“Of course not.”
“Dislike me?”
“On the contrary.”
“Love me?”
He hesitated. “I’m not a young man, Sarah.”
“That doesn’t come into it.”
“But it does. What you regard as love wouldn’t fit my definition.”
“I’m not speaking about sex.”
He gave a faint smile. “You can if you like. I’m supposed to know something about it.”
“It’s not important to me.”
He stopped and looked at her. “You really mean that?”
“I’m indifferent to it.” She could see she had made an impression on him, but what was meant as reassurance obviously had him worried. She added, “Let’s say I can take it or leave it. Only, Central Park on a Sunday isn’t the place to chronicle my not too spectacular sexual adventures.”
“Right.” He smiled. “I guess it’s time we looked for a cab.”
“When will I see you again?”
“You’re going to be busy these next few weeks.”
“And you?”
“I’m ready for my vacation. A month in the Hamptons.”
She felt abandoned.
“Jerry Berlin is throwing a party on September sixth. You’re sure to be invited.”
“I’m not much of a partygoer.”
“It’s to open the exhibition of webs from Havelock’s production. It’ll be a big occasion at the university.” She watched him as she added, “Spider Girl’s big night.”
His face tightened. “Sarah, we’ve been over this. You’ve got to get this thing out of your head. It’s finished.”
If Spider Girl was finished, then so was their relationship. She was not going to let him go. He had admitted he felt responsible.
“It’s not so simple, Ed. I can’t turn it off. Anyway, you said you wanted to meet Spider Girl.” She took hold of his arm with both hands.
“I saw enough in the TV studio. For God’s sake, Sarah! You’re a sweet girl, and this is poison. Leave it alone now.”
“‘A sweet girl’! Who wants a label like that?”
He put a hand on her shoulder and gripped so hard that it hurt. “Is it psychotherapy you want from me?”
“I told you I didn’t! You’re hurting me.”
“You’re hurting yourself. Don’t you think I know enough about you to judge the damage this can do to your personality?”
“Maybe the damage was done a long time back and is irreparable.”
“I don’t accept that.” He relaxed his grip. “You really must put a higher value on yourself.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing. Spider Girl may be nasty, but she isn’t cheap.”
He sighed. “I don’t think there’s much point in going on with this.”
She said, “If you think this is a gag, watch the Today show in the morning. I figure you’ll be at that party on September sixth.”
Uncharacteristically, the interviewer was more nervous than Sarah. He had come in as a late substitute for Gene Shalit and he was new on the Today team. “I’m going to level with you. They brought me in because I’m the only available guy who saw the Never Fear program Saturday night,” he explained as they got settled before the show. “The name’s Sid — Sidney Berman. And naturally I’ve been reading the papers. They really have gone overboard for you, haven’t they? You obviously touched a raw nerve with this spider thing. Now, I’ll tell you how we handle this. No sweat — we’ll keep it relaxed. I’m going to confess I’m a little jumpy about spiders, okay? Then I’ll talk about Never Fear — we have a clip from the show — and that cues you in. I’ll ask how you could bring yourself to handle spiders and we’ll take it from there. You can be sure I won’t miss the plug for Havelock Sloane’s production. Any problems?”
“Not on my side.”
“Great. That’s a chic little number you’re wearing, Sarah. Goes with the act, huh?”
“It’s no act, Mr. Berman.”
He twitched his mouth into a smile and looked at his clipboard. “Right — you’re into research. Might be interesting to have some information about that, but keep it simple, right? Would you sit just there in the black chair? You’re no stranger to NBC, of course.”
She took her place opposite him and put her bag on the low table between them. The bag was black, tied at the top, and spotted with sequins.
Sid Berman eyed it. “Big enough for a fair-sized pet, huh?”
Sarah nodded and did not smile.
He gave another unhappy grin. “No surprises, please. We booked you, not the menagerie.”
Across the studio, Tom Brokaw started the show and read an item about a Soviet defector.
Sid Berman fingered his tie and looked at the clock.
Sarah watched him without sympathy.
The first segment had run its course and now the cameras were on Sid Berman. “There was once a confident young lady by the name of Arachne, who lived in Ancient Greece, and she could handle a spinning wheel like nobody else in the land. Rashly, she decided to challenge the Goddess of Wisdom, Pallas Athene, to a spinning contest. The goddess didn’t like that at all. She changed Arachne into a spider doomed to go on spinning for the rest of time. In the studio we have another young lady changed into a spider, by NBC. First, look at this clip from last Saturday’s program Never Fear.”
On the monitor in front of them the spider case overturned once again and Sarah was seen picking up the fugitives.
“Meet Sarah Jordan,” said Berman, “spider catcher and Spider Girl.”
She looked into the camera.
“Speaking for myself,” he went on, “in that situation, I would have been up the wall before the spiders. They scare me. How is it someone as pretty as you could actually do what you did in the film, Sarah — pick them up in your hands?”
She said, “Spiders are pretty.”
Sid Berman put his hand to his face. “Well, that’s an original idea. You really mean it?”
She looked him up and down. “Prettier than people.”
“That’s a little hard to take, but I believe you spend a lot of time studying their habits — spiders, not people. You’re a doctoral candidate with a special interest in ecology. The clip we just saw was filmed in your lab. You had something to say about arachnophobia — the fear of spiders?”
“Yes. They scared me as a child. But I overcame it. Life is like that — stages we go through. A spider has up to thirteen molts in its life. Each time it grows bigger.”
“Sarah, this TV appearance has led to an exciting change in your life, I believe.”
“That’s right. I’m appearing in a major documentary feature about the life of a spider.”
“Produced by Havelock Sloane, the two-time Emmy-winner. And he persuaded you to play the part of a spider. Would you tell me about that?”
“Sure. It’s his idea to scale up the world of spiders to man size and use people to show how it functions.”
“You move about on giant cobwebs?”
“Yes, it’s fascinating to be a spider.”
“It’s not a part many girls would care to play.”
“Don’t make it sound like acting, Mr. Berman. This is documentary television. Anyway, why should it bother me?”
“Isn’t the world of the spider pretty violent?”
“I don’t find it so. There’s killing for food, but there is in the human world, too. The fact that you have your killing done for you doesn’t alter the fact that you feed on dead flesh.”
Berman coughed into his hand. “That’s a fair point, I guess. Turning to something more delicate — I believe you actually put the spider’s mating ritual onto the screen.”
“In simulation, yes.”
“Tell us about that. I believe the male takes quite a risk.”