looked at me for confirmation and I smiled. She smiled back. "So that's two out of three." I then asked her why the cross, welded, no less. She explained that it had been her mother's; she wore it for sentimental reasons, not religious. The conversation returned to ourselves. "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" CHAPTER 6 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 Lamont, 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, 01. 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?" "Shit, in a way I've gained one, she spends so much time here." Iwas 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 watcbing 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 father." "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. CHAPTER 7 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 Barretts', 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." It is an indisputable matter of record that Oliver 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 still pretty cultured. "Right." Jenny smiled at her. "No relation." "Ah,'~ said my mother. "Ah," said my father. To which, all the time wondering if they had caught Jenny's humor, I could but add: "Ah?" Mother and Jenny shook hands, and after the usual exchange of banalities from which one never progressed in my house, we sat down. Everybody was quiet. I tried to sense what was happening. Doubtless, Mother was sizing up Jennifer, checking out her costume (not Boho this afternoon), her posture, her demeanor, her accent. Face it, the Sound of Cranston was there even in the politest of moments. Perhaps Jenny was sizing up Mother. Girls do that, I'm told. It's supposed to reveal things about the guys they're going to marry. Maybe she was also sizing up Oliver III. Did she notice he was taller than I? Did she like his cashmere jacket? Oliver III, of course, would be concentrating his fire on me, as usual. "How've you been, son?" For a goddamn Rhodes scholar, he is one lousy conversationalist. "Fine, sir. Fine." As a kind of equal-time gesture, Mother greeted Jennifer. "Did you have a nice trip down?" "Yes," Jenny replied, "nice and swift." "Oliver is a swift driver," interposed Old Stony. "No swifter than you, Father," I retorted. What would he say to that? "Uh-yes. I suppose not." You bet your ass not, Father. Mother, who is always on his side, whatever the circumstances, turned the subject to one of more universal interest-music or art, I believe. I wasn't exactly listening carefully. Subsequently, a teacup found its way into my hand. "Thank you," I said, then added, "We'll have to be going soon." "Huh?" said Jenny. It seems they had been discussing Puccini or something, and my remark was considered somewhat tangential. Mother looked at me (a rare event). "But you did come for dinner, didn't you?" "Uh-we can't," I said. "Of course," Jenny said, almost at the same time. "I've gotta get back," I said earnestly to Jen. Jenny gave me a look of "What are you talking about?" Then Old Stonyface pronounced: "You're staying for dinner. That's an order." The fake smile on his face didn't make it any less of a command. And I don't take that kind of crap even from an Olympic finalist. "We can't, sir," I replied. "We have to, Oliver," said Jenny. "Why?" I asked. "Because I'm hungry," she said. 'We sat at the table obedient to the wishes of Oliver III. He bowed his head. Mother and Jenny followed suit. I tilted mine slightly. "Bless this food to our use and us to Thy service, and help us to be ever mindful of the needs and wants of others. This we ask in the name of Thy Son Jesus Christ, Amen." Jesus Christ, I was mortified. Couldn't he have omitted the piety just this once? What would Jenny think? God, it was a throwback to the Dark Ages. "Amen," said Mother (and Jenny too, very softly). "Play ball!" said I, as kind of a pleasantry. Nobody seemed amused. Least of all Jenny. She looked away from me. Oliver III glanced across at me. "I certainly wish you would play ball now and then, Oliver." We did not eat in total silence, thanks to my mother's remarkable capacity for small talk. "So your people are from Cranston, Jenny?" "Mostly. My mother was from Fall River." "The Barretts have mills in Fall River," noted Oliver III. "Where they exploited the poor for generations," added Oliver IV. "In the nineteenth century," added Oliver III. My mother smiled at this, apparently satisfied that her Oliver had taken that set. But not so. "What about those plans to automate the mills?" I volleyed back. There was a brief pause. I awaited some slamming retort. "What about coffee?" said Alison Forbes Tipsy Barrett. We withdrew into the library for what would definitely be the last round. Jenny and I had classes the next day, Stony had the bank and so forth, and surely Tipsy would have something worthwhile planned for bright and early. "Sugar, Oliver?" asked my mother. "Oliver always takes sugar, dear," said my father. "Not tonight, thank you," said I. "Just black, Mother." Well, we all had our cups, and we were all sitting there cozily with absolutely nothing to say to one another. So I brought up a topic. "Tell me, Jennifer," I inquired. "What do you think of the Peace Corps?" She frowned at me, and refused to cooperate. "Oh, have you told them, O.B.?" said my mother to my father. "It isn't the time, dear," said Oliver III, with a kind of fake humility that broadcasted, "Ask me, ask me." So I had to. "What's this, Father?" "Nothing important, son. "I don't see how you can say that," said my mother, and turned toward me to deliver the message with full force (I said she was on his side): "Your father's going to be director of the Peace Corps." Jenny also said, "Oh," but in a different, kind of happier tone of voice. My father pretended to look embarrassed, and my mother seemed to be waiting for me to bow down or something. I mean, it's not Secretary of State, after all! "Congratulations, Mr. Barrett." Jenny took the initiative. "Yes. Congratulations, sir." Mother was so anxious to talk about it. "I do think it will be a wonderful educational experience," she said. "Oh, it will," agreed Jenny. "Yes," I said without much conviction. "Uh-would you pass the sugar, please." CHAPTER 8 "Jenny, it's not Secretary of State, after all!" We were finally driving back to Cambridge, thank God. "Still, Oliver, you could have been more enthusiastic.~~ "I said congratulations." "It was mighty generous of you." "What did you expect, for Christ sake?" "Oh, God," she replied, "the whole thing makes me sick." "That's two of us," I added. We drove on for a long time without saying a word. But something was wrong. "What whole thing makes you sick, Jen?" I asked as a long afterthought. "The disgusting way you treat your father." "How about the disgusting way he treats me?" I had opened a can of beans. Or, more appropriately, spaghetti sauce. For Jenny launched into a full- scale offense on paternal love. That whole Italian-Mediterranean syndrome. And how I was disrespectful. "You bug him and bug him and bug him," she said. "It's mutual, Jen. Or didn't you notice that?" "I don't think you'd stop at anything, just to get to your old man." "It's impossible to 'get to' Oliver Barrett III." There was a strange little silence before she replied: "Unless maybe if you marry Jennifer Cavilleri . . I kept my cool long enough to pull into the parking lot of a seafood diner. I then turned to Jennifer, mad as hell. "Is that what you think?" I demanded. "I think it's part of it," she said very quietly. "Jenny, don't you believe I love you?" I shouted. "Yes," she replied, still quietly, "but in a crazy way you also love my negative social status." I couldn't think of anything to say but no. I said it several times and in several tones of voice. I mean, I was so terribly upset, I even considered the possibility of there being a grain of truth to her awful suggestion. But she wasn't in great shape, either. "I can't pass judgment, Ollie. I just think it's part of it. I mean, I know I love not only you yourself. I love your name. And your numeral." She looked away, and I thought maybe she was going to cry. But she didn't; she finished her thought: "After all, it's part of what you are. I sat there for a while, watching a neon sign blink "Clams and Oysters." What I had loved so much about Jenny was her ability to see inside me, to understand things I never needed to carve out in words. She was still doing it. But could I face the fact that I wasn't perfect? Christ, she had already faced my imperfection and her own. Christ, how unworthy I felt! I didn't know what the hell to say. "Would you like a clam or an oyster, Jen?" "Would you like a punch in the mouth, Preppie?" "Yes," I said. She made a fist and then placed it gently against my cheek. I kissed it, and as I reached over to embrace her, she straight-armed me, and barked like a gun moll: "Just drive, Preppie. Get back to the wheel and start speeding!" I did. I did. My father's basic comment concerned what he considered excessive velocity. Haste. Precipitous ness. I forget his exact words, but I know the text for his sermon during our luncheon at the Harvard Club concerned itself primarily with my going too fast. He warmed up for it by suggesting that I not bolt my food. I politely suggested that I was a grown man, that he should no longer correct-or even comment upon- my behavior. He allowed that even world leaders needed constructive criticism now and then. I took this to be a not-too-subtle allusion to his stint in Washington during the first Roosevelt Administration. But I was not about to set him up to reminisce about F.D.R., or his role in U.S. bank reform. So I shut up. We were, as I said, eating lunch in the Harvard Club of Boston. (I too fast, if one accepts my father' s estimate.) This means we were surrounded by his people. His classmates, clients, admirers and so forth. I mean, it was a put-up job, if ever there was one. If you really listened, you might hear some of them murmur things like, "There goes Oliver Barrett." Or "That's Barrett, the big athlete." It was yet another round in our series of nonconversations. Only the very nonspecific nature of the talk was glaringly conspicuous. "Father, you haven't said a word about Jennifer." "What is there to say? You've presented us with a fait accompli, have you not?" "But what do you think, Father?" "I think Jennifer is admirable. And for a girl from her background to get all the way to Radcliffe.. With this pseudo-melting-pot bullshit, he was skirting the issue. "Get to the point, Father!" "The point has nothing to do with the young lady," he said, "it has to do with you." "Ah?" I said. "Your rebellion," he added. "You are rebelling, son. "Father, I fail to see how marrying a beautiful and brilliant Radcliffe girl constitutes rebellion. I mean, she's not some crazy hippie-" "She is not many things." Ah, here we come. The goddamn nitty gritty. "What irks you most, Father-that she's Catholic or that she's poor?" He replied in kind of a whisper, leaning slightly toward me. "What attracts you most?" I wanted to get up and leave. I told him so. "Stay here and talk like a man," he said. As opposed to what? A boy? A girl? A mouse? Anyway, I stayed. The Sonovabitch derived enormous satisfaction from my remaining seated. I mean, I could tell he regarded it as another in his many victories over me. "I would only ask that you wait awhile," said Oliver Barrett III. "Define 'while,' please." "Finish law school. If this is real, it can stand the test of time." "It is real, but why in hell should I subject it to some arbitrary test?" My implication was clear, I think. I was standing up to him. To his arbitrariness. To his compulsion to dominate and control my life. "Oliver." He began a new round. "You're a minor-" "A minor what?" I was losing my temper, goddammit. "You are not yet twenty-one. Not legally an adult." "Screw the legal nitpicking, dammit!" Perhaps some neighboring diners heard this remark. As if to compensate for my loudness, Oliver III aimed his next words at me in a biting whisper: "Marry her now, and I will not give you the time of day." Who gave a shit if somebody overheard. "Father, you don't know the time of day." I walked out of his life and began my own. CHAPTER 9 There remained the matter of Cranston, Rhode Island, a city slightly more to the south of Boston than Ipswich is to the north. After the debacle of introducing Jennifer to her potential in-laws ("Do I call them outlaws now?" she asked), I did not look forward with any confidence to my meeting with her father. I mean, here I would be bucking that lotsa love Italian-Mediterranean syndrome, compounded by the fact that Jenny was an only child, compounded by the fact that she had no mother, which meant abnormally close ties to her father. I would be up against all those emotional forces the psych books describe. Plus the fact that I was broke. I mean, imagine for a second Olivero Barretto, some nice Italian kid from down the block in Cranston, Rhode Island. He comes to see Mr. Cavilleri, a wage- earning pastry chef of that city, and says, "I would like to marry your only daughter, Jennifer." What would the old man's first question be? (He would not question Barretto's love, since to know Jenny is to love Jenny; it's a universal truth.) No, Mr. Cavilleri would say something like, "Barretto, how are you going to support her?" Now imagine the good Mr. Cavilleri's reaction if Barretto informed him that the opposite would prevail, at least for the next three years: his daughter would have to support his son-in-law! Would not the good Mr. Cavilleri show Barretto to the door, or even, if Barretto were not my size, punch him out? You bet your ass he would. This may serve to explain why, on that Sunday afternoon in May, I was obeying all posted speed limits, as we headed southward on Route 95. Jenny, who had come to enjoy the pace at which I drove, complained at one point that I was going forty in a forty-five-mile-an- hour zone. I told her the car needed tuning, which she believed not at all. "Tell it to me again, Jen." Patience was not one of Jenny's virtues, and she refused to bolster my confidence by repeating the answers to all the stupid questions I had asked. "Just one more time, Jenny, please." "I called him. I told him. He said okay. In English, because, as I told you and you don't seem to want to believe, he doesn't know a goddamn word of Italian except a few curses." "But what does 'okay' mean?" "Are you implying that Harvard Law School has accepted a man who can't even define 'okay'?" "It's not a legal term, Jenny." She touched my arm. Thank God, I understood that. I still needed clarification, though. I had to know what I was in for. "'Okay' could also mean 'I'll suffer through it.'" She found the charity in her heart to repeat for the nth time the details of her conversation with her father. He was happy. He 'was. He had never expected, when he sent her off to Radcliffe, that she would return to Cranston to marry the boy next door (who by the way had asked her just before she left). He was at first incredulous that her intended's name was really Oliver Barrett IV. He had then warned his daughter not to violate the Eleventh Commandment. "Which one is that?" I asked her. "Do not bullshit thy father," she said. "And that's all, Oliver. Truly." "He knows I'm poor?" "Yes." "He doesn't mind?" "At least you and he have something in common." "But he'd be happier if I had a few bucks, right?" "Wouldn't you?" I shut up for the rest of the ride. Jenny lived on a street called Hamilton Avenue, a long line of wooden houses with many children in front of them, and a few scraggly trees. Merely driving down it, looking for a parking space, I felt like in another country. To begin with, there were so many people. Besides the children playing, there were entire families sitting on their porches with apparently nothing better to do this Sunday afternoon than to watch me park my MG. Jenny leaped out first. She had incredible reflexes in Cranston, like some quick little grasshopper. There was all but an organized cheer when the porch watchers saw who my passenger was. No less than the great Cavilleri! When I heard all the greetings for her, I was almost ashamed to get out. I mean, I could not remotely for a moment pass for the hypothetical Olivero Barretto. "Hey, Jenny!" I heard one matronly type shout with great gusto. "Hey, Mrs. Capodilupo," I heard Jenny bellow back. I climbed out of the car. I could feel the eyes on me. "Hey-who's the boy?" shouted Mrs. Capodilupo. Not too subtle around here, are they? "He's nothing!" Jenny called back. Which did wonders for my confidence. "Maybe," shouted Mrs. Capodilupo in my direction, "but the girl he's with is really something!" "He knows," Jenny replied. She then turned to satisfy neighbors on the other side. "He knows," she told a whole new group of her fans. She took my hand (I was a stranger in paradise), and led me up the stairs to 165A Hamilton Avenue. It was an awkward moment. I just stood there as Jenny said, "This is my father." And Phil Cavilleri, a roughhewn (say 5'6" 165-pound) Rhode Island type in his late forties, held out his hand. We shook and he had a strong grip. "How do you do, sir?" "Phil," he corrected me, "I'm Phil." "Phil, sir," I replied, continuing to shake his hand. It was also a scary moment. Because then, just as he let go of my hand, Mr. Cavilleri turned to his daughter and gave this incredible shout: "Jennifer!" For a split second nothing happened. And then they were hugging. Tight. Very tight. Rocking to and fro. All Mr. Cavilleri could offer by way of further comment was the (now very soft) repetition of his daughter's name: "Jennifer." And all his graduating- Radcliffe-with-honors daughter could offer by way of reply was: "Phil." I was definitely the odd man out. One thing about my couth upbringing helped me out that afternoon. I had always been lectured about not talking with my mouth full. Since Phil and his daughter kept conspiring to fill that orifice, I didn't have to speak. I must have eaten a record quantity of Italian pastries. Afterward I discoursed at some length on which ones I had liked best (I ate no less than two of each kind, for fear of giving offense), to the delight of the two Cavilleris. "He's okay," said Phil Cavilleri to his daughter. What did that mean? I didn't need to have "okay" defined; I merely wished to know what of my few and circumspect actions had earned for me that cherished epithet. Did I like the right cookies? Was my handshake strong enough? What? "I told you he was okay, Phil," said Mr. Cavilleri's daughter. "Well, okay," said her father, "I still had to see for myself. Now I saw. Oliver?" He was now addressing me. "Yes, sir?" "Phil." "Yes, Phil, sir?" "You're okay." "Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Really I do. And you know how I feel about your daughter, sir. And you, sir." "Oliver," Jenny interrupted, "will you stop babbling like a stupid goddamn preppie, and-" "Jennifer," Mr. Cavilleri interrupted, "can you avoid the profanity? The sonovabitch is a guest!" At dinner (the pastries turned out to be merely a snack) Phil tried to have a serious talk with me about you-can-guess-what. For some crazy reason he thought he could effect a rapprochement between Olivers III and IV. "Let me speak to him on the phone, father to father," he pleaded. "Please, Phil, it's a waste of time." "I can't sit here and allow a parent to reject a child. I can't." "Yeah. But I reject him too, Phil." "Don't ever let me hear you talk like that," he said, getting genuinely angry. "A father's love is to be cherished and respected. It's rare." "Especially in my family," I said. Jenny was getting up and down to serve, so she was not involved with most of this. "Get him on the phone," Phil repeated. "I'll take care of this." "No, Phil. My father and I have installed a cold line." "Aw, listen, Oliver, he'll thaw. Believe me when I tell you he'll thaw. When it's time to go to church-" At this moment Jenny, who was handing out dessert plates, directed at her father a portentous monosyllable. "Phil . . . "Yeah, Jen?" "About the church bit.. "Yeah?" "Uh-kind of negative on it, Phil." "Oh?" asked Mr. Cavilleri. Then, leaping instantly to the wrong conclusion, he turned apologetically toward me. "I-uh-didn't mean necessarily Catholic Church, Oliver. I mean, as Jennifer has no doubt told you, we are of the Catholic faith. But, I mean, your church, Oliver. God will bless this union in any church, I swear I looked at Jenny, who had obviously failed to cover this crucial topic in her phone conversation. "Oliver," she explained, "it was just too goddamn much to hit him with at once." 'What's this?" asked the ever affable Mr. Cavilleri. "Hit me, hit me, children. I want to be hit with everything on your minds." Why is it that at this precise moment my eyes hit upon the porcelain statue of the Virgin Mary on a shelf in the Cavilleris' dining room? "It's about the God-blessing bit, Phil," said Jenny, averting her gaze from him. "Yeah, Jen, yeah?" asked Phil, fearing the worst. "Uh-kind of negative on it, Phil," she said, now glancing at me for support-which my eyes tried to give her. "On God? On anybody's God?" Jenny nodded yes. "May I explain, Phil?" I asked. "Please." "We neither of us believe, Phil. And we won't be hypocrites." I think he took it because it came from me. He might maybe have hit Jenny. But now he was the odd man out, the foreigner. He couldn't look at either of us. "That's fine," he said after a very long time. "Could I just be informed as to who performs the ceremony?" "We do," I said. He looked at his daughter for verification. She nodded. My statement was correct. After another long silence, he again said, "That's fine." And then he inquired of me, in as much as I was planning a career in law, whether such a kind of marriage is-what's the word?-legal? Jenny explained that the ceremony we had in mind would have the college Unitarian chaplain preside ("Ah, chaplain," murmured Phil) while the man and woman address each other. "The bride speaks too?" he asked, almost as if this- of all things-might be the coup de grace. "Philip," said his daughter, "could you imagine any situation in which I would shut up?" "No, baby," he replied, working up a tiny smile. "I guess you would have to talk." As we drove back to Cambridge, I asked Jenny how she thought it all went. "Okay," she said. CHAPTER 10 Mr. William F. Thompson, Associate Dean of the Harvard Law School, could not believe his ears. "Did I hear you right, Mr. Barrett?" "Yes, sir, Dean Thompson." It had not been easy to say the first time. It was no easier repeating it . "I'll need a scholarship for next year, sir." "Really?" "That's why I'm here, sir. You are in charge of Financial Aid, aren't you, Dean Thompson?" "Yes, but it's rather curious. Your father" "He's no longer involved, sir." "I beg your pardon?" Dean Thompson took off his glasses and began to polish them with his tie. "He and I have had a sort of disagreement." The Dean put his glasses back on, and looked at me with that kind of expressionless expression you have to be a dean to master. "This is very unfortunate, Mr. Barrett," he said. For whom? I wanted to say. This guy was beginning to piss me off. "Yes, sir," I said. "Very unfortunate. But that's why I've come to you, sir. I'm getting married next month. We'll both be working over the summer. Then Jenny -that's my wife-will be teaching in a private school. That's a living, but it's still not tuition. Your tuition is pretty steep, Dean Thompson." "Uh-yes," he replied. But that's all. Didn't this guy get the drift of my conversation? Why in hell did he think I was there, anyway? "Dean Thompson, I would like a scholarship." I said it straight out. A third time. "I have absolutely zilch in the bank, and I'm already accepted." "Ah, yes," said Mr. Thompson, hitting upon the technicality. "The final date for financial-aid applications is long overdue." What would satisfy this bastard? The gory details, maybe? Was it scandal he wanted? What? "Dean Thompson, when I applied I didn't know this would come up. "That's quite right, Mr. Barrett, and I must tell you that I really don't think this office should enter into a family quarrel. A rather distressing one, at that." "Okay, Dean," I said, standing up. "I can see what you're driving at. But I'm still not gonna kiss my father's ass so you can get a Barrett Hall for the Law School." As I turned to leave, I heard Dean Thompson mutter, "That's unfair." I couldn't have agreed more. CHAPTER 11 Jennifer was awarded her degree on Wednesday. All sorts of relatives from Cranston, Fall River-and even an aunt from Cleveland-flocked to Cambridge to attend the ceremony. By prior arrangement, I was not introduced as her fiance, and Jenny wore no ring: this so that none would be offended (too soon) about missing our wedding. "Aunt Laura , this is my boyfriend Oliver," Jenny would say, always adding, "He isn't a college graduate." There was plenty of rib poking, whispering and even open speculation, but the relatives could pry no specific information from either of us-or from Phil, who I guess was happy to avoid a discussion of love among the atheists. On Thursday, I became Jenny's academic equal, receiving my degree from Harvard-like her own, magna cum laude. Moreover, I was Class Marshal, and in this capacity got to lead the graduating seniors to their seats. This meant walking ahead of even the summas, the super-superbrains. I was almost moved to tell these types that my presence as their leader decisively proved my theory that an hour in Dillon Field House is worth two in Widener Library. But I refrained. Let the joy be universal. I have no idea whether Oliver Bar