Love Story

  “Jenny, we’re legally married!”

  “Yeah, now I can be a bitch.”

  12

  If a single word can describe our daily life during those first three years, it is “scrounge.” Every waking moment we were concentrating on how the hell we would be able to scrape up enough dough to do whatever it was we had to do. Usually it was just break even. And there’s nothing romantic about it, either. Remember the famous stanza in Omar Khayyám? You know, the book of verses underneath the bough, the loaf of bread, the jug of wine and so forth? Substitute Scott on Trusts for that book of verses and see how this poetic vision stacks up against my idyllic existence. Ah, paradise? No, bullshit. All I’d think about is how much that book was (could we get it secondhand?) and where, if anywhere, we might be able to charge that bread and wine. And then how we might ultimately scrounge up the dough to pay off our debts.

  Life changes. Even the simplest decision must be scrutinized by the ever vigilant budget committee of your mind.

  “Hey, Oliver, let’s go see Becket tonight.”

  “Lissen, it’s three bucks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean a buck fifty for you and a buck fifty for me.”

  “Does that mean yes or no?”

  “Neither. It just means three bucks.”

  Our honeymoon was spent on a yacht and with twenty-one children. That is, I sailed a thirty-six-foot Rhodes from seven in the morning till whenever my passengers had enough, and Jenny was a children’s counselor. It was a place called the Pequod Boat Club in Dennis Port (not far from Hyannis), an establishment that included a large hotel, a marina and several dozen houses for rent. In one of the tinier bungalows, I have nailed an imaginary plaque: “Oliver and Jenny slept here—when they weren’t making love.” I think it’s a tribute to us both that after a long day of being kind to our customers, for we were largely dependent on their tips for our income, Jenny and I were nonetheless kind to each other. I simply say “kind,” because I lack the vocabulary to describe what loving and being loved by Jennifer Cavilleri is like. Sorry, I mean Jennifer Barrett.

  Before leaving for the Cape, we found a cheap apartment in North Cambridge. I called it North Cambridge, although the address was technically in the town of Somerville and the house was, as Jenny described it, “in the state of disrepair.” It had originally been a two-family structure, now converted into four apartments, overpriced even at its “cheap” rental. But what the hell can graduate students do? It’s a seller’s market.

  “Hey, Ol, why do you think the fire department hasn’t condemned the joint?” Jenny asked.

  “They’re probably afraid to walk inside,” I said.

  “So am I.”

  “You weren’t in June,” I said.

  (This dialogue was taking place upon our reentry in September.)

  “I wasn’t married then. Speaking as a married woman, I consider this place to be unsafe at any speed.”

  “What do you intend to do about it?”

  “Speak to my husband,” she replied. “He’ll take care of it.”

  “Hey, I’m your husband,” I said.

  “Really? Prove it.”

  “How?” I asked, inwardly thinking, Oh no, in the street?

  “Carry me over the threshold,” she said.

  “You don’t believe in that nonsense, do you?”

  “Carry me, and I’ll decide after.”

  Okay. I scooped her in my arms and hauled her up five steps onto the porch.

  “Why’d you stop?” she asked.

  “Isn’t this the threshold?”

  “Negative, negative,” she said.

  “I see our name by the bell.”

  “This is not the official goddamn threshold. Upstairs, you turkey!”

  It was twenty-four steps up to our “official” homestead, and I had to pause about halfway to catch my breath.

  “Why are you so heavy?” I asked her.

  “Did you ever think I might be pregnant?” she answered.

  This didn’t make it easier for me to catch my breath.

  “Are you?” I could finally say.

  “Hah! Scared you, didn’t I?”

  “Nah.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Preppie.”

  “Yeah. For a second there, I clutched.”

  I carried her the rest of the way.

  This is among the precious few moments I can recall in which the verb “scrounge” has no relevance whatever.

  My illustrious name enabled us to establish a charge account at a grocery store which would otherwise have denied credit to students. And yet it worked to our disadvantage at a place I would least have expected: the Shady Lane School, where Jenny was to teach.

  “Of course, Shady Lane isn’t able to match the public school salaries,” Miss Anne Miller Whitman, the principal, told my wife, adding something to the effect that Barretts wouldn’t be concerned with “that aspect” anyway. Jenny tried to dispel her illusions, but all she could get in addition to the already offered thirty-five hundred for the year was about two minutes of “ho ho ho”s. Miss Whitman thought Jenny was being so witty in her remarks about Barretts having to pay the rent just like other people.

  When Jenny recounted all this to me, I made a few imaginative suggestions about what Miss Whitman could do with her—ho ho ho—thirty-five hundred. But then Jenny asked if I would like to drop out of law school and support her while she took the education credits needed to teach in a public school. I gave the whole situation a big think for about two seconds and reached an accurate and succinct conclusion:

  “Shit.”

  “That’s pretty eloquent,” said my wife.

  “What am I supposed to say, Jenny—‘ho ho ho’?”

  “No. Just learn to like spaghetti.”

  I did. I learned to like spaghetti, and Jenny learned every conceivable recipe to make pasta seem like something else. What with our summer earnings, her salary, the income anticipated from my planned night work in the post office during Christmas rush, we were doing okay. I mean, there were a lot of movies we didn’t see (and concerts she didn’t go to), but we were making ends meet.

  Of course, about all we were meeting were ends. I mean, socially both our lives changed drastically. We were still in Cambridge, and theoretically Jenny could have stayed with all her music groups. But there wasn’t time. She came home from Shady Lane exhausted, and there was dinner yet to cook (eating out was beyond the realm of maximum feasibility). Meanwhile my own friends were considerate enough to let us alone. I mean, they didn’t invite us so we wouldn’t have to invite them, if you know what I mean.

  We even skipped the football games.

  As a member of the Varsity Club, I was entitled to seats in their terrific section on the fifty-yard line. But it was six bucks a ticket, which is twelve bucks.

  “It’s not,” argued Jenny, “it’s six bucks. You can go without me. I don’t know a thing about football except people shout ‘Hit ’em again,’ which is what you adore, which is why I want you to goddamn go!”

  “The case is closed,” I would reply, being after all the husband and head of household. “Besides, I can use the time to study.” Still, I would spend Saturday afternoons with a transistor at my ear, listening to the roar of the fans, who, though geographically but a mile away, were now in another world.

  I used my Varsity Club privileges to get Yale game seats for Robbie Wald, a Law School classmate. When Robbie left our apartment, effusively grateful, Jenny asked if I wouldn’t tell her again just who got to sit in the V. Club section, and I once more explained that it was for those who, regardless of age or size or social rank, had nobly served fair Harvard on the playing fields.

  “On the water too?” she asked.

  “Jocks are jocks,” I answered, “dry or wet.”

  “Except you, Oliver,” she said. “You’re frozen.”

  I let the subject drop, assuming that this was simply Jennifer’s usual flip repartee, not
wanting to think there had been any more to her question concerning the athletic traditions of Harvard University. Such as perhaps the subtle suggestion that although Soldiers Field holds 45,000 people, all former athletes would be seated in that one terrific section. All. Old and young. Wet, dry—and even frozen. And was it merely six dollars that kept me away from the stadium those Saturday afternoons?

  No; if she had something else in mind, I would rather not discuss it.

  13

  Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Barrett III

  request the pleasure of your company

  at a dinner in celebration of

  Mr. Barrett’s sixtieth birthday

  Saturday, the sixth of March

  at seven o’clock

  Dover House, Ipswich, Massachusetts

  R.s.v.p.

  “Well?” asked Jennifer.

  “Do you even have to ask?” I replied. I was in the midst of abstracting The State v. Percival, a crucial precedent in criminal law. Jenny was sort of waving the invitation to bug me.

  “I think it’s about time, Oliver,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For you know very well what,” she answered. “Does he have to crawl here on his hands and knees?”

  I kept working as she worked me over.

  “Ollie—he’s reaching out to you!”

  “Bullshit, Jenny. My mother addressed the envelope.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t look at it!” she sort of yelled.

  Okay, so I did glance at it earlier. Maybe it had slipped my mind. I was, after all, in the midst of abstracting The State v. Percival, and in the virtual shadow of exams. The point was she should have stopped haranguing me.

  “Ollie, think,” she said, her tone kind of pleading now. “Sixty goddamn years old. Nothing says he’ll still be around when you’re finally ready for the reconciliation.”

  I informed Jenny in the simplest possible terms that there would never be a reconciliation and would she please let me continue my studying. She sat down quietly, squeezing herself onto a corner of the hassock where I had my feet. Although she didn’t make a sound, I quickly became aware that she was looking at me very hard. I glanced up.

  “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.

  “Lissen, 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 d
isturbing 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 Bartók, 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.