to make them choose a different direction.

The rear windows had fogged over completely.

In the end, the front-left suspension on Penny’s used wagon, bought from a secondhand dealer with more than fifty thousand miles on it, gave up under one person’s particular brand of pressure.

The car sagged toward the left front corner.

Even then, nobody came out right away.

Inside, Penny Webb’s cheeks were flushed, sweat beading across her neck and face. Her makeup had started to run in the trapped heat of the car, leaving her looking both furious and thoroughly undone by a choice she had made with her eyes open.

"You owe me a car," she said, shaking her head, somewhere between laughter and disbelief.

She was not truly angry. The whole thing was simply too absurd.

A man had just crippled her suspension.

"You really are an athlete," Penny muttered.

The joke Nolan had made before about having programming for every age group had not been empty bragging. In practice, it turned out to be much more persuasive than theory. Penny had never worked in adult entertainment, but she had seen enough late-night tapes from the Valley to understand the difference.

From any angle, Nolan was a superior product.

The worst part was that he was not just physically gifted. For someone his age, and even with both of them legally adults, he had alarming control.

"This is what you should actually be doing," she said, still catching her breath. "Forget football. Go work in the Valley."

"This is barely the warm-up."

Nolan sounded far too calm about it. Penny might be satisfied, but he felt as if he had only gotten started.

Penny understood the look and still chose to keep playing.

So he helped her get exactly what she had asked for.

"Help is on the way..."

"You are impossible," Penny said.

Nolan drew her closer.

"Mm..."

She made a small sound through her nose and brushed her hair to one side, letting him see her face clearly.

Not long after, Penny’s composure broke. Her hands moved blindly to his shoulders, then tightened there, not pushing him away but dragging him closer between breathless, muffled sounds and broken little laughs.

Then the phone in her slacks started ringing.

Nolan reached for it, then paused.

Penny saw the contact read Mike - Director and gave him a reckless, wicked look.

"Answer it," she whispered. "Let him worry."

He answered.

"Penny? Are you all right? I am seriously worried about you."

Mike’s voice came through the receiver.

Penny pressed a hand over her mouth, half laughing and half catching her breath. The sounds carried badly through the phone, intimate and impossible to explain.

Nolan, being considerate, brought the phone closer.

"Penny? Penny, what is happening?"

Mike still had no idea what he was hearing.

Penny tapped Nolan’s shoulder for air. He backed off at once.

She snatched the phone, ended the call, pushed the car door open, and leaned out coughing.

Her eyes were wet from heat, laughter, and bad judgment. Her throat burned enough to make her hate him on principle.

"You are Satan," she rasped.

Nolan did not stay to discuss theology. Once he was dressed, he left quickly. He had no intention of paying to repair Penny’s suspension.

Watching him walk away, Penny wanted to curse him out and somehow could not find the words.

She had never met such an infuriating man in her life.

At BHHS, Nolan and Matt Millen walked side by side across an empty stretch of green field. Ahead of them moved the production crew: camera, sound, lights, and a handful of other staffers.

The two looked like friends from different generations. As they walked, Millen talked about his own high-school years, and Nolan spoke about the future he imagined for himself. Both men smiled often. The atmosphere on camera was easy and natural.

Not far away, Penny sat on a bleacher in professional on-air clothes, microphone in hand. She watched Nolan laughing in the distance and silently called him a hypocrite.

After the last incident, she had finally seen his real face.

On the other side, Mike kept glancing up from the monitor toward Penny. Worry filled his expression.

He still did not know what had happened after Penny and Nolan left together.

But the noises on the phone had sounded far too intimate, and far too strange, for him to understand.

"Exactly," Millen said as the camera kept rolling. "A football player needs years of consistency. Only that kind of discipline keeps an athlete at a high competitive level."

He appreciated Nolan more by the minute.

The kid had extraordinary talent, but Millen saw no obvious arrogance in him. Nolan spoke modestly, listened well, and carried himself with surprising restraint.

During a break, Millen stepped away for makeup. Penny came straight to Nolan.

"How is your throat?" Nolan asked at last, offering the concern she had been waiting for.

Penny nodded once, then reached behind him and pinched his back.

The movement was discreet enough that the crew did not notice.

Nolan, however, noticed Mike watching them from near the monitor.

"When we finish," Nolan murmured near Penny’s ear, "you can drive me home?"

"I just replaced the suspension," Penny said, warning him.

"Then I will be gentler?"

"It is new suspension," she repeated.

Meaning, this time, she was less afraid of it breaking.

As host, Penny had already interviewed Nolan’s teammates, coaches, classmates, and family. She had also brought Millen into a sit-down segment with Nolan. Today’s casual field walk was the final exterior piece.

The pilot for Football Heroes was now essentially shot. Editing, graphics, and postproduction came next, none of which required Penny.

She and Nolan left at once.

"Not here," Penny said uneasily. "This is your school parking lot."

"Then we leave."

Before she could pull out, Mike walked toward them from a distance.

Penny caught Nolan’s shirt, half in panic and half in wicked impulse, and pulled him close enough to make the wrong picture through the glass. Nolan played along only because she had made the move first.

On one side was her coworker. On the other was Nolan, shameless and calm.

Penny fell into complete embarrassment.

Through the car window, Mike saw her disheveled, flushed, and caught in something unmistakably intimate. He froze as if struck.

The woman he had admired for so long was already involved with someone else.

And that someone else was an eighteen-year-old high-school senior.

Penny knew exactly how it looked from outside. The push and pull was a reckless adult game she had chosen; Mike had only seen the performance, not the consent behind it.

By the time he gathered the courage to step forward, Penny had started the car and driven away.

"Penny," Mike whispered after the departing wagon, "what has he gotten you into?"

In the elevator at Forever Love Inn, the mirrored metal walls reflected one young man and two middle-aged women.

Lisa held a Hasselblad 503CX, a square-bodied professional film camera whose market value was higher than Penny’s used wagon. It was exactly the sort of tool serious photographers dreamed about.

After attending a friend’s gallery opening the previous week, Lisa had developed a sudden interest in photography.

She did not care much for portraits. She did not care much for landscapes either. Yet she had brought the camera today, which probably meant she had put her talent points into a very different field of study.

On Nolan’s other side, Susan stood on tiptoe with one arm around his neck and a briefcase in her other hand. Anyone who did not know better might have thought she had come to the hotel for a business meeting.

Technically, she had.

She had contacted every intermediary who had approached them and organized the offers, motives, and conditions into a clear report.

"This is a good shot," Lisa said, lifting the camera toward their reflection in the elevator wall.

Through the viewfinder, the three of them pressed together in a neat, uneven line: Nolan tall in the middle, the women slightly lower on each side.

This visit was also a return to old territory. They booked the same Greek-style room they had used before.

While Lisa went to shower, Susan opened the briefcase and took out a stack of printed forms.

"Eight high schools, five universities, four sporting-goods brands, six sports-equipment companies, and seven anonymous intermediaries who will not name the people behind them have all made contact with me."

She sorted the pages.

"The high schools are all private. Their offers include full tuition coverage, one-time relocation or transfer-expense assistance, and flexible support arrangements that can be discussed. All are West Coast schools. About half are local to California."

Susan moved to the next sheet.

"The universities made no formal offers. They sent gifts, basically a way to say hello. I left them in Lisa’s trunk so you can take them home later."

"As for the sports-equipment companies, they want you in charity-style high-school football exhibitions. The conditions range from generous to insulting. From an income standpoint, unless you are desperate for cash, I recommend staying away."

Then came the brands.

"Nike, Reebok, Adidas, and a small California shoe brand that is not especially famous all contacted us informally. The ’gifts’ they are floating are worth more than six figures for a one-year window. In my opinion, this is what you should actually consider."

Six figures was not huge money in the larger sports world.

For a high-school player, it was anything but small.

The All-Star game had clearly made several companies want an early stake in Nolan. And those were only opening numbers. After several rounds of negotiation, the price would rise.

Nolan was not especially tempted by the traditional giants.

The big brands paid more, but they interfered more. College choice, coaches, player schedules, extra performance conditions, even championship targets: all of that could end up attached. In that kind of deal, the bigger company held the stronger hand, and the athlete waited for someone else to decide when he received anything real.

There was room to negotiate.

Not much.

That did not fit Nolan’s expectations.

In his current position, he had no intention of kneeling to make money. Even standing up to earn it felt too ordinary. He wanted a way to make money while lying down, which meant the choice that looked small now could matter greatly later.

"Keep talking to all of them," Nolan said, "but I want to meet the people from Skechers."

"You probably should not appear directly," Susan said quietly.

"Of course not. I am only visiting my mother’s friend, Ms. Lisa Virgil. You happen to have an appointment nearby. We run into them by coincidence."

Susan nodded.

"I will arrange it."

"Put those away," Nolan said. "Time for the serious work."

Strictly speaking, this was only relaxation during a work break.

Susan smiled and started to remove her heels.

"Leave them on."

Nolan touched her face lightly. She had put effort into her makeup today: heavy eyes, red lips, everything deliberate.

Susan pulled out her hair clip, letting her brown hair fall loose. Then she took his hand and lay back, waiting for him with open affection.

"Kiss me."

Lisa watched them from the glass shower. Halfway through rinsing off, she hurried out with wet hair and launched herself at Nolan from behind.

"You two really love false starts," she complained.

The long run began.

There was no denying that Lisa and Susan worked better together than either did alone. They had known each other for years, understood each other’s rhythms, and did not waste a second.

"Smile."

Nolan lifted the camera.

In the frame, he caught two birds with one stone.

After a very pleasant afternoon, Nolan parted from Lisa and Susan outside the ICM building. Both women had received their private little boost from him and walked with a looseness in their hips, more confident than before. Lisa in particular looked full of new energy.

On the way to pick up Katherine, Nolan mentally sorted through his schedule.

Principal John had invited him over, probably to discuss whether he would stay at BHHS.

He still needed to shoot the new music video with Liv Tyler.

And there was the cheer party.

’Should I go or not?’

At the same time, in Burbank, Principal John’s daughter stared at him in disbelief.

"Dad, are you kidding?"

Grace sounded more confused than amused.

"I am not kidding," John said. "The old athletic director is definitely out. We have two key positions open at the school, and you cannot spend the rest of your life as only the cheer coach."

He really was close to retirement. He really was tired of the job. But before leaving, he wanted to give his daughter a stronger position to stand on. What happened after that would depend on her.

"This is not up for debate," John said firmly.

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