Loss of Innocence

by Richard North Patterson

  On some mornings she would swim the bracing waters of the sound, made more tranquil by a sandbar. But today she brought her journal.

  This practice had started with the professor who, having discerned a talent Whitney doubted she possessed, had urged her to record her thoughts in order to discover them. Once written, he said, they were there—to be retrieved, rewritten, and polished for whatever use she chose.

  But he had also given her some tools. Under his tutelage, she discovered women who had become exemplary writers—Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, Mary McCarthy, and before them, Edith Wharton—as well as John O’Hara, James Gould Cozzens, and Louis Auchincloss, all of whom she admired for their ability to convey human behavior so subtly yet so well. The discipline of regular writing, her professor insisted, would develop her own gifts of illumination. Though painfully aware of her deficit in wisdom and experience, she had started keeping a diary.

  Sitting with it open in her lap, she gazed out at the sound and pondered the boundaries of her life. The world in which she had grown up was comfortable and happy, one that she had never questioned. The changing manners and mores she had encountered in college were, she understood, a small repudiation of that world, in which she had gingerly participated by dressing casually, sleeping with Peter, and, more substantively, tutoring in Roxbury. But even that did not put her at odds with Charles and Anne—while they worried for her safety, they could not quarrel with her desire to help a disadvantaged boy. Torn between the rebellious fervor of those classmates who protested Vietnam or segregation, and Charles’s greater knowledge and forbearance, she remained largely outside the ferment of her time in school.

  This morning, however, she felt strangely transformed. No doubt this was foolish, even narcissistic. But she could not avoid sensing that the death of Robert Kennedy had caused some deeper change in her, though she did not know what it was. All that she could do was put words to whatever might emerge.

  For a time she stared at the blank pages, pen in hand. At last, she began to write.

  On the surface, everything is the same. I admire my father. I love my family. Clarice is still my closest friend. I’m planning my wedding, and the start of the wonderful marriage I know I can create with Peter. I have everything I could need or want, and the life ahead of me I’ve always imagined.

  And yet.

  What is happening to me? I wonder. Part of it may be Janine. She’s in trouble, I’m sensing, and not just because of what I saw the night Sirhan shot Bobby Kennedy. It’s more the instinct that she’s at the core of some imbalance within our family, which causes us to act out certain carefully-wrought illusions, comforted but circumscribed by our own desires to see each other as we wish. That’s common, I suppose, and rarely dangerous to anyone. But I’ve begun to worry that some difficulty may be awaiting us in the ambush of time.

  Maybe that’s stupid and portentous. Maybe it’s just me—or Bobby’s death, disturbing the chemistry of my all-too-unformed brain. Perhaps that’s why I’ve begun to wonder why I don’t speak out more often. I’ve started feeling a tectonic plate inside me, slipping ever so slightly, and it scares me. It’s like being a child again, afraid of the dark because of whatever you may only be imagining. No doubt childish superstition is not confined to children. Still, it feels like something is about to happen to me, and I don’t know what it is.

  Pensive, Whitney closed her diary.

  Part Two

  The Stranger

  Martha’s Vineyard–Manhattan

  June–July 1968

  One

  For the next three weeks, Whitney endured the pressures of a society wedding bearing down on her. The worst of this involved sparring with Anne over each detail of her nuptial weekend. Whitney prevailed in her choice of bridal gown, as well as bridesmaids dresses, selecting pink, as her mother wished, but without the puffy sleeves Anne favored. But though Whitney chose the crystal and silverware, her preferred china—bright yellow with a modern design—was effectively vetoed by her mother, who opined that a traditional bone china with gold leaf would better withstand the vagaries of taste and fashion. The guest list was marbled with her parents’ friends, often chosen less from affection than statecraft, and the Byzantine calculations through which Anne planned their seating left Whitney exasperated and amused. She came to understand too well the admonitions of older schoolmates: the wedding would not be her own. After all, it was universally acknowledged, their fathers were footing the bill.

  To escape these vexations—but also to ensure that she fit into a wedding dress that left no margin for error—Whitney resolved to start each day with exercise and reflection. Every morning at dawn she took her journal to Dogfish Bar, crossing the sea grass in blue jeans so that deer ticks bearing some enervating disease did not make her a listless, sallow bride. On a bright early morning in late June, she reached the rise overlooking the ocean, and saw it glistening with sun. This was her favorite part of the day—full of promise, unsullied by whatever might follow.

  Peeling off her clothes to uncover the swimsuit, she headed for the gentle, lapping waters. Though chill, after a moment they felt bearable, even bracing. Wading out to the sandbar, she plunged from there into the ocean, swimming parallel to the beach with strong determined strokes.

  Pleasantly tired, she clambered back onto the sandbar. The sun was higher now; as she looked toward the beach, she saw a man gazing out at her from beside her pile of belongings. Though she could not make out his face, the leanness of his frame and an unruly thatch of jet-black hair suggested that he was roughly Whitney’s age.

  She hesitated, annoyed that a stranger was disrupting her special time, then headed back to where he stood. As she emerged from the water, he regarded her with his head slightly tilted, his manner suggesting he need not explain his scrutiny or his presence. Instinctively, Whitney felt self-conscious—though she had long told herself she was full-figured but not overweight, for even longer she had lived with her mother and sister. While she disliked herself for caring about a man she did not know, she could not help wondering how he would judge her.

  “How’s the water?” he called out.

  At closer range he had a nose like a prow, a bronzed face all surfaces and angles, as though hammered out from copper. His angular frame, taller than Peter’s, suggested litheness and grace even when still. The uncomfortable impact of his presence was sealed by dark eyes and an unabashed appraisal so unmannerly and direct that she wanted to look away. All in all, Whitney concluded with instinctive wariness, he resembled no one she had ever met.

  “Tolerable,” she answered sparely. Deciding that a trace of courtesy might make her feel less awkward, she added perfunctorily, “I’m Whitney Dane, by the way.”

  He extended his hand, a formal gesture which she could have sworn contained a deliberate hint of mockery. “Benjamin Blaine—Ben.”

  His hand was strong and rough and callused. “Here for the summer?” she asked.

  “So it seems,” he said tersely. “And you? I don’t recall seeing anyone here this early in the day. Except fishermen, of course.”

  “I like this beach in the morning,” Whitney replied in a cooler tone. “It’s a good place to be alone.”

  Though a corner of his mouth twitched, his eyes contained a hint of challenge. “And now I’ve spoiled it.”

  “Not really. It’s big enough to share. How do you know it?”

  “I grew up here. I used to come here at night, to fish, then camp out ’til morning.”

  “But not for awhile.”

  “No,” he answered. “I left.”

  Though the curt response seemed intended to discourage her, it had the perverse effect of provoking her curiosity. “Have you been in college?”

  “Mostly.” He gave her the same unsettling scrutiny. “And you’re a summer person, I’d guess. Vacationers and day-trippers never find this place, and I’d know you’re not an islander even if I hadn’t lived here all my life.”
>
  There was nothing soft about his face, Whitney thought, and little that suggested hesitance or self-doubt. Refusing to ask how he had pegged her, she said with a touch of pride, “I’ve been coming to the Vineyard since I was born.”

  “Of course you have,” he said with sardonic amusement. “Three months in Eden every year. A hiatus from the rigors of life.”

  Annoyed at his tone, Whitney found that it pleased her to mention her engagement. “I’m getting married this summer, so there’s planning to do. What brought you back here?”

  “I dropped out of college.”

  Sixties fallout, she thought, feeling suddenly superior. “To do what?”

  He crossed his arms, face closing, though the quick flash of his eyes suggested that her question evoked something painful. At length, he said, “I worked for Bobby Kennedy.”

  “You’re kidding,” she blurted without thinking, then realized that he was not. “What did you do in the campaign?”

  “I traveled with him.” He looked away, adding dismissively, “Nothing impressive. Just doing whatever he needed.”

  You actually knew him, she thought in real surprise, stifling the questions she was suddenly desperate to pose. Instead, she asked, “So what will you do now?”

  “I don’t know,” he responded in an affectless tone that somehow suggested anger. “Dropping out blew my student deferment. I’m just hoping to slip by the draft board until fall, so I can finish up at Yale.” His voice took on a muted bitterness. “By then maybe ‘President Nixon’ will unveil his secret plan to end the war. But I’m not counting on that.”

  Beneath his stoic veneer, Whitney detected a deep woundedness and dislocation, as though Robert Kennedy’s death was like a fishhook snagged inside him Whatever the cause, she could feel his presence on her nerve ends. “If you can get by the draft,” she thought to ask, “what’s next?”

  “My ambition was to go to journalism school, and then become a foreign correspondent. A chance to redefine my life.” The strain of irony returned. “I’m sure you go to Europe all the time, but I’ve never been outside the country. I’m hoping my first trip isn’t to Vietnam.”

  But for her father’s intervention, Whitney thought, Peter might share his fears. Awkwardly, she said, “At least you have friends and family here. People to spend time with.”

  He fixed her with the same appraising look. “Are you always this curious?”

  “Not always,” she answered tartly. “But you’re standing right in front of me, and there’s no one else to talk to.”

  To her surprise, he emitted a bark of laughter. “Okay, then. Yes, I have friends and family, just no one I’d care to see. Right now all I want is to sail. To answer your next question, I’m caretaking someone’s house for the summer, and a sailboat comes with it. And yes, I’m acting like a jerk. I’m allowing recent events to spoil my usual sunny disposition. Not your fault.”

  Disconcerted once again, Whitney felt her defenses slipping. “And I really am sorry,” she told him. “I’d say I know how you feel, but I can’t.”

  “Maybe not.” He turned toward the horizon. “After he died, there was nothing left to do. Except being on the water, and these are the waters I know. So I came home.”

  “Has it helped?”

  “As much as it can. It’s just me and the wind and ocean, the nearest thing to peace that I can find.” His eyes narrowed, as though scouring the ocean for something he could not see. “There’s nothing much good on land. The draft, this screwed up country, this heartless joke of a campaign. It hurts to watch it.”

  This was how she had felt, Whitney realized—at least for a time. “I liked Bobby, too,” she offered, and then felt more foolish than before.

  Mercifully, he did not seem to hear. She waited a moment, then began to pick up her things. “You don’t need to leave,” he told her. “I saw you brought a journal.”

  “It’s nothing, really. I just keep it for myself.”

  “Then I’ll leave you to it. Nice to meet you, Whitney Dane.”

  He turned abruptly, taking a few steps, then faced her again. “I don’t suppose you’d like to go sailing sometime.”

  Startled, Whitney heard the inner voice of caution. “It sounds like sailing is better for you alone.”

  He shrugged this away. “At least you can swim. If you spoil it for me, I can always throw you overboard.”

  Whitney felt him challenging her in some indefinable way. “Maybe,” she allowed. “Where are you staying?”

  “Chilmark.”

  “That’s where I am.”

  The hint of amusement resurfaced in his eyes. “I know. The big white house on the bluff.”

  With that he turned again, giving a careless wave of his hand without looking back. She watched him go, a forward tilt to his walk, moving with swift, decisive strides as though to clear a space for himself, somehow evoking her father.

  I know. The big white house on the bluff.

  Two

  Later that week, Charles returned and, as he often did, sipped scotch while he watched Huntley and Brinkley on the evening news. Sitting with him, Whitney riffled the latest Time until a film clip of Resurrection City caught her attention.

  A makeshift encampment on the Washington Mall, it was an attempt by the poor to dramatize their plight. “How will this change their lives,” Charles inquired aloud, “and what are they teaching their children? That government has all the answers?”

  But the scruffy campsite spoke to Whitney’s sympathies. “If they didn’t do this, maybe we wouldn’t think of them at all.”

  Her father shook his head. “Maybe not. But if they don’t want to improve themselves, what can anyone else do to help? This is just a sideshow, an excuse for the radical young to pursue their own destructive purposes.”

  Instinctively, Whitney thought again of Bobby Kennedy and the wounded young man she had encountered on the beach. Had her father always been this conservative? she wondered. Or had he acquired his beliefs from the moneyed classes he had joined upon marrying Anne, applying his keen intelligence until he could articulate them more clearly than his mentors? Whatever the case, it seemed that her father was passing his own views on to Peter. She wouldn’t have minded if, now and then, her fiancé gently disagreed with Charles. But it was not in his nature, and she was lucky they were as fond of each other as she was of seeing them together.

  “I don’t think we can ignore them,” she told Charles, and let the subject die.

  After dinner, Whitney retreated to her bedroom, her sanctuary since childhood, listening to a rock station from the Cape, the earthy growl of Janis Joplin followed by Aretha Franklin’s bluesy urgency:

  I’m about to give you all my money

  And all I’m askin’ in return, honey

  Is you give me my propers when you get home . . .

  Whitney found the lyrics both stimulating and unsettling—was that all the black woman of the song had to look forward to? But the propulsive drive Aretha gave the lyrics pulled her in. Then her mother peeked through the door.

  “What is all this gutter yowling?” she inquired dryly. “Does someone have appendicitis?”

  Whitney summoned her best deadpan look. “Aretha just wants her propers when she gets home. Didn’t you ever sing that to Dad?”

  Her mother looked faintly amused. “I really didn’t have to,” she said with a certain maternal reserve. “On a tangent of that, and somewhat more pressing, I’ve been thinking about your wedding.”

  “Really, Mom? When did you start?”

  Anne’s perfunctory smile, a signal that she got the joke, also suggested her inability to change. “I was merely wondering if all the bridesmaids have been fitted for their dresses. As I recall, Julie hadn’t.”

  “She has now, I’m pretty sure. That leaves only Janine.”

  Anne’s expression became slightly more remote. “I do hope Julie doesn’t gain more weight,” she went on. “Sometimes I think she needs someone to take
a greater interest in such things.”

  The remark touched a psychic nerve, causing Whitney to wonder if this were her mother’s intent. “I don’t think Julie’s up for adoption, Mom, and she and her mother seem to be just fine. So you’ll have to make do with Janine and me. Do you happen to know if she’s been fitted yet?”

  “You know how busy she is,” her mother said dismissively. “I’m sure she’ll get to it soon. I just hope she’s not too hurt about not being your Maid of Honor.”

  It was a reflex of her mother’s, Whitney thought, to deflect unwelcome subjects with a witch’s shaft of guilt. “Clarice is my closest friend, and Janine’s had eighteen years to get used to it. What with the vibrancy of her own life, I’m sure this is merely a leaf scar.”

  The veiled sarcasm was delivered so blandly that Anne hesitated before saying, “As your mother, I thought it would be nice, that’s all.”

  “Well,” Whitney rejoined philosophically, “at least Clarice isn’t fat. I just worry she’ll look so stunning that I’ll be overshadowed.”

  “Clarice is lovely,” her mother said stiffly. “But she’s hardly Janine.”

  Lost in their sparring was any assurance from Anne that Whitney would not be overshadowed. It was as though her mother saw Clarice as her oldest daughter’s competition and, by extension, her own. But it was childish for Whitney to fault her, she chided herself: Anne had appeared at every school event, and was unfailing in her praise of Whitney’s attributes and achievements. It was not her mother’s fault she took such pride in Janine that her attention to Whitney felt, by comparison, like an expression of her unstinting sense of duty.

  Perhaps reading her misstep in Whitney’s eyes, Anne sat on the edge of her bed. “It means so much to me that you chose to marry here. It’s where I spent the happiest years of my life—at least before I met your father, and had you girls. I was an innocent, of course, but life seemed perfect.” Her voice filled with nostalgia and regret. “My mother was alive then. I remember getting up with her each morning, just the two of us. It was her favorite time—dew still on the grass, the greenness around us fresh with newborn sun. It was a time, she often told me, when anything was possible.” Perhaps, Whitney thought, this was where she had gotten her own love of morning. With genuine feeling, she said, “I wish I could have known her.”