Erich Segal: Love Story

Nothing. She just sat still, focusing on nothing at all.

'Hey,' I said, 'anything special you want to take along?'

'Uh uh.' She nodded no, then added as an afterthought, 'You.'

Downstairs it was tough to get a cab, it being theater hour and all. The doorman was blowing his whistle and waving his arms like a wild-eyed hockey referee. Jenny just leaned against me, and I secretly wished there would be no taxi, that she would just keep leaning on me. But we finally got one. And the cabbie was — just our luck — a jolly type. When he heard Mount Sinai Hospital on the double, he launched into a whole routine.

'Don't worry, children, you're in experienced hands. The stork and I have been doing business for years.'

In the back seat, Jenny was cuddled up against me. I was kissing her hair.

'Is this your first?' asked our jolly driver.

I guess Jenny could feel I was about to snap at the guy, and she whispered to me:

'Be nice, Oliver. He's trying to be nice to us.'

'Yes, sir,' I told him. 'It's the first, and my wife isn't feeling so great, so could we jump a few lights, please?'

He got us to Mount Sinai in nothing flat. He was very nice, getting out to open the door for us and everything. Before taking off again, he wished us all sorts of good fortune and happiness. Jenny thanked him.

She seemed unsteady on her feet and I wanted to carry her in, but she insisted, 'Not this threshold, Preppie.' So we walked in and suffered through that painfully nit-picking process of checking in.

'Do you have Blue Shield or other medical plan?'

'No.'

(Who could have thought of such trivia? We were too busy buying dishes.) Of course, Jenny's arrival was not unexpected. It had earlier been foreseen and was now being supervised by Bernard Ackerman, M.D., who was, as Jenny predicted, a good guy, albeit a total Yalie.

'She's getting white cells and platelets,' Dr. Ackerman told me. 'That's what she needs most at the moment. She doesn't want antimetabolites at all.'

'What does that mean?' I asked.

'It's a treatment that slows cell destruction,' he explained, 'but — as Jenny knows — there can be unpleasant side effects.'

'Listen, doctor' — I know I was lecturing him needlessly — 'Jenny's the boss. Whatever she says goes. Just you guys do everything you possibly can to make it not hurt.'

'You can be sure of that,' he said.

'I don't care what it costs, doctor.' I think I was raising my voice.

'It could be weeks or months,' he said.

'Screw the cost,' I said. He was very patient with me. I mean, I was bullying him, really.

'I was simply saying,' Ackerman explained, 'that there's really no way of knowing how long — or how short — she'll linger.'

'Just remember, doctor,' I commanded him, 'just remember I want her to have the very best.

Private room. Special nurses. Everything. Please. I've got the money.'

It is impossible to drive from East Sixty-third Street, Manhattan, to Boston, Massachusetts, in less than three hours and twenty minutes. Believe me, I have tested the outer limits on this track, and I am certain that no automobile, foreign or domestic, even with some Graham Hill type at the wheel, can make it faster. I had the MG at a hundred and five on the Mass Turnpike.

I have this cordless electric razor and you can be sure I shaved carefully, and changed my shirt in the car, before entering those hallowed offices on State Street. Even at 8 A.M. there were several distinguished — looking Boston types waiting to see Oliver Barrett III. His secretary — who knew me — didn't blink twice when she spoke my name into the intercom.

My father did not say, 'Show him in.'

Instead, his door opened and he appeared in person. He said, 'Oliver.'

Preoccupied as I was with physical appearances, I noticed that he seemed a bit pale, that his hair had grown grayish (and perhaps thinner) in these three years.

'Come in, son,' he said. I couldn't read the tone. I just walked toward his office.

I sat in the 'client's chair.'

We looked at one another, then let our gazes drift onto other objects in the room. I let mine fall among the items on his desk: scissors in a leather case, letter opener with a leather handle, a photo of Mother taken years ago. A photo of me (Exeter graduation).

'How've you been, son?' he asked.

'Well, sir,' I answered.

'And how's Jennifer?' he asked.

Instead of lying to him, I evaded the issue — although it was the issue — by blurting out the reason for my sudden reappearance.

'Father, I need to borrow five thousand dollars. For a good reason.'

He looked at me. And sort of nodded, I think.

'Well? 'he said.

'Sir?' I asked.

'May I know the reason?' he asked.

'I can't tell you, Father. Just lend me the dough. Please.'

I had the feeling — if one can actually receive feelings from Oliver Barrett III — that he intended to give me the money. I also sensed that he didn't want to give me any heat. But he did want to … talk.

'Don't they pay you at Jonas and Marsh?' he asked.

'Yes, sir.'

I was tempted to tell him how much, merely to let him know it was a class record, but then I thought if he knew where I worked, he probably knew my salary as well.

'And doesn't she teach too?' he asked.

Well, he doesn't know everything.

'Don't call her 'she,'' I said.

'Doesn't Jennifer teach?' he asked politely.

'And please leave her out of this, Father. This is a personal matter. A very important personal matter.'

'Have you gotten some girl in trouble?' he asked, but without any deprecation in his voice.

'Yeah,' I said, 'yes, sir. That's it. Give me the dough. Please.'

I don't think for a moment he believed my reason. I don't think he really wanted to know. He had questioned me merely, as I said before, so we could … talk.

He reached into his desk drawer and took out a checkbook bound in the same cordovan leather as the handle of his letter opener and the case for his scissors. He opened it slowly. Not to torture me, I don't think, but to stall for time. To find things to say. Non-abrasive things.

He finished writing the check, tore it from the book and then held it out toward me. I was maybe a split second slow in realizing I should reach out my hand to meet his. So he got embarrassed (I think), withdrew his hand and placed the check on the edge of his desk. He looked at me now and nodded. His expression seemed to say, 'There it is, son.' But all he really did was nod.

It's not that I wanted to leave, either. It's just that I myself couldn't think of anything neutral to say. And we couldn't just sit there, both of us willing to talk and yet unable even to look the other straight in the face.

I leaned over and picked up the check. Yes, it said five thousand dollars, signed Oliver Barrett HI.

It was already dry. I folded it carefully and put it into my shirt pocket as I rose and shuffled to the door. I should at least have said something to the effect that I knew that on my account very important Boston dignitaries (maybe even Washington) were cooling their heels in his outer office, and yet if we had more to say to one another I could even hang around your office, Father, and you would cancel your luncheon plans … and so forth.

I stood there with the door half open, and summoned the courage to look at him and say:

'Thank you, Father.'

The task of informing Phil Cavilleri fell to me. Who else? He did not go to pieces as I feared he might, but calmly closed the house in Cranston and came to live in our apartment. We all have our idiosyncratic ways of coping with grief. Phil's was to clean the place. To wash, to scrub, to polish. I don't really understand his thought processes, but Christ, let him work.