Festival of Deaths(4)

The truth was, Lotte Goldman liked DeAnna Kroll very much. She had liked DeAnna Kroll from the moment the two of them met, in the back of a classroom at Columbia University, where Lotte was teaching a class on abnormal psychology. It had been an auspicious meeting if there ever was one. DeAnna had needed her score, as she put it, to make it necessary for Bart Gradon to promote her. She had been very direct about that aspect of the proposition. In return, Lotte had found herself being very direct about her side of it all. Her own honesty had astonished her. She had told DeAnna Kroll just how sick she was of psychiatry, and how much stupidity she thought it was. She had told DeAnna Kroll just how sick she was of Columbia University. There was something pinched and ungiving about the academic life that Lotte had never liked. On the day DeAnna Kroll had walked into her classroom, Lotte had just received her promotion to full professor, and it had left her in despair. The whole situation was crazy. It was very wrong to despise the good things life gave you when so many people had nothing at all. Lotte hadn’t been able to help herself. It was not logical to be depressed about good fortune. Lotte didn’t think she cared.

“Listen,” DeAnna Kroll had told her, with a sharp wind coming through an open window at their backs and making them both shiver, “it probably won’t work. But if it does work, there’s no place it can’t go.”

Well, it had worked.

It had worked in spades.

And so had Lotte and DeAnna.

There was no accounting for it, but DeAnna Kroll was the closest friend Lotte Goldman had ever had, and she had a feeling that the compliment was returned. For some reason or the other, they fit.

When the phone rang, Lotte put down her book and picked up without a second’s worry that what might be coming on the other end of the line was bad news about David or Rebekkah or the children. It was going to be DeAnna Kroll, and Lotte knew it.

“Don’t tell me,” she said, without bothering to say hello, “a saboteur got onto the set and blew it up. Bart Gradon saw yesterday’s show and died of embarrassment. We have been invaded by representatives of the Moral Majority.”

“The Moral Majority is out of business,” DeAnna said, “and Bart can’t be embarrassed. I don’t know about the set. I haven’t been down to the studio.”

“You’re not at the office?”

“Of course I’m at the office. It’s four o’clock in the morning. Where am I supposed to be except at the office?”

“I could say in bed with a man, DeAnna, but that would serve no purpose. What is the problem?”

“The Siamese twins never made it. They’re stuck in the fog at Heathrow.”

“Heathrow.” Lotte frowned. “Does the Concorde fly from Heathrow? Into New York?”

“It does, but it’s no use. I was going to call you first thing I got up here, but I decided to do some checking first. Short of somebody on staff inventing the transatlantic equivalent of ‘Beam me up, Scottie,’ there’s no way to get those two over here in time to tape.”

“Ah,” Lotte said. “What about Maria? What does Maria say?”

“I can’t find Maria.”

“It wasn’t Maria who told you the Siamese twins would not be able to tape?”

“It was Prescott Holloway. He went to the airport and waited for hours then he tried to call Maria and he couldn’t get her either. It’s not a great night for getting people, Lotte, let me tell you. I’ve been calling the whole staff. I’ve gotten hold of maybe half of them.”

“The other half probably have better things to do. You ought to get a better thing to do. You’re going to leave it until too late.”

“I had it too early. That’s why I’ve got a twenty-three year old daughter and I’m only thirty-eight. Never mind the other one. The other one is giving me migraines.”

“Your daughters will be fine,” Lotte said. She meant it. She had known both of DeAnna’s daughters since they were small children, and they seemed like very normal and psychologically healthy girls to her. They seemed especially psychologically healthy since she’d given up Freud in favor of feminism. “I suppose we’ll have to think of something to tape a show on. We couldn’t just let it ride for one day.”

“No. We don’t have enough of a lag.”

“We ought to have enough of a lag. Most of the other shows tape at least a week in advance.”

“Most of the other shows don’t have our reputation for breaking news. You got anything you want to do?”

“I don’t have anything that would constitute breaking news,” Lotte said drily. “I have a few things that are fairly provocative.”