by Linda Wolfe
Leilia wondered about that statement. She knew Robert was drinking and doing drugs again. Wouldn’t that affect his sexual performance? Make him less than the best? But then she decided that coming from Jennifer, the praise didn’t add up to much, since, after all, Jennifer had never really had particularly good sex.
In California, Kitty Schoen, who was also vacationing out West, took one look at Jennifer and just knew something wonderful had happened to her. They were on their way to the Hare Krishna festival at Venice Beach, and Jennifer was looking exceptionally pretty, her skin burned to butternut and her brown eyes unusually radiant. So Kitty wasn’t surprised as they sped along the highway to hear Jennifer say, “I have to tell you something. You’re not going to believe this. Guess who I slept with?”
“Who?” Kitty demanded. “Tell me!”
“Robert Chambers!”
“Oh, wow,” Kitty said. “Tell me about it. Like tell me everything.”
Jennifer did. She explained how Robert had admired her in Dorrian’s and asked her to meet him outside, and how they’d gotten together for their first date not long after that, and how he’d left messages for her when she went to Boston, and made love to her twice after that. And she said, “He’s absolutely incredible in bed!”
Kitty was a little surprised at that. She knew a girl who’d recently tried to make it with Robert and reported that her efforts had bombed out. He’d been impotent. She told Jennifer what her friend had said, and Jennifer smiled. “Not with me he wasn’t,” she said proudly. “He was great. I even had an orgasm. My first!”
“Oh, wow,” Kitty said again. “That’s totally great.”
When they got to Venice, the festival was in full swing. Orange-robed Hare Krishnas were parading along the ocean-front walk and theater groups and live bands were putting on shows. Kitty and Jennifer joined the milling spectators and stopped talking about Robert.
That night they went discoing and slept over at Kitty’s place with a third girl, someone Jennifer didn’t feel all that comfortable about. So it wasn’t until the next morning, when Kitty was driving Jennifer to the airport to catch her plane back to New York, that Jennifer brought up the subject of Robert again. “I’ll probably see him when I get back,” she said.
Kitty smiled. “I’ll bet.”
“It’s casual,” Jennifer said. “Just casual. But it’s so mellow. And he’s so nice.”
The day Jennifer flew home, two old friends of Robert’s from York Prep ran into him in Central Park. He was with a beautiful blond girl they’d never seen before. He introduced them, and they thought she was so pretty they decided to take pictures.
Robert didn’t pose. He wasn’t looking as good as usual that day. Although it was almost the end of summer, his skin was deathly pale, as if he hadn’t been out of doors in the daylight all season long. Moreover, his eyes had a faraway, stunned look.
“Hey, man, you on coke?” one of the boys asked him.
“Naw,” Robert said. “Ecstasy. I did some last night.”
Later the boys told Robert how stunning his new girlfriend was, and Robert said he’d been seeing her all week.
The two boys were impressed. And jealous. “What do girls see in him?” one of them asked the other as they were leaving the park. “I mean, this guy’s done nothing since high school.”
“They want him for his looks, I guess,” the other boy responded. “Guys get status from going out with good-looking girls. Maybe it works the other way around, too.”
Back in New York, Jennifer went shopping for clothes to wear at college. She bought a few things in her neighborhood, then went uptown to 59th Street, where she stepped into a French Connections shop. Her old boss Connie Davies was working there. Connie was getting married in the fall and Jennifer wanted to wish her well.
“Show me what you bought,” Connie said to her after they talked about the wedding.
Jennifer put her parcels down on the floor and began pulling out clothes. “Do you like these?” she asked Connie, holding up a pair of black checked pants. “I got them on sale.” Her voice was full of pride.
“They’re lovely. Real college girl stuff.”
As soon as she spoke, Connie had one of those moments of wonder at time and its swift passage, remembering vividly the way Jennifer had looked just like a little newspaper boy when she’d first met her. Now she was a young lady going off to college. It’s sad in a way, Connie thought. But what can you do? Everyone grows up. She snapped out of her mood. “Come over here,” she directed, and led Jennifer past racks of new wools and corduroys. “I’ve got something that’ll look great on you.”
At a skirt rack Connie paused and extricated a pink, blue, and white plaid with a houndstooth design on it.
“Beautiful,” Jennifer said.
“Perfect for school,” Connie said.
Jennifer slipped into the skirt, twirled for a moment in front of a silvery mirror, and bought the skirt. Then, arms laden, she said goodbye to Connie.
She hadn’t seen Robert since her return from California and didn’t expect that she would until the following week, because she had promised her father and stepmother that she would visit them at their summer home in Montauk, just east of the Hamptons, right after the trip to California.
She did, leaving the city on Wednesday, August 20.
The day that Jennifer went to Montauk, Robert telephoned Monsignor James Wilders, the elderly Irish priest under whom he had served as an altar boy back in grade school. All week he had been edgy and explosive, and at last it had occurred to him that he needed someone to talk to, someone who might be able to help him. He hadn’t spoken to Wilders, who had long ago left St. Thomas More Church for a downtown parish, in six years. But he had seen him at the archbishop’s installation. Dialing the number of his new parish, he asked for him.
He was out, a secretary said.
The next day he got a call back from the priest, but he no longer felt the urgency that had prompted him to dial him the first time. When Wilders suggested they talk face to face, he didn’t say there was any hurry about their doing so, and when Wilders recommended that they speak again on Monday to set up an appointment, Robert said that was fine.
In Montauk, Steve Levin was in a great mood. He gave Jennifer a lesson in driving his Toyota pickup truck—she knew how to drive, but the pickup had a stick shift, and she’d been begging him for instruction. He also took her swimming. The weather was cool, but that didn’t faze them. He’d always been in love with the sea, ever since he was a little kid climbing the cliffs at his grandfather’s house off Nahant and plunging into the frigid Massachusetts water. Jennifer shared his passion for the sea. She wasn’t just a good swimmer. She was a body-surfer. Surfing was his hobby, and he’d taught her how to do it.
At the beach he watched her as she tangled with the roiling waves in the company of a group of inveterate surfers. One of them marveled at her facility, saying, “Wow! Where’d you learn to do that?” She told him her father had showed her how. He heard the acknowledgment and experienced a surge of pride. It felt great to have taught Jennifer to do something for which people admired her.
But later the visit ran into a snag. “All my friends are getting together in the Hamptons,” Jennifer said. “Can I borrow the Toyota and drive over and join them?”
Steve didn’t think she was ready to take the truck on a long drive. She hadn’t really gotten the hang of the stick shift yet. He told her no.
She got upset and lay down on the couch and sulked. Steve tried to cheer her up. “It’s no big deal,” he said. Then, “Look, I’ll drive you to your friends. Or maybe you can get them to come and pick you up.”
She didn’t want that. She went on sulking. But at last she brightened and told him, “Oh, all right. I’ll call my friends.”
Not long afterward, Alexandra LaGatta and her mother picked up Jennifer in Montauk and drove her to their summer house in Southampton.
She was confused, Jennifer said to Alexan
dra when they were alone. She wasn’t in love with Robert Chambers. She was in love with Brock. He’d been in Europe all summer, but he was back now, and she’d talked with him on the phone. Yet even though when she’d spoken to him she’d remembered their love, it wasn’t Brock she kept thinking about when she let her mind wander. It was Robert. Which was weird. Because she didn’t even like Robert as a person.
She tried to have a good time that weekend. On Saturday afternoon, dressed in a little black bikini, she swam and sunned both at the beach and at Alexandra’s pool. And on Saturday night she and Alexandra went to a party in East Hampton. There Jennifer got into a long talk with a boy who had just returned from a Minnesota drug rehabilitation clinic. Just like Robert Chambers. She promised him that if he went on trying to stay clean, she’d be his buddy. He could call her any time the going got rough and she’d talk him down. She liked the idea of helping. Of being needed.
Later that night, she drove from East Hampton to Southampton to pick up Margaret Trahill and bring her to the party. She used Alexandra’s mother’s car and, feeling exhilarated, made the twelve traffic-ridden crowded miles in twenty minutes, even though it was raining. Margaret was impressed and Jennifer felt great and when they got back to the party, she didn’t want the night ever to end, so after a while she and Margaret left East Hampton and went to Danceteria over in Water Mill. It was her favorite nightspot in the Hamptons. One weekend earlier in the summer, they’d included her name on an invitation to a private party at the club; when she saw her name in print on the little card, she’d wanted to scream with joy.
Danceteria was crowded. Everyone was there. Even Brock. She went up to him and hugged him and acted really glad to see him. But he was short, and Robert was tall. He was a flyweight, and Robert was husky. He had a toothy open grin, and Robert had a mysterious fleeting smile. He was familiar, like a book she’d read many times, and Robert was the unknown. She danced with Brock and tried to look happy, but inside she was jumpy and out of sorts. When some guy on the dance floor tried to give her a pinch in the rear, she hauled off and let him have it, cursing and screaming at him. She hated when guys wised off.
Brock was protective. He calmed her down and got the guy thrown out. She was in love with him, she was in love with him, she kept reminding herself. And when they parted, she made a date to meet him on Sunday night at a club in Sag Harbor.
Around the time that Jennifer was saying good night to Brock, Robert entered his apartment in the city with Josephine Perry, the pretty blonde his friends had taken pictures of in the park. She was a lot younger than he was, only seventeen, but that was one of the things he liked about her. That and the fact that she always seemed to have plenty of money on her. The first night they’d met, he’d managed to steal twenty dollars from her without her noticing. That was eight months ago, before they’d become lovers.
Tonight his mother was out of town, so Jo and he were going to spend the whole night together. He took her into his room, with its platform bed and shelf of stuffed animals, and, after she fell asleep, began a stealthy search through her wallet. It was thick with bills. He slipped fifty dollars out and hid it away.
In the morning Jo discovered the theft. “You stole from me, didn’t you?” she demanded.
He was casual. “It’s only money,” he said.
If he hoped that would calm her down, it didn’t. She stomped home in a fury.
Sunday night was reggae night at the Bay Street in Sag Harbor. Jamaican musicians in dreadlocks and wool caps enthralled the neatly coiffed children of the rich with lyrics about revolution and the impending destruction of the world. Transported, Brock and Jennifer listened to the performance in the dilapidated warehouselike club. But after about an hour, Jennifer wanted to leave. She’d been annoyed at Brock because he’d arrived late for their rendezvous, and although they had made up, she was impatient now to return to Southampton.
Brock said okay, and he and a friend drove her back to Alexandra’s house. She was mellow on the way over, listening repeatedly to a favorite Police song on the car’s tape deck, and when they got to Alexandra’s she invited Brock to come in. He wanted to, he explained, but he couldn’t. The car was his friend’s, and his friend had to get home. He kissed Jennifer good night, and she got out. She looks beautiful, he thought. She was wearing a black miniskirt and black top, and as she started toward the house she turned around and stood smiling at him for a moment, the headlights catching and holding her like a butterfly.
He waved, and then he and his friend drove off.
From Brock’s point of view, the reunion with Jennifer that weekend had been a great success. She’d confessed her fling with Robert, but he’d had some confessions to make, too, and they’d forgiven each other their dalliances. She’d implied that now that he was back, Robert was out of the picture, and she’d even told him, wiping away a small lingering hurt, that being with Robert wasn’t “like being with you.” Brock felt that everything was good between them now, and that it had probably never been better.
But that was not the impression Jennifer conveyed to Alexandra on Monday morning. “Brock was mean to me,” she said. “We had a fight.” She sounded disconsolate. And then she was talking about Robert again. How sexy he was. How much he’d pleased her. “I’ll be leaving for school in a couple of days,” she grumbled. “Am I gonna see him?”
“Let’s go into the city,” Alexandra suggested after a while. “Let’s have some fun. Forget about Brock.”
That afternoon Jennifer called her father and said she wanted to spend another night with Alexandra. She didn’t say they were going into the city, and Steve assumed she meant she wanted to spend some more time in Southampton. He was disappointed. He’d been hoping she’d spend the night at home with him and Arlene. But he didn’t want to chide her.” Do whatever you want to do,” he said.
Still, she heard his dissatisfaction. “What’s wrong?” she said.
He told her how he felt, said he’d been expecting to have extra time with her before she went off to school. But she was full of plans and prospects. “Dad, this is probably the last time I’m going to get to see all my friends together,” she pleaded.
He understood what she was saying. She was telling him that high school friends have a way of drifting apart, but one’s family will always be around. That’s the way kids look at things, he thought. So he gave in, said it was okay.
“I love you, Dad,” she thanked him.
“I love you, too,” he said.
In Manhattan, that Monday evening, a north wind was blowing and the air was crisp. Taxiing to Alexandra’s apartment on the Upper East Side, Jennifer talked about the end of summer and her imminent departure for Boston. She was looking forward to college, she said. But every time she tried to imagine life at Chamberlayne, the pit of her stomach went fluttery. Suppose people up there didn’t like her? Suppose it was like Sousa Junior High and she was odd girl out? “You’ve got to come and visit me every weekend,” she told Alexandra, who would still be in the city, finishing high school.
The two girls had dinner with Alexandra’s father, then made arrangements with friends for the rest of the evening. First they’d go to Juanita s, a Mexican cafe, with Laura and Larissa. Then the four of them would go on to Dorrian’s and meet up with Betsy and Edwina and a few other girls.
Dressing, Jennifer talked about Robert and fussed over her appearance, borrowing bits and pieces of finery from Alexandra’s wardrobe. Alexandra was smaller than she was, but Jennifer had been eating carefully and using her diet pills all summer, and she looked fine in Alexandra’s white camisole and pink and white miniskirt. She put them on, along with a pair of Alexandra’s freshly laundered panties. Cute little white bikini panties. She also put on some of Alexandra’s makeup, including a rich, dark lipstick. Then she fooled around with her hair, pinning it back with a black bow. That way, her zircon earrings showed more. But her hair looked better loose, she decided after a while, and she tucked the bow into a pock
et of her jean jacket. She put the dark lipstick in there, too. Then she slung the jacket jauntily over her left shoulder, took a farewell glance into the mirror, and set off with Alexandra for Juanita’s.
She was excited when she got there. She and Alexandra ordered margaritas, and Laura and Larissa ordered vodka Collinses, and she kept talking about Dorrian’s and how she hoped Robert would be there. Just thinking about seeing him thrilled her. But what should she do when she first saw him? Should she go right up to him and kiss him? Or should she hold back awhile and just talk to him? She laid the question before her friends and asked them to give her advice.
Soon they were all giggling and exchanging romantic tips and revelations. And soon, beach-tanned and merry, one girl more lovely than the next, they were the life of the restaurant. Everywhere people were looking at them. Jennifer had another margarita.
Then suddenly a waiter arrived unbeckoned at the table. He was carrying a bottle of champagne and four champagne glasses. “Someone ordered this for you,” he announced.
Who? Jennifer begged the waiter to tell her, but he said he didn’t know who it was. He’d simply been asked to deliver it. She glanced around at the young preppies in summer sweaters and the older guys in business suits crowding the bar. But no one’s eyes met hers in acknowledgment. Still, clearly, she and her friends had an unknown admirer. They’d been singled out. Noticed. It felt so good that she stood up, and, like a starlet receiving an Oscar, gave a little mini bow, and, addressing the entire room, called out passionately, “Thank you.”
While Jennifer was thanking the crowd at Juanita’s, Robert was standing on a street corner, talking to a friend outside Dorrian’s. He and Jo Perry had had a reconciliation over the telephone, and to make her happy he’d promised to meet her at the pub tonight. But he’d arrived early, there’d been hardly anyone inside, and he and his friend had come out into the cool night air to wait till the place filled up.