“Fools’ gold, eh?” said Valenti, lighting a cigar. “Maybe you got a point. Personally, I’ve seen enough of Serafin to say he’s no con.”
“I’m impressed by him too,” said Dryden. “But it won’t be Dr. Serafin out there with the pick of the world’s runners in the Moscow Stadium. With due respect to Mr. Klugman here, I don’t see how all the coaching the girl can stand will see her through two rounds of heats, a semifinal and a final in three separate events. Has she seen the program, do you suppose?”
“It’s pinned up in the gym,” Klugman said stiffly. “Give us some credit for intelligence. I have a little experience of the Olympics myself, and I promise you Goldengirl is under no illusions. She knows exactly what she has to do.”
“That’s if she gets there,” said Dryden, talking more than he intended. “She’ll have to make the U.S. team first, and to do that she has to get to the Olympic Trial. Am I right? She has to qualify for an invitation to that first.”
“Tomorrow,” said Klugman tersely.
“Should be fascinating,” said Melody, breaking the tension. “Her public debut! It’s crazy when you think about it. Here we are two months before the Olympics, and nobody’s heard of the girl.”
“There’s nothing crazy in it,” Valenti told her. “It has to do with the image. She’s the chick who comes from nowhere to win the Olympics. If she’d been running world-class races all year, the press would be homing in by now. And once they saw this complex, and learned who was backing it, we’d have no chance at all of putting her across as the wide-eyed California blonde who discovers overnight that she can run. Dryden calls it the American dream; I call it the Yukon syndrome. Mud today, gold tomorrow. People want to believe it: fine, we’ve got an angle.”
“Just so long as the story holds up,” said Dryden, tossing in a last uncertainty. “I’ll be interested to see if Dr. Serafin can keep the press out of this place after Goldengirl makes the Olympic team — provided she does.”
“He’ll take care of that,” said Klugman, with infinite faith in his employer.
After that, the conversation dwindled in the cigar smoke. Dryden strolled across the room to look at a relic of gold-mining days, a framed Notice of Claim fastened to the door. It didn’t match the rest of the decor: possibly it had a superstitious value, or maybe someone in the camp had a sharp sense of humor. They would need something to sustain them up here. Melody was right. It was crazy, a fantasy. Nobody would believe that a girl totally unknown in June could pull off a triple in the Olympics in August. If she was Atalanta herself, there was still so much that could go wrong — sudden illness, a pulled muscle, a tumble on the track — that only a super-optimist would back her. Armitage and Valenti obviously had money to fool with. Dryden was being asked to stake something more valuable: the reputation of his business. Setting up a promotion on the scale Serafin had in mind meant selling the idea in advance to people whose confidence he had nurtured for years. If Goldengirl fell flat on her face exhausted before she ever got to Moscow, they weren’t going to shake their heads and say it was a long shot that missed, but never mind; they were going to transfer their accounts to an agency they could trust. To go in with the consortium made as much sense as backing the fellow who posted the Notice of Claim.
Yet, mosquito-like, there soared and swooped on the edge of rationality the knowledge that if Goldengirl did pull it off, he would have passed up the biggest return in merchandising history.
A phone bleeped. Melody picked it up. “Okay, I’ll bring them over. Gentlemen,” she announced, “you’re invited to the conference room, where the next phase of the program is about to take place. Would you come with me?”
“Anywhere you say, baby,” said Valenti.
Melody led them outside and across the compound to a two-storied building. They mounted an open staircase to the upper floor.
“Nice to get some fresh air,” Klugman commented, pausing at the top.
“Ain’t you fit?” said Valenti, flicking his Panatella as he marched past.
In layout the room resembled a small university lecture theater, with twelve rows of tiered seats facing a demonstration table. The front was cluttered with TV cameras and sets of arc lights, all focused on three empty seats behind the table. Loudspeakers were suspended from the ceiling at various points.
Someone Dryden had not seen before welcomed each of them solemnly as they entered: a man of forty or so with the unusual combination of a tall frame and oriental features. Behind thick, black-framed spectacles, his eyes had the spark of high intelligence.
“This is Dr. Lee, gentlemen,” Melody explained. “He is an associate of Dr. Serafin’s who specializes in psychology.”
“The resident shrink,” murmured Valenti.
Dr. Lee nodded affably and said in perfect English, “At your service whenever you have need of one, Mr. Valenti. Gentlemen, this afternoon you are to observe one of the simulated press conferences we hold from time to time to acquaint Miss Serafin, or Goldengirl as we call her, with the conditions she is likely to experience not only at the Olympic Games, but before, when her nomination for three events becomes public knowledge.”
“Conditioning,” Valenti declared in his authoritative style.
“A term I would prefer not to use,” Dr. Lee mildly retorted. “It is implacably associated in popular ideas of psychology with Pavlov’s experiments on dogs. What we are trying to achieve here brings us, I assure you, significantly further in learning theory than that. We have progressed some way beyond B. F. Skinner, whose work postdates Pavlov’s by more than half a century. But I must not be drawn into lecturing you, gentlemen. We are here for another purpose. As you must have gathered from Dr. Serafin’s account of Goldengirl’s childhood and adolescence, she has led a relatively sheltered existence up to now, and to expose her unprepared to the pressure of Olympic competition and all that goes with it could have a disturbing, not to say disastrous, effect.
“The history of the Olympics is littered with the names of brilliant athletes built up before the Games as favorites who visibly wilted under the stress. I have in mind the case of Vera Nikolic, the Yugoslav girl who set a world record for eight hundred meters before the 1968 Olympics. She went to Mexico City as such a hot favorite that her country had a postage stamp bearing her picture ready to issue the day after her triumph. And what happened? In the semifinal she pulled up in the first lap and ran off the track — not from any physical injury, but acute psychological stress. Before the day was through, she tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. That is the sort of thing that makes us so wary of revealing Goldengirl’s talent prematurely. And it is my task to ensure that she can withstand the pressures when she can no longer be insulated from them.”
Dryden liked Lee’s style of delivery. It conveyed authority without recourse to psychological jargon. He was not condescending. He put over his ideas lucidly, taking account of his listeners. His voice helped, it was sensitively pitched, a relief after Serafin’s almost toneless enunciation. The interest of the group was made clear when they moved with him, unprompted, slowly up the tiered floor as he continued speaking.
“So I am responsible for the preparation she has undergone to tune her mentally for what is to come. You will appreciate that press-simulation sessions are just one element in a pretty sophisticated program. So much of what is involved in being an Olympic athlete in 1980 is concerned with the personality that I hope Mr. Klugman will not object if I claim that my contribution is at least as vital as his. Because of our special circumstances, Goldengirl has to be initiated into quite basic situations that could promote stress. Take her first competitive appearance at the Metro Club Meet tomorrow. I have had to prepare her mentally for what could be quite an ordeal: the pre-meet buildup, dressing-room nerves, the atmosphere in the arena and the tension of waiting between heats and finals of her three events. That’s just the brief for San Diego. Magnify it all to the scale of the Olympics, throw in the mounting interest of the
media, the journey to Moscow, a partisan crowd, sex tests, dope tests, Soviet officialdom, life in the Olympic Village, and you have some idea why I am employed here full time.
“What you will presently see is not staged for your benefit, gentlemen. It is the scheduled phase of her program. Her preparation for tomorrow is complete. As a diversion we turn to something she will enjoy. We make a mental leap of several weeks, and simulate her appearance before the press after her third victory in Moscow. Sessions like this are built into the program at regular intervals. We are great respecters of the influence of the media, you see. She needs to know how to acquit herself at a press conference, project her personality with charm but without conceit, answer questions without hesitation or evasion, and handle that difficult or unexpected one that always arises.”
The monumental presumption in all this didn’t seem to bother Lee. Like everyone else in this place, he was sold on those three gold medals.
The party had reached the back of the room and grouped around one end of a wood-encased electronic unit some twelve feet in length. A young man wearing earphones was staring shyly at one of the two blank TV monitors at the opposite end.
“With our facilities,” Lee went on, “we cannot physically reproduce the conference room the Russians will use in Moscow. That seats upward of a thousand correspondents. We have had to improvise. The lighting is arranged with a twofold objective: to subject Goldengirl to the glare of TV arc lights, and to create the impression from where she sits that the room is much larger than it is. From the front, you can’t see beyond the first three rows of seats, so they could stretch back indefinitely. And, of course, the audio system is graduated in a way that supports the effect. This device” — he flattened his palm on the polished wood surface of the unit — “contains a bank of over five hundred questions. We recorded many at actual press conferences at major meets like last year’s Pan-American Games, but the majority have had to be individually styled for Goldengirl. The computer mechanism is capable of working in three different ways. First, it can ask her questions totally at random. Second, if we want to regulate the level of difficulty, it will select them by reference to a grading system. And the third mode of operation is sequential, so that she can be asked a series of questions exploring a particular theme in depth. I’m sure Dave Robb, our media resource expert” — he extended his hand to the young man in earphones — “would dismiss this piece of wizardry as a simple electronic aid. It is only one of a number of ingenious gadgets he has constructed to assist Project Goldengirl. Dave actually had a lot to do with the technical side of the Goldengirl film. He fixed the audio system in the lounge too.”
Probably bugged the place while he was at it, Dryden thought. He stepped forward to examine the control panel. It was surprisingly uncomplicated. Two rows of six squares under glass. Presumably they responded to finger controls. He had seen parking-lot checkouts with more intimidating controls.
“Without going into unnecessary detail,” Dr. Lee went on, “there are six tapes bearing the questions graded in order of difficulty. If I touch this square on the left” — he demonstrated — “it should throw out a simple question.”
“Do you use weights in your training?” a voice lower down the room asked the empty seats at the front.
“And this should produce a more demanding one.” Dr. Lee touched the square on the right of the top row.
“Do your consider yourself completely feminine?” a different voice barked from the opposite side.
“The square at bottom left,” Dr. Lee went on, “stops the tapes at random, like a fruit machine, and whichever one has a question closest in line is activated. Three seconds after Goldengirl’s response, the process repeats itself. It can go on indefinitely, and it is actually closer to the reality of a press conference than our questions in sequence, which we activate by means of the override controls, the remaining four squares in the second row. In addition, we have a few refinements controlled from Dave’s end of the console. We can phase in interruptions, simultaneous voices from different sides of the room, audience reaction in the form of laughter or hostile comment — in fact, any situation, apart from a maniac gunman, that a press conference could possibly produce.
“The obvious thing now is to let you see Goldengirl down there batting. And if any of you would care to put questions of your own to her during the session, please do so — it will add to the realism. I would only wish to make one point about the phrasing of questions. Everything in Goldengirl’s conditioning — I’ve used the word, Mr. Valenti — is based on the premise that she will achieve the objective of three gold medals. Failure — even partial success — is not a concept she would understand. So it would not be constructive, for example, to ask her why she was beaten in one of her three events. Put challenging questions to her by all means — she is capable of coping with them — but kindly base them on an assumption of success. After all, that’s the purpose of the project.” He spoke into a grille beside the console. “Ready to begin, William.” Turning to the others, he explained, “Dr. Serafin will be at Goldengirl’s side. The press like nothing better than a proud parent beside the winner, if only for the photo session. The other place will be vacant this afternoon. It will normally be occupied by the IOC Press Chief. I should be glad if you would take your seats now — anywhere you please in the room. Do not be alarmed by our flash effects as they come in. We like to get as close to the real thing as conditions allow.”
Dryden found an end seat toward the back. Just before the lights went out, Melody squeezed past into the next seat. Then from a dozen loudspeakers started the mix of world-weary and high-powered conversation characteristic of press gatherings everywhere — an uncanny effect when all that was visible from where Dryden sat was the glimmer of Valenti’s cigar two rows down.
The arc lights at the front came on again. It was obvious that anyone in their glare could not have seen far into the empty auditorium.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a more insistent voice came through the hubbub. “Triple Olympic champion Miss Goldine Serafin is here with her father, Dr. William Serafin, to meet the press.”
To the promised flash effects, some cries of “Here she is!” and a scatter of applause, they entered from the right, pausing as a volley of flashlight signaled the photo session. Goldengirl was wearing the white tracksuit of the U.S. Olympic team, with lettering picked out in red. It was the authentic team uniform; Dryden had seen it in a trade journal not three weeks previously. Detail was meticulous in this operation; from Goldengirl’s neck three ribbons were suspended, each bearing a gold medal.
“She’s cute,” Melody remarked in his left ear. “Maybe too near the ceiling for perfection, though?”
He made no response, held by the ritual under the lights. He had learned to sit through advertising presentations and promotional launches fixing his undistracted eye on the product through displays of leg and bosom calculated to the last millimeter to impress, but he could not remember an occasion when the product itself was in desirable female form. That produced an unexpected consequence. He had looked at Goldengirl naked almost pore by pore through the camera lens, read her statistics, seen her in motion, heard her history, and still missed the thing her living presence hammered into his perception.
Her sexuality.
Dress it up in euphemisms, say she upped the pulse rate, sent the adrenalin racing, blew the mind. What it came down to was the simple, animal ability to arouse that sets one girl apart from a million others.
He could think of more seductive outfits than a U.S. sweatsuit, but Goldengirl didn’t need them. It radiated from her as she blinked at the flashbulbs. No matter that she was six inches taller than Serafin, two or three taller than Dryden himself. The attraction wasn’t a matter of statistics, though she was beautifully proportioned. Nor was it in the cast of her features, or he would have made his discovery during the film. Then he could study her objectively; it was out of the question now.
A rema
rk Melody made helped him account for it. “She believes those medals are for real, you know.”
She obviously did. Whether Dr. Lee’s methods followed Pavlov, Skinner or Svengali, they worked. Goldengirl was vibrant with success. She moved with the conviction that she had conquered the world.
In a frenzy of flashbulbs, Serafin ushered her to the center seat. By degrees the volume of sound reduced to a level where a voice — Lee’s — could announce: “First, on behalf of the Organizing Committee and the world press, congratulations, Miss Serafin, on your unique achievement. Before I invite questions, is there anything you would wish to say in the way of a statement?”
She smiled. Not once in the film had she done that. “This is a novel experience for me, and I’m not sure what you would have me tell you, but if you’ll be patient with me, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll do the best I can.” The excitement came over in her voice. Her accent placed her as a Californian, but a tremulous note gave an unintended emphasis to certain syllables.
“Let’s have the first question, then, from the Pravda representative.”
A solemn voice said, “Congratulations, Miss Serafin, from the people of the Soviet Union. Did you believe it possible before the Games that you could achieve the distinction of winning three gold medals?”
She nodded emphatically. “You have to be confident. In some ways I can’t believe it’s happened, it’s all been so quick for me, but I came to Moscow to win, yes, if that doesn’t sound too conceited. Oh, and thanks for the congratulations.”
“Jane Thomas, Woman’s World,” another loudspeaker announced. “How does it feel to be the greatest woman athlete in the world?”
“That’s nice to hear,” answered Goldine, “but it’s just a little sweeping. You ought to save that accolade for the girl who wins the pentathlon tomorrow. Running, hurdling, high jump, long jump, shot put: that’s the test of a great athlete. I can run fast — period. How does it feel? Like champagne, I guess. I don’t drink liquor at all, but I guess it feels like this.”
Goldengirl Page 8