we had—this generation can have no idea of the innocence of mine. When we left the apartment, I was under the confused impression that I had been seduced—an assumption that wasn’t corrected until two years later, when I was. Ben must have been under the same misapprehension, because he insisted on taking me back to the dorm, ten blocks away, in a cab. And on the way he asked me for a date—for Saturday night.
“And when Saturday night came, he surprised me by taking me to the Baxter. Unlike the campus joints where we’d always gone for Coke or coffee, the Hotel Baxter was downtown, dull and semiofficial; couples went there dutifully the minute they got engaged, for a splurge a la carte. Poor Ben! It was only his way of saying that if necessary he’d do right by me, but I was as insulted as if he’d bought the ring without asking me. It seemed humiliating that only sin had got me to the Baxter—and besides, I wasn’t dressed for it.
“To this day those starlight-roof places always make me think of babies born out of wedlock, for of course that’s what was on Ben’s mind. He ordered Alexanders—in those days that’s what you started girls drinking on—and when I said mine made me feel positively sick he turned white, not knowing I’d said it only because at home in Ontario my grandfather had taught us early to disdain anything but Scotch. ‘What—what about Banjo?’ he said.
“Banjo was one of those terrible whimsies that lovers have, like those letters beginning ‘Dear Poodles…’ that stockbrokers always seem to get held up for; you and your Stamford boy probably shared something of the same. Ben was always plying me with anecdotes I didn't yet know were cliché, and once—after he’d told me how Isadora Duncan wrote Bernard Shaw suggesting what a paragon any child of theirs would be—we’d spent an afternoon concocting a paragon of our own. It was to have Ben’s teeth, my hair, and—since this was still a very feminist era— both our brains. We’d dubbed it Ben-Jo, corrupted in time to Banjo.
“And for some reason that wasn’t clear to me at the Baxter, his choosing that way to ask me infuriated me. Why did he always have to remove himself from everything, from the most important things, by putting them into quotes!
“‘Oh you!’ I said. ‘You’re so literary you make me spit!’ Then I stood up, burst into tears, and we went home.
“Extraordinary, isn’t it? There it was, a warning out of my own mouth, and I passed it by, the way you can speed to your death right past a warning from Burma-Shave.
“During the next few weeks Ben scarcely left my side. Vacation was well under way, but by this time I was glad I hadn’t had the money to go home; I couldn’t have borne being at home feeling like Hardy’s Tess. Day after day went by and—it must have been nervous strain or self-hypnosis—I still couldn’t assure Ben we weren’t going to have a baby. Luckily I had term papers to do, and Ben had his thesis; we spent most of our time in the library or walking by the river, holding hands numbly but not kissing. I was finding out how the world both heightens and darkens under a single, consuming anxiety; normality goes on rattling around you, and your trouble is like a goiter in your gullet that no one else can see. Ben and I couldn’t bear to be out of each other’s sight; it was such a relief to be with someone who knew. At the same time, I couldn’t help feeling a certain excitement at being one with several heroines of history. Once, when we were down by the river, I referred darkly to An American Tragedy and, to my surprise, Ben gave me a dreadful look and dropped my hand. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that he might be having heroic feelings of his own. I wasn’t afraid of them, but I was rather miffed at the idea of his enjoying them, and for the first time I wondered whether it would be a bore to marry someone whose reference books were the same as
“And when Saturday night came, he surprised me by taking me to the Baxter. Unlike the campus joints where we’d always gone for Coke or coffee, the Hotel Baxter was downtown, dull and semiofficial; couples went there dutifully the minute they got engaged, for a splurge a la carte. Poor Ben! It was only his way of saying that if necessary he’d do right by me, but I was as insulted as if he’d bought the ring without asking me. It seemed humiliating that only sin had got me to the Baxter—and besides, I wasn’t dressed for it.
“To this day those starlight-roof places always make me think of babies born out of wedlock, for of course that’s what was on Ben’s mind. He ordered Alexanders—in those days that’s what you started girls drinking on—and when I said mine made me feel positively sick he turned white, not knowing I’d said it only because at home in Ontario my grandfather had taught us early to disdain anything but Scotch. ‘What—what about Banjo?’ he said.
“Banjo was one of those terrible whimsies that lovers have, like those letters beginning ‘Dear Poodles…’ that stockbrokers always seem to get held up for; you and your Stamford boy probably shared something of the same. Ben was always plying me with anecdotes I didn't yet know were cliché, and once—after he’d told me how Isadora Duncan wrote Bernard Shaw suggesting what a paragon any child of theirs would be—we’d spent an afternoon concocting a paragon of our own. It was to have Ben’s teeth, my hair, and—since this was still a very feminist era— both our brains. We’d dubbed it Ben-Jo, corrupted in time to Banjo.
“And for some reason that wasn’t clear to me at the Baxter, his choosing that way to ask me infuriated me. Why did he always have to remove himself from everything, from the most important things, by putting them into quotes!
“‘Oh you!’ I said. ‘You’re so literary you make me spit!’ Then I stood up, burst into tears, and we went home.
“Extraordinary, isn’t it? There it was, a warning out of my own mouth, and I passed it by, the way you can speed to your death right past a warning from Burma-Shave.
“During the next few weeks Ben scarcely left my side. Vacation was well under way, but by this time I was glad I hadn’t had the money to go home; I couldn’t have borne being at home feeling like Hardy’s Tess. Day after day went by and—it must have been nervous strain or self-hypnosis—I still couldn’t assure Ben we weren’t going to have a baby. Luckily I had term papers to do, and Ben had his thesis; we spent most of our time in the library or walking by the river, holding hands numbly but not kissing. I was finding out how the world both heightens and darkens under a single, consuming anxiety; normality goes on rattling around you, and your trouble is like a goiter in your gullet that no one else can see. Ben and I couldn’t bear to be out of each other’s sight; it was such a relief to be with someone who knew. At the same time, I couldn’t help feeling a certain excitement at being one with several heroines of history. Once, when we were down by the river, I referred darkly to An American Tragedy and, to my surprise, Ben gave me a dreadful look and dropped my hand. It hadn’t occurred to me until then that he might be having heroic feelings of his own. I wasn’t afraid of them, but I was rather miffed at the idea of his enjoying them, and for the first time I wondered whether it would be a bore to marry someone whose reference books were the same as
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