Love Story (11 page)

‘Don’t they pay you at Jonas and
Marsh?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

I was tempted to tell him how much,
merely to let him know it was a class record, but then I thought if
he knew where I worked, he probably knew my salary as well.

‘And doesn’t she teach too?’ he
asked.

Well, he doesn’t know everything.

‘Don’t call her ‘she,” I
said.

‘Doesn’t Jennifer teach?’ he
asked politely.

‘And please leave her out of this,
Father. This is a personal matter. A very important personal matter.’

‘Have you gotten some girl in
trouble?’ he asked, but without any deprecation in his voice.

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘yes, sir.
That’s it. Give me the dough. Please.’

I don’t think for a moment he
believed my reason. I don’t think he really wanted to know. He had
questioned me merely, as I said before, so we could … talk.

He reached into his desk drawer and
took out a checkbook bound in the same cordovan leather as the handle
of his letter opener and the case for his scissors. He opened it
slowly. Not to torture me, I don’t think, but to stall for time. To
find things to say. Non-abrasive things.

He finished writing the check, tore
it from the book and then held it out toward me. I was maybe a split
second slow in realizing I should reach out my hand to meet his. So
he got embarrassed (I think), withdrew his hand and placed the check
on the edge of his desk. He looked at me now and nodded. His
expression seemed to say, ‘There it is, son.’ But all he really
did was nod.

It’s not that I wanted to leave,
either. It’s just that I myself couldn’t think of anything
neutral to say. And we couldn’t just sit there, both of us willing
to talk and yet unable even to look the other straight in the face.

I leaned over and picked up the
check. Yes, it said five thousand dollars, signed Oliver Barrett HI.
It was already dry. I folded it carefully and put it into my shirt
pocket as I rose and shuffled to the door. I should at least have
said something to the effect that I knew that on my account very
important Boston dignitaries (maybe even Washington) were cooling
their heels in his outer office, and yet if we had more to say to one
another I could even hang around your office, Father, and you would
cancel your luncheon plans … and so forth.

I stood there with the door half
open, and summoned the courage to look at him and say:

‘Thank you, Father.’

The task of informing Phil Cavilleri fell to me. Who else?

He did not go to pieces as I feared
he might, but calmly closed the house in Cranston and came to live in
our apartment. We all have our idiosyncratic ways of coping with
grief. Phil’s was to clean the place. To wash, to scrub, to polish.
I don’t really understand his thought processes, but Christ, let
him work.

Does he cherish the dream that Jenny
will come home?

He does, doesn’t he? The poor
bastard. That’s why he’s cleaning up. He just won’t accept
things for what they are.

Of course, he won’t admit this to
me, but I know it’s on his mind.

Because it’s on mine too.

Once she was in the hospital, I
called old man Jonas and let him know why I couldn’t be coming to
work. I pretended that I had to hurry off the phone because I know he
was pained and wanted to say things he couldn’t possibly express.

From then on, the days were simply
divided between visiting hours and everything else. And of course
everything else was nothing. Eating without hunger, watching Phil
clean the apartment (again!) and not sleeping even with the
prescription Ackerman gave me.

Once I overheard Phil mutter to
himself, ‘I can’t stand it much longer.’ He was in the next
room, washing our dinner dishes (by hand). I didn’t answer him, but
I did think to myself, I can. Whoever’s Up There running the show,
Mr.

Supreme Being, sir, keep it up, I can
take this ad infinitum.

Because Jenny is Jenny.

That evening, she kicked me out of
the room. She wanted to speak to her father ‘man to man.’

‘This meeting is restricted only to
Americans of Italian descent,’ she said, looking as white as her
pillows, ‘so beat it, Barrett.’

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘But not too far,’ she said when
I reached the door.

I went to sit in the lounge.
Presently Phil appeared.

‘She says to get your ass in
there,’ he whispered hoarsely, like the whole inside of him was
hollow. ‘I’m gonna buy some cigarettes.’

‘Close the goddamn door,’ she
commanded as I entered the room. I obeyed, shut the door quietly, and
as I went back to sit by her bed, I caught a fuller view of her. I
mean, with the tubes going into her right arm, which she would keep
under the covers. I always liked to sit very close and just look at
her face, which, however pale, still had her eyes shining in it.

So I quickly sat very close.

‘It doesn’t hurt, Ollie, really,’
she said. ‘It’s like falling off a cliff in slow motion, you
know?’

Something stirred deep in my gut.
Some shapeless thing that was going to fly into my throat and make me
cry. But I wasn’t going to. I never have. I’m a tough bastard,
see? I am not gonna cry.

But if I’m not gonna cry, then I
can’t open my mouth.

I’ll simply have to nod yes. So I
nodded yes.

‘Bullshit,’ she said.

‘Huh?’ It was more of a grunt
than a word.

‘You don’t know about falling off
cliffs, Preppie,’

she said. ‘You never fell off one
in your goddamn life.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, recovering the
power of speech. ‘When I met you.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, and a smile
crossed her face. ”Oh, what a falling off was there.’ Who said
that?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied.
‘Shakespeare.’

‘Yeah, but who?’ she said kind of
plaintively. ‘I can’t remember which play, even. I went to
Radcliffe, I should remember things. I once knew all the Mozart
Köchel listings.’

‘Big deal,’ I said.

‘You bet it was,’ she said, and
then screwed up her forehead, asking, ‘What number is the C Minor
Piano Concerto?’

‘I’ll look it up,’ I said.

I knew just where. Back in the
apartment, on a shelf by the piano. I would look it up and tell her
first thing tomorrow.

‘I used to know,’ Jenny said, ‘I
did. I used to know.’

‘Listen,’ I said, Bogart style,
‘do you want to talk music?’

‘Would you prefer talking
funerals?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said, sorry for having
interrupted her.

‘I discussed it with Phil. Are you
listening, Ollie?’

I had turned my face away.

‘Yeah, I’m listening, Jenny.’

‘I told him he could have a
Catholic service, you’d say okay. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘Okay,’ she replied.

And then I felt slightly relieved,
because after all, whatever we talked of now would have to be an
improvement.

I was wrong.

‘Listen, Oliver,’ said Jenny, and
it was in her angry voice, albeit soft. ‘Oliver, you’ve got to
stop being sick!’

‘Me?’

‘That guilty look on your face,
Oliver, it’s sick.’

Honestly, I tried to change my
expression, but my facial muscles were frozen.

‘It’s nobody’s fault, you
preppie bastard,’ she was saying. ‘Would you please stop blaming
yourself!’

I wanted to keep looking at her
because I wanted to never take my eyes from her, but still I had to
lower my eyes, I was so ashamed that even now Jenny was reading my
mind so perfectly.

‘Listen, that’s the only goddamn
thing I’m asking, Ollie. Otherwise, I know you’ll be okay.’

That thing in my gut was stirring
again, so I was afraid to even speak the word ‘okay.’ I just
looked mutely at Jenny.

‘Screw Paris,’ she said suddenly.

‘Huh?’

‘Screw Paris and music and all the
crap you think you stole from me. I don’t care, you sonovabitch.
Can’t you believe that?’

‘No,’ I answered truthfully.

‘Then get the hell out of here,’
she said. ‘I don’t want you at my goddamn deathbed.’

She meant it. I could tell when Jenny
really meant something. So I bought permission to stay by telling a
lie:

‘I believe you,’ I said.

‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Now
would you do me a favor?’ From somewhere inside me came this
devastating assault to make me cry. But I withstood. I would not cry.
I would merely indicate to Jennifer - by the affirmative nodding of
my head - that I would be happy to do her any favor whatsoever.

‘Would you please hold me very
tight?’ she asked.

I put my hand on her forearm -
Christ, so thin - and gave it a little squeeze.

‘No, Oliver,’ she said, ‘really
hold me. Next to me.’

I was very, very careful - of the
tubes and things - as I got onto the bed with her and
put my arms around her.

‘Thanks, Ollie.’

Those were her last words.

Phil Cavilleri was in the solarium, smoking his nth cigarette, when
I appeared.

‘Phil? ‘I said softly.

‘Yeah?’ He looked up and I think
he already knew.

He obviously needed some kind of
physical comforting.

I walked over and placed my hand on
his shoulder. I was afraid he might cry. I was pretty sure I
wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

I mean, I was past all that.

He put his hand on mine.

‘I wish,’ he muttered, ‘I
wished I hadn’t …’ He paused there, and 1 waited. What was the
hurry, after all?

”I wish I hadn’t promised Jenny
to be strong for you.’

And, to honor his pledge, he patted
my hand very gently. But I had to be alone. To breathe air. To take a
walk, maybe.

Downstairs, the hospital lobby was
absolutely still.

All I could hear was the click of my
own heels on the linoleum.

‘Oliver.’

I stopped.

It was my father. Except for the
woman at the reception desk we were all by ourselves there. In fact,
we were among the few people in New York awake at that hour.

I couldn’t face him. I went
straight for the revolving door. But in an instant he was out there
standing next to me.

‘Oliver,’ he said, ‘you should
have told me.’

It was very cold, which in a way was
good because I was numb and wanted to feel something. My father
continued to address me, and I continued to stand still and let the
cold wind slap my face.

‘As soon as I found out, I jumped
into the car.’

I had forgotten my coat; the chill
was starting to make me ache. Good. Good.

‘Oliver,’ said my father
urgently, ‘I want to help.’

‘Jenny’s dead,’ I told him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a
stunned whisper.

Not knowing why, I repeated what I
had long ago learned from the beautiful girl now dead.

‘Love means not ever having to say
you’re sorry.’

And then I did what I had never done
in his presence, much less in his arms. I cried.