CHAPTER 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.

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?

1 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 Cafe 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 i 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 too tired to panic, too relieved to speak. Inwardly I hoped she

had some blunt instrument with which to hit me.

 

"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.