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sake? I’m gonna study with Nadia Boulanger,
aren’t I?’
    What the hell was she talking about?’
From the way she immediately shut up, I sensed this was something she
had not intended to mention.
    ‘Who?’ I asked.
    ‘Nadia Boulanger. A famous music
teacher. In Paris.’
    She said those last two words rather
quickly.
    ‘In Paris?’ I asked, rather
slowly.
    ‘She takes very few American
pupils. I was lucky. I got a good scholarship too.’
    ‘Jennifer - you are going to
Paris?’
    ‘I’ve never seen Europe. I can
hardly wait.’
    I grabbed her by the shoulders. Maybe
I was too rough, I don’t know.
    ‘Hey - how long have you known
this?’
    For once in her life, Jenny couldn’t
look me square in the eye.
    ‘Ollie, don’t be stupid,’ she
said. ‘It’s inevitable.’
    ‘What’s inevitable?’
    ‘We graduate and we go our separate
ways. You’ll go to Law school - ‘
    ‘Wait a minute - what are you
talking about?’
    Now she looked me in the eye. And her
face was sad.
    ‘Ollie, you’re a preppie
millionaire, and I’m a social zero.’
    I was still holding onto her
shoulders.
    ‘What the hell does that have to do
with separate ways? We’re together now, we’re happy.’
    ‘Ollie, don’t be stupid,’ she
repeated. ‘Harvard is like Santa’s Christmas bag. You can stuff
any crazy kind of toy into it. But when the holiday’s over, they
shake you out … ‘ She hesitated.
    ‘ … and you gotta go back where
you belong.’
    ‘You mean you’re going to bake
cookies in Cranston, Rhode Island?’
    I was saying desperate things.
    ‘Pastries,’ she said. ‘And
don’t make fun of my fatter.’
    ‘Then don’t leave me, Jenny.
Please.’
    ‘What about my scholarship? What
about Paris, which I’ve never seen in my whole goddamn life?’
    ‘What about our marriage?’
    It was I who spoke those words,
although for a split second I wasn’t sure I really had.
    ‘Who said anything about marriage?’
    ‘Me. I’m saying it now.’
    ‘You want to marry me?’
    ‘Yes.’
    She tilted her head, did not smile,
but merely inquired:
    ‘Why?’
    I looked her straight in the eye.
    ‘Because,’ I said.
    ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That’s a
very good reason.’
    She took my arm (not my sleeve this
time), and we walked along the river. There was nothing more to say,
really.

7
    Ipswich, Mass., is some forty minutes from the Mystic River Bridge,
depending on the weather and how you drive. I have actually made it
on occasion in twenty-nine minutes. A certain distinguished Boston
banker claims an even faster time, but when one is discussing sub
thirty minutes from Bridge to Barrens’, it is difficult to separate
fact from fancy. I happen to consider twenty-nine minutes as the
absolute limit. I mean, you can’t ignore the traffic signals on
Route I, can you?

    ‘You’re driving like a maniac,’
Jenny said.

    ‘This is Boston,’ I replied.
‘Everyone drives like a maniac.’ We were halted for a red light
on Route I at the time.
    ‘You’ll kill us before your
parents can murder us.’
    ‘Listen, Jen, my parents are lovely
people.’
    The light changed. The MG was at
sixty in under ten seconds.
    ‘Even the Sonovabitch?’ she
asked.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Oliver Barrett III.’
    ‘Ah, he’s a nice guy. You’ll
really like him.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Everybody likes him,’ I replied.
    ‘Then why don’t you?’
    ‘Because everybody likes him,’ I
said.
    Why was I taking her to meet them,
anyway? I mean, did I really need Old Stonyface’s blessing or
anything? Part of it was that she wanted to (‘That’s the way it’s
done, Oliver’) and part of it was the simple fact that Oliver III
was my banker in the very grossest sense: he paid the goddamn
tuition.
    It had to be Sunday dinner, didn’t
it? I mean, that’s comme il faut, right? Sunday, when all the lousy
drivers were clogging Route I and getting in my way. I pulled off the
main drag onto Groton Street, a road whose turns I had been