The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [140]
“So,” Beller asked, “what did you mark for research preference? First choice.”
“Cancer,” Leonard said.
Beller and Jaitly seemed amused by this.
“That’s what everyone marked,” Jaitly said. “Like ninety percent.”
“So what happened was,” Beller explained, “Cancer was so oversubscribed they ended up giving a lot of people their second or third choice.”
“What are we?”
“We’re Genomics and Bioinformatics,” Beller said.
“I put that last,” Leonard said.
“Really?” Jaitly said, sounding surprised. “Most people put Quantitative last.”
“How do you feel about yeast labs?” Beller asked.
“Sort of partial to Drosophila, myself,” Leonard said.
“Too bad. Yeast are going to be our world for the next nine months.”
“I’m just happy I’m here,” Leonard said, with genuine sincerity.
“Sure, it’ll look great on our résumés,” Jaitly said, snatching an appetizer from a passing tray. “And the creature comforts are seriously large. But even at a place like this you can get stuck in a research backwater.”
Like all of the other RFs, Leonard had been hoping to get assigned to the team of a well-known biologist, maybe even Dr. Malkiel himself. A few minutes later, however, when their team leader appeared, Leonard squinted at his nametag without recognition. Bob Kilimnik was a man in his forties with a loud voice and a disinterest in maintaining eye contact. The tweed coat he was wearing looked too hot for the weather.
“So, the gang’s all here,” Kilimnik said. “Welcome to Pilgrim Lake Lab.” He waved one arm, indicating the lavish dining hall, the white-coated waiters, and the rows of tables set with bunches of wildflowers. “Don’t get used to it. This isn’t what research is usually like. Usually it’s take-out pizza and instant coffee.”
Administrative assistants began herding everyone in to dinner. After they sat down, the waiter informed them that it was lobster night. In addition to Madeleine, Beller’s wife, Christine, and Jaitly’s girlfriend, Alicia, were at the table. Leonard was gratified to see that Madeleine was better-looking than both of them. Alicia lived in New York, and complained that she had to drive back right after dinner. Christine wanted to know if anybody else had a bidet in their unit, and what was the deal with that. While the appetizers were served and a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé made the rounds, Kilimnik asked Beller and Jaitly about various biology professors at MIT, all of whom he seemed to know personally. When the main course arrived, he started explaining the details of his yeast research.
There were a lot of possible reasons for Leonard’s inability to follow a good bit of what Kilimnik said. For one thing, Leonard was a little starstruck by the presence of Dr. Malkiel, who, as Kilimnik was talking, appeared at the end of the room. Elegant, his gray hair swept back from his high forehead, Malkiel escorted his wife to the private dining room already full of senior scientists and biomedical executives. In addition, Leonard was distracted by the elaborate table settings, and by the difficulty of eating lobster with his tremor. With his plastic bib tied around his neck, he tried to crack the claws, but they kept slipping onto his plate. He was scared to use the tiny fork to pull out the lobster tail, and finally asked Madeleine to do it for him, making the excuse that, as a West Coaster, he was used to eating crab. Despite all this, at first Leonard kept up with the conversation. The benefits of working with yeast were obvious.