Free Love Story by Erich Segal Page A

quietly, ‘Love means not ever having to say you’re
sorry.’
    I climbed up the stairs to where she
was sitting.
    ‘I’d like to go to sleep. Okay?’
she said.
    ‘Okay.’
    We walked up to our apartment. As we
undressed, she looked at me reassuringly.
    ‘I meant what I said, Oliver.’
    And that was all.

14
    It was July when the letter came.

    It had been forwarded from Cambridge
to Dennis Port, so I guess I got the news a day or so late. I charged
over to where Jenny was supervising her children in a game of
kickball (or something), and said in my best Bogart tones: ‘Let’s
go.’

    ‘Huh?’
    ‘Let’s go,’ I repeated, and
with such obvious authority that she began to follow me as I walked
toward the water.
    ‘What’s going on, Oliver? Wouldja
tell me, please, I continued to stride powerfully onto the dock.
    ‘Onto the boat, Jennifer,’ I
ordered, pointing to it with the very hand that held the letter,
which she didn’t even notice.
    ‘Oliver, I have children to take
care of,’ she protested, even while stepping obediently on board.
    ‘Goddammit, Oliver, will you
explain what’s going on?’
    We were now a few hundred yards from
shore.
    ‘I have something to tell you,’ I
said.
    ‘Couldn’t you have told it on dry
land?’ she yelled.
    ‘No, goddammit,’ I yelled back
(we were neither of us angry, but there was lots of wind, and we had
to shout to be heard).
    ‘I wanted to be alone with you.
Look what I have.’
    I waved the envelope at her. She
immediately recognized the letterhead.
    ‘Hey - Harvard Law School! Have you
been kicked out?’
    ‘Guess again, you optimistic
bitch,’ I yelled.
    ‘You were first in the class!’
she guessed.
    I was now almost ashamed to tell her.
    ‘Not quite. Third.’
    ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Only third?’
    ‘Listen - that still means I make
the goddamn Law Review’ I shouted.
    She just sat there with an absolute
no-expression expression.
    ‘Christ, Jenny,’ I kind of
whined, ‘say something!’
    ‘Not until I meet numbers one and
two,’ she said.
    I looked at her, hoping she would
break into the smile I knew she was suppressing.
    ‘C’mon, Jenny!’ I pleaded.
    ‘I’m leaving. Good-bye,’ she
said, and jumped immediately into the water. I dove right in after
her and the next thing I knew we were both hanging on to the side of
the boat and giggling.
    ‘Hey,’ I said in one of my
wittier observations, ‘you went overboard for me.’
    ‘Don’t be too cocky,’ she
replied. ‘Third is still only third.’
    ‘Hey, listen, you bitch,’ I said.
    ‘What, you bastard?’ she replied.
    ‘I owe you a helluva lot,’ I said
sincerely.
    ‘Not true, you bastard, not true,’
she answered.
    ‘Not true?’ I inquired, somewhat
surprised.
    ‘You owe me everything,’ she
said.
    That night we blew twenty-three bucks
on a lobster dinner at a fancy place in Yarmouth. Jenny was still
reserving judgment until she could check out the two gentlemen who
had, as she put it, ‘defeated me.’
    Stupid as it sounds, I was so in love
with her that the moment we got back to Cambridge, I rushed to find
out who the first two guys were. I was relieved to discover that the
top man, Erwin Blasband, City College ‘64, was bookish,
bespectacled, nonathletic and not her type, and the number two man was Bella Landau, Bryn Mawr
‘64, a girl. This was all to the good, especially since Bella
Landau was rather cool looking (as lady law students go), and I could
twit Jenny a bit with ‘details’ of what went on in those
late-night hours at Gannett House, the Law Review building. And
Jesus, there were late nights. It was not unusual for me to come home
at two or three in the morning. I mean, six courses, plus editing the
Law Review, plus the fact that I actually authored an article in one
of the issues (‘Legal Assistance for the Urban Poor: A Study of
Boston’s Roxbury District’ by Oliver Barrett IV, HLR, March,
1966, pp. 861-908).
    ‘A good piece. A really