Love Story (2 page)

The return to Dillon would be even
better. Peeling off the sweaty gear, strutting naked to the supply
desk to get a towel.

‘How’d it go today, Ollie?’

‘Good, Richie. Good, Jimmy’

Then into the showers to listen to
who did what to whom how many times last Saturday night. ‘We got
these pigs from Mount Ida, see … .?’ And I was privileged to
enjoy a private place of meditation. Being blessed with a bad knee
(yes, blessed; have you seen my draft card?), I had to give it some
whirlpool after playing. As I sat and watched the rings run round my
knee, I could catalog my cuts and bruises (I enjoy them, in a way),
and kind of think about anything or nothing. Tonight I could think of
a goal, an assist and virtually locking up my third consecutive
All-Ivy.

‘Takin’ some whirly-pooly,
Ollie?’

It was Jackie Felt, our trainer and
self-appointed spiritual guide.

‘What does it look like I’m
doing, Felt, beating off?’

Jackie chortled and lit up with an
idiot grin.

‘Know what’s wrong with yer knee,
Ollie? Diya know?’

I’d been to every orthopedist in
the East, but Felt knew better.

‘Yer not eatin’ right.’

I really wasn’t very interested.

‘Yer not eatin’ enough salt.’

Maybe if I humor him he’ll go away.

‘Okay, Jack, I’ll start eating
more salt.’

Jesus, was he pleased! He walked off
with this amazing look of accomplishment on his idiot face. Anyway, I
was alone again. I let my whole pleasantly aching body slide into the
whirlpool, closed my eyes and just sat there, up to my neck in.
warmth. Ahhhhhhh.

Jesus! Jenny would be waiting
outside. I hope! Still!

Jesus! How long had I lingered in
that comfort while she was out there in the Cambridge cold? I set a
new record for getting dressed. I wasn’t even quite dry as I pushed
open the center door of Dillon.

The cold air hit me. God, was it
freezing. And dark.

There was still a small cluster of
fans. Mostly old hockey faithfuls, the grads who’ve never mentally
shed the pads.

Guys like old Jordan Jencks, who come
to every single game, home or away. How do they do it? I mean, Jencks
is a big banker. And why do they do it?

‘Quite a spill you took, Oliver.’

‘Yeah, Mr. Jencks. You know what
kind of game they play.’

I was looking everywhere for Jenny.
Had she left and walked all the way back to Radcliffe alone?

‘Jenny?’

I took three or four steps away from
the fans, searching desperately Suddenly she popped out from behind a
bush, her face swathed in a scarf, only her eyes ‘Hey, Preppie,
it’s cold as hell out here.’

Was I glad to see her!

‘Jenny!’

Like instinctively, I kissed her
lightly on the forehead.

‘Did I say you could?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Did I say you could kiss me?’

‘Sorry. I was carried away.’

‘I wasn’t.’

We were pretty much all alone out
there, and it was dark and cold and late. I kissed her again. But not
on the forehead, and not lightly. It lasted a long nice time. When we
stopped kissing, she was still holding on to my sleeves.

‘I don’t like it,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘The fact that I like it.’

As we walked all the way back (I have
a car, but she wanted to walk), Jenny held on to my sleeve. Not my.
arm, my sleeve. Don’t ask me to explain that. At the doorstep of
Briggs Hall, I did not kiss her good night.

‘Listen, Jen, I may not call you
for a few months.’

She was silent for a moment. A few
moments.

Finally she asked, ‘Why?’

‘Then again, I may call you as soon
as I get to my room.’

I turned and began to walk off.

‘Bastard!’ I heard her whisper.

I pivoted again and scored from a
distance of twenty feet.

‘See, Jenny, you can dish it out,
but you can’t take it!’

I would like to have seen the
expression on her face, but strategy forbade my looking back.

My roommate, Ray Stratton, was
playing poker with two football buddies as I entered the room.

‘Hello, animals.’

They responded with appropriate
grunts.

‘Whatja get tonight, Ollie?’ Ray
asked.

‘An assist and a goal,’ I
replied.

‘Off Cavilleri.’

‘None of your business,’ I
replied.

‘Who’s this?’ asked one of the
behemoths.

‘Jenny Cavilleri,’ answered Ray.
‘Wonky music type.’

‘I know that one,’ said another.
‘A real tight-ass.’

I ignored these crude and horny
bastards as I untangled the phone and started to take it into my
bedroom.

‘She plays piano with the Bach
Society,’ said Stratton.

‘What does she play with Barrett?’

‘Probably hard to get!’

Oinks, grunts and guffaws. The
animals were laughing.

‘Gentlemen,’ I announced as I
took leave, ‘up yours.’

I closed my door on another wave of
subhuman noises, took off my shoes, lay back on the bed and dialed
Jenny’s number.

We spoke in whispers.

‘Hey, Jen … ‘

‘Yeah?’

‘Jen … what would you say if I
told you … ‘

I hesitated. She waited.

‘I think … I’m in love with
you.’

There was a pause. Then she answered
very softly.

‘I would say … you were full of
shit.’

She hung up.

I wasn’t unhappy. Or surprised.

I got hurt in the Cornell game.

It was my own fault, really. At a
heated juncture, I made the unfortunate error of referring to their
center as a ‘fucking Canuck.’ My oversight
was in not remembering that four members of their team were Canadians
- all, it turned out, extremely patriotic, well-built and within
earshot. To add insult to injury, the penalty was called on me. And
not a common one, either: five minutes for fighting. You should have
heard the Cornell fans ride me when it was announced!

Not many Harvard rooters had come way
the hell up to Ithaca, New York, even though the Ivy ride was at
stake. Five minutes! I could see our coach tearing his hair out as I
climber into the box.

Jackie Felt came scampering over. It
was only then I realized that the whole right side of my face was a
bloody mess. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he kept repeating as he worked me
over with a styptic pencil. ‘Jesus, Ollie.’

I sat quietly, staring blankly ahead.
I was ashamed to look onto the ice, where my worst fears were quickly
realized; Cornell scored. The Red fans screamed and bellowed and
hooted. It was a tie now. Cornell could very possibly win the game -
and with it, the Ivy title. Shit - and I had barely gone through half
my penalty.

Across the rink, the minuscule
Harvard contingent was grim and silent. By now the fans for both
sides had forgotten me. Only one spectator still had his eyes on the
penalty box.

Yes, he was there. ‘If the
conference breaks in time, I’ll try to get to Cornell.’ Sitting
among the Harvard rooters - but not rooting, of course - was
Oliver Barrett III.

Across the gulf of ice, Old Stonyface
observed in expressionless silence as the last bit of blood on the
face of his only son was stopped by adhesive papers. What was he
thinking, do you think? Teh tch tch - or words to that effect?

‘Oliver, if you like fighting so
much, why don’t you go out for the boxing team?’

‘Exeter doesn’t have a boxing
team, Father.’

‘Well, perhaps I shouldn’t come
up to your hockey games.’

‘Do you think I fight for your
benefit, Father?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say ‘benefit.”

But of course, who could tell what he
was thinking?

Oliver Barrett III was a walking,
sometimes talking Mount Rushmore. Stonyface.

Perhaps Old Stony was indulging in
his usual self-celebration: Look at me, there are extremely few
Harvard spectators here this evening, and yet I am one of them. I,
Oliver Barrett III, an extremely busy man with banks to run and so
forth, I have taken the time to come up to Cornell for a lousy hockey
game. How wonderful. (For whom?) The crowd roared again, but really
wild this time.

Another Cornell goal. They were
ahead. And I had two minutes of penalty to go! Davey Johnston skated
up-ice, red-faced, angry. He passed right by me without so much as a
glance. And did I notice tears in his eyes? I mean, okay, the title
was at stake, but Jesus - tears! But then Davey, our captain, had
this incredible streak going for him: seven years and he’d never
played on a losing side, high school or college.

It was like a minor legend. And he
was a senior. And this was our last tough game.

Which we lost, 6-3.

After the game, an X ray determined
that no bones were broken, and then twelve stitches were sewn into my
cheek by Richard Selzer, M.D. Jackie Felt hovered around the med
room, telling the Cornell physician how I wasn’t eating right and
that all this might have been averted had I been taking sufficient
salt pills. Selzer ignored Jack, and gave me a stern warning about my
nearly damaging ‘the floor of my orbit’ (those are the medical
terms) and that not to play for a week would be the wisest thing. I
thanked him. He left, with Felt dogging him to talk more of
nutrition. I was glad to be alone.

I showered slowly, being careful not
to wet my sore face. The Novocain was wearing off a little, but I was
somehow happy to feel pain. ‘I mean, hadn’t I really fucked up?
We’d blown the title, broken our own streak (all the seniors had
been undefeated) and Davey Johnston’s too. Maybe the blame wasn’t
totally mine, but right then I felt like it was.

There was nobody in the locker room.
They must all have been at the motel already. I supposed no one
wanted to see me or speak to me. With this terrible bitter taste in
my mouth - I felt so bad I could taste it - I packed my gear and
walked outside. There were not many Harvard fans out there in the
wintry wilds of upstate New York.

‘How’s the cheek, Barrett?’

‘Okay, thanks, Mr. Jencks.’

‘You’ll probably want a steak,’
said another familiar voice. Thus spake Oliver Barrett III. How
typical of him to suggest the old-fashioned cure for a black eye.

‘Thank you, Father,’ I said. ‘The
doctor took care of it.’ I indicated the gauze pad covering
Selzer’s twelve stitches.

‘I mean for your stomach, son.’

At dinner, we had yet another in our
continuing series of nonconversations, all of which commence with
‘How’ve you been?’ and conclude with ‘Anything I can do?’

‘How’ve you been, son?’

‘Fine, sir.’

‘Does your face hurt?’

‘No, sir.’

It was beginning to hurt like hell.

‘I’d like Jack Wells to look at
it on Monday.’

‘Not necessary, Father.’

‘He’s a specialist - ‘

‘The Cornell doctor wasn’t
exactly a veterinarian,’ I said, hoping to dampen my father’s
usual snobbish enthusiasm for specialists, experts, and all other
‘top people.’

‘Too bad,’ remarked Oliver
Barrett III, in what I first took to be a stab at humor, ‘you did
get a beastly cut.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said. (Was I
supposed to chuckle?) And then I wondered if my father’s
quasi-witticism had not been intended as some sort of implicit
reprimand for my actions on the ice.

‘Or were you implying that I
behaved like an animal this evening?’

His expression suggested some
pleasure at the fact that I had asked him. But he simply replied,
‘You were the one who mentioned veterinarians.’ At this point, I
decided to study the menu.

As the main course was served, Old
Stony launched into another of his simplistic sermonettes, this one,
if I recall - and I try not to - concerning
victories and defeats. He noted that we had lost the title (very
sharp of you, Father), but after all, in sport what really counts is
not the winning but the playing. His remarks sounded suspiciously
close to a paraphrase of the put-down of such athletic trivia as Ivy
tides. But I was not about to feed him any Olympic straight lines, so
I gave him his quota of ‘Yes sir’s‘ and shut up.

We ran the usual conversational
gamut, which centers around Old Stony’s favorite nontopic, my
plans.

‘Tell me, Oliver, have you heard
from the Law School?’

‘Actually, Father, I haven’t
definitely decided on law school.’

‘I was merely asking if law school
had definitely decided on you.’

Was this another witticism? Was I
supposed to smile at my father’s rosy rhetoric?

‘No, sir. I haven’t heard.’

‘I could give Price Zimmermann a
ring - ‘

‘No!’ I interrupted as an instant
reflex, ‘Please don’t, sir.’

‘Not to influence,’ O.B. III said
very uprightly,

‘just to inquire.’

‘Father, I want to get the letter
with everyone else.

Please.’

‘Yes. Of course. Fine.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Besides there really isn’t much
doubt about your getting in,’ he added.

I don’t know why, but O.B. III has
a way of disparaging me even while uttering laudatory phrases.

‘It’s no cinch,’ I replied.
‘They don’t have a hockey team, after all.’

I have no idea why I was putting
myself down. Maybe it was because he was taking the opposite view.

‘You have other qualities,’ said
Oliver Barrett III, but declined to elaborate. (I doubt if he could
have.) The meal was as lousy as the conversation, except that I could
have predicted the staleness of the rolls even before they arrived,
whereas I can never predict what subject my father will set blandly
before me.

‘And there’s always the Peace
Corps,’ he remarked, completely out of the blue.

‘Sir?’ I asked, not quite sure
whether he was making a statement or asking a question.

‘I think the Peace Corps is a fine
thing, don’t you?’ he said.