Sarah offered to take a look and, if necessary, to try to appease the dean. She was not acting out of loyalty to the department; personally, she agreed with Bernice’s estimation of Jerry, who was dependable only in one respect: he vanished in the face of a crisis. What mattered to Sarah was to make sure no precipitate decision was made to cancel the exhibition. These were her webs.
As she anticipated, the problem had been exaggerated. Given the size of the project, there was little damage. The dean’s protest was a symptom of shock; the decision to mount the exhibit in the university buildings had been taken midway through the last semester, and the dean’s memory was notoriously faulty. By the time Sarah caught up with him, he was reconciled to the change of scene.
It was spectacular. Now that they were out of that huge NBC studio and mounted in familiar settings, the webs looked markedly bigger and more sinister. The main lobby of the Administration building was dominated by a scaffold web. In the library a sheet web was slung from one side of the second-floor gallery to the other, above the readers’ desks. Outside, an orb web ingeniously linked the campanile to one of the tallest lindens on fraternity row; the dean was convinced someone would be killed trying to climb it, so he was having the approach fenced off.
Sarah went looking for the orb web used for her main action sequences — the capture of the fly and the courtship ritual. A campus security officer told her to try the gym. She found a group of NBC people there, supervised by Rick Saville, still erecting the web. He spotted her at once and came over. “You timed it beautifully,” he told her. “Who better to make the decision than Spider Girl? Look, we have to decide how to angle the web. You remember we had it almost horizontal in the studio and used an overhead camera, so you could move around freely? We figure we shouldn’t do that here. We should go for accuracy and have it vertical. Only there’s a problem: it’s too big; or, to put it another way, the gym isn’t high enough. All the other sites are taken. So what would you recommend — should we trim the web by lopping off a couple of spirals, or say the hell with fidelity to nature and have it tilted?”
“No problem,” said Sarah. “You can tilt it as much as you like. The spider adapts the angle to suit the surroundings, and so can you. I’ve seen an orb web in the hollow of a large leaf, absolutely horizontal.”
“I knew you’d have the answer.” Rick hollered: “Okay, fellas, you hear that?” Then he said to Sarah, “They can go ahead now. They don’t need me. How about coffee?”
She felt she couldn’t refuse when Rick had apparently spent his weekend preparing an exhibit that was virtually in her honor. She still disliked what he confidently put across as charm, but she supposed it was understandable that a small man with a forgettable face should overcompensate, particularly working in television. This morning he was in a wine-colored velvet suit and pale-yellow silk shirt, open, naturally, to display the chain and ingot.
She preferred not to be seen with him in the main cafeteria, so she took him to the lab, where they kept a kettle and a jar of instant. No one else was around.
“The scene of my big moment on TV,” commented Rick, looking around. “As I recall, you weren’t overjoyed at the time, but when I knocked over that case of spiders, I also gave one hell of a push to your career as a TV personality.”
“So I owe it all to you,” said Sarah with irony. “And for thanks, all you got was insults. There’s no justice.”
“My reward is seeing you make it,” said Rick. “I’m proud to have had a part in your success. You know, that blond guy your professor recommended really bombed. He was terrible.”
“You mean Don.” Sensing incipient rivalry behind Rick’s remark, Sarah commented, “He’s really nice. Just because people don’t succeed on television, it doesn’t consign them to outer darkness.”
“Sorry. Saville screws up again. He’s your guy, is he? I saw his picture in Time magazine.”
Why did people keep making that assumption? “I just happened to go dancing with him one evening.”
“You and he are not—”
“We work together. It’s reasonable to meet socially from time to time.”
“Sure. Why not? I take out girls from NBC. It’s the civilized way to behave. They know I’m not serious. So what will you do now, Sarah? Talk to the spiders?”
“They don’t have much small talk. I was thinking of going back to the gym to see if the web is in place. I’d like to be sure it’s really safe. You know how it is in a gym. All the jocks will want to climb it. Come to think of it, I might climb up myself and see if I get lucky.”
Rick Saville’s eyes widened enough for Sarah to tell that her remark had made an impact. She had said it on impulse, and it was pure self-indulgence. Rick Saville held no attraction for her, but she found satisfaction in seeing him aroused.
When they got back to the gym, the job was done. The web was attached at the top to two of the beam supports at the center and anchored to the lowest rungs of the wall bars. Its white strands shimmered in the sunlight streaking through the windows on one side.
“Is it safe?” she asked.
“Try it. You’re welcome,” said one of the technicians.
She put her hand on one of the radii and tested the tension. The vibration traveled down her arm to her body. She felt a surge of energy like an electric charge. She reached for the outermost spiral and pulled herself up, kicking off her shoes in the same movement. She climbed swiftly to the center and stopped there for a moment, letting the web absorb the shock waves across its surface. It was good to have the pressure of the strands against her body again. It was not the same as when she wore the leotard, but even through the thicker denim the contact was stimulating.
“What’s it like?” Rick called up.
“Just perfect. Why don’t you try?”
“Now?”
“Come on up.”
He hesitated, fingering the chain at his throat.
Someone broke the tension by saying, “There you go, Rick,” and there were grins all around.
Rick had gone pink. “I, uh, figure there’s no need to. I can see from here that the fellas fixed it okay.”
Sarah smiled. “Pity. This may be your last chance.”
That afternoon she asked to see the guest list for the reception. Bernice was only too happy to produce it. “Is there someone in particular you want to check on?” she inquired.
“No. I’m just interested to see who’s coming.”
“It doesn’t include people in the department,” Bernice said archly. “They’re automatically invited. That includes staff members and all graduate students.”
“Fine.” Sarah glanced through the list and verified that Dr. E. Cunningham was one of the names. “Do they have to confirm?”
“No. It’s casual, but we know that Mr. Sloane and Mr. Laz will be here. If there’s anyone else you would like added to the list, I could send out an extra invite, you know. Jerry leaves it up to me.”