Love Story (8 page)

‘Someday,’ she said, ‘when
you’re being bugged by Oliver V - ‘

‘He won’t be called Oliver, be
sure of that!’ I snapped at her. She didn’t raise her voice,
though she usually did when I did.

‘Lissen, Ol, even if we name him
Bozo the Clown, that kid’s still gonna resent you ‘cause you were
a big Harvard jock. And by the time he’s a freshman, you’ll
probably be in the Supreme Court!’

I told her that our son would
definitely not resent me. She then inquired how I could be so certain
of that. I couldn’t produce evidence. I mean, I simply knew our son
would not resent me, I couldn’t say precisely why. As an absolute
non sequitur, Jenny then remarked: ‘Your father loves you too,
Oliver. He loves you just the way you’ll love Bozo. But you
Barretts are so damn proud and competitive, you’ll go through life
thinking you hate each other.’

‘If it weren’t for you,’ I said
facetiously.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘The case is closed,’ I said,
being, after all, the husband and head of household. My eyes returned
to The State v. Percival and Jenny got up. But then she remembered:
‘There’s still the matter of the RSVP.’

I allowed that a Radcliffe music
major could probably compose a nice little negative RSVP without
professional guidance.

‘Listen, Oliver,’ she said, ‘I’ve
probably lied or cheated in my life. But I’ve never deliberately
hurt anyone.

I don’t think I could.’

Really, at that moment she was only
hurting me, so I asked her politely to handle the RSVP in whatever
manner she wished, as long as the essence of the message was that we
wouldn’t show unless hell froze over. I returned once again to The
State v. Percival.

‘What’s the number?’ I heard
her say very softly. She was at the telephone.

‘Can’t you just write a note?’

‘In a minute I’ll lose my nerve.
What’s the number?’

I told her and was instantaneously
immersed in Percival’s appeal to the Supreme Court. I was not
listening to Jenny. That is, I tried not to. She was in the same
room, after all.

‘Oh - good evening, sir,’ I heard
her say. Did the Sonovabitch answer the phone? Wasn’t he in
Washington during the week? That’s what a recent profile in The New
York Times said. Goddamn journalism is going downhill nowadays.

How long does it take to say no?

Somehow Jennifer had already taken
more time than one would think necessary to pronounce this simple
syllable.

‘Ollie?’

She had her hand over the mouthpiece.

‘Ollie, does it have to be
negative?’

The nod of my head indicated that it
had to be, the wave of my hand indicated that she should hurry the
hell up.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said
into the phone. ‘I mean, we’re terribly sorry, sir ….’

We’re! Did she have to involve me
in this? And why can’t she get to the point and hang up?

‘Oliver!’

She had her hand on the mouthpiece
again and was talking very loud.

‘He’s wounded, Oliver! Can you
just sit there and let your father bleed?’

Had she not been in such an emotional
state, I could have explained once again that stones do not bleed,
that she should not project her Italian-Mediterranean misconceptions
about parents onto the craggy heights of Mount Rushmore. But she was
very upset. And it was upsetting me too.

‘Oliver,’ she pleaded, ‘could
you just say a word?’

To him? She must be going out of her
mind!

‘I mean, like just maybe ‘hello’?’

She was offering the phone to me. And
trying not to cry.

‘I will never talk to him. Ever,’
I said with perfect calm.

And now she was crying. Nothing
audible, but tears pouring down her face. And then she - she begged.

‘For me, Oliver. I’ve never asked
you for anything.

Please.’

Three of us. Three of us just
standing (I somehow imagined my father being there as well) waiting
for something. What? For me?

I couldn’t do it.

Didn’t Jenny understand she was
asking the impossible?

That I would have done absolutely
anything else? As I looked at the floor, shaking my head in adamant
refusal and extreme discomfort, Jenny addressed me with a kind of
whispered fury I had never heard from her: ‘You are a heartless
bastard,’ she said. And then she ended the telephone conversation
with my father, saying: ‘Mr. Barrett, Oliver does want you to know
that in his own special way …’

She paused for breath. She had been
sobbing, so it wasn’t easy. I was much too astonished to do
anything but await the end of my alleged ‘message.’

‘Oliver loves you very much,’ she
said, and hung up very quickly.

There is no rational explanation for
my actions in the next split second. I plead temporary insanity.
Correction: I plead nothing. I must never be forgiven for what I did.

I ripped the phone from her hand,
then from the socket and hurled it across the room.

‘God damn you, Jenny! Why don’t
you get the hell out of my life!’

I stood still, panting like the
animal I had suddenly become. Jesus Christ! What the hell had
happened to me? I turned to look at Jen.

But she was gone.

I mean absolutely gone, because I
didn’t even hear footsteps on the stairs. Christ, she must have
dashed out the instant I grabbed the phone. Even her coat and scarf
were still there. The pain of not knowing what to do was exceeded
only by that of knowing what I had done.

I searched everywhere.

In the Law School library, I prowled
the rows of grinding students, looking and looking. Up and back, at
least half a dozen times. Though I didn’t utter a sound, I knew my
glance was so intense, my face so fierce, I was disturbing the whole
fucking place. Who cares?

But Jenny wasn’t there.

Then all through Harkness Commons,
the lounge, the cafeteria. Then a wild sprint to look around Agassiz
Hall at Radcliffe. Not there, either. I was running everywhere now,
my legs trying to catch up with the pace of my heart.

Paine Hall? (Ironic goddamn name!)
Downstairs are piano practice rooms. I know Jenny. When she’s
angry, she pounds the fucking keyboard. Right? But how about when
she’s scared to death?

It’s crazy walking down the
corridor, practice rooms on either side. The sounds of Mozart and
Bartok, Bach and Brahms filter out from the doors and blend into this
weird infernal sound.

Jenny’s got to be here!

Instinct made me stop at a door where
I heard the pounding (angry?) sound of a Chopin prelude. I paused for
a second. The playing was lousy - stops and starts and many mistakes.
At one pause I heard a girl’s voice mutter, ‘Shit!’

It had to be Jenny. I flung open the
door.

A Radcliffe girl was at the piano.
She looked up. An ugly, big-shouldered hippie Radcliffe girl, annoyed
at my invasion.

‘What’s the scene, man?’ she
asked.

‘Bad, bad,’ I replied, and closed
the door again.

Then I tried Harvard Square. The Café
Pamplona, Tommy’s Arcade, even Hayes Bick - lots of artistic types
go there. Nothing.

Where would Jenny have gone?

By now the subway was closed, but if
she had gone straight to the Square she could have caught a train to
Boston. To the bus terminal.

It was almost 1 A.M. as I deposited a
quarter and two dimes in the slot. I was in one of the booths by the
kiosk in Harvard Square.

‘Hello, Phil?’

‘Hey …’ he said sleepily.
‘Who’s this?’

‘It’s me - Oliver.’

‘Oliver!’ He sounded scared. ‘Is
Jenny hurt?’ he asked quickly. If he was asking me, did that mean
she wasn’t with him?

‘Uh - no, Phil, no.’

‘Thank Christ. How are you,
Oliver?’

Once assured of his daughter’s
safety, he was casual and friendly. As if he had not been aroused
from the depths of slumber.

‘Fine, Phil, I’m great. Fine.
Say, Phil, what do you hear from Jenny?’

‘Not enough, goddammit,’ he
answered in a strangely calm voice.

‘What do you mean, Phil?’

‘Christ, she should call more
often, goddammit. I’m not a stranger, you know.’

If you can be relieved and panicked
at the same time, that’s what I was.

‘Is she there with you?’ he asked
me.

‘Huh?’

‘Put Jenny on; I’ll yell at her
myself.’

‘I can’t, Phil.’

‘Oh is she asleep? If she’s
asleep, don’t disturb her.’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘Listen, you bastard,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘How goddamn far is Cranston that
you can’t come down on a Sunday afternoon? Huh? Or I can come up,
Oliver.’

‘Uh - no, Phil. We’ll come down.’

‘When?’

‘Some Sunday.’

‘Don’t give me that ‘some’
crap. A loyal child doesn’t say ‘some,’ he says ‘this.’
This Sunday, Oliver.’

‘Yes, sir. This Sunday.’

‘Four o’clock. But drive
carefully. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘And next time call collect,
goddammit.’

He hung up.

I just stood there, lost on that
island in the dark of Harvard Square, not knowing where to go or what
to do next. A colored guy approached me and inquired if I was in need
of a fix. I kind of absently replied, ‘No, thank you, sir.’

I wasn’t running now. I mean, what
was the rush to return to the empty house? It was very late and I was
numb -

more with fright than with the cold
(although it wasn’t warm, believe me). From several yards off, I
thought I saw someone sitting on the top of the steps. This had to be
my eyes playing tricks, because the figure was motionless.

But it was Jenny.

She was sitting on the top step.

I was relieved to speak. Inwardly I
hoped she had some blunt instrument with which to hit me.

‘Jen?’

‘Ollie?’

We both spoke so quietly, it was
impossible to take an emotional reading.

‘I forgot my key,’ Jenny said.

I stood there at the bottom of the
steps, afraid to ask how long she had been sitting, knowing only that
I had wronged her terribly.

‘Jenny, I’m sorry - ‘

‘Stop!’ She cut off my apology,
then said very quietly, ‘Love means not ever having to say you’re
sorry.’

I climbed up the stairs to where she
was sitting.

‘I’d like to go to sleep. Okay?’
she said.

‘Okay.’

We walked up to our apartment. As we
undressed, she looked at me reassuringly.

‘I meant what I said, Oliver.’

And that was all.

It was July when the letter came.

It had been forwarded from Cambridge
to Dennis Port, so I guess I got the news a day or so late. I charged
over to where Jenny was supervising her children in a game of
kickball (or something), and said in my best Bogart tones: ‘Let’s
go.’

‘Huh?’

‘Let’s go,’ I repeated, and
with such obvious authority that she began to follow me as I walked
toward the water.

‘What’s going on, Oliver? Wouldja
tell me, please, I continued to stride powerfully onto the dock.

‘Onto the boat, Jennifer,’ I
ordered, pointing to it with the very hand that held the letter,
which she didn’t even notice.

‘Oliver, I have children to take
care of,’ she protested, even while stepping obediently on board.

‘Goddammit, Oliver, will you
explain what’s going on?’

We were now a few hundred yards from
shore.

‘I have something to tell you,’ I
said.

‘Couldn’t you have told it on dry
land?’ she yelled.

‘No, goddammit,’ I yelled back
(we were neither of us angry, but there was lots of wind, and we had
to shout to be heard).

‘I wanted to be alone with you.
Look what I have.’

I waved the envelope at her. She
immediately recognized the letterhead.

‘Hey - Harvard Law School! Have you
been kicked out?’

‘Guess again, you optimistic
bitch,’ I yelled.

‘You were first in the class!’
she guessed.

I was now almost ashamed to tell her.

‘Not quite. Third.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Only third?’

‘Listen - that still means I make
the goddamn Law Review’ I shouted.

She just sat there with an absolute
no-expression expression.

‘Christ, Jenny,’ I kind of
whined, ‘say something!’

‘Not until I meet numbers one and
two,’ she said.

I looked at her, hoping she would
break into the smile I knew she was suppressing.

‘C’mon, Jenny!’ I pleaded.

‘I’m leaving. Good-bye,’ she
said, and jumped immediately into the water. I dove right in after
her and the next thing I knew we were both hanging on to the side of
the boat and giggling.

‘Hey,’ I said in one of my
wittier observations, ‘you went overboard for me.’

‘Don’t be too cocky,’ she
replied. ‘Third is still only third.’

‘Hey, listen, you bitch,’ I said.

‘What, you bastard?’ she replied.

‘I owe you a helluva lot,’ I said
sincerely.

‘Not true, you bastard, not true,’
she answered.

‘Not true?’ I inquired, somewhat
surprised.

‘You owe me everything,’ she
said.

That night we blew twenty-three bucks
on a lobster dinner at a fancy place in Yarmouth. Jenny was still
reserving judgment until she could check out the two gentlemen who
had, as she put it, ‘defeated me.’

Stupid as it sounds, I was so in love
with her that the moment we got back to Cambridge, I rushed to find
out who the first two guys were. I was relieved to discover that the
top man, Erwin Blasband, City College ‘64, was bookish,
bespectacled, nonathletic and not her type, and the number two man was Bella Landau, Bryn Mawr
‘64, a girl. This was all to the good, especially since Bella
Landau was rather cool looking (as lady law students go), and I could
twit Jenny a bit with ‘details’ of what went on in those
late-night hours at Gannett House, the Law Review building. And
Jesus, there were late nights. It was not unusual for me to come home
at two or three in the morning. I mean, six courses, plus editing the
Law Review, plus the fact that I actually authored an article in one
of the issues (‘Legal Assistance for the Urban Poor: A Study of
Boston’s Roxbury District’ by Oliver Barrett IV, HLR, March,
1966, pp. 861-908).