“I’d like that.”
“Fine. I’ll pick you up at the lab — if Don won’t take offense.”
“It won’t hurt him to see that I have some other friends.”
She hummed a tune as she walked up Park Avenue. At last some good things were coming into her life. And she was in charge.
They started running down the hillside stride for stride, locked together by the harness, hands gripping the control bar. The sail above them was level with the line of trees blue-green on the horizon. “Come on!” urged Sarah. “Hammer the ground!”
She held the nose angle steady as Don responded. The harness straps tightened. Takeoff.
It was smooth. They kept the running action going until their legs were treading air.
Now Sarah pulled in the bar a fraction to level the sail, and they were gliding freely on a fresh breeze, the land shooting under them.
“Scared?” She had to shout. The helmets were not soundproof, but they made the wind sound like a force-nine gale.
“Not with you in charge. It’s sensational!”
She knew what he was feeling. Floating on air is as superior to powered flight as running is to using a wheelchair. It is intensely exhilarating. Fears you felt before takeoff are subdued by the buoyancy of the sail. The wind frisks your clothes, sings in your helmet, dries your mouth. Above you it beats against the sail fabric, and your heart beats in time. It is new and yet familiar. You are flying as you do in dreams.
The slope slipped away and so did the sense of speed. They appeared suspended over an almost-still terrain.
“Hey, how about that?”
She looked where he was pointing, and saw thirty or forty deer racing for cover. Ahead was Lake Pinecliff, fringed by trees.
She had not told Don this was the first time she had taken control of a two-seat Rogallo. The principles were no different from those of solo gliding. The kite was riding high. You could wait weeks for conditions as good as these. She would take him over the lake and turn downwind to make the landing, see how his nerves held up.
She, too, was savoring a new sensation. Without her to control the glider, Don Rigden would be helpless. He had to trust her. This heartthrob, mooned over and pursued by numberless coeds, had put himself in her charge. Jerry’s protégé, the white hope of the Ecology Department, the researcher slotted to outshine everyone, herself included, was beside her, trussed in his harness.
She was aware of his helplessness, but was he?
He would be.
Things were clearer from up here. This was stimulating, playing spider and fly for a few minutes above the New Jersey landscape, but it was just a foretaste.
She was going to fly high at the university. If Jerry or Don wanted to come, he would do it with her consent. And at his peril.
Her breakthrough in television was power. She had seen it work on her parents without fully appreciating its possibilities. Their stupid vanities were nothing beside Jerry Berlin’s ambitions. He thought he was smart, doing a deal with Laz and Havelock Sloane, trading Sarah for the sets and for the good publicity. A foot in the door at NBC.
Jesus Christ, she would take him for a ride and make him pay.
The Rogallo was losing height by degrees and they were on course to hit the lake.
“Can you swim?” she called to Don.
He smiled, but it was not an easy smile.
Don was safe this time, but he was in for some shocks. The days when he could pave his future over a drink with Jerry were finished. He would find there were other priorities.
As they lost altitude, the sensation of movement returned. The lake started racing toward them.
They were over the water, maybe seventy feet up.
“Okay,” shouted Sarah, “we’re turning. Push the bar to your right.”
The counteraction caused their bodies to swing left. The wing tip dipped and the glider banked. They made a full turn and were on course with the wind. The sounds almost stopped.
“Better be ready to run. Here comes touchdown.”
The glider swooped back over the rough turf beside the lake. Birds scattered on either side.
“Push!”
The forward movement of the control bar raised the nose into the flare position for landing. Their feet hit the ground and they ran with the kite for at least a dozen strides before stopping and toppling gently to the turf.
“Fantastic!” said Don. “Terrific, Sarah!” He turned, gripped her shoulder, pulled her toward him, and kissed her.
She did not respond. She waited a moment and then pushed him off. “Basic ground drill, Mr. Rigden. After landing, attend to the glider.”
That night she slept alone in the motel as usual, just as she had planned.
She had enjoyed drinking with him until the bar closed, studying his low-key but well-tested style of seduction, the subdued voice and steady gaze. It came easily to him — as the girls did. He was well above average in looks. The mouth was finely shaped and wide, the smile generous, eyes deep blue, nose even, brow wide; but the hair was the unforgettable feature: fine, dead straight, and white gold.
She didn’t want him.
When the blinking of the lights signaled “last call,” he said coolly, “How about bed?”
She said, “I know where mine is.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“Not this trip.”
His face changed. It had to be his first turn-down in years. “Did I say something wrong?”
She shook her head.
“I mean, I’m not sure how to read you, Sarah.”
“I thought I made it clear. Thanks for a nice evening.”
He recovered enough to say with a smirk, “Thanks for the ride — up there.”
She let that pass. She didn’t want a fight. She wanted Don to stay around. The good things to come in her life would taste so much sweeter if he was there to watch.
She walked to the door leading to the rooms and then looked back and said, “Good night, Marty.”
She wasn’t aware of her slip of the tongue until she noticed Don’s totally baffled expression.
“You’ll like Harry Shakespeare,” Ed had promised over lunch. “He’s young and dynamic and nobody’s fool. Would you believe he’s also English?”
In his Sixth Avenue office, Harry had pictures of Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, and Cheryl Tiegs. “Don’t get the wrong idea,” he explained with a faint smile. “That’s my wanted list. Miss Jordan, how are you? Undecided, I’m sure, until we both know how I can help you.” Harry Shakespeare’s hand was cool, his grip confident. He had a glass eye and a mouth that drooped.
She liked him.
“So you haven’t talked money yet with NBC,” he said when she and Ed had outlined their reasons for coming. “Dear old Havelock is a charming fellow and a most inventive director, but he does have this tiresome tendency to forget that fees are involved.”
“There is the agreement to donate all the sets to the university,” said Sarah.
“Splendid, but that’s public relations, not remuneration. If you anchor a major documentary with his name on it, you stand to collect five thousand dollars minimum, my dear.”
The figure staggered her. “Nobody has heard of me.”
“Let me surprise you, then. Ed, when you phoned yesterday and said this talented and pretty young graduate student you knew was going to narrate Sloane’s next documentary, didn’t I ask right away whether that was Sarah Jordan you were talking about?”
Ed confirmed it.
“Not much happens in this town without interested parties getting to know about it,” Harry went on. “I’ve no reason for thinking my spies at NBC are reporting exclusively to me. You can take my word for it that anyone with a stake in television will have made a note of your name this week. That’s nothing. I think you’ll find that Havelock has plans to get you known from coast to coast before his program is aired.”