Lessons in Chemistry(102)

“Really?” he snapped. “Because two weeks ago, one of my patients refused to push until you finished explaining the Maillard reaction.”

She looked up surprised, then reconsidered. “Well. It is a complicated reaction.”

“I’ve been calling you about this since Friday,” he said pointedly.

Elizabeth started. He had. He’d called both the studio and home and in her avalanche of things to do she’d neglected to call him back.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been so busy.”

“Could have used your help in getting this organized.”

“Yes.”

“Obviously we won’t be getting on the water today.”

“Again, sorry.”

“You know what really kills me?” he said, gesturing at a woman doing jumping jacks. “I’ve been trying to get my wife to row for years. As you know, I believe women have a higher threshold for pain. Still nothing I could say could convince her. But one word from Elizabeth Zott—”

The woman doing jumping jacks stopped to give Elizabeth a thumbs-up.

“—and she couldn’t get down here fast enough.”

“Oh, I see,” Elizabeth said slowly as she gave the woman a small nod of approval. “So really, you’re glad.”

“I—”

“So what you’re trying to say is, Thank you, Elizabeth.”

“No.”

“You’re very welcome, Dr. Mason.”

“No.”

She glanced back at the woman. “Your wife is getting on the erg.”

“Oh god,” Mason called. “Betsy, not that!”



* * *



—

A similar thing happened at other boathouses across the nation. Women showed up, and some of the clubs encouraged them to join. But that’s not to say every club did. Or that everyone who watched Elizabeth’s show liked what she had to say.

“GODLESS HEETHEN!” read a hastily scribbled picket sign emblazoned with Elizabeth’s likeness and hoisted by a mean-looking woman just outside KCTV Studios.

It was Elizabeth’s second parking lot of the morning, and like the first, it was fuller than usual.

“Picketers,” Walter said, catching up to her. “This is why we don’t say certain things on TV, Elizabeth,” he reminded her. “This is why we keep our opinions to ourselves.”

“Walter,” said Elizabeth, “peaceful protest is a valued form of discourse.”

“You call this discourse?” he said, as someone shouted, “BURN IN HELL!”

“They’re attention seekers,” she said as if speaking from personal experience. “They’ll move on eventually.”



* * *



—

Still, he worried. She was getting death threats. He’d shared this information with the police and studio security; he’d even called Harriet Sloane and told her. But he hadn’t told Elizabeth because he knew she’d take matters into her own hands. Besides, the police had been very reassuring about the threats. “Bunch of harmless kooks” is how they put it.



* * *



—

Across town, hours later in the Zott living room, Six-Thirty found himself worried, too. At the end of Elizabeth’s show last Friday, he’d noticed that not everyone was clapping. Today’s show, there it was again. A nonclapper.

Anxious, he waited until the creature and Harriet were busy in the lab, then slipped out the back door, jogging four blocks south, then two blocks west, until he was well positioned near the on-ramp. When a flatbed truck slowed to join a line of cars merging onto the freeway, he hopped on.

Obviously, he knew how to find KCTV. Anyone who’d read The Incredible Journey would understand how un-incredible it was that dogs could find just about anything. He used to marvel at the needle in the haystack story Elizabeth had once read to him—marvel because what was so hard about finding a needle in a haystack? The scent of high carbon steel wire was unmistakable.

In short, getting to KCTV wasn’t hard. Getting inside was.

As he meandered through the parking lot, wending his way between cars, their tail fins and hood ornaments glinting in the unseasonably hot sun, he looked for an entrance.

“Hey there, doggy,” a big man in a dark blue uniform said. He was standing in front of an important-looking door. “Where do you think you’re going?”

What Six-Thirty wanted to say was inside, that, like this man in the blue uniform, he too was in security. But since explaining was out of the question, he opted for acting—the very language of television.

“Oh gosh,” the man said as Six-Thirty collapsed in a very convincing heap. “Hold on, boy, I’ll get help!” He banged on the door until someone opened it and then hefted Six-Thirty up and carried him into the air-conditioned building. A minute later, Six-Thirty was lapping water from one of Elizabeth’s very own mixing bowls.

Say what you want about the human race, their capacity for kindness was what—in Six-Thirty’s opinion—put them over the top, species-wise.



* * *



—

“Six-Thirty?”

Elizabeth!