“Too bad. I can’t fault Greg’s serendipity, then. You see, if you had planned it all...”
She didn’t like what he was implying. “Of course I didn’t, not the way you mean. If you really want to know, I made sure I was still there when you arrived because I wanted to embarrass Jerry.” She described her injured feelings at not being informed that the lab was being used for filming. “So I was there to make a silent protest to my professor. I didn’t expect to become involved in the filming.”
“Subconsciously, perhaps?”
She shook her head. “Leave my subconscious out of this.”
He continued smoothly. “The nice thing is, you’re going to make a real impact when the series is broadcast. Tell me: that claim of yours that you used to be scared of spiders — was it on the level?”
She tilted her head reproachfully. “You do seem to doubt my integrity. I wouldn’t have mentioned it if it wasn’t true.”
“Sorry.” He looked truly apologetic. “I warned you I had a professional interest in you. I do a certain amount of work with phobia victims. That’s how I became involved in the TV series. There are various forms of therapy you can try in these cases. Maybe you’re familiar with them. Have you ever had therapy yourself?”
“Definitely not.”
“That I find remarkable. You see, it’s unusual for anyone to conquer a phobia without help — really beat it, I mean, to the extent of working with the things that formerly provoked such extreme reactions. That’s why I regard you as a very special person.”
“No other reason?” To hide a slight hurt, she burlesqued it.
He stood up. “Let’s go and eat. We’ll get to the other reasons.”
With the relaxed manner so reassuring in men of his maturity, Ed talked Sarah through the menu. She chose the filet mignon on his recommendation. She felt from Ed a strong concern for her well-being. It was clear in the way he ordered, closely questioning the headwaiter about the vegetables and the wine and consulting her before he let him leave. She experienced the rare sensation of being simultaneously cared for and respected as an individual.
“What else do you do?” he asked when the order had been taken. “I mean, apart from research. There has to be something in your life besides spiders.”
She rarely discussed it with anyone, but it was a way of keeping the conversation away from therapy. “I go hang-gliding.”
“Well, that’s really something! Where do you do this?”
She told him about Lake Pinecliff and her midweek trips there. He asked how she had started in the sport, so she described the four-day beginners’ course she had taken the previous summer, really to relieve the tedium of a holiday alone. She recalled the exhilaration of her first solo flight and how she had promised herself while she was still airborne that she would buy her own glider. “I got it last fall, and it’s so beautiful. A Rogallo — that’s the standard delta shape, you know? It has a twenty-foot span and is white with a green inverted V You should see it go!”
“I’d like to. You must be strong to control a kite that size.”
“The main test of strength is carrying it up the hill. That’s really hard work, but worth every step. I can’t climb as fast as guys can, but I can take it in stages, and I get there.”
“Are there many-girls doing this?”
“Just a handful at Lake Pinecliff. There’s a better male-female ratio in California, but conditions are perfect there. You get these sensational updrafts of warm air known as ‘thermals’ that every pilot tries to catch. With experience you can spot them. You get to know the signs.”
“You’ve almost persuaded me to give it a try. Is there an age limit? No, I’m not serious. I find it altogether too dangerous. Does that appeal to you — the danger?”
She gave it some thought. “I guess it helps to get the adrenaline going, but really, if you fly according to the rules, it’s safe.” “No one can help, you if anything goes wrong,” he pointed out. “The isolation would terrify many people.”
“Maybe,” admitted Sarah. “For me, it’s freedom.”
“You’re self-reliant, then.”
“Isn’t that the only way to be?”
He looked surprised. “The only way? I can’t agree with that. Most people draw support from others to some degree: family, friends, even psychiatrists. The loner is the exception. I’m not even sure that he exists — or could.”
At this point the food arrived. While it was being served, Sarah wrestled mentally to a decision she would not have dreamed possible an hour before. She wanted to keep him interested in her. “If it won’t bore you, I’ll tell you why I like to be self-reliant. That’s a paradox, I know. If I were totally self-reliant, I wouldn’t be talking about it to you.”
He smiled. “It doesn’t disturb me. Go ahead. I’d like to hear it.”
“Okay. You mentioned family. Let me give you a rapid rundown on mine. Mother and Daddy are both alive and living in a town called Cherry Hill, near Philadelphia. They have lived there all my life. Daddy is a librarian at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s not crazy about the job, but who would be after thirty years at the same level? Mother has never had a job, aside from keeping the house in perfect order. She came from a good Boston family where none of the women did anything so sordid as housework.” Sarah giggled a little. “She lives in constant dread that one of her brothers or sisters will come by and find her using the Hoover or washing the dishes, so she gets up at six in the morning to get the housework done by nine. The rest of the day she swans about in her best dress. But she needn’t bother, because no one in her family has been near the place in years. She’s pathetic.”
“What sort of mother did she make?”
“I was her first, and she was totally ignorant of child care. She had been raised by a black mammy and only saw her mother on afternoons when she was not making social calls. She didn’t neglect me, exactly. She treated me like a doll, dressed me in pretty clothes and kept me clean and brushed my hair and taught me to say ‘Mama,’ but there was no love in it. It was just in case anyone came to call.”
“And your father?”
Sarah smiled ironically. “He kept out of it. Looking back, I guess I was just a reproach to him, dressed like that, my mother’s way of showing him she deserved to live like a lady. On his salary the best she could do was buy a pink and white dress for me once in a while. They were always pink and white with a lace frill, and I hated them all. Would she listen when I asked for jeans like the other kids wore? I don’t believe she saw the other kids; mentally she had never moved out of Boston. Her own things were way out of fashion, but she had this idea they were classic clothes that would always be okay. There was this annual dinner-dance at the university, and she went each year in the same faded print dress she had persuaded my father to buy her at Bloomingdale’s the year they were married. She would trim it and change the collar and try a new belt, but it had to be the same dress because it was class and it came from Bloomie’s and she was going to wear it until he took her back to New York for a new one.”
Perplexity had crept over Ed Cunningham’s face. “Was your father really so poor? I know librarians aren’t big earners, but—”
“He was playing the ponies. The Garden State Race Track was just two miles down the road. Mother didn’t object, because horseracing was socially okay, and I guess there was always the chance that a long shot would improve our circumstances. It never did. But when I was four, she did manage to gouge enough out of him to pay for my ballet lessons. The doll had to be taught to dance, you see.”
“Did you enjoy ballet?”