Read Loss of Innocence for Free Online Page A

terrible restiveness: antiwar demonstrations, blacks burning their own neighborhoods after that lunatic shot King, a general erosion of the standards governing our behavior. Thank God these trends don’t include the young people at this table.”
    Whitney shot a wry look toward Clarice, who ignored it. “How do you know?” she inquired of her father. “And how is electing Richard Nixon going to stop college kids from having sex or smoking pot while they watch Ronald Reagan and a chimpanzee in Bedtime for Bonzo?”
    “That’s a frivolous remark,” Charles responded mildly, “if an amusing one. Reagan is governor of California, after all. As forNixon, he stands for traditional values—like respect for law—while the Democrats are hostage to forces that care about nothing but their own grievances, real or imagined.” His voice gained force and authority. “Have you watched those scenes in California, mobs of Mexicans and blacks nearly tearing Kennedy’s clothes off as he reaches for their hands from on open convertible? Does that seem like a president to you?”
    Furtively, Whitney tried to gauge Peter’s reaction. But her fiancé regarded Charles with his usual respect. Turning to Whitney, he said, “I’m with your dad on this, Whit. Stirring people up like that is the opposite of what we need. Does that really seem like a president to you?”
    “Maybe he seems like one to those ‘mobs of blacks and Mexicans,’” Whitney responded to both men. “Have either of you looked at their faces?”
    “Yes, and it scares me,” Charles rejoined, then spoke more deliberately. “I know this view isn’t popular with the radical young. But blacks will get what they want, in time. Disorder only stirs up hatred.”
    Glancing around the table, Whitney saw the others watching her with a look of reserve. More tentative, she asked, “How long were they supposed to wait, Dad? I mean, would you want to be black?”
    “I don’t know, Whitney,” her mother interjected. “I think of Billie, our housekeeper, for whom her work is a matter of pride. What is so wrong with being a credit to one’s race, and why should that term excite derision, rather than aspiration?”
    For Whitney, the mention of Billie stirred feelings she could not discuss. In her youth this practical woman had treated Whitney with watchful affection, an understanding that sometimes surpassed that of Whitney’s mother. She had a wicked sense of humor leavened with empathy—during Whitney’s touchy adolescence, Billie had taught her to dance, causing Whitney to imagine Billie’s very different world in Harlem, from which she commuted to the cosseted white enclave of Greenwich. Billie, she came to understand, was trying to compensate for her mother’s concentration on Janine.“We just don’t know black people,” she told Anne. “We can’t sit here at this table and pretend we do.”
    “But when did you become so liberal?” Janine asked.
    Nettled, Whitney answered, “I’ve just been watching, that’s all. In between reading fashion magazines.”
    Across the table, Clarice’s lips twitched before she glanced at Charles. “I don’t mean to irritate you,” Janine retorted. “But Dad has been watching much longer than either of us.”
    “A painful truth,” Anne interposed. “Which also implicates me. But I agree with your father, Whitney. It’s deeply unsettling to watch your generation take to the streets.”
    Charles nodded. “I don’t mean to sound as ancient as everyone suggests. But enduring a depression and a world war taught the value of discipline and perseverance, and of ending what aggressors start. All too often I don’t see these values in the young people who protest the war while our soldiers are fighting and dying.”
    In the guttering candlelight, Whitney looked toward Clarice. “Just this afternoon, Clarice asked if I knew someone who’d actually fought in Vietnam. Does anyone here?”
    “Leave me out of this,”