Lessons in Chemistry
- Автор: Garmus Bonnie
- Год: 2022
- Язык: английский
- Год: Doubleday Canada
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Lessons in Chemistry». Краткое содержание книги:
“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.
“…many believe spinach makes us strong because it contains almost as much iron as meat. But the truth is, spinach is high in oxalic acid, which inhibits iron absorption. So when Popeye implies he’s getting strong from spinach, don’t believe him.”
Fantastic. Now she was calling Popeye a liar.
“Still, spinach offers plenty of nutritive value and we’ll be talking about that and more,” she said, brandishing her knife into the camera, “just after this station break.”
Jesus Fucking Christ. He didn’t bother to get up.
“Walter,” she said at his elbow mere moments later. “What did you think? I took your advice. I engaged the audience.”
He turned to look at her, his face wooden.
“It was exactly like you’ve been saying: entertain. Knowing I needed more counter space, I thought of baseball — the way the vendors throw the peanuts at the crowd? And it worked.”
“Yes,” he said flatly. “And then you invited everyone to help themselves to the home plate, and the bats, and the gloves, and whatever else they could find lying around.”
She looked surprised. “You sound mad.”
“Thirty seconds, Mrs. Zott,” the cameraman said.
“No, no,” he said calmly. “I’m not mad. I’m furious.”
“But you said to entertain.”
“No. What you did was you took things that didn’t belong to you and then you gave them away.”
“But I needed the space.”
“On Monday prepare to die,” he said. “First me, then you.”
She turned away.
“I’m back,” he heard her say in an irritated voice as the audience clapped its approval. Thankfully, he heard very little after that, but that was only because his stomach hurt and his heart was pinging about his chest in a way that he hoped indicated something very serious. He closed his eyes to hasten his death — stroke or heart attack, he’d take either one.
He looked up to see Elizabeth waving her arm around the empty kitchen. “Cooking is chemistry,” she was saying. “And chemistry is life. Your ability to change everything — including yourself — starts here.”
Good god.
His secretary bent down and whispered something about Lebensmal wanting to see him first thing in the morning. He closed his eyes again. Relax, he told himself. Breathe.
From behind his eyelids, he saw something he did not care to see. It was him at a funeral—his funeral — and lots of people in colorful clothing were milling about. He overheard someone — his secretary? — telling the story of how he died. It was a boring story and he didn’t like it, but it fit his afternoon programming profile. He listened carefully, hoping to hear news of his life mixed with compliments, but mostly people said things like, “So, what are you doing this weekend?”