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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.
'Mostly. My mother was from Fall River.'
'The Barrens 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, Ollie.?' said my mother to my father.
'It isn't the time, dear,' said Oliver III, with a land 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.'
'Oh.'
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.'
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 chrissake?'
'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.'
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