Love Story (4 page)

‘Hey, Oliver, did I tell you that I
love you?’ she said.

‘No, Jen.’

‘Why didn’t you ask me?’

‘I was afraid to, frankly.’

‘Ask me now.’

‘Do you love me, Jenny?’

She looked at me and wasn’t being
evasive when she answered:

‘What do you think?’

‘Yeah. I guess. Maybe.’

I kissed her neck.

‘Oliver?’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t just love you …’

Oh, Christ, what was this?

‘I love you very much, Oliver.’

I
love Ray Stratton.

He may not be a genius or a great
football player (kind of slow at the snap), but he was always a good
roommate and loyal friend. And how that poor bastard suffered through
most of our senior year. Where did he go to study when he saw the tie
placed on the doorknob of our room (the traditional signal for
‘action within’)? Admittedly, he didn’t study that much, but he
had to sometimes. Let’s say he used the House library, or Lament,
or even the Pi Eta Club. But where did he sleep on those Saturday
nights when Jenny and I decided to disobey parietal rules and stay
together? Ray had to scrounge for places to sack in - neighbors’
couches, etc., assuming they had nothing going for them. Well, at
least it was after the football season. And I would have done the
same thing for him.

But what was Ray’s reward? In days
of yore I had shared with him the minutest details of my amorous
triumphs.

Now he was not only denied these
inalienable roommate’s rights, but I never even came out and
admitted that Jenny and I were lovers. I would just indicate when we
would be needing the room, and so forth. Stratton could draw what
conclusion he wished.

‘I mean, Christ, Barrett, are you
making it .or not?’ he would ask.

‘Raymond, as a friend I’m asking
you not to ask.’

‘But Christ, Barrett, afternoons,
Friday nights, Saturday nights. Christ, you must be making it.’

‘Then why bother asking me, Ray?’

‘Because it’s unhealthy.’

‘What is?’

‘The whole situation, Ol. I mean,
it was never like this before. I mean, this total freeze-out on
details for big Ray. I mean, this is unwarranted. Unhealthy. Christ,
what does she do that’s so different?’

‘Look, Ray, in a mature love affair
- ‘

‘Love?’

‘Don’t say it like it’s a dirty
word.’

‘At your age? Love? Christ, I
greatly fear, old buddy.’

‘For what? My sanity?’

‘Your bachelorhood. Your freedom.
Your life!’

Poor Ray. He really meant it.

‘Afraid you’re losing a roommate,
huh?’

‘Still, in a way I’ve gained one,
she spends so much time here.’

I was dressing for a concert, so this
dialogue would shortly come to a close.

‘Don’t sweat, Raymond. We’ll
have that apartment in New York. Different babies every night. We’ll
do it all.’

‘Don’t tell me not to sweat,
Barrett. That girl’s got you.’

‘It’s all under control,’ I
replied. ‘Stay loose.’ I was adjusting my tie and heading for the
door. Stratton was somehow unconvinced.

‘Hey, Ollie?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You are making it, aren’t you?’

‘Jesus Christ, Stratton!’

I was not taking Jenny to this
concert; I was watching her in it. The Bach Society was doing the
Fifth Brandenburg Concerto at Dunster House, and Jenny was
harpsichord soloist.

I had heard her play many times, of
course, but never with a group or in public. Christ, was I proud. She
didn’t make any mistakes that I could notice.

‘I can’t believe how great you
were,’ I said after the concert.

‘That shows what you know about
music, Preppie.’

‘I know enough.’

We were in the Dunster courtyard. It
was one of those April afternoons when you’d believe spring might
finally reach Cambridge. Her musical colleagues were strolling nearby
(including Martin Davidson, throwing invisible hate bombs in my
direction), so I couldn’t argue keyboard expertise with her, We
crossed Memorial Drive to walk along the river.

‘Wise up, Barrett, wouldja please.
I play okay. Not great. Not even ‘All-Ivy.’ Just okay. Okay?’

How could I argue when she wanted to
put herself down?

‘Okay. You play okay. I just mean
you should always keep at it.’

‘Who said I wasn’t going to keep
at it, for God’s sake? I’m gonna study with Nadia Boulanger,
aren’t I?’

What the hell was she talking about?’
From the way she immediately shut up, I sensed this was something she
had not intended to mention.

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘Nadia Boulanger. A famous music
teacher. In Paris.’

She said those last two words rather
quickly.

‘In Paris?’ I asked, rather
slowly.

‘She takes very few American
pupils. I was lucky. I got a good scholarship too.’

‘Jennifer - you are going to
Paris?’

‘I’ve never seen Europe. I can
hardly wait.’

I grabbed her by the shoulders. Maybe
I was too rough, I don’t know.

‘Hey - how long have you known
this?’

For once in her life, Jenny couldn’t
look me square in the eye.

‘Ollie, don’t be stupid,’ she
said. ‘It’s inevitable.’

‘What’s inevitable?’

‘We graduate and we go our separate
ways. You’ll go to Law school - ‘

‘Wait a minute - what are you
talking about?’

Now she looked me in the eye. And her
face was sad.

‘Ollie, you’re a preppie
millionaire, and I’m a social zero.’

I was still holding onto her
shoulders.

‘What the hell does that have to do
with separate ways? We’re together now, we’re happy.’

‘Ollie, don’t be stupid,’ she
repeated. ‘Harvard is like Santa’s Christmas bag. You can stuff
any crazy kind of toy into it. But when the holiday’s over, they
shake you out … ‘ She hesitated.

‘ … and you gotta go back where
you belong.’

‘You mean you’re going to bake
cookies in Cranston, Rhode Island?’

I was saying desperate things.

‘Pastries,’ she said. ‘And
don’t make fun of my fatter.’

‘Then don’t leave me, Jenny.
Please.’

‘What about my scholarship? What
about Paris, which I’ve never seen in my whole goddamn life?’

‘What about our marriage?’

It was I who spoke those words,
although for a split second I wasn’t sure I really had.

‘Who said anything about marriage?’

‘Me. I’m saying it now.’

‘You want to marry me?’

‘Yes.’

She tilted her head, did not smile,
but merely inquired:

‘Why?’

I looked her straight in the eye.

‘Because,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That’s a
very good reason.’

She took my arm (not my sleeve this
time), and we walked along the river. There was nothing more to say,
really.

Ipswich, Mass., is some forty minutes from the Mystic River Bridge,
depending on the weather and how you drive. I have actually made it
on occasion in twenty-nine minutes. A certain distinguished Boston
banker claims an even faster time, but when one is discussing sub
thirty minutes from Bridge to Barrens’, it is difficult to separate
fact from fancy. I happen to consider twenty-nine minutes as the
absolute limit. I mean, you can’t ignore the traffic signals on
Route I, can you?

‘You’re driving like a maniac,’
Jenny said.

‘This is Boston,’ I replied.
‘Everyone drives like a maniac.’ We were halted for a red light
on Route I at the time.

‘You’ll kill us before your
parents can murder us.’

‘Listen, Jen, my parents are lovely
people.’

The light changed. The MG was at
sixty in under ten seconds.

‘Even the Sonovabitch?’ she
asked.

‘Who?’

‘Oliver Barrett III.’

‘Ah, he’s a nice guy. You’ll
really like him.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Everybody likes him,’ I replied.

‘Then why don’t you?’

‘Because everybody likes him,’ I
said.

Why was I taking her to meet them,
anyway? I mean, did I really need Old Stonyface’s blessing or
anything? Part of it was that she wanted to (‘That’s the way it’s
done, Oliver’) and part of it was the simple fact that Oliver III
was my banker in the very grossest sense: he paid the goddamn
tuition.

It had to be Sunday dinner, didn’t
it? I mean, that’s comme il faut, right? Sunday, when all the lousy
drivers were clogging Route I and getting in my way. I pulled off the
main drag onto Groton Street, a road whose turns I had been taking at
high speeds since I was thirteen.

‘There are no houses here,’ said
Jenny, ‘just trees.’

‘The houses are behind the trees.’

When traveling down Groton Street,
you’ve got to be very careful or else you’ll miss the turnoff
into our place.

Actually, I missed the turnoff myself
that afternoon. I was three hundred yards down the road when I
screeched to a halt.

‘Where are we?’ she asked.

‘Past it,’ I mumbled, between
obscenities.

Is there something symbolic in the
fact that I backed up three hundred yards to the entrance of our
place? Anyway, I drove slowly once we were on Barrett soil. It’s at
least a half mile in from Groton Street to Dover House proper. En
route you pass other … well, buildings. I guess it’s fairly
impressive when you see it for the first time.

‘Holy shit!’ Jenny said.

‘What’s the matter, Jen?’

‘Pull over, Oliver. No kidding.
Stop the car.’

I stopped the car. She was clutching.

‘Hey, I didn’t think it would be
like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like this rich. I mean, I bet you
have serfs living here.’

I wanted to reach over and touch her,
but my palms were not dry (an uncommon state), and so I gave her
verbal reassurance.

‘Please, Jen. It’ll be a breeze.’

‘Yeah, but why is it I suddenly
wish my name was Abigail Adams, or Wendy WASP?’

We drove the rest of the way in
silence, parked and walked up to the front door. As we waited for the
ring to be answered, Jenny succumbed to a last-minute panic.

‘Let’s run,’ she said.

‘Let’s stay and fight,’ I said.

Was either of us joking?

The door was opened by Florence, a
devoted and antique servant of the Barrett family.

‘Ah, Master Oliver,’ she greeted
me.

God, how I hate to be called that! I
detest that implicitly derogatory distinction between me and Old
Stonyface.

My parents, Florence informed us,
were waiting in the library. Jenny was taken aback by some of the
portraits we passed. Not just that some were by John Singer Sargent
(notably Oliver Barrett II, sometimes displayed in the Boston
Museum), but the new realization that not all of my forebears were
named Barrett. There had been solid Barrett women who had mated well
and bred such creatures as Barrett Winthrop, Richard Barrett Sewall
and even Abbott Lawrence Lyman, who had the temerity to go through
life (and Harvard, its implicit analogue), becoming a prize-winning
chemist, without so much as a Barrett in his middle name!

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Jenny. ‘I
see half the buildings at Harvard hanging here.’

‘It’s all crap,’ I told her.

‘I didn’t know you were related
to Sewall Boat House too,’ she said.

‘Yeah. I come from a long line of
wood and stone.’

At the end of the long row of
portraits, and just before one turns into the library, stands a glass
case. In the case are trophies. Athletic trophies.

‘They’re gorgeous,’ Jenny said.
‘I’ve never seen ones that look like real gold and silver.’

‘They are.’

‘Jesus. Yours?’

‘No. His.’

Barrett III did not place in the
Amsterdam Olympics.

It is, however, also quite true that
he enjoyed significant rowing triumphs on various other occasions.
Several. Many.

The well-polished proof of this was
now before Jennifer’s dazzled eyes.

‘They don’t give stuff like that
in the Cranston bowling leagues.’

Then I think she tossed me a bone.

‘Do you have trophies, Oliver?’

‘Yes.’

‘In a case?’

‘Up in my room. Under the bed.’

She gave me one of her good
Jenny-looks and whispered:

‘We’ll go look at them later,
huh?’

Before I could answer, or even gauge
Jenny’s true motivations for suggesting a trip to my bedroom, we
were interrupted.

‘Ah, hello there.’

Sonovabitch! It was the Sonovabitch.

‘Oh, hello, sir. This is Jennifer -
‘

‘Ah, hello there.’

He was shaking her hand before I
could finish the introduction. I noted that he was not wearing any of
his Banker Costumes. No indeed; Oliver III had on a fancy cashmere
sport jacket. And there was an insidious smile on his usually
rocklike countenance.

‘Do come in and meet Mrs. Barrett.’

Another once-in-a-lifetime thrill was
in store for Jennifer: meeting Alison Forbes ‘Tipsy’ Barrett. (In
perverse moments I wondered how her boarding-school nickname might
have affected her, had she not grown up to be the earnest do-gooder
museum trustee she was.) Let the record show that Tipsy Forbes never
completed college. She left Smith in her sophomore year, with the
full blessing of her parents, to wed Oliver Barrett III.

‘My wife Alison, this is Jennifer -
‘

He had already usurped the function
of introducing her.

‘Calliveri,’ I added, since Old
Stony didn’t know her last name.

‘Cavilleri,’ Jenny added
politely, since I had mispronounced it - for the first and only time
in my goddamn life.

‘As in Cavalleria Rusticana?’
asked my mother, probably to prove that despite her drop-out status,
she was sail pretty cultured.

‘Right.’ Jenny smiled at her. ‘No
relation.’

‘Ah,’ said my mother.