Chapter 13 Thirteen

We would like to celebrate Mr. Barrett's 60th birthday on March 6th (Saturday) at 7:00 pm Thank you for your visit Oliver Barrett takes third couple's bow Dover Village, Ipswich, MA please give feedback "How is it?" Jennifer asked. "Is this still a question?" I replied.I am engaged in extracting the essentials of an important case in criminal law, the "Perceval Indictment."Jenny was waving the invitation in front of me, trying to get my attention. "Oliver, I think it's about time," she said. "What time is it?" "You know exactly what I mean," she replied. "Do you insist that he kneel and crawl here?"

I went on with my business and let her make me up. "Ollie, he reached out to you on his own initiative!" "Bullshit, Jenny. The envelope is from my mother." "You said you didn't even look at it!" She almost yelled. Well, even if I glanced at it earlier.Maybe I forgot.You know, I'm concentrating on preparing the abstract for the "Percival Indictment", and the exam is coming soon.The problem is she shouldn't be nagging me. "Think about it, Ollie," she said, her tone now pleading. "The old man Bi Jing is sixty years old. When the day you finally want to reconcile, who can guarantee that he is still alive?"

I told Jenny categorically that reconciliation is absolutely impossible, can you please let me continue to use my gong.She sat down quietly, huddled in a corner of the cushion where my feet rested.Although she didn't make a sound, I realized right away that she was staring at me.I look up. "Someday," she said, "if your son Oliver Fifth gets mad at you—" "His name won't be Oliver, you can rest assured!" I shouted at her.Usually, when I raise my voice, she is not to be outdone.But this time she didn't do it. "Look here, Al, even if we named him Bozo the Clown, that kid would still hate you because you were a big sports star at Harvard. By the time he was a freshman, you'd probably be Go to Supreme Court Justice!"

I told her that our son will never hold a grudge against me.So she asked me: Why are you so confident?I can't come up with evidence.Anyway, I know our son will never hold a grudge against me.As for why, I can't say.But Jenny deduced an absurd conclusion from this, she said: "Your father loves you too, Oliver. He loves you as you'll love Bozo. But you Barretts are all haughty and competitive as hell and always feel like you have a grudge against each other that you'll never let go of for life. " "It wouldn't happen without you," I said jokingly. "Yes," she said.

"That's the end of the case!" I said, after all, I was the husband and the head of the family.My eyes went back to the "Percival Indictment" and Jenny stood up too, but then she remembered: "The matter of 'please give back' is not over yet." I express this opinion: a top student of Radcliffe College who majors in music writes a polite letter to decline, probably without expert guidance! "Look here, Oliver," she said, "I may have lied, or deceived somebody, in my life. But I've never done anything with the intention of making someone unhappy. I can't do that." .”

To tell the truth, she can only make me unhappy at this moment, so I politely ask her to deal with this "reply please" as she likes, as long as the content of the reply is that we don't go, but Removal is not as cold as hell.After finishing speaking, I will return to the "Percival indictment". "What's the number?" I heard her ask softly.She has picked up the phone. "Can't you write a note?" "I'll lose my nerve in a minute. What's the number?" I told her, and then I turned my attention to Percival's appeal to the Supreme Court.I didn't listen to Jenny's call.Rather, I tried not to listen.She was in this room after all.

"Oh, sir, good evening!" I heard her say.The bastard answered the phone?Shouldn't he be in Washington on weekdays? The "New York Times" recently had a character profile that clearly said so.The damn news is getting worse and worse. How long does it take to say "no"? Why has Jennifer been on the phone for so long? Saying "no" won't take so much time. "Ollie?" She covered the microphone with one hand. "Oli, do you have to say no?" I nodded to express that I must refuse, and waved my hand to urge her to finish this mess quickly.

"I'm 120,000 times sorry," she said over the phone. "I mean, we're 120,000 sorry, sir..." us!Does she have to drag me into it?Why can't she go straight to the point and hang up the phone after finishing speaking? "Oliver!" She covered the microphone again, but spoke very loudly again. "He's very sad, Oliver! Can you sit there and watch your father's heart break?" If she hadn't been in that state of mind, I'd have explained to her again that stones can't be broken, and don't transfer her Italian-Mediterranean misconceptions about parents to the cliffs of Mount Rushmore.But now she is distraught.And it messed me up too.

"Oliver," she begged me, "could you just say something?" talk to him?Jenny must be crazy! "I mean just say 'hello', huh?" She handed me the microphone, trying to hold back tears. "I'll never talk to him. Never," I said, flatly. Now she was crying.There was no sound at all, just tears streaming down her face.And then she's... she's begging. "For my sake, Oliver. I never begged you for anything. This time I beg you." There are three of us.All three were waiting (somehow I always had the feeling that my father was there too).What are you waiting for?wait for me?

I can't do it. Didn't Jenny understand that her request was impossible?If it's anything else, I'm willing to do it, no matter what, it's just this one. Doesn't she understand that?I kept my eyes on the floor, my heart was in such a state of confusion, I just shook my head to express my resolute refusal, but at this moment, I heard Jenny scolding me in a low voice, but I couldn't hold back my anger. I have never heard her use such a Speak loudly: "You're a heartless bastard!" After finishing speaking, she picked up the microphone and said something to my father:

"Mr. Barrett, Oliver wants you to understand, although his behavior is a bit special..." She paused to catch her breath.She was sobbing all the time, so it was hard for her to speak.I was so stunned that I had to let her finish what she said was "entrusted to convey". "Actually, Oliver still loves you very much," she said before she hung up the phone in a hurry. I really can't give a rational explanation for what I did in the next instant.All I can say is a moment of insanity.No, I have no reason to defend myself.My actions are never forgiven. I snatched the phone from her, unplugged it, and threw it—across the room. "Damn you, Jenny! Why don't you get the hell out of me!" I stood there motionless, as if I had suddenly turned into a beast, gasping for breath.Big!What kind of ghost has possessed my body?I turned to look at Jen. But she is gone. I mean, she's gone, because I didn't even hear her step down the stairs.God, she must have run out the second I grabbed the phone.Her coat and scarf are still there.I felt the pang of not knowing what to do, but even more so, the pang of realizing that I had made a mess. I look everywhere. In the law school library, I looked here and there between the rows of students sitting hard, looking around, and turning around at least five or six times.Although I didn't say a word, I knew that my eyes were so tense and my face was so frightening, and that whole ghostly place was startled by me.Never mind! But Jenny wasn't there. I searched the common room, the snack bar, of the Harkness communal mess.Then he ran to Agassiz Hall at Radcliffe College at full speed and searched everywhere.nor.I run around, wishing my legs could catch up with the frequency of my heartbeat. Paine Hall? (The cursed name 1 is simply ironic!) Downstairs is the piano practice room.I know Jenny.She used to bounce and bang on the damn keys when she was angry.is not that right?But what about when she's scared to death? 1 "Paine" is the same as the English word "pain". On both sides of the long corridor are the practice rooms, and it is really maddening to walk through this place.Pieces of Mozart and Bartok, Bach and Brahms leaked from the doors of each piano room, mixing into an inexplicable howl of ghosts and wolves. Jenny, it must be here! From a piano room came the sound of strumming (out of anger?) a Chopin prelude.I involuntarily stopped at the door and hesitated for a while.That song was played very badly: always stopping and starting, starting and stopping, full of mistakes.At one pause, I heard a girl's voice muttering, "Bullshit!" It must be Jenny.I banged the door open. A Radcliffe schoolgirl is playing the piano.She looked up.It was an ugly broad-shouldered hippie, and she looked annoyed at me breaking in. "Hey, what are you up to?" she asked. "Nothing, nothing," I said emphatically and closed the door again. I went to try my luck in Harvard Square.The Pamplona cafeteria, the Tommy Arcade, even the Hayes Beek Pavilion - where a lot of the art people go - looked everywhere.Not even her shadow. Where did Jenny go? The subway was empty by then, but if Jenny had left home and gone straight to Harvard Square, she would have caught the subway to Boston, where she could have taken the coach to Cranston. It was almost one o'clock at midnight when I put a quarter and two dimes into the slot.I made long-distance calls in a payphone booth next to the Harvard Square kiosk. "Hello, is that Phil?" "Uh..." he said sleepily. "Who is it?" "It's me—Oliver." "Oliver!" He was audibly taken aback. "Is something wrong with Jenny?" he asked quickly.Since he asked me, doesn't that mean Gianni isn't with him? "Oh, nothing, Phil, nothing." "Thank goodness. How are you, Oliver?" After making sure that his daughter was fine, he immediately resumed that easy-going tone, as if he had never been awakened from a deep sleep. "Very well, Phil. Very well. I'm very well. Let me ask you, Phil, has Jenny been in touch with you lately?" "Not much, you ghost girl," he replied in a strangely calm tone. "What did you say, Phil?" "Damn it, this ghost girl should call me more often. You know, I'm not an outsider." If it is possible for a person to be both reassuring and alarmed at the same time, that's how I felt at the time. "Is she with you?" he asked me. "Ok?" "Put Jenny on the phone; I'm going to swear at her." "No, Phil." "Oh, she's asleep? Since she's sleeping, don't disturb her." "Oh," I said. "Hey, boy, listen," he said. "What's up?" "Cranston is so far away that you can't even come on Sunday afternoon? Eh? Or I'll go up to your place, Oliver." "Oh no, Phil. Here we go." "when?" "Find a Sunday." "'Find one'? Don't play such tricks on me. A dutiful child never says 'find one' but 'this.' Just this Sunday, Oliver." "Okay. Just this Sunday." "Four o'clock. But drive carefully. Is that all right?" "That's a deal." "Next time you make a long distance call you can ask me to pay the bill, shit." He hung up the phone. I stood there blankly, in the dark Harvard Square, like guarding an isolated island in the vast sea, not knowing where to go or what to do next.A black man came up to me and asked me if I wanted a "shot"1.I replied absently, "Thank you, no." 1 Refers to drugs made into injections. I no longer run.Think about it, what's the point of rushing back to an empty home?It was so late that I was numb - more of it from fear than from the cold (although, to be honest, it wasn't warm either).When I was a few yards from the door of the house, I vaguely saw a man sitting on the steps.Most likely my eyes were blurred, because the black shadow didn't move at all. But that's really Jenny. She sat on the top step. I was so exhausted that I made no fuss; at the same time I was so relieved that I couldn't speak.I wished in my heart that she had a ball-tipped club or something in her hand, and came and beat me up. "Jane?" "Ollie?" The two of us spoke quite peacefully, so we couldn't even guess what emotion was contained in each other's tone. "I forgot my key," said Janney. I stood under the steps, not daring to ask how long she had been sitting.I just realized that I had wronged her too much. "Jenny, I'm sorry—" "Don't mention it!" She interrupted my apology, and then said calmly: "Love, you never have to say sorry." I went up the steps to where she sat. "I'm going to sleep. Is that all right?" she said. "Row. We went upstairs to our apartment.As we undressed, she looked at me reassuringly and said: "Oliver, what I just said was the truth." And so it went.