Loss of Innocence (17 page)

Nine

Whitney’s father returned on Thursday, good humor restored. They said nothing about their quarrel. For the sake of amity, Whitney joined her parents in watching the final evening of the Republican convention.

Richard Nixon had won the nomination. But Charles was concerned about his vice-presidential choice, an obscure governor from Maryland named Spiro Agnew. “One of Nixon’s strategists called me about this,” he told Anne and Whitney. “I asked him how this man would help us win. I still don’t know.”

Whitney heard her father’s worry—victory might slip away and, with it, his chance at public eminence. But the scores of white faces attending the convention listened raptly to Nixon’s acceptance speech, as though convinced that he alone could deliver them from the chaos and confusion of this terrible year. “As we look at America,” Nixon told them in his deep, portentous voice, “we see cities enveloped in smoke and flame. We hear sirens in the night. We see Americans dying on distant battlefields abroad. We see Americans hating each other, fighting each other, killing each other at home.
Did we come all this way for this? Die in Normandy and Korea and Valley Forge for this?”

With an odd detachment, Whitney wondered how this man could seem so disingenuous, yet come so far; why the delegates, so respectable in dress and mild in appearance, could be so intense in their devotion. Then it struck her—Nixon was speaking for them. “Listen to the answers,” he continued. “The quiet voice in the tumult and the shouting. The voice of the great majority of Americans, the forgotten Americans. The non-shouters, the non-demonstrators. They give drive to the spirit of America, lift to the American dream, steel to the backbone of America. Good people, decent people, who work and pay their taxes . . .”

Charles nodded his approval.
This is how do it,
Whitney imagined him thinking. Then Nixon’s peroration brought her up short.

“The time has come for us to leave the valley of despair and climb to the top of the mountain . . .”

I have been to the top of the mountain
, she recalled Martin Luther King proclaiming,
and I’ve seen the promised land.
Hours later he was dead, the speech a tragic premonition.

“To the top of the mountain,” Nixon repeated, “so that we may see the glory of a new day for America, a new dawn for peace and freedom in the world . . .”

And then he was done, and cages filled with balloons opened from the rafters, floating above the white, upturned faces of the delegates.

The next morning, Clarice returned from forty-eight hours in New York City—pleased with the alterations on her maid-of-honor dress—and suggested lunch and a movie.

They ate at a crowded outdoor restaurant above the Edgartown harbor. It was surrounded by white wooden houses, many in the style of a sea captain’s home, in the town where most old line families made their summer residence. “So,” Clarice asked, “what was the aftermath of Ben’s dinner at the Danes?”

“Not good. I accused my father of going after him, and Dad expressed his loathing for Ben and everything he stood for. It escalated from there. When I got up the next morning, Dad was gone, and Mom intimated ever so politely that I’d driven him back to Manhattan.”

Setting aside her shrimp cocktail, Clarice gave Whitney a curious look. “That’s a funny thing to say. He does work there, after all.”

“More, these days. Apparently that’s now my fault.”

“Do you imagine that’s even possible?”

“No. But I wonder if Mom’s more insecure than I’ve realized.”

Clarice dabbed at her lips with a paper napkin. “About anything in particular?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe about Janine; maybe something else. Her great reason for being is to make Dad happy.”

Frowning, Clarice contemplated the harbor, its blue waters crowded with yachts and sailboats at mooring. “You don’t think there’s trouble in their marriage, do you?”

The thought had never occurred to Whitney. “Of course not. But any controversy within the family upsets her. Mom believes that the appearance of serenity creates its own reality.”

Clarice steepled her fingers, reflective. “Tell me more about what your dad said.”

Perhaps she was like her mother, Whitney reflected; thinking about this still depressed her. “He was pretty caustic. To Dad, Ben’s a self-centered boy whose politics camouflage a seething class resentment, and whose relationship with me serves some hidden agenda. I stood up for him, at least to a point. So now Dad’s worried about what that means.”

“What do you think it means?”

“That my father has a hyperactive imagination.”

Clarice turned to look Whitney in the face. “I’ve known you all your life, Whitney—in some ways better than your parents. The other night, sitting across the table, I saw you watching Ben. You barely took your eyes off him.”

Whitney felt herself redden. “Dad says you didn’t either.”

To her surprise, Clarice looked disconcerted. “The scene had a certain fascination, I’ll admit. But after awhile I just wanted to disappear.”

“So you don’t find Ben attractive?”

“I find him interesting,” Clarice parried. “But I’m not the one spending time with him, or defending him to my father . . .”

“I just don’t think he’s the person Dad describes.”

“And you don’t want him to be that person, do you?”

“What are you getting at?” Whitney demanded. “You’re sounding a bit like Dad.”

Clarice placed a hand on Whitney’s arm. “This is
me
—Clarice Barkley. I’m asking you to be honest with me, so we can actually talk about whatever this is. So let me try again: are you attracted to Benjamin Blaine?”

He was only a friend, Whitney wanted to protest, and not always friendly at that. But then she remembered Ben walking away from her, and felt the same knot in her stomach. Briefly closing her eyes, she conceded, “Maybe there’s something . . .”

Clarice’s expression commingled sympathy with satisfaction. “Don’t be embarrassed, okay? Even women who love their husbands experience that.”

Stubbornly, Whitney said, “I don’t think my mom does.”

“If that’s true,” Clarice retorted, “maybe it’s because she doesn’t like sex all that much.”

Whitney felt another sliver of unease, the sense of a buried truth made more uncomfortable because it concerned the sexuality of a parent. “I wouldn’t know.”

“But you do know about yourself. Sex is something you like, and you may not always get what you need.” Clarice paused. “Still, as committed to monogamy as you are, it might be best to avoid Ben altogether.”

“I mean to. Anyhow, in five weeks, he’ll be back at Yale.”

Clarice eyed her curiously. “Don’t you think it funny that you’ve counted the weeks?”

“Anyone can do that, Clarice. Even a college graduate.”

“True. So you’ve got only thirty-five days to get through without yielding to some terrible impulse.”

Caught between irritation and amusement, Whitney objected, “You’d think I was sex-crazed.”

Clarice glanced at the other diners, ensuring they would not be overheard. “Just a little restless. But that’s what masturbation is for. So look at the upside—you’ve got five weeks to polish your technique for those nights when Peter’s out with clients.”

Whitney shook her head with mock amazement. “You really
are
a cynic, Clarice. But here’s the real upside—you’ve got Ben all to yourself.”

Clarice gave her an enigmatic smile. “I’ll wait to see how he turns out. In the meanwhile, why should I play with matches for no reason? I can hardly bring him to your wedding.”

“Is there anyone right now?”

Shrugging, Clarice turned back to the harbor. “Nothing I’m ready to talk about.”

A veil seemed to fall across her eyes. Glancing at her watch, Clarice said, “About time for the movie,” then added, “I’ve got the check. As far as I know, the Barkley fortune is still intact.”

The film was The Thomas Crown Affair. Steve McQueen was a patrician art thief, the quarry of an insurance investigator, Faye Dunaway; the main point seemed to be how much erotic heat they could generate before one bested the other. When their cat-and-mouse game became, quite literally, a chess match, Dunaway began fondling the chess pieces. Leaning closer to Whitney, Clarice struggled to repress laughter. “This gives foreplay a whole new meaning,” she whispered.

“I think the rook is getting taller,” Whitney whispered back. But despite herself, she was aroused by the crossing of boundaries, the dance of sexual desire between a man and woman intended to be adversaries.

Once at home, Whitney showered. Emerging from the bathroom, she stood naked in front of the mirror.

With a critical eye, she studied herself, imagining how a man might see her. Full breasts, round hips, a ripeness to her. Touching her nipples, she felt them raise, then a stirring between her legs. She closed her eyes, trying to empty her mind of sensuality. After all, she told herself with a certain irony, there were thank-you notes to write.

Stationing herself at the dinner table, Whitney consulted her list of gifts, then started composing on the embossed gold-leaf stationery Anne had bought her for this purpose. Hearing voices, she saw her father emerge from the library with three golfing companions—a Boston lawyer, the head of an insurance company, and a somewhat florid local merchant who, Whitney recalled, was also an elected official.

The four did not see her. “It’s only the one house,” the insurance man said to Charles. “But termite infestations start small.”

His acidic tone aroused Whitney’s social antennae. “I wouldn’t call the Wallaces and Buchwalds termites,” Charles temporized. “Their neighbors in Vineyard Haven don’t seem to mind their presence.”

The red-faced merchant pursed his lips. “Are you going to help us, Charles? It’s your business associate who’s selling, after all.”

“Still, he’s not my ward. Ted has other concerns—a costly divorce, to be specific. Or he wouldn’t be selling at all.”

“You know him,” his interlocutor persisted. “So please emphasize that he shouldn’t be responsible for turning West Chop into Brooklyn.” He placed a hand on Charles’s shoulder, a gesture of intimacy. “As we discussed on the phone, you and I can help each other.”

“I understand,” Charles replied, and graciously shepherded them out the door.

Heading for the kitchen, he saw Whitney. “Writing thank-you notes? At last your mother can sleep at night.”

Instead of answering, Whitney asked, “What was
that
about, Dad?”

Her father hesitated, then answered dismissively, “A molehill aspiring to be a mountain. Far more important to them than me.”

“Don’t a lot of Jews live in Brooklyn?” she persisted.

“True enough,” Charles conceded glumly. “A man I know in West Chop proposes to sell to a Jewish family from Boston. Some of the residents, my visitors included, seem to feel it would change the character of the place.”

“In other words,” Whitney said sharply, “they’re anti-Semitic.”

“They don’t see it that way, Whitney, and I’m certainly not. In my business, one deals with Jews all the time, many of whom I respect and even admire. But these men fear that this sale will disturb a communal understanding.”

“So West Chop is like our country club in Greenwich—no Jews allowed?”

“Not indefinitely,” Charles said in the same patient tone. “But these things take time. Just last year the club began admitting Catholics—one of whom I sponsored—and no one said much of anything.”

“Nice of them,” Whitney said with quiet sarcasm. “Given that seven years ago we elected one president of the United States. But I guess our club is more selective.”

Charles managed a smile. “A matter of pride, for some. I don’t argue they’re not foolish . . .”

“So what did you tell those men?” Whitney persisted. “That they were foolish to worry about Jews ‘infesting’ West Chop?”

Charles crossed his arms. “That would have been pointless. They’re not going to change, and sooner or later someone in West Chop will sell to a Jew. Whenever that happens, I’ll be able to help ease the way, in part because I didn’t dismiss these men as bigots. Sometimes you have to change things from the inside. If I hadn’t learned that, the O’Connors of Greenwich would still be waiting for admission.”

Quiet, Whitney considered the man she had not merely loved, but admired. “Just promise me that you won’t persuade this man not to sell.”

“Don’t worry,” Charles assured her. “That’s beyond my powers.”

At length Whitney nodded, less from belief than the desire to be done with this. But after her father left the room, she had the brief but unsettling wish that she could talk with Ben.

Ten

For several days, Whitney avoided the Dunmores’ property, or even walking in that direction. But this did nothing to drive him from her thoughts. Aware of her tangled motives, she visited Jack Blaine’s woodworking shop.

It was a plain wooden building on the edge of Vineyard Haven, cut into sections for artisans and artists. The day was overcast, and the illumination came from a skylight and several bare bulbs hanging above a work table where Jack, in an oilskin apron, stood surrounded by lathes, a sander, several handsaws, and bottles of oil, varnish, paint, and shellac. The place smelled of sawdust and something like turpentine. Jack looked up in surprise, and then a wry, lopsided smile softened his usual gravity.

“Welcome,” he said. “I guess Clarice isn’t with you.”

Whitney shook her head. “I was in the neighborhood, and decided to drop in.”

Somehow, she sensed, Jack knew that this was not quite true. “Anyhow, it’s a good time. Let me show you what I’m working on.”

Laid out in front of him were rounded knobs for a chest of drawers. Jack pointed out the drawers themselves, standing among a captain’s chair, a desk, and a newly stained parson’s table. Each appeared to be crafted and joined with exquisite care, as close to pieces of art as Jack’s hands could make them. Touching the chair, Whitney asked, “How long will this take you?”

“Weeks.”

“Then you must hate to part with them.”

“I do. But not as much as I enjoy placing a piece in someone’s home—knowing that their kids and grandkids may find a place for it long after they, and I, are dead. A strange thing to think about, I know. But given that life is finite, there’s something consoling in that.”

Even his speech and manner of speaking struck Whitney as those of an artist. It was hard for her to believe that Jack was the son of a lobsterman, let alone the angry and stunted primitive Ben had described. “How did you learn to do this?”

Eying the chest, Jack opened a drawer, as though to assure that it fit precisely. “By apprenticing over the summers, and catering to compensate for not getting paid. After high school I spent two years at Pratt Institute in New York. But my scholarship didn’t come close to covering expenses, and I was piling up debt I couldn’t handle. By that time I’d learned a fair amount about furniture design. So I came back here.”

This brief account—delivered without discernable bitterness—captured a narrowing of opportunity foreign to Whitney’s life. But she could not help but think that, in Jack’s place, Ben would have found a way. “And if you’d been able to finish?” she asked.

He gave a fatalistic shrug. “I don’t think about it much. There’s a lot I love about this island—the ocean, the ponds, the quiet, the wildlife, so much nature left unspoiled. The people, too. Like me, they stay because they’ve become committed to the place as it is. So we do whatever we can to make it work for us—shucking scallops, making jewelry, waitressing.” The hint of a smile moved through Jack’s brown, expressive eyes. “Then we hope that people from the
mainland confine their visits to the summer, leaving behind enough money to get us to the next one. No offense, of course.”

“None taken.”

“It’s just that what we have here is rare. This island exists in a time warp—like more places must have been before the Second World War. As a kid I could just walk into a friend’s house if no one was home, raid the refrigerator or watch the Red Sox on TV. No one has a lot. But most people are generous and straightforward, and we share a sense of freedom that’s hard to find.”

“Does Ben feel like that?” Whitney inquired. “I’ve never heard him say so.”

A smile crossed Jack’s lips without reaching his eyes. “You won’t. Ben would say I lack ambition. But he has too much for the island to hold.”

“He wants to be a writer, I know.”

“Not just any writer. I remember us catering a party at Bill and Rose Styron’s. After we came home, the two of us were lying in bed. For a time Ben was so quiet I thought he was sleeping. Then his voice came from the darkness. ‘Someday I’m going to walk down the street, anywhere in America, and hear a man or woman tell their kid, “That’s Benjamin Blaine, the greatest writer of our time.”’” Jack paused, as though bemused by the memory. “It’s like he was making himself a promise I happened to overhear. Ben confides in no one.”

Sometimes he confides in me
, Whitney wanted to say. “That sounds a little like the way Ben imagined Ted Williams, when he was listening to those games.”

“He told you about that?”

“Yes.”

Leaning back against the work table, Jack said quietly, “You’ve started to care about him, haven’t you?”

“Only as a friend,” she said firmly. “In six weeks, I’ll be married.”

Still watching her eyes, Jack nodded. “Just as well.”

“Why do you say that?”

He gazed at the floor, as if considering how to answer. “When he wants to, Ben’s got all that charm. People fall in line for him, women
most of all. But I’ve never known a woman who Ben respected. Our mother wasn’t much use to us, and he remembers that too well.”

Whitney wondered how far to venture into a past so intimate and painful. But the pull of hearing more proved irresistible. “He told me your father beat her.”

Briefly, Jack looked discomfited. “I’m surprised by that, seeing how ashamed he is of our family. But I guess that makes him Mom’s heroic protector.”

“That’s not how he told it. It was more that he couldn’t stand your father ruling the space he lived in. So he put an end to it.”

“Because I was such a coward, right? That’s the other part of the story.”

The cauldron of family had scarred them in different ways, she thought, turning brothers into adversaries. At length, she said, “It’s your father Ben despises, not you.”

“He seems to have shared a lot with you. But I guess you’re safe enough.” Jack jammed his thumbs in his belt loops. “So do you think he’s going after Clarice?”

Surprised, Whitney forced a smile. “I don’t even think he likes her.”

Jack gave her a skeptical look. “Maybe not. But he certainly noticed her. He seemed to make a point of catering parties where she was likely to show up.”

Was this true? Whitney wondered. “Not the best way to meet girls,” she objected.

“Especially wealthy ones,” Jack responded pointedly. “Something about wearing an ill-fitting white jacket and skinny bow tie while balancing drinks on a tray.”

Hearing the distaste in his voice, Whitney realized that he, too, felt resentful. “My brother has his pride,” Jack continued. “No doubt that’s why he bridled when your fiancé ordered him around in front of Clarice Barkley. I haven’t seen that look in Ben’s eyes since he beat our old man to a pulp.”

For Whitney, this put a humbling new slant on that volatile evening, making Clarice—not her—the catalyst in a tragicomedy of
errors in which Peter utterly misread Ben’s motives. “A bad night,” she said.

“Ben can bring out the worst in people, and your fiancé couldn’t have known about Clarice.” Jack paused, then said with synthetic casualness, “Does she have a boyfriend? It looked like she wasn’t with anyone.”

“Not as far as I know. I can tell you it’s not Ben.”

He cocked his head. “Maybe. But summer people
do
end up with islanders, you know. Usually summer girls and island guys.”

Whitney summoned a wry smile. “So who is it that likes Clarice? I’m losing track.”

Grudgingly, Jack returned her smile, as though to acknowledge his own foolishness. “I don’t really know her. So maybe I just imagine that she also needs protecting. Another reason I can’t see her with Ben.”

Whitney found herself hoping that Jack was projecting his own feelings onto Ben, his superior in force and boldness. “Don’t worry about Clarice,” she assured him. “She’s pretty good at protecting herself. Next time, I’ll bring her around, and you can judge for yourself.”

The next day, Whitney and Clarice returned to Lucy Vincent Beach. It was more crowded in August, and Clarice began looking for people they knew. Then she became still, gazing fixedly in one direction before murmuring, “Don’t stare. But see the dark-haired guy to our left, talking to his friends? I’m sure it’s Dustin Hoffman.”

Surreptitiously, Whitney conducted her own reconnaissance. The guy in sunglasses looked short, older than on the screen. But then she flashed on his first scene with Katharine Ross, playing Ben Braddock in shades. “You’re right.”

Sitting up, Clarice steeled herself. “I’m going over there.”

Whitney was taken aback by her friend’s nerve. “What will you say to him? ‘Plastics’?”

“I’ll ask him who he wants—Mrs. Robinson, or Elaine. I can play either part.”

Clarice walked over to the actor and his friends, kneeling close to Dustin. Though Hoffman looked bemused, he began smiling as she spoke. He said something; she said much more. At length she retreated, casting a sharp grin at him over her shoulder. “And . . . ?” Whitney asked.

“Pretty shy, not that much to say. But the last smile I gave him did it. He’ll wake up tomorrow, and realize he’s in love.”

“Poor man.” Whitney took out suntan lotion from her handbag. “On a seemingly unrelated subject, I visited Jack Blaine at his workshop.”

“Ben’s brother?” Clarice gave her a knowing look. “You didn’t go looking for Ben, did you?”

“No,” Whitney said tartly. “I was looking for a dining table. Ben and Jack aren’t exactly close.”

“A keen observation, Sherlock. So how did you meet him?”

“He was patching up a boat at the Dunmores’ catwalk. But he gave me the impression you knew him a little better.”

Clarice nodded, unsurprised. “When he was waiting tables, we spoke a couple of times.”

“What did you make of him?”

Pondering the question, Clarice took longer than Whitney had expected. “He seems like he’d make a nice friend—the kind of guy who sticks to things. If all you had to worry about was finding a man who wouldn’t let you down, he’d be one to go for.”

Lying back, Clarice shut her eyes, her further thoughts about Jack—or Ben—unavailable to her curious friend.

The next morning, Ben was not at Dogfish Bar.

Opening her diary, Whitney reflected on her conversation with Clarice, then began to write.

Pausing, Whitney thought about Clarice. As she pondered their time together, she began to re-imagine her friend as a character in a novel—a complex, even mysterious woman concealed beneath the sunny, mischievous girl Whitney had known for eighteen years. Perhaps both personas were Whitney’s own creation, the question being which was truer to the Clarice Barkley she knew now. But what perplexed her, she realized, went beyond her closest friend.