“Not I, my dear,” he said with a significance she was meant to note but not understand. “This is extracurricular.”
She said ironically, “Like they need me on the football team?”
“Have you ever had lunch in the Rose Room at the Algonquin?”
“Is this some survey you’re doing, Jerry?”
“I’m serious. You really made an impact with the TV people. I got a call from Greg Laz last night. He just finished putting together the segment he was filming here. He screened it for some of the top people at NBC. They like it a lot. In particular they like what they saw of you. You’re invited to lunch with Laz and” — Jerry walked to the window and took a look into the far distance — “Havelock Sloane.”
“Should I have heard of him?”
Jerry turned to face her and said in a throwaway tone, “He just happens to have won the Emmy Award for the best documentary two years in a row.”
“Fantastic for him,” said Sarah, “but where do I come in?”
“Isn’t it obvious? You’re telegenic, Sarah. You have the qualities a big man like Sloane can use in a major documentary. It’s all in front of you!”
“But, Jerry, I’m deep into my research project. I’m not looking for work on TV.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll meet that when it comes. The big question now is, what are you going to wear?”
She went, she told herself, because her life up to now had not been overstocked with rewarding experiences. She was entitled to hear some nice things for a change. At the end she would thank them for their generosity and explain that her academic career had to come first.
Jerry had handed her a check for two hundred dollars, saying it was her share of the department’s fee for the Greg Laz series; Don, he assured her, was getting the same. She spent most of it on a skirt and jacket, bottle green with a pale leaf design overprinted in a broad band on the skirt. The color brought out the gold tones in her hair; she hated being labeled simply a redhead. She justified the new outfit by telling herself she would wear it the next time Ed invited her out.
Her hosts were already sitting in the main lobby of the Algonquin. Laz guided her hand deferentially to Havelock Sloane’s. The great man held it a moment, studying her in a way she found flattering. He was about sixty, solemn, thoughtful, slow in speech. He was obviously used to good living, but by the shape of his physique she could tell he practiced some form of conditioning. Sarah found herself speculating whether his hair was his own; something about it was wrong, though it was uniform in shape and color.
They took their drinks to the table reserved in the Rose Room. The headwaiter greeted Sloane by name and motioned his staff to the table.
When they had ordered, Sloane sat back in his chair and looked around to see who else was lunching there, while Laz brought Sarah up to date. “Never Fear, the series, is scheduled for its first airing four weeks from Saturday. Program One will be shown at ten-thirty in the evening. We should both be pleased, because that’s prime time.” He gave a broad smile. “Sarah, you couldn’t have guessed when you agreed to talk to Ed Cunningham in your lab that morning we were there that it would turn out to be the high point of the series. I liked it so much that I used some of it twice — in Program One, which introduces the series, and Six, which deals with phobias in detail. To get your sequence in full I even cut out a couple of interviews with phobia sufferers I originally planned to use. All told, you get nearly nine minutes of viewing time, which is a lot, believe me.”
“I’m sure it is,” said Sarah. “It’s terrifying.”
“Not at all. It’s damn good film, or I wouldn’t use it. You may not be aware of this, young lady, but in TV terms you have very exciting qualities. You photograph well, you’re cool and very watchable, and you talk as if the camera isn’t there. More than that, you put things in a way people understand. You don’t wrap it up in egghead jargon. NBC screened the series for some of their top people two weeks back, and after it they weren’t talking about schedules. They were talking about you, and how they could use you in something bigger.”
She smiled and shook her head, but before she said a word, Havelock Sloane broke into the discussion. He was not the sort of man you interrupted. “Tell me what you think of this, Ms. Jordan. A fifty-minute documentary feature, directed by me in association with Mr. Laz. The subject: spiders. Christ, you say, Havelock Sloane is out of his mind. A mass TV audience won’t watch spiders. They’ll switch channels by the millions. So how do I keep my audience? This way: I tell them in advance they won’t see a single spider on the program. Crazy?”
Sarah was not sure how to react. She gave a noncommittal shrug.
“You got to admit it sounds crazy,” Sloane insisted with a trace of petulance.
“Okay, I admit it,” said Sarah, laughing. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” said Sloane benignly. “Just an idea of mine. Spiders are too ugly to feature on a prime-time program, right? But they can be really interesting; you convinced me of that in Greg’s documentary, and I did some research of my own. The whole ritual of the web — terrific. I don’t have to tell you. So how can I show this beautiful thing to America without creating mass panic? Miss Jordan, instead of spiders, I use people. I scale up the spiders’ world to man size. Get this: I’m not putting anyone in fancy costumes. Give the viewing audience a convention — in this case, people playing spiders — and they accept it for what it represents. You may find that hard to believe, but I tell you from long experience in television that it’s true.” He paused to let the point sink in. “But the rest is totally authentic in appearance. And action. We show a web being built and used to catch prey. We see how the victim is bound up in silk. We see the mating ritual. It’s a tremendous technical challenge, but we have the skill and resources to do it. I see it almost as a ballet; I want to use electronic music to create an atmosphere.” He stopped talking and sat back in his chair for a moment as if he were hearing the music. Then he turned to Sarah and said, “It needs a narrator — someone to take the audience through the more complex sequences and tell them what’s going on. I decided to ask you. I think you could do this job better than anyone in the business.”
Before Sarah could respond, Laz said, “How about that, Sarah? Havelock wants you as his presenter!”
To be asked was better than a compliment. It was proof positive that the nice things Laz had said were backed by an offer from one of the top men in TV. If she weren’t so dedicated to completing her research, she might have agreed to take part. But that project was the main thing in her life. She wanted it to be so good that no one could doubt her ability again. And she wanted to deliver it on schedule, long before Don’s was ready.
“I want you to know that I’m thrilled to be asked,” she told Sloane. “I really do appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid I have to turn it down. I don’t know too much about TV, but I do know enough to be sure that this isn’t the kind of thing I could do in a couple of days. It would be weeks out of my research, and I’m already behind on my schedule. Please, will you understand that my studies have to take priority.”
Without a word, Havelock Sloane put up his hand for the headwaiter. Sarah’s stomach lurched and she went white, certain that she had just caused the abrupt termination of the lunch.
Sloane spoke some words into the headwaiter’s ear, then told Sarah, “He will bring a phone to the table so you can square it with your professor.” As if that settled the matter, he turned to Laz and said, “With hair like this, she should look sensational in black.”
“I don’t think I made myself clear,” said Sarah. “I can’t take part in your program. My research is too important.”