*~*~*
Natalie looked at the NASCAR calendar on the side of the refrigerator and said, “Next month is the five year anniversary of the last ‘Sports Night.’”
“What?” Dana plunged her spoon into her carton of yogurt as though conquering it for Spain and crossed the kitchen. She wrapped her arms around Natalie’s waist and peered at the square Natalie was pointing to. “I’ll be damned,” she murmured.
One of the great things about being an eccentric multi-bazillionaire is that you get to be fickle and no one can call you on it. So though Calvin Trager started out saying “Anybody who can't make money off ‘Sports Night’ should get out of the money-making business,” after two more seasons of slumping ratings he changed to “Anybody who can't make money off ‘Sports Night’ should get out of the ‘Sports Night’-making business,” and no one said a thing.
No one who anyone listened to, anyway.
It had rained the night of their last broadcast. Dan had almost kept the bitterness out of his voice as he signed off for the last time. Casey hadn’t.
“Let’s throw a party,” Natalie said.
“A party?”
“A reunion.” Natalie looked at Dana’s expression and shrugged, slipping from her arms. “Just a thought.” She opened the refrigerator and started rummaging. Dana doubted she was looking for anything.
“No, no, hang on.” Dana put her hand on Natalie’s arm. “It wasn’t a bad – do you think anyone would come?”
Natalie grinned. “We would.”
Dana rolled her eyes. “We live here.”
Natalie leaned against the counter and let the refrigerator door swing shut. She had cut her hair short for the summer, and the way it slanted around her ears made her look like a renegade pixie. She didn’t look much older than she had when they got here, but she was tired. Worn out. And it showed. “I miss them. We haven’t talked to Casey in over a year. We saw Dan for maybe five minutes last time we were in L.A. And Jeremy–”
“I’ll make the calls.”
*~*~*
Casey had stayed in New York to be close to Charlie. Landing a job with the sports section of the “Times” had been a cinch – who wouldn’t want Casey McCall’s pen on their team? No one faulted him for the decision, though Natalie was overheard saying that, for all she loved New York, it would be an awfully lonely place to be if your friends were gone.
And his friends were gone.
“A ‘Sports Night’ reunion?” Casey said. “Funny, Dana. This must be one of Natalie’s pranks.”
“She’s for real about this, Casey,” she insisted. “And I agree with her.”
“Then you’re both more insane than I remember. Will Dougie be there?” He pronounced it “Dug-eeeee.”
She didn’t bother correcting him; he knew the pronunciation as well as she did. “I don’t know.” She bit her lip. “They’ve been together for two years, Casey. It’s time for you to meet him.”
Casey sighed into the phone. “This may be the worst idea you’ve ever had. This may trump the dating plan.”
“So you’ll be there.”
Somebody called for him. A copier whirred in the background. “Just a minute, Heidi.” He sighed. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“A party to celebrate the wholesale murder of the best job I’ve ever had?” Dan wanted to know. ESPN had offered him the job in L.A. that they’d offered him last time, and he had taken it. That surprised a lot of people. By that point, he and Casey had been a team so long that most people took it for granted that they would go everywhere together, do everything together, until they died – probably together.
But Dana knew what Dan had always wanted from Casey, and that Casey would never give it to him, and that someday Dan would have to move on to find what he needed. So she had wished him luck when he left and hoped that the men in California would be kinder to him than the ones in New York had been.
“As a personal favor,” Dana said. “For Natalie.”
He sighed, and she pictured him propping his feet on his swank ESPN desk. She’d never seen his desk, but it would have to be swank. ESPN didn’t do anything cheaply. “I’d bring Dougie.”
“I’d be offended if you didn’t. Only—“ She stared at the Houston Astros pennant hanging over her desk. She was back at Lone Star Sports. She wasn’t sure how that happened. When they’d left, she’d shaken the dust of Texas off her boots and assumed she’d never be back. But here she was. She’d brought Natalie with her. She’d promised.
“Casey’s coming.”
“Great,” said Dan, and his voice didn’t shake even a little.
“I just wasn’t sure–”
“I’ve been with Dougie for two years. It’s time.”
“Okay.” She smiled. “Okay. That’s good. I need to say, though—“
“Yeah?”
“It’s still criminal that you’re dating a man named Dougie.”
Jeremy had stunned them all by hopping on a plane to Lisbon. He was taking care of yachts of the rich and famous and swearing he loved every minute of it. His answering machine message was short, fast, and in Portuguese.
They all came anyway.
Or, almost all. Esther called three days before the party. No one had seen the second stroke coming.
“Dan!” Jeremy looked almost giddy.
“Hey, Jeremy!” Dan hugged him. “Olham bem.”
Jeremy’s eyes widened. They didn’t look right, Jeremy’s eyes without glasses, but when you worked for the yacht people of Portugal, you had to look like you belonged, and the glasses had been the first casualty of Jeremy’s new cool. “Thanks. You’re looking pretty good, yourself. And, wow. You speak Portuguese.”
Dan shook his head. “Nah. Just that. I learned that, so I could say it to you. Impressed?”
“And more than a little bit terrified. How’s ESPN?”
“Slick. Everything they do is very slick.”
“No frozen turkeys falling from the light grid?”
“George Bodenheimer wouldn’t know a frozen turkey if you shoved it up his—“
“Okay. Do you want something to drink? I could use a drink.” Jeremy moved towards the distressed-looking card table that held the punch bowl.
“What about you?” Dan asked. “I mean – yachts. Lisbon. That’s got to be an amazing life you’re living.”
Jeremy nodded and gulped his punch too fast. “It’s great. Portugal is the world's leading producer of cork.”
Dan looked at him and shook his head. “Okay. That’s...great.”
Casey was last to arrive. He came through the door bearing a twelve-pack of cheapish beer and dragging someone really tall by the sleeve. “Hey, everybody! Look who I found wandering the streets of New York.”
Charlie was sixteen and had the surly teen-ager routine down cold. Everyone fell all over him anyway, especially Natalie, who had started to swear she was hearing something ticking somewhere in her body. He bore it with good grace, until Dan asked him how his mother was.
“You don’t really want to know how my mother is.”
“Not unless the answer is ‘horridly disfigured.’” His eyes slid past Charlie to Casey. “Hi.”
Casey nodded and squeezed Charlie’s shoulder. “Hey, Danny.” He looked at Dougie. “Hi.”
Dan put himself between the two men. “Case, this is Dougie O’Dell. Dougie, Casey McCall.”
There was a hesitation that no one but Dan seemed to notice before they shook hands. Natalie giggled. “Dougie O’Dell and Casey McCall. Has a nice rhythm – you could be a Vaudeville act.”
“We really couldn’t,” Casey returned, more quickly and sharply than he should have.
Dan glared at him, and Dougie took a step forward, and that presence at Dan’s shoulder relaxed him. “I’m in your way,” Dan said, stepping aside to let Casey and Charlie into the apartment.
Casey cornered Dana at the punch bowl. He ladled punch into a red paper cup and sipped it cautiously. His eyes widened. “This is good.”
She chuckled and dropped orange slices onto the surface. “Thank you, Casey.”
“No, I didn’t...” Dana watched the thoughts drizzle out of his brain as his wandering gaze caught on Dan and Dougie talking with Jeremy. He shook his head and smiled almost genuinely at her. “What is it?”
“Texas Bar Punch.” She poured in half a bag of ice cubes. “Ruby port, ginger ale, and Sprite. And then the orange and lemon slices. Make it look festive. Because this is a party, and parties should be festive. I think. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to one, but I remember they’re supposed to be...not suicidal.”
He ignored all of that and peered into the bowl. “Port? We’ll never get drunk off something with only one liquor in it.”
She threw the empty plastic bag into the trash can. “I don’t want everyone drunk, Casey. I would like for people at my party to get along at my party.”
Casey tried to object, to say that people drunk at her party would not mean people not getting along at her party, but he looked at Dan and Dougie again and refilled his cup instead. “How come you never made this for us in New York?”
“You can’t make Texas Bar Punch in New York.” She downed the contents of her cup. “You don’t tempt the Fates.”
“You tempt the Fates all the time.”
Dana shrugged and went to find Natalie. “What’s going on?”
Natalie tried to pinch Charlie’s cheek, and he pulled away. “Isn’t he cute?”
“Adorable. You’re annoying him.”
“I’m not.” Natalie looked at Charlie. “Am I?”
“Yeah," he admitted. "You kind of are.”
“Oh.” This made her, for many unfathomable reasons, upset with Dana. She crossed the room to where Casey was still standing at the punch bowl, staring at Dan and Dougie.
“Harrumph,” Natalie greeted him, filling another cup with punch.
Casey nodded absently. “Dana’s still pretty crazy, huh?”
She glared at him. “You’re not allowed to say Dana’s crazy anymore. Only I’m allowed to say Dana’s crazy now.”
Casey’s eyebrows dipped, then raised. “Okay.”
“Dana’s still pretty crazy.” Natalie sipped her punch and leaned cautiously against the wobbly table. “Dan looks really good.”
Casey wiped a drop of punch off the lip of his cup. “He looks tan.”
“Dougie’s great.”
“His name is Dougie O’Dell.”
Natalie shrugged. “Yours is Casey McCall.” She popped a tortilla chip into her mouth. “They’re good together. They’re happy.”
“Are they? Really?” He seemed so surprised and skeptical.
“Well, yeah. Can’t you tell?”
“I—“
She put her hand on his arm. “Has it been that long since you’ve seen Dan happy?”
Until she said it, he hadn’t realized how true it was. “I guess so.”
“You guess so what?” And there, as though scripted, stood Dan, nursing his punch and fishing around in the bowl for another ice cube.
“Get your fingers out of my punch bowl, Rydell,” Natalie said, flicking at his wrist with her index finger.
“That sounded awfully dirty, Natalie,” Dan said.
She rolled her eyes. “Men.” She headed across the room. “Dana! If you don’t dance with me, you are hopelessly square!”
Dan and Casey stood side by side at the punch bowl. “Well,” Dan said finally.
“Yes.”
“Remember when Dana used to be ‘the crazy one’?”
Casey nodded. “I miss the days when things were that easily compartmentalized.”
“They look good together, though.”
“They look crazy together.”
“They are crazy together.” Dan tilted his head and watched Dana and Natalie dancing. “I think that’s what makes them good together.” He turned to Casey. “What about you? I bet you’re burning your way through the women of New York.”
“Danny, how long have you known me?”
Dan’s eyes got that look that said he was trying to see into the past. “Since the Taft administration, I think.”
Casey smiled. “And in all that time, have I ever burned through the women of anywhere?”
“A man’s gotta start somewhere, Case. A man’s gotta start somewhere.”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t.” Casey shrugged.
“So...you’re totally unattached?”
“Completely and totally and in all other ways. There are no strings on me.”
Dan looked at him for a long minute, then shook his head and looked at Dougie, who, God bless him, was acting as though he gave a shit about Jeremy’s useless yacht factoid of the hour.
Casey looked at Dan out of the corner of his eye. “How’s L.A.?”
“Sunny. Full of Laker Girls.”
Casey smiled. “ESPN?”
“It’s like working at Camelot, you know. Like I’m, I don’t know, I’m the guy who puts out the place cards on the Round Table or polishes Excalibur or something.” Dan didn’t meet his eyes.
“Not a guy who sits at the Round Table or, maybe, wields Excalibur?”
Dan shook his head. “I’m not that guy anymore, Casey. That’s not what I want out of my life.” He was looking at Dougie when he said that.
“No? You’re really willing to throw over your ambitions for—“
“You know, Casey, I never had the ambitions you thought I did. I mean, yeah, being on TV’s the ultimate rush for me; being famous and popular is great, but I never had to be *the* guy.” His eyes sparkled. “There’s worse things in life than being the guy with the place cards.”
“What happened to you?”
Casey scowled. “Never mind.”
“He’s an aeronautical engineer, you know,” Dan said. “I have no idea what he does; every time he tries to talk to me
about work all I hear is ‘buzzbuzz vector, buzzbuzz aerodynamic buzz.’ But he’s a genius. You have to be a genius to do
this stuff.”
“You don’t have to be a genius, Dan. You just have to understand physics and calculus.”
“Do you understand physics and calculus?”
“Not really, but in my job—“
“Then shut up.”
Casey toyed with a cheez puff but couldn’t bring himself to put it in his mouth. “Charlie’s the star of his high school
soccer team.”
Dan frowned. “You’re a terrible father, Casey.”
“He’s been named game MVP three times this season.”
“You let him play soccer.”
“He’s on the high honor roll for the fifth straight semester.”
“So he’s going to be a geek like you?” Dan’s smile used to take the sting out of comments like that. Casey wasn’t sure why
it wasn’t working so well now.
“His girlfriend is going to be President someday.”
Dan chuckled. “His girlfriend’s a freshman in high school, Casey.”
“But she’s smart. She understands calculus and physics.”
“Case, seriously. She’s a freshman in high school. She hasn’t had calculus or physics.”
“Hey, guys.” Dan and Casey looked at Dougie, newly arrived on the punch-getting circuit, and Casey tried not to watch Dan
light up like the Christmas tree in Central Park.
“Hey.” Dan kissed Dougie, and Casey’s teeth ground together. “I was bragging about you to Casey.”
Dougie looked at Casey and shuffled his feet a little. “I hope you didn’t believe him.”
“I have never known Danny to be anything but a man of his word. He tells me you’re a genius.”
Chuckling, Dougie rolled his eyes and squeezed Dan’s hand. “Actually, as aeronautical engineers go, I’m one of the slow kids.”
“That must be rough for you.”
Dougie’s eyes might have narrowed slightly, but he recovered fast. “Nah, it’s okay. I mean, the smart kids try to steal my
milk money sometimes, but there are still a couple who pick me pretty early for dodge ball. I may not be bright, but I’m
fast.”
Casey looked between Dan and Dougie. “I’m sure you are.”
“Okay.” Dan put his hand on Dougie’s shoulder and pushed. “We’re mingling now.”
So they mingled, and Casey mingled, too, and the alcohol flowed freely, as alcohol is wont to do, and it was almost -
almost - like one of the parties Dana used to throw back in New York. Back when they all got along, “Sports Night”
was alive, Isaac was in charge of his own body, and Dan and Casey were Dan and Casey.
“Dana,” Dave said, looking apologetic, while Chris searched for the bag he’d brought in with him, “Chris and I both have
early flights tomorrow. We’re gonna get a cab.”
Dana looked stricken. “No! You guys can’t leave. It’s only—“ She looked at her watch. “Okay, it’s 11:30. Go. Go ahead;
it’s all right. It was great seeing you both.” She hugged them, and they moved towards the door. “Wait! What about Will?”
Will had passed out in the spare bedroom nearly an hour ago.
Chris shrugged. “Will’s a grown-up; he can take care of himself.” They left, and Will was still passed out in the spare
bedroom.
At midnight, the fighting started. Though no one noticed until Elliot stormed out, throwing a “Thanks, Dana” over his
shoulder, and Kim downed an entire cup of the scary punch in one gulp and stormed off to the spare room, possibly to pass out
with Will.
“What was that?” Jeremy whispered.
“What was what?” Dan whispered back.
“Elliot. I didn’t know he did angry. I definitely didn’t know he did door-slamming angry.”
“It’s Kim. He’s still mad at her for not calling him.”
“Calling him when?”
Dan rolled his eyes and kind of waved his hand around. “You know...calling him. After.”
“After wha—“ Jeremy’s eyes grew dangerously wide. “No. You mean – no. Elliot and Kim? I can’t even—“ He poured himself
more punch. “My entire worldview has fallen on its head.”
Dana looked around the apartment. “My parties used to last longer than this. Didn’t my parties used to last longer than
this?” It was barely midnight.
“Your parties didn’t used to start ‘til two in the morning,” Natalie said.
Dan flopped into a welcomingly plaid armchair. “Now that it’s just us,” he said, his eyes half-closed as he let his head
drop against the chair back, “I think a very good idea would be for us to talk for a while.” Dougie perched on the arm of
Dan’s chair. Casey sprawled on the floor next to the coffee table and scowled at them.
“I agree.” Natalie sat at the opposite end of the couch from Charlie and nibbled around the crust of a tiny crabmeat quiche.
“Everyone who stays has to drink more punch.” Dana crossed purposefully to the punch bowl and started filling cups.
“Did you spike it with something stronger than port?” Casey demanded.
“Shut up and drink, McCall.” She shoved a cup in his face.
When everyone, mostly against strenuous protests, had another drink, Dana sat down next to Natalie, who was reaching towards
the trash can.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t like quiche.” As though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Yet you continue to pick them up.” Dana held out her hand. “Give it to me.”
Natalie grinned. Her fingers brushed Dana’s wrist as she handed it over.
“Can you stay, Jeremy?” Dan tilted his head backwards to look at the unexpectedly tan young man.
Jeremy shrugged. “I’m here all week.” He vaulted the back of the couch, landing beside Natalie.
Natalie stared at him. “Who are you?”
“Eu sou o menino do barco,” he told her.
She giggled and slid a little closer to him. “That was kind of sexy. What did you say?”
He sighed. “I said, ‘I am the boat boy.’”
“Oh.” Natalie frowned and slid closer to Dana, who tried not to snicker or look smug.
“I would like to propose a toast,” Casey said, raising his glass. He looked silly, sitting on the floor, raising his glass
barely above the top of the coffee table, but this was Casey, and he always looked like he knew what the hell he was doing,
even when he looked like an idiot. So they raised their glasses, too. “To Isaac, and his recovery.”
They all said, “To Isaac,” and drank. No one said “to his recovery.” They didn’t dare allow themselves that much hope.
“My life is a disaster,” Casey blurted.
“Dad—“ What kid Charlie’s age wants to hear his father admit what a loser he is?
“No, I’m serious. I’ve been on, maybe, four dates in the past five years. And I hate my job. It’s so...prestigious. No
one has any fun. And I’m starting to resent the shit out of New York for being...what it is.”
Dan frowned at him. “What is it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore.”
“Well, don’t come to California.” Dan let his head drop against the side of the chair. Dougie massaged the back of Dan’s
neck, and he seemed to relax a little. “Turns out the Laker Girls are all mean, or stupid, or both, and I haven’t found a
single genuine thing in the entire fucking city.”
“You found Dougie,” Jeremy said.
Dougie shook his head. “We met in Seattle.”
“Portuguese women hate me,” Jeremy admitted dejectedly. “Europeans don’t appreciate geeks the way Americans do.”
“If I didn’t have Dana, I’d go insane.” Natalie picked at a sliver of wood coming off the edge of the coffee table.
“I have Natalie, and I went insane anyway.” Dana stared up at the ceiling. “And now Isaac—“
“Isaac’s a fighter,” Jeremy said, rubbing her arm. “He pulled through before; he’ll do it again.”
“Not this time.” Dana shook her head. “Not this time.”
Natalie drained her cup and set it on the table. It made a papery snicking noise. She gave a choking laugh and dragged the
back of her hand across her mouth.
Casey pulled his knees to his chest. “Any ideas on how to fix our dismal lives?”
“We could go back in time and keep Calvin from canceling ‘Sports Night,’” Dan suggested. “Because, let’s face it; after what
we had there, everything else is going to fall flat on its face. Look at me. I went all the way to California, and I don’t
even know what I was looking for, but I sure as hell haven’t found it.”
Jeremy sighed and stared at Natalie’s cup on the coffee table. “I met Alberto Fedrigotti, you know. He’s friends with some
Italian diplomat who owns a yacht that comes our way a lot. He’s a nice guy, really ordinary - has a couple of kids
and a job with the Italian embassy in D.C. But I kept thinking of his match against Sampras, how he just wouldn’t die
when everyone expected him to.” He ran his hand through his hair. “And I thought, ‘We used to be like that.’”
“How do we get to be like that again?” Casey asked quietly.
Jeremy shook his head. “I don’t think we can.”
“That’s it, then?” Natalie demanded. “We live the rest of our lives pathetic?” Dan and Jeremy shrugged.
Dana started to rise. “If we’re going to be pathetic, we might as well be drunk. Help me finish this damned punch.”
“NO!” Six voices in unison. Dana smiled flatly and sat again.
“We knew ‘Sports Night’ couldn’t last forever,” Dan said. “And think of everything we faced down: JJ and Luther; Sally; the
Cut Man – you’d think the real world would be a snap.”
“Yeah,” Natalie agreed, curling against Dana’s side. “Too bad nobody told us how much the real world was going to suck.”
END