Love Story by Erich Segal Page A

eyes shining in it.
    So I quickly sat very close.
    ‘It doesn’t hurt, Ollie, really,’
she said. ‘It’s like falling off a cliff in slow motion, you
know?’
    Something stirred deep in my gut.
Some shapeless thing that was going to fly into my throat and make me
cry. But I wasn’t going to. I never have. I’m a tough bastard,
see? I am not gonna cry.
    But if I’m not gonna cry, then I
can’t open my mouth.
    I’ll simply have to nod yes. So I
nodded yes.
    ‘Bullshit,’ she said.
    ‘Huh?’ It was more of a grunt
than a word.
    ‘You don’t know about falling off
cliffs, Preppie,’
    she said. ‘You never fell off one
in your goddamn life.’
    ‘Yeah,’ I said, recovering the
power of speech. ‘When I met you.’
    ‘Yeah,’ she said, and a smile
crossed her face. ”Oh, what a falling off was there.’ Who said
that?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I replied.
‘Shakespeare.’
    ‘Yeah, but who?’ she said kind of
plaintively. ‘I can’t remember which play, even. I went to
Radcliffe, I should remember things. I once knew all the Mozart
Köchel listings.’
    ‘Big deal,’ I said.
    ‘You bet it was,’ she said, and
then screwed up her forehead, asking, ‘What number is the C Minor
Piano Concerto?’
    ‘I’ll look it up,’ I said.
    I knew just where. Back in the
apartment, on a shelf by the piano. I would look it up and tell her
first thing tomorrow.
    ‘I used to know,’ Jenny said, ‘I
did. I used to know.’
    ‘Listen,’ I said, Bogart style,
‘do you want to talk music?’
    ‘Would you prefer talking
funerals?’ she asked.
    ‘No,’ I said, sorry for having
interrupted her.
    ‘I discussed it with Phil. Are you
listening, Ollie?’
    I had turned my face away.
    ‘Yeah, I’m listening, Jenny.’
    ‘I told him he could have a
Catholic service, you’d say okay. Okay?’
    ‘Okay,’ I said.
    ‘Okay,’ she replied.
    And then I felt slightly relieved,
because after all, whatever we talked of now would have to be an
improvement.
    I was wrong.
    ‘Listen, Oliver,’ said Jenny, and
it was in her angry voice, albeit soft. ‘Oliver, you’ve got to
stop being sick!’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘That guilty look on your face,
Oliver, it’s sick.’
    Honestly, I tried to change my
expression, but my facial muscles were frozen.
    ‘It’s nobody’s fault, you
preppie bastard,’ she was saying. ‘Would you please stop blaming
yourself!’
    I wanted to keep looking at her
because I wanted to never take my eyes from her, but still I had to
lower my eyes, I was so ashamed that even now Jenny was reading my
mind so perfectly.
    ‘Listen, that’s the only goddamn
thing I’m asking, Ollie. Otherwise, I know you’ll be okay.’
    That thing in my gut was stirring
again, so I was afraid to even speak the word ‘okay.’ I just
looked mutely at Jenny.
    ‘Screw Paris,’ she said suddenly.
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘Screw Paris and music and all the
crap you think you stole from me. I don’t care, you sonovabitch.
Can’t you believe that?’
    ‘No,’ I answered truthfully.
    ‘Then get the hell out of here,’
she said. ‘I don’t want you at my goddamn deathbed.’
    She meant it. I could tell when Jenny
really meant something. So I bought permission to stay by telling a
lie:
    ‘I believe you,’ I said.
    ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Now
would you do me a favor?’ From somewhere inside me came this
devastating assault to make me cry. But I withstood. I would not cry.
I would merely indicate to Jennifer - by the affirmative nodding of
my head - that I would be happy to do her any favor whatsoever.
    ‘Would you please hold me very
tight?’ she asked.
    I put my hand on her forearm -
Christ, so thin - and gave it a little squeeze.
    ‘No, Oliver,’ she said, ‘really
hold me. Next to me.’
    I was very, very careful - of the
tubes and things - as I got onto the bed with her and
put my arms around her.
    ‘Thanks, Ollie.’
    Those were her last words.

22
    Phil Cavilleri was in the solarium, smoking his nth