Erich Segal - The Class

“An opera singer in a Broadway show?” Edgar Waldorf cringed. “Besides, she’d never do it.”

“First of all,” said Danny, “I got to know her when I conducted Lucia at La Scala. She’s a terrific lady. And she’s got the courage to take on new challenges.”

“Look,” reasoned the ever-reasonable Edgar Waldorf, “I would be the last person to knock Miss Sutherland’s talent, but opera and Broadway don’t seem to mix.”

“What about Ezio Pinza in South Pacific ?” asked Stuart.

“A fluke, a fluke,” said Waldorf. “Besides, what made that show was Mary Martin. And anyway we can’t afford Sutherland. No, I say we’ve got to go with someone used to doing eight shows a week. Someone who’s a proven draw — magnetic, vibrant, exciting —”

“And also big tits, maybe?” Danny asked facetiously.

“That wouldn’t hurt either,” said the producer, trying to act ingenuous.

Danny Rossi stopped walking, put his hands on his hips, and stood like a small colossus in the sand of Martha’s Vineyard.

“Listen, Edgar, I would rather die than have Theora Hamilton in a show of mine. I have my principles.”

“That goes for me as welt,” Stuart added.

“Easy, boys, easy. Nobody’s going to compromise anybody’s principles here,” mediated Harvey Madison. “There are a million talented ladies in the American theater and I’m sure we can come up with someone who meets everyone’s specifications. Now, why don’t we all start back? It’s already a half-hour past cocktail time.”

When the quartet returned, Maria Rossi, busy lighting a charcoal fire with Nina Kingsley, looked up and asked, “Well, gentlemen, did you settle all your problems?”

“Absolutely,” said Harvey Madison. “The great minds are all in sync.”

And there in the growing twilight on that lonely beach, Edgar Waldorf proclaimed, “It gives me great pleasure to tell you that Manhattan Odyssey , under the direction of Sir John Chalcott, will begin rehearsals on December twenty-sixth. And commence its pre-Broadway engagement at the Schubert Theater in Boston on February seventh.

“By the time it opens in New York on March twenty-fourth, it will undoubtedly be sold out for a year. Since not only is it geniusly written, but it will also have the incredible one-two punch of Mr. Zero Mostel —” He paused for effect.

“And Miss Theora Hamilton.”

The authors’ wives shot startled glances at their husbands, whose expressions were strangely resigned.

Chitchat continued during the barbecue. Then they all left the beach quickly to sit silently in front of the television. And admire the pitching virtuosity of Sandy Koufax keeping the ball away from every single batter of the San Francisco Giants.

“How did he convince you?” Maria asked as they were driving home.

“I’m not sure myself,” Danny confessed. “I mean, he used so much sophistry that my head is still spinning. I felt like General Custer. Every time I fended off one of Edgar’s attacks, he was behind me with another tomahawk.”

“But, Danny,” Maria insisted, “you’re the artists. Surely you and Stuart should have the last word.”

“I did have the last word.” He smiled sardonically. “It’s just that Edgar had a few thousand arguments after my last word. All of a sudden Zero wasn’t enough to sell tickets to anybody. He was a ham. The audience had enough of him after Fiddler . His arguments were endless.

“According to Edgar, the only thing that could possibly save us would be the mammiferous presence of the untalented Theora Hamilton. Look, I’ll just cut down her role so she won’t be an utter embarrassment to us.”

“But couldn’t you have agreed on anybody else?”

Danny looked at her sheepishly and confessed, “Edgar seems to be finding resistance to James Joyce among his investors. And it would be hard to find another female star whose husband is willing to put up half a million bucks if we give his wife the role.”

“Aha,” said Maria, with a mixture of surprise and disappointment. “Well, they say that Broadway plays always rise like Venus from a sea of compromises.”

“Yeah,” said Danny, now unable to hide his frustration, “but this is the last compromise. The very last.”

Within mere hours of Ted Lambros’s rejection for tenure at Harvard, communications began to pour in from every important university center of the United States.

Some were simply to express condolences. Others to inquire if it were really true. The subtext being that if Lambros had been shot down, there might be a possibility for them at Harvard. But perhaps the most astounding calls were from those who presumed to know the secrets of that fateful afternoon’s proceedings.

When Ted and Sara returned from the Whitmans’, he had passed beyond depression into a kind of postmortem euphoria. A paradoxical feeling of being “high” on disappointment.

Walt Hewlett from the University of Texas called to convey the inside dope. “Teddie, I know the guys who screwed you were the ‘garbologists.’ ” This was Walt’s term for archaeologists, whom he viewed as mere rummagers in the trash cans of ancient civilizations.

“What makes you so sure, Walt?”

“Listen, those guys have an incredible animosity for anything written in a book. They only trust pornographic graffiti scrawled on Roman urinals. So I guess you’ll be going to Berkeley, huh?”

Ted was stupefied. He had no idea that everybody in the world of classics knew everything.

“I’m not sure,” he answered cagily. For today’s experience had taught him a great lesson in the laws of the academic jungle. “Hey, Walter old friend, I’m really touched that you called. But it’s past midnight. And just because I don’t have tenure doesn’t mean I can skip my nine-o’clock class tomorrow.”

He hung up and looked at Sara, who, by now, was also giggly. “This is a farce, Ted. We should take the receiver off the hook and go to bed.”

That instant the telephone rang yet again.

It was Bill Foster from Berkeley.

This was not a voice Ted had hoped to hear after midnight, when he was tired and semi-sloshed. But mercifully Bill did all the talking.

“Listen, Ted, I know it’s late back there, so I’ll make it short. We really want you here and look forward to getting your written acceptance so we can list you on our prospectus.”

“Thanks, Bill,” Ted answered, trying to sound both sober and sincere. And having difficulty doing either.

The next day was the most painful of Ted’s life. Not only because he had a terrible hangover. But because somehow he had to muster the courage to walk into Boylston Hall. To go to the Classics office. To say good morning to the secretary, as if nothing were different.

And, still worse, to have to confront the senior professors and exchange bland cordialities, suppressing all the curiosity — and violent anger — he felt inside.

As he entered the Yard and passed John Harvard’s statue, he was even anxious about running into John Finley, fearing that his idol might resent him now that he was a “failure.”

But he realized that he had to go through the motions of normalcy. He could not sulk like Achilles in his tent. Certainly not, especially since he was no longer a great hero — at least in Harvard’s eyes. He had been blackballed. Rejected from the club.

From nine to ten he walked like a somnambulist through Elementary Greek. And then deliberately tried to preserve the numbness he felt as he went to pick up his mail in the department office.

Mercifully, no one else was there, so all he had to do was exchange perfunctory salutations with the secretary. Ted could not help but marvel at her ability to camouflage her awareness — for she really did know everything — of yesterday’s events. It was, he joked inwardly, a quality that departmental secretaries probably shared with undertakers. They had to keep an affable demeanor in the midst of catastrophe.