Come to the Edge_ A Memoir Part 2

One night toward spring, John met us in the lobby at 1040, and we ambled down to the Met for Frisbee golf. The fountains were drained, and there was no one around, just the smooth stretch of cement lit by streetlamps. But that night, the 84th Street Gang had come west of their territory. They cornered us and we scattered. Some slipped across to the awning of the Stanhope. Others ran up the museum steps and hid in the alcoves behind the columns. I ducked behind the nearest car next to the handsome boy we called Doc. He was scared and kept smiling at me.

"Eighty-fourth Street," he mouthed, his eyes huge. "They have have the Frisbee." the Frisbee."

I peered around the b.u.mper. Two of our own were there, demanding the Frisbee back. John was one of them.

"What are they doing, they're crazy," I hissed.

"It's not even their disc!" Doc agreed.

We heard voices rise, then-a flash of silver as the biggest one started forward and began to swing a large metal bar dressed in chains. Just as swiftly, from the other side of Fifth, two Secret Service men jumped from the shadows, flipped their badges, and the Frisbee was ours. As they trudged back to York Avenue, the 84th Street boys must have scratched their heads.

"Do you think they know?" I asked.

"Know what?" Doc said.

"That it was John. Do you think they're talking about it now? The night we were busted by the Secret Service for stealing John Kennedy's Frisbee. I mean, how often does that that happen?" happen?"

Doc stood up by the car and dusted himself off. "Nah." He thought for a second and began to chuckle. "But I sure hope Mrs. O doesn't find out about this!"

I found the piece of paper Beryl Durham had given me in my ballerina music box under loose change and hair ties, and that spring I enrolled in Basic Technique for Acting at HB Studio. On Sat.u.r.day mornings, I trekked to the Village, and as soon as I reached the top of the subway steps on West Twelfth Street, I took a deep breath. Unlike the tidy, canyoned avenues uptown, buildings here were low-slung, and I could see the sky. It felt like home.

I took a zigzag route west, past redbrick town houses, past Abingdon Square and the drug dealers who held court in the muddy playground to the south. Following the siren scent of the river, I turned right on Bank, and a few doors down from Greenwich Street, I came to a nondescript building where people clad in black were smoking in the outside stairwell.

Most actors in New York City find themselves at HB Studio at one point or another. It was founded by Viennese director Herbert Berghof and his wife, actress and master teacher Uta Hagen. Her book Respect for Acting Respect for Acting would become my bible for the next five years. Annotated with exclamation points and underlined words, it went everywhere with me. would become my bible for the next five years. Annotated with exclamation points and underlined words, it went everywhere with me. In the moment, objective, inner monologue In the moment, objective, inner monologue. I was learning a new language, and it was revelatory.

Edward Morehouse taught the teenage cla.s.s, based on Uta's ten object exercises. A man of meager praise, he berated his students, often imitating them to make his point. He could be cruel, but he was always right, and I was hungry to learn. One Sat.u.r.day after my third attempt at the fourth wall exercise, I waited at the front of the room for the usual onslaught of invectives. To my shock and that of the other students, there were none. As I walked back to my seat, his silence rang louder than any applause, and my face was hot with pride. I felt something stick that day, not just in my mind, but in my body. It was like a compa.s.s finding north for the first time; the needle would waver, but it knew where it was meant to land.

Soon he invited me to join his Adult Scene Study cla.s.s. There, in a dark room off an airshaft, I found a world I loved as much as parties and prowling the streets with my friends. I may have had little in common with the others in the cla.s.s-for one thing, I was much younger-but for the first time I found a kind of fraternity, the odd bond that exists among actors, those who are most themselves when they are someone else and most alive when they are telling stories in the words of others.

Perhaps it was the sober way Beryl Durham had said, "You won't get what you need here," but I knew not to speak of it at Brearley. I'd been in Seventeen Seventeen magazine twice by that time-first in a two-page "makeover," where I had a crush on the photographer but was horrified by the amounts of pink lip gloss and purple eye shadow, and then modeling Victorian lingerie for an article t.i.tled "Becoming a Woman." This was a sort of infamy. Some girls smiled hard but behind the smile was, magazine twice by that time-first in a two-page "makeover," where I had a crush on the photographer but was horrified by the amounts of pink lip gloss and purple eye shadow, and then modeling Victorian lingerie for an article t.i.tled "Becoming a Woman." This was a sort of infamy. Some girls smiled hard but behind the smile was, Why her and not me? Why her and not me? An English teacher remarked with such sourness I thought it might cause permanent facial damage, "You might want to consider Professional Children's School." I kept it secret, along with the dance cla.s.ses at Alvin Ailey and Luigi's and the agents who sent me out on auditions. An English teacher remarked with such sourness I thought it might cause permanent facial damage, "You might want to consider Professional Children's School." I kept it secret, along with the dance cla.s.ses at Alvin Ailey and Luigi's and the agents who sent me out on auditions. You won't get what you need here You won't get what you need here.

The fall before he turned sixteen, John went to Phillips Andover, a newly coed boarding school in Ma.s.sachusetts, and I saw less of him. When I did see him, it was with a mix of last year's troops and some of his new Andover friends. We'd meet up at 1040 and listen to Exile on Main Street Exile on Main Street in his bedroom before heading out for the night. Invariably, with his fist as a mike, John would do his Jagger imitation. No longer a follower, he was loud, confident, all over the place. But I began to notice that when he talked to me, he got quiet. in his bedroom before heading out for the night. Invariably, with his fist as a mike, John would do his Jagger imitation. No longer a follower, he was loud, confident, all over the place. But I began to notice that when he talked to me, he got quiet.

My friend Margot and I were walking down Lexington Avenue after school one day, the street thick with bus fumes and grade school boys juggling pizza slices and their book bags. Margot linked her arm in mine, and we steered our way through the sea of blue blazers. She was trying to hold back a secret. "I have good gossip," she finally confessed. "John's in love. It's serious." She had it from a friend who'd heard it from a friend who knew someone who lived on his hall at Andover.

We stopped for a moment, the boys jostling around us, and sighed. Not because we pined for him-we had boyfriends and were consumed by those dramas-but because we were like so many East Side private school girls: We felt protective. Despite the bravado, we knew his softness, and we didn't want anyone breaking his heart. He was one of ours.

Lucky girl, we said. Very lucky Very lucky.

Mike Malkan's was on Seventy-ninth Street near Second Avenue, a long tunnel of a bar with red banquettes and a stellar jukebox-the old-fas.h.i.+oned kind, with the 45s that drop down and a selection that went on forever. You could put coins in as soon as you got there and leave without ever hearing your song, the lineup was that long. And there was no dance floor. Dancing was verboten. It was a place to go not so much for excitement or to drink, although they served at thirteen, but because you could always count on finding someone you knew there. And on the weekends the boarding schools let out, it was jammed.

On one of those nights, I slithered through the crowd to the back room. I was alone. The year before, I would never have thought of walking in without a friend in tow, both of us flipping our hair a block or two before so it was fluffy by the time we entered the bar, but by eleventh grade, I was more confident. I'd stopped wearing beige corduroys and clogs all the time and had on boots, a cut velvet skirt I'd found at a thrift shop near HB, and an old cashmere V-neck of my mother's that I pulled low. As if Donna Summer played continually in my head, I moved through the bar at half speed, swaying as I went. I imagined myself provocative.

The Collegiate boys had gathered around a table in a corner booth by the divider, mai tais and rum and c.o.kes all around. I crushed in next to my boyfriend. "Hey, babe." His words made me feel grown-up. He kissed me and I melted. John and his friend Wilson sat across the table. They were down from Andover on a break. Both had gotten cuter since I'd last seen them. John was taller, not as gawky. He had turned sixteen.

Some song came on, and I had to dance. "Uncool," my boyfriend scolded. "Be cool. Chill" came the chorus from his friends. They never wanted to dance, not even when there was a dance floor, not even at parties where everyone else was dancing. They were more into getting stoned and watching Sat.u.r.day Night Live Sat.u.r.day Night Live and and The Twilight Zone The Twilight Zone, and it had begun to bore me. John leapt up. "I'll dance with you," he said, grinning. He grabbed my hand, and together we cut a rug in the skinny aisle of the bar. We made it almost to the end of whatever Motown song it was before one of the waiters stopped us. "No dancin', guys. Mike says."

We slid back down to our drinks, laughing like bad children. "Hey." My boyfriend jabbed me underneath the table with his elbow. I took a beat, peered down my shoulder at him, and, summoning all my ESP/witch powers, transmitted, Pay attention, babe Pay attention, babe. With a whip of hair, I turned back to Wilson and John, whose heads were now bopping to the Stones. "Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd!" they sang.

He's fun, I thought. He doesn't need to be cool-he just is He doesn't need to be cool-he just is. He had a way of looking up at you-his eyes barely out from under his bangs, his chin tucked in-and for a second I caught him watching. I didn't drink the White Russian in front of me; I picked up the sticky swizzle stick and twirled it over my lips. And another thing And another thing, I told myself as my boyfriend's arm staked itself around my neck, he's a great dancer he's a great dancer.

Mrs. Ona.s.sis had glittering Christmas parties then. They were always the first of the season-an easy mix of her friends and family, with Caroline's cla.s.smates from Harvard and John's from boarding school and the city. I delighted in seeing my cohorts on their best behavior, scrubbed and suited-the Boys especially. They were glamorous affairs, coats taken at the door and hors d'oeuvres pa.s.sed, but without the pretension or stuffiness that accompanied many grown-up parties. Mrs. Ona.s.sis welcomed all of John's and Caroline's friends as if they were her own. While the adults tended to stay in the living room, with the sofas and the long terraced windows that looked out over the park, we stood crowded near the bar in the brightly lit gallery. Kennedy cousins and Caroline's smart friends milled about, and a buzz raced through the rooms.

Many years later, at one of these parties, I would sit in the corner of the living room with Mike Nichols sharing a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries. We had just been introduced by John's mother, but as the party swirled around us, he confessed that he had fallen madly in love, hadn't thought it possible, couldn't believe his luck. The light was dim, and I listened, transfixed by his giddy praise of an anonymous dulcinea. I was twenty-six, but he seemed years younger, a troubadour in thick gla.s.ses. And the next spring, he married Diane Sawyer.

These were happy parties and, as we grew older, markers of how we had changed.

In 1978, Mrs. Ona.s.sis threw a huge bash for John's and Caroline's eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays. I had graduated in the spring and was a freshman at Brown University. The party fell on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, just days after the fifteenth anniversary of President Kennedy's a.s.sa.s.sination. There were c.o.c.ktails at 1040, and after that 150 guests were invited to Le Club, a private discotheque half a block west of Sutton Place. Photographers and press were camped out in the cold on East Fifty-fifth Street. My mother had lent me her floor-length opera cape, and I felt very grand and grown-up. The black wool stiffened, a creature unto itself, and I ignored the chill that seeped through the arm slits and up the wide skirt to the flimsy silk dress I wore.

One of the reporters corralled me before I joined the bottleneck at the door. He wore a cotton b.u.t.ton-down under his tweed jacket, but he didn't look cold, and his thin hair was matted. He told me he was an old friend of Jackie's. There'd been an awful mistake, and his name wasn't on the guest list and would I please give her his card. He shuffled slightly as he took one out of a leather case and handed it to me.

"She'll sort it out-we go way back." Something caught his attention, and for a moment he looked past me. "Friend of Caroline or John?" he said, turning back. I noted the patrician drawl.

"John." He scribbled my name on a small flip-pad.

"What's it like inside? How many people?"

"I'm just on my way in," I said, edging back.

"You'll give her the card, then?" he shouted when I reached the door. "We're old friends!"

Past the velvet ropes, I was enveloped by a coc.o.o.n of colored light, thumping ba.s.s, and the crush of revelers. Unlike in the vast s.p.a.ces of Xenon or Studio 54, with drag queens on roller skates and columns of strobe and neon lights, the ambience here was exclusive men's club. Tapestries were hung on dark-paneled walls with moose heads and baronial swords, and in the center there was a small dance floor.

I pushed through the crowd, looking for my friends. I was ecstatic to be home for Thanksgiving break in the city I loved. The Collegiate boys and the rest of the New York band I had wandered with for three years were there among the family members and celebrities to toast Caroline and John. Some I hadn't seen since graduation. It would be a warm reunion that night, and although we didn't know it then, a swan song of sorts. The party was one of the last times we would all be together. Interests and alliances ending, we had begun to scatter, settling in at universities across the country. Some friends.h.i.+ps, by chance or effort, would remain; others would fall away. After the first weeks of college and the lonely freedom of being a blank slate, this night was an embrace. Later, on the dance floor, I looked around at the faces of my friends. A skein of shared history bound us, and we were there to celebrate John.

Before I could reach my friends, I found myself face-to-face with his mother. I'd never spoken to her alone before and was surprised that she was standing by herself. Out of nervousness or because I was faithful to a fault, I began to tell her about the man outside-after all, it was possible possible that he was her friend. She glanced at the card but didn't take it. Instead, her voice, suspended in a captivating intake of breath, finally landed with, "Oh...that's all right. Are you having fun?" Her kindness was such that she brushed aside my naivete and the obvious fact that she had no idea who the man was, or if she did, his name wasn't on the list for a reason. Someone else would not have been as generous, and I was put at ease. She quizzed me about college-she wanted to know all about Brown. Did I think John would like it, she asked, her eyes wide. I knew he'd been held back at Andover-"postgraduate year" was the polite term. We talked about the party. "It's all going that he was her friend. She glanced at the card but didn't take it. Instead, her voice, suspended in a captivating intake of breath, finally landed with, "Oh...that's all right. Are you having fun?" Her kindness was such that she brushed aside my naivete and the obvious fact that she had no idea who the man was, or if she did, his name wasn't on the list for a reason. Someone else would not have been as generous, and I was put at ease. She quizzed me about college-she wanted to know all about Brown. Did I think John would like it, she asked, her eyes wide. I knew he'd been held back at Andover-"postgraduate year" was the polite term. We talked about the party. "It's all going so so well, don't you think?" She stood close to me and it felt like a confidence. well, don't you think?" She stood close to me and it felt like a confidence.

Together, we turned to watch John in the middle of the dance floor, a long white scarf flung about his neck. We agreed that he was having fun, and I saw her face light up. Remember this Remember this, I thought. Remember this moment, that one day you might be forty-eight and filled, as she is, with this much joy and wonder Remember this moment, that one day you might be forty-eight and filled, as she is, with this much joy and wonder.

I had seen him earlier that fall at a party in Cambridge. What are you doing here? we both said, although I knew he was visiting his girlfriend, Jenny, at Harvard. Weeks later, he showed up at my dorm at Brown. "I'm here to see you," he said coyly. I looked at him for a second, then decided it was a tease. When I told him I already had plans that night, he admitted "Well...I'm here for my interview, too."

Jenny was with him at Le Club. Funny and smart, with a mane of blond hair and bedroom eyes, she sported an offhanded s.e.xiness that anyone would have envied if she weren't so approachable. I liked her. They look happy They look happy, I thought wistfully. Things had ended that spring with the Frisbee whirler. He was miles away in Santa Cruz, and I knew I would never fall in love again. To make up for it, I danced all night.

Later, there was cake and sparklers, a speech by John's uncle and applause. By midnight, the older crowd began to clear out. We held on till four. The Boys, like lords of the manor, drank stingers out of goblets and smoked cigars with their legs propped up on the banquettes. Some of them even danced.

Outside, the street was deserted except for the press. They scrambled from their cars as soon as the doors to Le Club opened. I left with the first wave to find cabs. We crossed the street and began to walk to First Avenue. Then a shock of light and shouting. I turned back to see an older friend of John's I didn't know take a swing at a photographer. A fight broke out. John tried to stop it, to hold his friend back, but soon he had joined the scuffle and fell out of sight behind a car. Where's John? Is he all right? Can you see him? Where's John? Is he all right? Can you see him?

Some of the Collegiate boys ran to get help. I hid behind a parked van. There was no rescue this time, no Secret Service to step from the shadows, his detail having ended two years before.

Then someone came bounding from the darkness with news. "Hey, it's all cool. John and Jenny caught a cab with Wilson on Second. They're on their way to 1040. Everyone's fine."

Like a movie, it ended as it should have-with a getaway and the enemy vanquished. There were high fives and smiles of relief as we said our goodbyes and split cabs north, west, and south.

The next day when I woke up, my father asked about the party. "Did you have fun? It's in all the papers." He smiled and tossed the Daily News Daily News in front of me. John in dark gla.s.ses. The silk scarf, the drunken buddy, the comely girlfriend. in front of me. John in dark gla.s.ses. The silk scarf, the drunken buddy, the comely girlfriend.

I was confused. It appeared sordid in black and white. I had been standing across the street when the picture was taken. I had seen his arms outstretched, the light flas.h.i.+ng off his aviators, but I didn't recognize this. I stared at the photograph for a moment, curious, before pus.h.i.+ng the paper aside.

"That's not how it was," I told my father. "That's not everything."

That October there was a spike of heat in the Northeast, a brilliant backlash of summer. Providence, a city that would soon be bundled and galoshed-held captive by snow and rain for the next five months-was drinking in whatever warmth it could get. At Brown, on one of the highest of the seven hills that overlook the city, coats and sweaters were abandoned, cla.s.ses were cut, and stereo speakers, perched high in open windows, blared the Allman Brothers and Grateful Dead, the drum solos drifting down through the air like a wild pagan call. Banners-sheets spray-painted NO NUKES/END APARTHEID NOW NO NUKES/END APARTHEID NOW in black and red-were draped over dorm walls of brick and limestone. in black and red-were draped over dorm walls of brick and limestone.

On the Green, the patch of calm surrounded by the oldest buildings on campus, dogs chased after tennis b.a.l.l.s and Frisbees or lounged in the still-bright gra.s.s. On the Faunce House steps, theater majors b.u.mmed cigarettes, and aspiring novelists and semioticians sparred over Derrida. Rich foreign students congregated in the middle of the terrace: the men, with Lacostes tucked tight into jeans and collars flipped high, the women, impossibly sleek, their tousled heads thrown back in charmed laughter.

Brown, one of the nation's first nonsectarian universities, was founded by Baptists in 1764. Its charter ensures religious diversity and "full, free, absolute, and uninterrupted liberty of conscience." This emphasis on intellectual freedom was sh.o.r.ed up in 1969 by student-led curriculum reforms. The New Curriculum, as it is still called, did away with distribution requirements and rigid grading, and encouraged choice and exploration. Education was placed squarely in the hands of the undergraduate. You could major in ethnomusicology or Egyptology, Portuguese or population studies, or take up gamelan or welding. And if the standard offerings didn't suit you, you could design a course that did. It was also possible to get by with doing very little, but that was rare. Most students were busy, galvanized by opportunity and sparking off one another's curiosity.

I was a junior in the fall of 1980. I had just gotten back from a trip to Ireland, but for most of the summer I'd stayed in Providence to act in three plays. In New York, I'd done commercials, but this was the first time in my life I'd cashed a paycheck for a play. And Oscar Wilde, no less. I was incredibly proud.

Soph.o.m.ore year, I'd moved out of the dorms to a rambling house on Waterman Street, five blocks east of campus, one of three student-run co-ops. There was a couch on the porch, a caricature of Nixon in one of the windows, and a king-size water bed with a sign-up sheet in the living room. My parents refused to set foot inside, proclaiming it "filthy," but I loved it. It had a measure of expressiveness and rebellion that I craved. In the bas.e.m.e.nt, a mute computer science major slept, worked, and tended to large vats of sprouts, his sole source of nutrition. For the rest of us, jobs rotated and dinners were a festive event. That night, I was in charge of cooking a vegetarian ca.s.serole for twenty.

As I crossed the Green, a knapsack slung over one shoulder, my mind was racing. The coffee from the Blue Room hadn't helped. A paper due. Lines to learn. Cooking at the co-op that night. And the dark-haired French Canadian hockey player I'd met, who took art cla.s.ses at RISD and spoke of training as if it were poetry. He slipped notes under my door that read like haiku. I, who had previously had zero interest in collegiate sports, now s.h.i.+vered in the stands of Meehan Auditorium and watched as he, outfitted like a gladiator, knocked equally well-padded men into the walls of the rink. Terrified and thrilled, I looked up at the bright banners and the fans cheering and the clean white ice below and thought, this this is performance. On a cool night, when the embers were dying in his fireplace and there was no more wood to burn, he broke a table apart-wrenched the legs off, then the top, plank by plank-to please me, to keep the flames going. But the beginnings of love were distracting, and I kept forgetting things. is performance. On a cool night, when the embers were dying in his fireplace and there was no more wood to burn, he broke a table apart-wrenched the legs off, then the top, plank by plank-to please me, to keep the flames going. But the beginnings of love were distracting, and I kept forgetting things.

I couldn't find my bike for days, then realized I'd left it outside the Rock, the main library on campus. Hoping it would still be there, I walked quickly down the corridor between two of the buildings that bordered the Green. Light and noise began to fade. I kicked the heels of my new cowboy boots along the walkway, and the wine-colored gauze skirt I wore fluttered over the cement. When the path dipped down to the more shaded Quiet Green, I saw the Carrie Tower. Redbrick and granite, it reached high into the bright sky. I loved the tower, loved walking by it, and always went out of my way to do so. The four green-faced clocks on each of the sides were worn by weather. They no longer kept time, and the bell had been removed, but the tower had a story. At its chipped base, above an iron door, the words LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH were carved into the stone, a memorial to a woman from her Italian husband after her untimely pa.s.sing almost a century before. I stopped for a moment and looked up. I wanted to be loved like that. were carved into the stone, a memorial to a woman from her Italian husband after her untimely pa.s.sing almost a century before. I stopped for a moment and looked up. I wanted to be loved like that.

When I pa.s.sed through the main gates onto Prospect Street, I spotted my bike, an old Peugeot that took me everywhere. Relieved, I bent over the wheel and tugged at the lock. Then I heard my name. A voice I knew. I looked up, squinted.

"Hey, stranger." Someone wearing white was smiling at me.

I raised the back of my hand to shade my eyes. The sun glinted off a railing.

"I was wondering when I'd run into you," he said.

John was sitting on the bottom set of steps outside the Rockefeller Library talking with a large, preppy blond guy. "Catch you later," the blond guy said when he saw me, and took off in the direction of George Street.

I sat down on the step next to him, tucking the filmy skirt under my knees. I was happy to see him. He was now in his soph.o.m.ore year, one behind me. He leaned in to hug me. His shoulders were broader. Around his neck, a shark's tooth on a string.

"It's been a while," I said, and we began to try and place when we'd last seen each other-a Little Feat concert where he'd teased me mercilessly about the Harvard guy I was with, a party in New York, his performance in Volpone Volpone the previous spring. the previous spring.

What had I done over the summer, he wanted to know. I didn't mention the French Canadian. I told him about Ireland, the double rainbow in Donegal, the pubs in Dublin, and a castle I stumbled upon near Galway Bay that turned out to have belonged to my clan hundreds of years back. Before that, six weeks of summer theater at Brown. His face lit up, and he wanted to know more. "That's cool. You seem into it," he said, adding that he wouldn't be doing any plays for a while. Something cryptic about needing to stay focused, as if the words of Shakespeare and Shaw were a sweet drug that he needed to pace himself around. He'd been in Ireland, too. Also Africa, and helping out on his uncle Teddy's presidential campaign. And Martha's Vineyard. "My mother's building a house there. You should come up sometime."

As we spoke, I searched his face. Something about him was different. In a summer, he had changed. Taller, more handsome; I couldn't put a finger on it. Maybe he was in love. Maybe it was the white garb. But he seemed at ease with himself in a way he hadn't before.

"I can't bear to be inside on a day like this." He exhaled deeply and c.o.c.ked his head to the library, a rectangle of cement and gla.s.s whose revolving doors whirred behind us. He leaned back, propping his elbows against a step, and stretched his legs. His linen pants were rumpled. I saw that he was wearing sandals, the woven kind, and that his feet were still brown.

"Where are you living?" I asked.

"Phi Psi. I pledged."

"Oh." I tried not to wrinkle my nose.

"And you?"

"Waterman Co-op."

"Huh. Tofu."

The first bell rang, and I moved toward my bike. The lock came off easily.

"I'll walk you," he said, following. "I've got time."

I crouched down and slipped the U-shaped metal bar neatly in its holder on the bottom bar of the bike. His feet. I've never seen them before I've never seen them before, I thought, and threw my knapsack in the front basket. They were elegant, and that surprised me.

I steadied the bike, and we began to walk up the uneven street, past the Van Wickle Gates, past the Carrie Tower, to the rise at the top of Prospect and Waterman.

The second bell rang, and people began darting around us.

"Well, stranger, this is where I get off. Thanks for the chivalry."

"My pleasure," he said, and with that, he slid his foot between mine, tapping lightly against the inside edge of my boot. "Nice."

As I ran up the steps of the Am Civ building late for cla.s.s, I felt a lightness and a bitter/sad tug deep in my chest. I may have chalked it up to the splendor of the day. If I'd been wiser, I would have guessed that I was a little in love with him even then. But I was twenty, and whatever I knew on that autumn-summer day was a secret to myself. And when a friend who had also known him in high school and noticed his metamorphosis from cute to Adonis later whispered, "G.o.d, he's gorgeous," I agreed. "Yes," I said, "but I wouldn't want to be his girlfriend." I had seen the way some women looked at him, sharp sideways glances my way simply because he was talking to me. I'd heard about the campus groupies. Besides, I was with the French Canadian, and I thought it would be forever.

We didn't see each other much that fall. By winter, I'd moved out of the co-op. I'd outgrown its dusty charms. A s.p.a.ce had opened up in a five-bedroom house on Benefit Street, where Poe and Lovecraft had lived. I moved into a cream-colored row house with maroon trim, molded bay windows, and a stone sundial in the backyard.

A few months after I began living there, a tall curly-haired fellow named Chris Oberbeck appeared at the front door one morning. I'd met him at hockey games through my boyfriend, and he'd been to a party at the house the night before. Impressed, he'd come to inquire about it. He was looking for a place to live for senior year, with John, who was his fraternity brother, and Christiane Amanpour, a friend of theirs who was studying journalism and politics at the University of Rhode Island. Was the house available? As it turned out, my roommates were all graduating in the spring, and Lynne Weinstein, a cla.s.smate whom I'd known from New York, would be moving in. We joined forces and the next fall John, Lynne, Chris, and Christiane moved into the house as well.

Benefit Street, with its gas lamps and cobblestones, runs northsouth partway up College Hill on Providence's East Side. It's a full mile of Federal and Victorian houses, some with plain faces open to the street and wooden fans etched above doorways, others turreted and overdone, with porticoes and pilasters. As you drive down the street, there are flashes of colored clapboard and street names like Power, Planet, Benevolent, and Angell.

By the mid-twentieth century, after major industry had left Rhode Island, the area fell into disrepair and was slated for the wrecking ball. Funds were raised, and preservation efforts began in earnest in the seventies. In 1981, Benefit Street was not quite the sw.a.n.k address it is today, but it was well on its way. Tenements and boarded-up buildings remained, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with grand homes. To me, a college student, that only added to the allure.

Our house had a maple tree out front. It was on a corner lot, built into a steep side of the Hill, and afternoons there were drenched in light. At the entrance was a lantern and tall, bra.s.s-knockered doors in glossy black. On the first floor, there was a separate apartment and an alcove. From there, the staircase spiraled up to where we lived. There was a tiny kitchen in the back that had recently been renovated and smelled of pine; a dining room, with a bust of a naked woman on the fireplace mantel, an enormous table, and our bikes resting along the walls; the landing where the phone was; and the main room, with its high parlor-floor ceilings and double bay windows. From there, you could see past the alleys and the streets to downtown-the art deco skysc.r.a.per everyone called the Superman Building, the marble dome of the State House, and just over the rooftops, parts of the red wire letters of the Biltmore sign. Upstairs, there were two large bedrooms and a bathroom. The top floor had low ceilings, a storage closet, and three smaller bedrooms.

Before we left for the summer, we chose our rooms, and because I'd lived there before, I was given first dibs. I picked a room in the back of the house, the second-largest one with a view of the garden. It had a curved wall that was stenciled at the top and a marble fireplace that didn't work. Kissy, as Christiane was called, got the master bedroom with the huge walk-in closet. John ended up in the smallest room, which had just enough s.p.a.ce for a desk and a bed, with the proviso that he and Kissy would switch the next year after the rest of us had graduated.

It was an interesting mix. Chris, a staunch Republican, was clearly headed for the financial sector, but he had a rich baritone and took voice lessons. Christiane, a few years older, was pa.s.sionate and informed. Raised in Tehran and London, she and her family had experienced the Iranian Revolution firsthand, and she was more worldly-wise than the rest of us. She also dressed with great style. No slave to fas.h.i.+on, she knew what suited her and stuck with it. Lynne was the calming element in the house. A photographer and a dancer, she knew best how to arrange the couches in the living room, and of all of us, she was the most accomplished cook.

We each brought something to the house. Chris had a talent for smoothing things over with Mrs. Mulligan, the hawkeyed mother of our absentee landlord. Kissy made sure the ch.o.r.es were done. I arrived with a box of gla.s.ses and a set of turquoise dishes that my mother didn't want anymore. Lynne contributed pans and skillets, and John's African textiles and posters brightened the living room. His stereo was in there, too, along with all our records jumbled together in big white bins.

Early on, a friend had dubbed the house "Can of Worms," predicting disaster because of the egos involved. But he was wrong. Except for some overheated political arguments and the occasions when John and Chris went food shopping and came home with hamburger meat and nothing else, all ran smoothly.

Since Lynne and I had both lived in the Brown co-ops, we suggested a similar but more simplified routine. Two people would shop once a week from a list we all contributed to, and everyone would pick a night to cook. Food tastes ran from vegetarian to total carnivore, with Chris and me on either ends of the spectrum and everyone else falling somewhere in between. Kissy's specialty was crispy Persian rice with dill and yogurt. I took my cues from the Moosewood Cookbook Moosewood Cookbook. Chris liked burgers but tried his hand at pasta. Lynne's boyfriend, Billy Straus, who ate most nights with us, excelled at all manner of trout. And Lynne taught John how to prepare tofu and even to like it. John showed the most improvement. He branched out, experimenting with a tattered copy of Cooking with Annemarie Cooking with Annemarie (Annemarie Huste had been his family's chef when he was seven), but everything he made had some variation of what he called "sauwse"-a mixture of tamari and whatever else the spirit moved him to throw in. Pretty much everyone in the house had a significant other, and we usually had a full table for dinner. (Annemarie Huste had been his family's chef when he was seven), but everything he made had some variation of what he called "sauwse"-a mixture of tamari and whatever else the spirit moved him to throw in. Pretty much everyone in the house had a significant other, and we usually had a full table for dinner.

One Sat.u.r.day, the phone rang early. I was half asleep when I answered, but was soon made alert. The man on the other end said he knew where I lived. He said he hated the Kennedys and he threatened to kill John. Before the man hung up, Lynne's boyfriend, Billy, picked up the extension upstairs to make a call, and afterward, he met me on the landing. I cried as I told him what the man had said. Should we tell John? We didn't want to upset him. We climbed the stairs to his room, but he had spent the night elsewhere.

Throughout the day, each of the roommates was let in on what had happened, until finally we stood huddled in the living room, trying to decide what to do. Go directly to the campus police? The Providence police? Wait until we could speak to John? Call Senator Kennedy's office, someone suggested. We were all worried and we argued. Then I heard the back door slam, and John bounded in, dropping his bags by the chair on the landing. He caught sight of our faces. "What's up?" he said. No one spoke, but when Chris finally did, John said not to worry. He brushed it off so easily, that, for a moment, I felt foolish for being alarmed in the first place, for not intuiting, as he had, the difference between a prank and a real threat. It was only a moment, though, and after that day, I felt more protective of him than I ever had, and, in a strange way, more in awe of his fearlessness.

That year I went to see him in plays, and he came to see me. One exception was an arty production of The Maids The Maids, in which I was briefly, but starkly, nude. In character In character, I said. I was applying to graduate acting programs that winter and had just finished a summer intensive at ACT, the American Conservatory Theater, in San Francisco. There was mild campus shock over my display of skin, but John seemed truly scandalized and refused to see the play.

He was awkward in the princely parts but shone in the grittier role of Big Al in David Rabe's In the Boom Boom Room In the Boom Boom Room. I remember watching him in the dark of the small black box theater. With a buzz cut and lumbering gait, he was transformed, channeling pa.s.sion and anger into a riveting performance. It was the side I'd seen in high school that faced down gangs and took on the paparazzi.

Theater had become a kind of bond between us. James O. Barnhill, now theater professor emeritus, was my acting teacher and my friend-a southern gentleman who spoke in koans. He knew I was friends with John, and in the winter of John's freshman year, he asked me to invite him to join us for lunch at the Faculty Club. As he did with all those who were under his wing, Jim often took me out for meals (usually at Thayer Street's International House of Pancakes), and when we sat down, he would wave his hand with a sudden dramatic twist and announce, "Order anything you like! Anything at all." The real nourishment of these meetings was not the waffles, but the tales of his life and his interest in mine. He often spoke of India, where he had traveled extensively and had many friends. Once, he pulled out a Vedic astrology chart, yellowed and creased, to show me what had come to pa.s.s. He prodded me to nurture more than just my mind. And the Faculty Club was reserved for occasions when he had something significant to discuss.

In the paneled dining room bright with white linen, Jim spoke to us about the theater. In his roundabout way, he tried to encourage John. When lunch was over, John took off on his bike, and I stood with Jim on the corner of Benevolent. He asked that I encourage John as well and he said that whatever he did with his life, theater would strengthen his leaders.h.i.+p skills and give him confidence. "He's our prince, you know," he said, with a weary smile and the signature flip of his wrist. He seemed to be aware that John would not become an actor, that despite his talent, it was not something he could choose.

I didn't argue with my mentor, but I was sure of something else. From where I sat, I believed my friend was free to choose whatever he set his heart on.