“You mean slaughter by the female? It happens, but it’s comparatively rare. They’re pretty smart at getting away afterward. For me, the attraction of the mating is what happens before, when the male first gets on the female’s web. He has to coax her by vibrating the lines, and several times she’ll attack him for getting it wrong. It’s very exciting. He has to convince her that he isn’t prey. You should try it. After that, you’ll never want a submissive female again.”
“I’ll take your word for that. You obviously enjoyed being Spider Girl.”
“The enjoyment continues, Mr. Berman.”
“The shooting hasn’t finished?”
“It’s finished, but Spider Girl is not.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t. There’s no way you could find yourself on my web.”
Berman grinned as well as he could. “You’re implying that you’re reorganizing your life to fit this image?”
“No. It’s not a reorganization. More of an organic development. A molt.” She smiled. “You break out of the old cuticle in which the body is enclosed. And you’re bigger and more powerful.”
He gave a laugh. “I wouldn’t describe you as big or powerful.”
“Not physically. Spider Girl is an attitude of mind. Mentally, I’ve grown.”
“I’m still not too clear on this. Does it affect your behavior?”
“Naturally. I’m more decisive, more positive, and I don’t tolerate invasions on my territory — from males or females. I watch and wait and attack.”
“It sounds frightening.”
“Spiders are — to most people.”
“But fascinating, too.”
“As I said.”
“Sarah Jordan, Spider Girl, I’m not sure if you’ve just been stringing me along—” He stopped.
She had put out her hand to the bag on the table between them. The camera moved in. She appeared to be loosening the tie-string.
“—but I figure the viewers will make up their own minds.”
Sarah reached into the bag and took out a Kleenex.
Sid Berman was no longer in his seat.
After Sarah’s Today show appearance, the pace quickened. The papers and magazines that had interviewed her in the weeks before all chose this week to publish her story. Time magazine featured her on its “People” page with a photo taken at the Legs disco with the furry spider poised over her head and Don Rigden at her side. Don was not named; the caption read SARAH (SPIDER GIRL) JORDAN AND FRIEND. There were more press people wanting interviews. Harry Shakespeare sifted them. Small-circulation papers were out, and so were free-lancers. Big-name feature editors and column writers had a chance, but few others did. She had two long evenings of TV and radio interviews. She handled it all as she had the Today show, with total seriousness, and it was satisfying to find she was equal to every kind of challenge to her integrity. Flippant or sarcastic questions were simply turned back on the interviewers. The intellectual argument rarely arose, and when it did, she countered it with her own almost metaphysical assertions.
The publicity brought so many invitations — to parties, dinners, clubs, and colleges — that she had a card printed to decline them. She did attend a few campus parties, small affairs arranged by teaching staff and graduate students not on vacation. She wore April May gowns with the spider emblem, and she made a point of remaining in one corner of the room, watching and being watched and saying the minimum. She could depend on two or three men an evening trying their luck at making conversation, and it was no trouble putting them down. She always left early and alone.
One evening she was coming home from the Student Union building before midnight when she was conscious of someone not far behind. The steps were light and quick and gaining. She glanced back and saw that it was a girl, but the light was too poor to see if it was someone she knew.
Sarah stepped aside and looked in her bag, as if searching for a cigarette, and the girl caught up and said, “I want to talk to you.”
“Do I know you?” Sarah asked.
“Meg Kellaway.”
“Oh. I’ve seen you around.”
“It’s about Don.”
“Of course! You’re his dance partner.”
“Not according to Time magazine.”
Sarah laughed a little. “So you saw that. ‘Spider Girl and friend.’ It didn’t say which was the friend — Don or the spider hanging over us. Shall we walk on? It gets cool standing still.” She started walking again and Meg came with her. “What do you want, Meg?”
“I want to know how serious you are.”
“Me? I’m serious all the time. I don’t go for gags.”
“About Don, I mean.”
“Don? Is that it? You think you have exclusive rights or something?”
“I know that I haven’t. He has plenty of dates.”
“Do you check them all out?”
“You’re different. You don’t chase him.”
“Do you?”
“There was a time when I did, just like the others. Then I found it worked better to let him do the running. He did, up to a point. He taught me to dance flamenco and I was happy, only he didn’t want a full relationship. I couldn’t work out why, until I heard he was dating you.”
“Who told you this?”
“One of my friends saw you eating ice cream together.”
“Deplorable!”
“One time he missed a rehearsal on account of some errand he had to make to you somewhere in the mountains. I couldn’t understand what made him so interested in you. No offense, but he always said you were a man-hater, so I wasn’t jealous of you working with him on research.”
Sarah was irritated, yet intrigued enough to check her impulse to tear Meg Kellaway into small pieces.
“But on the night of the Amnesty International concert, when we danced the seguidilla, we had a bust-up and it was over you. He went to some bar to watch you on television. I’d done the damned dance with him and he didn’t want to know me. I found him and gave him hell and walked out. We haven’t spoken since.”
“And now you miss him?”
“You guessed it.”
“Why talk to me?”
“Don is nuts about you. If you want him, I mean really love him, he’s yours and there’s nothing I can do. If you don’t, and you’re just amusing yourself, I intend to fight you for him.”
“Pistols at dawn?”
“Would you please be serious and tell me if you love Don?”
Sarah laughed out loud. “Love? What’s that?”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“Were you?”
“If you want to know, yes,” said Meg. “And if you tell me he had dozens of girls before me, you’re telling me nothing. I don’t care about them. I care about now. You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t intend to. It’s my business — and Don’s. Why don’t you ask him?”
“I can’t imagine what attracts him to you.”
“Listening to you, I figure he was bored out of his skull,” said Sarah.
“I can see why they call you Spider Girl. You’re a man-eater, but I won’t let you have Don.”
“No?” said Sarah skeptically. “How would you like to learn a new dance to amuse Don, Miss Kellaway? Have you heard of the tarantella? If not, I suggest you get your ass around to the library in the morning and do some research. Then, if you care to take it further, stop me again some evening. Get along now. It’s way past your bedtime.”
11
In the last two weeks of August, the pressure eased enough for Sarah to think about research again. She knew the publicity would peak again in October, when Sloane’s program was scheduled for airing, and she worked on her research for at least part of the time before then. On September 2, the Tuesday before Jerry’s party, she arrived at the department building to find Bernice near to tears. “Jerry’s a shit!” she told Sarah. “He knew the technicians would be here over the weekend putting up the webs for the exhibit, so what did he do? He arranged to go off on a fancy yacht for the Labor Day weekend. No one can reach him. They were calling me at home all Saturday and Sunday asking if it was all right to drill into the walls and the floor and the ceiling — as if I was responsible. I said you’d better do whatever is necessary, only don’t leave a mess, and now the dean has just been in to say the cork floor in the main entrance is ruined and there’s a crack in the ceiling and God knows what else he’ll find as he walks around.”