Page 17 of Oliver's Story


  I reflected. All I really knew was I was anxious to depart.

  “Maybe,” I allowed.

  “Then why not have the balls to say you just don’t like me?”

  Marcie’s cool was melting. She was not upset. Not angry. Yet not quite in full control of all her fabled poise.

  “No. I like you, Marce,” I said. “I just can’t live with you.”

  “Oliver,” she answered quietly, “you couldn’t live with anyone. You’re still so hung up on Jenny, you don’t want a new relationship.”

  I could not respond She really hurt me by evoking Jenny.

  “Look, I know you,” she continued. “All your ‘deep involvement with the issues’ is a great façade. It’s just a socially acceptable excuse to keep on mourning.”

  “Marcie?”

  “Yes?”

  “You are a cold and heartless bitch.”

  I turned and started off.

  “Wait, Oliver.”

  I stopped and looked around.

  She stood there. Crying. Very softly.

  “Oliver . . . I need you.”

  I did not reply.

  “And I think you need me too,” she said. For a moment I did not know what to do.

  I looked at her. I knew how hopelessly alone she felt.

  But therein lay the problem.

  So did I.

  I turned and walked down Austin Road. Not looking back.

  Night had fallen.

  And I wished the darkness could have drowned me.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “What is your opinion, Doctor?”

  “I think lemon meringue.”

  Joanna Stein, M.D., reached out across the counter and then placed a piece of pie upon her tray. This and two stalks of celery would be her lunch. She’d just explained that she was on a diet.

  “Pretty weird,” I commented.

  “I can’t help it,” she replied. “I’m a sucker for the really gooey stuff. The celery is for my conscience.”

  It was two weeks after I’d got back. I’d spent the first days feeling tired, then the next few feeling angry. Then, as if returning to square one, I just felt lonely.

  With a difference.

  Two years ago, my grief had overwhelmed all other feelings. Now I knew that what I needed was the company of someone. Someone nice. I wouldn’t wait or wallow.

  My only qualm in calling up Joanna Stein was having to concoct some bullshit to explain why I’d been out of touch so long.

  She never asked.

  When I telephoned, she merely indicated she was pleased to hear from me. I invited her to dinner. She suggested lunch right at the hospital. I leaped and here we were.

  She had kissed me on the cheek when I arrived. Now, for once, I kissed her back. We asked each other how we’d been and gave replies with vague details. We’d both been working hard, extremely busy. And so forth. She asked about my lawyering. I told a Spiro Agnew joke. She laughed. We were at ease with one another.

  Then I asked about her doctoring.

  “I finish here in June, thank God.”

  “What then?”

  “Two years in San Francisco. At a teaching hospital and at a living wage.”

  San Francisco is, I quickly calculated, several thousand miles from New York City. Oliver, you clod, don’t fumble this one.

  “California’s great,” I said, to stall for time.

  My social calendar had called for weekending in Cranston. Maybe I could ask her to drive up with me, just friend-to-friend. She would get along with Phil. And it would be a chance to get things started.

  Then my mind absorbed her comment on my last remark.

  “It’s not just California,” Jo had answered. “There’s a guy involved.”

  Oh. A guy. It stands to reason. Life goes on without you, Oliver. Or did you think she’d sit and pine?

  I wondered if my face betrayed my disappointment.

  “Hey, I’m glad to hear it,” I replied. “A doctor?”

  “Sure,” she smiled. “Whom else would I encounter on this job?”

  “Is he musical?” I asked.

  “He barely cuts it on the oboe.”

  He clearly cuts it with Joanna.

  That’s enough of jealous prying, Oliver. Now show you’re cool and change the subject.

  “How’s King Louis?”

  “Crazier than ever,” she replied. “They all send love and tell you any Sunday . . .”

  No. I wouldn’t want to meet the oboist.

  “Great. I’ll come sometime,” I lied.

  There was a little pause. I sipped my coffee.

  “Hey, can I level with you, Oliver?” she whispered furtively.

  “Sure, Jo.”

  “I’m embarrassed, but I’d . . . like another piece of pie.”

  Gallantly, I fetched her one, pretending it was for myself. Joanna Stein, M.D., expressed eternal gratitude.

  Our hour soon was up.

  “Good luck in San Francisco, Jo,” I said in parting.

  “Please keep in touch.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” I said.

  And I walked very slowly downtown to my office.

  Three weeks later came a turning point.

  After years of threatening to do so, Father actually turned sixty-five. They held a celebration in his office.

  The shuttle I flew up on was an hour late because of snowy weather. By the time I entered, many had drunk deeply at the flowing punch bowls. I was in an undulating sea of tweed. Everyone was saying what a jolly fellow Father was. And soon they would be singing it.

  I behaved. I talked to Father’s partners and their families. First Mr. Ward, a friendly fossil, and his future-fossil children. Then to the Seymours, once a lively couple, now reduced to but a single melancholy topic: Everett, their only son, a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.

  Mother stood at Father’s side, receiving envoys from the far-flung Barrett enterprises. There was even someone from the textile workers’ union.

  I could easily distinguish him. Jamie Francis was the only guest who didn’t wear a Brooks or J. Press suit.

  “Sorry you were late,” said Jamie. “Wish you coulda heard my speech. Look—the members all pitched in.”

  He pointed at the board room table, where a gold Eternamatic clock shone 6:15.

  “Your father’s a good man. You should be proud,” continued Jamie. “I’ve sat around a table with him nearly thirty years and I can tell you that they don’t come any better.”

  I just nodded. Jamie seemed intent on giving me a replay of his testimonial.

  “Back in the fifties, all the owners ran like rats and set up plants down South. They left their people high and dry.”

  That’s no exaggeration. New England mill towns nowadays are almost ghost towns.

  “But your dad just sat us down and said, ‘We’re gonna stay. Now help us be competitive.’ ”

  “Go on,” I said, as if he needed prompting.

  “We asked for new machinery. I guess no bank was nuts enough to finance him. . . .”

  He took a breath.

  “So Mr. Barrett put his money where his mouth was. Three million bucks to save our jobs.”

  My father never told me this. But then I’d never asked.

  “Of course the pressure’s really on him now,” said Jamie.

  “Why?”

  He looked at me and spoke two syllables: “Hong Kong.”

  I nodded.

  He continued. “And Formosa. And they’re starting now in South Korea. What the hell!”

  “Yeah, Mr. Francis,” I replied, “that’s wicked competition.” As well I knew.

  “I’d use stronger language if we weren’t in your father’s office. He’s a really good man, Oliver. Not like—if you’ll pardon me—some other Barretts.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “In fact,” said Jamie, “I think that’s why he’s tried so damn hard to be fair to us.”

  Suddenly, I looked across the room
and saw a wholly different person where my father had been standing. One who’d shared with me a feeling that I had never known he had.

  But unlike me, had done much more than talk about it.

  Justice triumphed in November.

  After several seasons of our discontent, Harvard beat the ass off Yale in football. Fourteen-twelve. Decisive factors were the Lord and our defensive unit. The first sent mighty winds to hamper Massey’s throwing game; the second stalled a final Eli drive. All of us in Soldiers Field were smiling.

  “That was fine,” said Father as we drove to downtown Boston.

  “Not just fine—fantastic!” I replied.

  The surest sign of growing old is that you start to care about who wins the Harvard-Yale game.

  But as I said, the crucial thing is that we won.

  Father parked the car near State Street in his office lot.

  And we headed toward the restaurant to feast on lobster and banalities.

  He strode with vigor. For despite his age, he still rowed on the Charles five times a week. He was in shape.

  Our conversation was conspicuously football-oriented. Father never had—and I sensed never would—asked me the fate of my relationship with Marcie. Nor would he broach the other subjects he assumed taboo.

  And so I took to the offensive.

  As we passed the offices of Barrett, Ward and Seymour, I said, “Father?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to talk to you about . . . the Firm.”

  He glanced at me. He didn’t smile But it took every muscle in his body to restrain himself. Athlete that he was, he wouldn’t break his stroke until he crossed the finish line.

  This was no sudden whim. And yet I never told my father by what complicated paths I had arrived at the decision to be . . . part of things. For it had taken time to work it out.

  Unlike my usual decisions, I had pondered every day (and night) since I’d returned from Father’s party more than half a year ago.

  To start with, I could never love New York again.

  It’s not a city to cure loneliness. And what I needed most was to belong. Somewhere.

  And maybe it was not just that I came to see my family with different eyes. Maybe I just wanted to go home.

  I’ve tried to be so many things so far, just to avoid confronting who I am.

  And I am Oliver Barrett. The Fourth.

  December 1976

  I’ve been in Boston nearly five years now. I worked in tandem with my father till he left the firm. At first, I do confess, I missed the legal action. But the more I got involved, the more I found that what we do at Barrett, Ward and Seymour is important too. I mean the companies we help to float create new jobs. And that’s a source of pride to me.

  Speaking of employment, in Fall River all our mills are flourishing. Actually, the only setback that our workers suffered has been on the playing field.

  Each summer at our picnic, Rank & File plays Management in softball. Since my drafting into service, Labor’s tide of victories has been reversed. I’m batting .604 (yes, folks), with seven homers in four years. I think they’re looking forward to my ultimate retirement.

  The Wall Street Journal does not mention all the enterprises we have financed. One omission was Phil’s Bake Shop . . . of Fort Lauderdale. The gray and cold of Cranston winters got to Phil, and Florida was just too tempting.

  He calls me once a month. I ask about his social life, aware that there are many eligible ladies in his area. He ducks the question with a “Time will tell.” And quickly turns the subject to my social life.

  Which is pretty good. I live on Beacon Hill, that legendary cornucopia of recent college graduates. It’s not too difficult to make new friends. And not just business types. I often lift a glass with Stanley Newman, who’s a jazz pianist. Or Gianni Barnea, a just-about-to-be-discovered painter.

  And, of course, I’m still in touch with all my old friends. The Simpsons have a little son and Gwen is preg with number two. They stay with me when they’re in Boston for a football game or something. (I’ve got lots of room.)

  Steve reports Joanna Stein has married Martin Jaffe, who I gather is an ophthalmologist as well as an oboist. They’re living on the Coast.

  According to a little squib I read in Time, Miss Binnendale has recently re-wed. A guy named Preston Elder (“thirty-seven, Washington attorney”).

  I suppose the matrimony epidemic will eventually strike me. Of late I’ve seen a lot of Annie Gilbert, who’s a distant cousin. At this point I can’t say if it’s serious.

  Meanwhile, thanks to all those hockey fans who voted for me, I’m a Harvard Overseer. It’s a good excuse to go to Cambridge and pretend I’m still what I no longer am. The undergraduates appear much younger and a trifle scruffier. But who am I to judge? My job obliges me to wear a tie.

  So life is challenging. The days are full. I get a lot of satisfaction from my work. Yes, Barrett that I am, I get my rocks off on Responsibility.

  I’m still in shape. I jog along the Charles each evening.

  If I go five miles, I get to glimpse the lights of Harvard just across the river. And see all the places I had walked when I was happy.

  I run back in the darkness, reminiscing just to pass the time.

  Sometimes I ask myself what I would be if Jenny were alive.

  And then I answer:

  I would also be alive.

  About the Author

  Erich Segal's first three novels, Love Story, Oliver's Story, and Man, Woman and Child, were all international bestsellers and became major motion pictures. His fourth novel, The Class, was a New York Times bestseller and won literary prizes in both France and Italy. Segal is also the author of Doctors, and most recenty, Acts of Faith and Prizes.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Other Books by

  Erich Segal

  LOVE STORY

  Praise for Oliver’s Story

  THE EXTRAORDINARY NOVEL

  THAT CONTINUES THE SAGA

  BEGUN WITH LOVE STORY . . .

  “What a rare storyteller.”

  Detroit News

  “A very pleasurable and believable sequel to Love Story that every reader of the first book and every viewer of the film will enjoy.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Erich Segal has done it again. Mystery, sexual excitement and antagonism in the right mixture work their spell.”

  St. Louis Globe

  Oliver’s Story

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1977 by Erich Segal

  ISBN: 0-380-01844-6

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062130129

  10 9 8

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  Erich Segal, Oliver's Story

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