The next morning, Whitney went looking for Ben.
He was not at the guesthouse, nor anywhere on the grounds. When she tried the catwalk, the waiter who had intervened the night before was caulking a powerboat. “I’m trying to find Ben Blaine,” she told him.
Looking up from the boat, he said, “Ben’s not here today. I’m his brother, Jack.”
They could not be less alike, Whitney thought. Jack’s demeanor was solemn and gentle, his long face was somewhere between handsome and homely, and his air of watchfulness reminded Whitney that he had grown up in a violent home. Within the family, Ben had told her, Jack had been the peacemaker. “I’m Whitney Dane,” she said. “Thank you for last night. My fiancé wasn’t at his best.”
Jack nodded, watching her with perceptive eyes. “So that’s what it was.”
To Whitney, the ambiguous remark implied an impression she wanted to dispel. “It was a misunderstanding. Afterward, Peter felt terrible.”
His expression, briefly skeptical, reverted to modesty. “I saw what happened, that’s all. It seemed like I could help.”
“You did.” Whitney hesitated, then asked, “Is Ben out sailing today?”
Jack climbed from the boat. “Good guess,” he responded with a trace of humor. “My brother had urgent business on the water.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
Standing in front of her, Jack gave Whitney a curious look. “After noon, I’d suppose. Should I pass on a message?”
“Not really. I just wanted to see him for a moment. I feel badly about last night.”
The faint smile at the corners of Jack’s mouth did not reach his eyes. “I guess the ‘misunderstanding’ was about you.”
“It was about boys, not me. Peter had a little too much wine, and forgot his manners.”
“A bad idea. My brother can be touchy.”
For Whitney, the admonition evoked an image of Ben ruining his father’s face and teeth. “Ben has a certain idea of himself,” Jack continued more easily, “and he wants what he wants. He takes it hard when other people fool with that. I’d give him a day or two. If not a year or two.”
There were multiple ways of interpreting this, Whitney thought—a concern for Peter; a warning to her; or the resentment of a gentler, less ambitious man for the younger brother who seemed to scorn him. Whatever the case, Jack was not as dispassionate about Ben as he might prefer to seem. “Then I’m glad you were there,” she told him. “With all that testosterone flying around, I wanted to duck for cover.”
A brief smile creased Jack’s face. “Story of my life,” he said dryly. “The voice of reason. I appreciate this moment of recognition.”
Whitney detected more truth in the words than their tone implied. It struck her that she had asked nothing about Jack himself, and knew very little from Ben. “What do you do when you’re not protecting people from Ben?”
“I’m a woodworker. Chairs, desks, armoires, dining room tables, even doors and mailboxes. Whatever people need, as well as I can make it.”
“Sounds like you enjoy it.”
“I do.” Jack’s voice became more animated. “When I finish a piece—a desk, say—it’s something that never existed before, unique to me, that becomes a part of other people’s lives. When I used to paint, or sculpt, sometimes they’d just sit there. Now I put my craft into furnishings people use.”
While Ben aspired to be a writer, Whitney reflected, Jack was already an artist. Though the reasons surely lay deep in childhood—and in their opposing reactions to a violent father—their distance from each other seemed regrettable. “Is there a place that sells your pieces?” she asked.
“I’ve got a shop in Vineyard Haven. Come in sometime, and I can show you how they’re made.” He hesitated. “If you like, you can bring your friend Clarice.”
“Do you know her?”
“Only from catering. But you two always sit together.”
With some embarrassment, Whitney realized that she had never noticed him before, and guessed this was also true of Clarice. “I’m sure she’d like that,” she heard herself saying. “What time is good for you?”
A new warmth surfaced in Jack’s eyes. “Any afternoon,” he assured her. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Whitney thanked him and left, wondering if Ben had gone sailing to avoid her.
That night, Whitney’s parents watched NBC cover the eve of the Republican convention. Joining them, Whitney heard a commentator note that George Wallace, the independent who had made his name as a segregationist, was polling at fifteen percent, even higher in the South. The danger for Republicans, he explained, is that Wallace will peel away crucial votes among Southerners and blue-collar voters leery of the civil rights movement and the supposed breakdown in law and order. . . .
“Wallace is a carnival barker,” Charles groused. “He’s running as the last firewall between the barbarians and civilization. But all he can really do is deliver the election to Humphrey and all the people he excoriates. If he were serious, he’d get out of Nixon’s way.”
“What about black voters?” Anne asked him.
“Hopeless,” Charles said gloomily. “Unfortunately, they’re in thrall to the Democrats. To win we need the Wallace people.”
The unspoken subtext, Whitney supposed, was that Nixon could appeal to their fears without the crassness with which Wallace discomfited more genteel whites. Then the cheerful visage of Ronald Reagan appeared, speaking to a bank of microphones. “Of course I’d like a crack at the Presidency,” he said. “I don’t want people thinking I’m some pebble-pushing actor.”
The moment conjured Whitney’s sense of the surreal. From childhood, she remembered him as the host of GE Theater, pitching appliances and half-hour melodramas with the same unvarying enthusiasm. Even as governor of California, Reagan seemed to her more like an entertainer than a potential president, combining breeziness with a folksy demeanor exhumed from some bygone era of vaudeville. “He’s a coming man,” her father told Anne. “But he has to wait his turn.”
To Whitney, the remark had a familiar, faintly proprietary note, as though Reagan were a promising salesman who, with the right patronage and seasoning, might aspire to greater things. Then she thought of Ben’s evocation of Robert Kennedy in Indiana, telling a crowd of grieving blacks that their most hopeful leader had been shot and killed. “I think I’ll go for a walk,” she told her parents.
Ben’s light was on in the guesthouse. When Whitney knocked, he opened the door, beer in hand. At a glance, she saw that his television was turned to the same coverage her parents watched, now focused on a crowd of Republican delegates. Following her gaze, he remarked, “That’s the whitest bunch of people I’ve seen since yesterday evening.”
Whitney ignored this. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what? You didn’t do anything. And if you’d wanted to apologize, you could have done that last night.”
Whitney flushed. “That would’ve only made things worse. Peter saw us together, and misunderstood.”
“I don’t know why Peter should worry. He’s the one holding a royal flush. Though he seems to have forgotten that your father dealt it to him.”
“He’s really not like that,” Whitney insisted. “Last night was completely out of character.”
“Does he have any?” Ben inquired in an indifferent tone. “Then why did I notice an inverse relationship between your fiancé’s accomplishments and his sense of entitlement? When Robert Kennedy told me to do something, there was a reason for it, and he was never rude. Of course he wasn’t some empty sport coat out of Love Story. Good luck with him, Whitney.”
Whitney crossed her arms. “You really are angry, aren’t you? Or else you wouldn’t try so hard to be insulting. Before, it just came naturally.”
“You’re right,” Ben snapped. “On a better day I’d have mentioned that your beau ideal is marrying you to get out of the draft. Only a moron couldn’t see there are better reasons to marry you than that. Too bad you and your father can’t see it, either.”
Whitney felt the words cut to her core. “You have no idea why Peter’s marrying me,” she said angrily, “and never will.” Abruptly, she stopped herself. “Please tell me what we’re doing, Ben. I’m lost.”
Ben stared at her, and then she saw him expel a breath. “The ersatz Ryan O’Neal struck a nerve. A shame you had to be there. But that’s what you get for maintaining an acquaintanceship no one wants you to have.” His voice softened. “I’m sorry, Whitney. If it helps, you can take my diatribe as a compliment. I think one slipped in somewhere.”
Whitney shook her head. “You know what’s so sad to me? I look at all of us—Peter, and my family, and you—and what I see is good people with the faults life gave them. I met your brother today, and thought the same thing. But you’re so hurt and angry all you can see is black and white.”
Ben raised a hand, a glint of humor in his eyes. “Stop, Whitney, please. It’s way too late for group therapy, and I don’t know the words to ‘Kumbaya.’ I’m not taking your boyfriend sailing, or renting a tuxedo for the wedding. You’ll have to settle for a punch bowl from Tiffany’s.”
“I don’t need one,” she retorted, then felt Ben’s jibe ignite an impulsive thought. “And you needn’t wait for the wedding. My dad’s inviting you to dinner.”
He studied her, angling his head. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Not really.” Caught in her own trap, Whitney forged on. “He feels awkward about the other night, and grateful you bothered to pull me out of the ocean. I also told him that if you two were civil about politics, you might even like each other. He didn’t grow up with a trust fund, either.”
For once, Ben’s expression was devoid of irony or humor. “I’m not sure this is a good idea, Whitney.”
She had said as much to her father. But, whether from hope or incaution, she had gone too far. “Not if you’re determined to see him as the great class enemy, and my mother as the lady of the manor. But if you keep an open mind, you might find each other interesting.”
The glint reappeared in his eyes. “Are some black kids from Roxbury coming too?”
“We asked them, of course,” Whitney said tartly. “But they’re tied up playing basketball.”
Silent, Ben studied her face. More quietly, he asked, “So what do you want me to do, Whitney?”
Despite herself, Whitney realized that she wanted her parents to like him. “To show up for dinner. More or less on time.”
“Not fashionably late?” Ben said in an ironic tone tinged with resignation. “That’s what my parents always taught me.”