Lessons in Chemistry(73)

“Do not,” he said stiffly, “lecture me on the Afternoon Depression Zone.”

For the next few minutes, the two of them sat in the dressing room, one looking at the floor, the other looking at the wall. Not a word passed between them.

“Mr. Pine?” A different secretary poked her head in. “Mr. Lebensmal has a flight to catch, but he wanted me to remind you that you’ve got the rest of the week to fix ‘it.’ I’m sorry— I don’t know what ‘it’ is. Says you better make ‘it’?”—she consulted her notes again—“?‘sexy.’?” Then she turned pink. “Also, there’s this.” She handed him a hand-scrawled note Lebensmal had dashed off. And what about the fucking cocktail?

“Thanks,” Walter said.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Mr. Pine,” the first secretary said, appearing as the other was leaving. “It’s late— I need to go home. But the phones…”

“Go on, Paula,” he said. “I’ll handle it.”

“Can I help?” Elizabeth asked.

“You’ve helped plenty enough today,” Walter said. “So, when I say, ‘No thank you,’ I actually mean no thank you.”

Then he went out to the secretary’s desk, Elizabeth trailing behind, and picked up a phone. “KCTV,” he said wearily. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s vinegar.”

“Vinegar,” Elizabeth said into another line.

“Vinegar.”

“Vinegar.”

“Vinegar.”

“Vinegar.”



* * *



—

He’d never gotten a single call on the clown show.





Chapter 26



The Funeral

“Hello, my name is Elizabeth Zott, and this is Supper at Six.”

From the producer’s chair, Walter squeezed his eyes shut. “Please,” he whispered. “Please, please, please.” It was the fifteenth day of broadcasting and he was exhausted. Over and over again he’d explained that just as he didn’t get to choose the desk he sat behind, neither did she get to choose the kitchen she cooked in. It was nothing personal; sets, like desks, were selected based on research and budgets. But every time he’d made this argument, she’d nod her head as if she understood and then say, “Yes—but.” And then they’d start all over again. Same with the script. He told her that her job was to engage the audience, not bore them. But with all her tiresome chemical asides, she was so boring. That’s why he’d decided it was finally time to add the live audience. Because he knew real people sitting just twenty feet away would instantly teach her the peril of being dull.

“Welcome to our first live audience show,” Elizabeth said.

So far so good.

“Every afternoon, Monday through Friday, we’ll make dinner together.”

Exactly what he had written.

“Starting with tonight’s supper: spinach casserole.”

Bronco busted. She was following orders.

“But first we need to clean up our work space.” His eyes flew open as she picked up the ball of brown yarn and tossed it into the audience.

No, no, he begged silently. The cameraman glanced back at him as the audience erupted in nervous laughter.

“Anyone need some rubber bands?” she asked, holding up the rubber band ball. Several hands went up, so she tossed that into the audience as well.

Dumbstruck, he gripped the arms of his canvas folding chair.

“I like having room to work,” she said. “It reinforces the idea that the work you and I are about to do is important. And today I have a lot to do and could use some help getting even more room. Could anyone use a cookie jar?”

To Walter’s horror, almost all the hands went up, and before he knew it, people were milling about the set as Elizabeth encouraged them to take whatever they wanted. In less than a minute, every single item was gone—even the wall art. The only thing that remained was the fake window and the large clock.

“Okay,” she said in a serious tone as the audience returned to their seats. “Now let’s get started.”



* * *



—

Walter cleared his throat. One of the first rules of television, other than to entertain, is to pretend that no matter what happens, it was all part of the plan. This is what TV hosts are trained to do, and this is what Walter, who had never been a host, decided in that moment to try. He sat up in his canvas chair and leaned forward as if he’d orchestrated this total breach of TV conduct himself. But, of course, he hadn’t, and everyone knew he hadn’t, and they all registered his impotence in their specific ways: the cameraman shook his head, the sound guy sighed, the set designer gave Walter the finger from stage right. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was up onstage hacking at a huge pile of spinach with the biggest knife he’d ever seen.

Lebensmal was going to kill him.

He closed his eyes for a few moments, listening to the stirrings from the studio audience: the seat shifting, the small coughs. From off in the distance, he heard Elizabeth talking about the role potassium and magnesium play in the body. The cue card he’d written for this particular segment had been among his favorites: Isn’t spinach a nice color? Green. It reminds me of springtime. She’d skipped right over it.