“Try and understand what we’re doing, Sarah. People playing spiders is a stunt, right? It’s kinky and controversial. The natural-history crowd will want to lynch me. It doesn’t bother me; controversy is news and news is publicity. I’m going to play that one for all it’s worth. I want the whole country watching my show. But after they switch it on, I’m not playing games anymore. I mean to give them an insight into spiders they didn’t know was possible. So how do we work this miracle? Any ideas?”
She had not given it much thought, but she had to recoup some dignity. “I guess by using people, you eliminate the revulsion commonly felt for spiders.”
“Right. Only it goes deeper. Show a TV audience a spider, and half of them switch channels. The other half might watch, but they don’t identify with the thing. It’s too damned ugly. Show them a man building a web against the New York skyline, and they’re mentally up there with him.”
Sarah saw the point Havelock was making, but as a scientist she saw the flaw in it. “Isn’t that because he’s a man doing a dangerous stunt? The point about web-building is that it has no dangers — for a spider.”
“Right,” said Havelock. “We have to persuade the audience to look at the man and believe he is a spider. Then they appreciate the technical problems in building a web.”
“It’s asking too much.”
‘“Not if they’ve already made the mental jump of seeing people as spiders.”
“How is that supposed to happen?”
“It’s your job, sweetheart. We start with you in the studio. You convince them that you really are a spider.”
She turned to face him. “That’s crazy!”
He kept his eyes on her and said nothing.
“How can I, dressed in a leotard?”
“Sarah, take my word for it, a costume with eight legs would strain credulity much more. You’re a very attractive girl, so you’re watchable. If we made you ugly, put hairs on your limbs and fangs in your mouth, they wouldn’t take you seriously. We’re operating on another level of persuasion. We let them see you’re pretty. We say here’s this dream of a girl standing on a giant spiderweb: now, watch. And by the way you act, you convince them that you’re not a girl. You do it with such conviction that they reject the idea that what they see has a human intelligence. So, what else are they looking at but a spider?”
It was fantastic, but it sounded possible, even plausible, put that way. Except that Sarah couldn’t see herself doing it. “If I were a trained actress—”
“You’d fuck it up completely,” said Havelock. “Sarah, you know spiders. You know what makes them act the way they do. You can do this, but you have to make the mental jump yourself. While you’re on that web, you have to become a spider. When it happens, you’ll know. I’ll know. More important, the audience will know. I told you this morning was crap. You know why?”
“I was too self-conscious?”
“Right. It was in your movements, your face, your eyes. You were thinking, How can I do this and keep my dignity? So you held your chest out and your ass in and your knees together and each time you stopped, it was like a picture in the family album.”
She gave an embarrassed smile.
“Do you believe me when I say it looked ridiculous? If I wanted to remake a Busby Berkeley movie, I wouldn’t be hiring you, sweetheart. You’re Spider Girl. Can we agree on that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I mean, if it offends your scruples, let’s tear up the contract. I have scruples, too. I don’t force people into doing things they hate. The reason I hired you is that I got the impression you understood spiders like no one else I know. That you had a respect for them.”
“I have.”
Havelock took a bite of his sandwich. “They get a lousy press, don’t they?”
She laughed and said, “Sure, but they’re not all bad.”
“Prove it, then. No one ever had a better chance.”
“I’ll need a lot of help.”
“Sweetheart, that’s guaranteed. We can give you special lighting, shadows, music. But what it comes down to is, do you believe in yourself as Spider Girl?”
“I can try.”
“Okay. This afternoon, I’ll leave you out of rehearsals. Get on the web and forget who you are and what you are. Don’t move around. Just sit up there and find out what being a spider is like. It’s a matter of self-conviction. When you believe it, you’ll do it right. And then we have a show.”
On the afternoon of the concert, Meg ran her steam iron over the Spanish dress, and it took nearly an hour, there were so many flounces. She polished the block-heeled shoes that she would use for the dance. She took a long shower and washed her hair. She was excited, but not too nervous. She knew she was ready. She would not let him down.
He was to call for her at seven-thirty. At seven she wrapped the shoes in tissue paper and put them in her overnight case. She added a brush and some combs, her makeup bag, her gold chain and cross and pendant earrings, the fan she would hold, and the red carnation for her hair. She closed the case and got the dress out of the closet, put a clothes bag over it, and hung it on the door.
Someone had slipped an envelope under the door, a ridiculously long white one. Some kind of joke? She picked it up. In one corner was written in very small letters BREAK A LEG TONIGHT. She looked inside. It contained a peacock’s feather. She smiled. Nancy.
At seven-twenty-five she opened the case and tucked an extra pair of panties and her toothbrush under the other things.
Don was right on time. As her lips were already made up, he kissed her forehead, and said she looked fantastic. He had brought her a present, a new fan, a beautiful antique carved from ivory. He said she had better try it a few times to be sure it would open easily. For some reason it was difficult. She fumbled it two times out of three. He suggested they leave it behind, but she said she would get it right while they were waiting to go on. So she put it in her case. She took out the bottle of Spanish sherry she had bought the day before and poured two glasses. It was Amontillado, too dry for her taste, but she figured Don would not care for sweet sherry, so she pretended to enjoy it. After the first sips, it warmed her throat and flowed through her body. The rest was easy to take.
The performances were to be staged in the open air on the East Lawn of the campus, a fifteen-minute walk from Meg’s dormitory. The scheduling was a little uncertain, so they were asked to be ready by eight-fifty. The guitar accompaniment would be provided by José-Maria, a part-time musician Don had heard at a Greenwich Village café and persuaded to make the tape they had used for rehearsals.
The heat of the day still hung in the air as they left the building, Don carrying Meg’s case and his own, she with her dress folded over her arm. She was wearing her black satin skirt and a green top with a reckless plunge. She had found it in Gimbels the previous Saturday, for when the performances were over, there would be refreshments and dancing.
Taped music carried across the campus to them as they started along Busch Boulevard, beside the Physics building. Her body gave a shiver of anticipation. It was strange to hear heavy rock among these stately buildings and see girls in skirts and guys smarter than they ever looked by day, all converging on the source of the sound.
The organizers of the event had erected a large platform in the center of the East Lawn. Meg learned later that it was the university boxing ring, but it was well disguised with banks of flowers and a canopy overhead, decked with lanterns and loudspeakers. Scores of people were already seated on the grass around the stage, and farther back, rows of chairs were ranged. At one edge of the lawn was a barbecue, with guys in tall chefs hats cooking hamburgers and chipolatas.