Loss of Innocence (10 page)

Seven

The next morning, Peter and Whitney had coffee and French toast—Peter in a robe, Whitney in one of his shirts, a pleasant foreshadowing of their married life together. It was their first real time to talk; when he had come in late the night before, she was already asleep. Now she saw that his hair was cut much shorter, taming the blond curls she had always loved, and that his sideburns had vanished altogether. “Why the new haircut?” she inquired. “Not that you don’t look nice.”

He smiled a little sheepishly. “Camouflage. This may come as a surprise, but the counterculture doesn’t exist at Padgett Dane.”

Though it was foolish, Whitney felt a sense of loss, as though another piece of her youth was being swallowed by adulthood. “Here we are,” she said wryly. “Just like Mom and Dad. So tell me, dear, how was your dinner last night? Did all you masterful men decide the fate of the Western World?”

“Just the fate of America,” Peter amended, sounding pleased despite his best efforts. “It was Richard Nixon and a dozen heavy hitters from Wall Street exchanging ideas, with me as a fly on the wall. Your dad was the one who pulled it all together.”

Despite her reservations about Nixon, Whitney felt a certain pride; now and then she was reminded of the respect her father commanded in realms beyond his own. “What did you think of Nixon?” she asked curiously.

Peter sipped his coffee. “I was really impressed. Like Charles says, he’s not flashy or a charmer, but he’s sharp and really knowledgeable, and you can see him taking everything in. I could tell he’s really impressed with your dad. If Nixon’s elected, I think he may be in line for secretary of the Treasury.”

Whitney could imagine how her father’s quiet satisfaction at how far he had come. “Was anything said about that?”

“More that Nixon kept asking Charles about the economy. Each time, he was able to answer right away, with Nixon just listening and nodding.” Peter’s voice softened in admiration. “Your dad is really an amazing guy, you know.”

They were quiet for a time, united in their mutual affection for Charles and, in Whitney’s case, her renewed happiness that Peter had found a man to replace—as much as such things were possible—the father he had lost too soon, just as Charles had found a would-be son to mentor in his chosen world. Taking a sip of coffee, Peter asked, “So how was Janine?”

Whitney felt the innocent query reviving her anxiety. “There’s something wrong,” she said at once, relieved to unburden herself. “At lunch she was distracted and evasive, and later on I found out she’s been fired.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Found out? Not from Janine, I guess.”

“From Laura Hamilton, one of her college friends. After I saw Janine, I called her.”

“Out of the blue?”

“Not really. Janine mentioned that she saw her now and then, and I thought Laura might know if something was going on. Obviously, there is.”

Peter held up a hand. “Please back up a minute. So Janine told Laura but not your mom?”

“No,” Whitney replied somewhat testily. “Laura heard it from another girl at the modeling agency. Anyhow, what difference does it make?”

“Quite a bit.” Peter puffed his cheeks, exhaling slowly. “If it’s true, Janine clearly doesn’t want your family to know. You can’t even be sure it
is
true.”

“I think it is.”

“Maybe so. But remember boarding school, the way rumors went flying around? Like hearing my senior year that I’d had sex with a girl I’d never even touched. She was cute, so at first I didn’t mind too much. But once I saw how hurt she was, I felt worse than if we’d done it.” Pouring them both more coffee, Peter concluded firmly, “Even supposing that the agency canned her, it seems like Janine wants to deal with it herself. If she cared to involve her family, she would have.”

Whitney crossed her arms. “Obviously. But the fact that Janine conceals things doesn’t make it a good idea. What if she’s in trouble?”

“But what kind of trouble?” he persisted. “Was she drinking at lunch?”

“Not a drop.”

“Then maybe there
is
no problem.” Peter reached for her hand. “Look, I know you don’t feel that close to her . . .”

“Which must be
my
problem,” Whitney cut in.

Peter looked at her intently. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. Just that she makes it easier for you to imagine the worst.”

Whitney felt her temper snap. “Then try this, Peter. The night of our engagement dinner, she let some guy she didn’t know screw her up against his pickup truck. I
saw
them, okay, so don’t ask me how I know . . .”

“Jesus, Whitney . . .”

“She was so drunk she went upstairs and vomited her insides out. When I put her to bed, you know what she said to me? ‘Don’t tell Mom.’ So I didn’t. Now she’s gotten fired from her job and is turning into a skeleton. Do you want me to wait until she jumps off a bridge?”

“I sure as hell hope you’re wrong about the bridge.” Peter paused, rubbing his eyes. “Look, I’m not big on keeping secrets
unless I have to. But can you imagine telling your parents—especially your mom—that Janine’s gotten fired and screws guys she doesn’t know? Then what? And what about your own relationship to Janine? Sometimes staying quiet is the best of two bad choices.”

He said this with such feeling that Whitney stopped to study him. “Would you keep secrets from me?”

For a moment, Peter looked confused as to how to answer. “Of course not,” he assured her. “At least not about anything you needed to know.”

“How do you define
that
?”

“Anything that’s about me or you—the two of us. But until right now, you didn’t tell me that you saw Janine doing this guy. You must have had a reason.”

For a moment, Whitney gazed out the window at the buildings across Madison Avenue, their façades brightening with early sunlight. “I guess so,” she acknowledged. “Maybe I didn’t want to embarrass my sister, or have you think any less of her.”

Peter nodded. “Also, you didn’t
need
to tell me. And I’m a whole lot safer than your parents.”

“But that’s just it,” Whitney insisted. “Janine is their daughter. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think she’s captive to their whole idea of themselves. She was the first member of my dad’s family to go to prep school, which delighted him no end. When it came time for college, he wanted her to go to one of the Seven Sisters, so he pulled strings to get her into Vassar. When she came out as a debutante, my mother was wound so tight with anticipation and anxiety that I swore I’d never do it . . .”

“But you did, right?”

“And mostly hated it. I kept imagining Mom comparing us . . .”

Hearing herself, Whitney stopped abruptly. With a renewed calm, Peter said, “I think you’re playing with dynamite, Whitney. In eleven weeks, we’re getting married. It’s not a very good moment to create a family crisis. There’ll be plenty of time for that later on.”

The timing could not be worse, Whitney knew. “I just worry that there’s something else—that getting fired means she’s spiraling downward. Do you know how she got into modeling in the first place? It wasn’t her idea at all.”

“Whose was it?”

“Mom’s. The summer she turned fourteen, Mom thought Janine seemed depressed and pretty down on herself. So she got Janine into teen modeling to ‘give her confidence a boost.’ Ever since then, Janine’s been all about her looks. I’m not so sure that Mom did her any favors.”

Absently, Peter ran a hand across his formerly unruly crown of hair. “Janine’s a little squirrelly,” he conceded. “But first she has to believe she has a real problem that needs fixing. Or else it’s you against the three of them, the snoopy sister saying terrible things out of jealousy or spite. The last thing I want is for you to hurt yourself.” His smile was tentative. “Remember that history paper about Lord Melbourne you helped me write?”

“All I remember is that it was brilliant.”

“A-minus, thanks to you. I’ve already forgotten most of it. But Melbourne said something about government that stuck with me: ‘That which is not necessary to do, is necessary not to do.’ Maybe that applies to families, too. At least for now.”

Peter was no scholar, Whitney reflected, but he had a sense of people—much like Charles or Clarice. Perhaps she worried too much about his future. “Part of success,” she had heard her father tell him, “is figuring out what people want before you speak or act. Always keep your own counsel until you know the consequences.”

“So,” she inquired, “what would Lord Melbourne do now?”

“Right now? He’d realize there was still an hour before work, and find out what you were wearing under that shirt.”

Whitney smiled a little. “Do you think that really qualifies as ‘necessary’?”

“Indispensable,” Peter responded with great assurance, and led her to the bedroom.

For the rest of the day, Whitney looked at furniture for the apartment, writing down places to which she and Peter might return. Intermittently, she called Janine from pay phones without result, deepening her anxiety. If Janine was still working, as she claimed, wouldn’t she want to be near the phone? But perhaps she
was
working—photo shoots could last all day. Of course, not finding her was in some ways a relief; Peter’s misgivings enhanced her sense that she was thrashing about in a pitch-black room, more likely to break the china than find a wall switch. When Peter appeared with tickets to see George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton in Plaza Suite—a surprise gift from her father—Whitney resolved to put her worries aside. And on her return to Martha’s Vineyard, when Anne asked about her trip, Whitney temporized by starting with Peter and the play.

“I love Neil Simon,” Anne enthused. “What I wouldn’t give to be that clever.” Arranging fresh cut roses in a vase, she inquired casually, “How was Janine?”

Whitney paused to compose her answer. “The fitting went fine. But when I asked her what was new, she acted a little edgy. She seemed more interested in discussing the bona fides of Peter’s groomsmen.”

Her mother gave a tight-lipped smile. “Sounds normal enough to me. Sometimes, though, I think Janine breaks hearts just for practice. Looking as she does is an asset, but it carries with it a certain responsibility to be kind.”

A terrible burden,
Whitney thought but did not say. “I just wondered if she’d mentioned anything about her work.”

“Only that she’s busy. Why do you ask?”

“For one thing,” Whitney said carefully, “she seemed too nervous about gaining weight, when that’s not her problem at all. Sometimes I wonder if depending on her looks for a career is good for her. Like that’s all she has to offer.”

Anne looked at her askance. In her flattest tone, she responded, “I don’t know what you’re saying, Whitney. Janine’s not insecure in the least.”

Once again, Whitney felt the barrier between them. It was as if Anne was defending herself against a threat posed by her younger daughter, perhaps even a betrayal. Not for the first time, Whitney felt like an alien presence within the family—the people who, with Peter and Clarice, she loved more than anyone. Whatever their imperfections, and her own.

“Anyhow,” Whitney assured her mother, “it was good to see her.”

Eight

“So,” Clarice said, “this guy you picked up on the beach is teaching you how to sail.”

Whitney sat beside her on the promontory behind the Barkley house, watching the sun set over the water while Clarice sneaked a cigarette. “This particular guy,” Whitney rejoined, “crewed for your dad in summer races. So I guess he qualifies as a sailing instructor.”

Clarice gave her a droll look. “If you were interested, he might instruct you in several areas of life.”

Whitney ignored this. “Do you know him?”

“I’ve
seen
him. He used to help cater my parents’ parties. You don’t forget someone who looks like that.” Exhaling smoke, Clarice added carelessly, “Anyhow, my dad is willing to trust him with his precious boat. I’ll look forward to a full report.”

Whitney resolved not to let Clarice tease her into a defensiveness she did not feel. In her most innocent voice, she replied, “Thank you, Clarice. Have I ever withheld anything from you?”

The Barkley’s Herreshoff was moored about one hundred feet off a catwalk on Quitsa Pond. When they arrived, Clarice was standing on the catwalk, one hand on her hip, another leaning on a post, her pose—which Whitney thought it was—casual yet proprietary. Extending her hand, Clarice gave Ben an amused appraising look. “I’m Clarice Barkley.”

“I know you are.”

“Do
you
have a name?”

“Pretty much everyone does. But I think you already know mine.”

Clarice’s look of amusement resurfaced. “Hi, Ben.”

“Hi, Clarice. How’s your summer going? No tragedies, I hope.”

“None at all. Actually, Whitney is providing the high point. I’m playing an indispensable role in shepherding her into matrimony.”

“I’ll bet. Are you getting married, too? Or will you have to find a job?”

Standing to the side, Whitney felt like a spectator. Though Clarice and Ben were virtual strangers, there seemed to be a contest between them, taking place in some undefined place between aversion and flirtation—flirtation on her part, perhaps dislike on his. “I’ve considered employment,” she said in airy self-satire. “Let’s just say that it’s under advisement.”

Folding his arms, he glanced at the sailboard, a gesture clearly meant to signal his impatience. “I wouldn’t rush things. Someone has to keep the ‘idle’ in ‘idle rich.’”

Clarice gave him a measuring look. “Lassitude is such a burden. But at least it keeps me busy.” Glancing at her watch, she added, “In fact, I’m late for a tennis lesson.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ben said dismissively. “Formally, at least. I never spilled wine on your dress, did I?”

“Not that I recall.” Turning to Whitney, she said, “Call you tomorrow,” and left without another word to Ben. Nor did he mention Clarice.

They rowed out to the sailboat in a dinghy. Mooring it, they climbed onto the trim wooden boat. “It’s beautiful,” Whitney said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.”

“It’s from the early part of the twentieth century, made as a sporting boat for the wealthy. They call it a Herreshoff twelve and a half—its length on the waterline.” He gestured at one of two benches opposite each other. “Sit over there, and we’ll talk about what we’re doing.”

Whitney complied. “The whole point of the exercise,” he began, “is good seamanship, safety, and enjoyment. This is a great boat to learn on—comfortable, responsive, simple in design, and, most of all, beautiful under sail. They don’t make them like this now.”

The usual irony in his voice had vanished altogether, replaced by an unalloyed appreciation of the craft and its abilities. Infected by his mood, Whitney asked, “When do we start?”

“Not today. It’s essential to know a boat before you sail it.” The sardonic note returned. “Sailing a Herreshoff isn’t like driving a Fiat.”

The glancing reference to Clarice pricked Whitney’s curiosity. “Can I ask what the Bogart and Bacall routine was all about?”

“Is that what you thought it was? She isn’t Bacall, and I’m certainly not Bogart—I wasn’t having enough fun.” His manner became brisk. “Back to why we’re here, each part of this boat has a function, and a name. Before you learn how to sail, you have to master the language. So let’s start.”

Ben pointed at the sails. “The largest is its mainsail,” he told her, “the smaller the jib. The two lines controlling them are the main and jib sheets. Watch, and I’ll show you how to hoist them.”

As he did, Ben pointed out the arrow atop the mast that showed the direction of the wind, then started naming other parts of the boat. For Whitney, terms like “bow,” “tack,” “gaff,” and “head” were as bewildering as a foreign tongue. “I’ll never remember all this,” she protested.

“Don’t need to.” He took some folded papers from the pocket of his jeans. “I drew you up some diagrams with everything labeled.
The artistry isn’t great, but they’re good enough to help you pass the exam.”

“What exam?”

“The one you’re taking before you sail the boat.”

Whitney felt herself bridle. “This isn’t first grade, Ben.”

“Just the functional equivalent. I want you to know this boat as well I did before I sailed it. When George Barkley let me take the tiller, it was one of the biggest privileges of my life.”

The reverence in his tone surprised her. “Did you ever race it yourself?”

“I did.” He spoke softly, gazing at the sailboat. “Someday I mean to own a boat just like it. Perhaps even this one.”

“I don’t know if Mr. Barkley would ever sell it.”

“You never know. I can’t see your friend bothering with it, and as near as I can make out, she’s an only child. She certainly acts like one.” He handed her the drawings. “Anyhow, take a look at these, and compare them to the real thing. It’ll be easier to remember than you think.”

Whitney began. Leaning back, Ben gazed out at Quitsa Pond in the bright sun of early afternoon, the woods and meadows on the gently sloping hills surrounding it half-concealing the houses—some old, some very new—which had a charmed perspective on the pond. With the sun on his face, Ben seemed to relax, his expression softening. After awhile, Whitney looked up at him again. “You must love this place,” she said. “What was it like growing up here?”

“It had its moments. A life lived outdoors is bound to. You learn things other people don’t.”

He still had not mentioned his family, Whitney realized. “Did your dad teach you how to sail?”

Without looking at her, Ben gave a quick explosive laugh. “My father was a lobsterman. All he taught me was to set lobster pots, like his father taught him. My brother and I learned to sail by begging our way onto rich men’s boats.”

Whitney hesitated, then let her curiosity take over. “Are your parents still living?”

“If you can call it that. As far as I know, Dad’s still
breathing
. Long ago I learned to my sorrow that being dead drunk isn’t the same as being dead. My solution is not to deal with my father
or
my poor pathetic mother. Unless Jack ratted me out, they don’t even know I’m back.”

If anything, his emotionless monotone made the words more corrosive. Groping for a response, Whitney said, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Early on I learned a valuable lesson—that family can be a snake pit, with all the Rockwellian archetypes of love and warmth rubbing salt into the gaping wounds of reality. It’s the setting in life where the gap between reality and myth is the widest and most damaging, all the more so because family claims us at birth and never lets go. Hobbes disguised as Santa Claus.”

Thinking of Janine, Whitney wondered at the protective instinct that made her say, “Maybe I’m lucky, but my family isn’t like that.”

Removing his sunglasses, Ben gave her a long, skeptical look. “Fitzgerald said to Hemingway that ‘the rich are different.’ No doubt your parents are well educated and well mannered—as Hemingway retorted, ‘they have more money.’ But Yale gave me a window into the pretenses of the privileged. Affluent families can be even more lethal because their lies are more seductive, their methods of entrapment more subtle and sophisticated. Maybe when your father is a vicious, ill-educated drunk, and your mother timid and weak-willed, they’re harder to sentimentalize. But don’t you ever stand outside your family and question it?”

“Of course,” Whitney said at once. “But that’s different than being trapped in a lunatic asylum. Which is how you make it sound.”

“Which is how it felt,” Ben said, his tone matter-of-fact. “For islanders, they say, this is the poorest place in Massachusetts, with the richest life. For some that’s no doubt true. Most people here farm or hunt or fish or grow things—they learn how to cope and how to share. A lot of them have extended families to help out. But
my father was an only child—a drunk, an isolate, and mean as a snake. So we were on our own.

“The only relief came at night, after he’d passed out. On summer evenings I’d lie in the bedroom with Jack, listening in the dark to the Red Sox games, the announcers’ voices and the sound of the crowd barely audible through the static, and try to imagine I was there in Fenway Park. I didn’t want Jack to say a word, shatter the illusion. After a while I forgot our dad sleeping in his chair, or our mom praying he didn’t wake up and hit her, and imagined that Ted Williams was my father—not just the greatest hitter who ever lived, but a fighter pilot in two wars, an ace, who gave up five of the best years of his career rather than be a coward. And I swore I’d become like him.”

Surprised by this moment of self-revelation, with its undertone of melancholy and desperate hope, Whitney thought of her first memory of baseball. Her father was a fan of the Yankees, the Red Sox’s hated rivals; the Yankees’ president, a neighbor in Greenwich, had given her a baseball cap and a ball signed by Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and their housekeeper Billie’s favorite, Elston Howard. But none of these heroes held the totemic power Ted Williams did for Ben. Perhaps he needed to identify with Williams—or Robert Kennedy—in order to reinvent himself; compared to fighting in two wars, or running for president, dropping out of Yale was a mere down payment on courage. Then Whitney remembered interviewing her own father for a school project on family history. In contrast to his usual indulgence of her, Charles had been terse—his only interest was in the present, he told her, and the future. Instinctively, she sensed that he did not like to remember himself without money or advantages; it was as though he might become that person again, the solid ground of his achievements collapsing beneath him unless he were able to control his surroundings. But Ben had not yet left himself behind, Whitney saw—his scars were too fresh, and any hope of success lay in the future.

Aware of her own silence, she said, “How did that affect your brother?”

“Jack?” Ben repeated with veiled scorn. “It shrunk him. I’d watch my father beat my mother, then turn to Jack—two years older—praying he’d do something. He never did.” Ben stared out at the pond, and Whitney could feel the rage trapped inside him escaping in words her presence had somehow catalyzed. “That’s the reason I won’t go to prison to avoid Vietnam, anymore than I’d run off to Canada. It was prison enough watching Jack placate our father, or tell our mother not to provoke him. Only cowards turn petty tyrants into gods.” He paused, then spoke more deliberately. “When I was fifteen, I realized that it was going to be one of us—my father, or me. So I decided to take control for good.”

The iron in his tone left Whitney caught between dread and curiosity. “How?” she asked.

Still Ben did not look at her. “I studied a book on boxing. Then I hung up a heavy bag in a neighbor’s barn and tore into it everyday after school. Not to let the anger out, but to train, until the stuffing bled through the canvas. A sign from God, I thought.

“That night, at dinner, my father slapped my mother—there was something about the stew he didn’t like. She was cowering in a corner with that same look of incomprehension, a small animal petrified of a big one. I got up from the table and grabbed him by the wrist. ‘You’re a pussy,’ I told him. ‘Good only for beating up women and small boys. You’re just smart enough to know I’ve gotten way too big for that. But way too stupid to know what that means.’”

Whitney felt her stomach clench. “The bastard’s eyes get big,” Ben continued. “Suddenly he takes a swing at me. I duck, like I’ve taught myself, and Jack tries to step between us. ‘Get out of my way,’ I shout at him, ‘or you’ll come next.’” Ben’s speech quickened. “Jack backs up a step. Before my father can move I pivot sideways and hit him in the gut with everything I’ve got. He doubles over, groaning. As he struggles to look up at me, I break his nose with a right cross.” Ben’s voice was thick now. “His blood spurts on the floor. I’m breathing hard, years of hatred welling up. ‘Remember hitting me?’ I manage to say, and send a left to his mouth that knocks out his front teeth.

“My father starts blubbering, and he looks like Halloween. I pull him up by the throat and press my thumbs on his larynx ’til his eyes bulge. ‘I run this house now,’ I told him. ‘You just live here. Hit her again, and I’ll cut your balls off with a butter knife.’”

Whitney felt herself recoil. Suddenly Ben stopped himself, as though sensing her reaction. He breathed once, then turned to her, eyes filled with shame and fierceness, his mouth twisted in a smile of self-contempt. “Listen to me,” he said in a chastened voice, “awash in self-pity masked as heroics. I never talk to anyone like this. God knows why I inflicted myself on you.”

“People talk to me, Ben. They always have. As strange as that may seem to you.”

Ben looked at her intently. “Not so strange,” he said more softly. “Anyhow, I’ve kept you here long enough.”

Whitney did not protest. On the trip home, Ben said almost nothing. He stopped at the foot of her driveway, well short of the house. To her surprise, he got out of the truck as she did.

Once more his tone was expressionless, his face closed. “I’m sorry, Whitney. You didn’t need any of that. I’m not quite right yet, and I’ve spent too much time alone.”

“I didn’t mind listening, really. A lot has happened to you.”

The smile he gave her was more like a grimace. “If you want to, we can try this again in a few days. Without the family portrait.”