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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. Precipitousness. 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,