The Spider Story

The Spider Story - Ed Tasca 

Stan and Emily had an unresolved marital secret. Stan hated going to parties thrown by Emily’s friends but never said so, and Emily knew it but pretended not to.  

“I’ll give you a quick capsule of what Edgar’s book is all about while we drive. So you know what everybody is talking about at the party,” Emily said as Stan and Emily climbed into their car.  

Stan seldom read a novel except when everyone else he knew had read it and his friends talked about it at poker. Stan liked books about sports and sports figures. He also liked to read magazines. Magazine articles were just the right length, and they were about real things, real events, real facts, not about some writer’s musings. 

“A beautiful girl, her name is Sarah, wants to have children with her father’s sixty-five year old business partner,” Emily began explaining writer Edgar’s musings as Stan backed the car out of the driveway and headed off to the dinner party he’d been dreading all week. Stan, a naturally shy man, almost always took quiet, defensive positions at social occasions, and tried his best not look uncomfortable. Emily’s friends were lawyers and writers and successful business people, and they always seemed to Stan to be perfectly fluid in their conversations, an ability he secretly coveted. On this particular evening, Emily’s favorite author, Edgar Neavens, would be there, and Emily’s excitement had been frothing in anticipation all week. 

As he drove, Stan hid his disinterest in Edgar’s novel while Emily swept through her summary of it: “It’s called Lost in Subphyla.  Listen.  The father’s business partner is a married man who believes in eugenics.  You know, where people who are gifted have children with other people who are gifted. Anyway, the old man thinks Sarah is a perfect specimen for procreation. Stroud, that’s the old man’s name, believes that men… now this is interesting… that men shouldn’t procreate until they prove they have good genes and can succeed in life. So he’s sixty-five, in excellent health and now he wants to reproduce. But his wife is sixty and can’t have children. So he’s chosen Sarah, because she graduated Summa Cum Laude and has grandparents still alive in their nineties.”  

Stan said nothing, knowing the comment, “It’s all crap!” would only start an argument. 

Emily went on with great enthusiasm: “Now, Sarah is very interested, because she believes God wants her to do this to improve the human condition! But here’s the twist. Sarah has arachnophobia, you know fear of spiders, and she’s afraid if Stroud finds out about it, he’s going to leave her because she’s not perfect.” Emily waited for Stan’s expression to brighten. It didn’t. So Emily poked Stan with her finger. “Wait til you hear the climax. It’s a miracle. Like a real miracle.” 

“Did I tell you what happened yesterday? About the spiders?” Stan interrupted her. 

“Stan, listen,” Emily insisted, “Listen to what happens to Sarah.  She can’t hide this fear, because she faints at the mention of spiders. So you know what she does?” 

Stan wasn’t interested in what fictitious Sarah did. He had already returned to a moment of distraction from the previous morning, when he had stepped outside his door to go to work. He recalled that on his way down the steps to his car, he had grabbed the newspaper from his mailbox, and had caught the most peculiar sight, that of millions of newly-hatched, amber-backed spiders as tiny as millet seeds kneaded into one great throbbing ball of life.  The yawning brood lay against his newspaper entwined in strands of maternal lace. The mother was perched just above her spawn, looking wise and tough. Repulsed by what he saw, Stan immediately grabbed the breeding-ground newspaper, scooped up the spawn of spiders, and had taken it several yards away to the garbage container, dumping it into the trash.    

“There was a whole ball of these baby spiders,” Stan explained to Emily, his voice now raised to mock alert. “Baby spiders! In the letterbox. Millions of them!” 

“Yes, dear, I agree. Spiders can be creepy,” Emily said. “That’s what’s so interesting about Edgar’s story. Listen to what Sarah does. She gets a whole pot of spiders and lets them loose in her bed while she lies there naked on tranquillizers! Just to get over the phobia!”  

Stan wasn’t relating in any way to Sarah’s stupid crisis. Instead, he interrupted Emily again, “The mother spider was still in the letter box, a big gray thing who didn’t move even a touch, just stared at me as if in total incomprehension.  Anyway, I dumped all the babies into the garbage!”    

When Emily tried again to return to Sarah’s story, Stan turned a corner sharply to rattle her. It took her breath away long enough for him to plunge back into his own story: “That should have been the end of it, right?! he said, and then added dramatically: “It wasn’t.” 

“Stan, slow down, please!” Emily scolded. “You’re not watching where you’re going!” 

Stan knew exactly where he was going. And it wasn’t into the pages of Edgar’s baroque fiction. “So, I go off to work,” Stan goes on, not slowing down.  

“Stan, I’m grateful that I didn’t find those spiders.” Emily said, giving her husband the credit she thought he was looking for.  “But I need to finish telling you about Sarah.  Sarah does all this creepy stuff for this old man. But instead of getting better, she’s getting worse--”  

“There’s more to my story, Emily. This is where I am right now. You’ll be amazed if you just listen.” Stan insisted, lurching past the car in front of him and swinging his wife to the farthest part of the front seat. Emily could do nothing but hang on and click her tongue indignantly. Stan, quick to take advantage, said, “When I got home last night, I looked inside the letterbox again, and the baby spiders were all back where they were in the morning! I went to the garbage-can to check, and they were all gone. Somehow, the mother found them and returned each one to her nest. She saved every one. Over that great distance – ten yards or so.” 

Emily took a moment to be absolutely certain her husband wasn’t inflating this little anecdote into a tall story to impress her. She noticed that his eyes brimmed with sincerity in triumph for the daring little creature. And she knew Stan to be too literal-minded to embellish such a tale.  

“Nature’s really quite a magic trick, don’t you think?” Stan said. 

Emily agreed and leaned over and kissed Stan on the cheek to apologize for her indifference and for her impatience. She then melted into his shoulder for the remainder of the drive, wondering how the little spider could have done such an amazing trick.   

Ten minutes later, Stan and Emily arrived at Frank and Mildred Vellum’s condominium overlooking a large man-made lake, shaped for effect and grandeur. The condo’s interior was palatial. From the hall door, you could not see adjacent walls, only the far glass wall to the terrace overlooking the lake. The view served that evening as a sea-at-twilight mural. Frank Vellum tried to hurry Stan and Emily into the dining room for drinks and snacks, but couldn’t get the couple past Dean Burgoyne, who was sitting alone on the granite lip of a huge fireplace. Dean, a seasoned newspaper editor, was paging through Edgar’s Lost in Subphyla. He grinned a welcome for Stan and Emily just barely looking up. “Hello, Dean,” Emily said.  

“As you can see, I’m an outcast already.” Dean pointed out.  “The women say I’m a misogynist. All I said was, yes, women have been major contributors to art. Look at the female nude.”  

Stan offered up a generous laugh at the crack. Emily slapped her husband’s arm for his grinning and joined the others in the dining area, where there was a playful gush of disgust. Stan couldn’t add anything further to Dean’s clowning, so he ducked away to the dining room behind his wife to where Harrison and Annie Dooley were waiting for Emily with open arms. The Dooleys, both travel writers who delayed their latest working trip abroad to join this evening’s festivities, greeted Stan warmly. Annie Dooley piped up quickly: “Stan, regarding Dean’s female nude comment, the women decided that for all the female nudity, men still don’t know anything about women’s bodies. I hope that doesn’t include you, too.”  

Stan was tongue-tied. Only scattered thought fragments filled his head. It was Harrison who met his wife’s challenge: “I don’t know a woman’s body!? So maybe I need to do more research.”  Harrison had created more good fun with that quip. Stan smiled his admiration for his fellow guests and the easy way they had of entertaining themselves.  

In the span of head turn, Frank’s wife Mildred stepped up and introduced Stan and Emily to Lilliana Stillman, a high-school teacher. Stan didn’t know Lilliana, but was smitten immediately by her natural grace and poise, and even more, by her reserve, something that stood out in the present company. “This is Lilliana,” Mildred said. “She arrived here with Dean. And I assume it was by choice.” 

Lilliana smiled at the jest with an elegant shyness, but didn’t respond. Stan liked it that she hadn’t responded to the joke with another joke. He liked it that she too could be without rejoinder, and still seem worthy of the group and confident in her non-response. She was real, as far as Stan could see. There was no posturing, no jesting, no artifice. Lilliana could be his sanctuary for the evening, he thought. 

But Stan’s moment of empathy vanished in a flash when Lilliana finally spoke: “Dean and I just met,” she said, “And he invited me here to prove he really did have friends!” The little clutch of guests around Stan convulsed again with laughter. Stan did not. 

“That wouldn’t be us.”  Mildred shouted in the direction of Dean at the fireplace.  

Lilliana puzzled everyone with her next comment. “I just got divorced. Don’t know why it happened or how,” she said. With that comment, the banter suddenly stopped short, and the easy repartee turned to nervous bustle. But Lilliana wasn’t finished: “We were both very much in love. I don’t think most people can put their finger on why their marriages break up. You can never sum it all up like writers do when they’re selling their stories. It just always felt as though it didn’t have to happen.” 

The cavernous condo suddenly got small and intimate. Everyone continued to let Lilliana speak, but all with minds stirring to be trivial and light again. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go on like that. But I find life to be far too impossible to explain. And I wanted to say that I hated this new book by your friend, because it’s just not real. It’s life the way a writer and a reader want life to be. Logical, coherent, satisfying, entertaining. But life’s just not like that. And the miracle at the end. I’m an atheist. There are no miracles. I hope you don’t mind my saying that.”  

Quiet and caution loomed across the entire group. Lilliana noted that even troublemaker Dean could say nothing. She immediately shut herself up by finishing her drink. But Stan knew exactly what she was talking about, and his admiration for the lady had swelled so much, that he, without even asking her, went to fetch her another glass of wine. It was now eight o’clock, and Edgar Neavens still hadn’t arrived. Dean looked at his watch and changed the mood again, “So when’s the golden boy coming? His Holiness, Edgar - the Genius - Neavens. I spent all this time skimming his book!” 

“Yes, where’s Edgar?” Emily asked, sitting down next to Stan. “We’re all so anxious to see him again. I bet he won’t remember me.” 

“Edgar remembers everyone,” Dean said.  “You’ll see.  Frank and me, we’ll wind up being the craven drunk in his next book. He’ll take a little from all of us.” 

“Well, I don’t mind being the “craven” part. But for the “drunk,” I’m afraid that’ll have to be you, Dean,” Frank said. Stan laughed in sync with Lilliana, who also enjoyed the joke.  

Quiet, thoughtful Emily changed the tone again: “I loved Lost in Subphyla!” 

“Except for those spiders. They petrified me.” Annie Dooley found a chance to share an honest thought between the banter. “I have to leave the house when I see a spider, until Harrison kills it and removes it and the object he used to kill it.” 

“Oh,” Emily said, remembering the spider story Stan told her on their way to the party. “Stan, tell the story about the spiders.”  

“Emily, there are no lovely stories about spiders,” Annie insisted, and got others to agree. 

Stan stalled a moment. “It’s nothing. It was just something I noticed one morning,” he stammered, certain that irreverent Frank or outrageous Dean would rescue him with a joke. The room grew harmoniously quiet, while everyone found Stan.  

“It’s about the tenacity of life, and a mother’s extraordinary role in it.” Emily said, while she waited to hear her husband’s voice. When no one filled the silence, Lilliana spoke, again, almost in a reverie, “‘Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple and more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.’ That was Leonardo da Vinci.”  

With an introduction from Leonardo, Stan felt obligated to tell his story. So he swallowed and stammered into it. But after only a few statements, he realized that the reason he didn’t fit in with Emily’s friends is that he had always been himself, just quiet old Stan, who spends his time troubleshooting for the IT Department of an insurance company.  He started to feel that maybe all he ever had to offer was little spider stories that were trivial and unworthy. Trapped, Stan tried to make the most of his situation: “There were what looked like thousands of baby spiders on my newspaper in my letter box. So I picked up the newspaper with the babies on it,” he said, “And I marched them down to the trash. I don’t know ten yards or so. All the while I was feeling like a kidnapper!” The rewards in laughter were too great. Stan spun himself into a fit of flailing, I thought I’d be haunted for the rest of my life. Yeah, thousands of them!”  

Finally, Emily grabbed her husband and shoved him to a sofa. And at that very moment, the front door swung open without a knock, and a tall man in a wrinkled suit rushed through it saying: “I’m so sorry I’m late. I had all kinds of problems with traffic and cabs and weather.” 

“Edgar! Thank goodness you’re here! We’re starving! Where were you?” That was everyone shouting at once.  As the fuss over Edgar erupted, Dean and Frank and Harrison did everything to march Edgar into the dining room to a waiting Veal Piccata. Oddly, Edgar remembered everyone’s name, except for Stan’s. Before Emily could reintroduce her husband to her idol, Edgar had been swept into the dining room. Stan shrugged and shambled in behind the others, content again to be peripheral.  During dinner, while the guests regaled Edgar for his brilliant work of fiction, Stan was feeling an odd sense of guilt he couldn’t shake. It was the memory of the defiance on the elder spider’s face, her fierce determination to survive against an overwhelming challenge. But mostly, he had to accept the fact that he never got to tell the end of his marvelous story. Edgar had disrupted his spider story. 

A chance smile from Lilliana, who was seated next to him, spurred Stan to return to his story once again, confessing the miraculous ending into Lilliana’s closest ear. Leaning coyly into Stan’s words, she listened, as cool curiosity warmed to a blushing, giggling approval. It was now Lilliana’s turn to refill Stan’s glass with wine without asking him, and both drank a toast to the miracle of the little spider.  Stan was happy to share a miracle with another, who could appreciate its lyrical beauty. Then, as the others marveled over Edgar’s plot twists, Lilliana startled everyone once again, asking “Do you want to hear a real story about a real miracle?”  

All eyes turned on Lilliana. “It has the truth and beauty of what life is all about,” Lilliana said, “Without all the twisted, contrived and sensationalized fiction, both religious and otherwise.” 

Edgar’s body stiffened into an exclamation point, while he forced his voice to remain smug and sure, “Well, why not! Always looking for a good story!” 

That’s when Stan turned for the first time to confront Edgar. “It’s about a mother’s obsession to be a mother,” Stan said, cocking his chin. 

Liliana let no pause defuse the moment: “It’s a story about nature. And really, nature is truth. Fiction stories are fun, but don’t match up to what nature tells us about life and devotion. And, you all missed it in the rest of Stan’s story of one of nature’s little miracles.” 

The quiet settled into frowns and squirms, except for clinically brash, Dean, who laughed.