Love Story / История любви. Эрик Сигал
Читать онлайн.| Название | Love Story / История любви |
|---|---|
| Автор произведения | Эрик Сигал |
| Жанр | |
| Серия | Abridged Bestseller |
| Издательство | |
| Год выпуска | 2019 |
| isbn | 978-5-907097-51-3 |
I guess my father needs to hear the phrase as much as a fish needs water: “Yes, sir.”
At about eleven-thirty, I walked him to his car.
“Anything I can do, son?”
“No, sir. Good night, sir.”
And he drove off.
Yes, there are planes between Boston and Ithaca, New York, but Oliver Barrett III chose to drive.
Not that those many hours at the wheel could be taken as some kind of parental gesture. My father simply likes to drive. Fast. I have no doubt that Oliver Barrett III was going to break his speed record, set the year previous after we had beaten Cornell and taken the title.
I went back to the motel to phone Jenny.
It was the only good part of the evening. I told her all about the fight and I could tell she enjoyed it. Not many of her wonky musician friends either threw or received punches.
“Did you at least total the guy that hit you?” she asked.
“Yeah. Totally. I creamed him.”
“I regret I didn’t see it. Maybe you’ll beat up somebody in the Yale game, huh?”
“Yeah.”
I smiled. How she loved the simple things in life.
4
“Jenny’s on the downstairs phone.”
This information was announced to me by the girl on bells[39], although I had not identified myself or my purpose in coming to Jenny’s dorm that Monday evening. I quickly concluded that this was good for me. Obviously the “Clifeif ” who greeted me read the Crimson and knew who I was. Okay, that had happened many times. More significant was the fact that Jenny had been mentioning that she was dating me.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”
“Too bad about Cornell. The Crime[40] says four guys attacked you.”
“Yeah. And I got the penalty. Five minutes.”
“Yeah.”
The difference between a friend and a fan is that with the latter you quickly run out of conversation.
“Jenny off the phone yet?”
She checked her switchboard, replied, “No.”
Who was Jenny talking to? Some musical wonk? It was not unknown to me that Martin Davidson, conductor of the Bach Society orchestra, considered himself to have a franchise on Jenny’s attention[41]. Not body; I don’t think the guy could wave more than his baton. Anyway, I would put a stop to this usurpation of my time.
“Where’s the phone booth?”
“Around the corner.”
I walked into the lounge area. From afar[42] I could see Jenny on the phone. She had left the booth door open. I walked slowly, casually, hoping she would catch sight of me – my bandages, my injuries – and she would slam down the receiver and rush to my arms. As I approached, I could hear fragments of conversation.
“Yeah. Of course! Absolutely. Oh, me too, Phil. I love you too, Phil.”
I stopped walking. Who was she talking to? It wasn’t Davidson – there was no Phil in any part of his name. I had long ago checked him out in our Class Register: Martin Eugene Davidson, 70 Riverside Drive, New York, High School of Music and Art. His photo suggested sensitivity, intelligence and about fifty pounds[43] less than me. But why was I bothering about Davidson? Clearly both he and I were denied by Jennifer Cavilleri for someone to whom she was at this moment blowing kisses into the phone!
I had been away only forty-eight hours, and some bastard named Phil had crawled into bed with Jenny!
“Yeah, Phil, I love you too. Bye.”
As she was hanging up, she saw me, and without blushing, she smiled and waved me a kiss. How could she be so twofaced?
She kissed me lightly on my unhurt cheek.
“Hey – you look awful.”
“I’m injured, Jen.”
“Does the other guy look worse?”
“Yeah. Much. I always make the other guy look worse.”
I said that as ominously as I could, sort of implying that I would punch out any rivals who would creep into bed with Jenny while I was out of sight and evidently out of mind[44]. She grabbed my sleeve and we started toward the door.
“Night, Jenny,” called the girl on bells.
“Night, Sara Jane,” Jenny called back.
When we were outside, about to step into my MG[45], I put the question as casually as I could.
“Say, Jen…”
“Yeah?”
“Uh – who’s Phil?”
She answered calmly as she got into the car: “My father.”
I wasn’t going to believe a story like that.
“You call your father Phil?”
“That’s his name. What do you call yours?”
Jenny had once told me she had been raised by her father, a baker, in Cranston, Rhode Island. When she was very young, her mother was killed in a car crash. She had told me all this explaining why she had no driver’s license. Her father, in every other way “a truly good guy” (her words), was incredibly superstitious about letting his only daughter drive.
“What do you call yours?” she asked again.
I had been so distracted that I hadn’t heard her question.
“My what?”
“What term do you use when you speak of your father?”
I answered with the term I’d always wanted to use.
“Sonovabitch.[46]’
“To his face?” she asked.
“I never see his face.”
“He wears a mask?”
“In a way, yes. Of stone. Of absolute stone.”
“Come on – he must be proud as hell. You’re a big Harvard jock.”
I looked at her. I guess she didn’t know everything, after all.
“So was he, Jenny.”
“Bigger than you?”
I liked the way she enjoyed my athletic qualities. But I had to shoot myself down by giving her my father’s.
“He rowed single sculls[47] in the 1928 Olympics.”
“God,” she said. “Did he win?”
“No,” I answered, and I guess she could tell that the fact that he was sixth in the finals actually afforded me some comfort.
“But what does he do to qualify as a sonovabitch?” Jenny asked.
“Make me,” I replied.
“Beg pardon?”
“Make me,” I repeated.
Her eyes widened like saucers. “You mean like incest?” she asked.
“Don’t give me your family problems, Jen. I’ve got enough of my own.”
“Like
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слитное написание son of a bitch – сукин сын