On the way to the dining room, Clarice touched Ben’s arm, murmuring words of consolation. Her gesture made Whitney feel chastened yet strangely proprietary; she alone was aware of how furious Ben must be at the waste of his friend’s life. But whether from good manners, or because his feelings went too deep, he seemed to have willed himself past anger. When Anne seated them, Whitney found herself facing Ben and Clarice, with her parents at opposite ends of the table. As though to compensate for the pall he had cast, Ben told Anne, “This is a beautiful place, Mrs. Dane. When I was a kid, I used to look up at it from the water, and wonder who lived here.”
He had chosen not to mention catering parties at the house, Whitney noted. “We’re very lucky,” her mother replied. “My father bought it years ago, before people from New York realized how wonderful the Vineyard is.” Smiling, she corrected herself. “At least in the summer.”
Turning to Clarice, Ben asked, “So this is where you and Whitney met?”
Clarice glanced at her friend fondly. “When we were four, and my parents brought me over to play with the shy but precocious girl next door. Since that day, we’ve been best friends, one of the few parental fix-ups that ever worked.”
“If we could have stolen Clarice from her family,” Charles put in comfortably, “we would have. One of my specialties is mergers and acquisitions.”
Ben gave Whitney a quick, ironic glance; at once, she knew he was thinking about her father’s role in Peter’s life. In an interested tone, he asked Charles, “How is your business, Mr. Dane? I really don’t know much about it.”
As the housekeeper served the first course—a fish stew accompanied by a chilled Meursault—Charles answered, “No reason why you should, Ben—most people don’t. Actually, it’s a little bumpy right now. With all this unrest and political uncertainty, investors are somewhat skittish.”
Ben took a sip of wine. “Do you mean about the election?”
“At the risk of boring you, politics is part of it,” Charles replied. “But if our country settles down, investors will settle down as well. Where else will people put their money but America? We certainly need them to—they’re the people who create jobs for everyone else.” His voice became animated, “Take your father, for example. He makes his living because other people with decent jobs can afford to order lobster tails at restaurants. Why? Because capital creates business, which creates employment. So there’s a direct correlation between my clients’ investments and your father’s livelihood.”
Ben gave him an inscrutable look. “I don’t think Dad has thought about it that much.”
Charles smiled indulgently. “He would if Americans stopped eating lobsters. The economy is a seamless web, the pattern of which can’t be rent without damaging many millions of people outside the so-called investor class. No doubt your father has more immediate concerns. But I’d argue that he has a direct interest in policies that encourage capital formation and leave free enterprise to work its will.”
Ben gave him a wry look in return. “I’ll mention that to him, sir. Before he becomes a Keynesian.”
Whitney found herself smiling—whatever his private thoughts, and however much alcohol he’d consumed, Ben retained enough self-control not to set off conversational landmines. “Speaking of politics,” Charles went on, “and given the tragedy that befell Senator Kennedy, who is your alternative choice for president?”
Ben’s face clouded. “No one.”
Watching him, Whitney hoped her father would leave it there. Instead, Charles asked with the same politeness, “At this point, isn’t Hubert Humphrey your party’s best hope of winning?”
Ben took a deeper swallow of wine. “Winning what?” he inquired softly. “When he signed on with LBJ, Humphrey put his manhood in a blind trust. Now he’s using hair dye and rouge to play at being young, which makes him look like he belongs in a coffin. The only sign of life is that he can’t stop talking.” Contempt seeped into his voice. “If there are two sides to every question, Humphrey will find three. Assuming you can locate a thought in that army of words searching vainly for an idea.”
At the end of the table, Anne’s eyebrows raised, a signal that the conversation was stretching the bounds of politesse. But Whitney perceived that Ben no longer cared; instead of impairing his power of speech, liquor appeared to unleash it. “A fairly scathing dismissal,” Charles said pointedly.
Quickly, Whitney interposed, “Ben was very committed to Bobby.”
“That must have been terribly hard,” her father acknowledged. “I’m sure it’s still painful. But the world keeps on spinning, and you young people have more at stake than anyone. I gather you oppose the war, Ben.”
“Yes,” Ben answered tersely.
“Then what about Eugene McCarthy? Like you and Robert Kennedy, he favors withdrawal from Vietnam.”
Stop, Whitney silently implored her father. Across the table, Ben drew a breath. “McCarthy,” he said with a cool precision, “is the candidate of draft dodgers—the comfortable white kids who discovered their idealism the day LBJ abolished draft deferments, and they suddenly imagined getting blown to pieces like Johnny did. Their reasons for caring aren’t mine.”
As Charles stiffened, Whitney felt herself cringe—intentionally or not, Ben’s statement implicated Peter. Clarice watched Ben fixedly now, less with approval or disapproval than in seeming fascination with observing a new and unusual species of male. With the same incisive swiftness, Ben continued, “McCarthy was too lazy and self-satisfied. When did he ever stand up for minorities or the poor?” Glancing at Clarice and Whitney, he asked, “Can either of you think of any black kids or Latinos for McCarthy?”
Assuming that you know any, he did not have to add. When Clarice hesitated, Whitney softly answered, “No.”
“To play devil’s advocate,” Charles said to Ben, “maybe your man knew where the voters are. Hispanics helped him win California . . .”
“Bobby also visited illiterate blacks in the South, migrant workers in California, and Indians on reservations. Where are the votes in that, Mr. Dane? McCarthy’s so-called crusade was to keep white kids from showering in some cruddy barracks with the people Kennedy fought for. If the war keeps going, half those patriots will be showering in Canada, or weaseling out some other way.”
Charles fixed him with a gelid stare. “I grant you your idealism, Ben, if not your opinion of others. But was Kennedy really such an idealist? For all your scorn of McCarthy, he’s the one who chose to take on Lyndon Johnson. Bobby didn’t jump in the race until McCarthy showed him it was safe.”
Ben met his eyes. With a terrible quiet, he said, “Wasn’t all that safe, was it?”
Anne seemed to flinch. “Perhaps . . .”
“I should answer your husband’s question, Mrs. Dane.” Ben paused, reining in his emotions with visible effort. “For an egotist like McCarthy, piggybacking on the antiwar movement was his only chance to become a national figure. But it was Kennedy who drove Johnson from the race . . .”
“So you don’t think he was ruthless?” Charles persisted. “Even though in the 1950s he kept company with the other McCarthy, Joe, whom liberals despised as a red-baiter?”
“Not for long,” Ben shot back. “And Joe McCarthy had company. Richard Nixon for example, who made his career by smearing liberals as communists.”
Clammy with tension, Whitney regretted withholding from Ben her father’s relationship with Nixon. But neither she nor Clarice had seen anyone—much less a young person—challenge Charles Dane in such a sustained and relentless way. Leaning forward, Charles said in a louder voice, “You don’t think Nixon grew? To many, he’s a seasoned man who’ll restore sound judgment to the White House.”
Ben took a last swallow of wine. “To many others,” he countered succinctly, “he’s a morally bankrupt striver . . .”
“Then why,” Charles cut in, “has he risen from the political dead to attract such broad support?”
“Because he’s a tool of the rich. If he didn’t exist, our ruling class would have to invent him, just like they have with Ronald Reagan.”
Biting off his words, Charles retorted, “The rich, as you call them, are a tiny minority of Americans. Someone else has to vote for him.”
“True enough. That’s why Nixon is pandering to racists who hate the civil rights laws and people like my father who blame ‘welfare queens’ for how their life has gone. The rich who back Nixon don’t care.” Ben paused, then seemed unable to stop himself. “After all, what’s a poor black woman to someone who spends more on one dinner at a fancy restaurant in Manhattan than she has to feed and clothe her kids for a month? Nothing. Because to those people it isn’t about what they owe the country, but what the country owes them. The privilege to be even more like themselves.”
Even in her dismay, this struck a chord in Whitney. Desperate to divert her father, she said, “Ben has a point, Dad. The only way I learned how people in Roxbury lived was to go there. A lot of my friends still don’t have a clue.”
Charles hesitated, plainly nettled, yet given pause by Whitney’s intrusion. “Well,” he said to Ben, “at least we both can hope that if Nixon wins, he’ll find a way to conclude the war. Better than nothing, yes?”
“Yes,” Ben said simply. “But Nixon won’t end the war until affluent kids can’t find enough safe havens to keep them from getting shot at. Then maybe Nixon will start paying the underclass to fight our wars, and the better-off can resume their life as armchair warriors, supporting the troops over cocktails.”
Charles’s face darkened. “The soup is getting cold,” Anne said pleasantly but firmly, “and the main course is on its way. So the political discussion will have to end.” Glancing at Ben, she added, “Though I must say the commentary has been interesting.”
Ben smiled at her. “I hope so,” he said with equal politeness. “Isn’t that what you invited me for?”
The rest of the evening was strained but uneventful, with Anne and Clarice drawing the others into clever and mildly diverting conversation about the wedding, memories of other summers, and a favorite subject of Charles’s—the fortunes of the New York Yankees—in which Clarice feigned a credible interest. Perhaps Whitney only imagined that her friend was playing to Ben as well as her father.
At the dinner’s conclusion, Ben thanked Whitney’s parents graciously enough, leaving without Charles’s usual offer of a postprandial snifter of Armagnac. Whitney walked him to the door, hoping for a quiet word. “Well,” he said with sardonic resignation, “I certainly helped your father make his point, didn’t I?”
Whitney looked at him intently. “Not the way he wanted. He never should have mentioned Bobby.”
Ben shrugged. “Again, not your fault. I could have avoided it by keeping my mouth shut. But maybe he knew I wouldn’t.” He paused. “You’re also apologizing for another man in private, yet again. Someday, Whitney, you’ll have to figure out who you are.”
Turning, Ben left her there.