Loss of Innocence (26 page)

Twelve

On the beach at Dogfish Bar, Whitney wept from exhaustion, an aching sense of loneliness and loss. Finally, the shudders wracking her body subsided, and the tears dried on her face. She was all cried out.

What was she now, Whitney wondered, but a strung out girl with an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, her resources too paltry to navigate the nothingness she faced. Then she recalled her journal.

Writers write,
Ben had quoted his professor.
It’s like breathing—it’s what they do.

Whitney opened it, staring at the next blank page. Then, haltingly at first, she began to write her future.

Her parents sat on the porch in what struck Whitney as a tableau of their former life, Charles reading the
Wall Street Journal
, with Anne beside him working a crossword puzzle. Regarding them in silence, Whitney felt less anger than sadness, an odd feeling of compassion that she wished seemed more like love than the
desire not to jar their fragile hold on this pose of a calm, contented couple. From beneath their veneer, both parents eyed her warily, as though a volatile new element had been added to the play, an ingénue who improvised her lines. With what struck her as exaggerated care, Charles folded the paper in front of him, and Anne placed the crossword puzzle on the coffee table beside her glass of orange juice.

“I’m leaving,” Whitney told them. “This afternoon, I think.”

Fear stole into her mother’s fixed expression. “With him?”

“No. I’m going to Manhattan to look for a job. In publishing, if I’m lucky, but I’ll take whatever will support me.”

“When did you decide all this?” Charles asked peremptorily.

“A few hours ago. But it’s the only thing that feels right to me.”

“I assume you’ll be moving into the apartment.”

Whitney shook her head. “That was for Peter and me, so I’d feel much better if you sold it. I want to make it on my own.”

Anne struggled to comprehend this. “But how will you live, and where?”

“I saved up money from all those summers as a camp counselor and what Grandfather Padgett gave me. I’ll have to make that last to my first paycheck. As for where, I can sleep on friends’ sofas until I find a place.”

Anne gazed up at her in dismay, eyes suddenly moist. “This is so very different than what I imagined for you.”

“Me, too,” Whitney said, then smiled a little. “But it’s not like I’m moving to Nairobi—lots of girls do this. In a week or so, I’ll call to tell you how I am.”

Charles studied her closely, as though discerning something he had not seen before. “Please do,” he said firmly. “You’re not an orphan, Whitney.”

“I know,” Whitney answered softly. “Believe me, I know.”

Her mother looked perplexed, as though searching for her role in Whitney’s new life. “Let me help you pack,” she said at last. “Hopefully we can pick out some clothes suitable for the city.”

Before leaving, Whitney took the path toward Ben’s house.

She did this without knowing her reasons, or what she would say, but that it would feel cowardly just to vanish. Only when she neared his place did she acknowledge the unpredictable part of her that still craved him, and that might impel her to change course.

On the bluff overlooking the guesthouse, Whitney stopped.

Clarice Barkley stood at Ben’s door, her blond hair skimmed back to accent her perfect features. After a moment, he opened it. From a distance he looked surprised—or so Whitney tried to imagine. Then he nodded, and let Clarice inside.

Shoulders slumping, Whitney closed her eyes. Perhaps this was nothing. But she sensed a new dynamic that felt somehow inevitable; she had taken her father from Clarice, herself from Ben, and now their anger at her might feed the attraction between this young man and woman to whom, so recently, Whitney had felt close. Like Whitney herself, Clarice symbolized what Ben must want in spite of his professed loathing—the life of privilege he had never known, the freedom to cross the boundaries that divided a girl like Clarice from the boy who waited on her table. “Poor Scott Fitzgerald,” Ben had once remarked, “forever admiring the rich, like a boy with his face pressed against the window of a debutante’s mansion.” Perhaps Ben understood Fitzgerald all too well. And though Clarice might never tell him of her affair with Charles Dane, through Ben she could exact her quiet revenge on both Charles and his daughter.

Before this moment, Whitney thought, she might have weakened. If so, Clarice had kept her from ever becoming Ben’s wife. Then Whitney had one more intuition: that whoever he married—and she suddenly knew that it might be Clarice—the woman would suffer many hours of regret.

Standing there, Whitney fought back tears. Perhaps she was wrong; perhaps she only imagined all this. But whatever the truth might be, she had cried enough.

Beyond the guesthouse, the water glistened in the sun. It had been a long, golden summer, one that might have ended with her
wedding. Now her present had parted from her past. There was no mending the rift; all she could do is move into the future armed with nothing but her own heart and mind.

Turning, Whitney walked blindly away, putting one foot in front of the other, each step taking her towards another life. This was all that she could do, or knew to do, until, in some unknown place and time, she met the woman she would become.

Epilogue

The End of Summer

Martha’s Vineyard

September, 2011

Whitney Dane flicked back a tendril of gray hair. “You must know the oh-so-ironic coda,” she told Carla Pacelli. “Ben went to Vietnam and was decorated for bravery. Two years after that he’d written
Body Count
, the first great memoir of the war, paving the way for all the novels that followed. My father had helped make him Benjamin Blaine, the most celebrated writer of our time—chronicler of wars and famine, friend of presidents and prizefighters, and I hardly need tell you, magnet for women.”

“No,” Carla agreed with the trace of a smile, “you hardly need tell me. But you’ve made me curious to know how
you
got from there to here. You are a storyteller, after all.”

Pensive, Whitney looked around her—at the water, the woods, her parents’ white-frame house, the guesthouse where she had once made love with Peter. “Manhattan was right for me,” she began at last. “After a few months of temping I found a job as an editor’s assistant, then enrolled in a writing class at night. For a couple of years I lived in a walk-up and ate canned soup for dinner. But after some rejections, I placed a story in a magazine. Three years later I had enough good stories that Scribner published a collection.

“By then I’d pretty much worn out my therapist. But I had to work through what had happened—I was too angry and confused, and I didn’t trust anyone, really. Especially men.”

Carla glanced at the wedding ring on Whitney’s hand. “I guess that changed.”

“Over time. When Ben came back from Vietnam, I was still single. I’d never heard from him, of course. Instead I had a series of relationships that never quite worked out.” She paused, her tone becoming fond. “One night I was in a bookstore, signing my story collection for the occasional discerning customer. I became aware of a guy loitering nearby, with a sensitive face and these amazing deep-brown eyes. When I was getting up to leave he asked me out for a drink.

“He’d already read my stories and wanted to meet the woman who wrote them. He was a painter, he told me, an instructor at NYU. By the end of the night I somehow knew Aaron Ravinsky and I would be together.”

Carla nodded. “You dedicated
A Summer in Eden
to him, yes?”

“The least I could so, considering he’d read every page at least three times. Aaron’s my most honest critic, and he knows what it means to create. Plus he’s wonderful company. We make each other laugh, work through what we need to, and generally reach agreement on the most essential things.” Whitney smiled wryly. “The first big one was our wedding—a ceremony at City Hall, followed by a party in the Village where friends supplied the food and drink. Perfect for us.”

“And you still hadn’t heard from Ben?”

“No. By then he was married to Clarice—thanks to
Body Count
, Ben had the prominence and money to qualify as her husband. Pretty soon Ben was gracing the same social circles as my parents.” Whitney’s tone held a trace of humor. “The first time I saw him was when, by some terrible accident, all of us were thrown together at a cocktail party in Chilmark—Ben, Clarice, Aaron, me, and my parents. Pretending to be far drunker than he was, Ben draped his arm over my father’s shoulder with that pirate’s smile of his, eyes dancing. Then he
announced to all those assembled that his friend Charles Dane had made him who he was, by encouraging him to volunteer for military service. If it weren’t for my father, he’d be a wage slave at a newspaper in some provincial town, and could never have married Clarice Barkley. When Clarice smiled sweetly at my father, Dad’s face was a study. At that moment, at least instinctively, I felt sorry for him.”

Carla found herself caught between a smile and a wince. “I’m not sure I’d have liked Ben then. That’s pretty diabolical.”

“Oh, you haven no idea. By this time my father was a very disappointed man. He’d never gotten his cabinet position. He was still hoping for something from Nixon—a plum ambassadorship, perhaps—when Watergate put an end to that for good.” Whitney paused, her eyes becoming somber. “But worst of all was Janine. Certainly for my mother, and perhaps for him as well.”

Carla felt a sense of foreboding; she had become invested in Whitney’s memories, and wanted them to end well. “I was hoping to hear that rehab had taken, like it did for me.”

“Unfortunately, it didn’t—Janine lacked your strength of character. She became an alcoholic and, perhaps worse, a fantasist. She could only see life through the distorted prism of her own needs, and my mother accelerated her downfall with denial so ferocious that she ‘protected’ them both as long as she could. Janine married badly, twice, and suffered recurring bouts of bulimia between trips to the plastic surgeon. She died two years ago at sixty-five, looking ten years older.”

Carla felt a momentary frisson: for most of her life, she had been valued for her appearance, and—through acting—she had probed every identity but her own. “And Peter?”

“Married a woman from Bryn Mawr, the sister of a guy he’d known in school. After a couple of years, my dad helped him find another job in finance, and eventually they settled in Greenwich and had a couple of kids. My sense is that their marriage is okay, and his career was good enough without being terribly notable.” A shadow crossed Whitney’s face. “I’d like to know how he feels about his life. But there’s really no graceful way to find out.”

Carla hesitated. “What about your parents? I don’t mean to pry, but you made me feel as if I knew them once, but have no idea what happened later.”

Whitney nodded her understanding. “They stayed together, which was no surprise. As far as I know, my father never gave my mother another reason to worry, so I suppose that was a comfort to her.” Whitney took a sip of tea, gazing into the cup as if at her own thoughts. “She never knew about Clarice, of course. But after that summer I never saw beneath the surface of their lives. Instead, our family visits took on the quality of Kabuki theatre.

“Still, they got along with Aaron well enough. In Dad’s eyes, he was no substitute for Peter, even more so because he was Jewish. But they could hardly fault him as a father, and they absolutely adored our children. I suppose that gave my parents something of a second chance.”

“Are they still alive?”

“No. My mom died seven years ago, a few months after Dad. For a long time before that he had Alzheimer’s. When he could no longer live at home, or even remember her, she still visited every day. She seemed happy enough to be there—she was his wife, after all, and there was nothing he could do now to disrupt her world. So perhaps there was something in their marriage after all.” Whitney paused, sipping her tea. “Though not by my lights,” she added. “As a mother, I was determined to be everything they weren’t. So I decided that my children weren’t going to be about me, but themselves, and then proceeded to realize my ambitions with a vengeance. David is my father’s revenge—he ran screaming from all the creativity around him and became an investment banker.”

“The horror,” Carla interposed with a smile.

“I still can’t quite believe it. As for Rachel, she’s the family drama queen, a high-strung beauty who resembles Janine, though darker and with a touch of Jewish exoticism. In her teens, Rachel’s highs and lows could be truly harrowing—including, ironically enough, a considerable crush on Adam Blaine. But she’s become a gifted
writer—her short stories have appeared in the
New Yorker
, and now she’s working on a novel . . .”

“So she also takes after you.”

“
She
doesn’t think so,” Whitney amended tartly. “In fact, it rather surprises her that some fairly well-regarded novels were written by a WASP with such a limited emotional range. In
my
view, Rachel still could use a thermostat—as you may soon learn, given that she’ll shortly be taking refuge in the main house to complete her novel. Nonetheless, as with David, I take considerable maternal pride in her. Overall, we’re a fairly contented bunch, and David’s wife is pregnant with our first grandchild.” She gave Carla a wry look. “So despite the odds, all of us are living happily ever after. At least for now.”

Carla considered how much more to ask. “But not Ben’s family,” she said at length. “I know what he told me, of course—about Clarice, and about his sons. But I’m still not sure what really happened.”

Whitney sat back, teacup in her hand, looking off into the distance. “Ben had this insatiable hunger,” she said in a reflective tone. “For all the things he’d never had, and more. When George Barkley’s finances went south, Ben swallowed up the Barkleys’ life—the house, the boat, the manner of living. Then he swallowed up Clarice.” Facing Carla, she said gently, “I know you experienced him differently. But after Adam was born, it seemed clear Ben no longer cared to be faithful. Rumor had him with one woman after another, each more glamorous than the last. It was as though they served as mirrors for the man he’d always wanted to become.”

“Did you ever see him then?”

“Only on occasion, and by accident. He always treated me with this curious respect, and never threw what had happened between us back at me. Perhaps because I’d drawn a line with him, as you seem to have.” Whitney’s expression turned cool. “But Clarice had no image of a life but the one she’d always had. In that life, Ben seized all the power.

“Perhaps he cast too large a shadow, but his relationship with both his sons went bad, as well. With Teddy because they’re nothing
alike; perhaps with Adam because they’re too much alike—father and son, but also competitors, merciless when they sailed against each other. That started with Ben, I’m sure. He’d never really had a father, and perhaps didn’t know how to be one.”

Pensive, Carla chose not to reveal all that she knew. “That’s what seemed so tragic to me,” she contented herself with saying. “Ben was filled with regret—for staying with Clarice and for losing his sons. Despite all his success, I think he saw his personal life as a terrible failure.

“Whatever it was, with me he was nothing like his reputation. He stopped drinking when we were together, urged me to keep on going to AA. As he did with your writing all those years ago, Ben had the power to encourage me. We spent hours talking about my future—my plans to give up acting, go to graduate school in psychology after our son is born. He kept saying I could do it, that I’d already shown the willpower. Then, to my surprise, he left me more than enough to accomplish that, and educate our child. For which his wife despises me even more.”

Whitney shrugged. “She can hardly claim you disrupted a happy marriage. By choosing Ben to secure her gilded life, Clarice harvested the misery she had coming to her. Perhaps your relationship to Ben was different because you’re different.”

Quiet, Carla studied the older woman. “Do you wonder what might have happened if you’d married him?”

Whitney looked down. “On occasion,” she admitted. “But I had another life, a real one. And there was always the cautionary example of Clarice.”

For a long moment, Carla weighed whether to say more. “Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this. But as Ben’s death drew nearer, he became much more reflective, willing to share his sadness and regrets. Before he married Clarice, he’d asked another girl to marry him—a woman he respected as well as loved. But she wasn’t ready, and he’d walked away out of pride. If he’d been more patient, he thought, his life would have been different.” Carla paused, looking into Whitney’s face. “He never told me who it was. But now I know the woman was you.”

Whitney appeared stunned. Then she shook her head, as if to clear it. “I never imagined,” she said in a thicker voice. “But thank you for telling me that.” She turned away, looking out at the water. “After all this time, I find it still means something to me. But memories can be more seductive than real, and there’s no point regretting the past.” Composed again, she turned to face Carla. “I tend to think that character is fate. Perhaps what was fated, in the end, is that you mest Ben when he was ready to be different. Whatever the case, it seems to have helped you both.”

“It did,” Carla assured her. “I think for Ben, and certainly for me.” She hesitated. “I only hope this baby will be all right. My mother had way too many miscarriages. Lately, I’ve rediscovered the need for prayer.”

Whitney considered that. “And now there’s Adam,” she said at last. “But if there’s anyone who believes in new beginnings, it’s me. I wish you the same good luck I had with mine.” She leaned forward, her gaze intent but kind. “In the meanwhile, please stay here in the guesthouse, at least until your son is born. Then you can figure out what’s right to do.”

In her surprise, Carla found herself inexpressively grateful. “That’s more helpful than you can know. Beyond that, I hardly know what to say.”

“Nothing will do nicely. After all, it’s not as if I’m obliged to coddle Clarice Blaine’s sensibilities.” Smiling a little, Whitney added, “It’s just something I’d like to do for you—and, I suppose, for Ben. After all, he’s the one who kept me from drowning.”