The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [197]
There was something erotic about the atmosphere of the hot apartment. Everybody had given in to sweating visibly. A few girls were wearing tank tops braless, and Adam Vogel, sitting on the couch, was rubbing an ice cube against his neck. Dan told Madeleine to get a drink and lurched away.
Madeleine didn’t follow Leonard into the bedroom. She felt like not worrying about him for a few minutes. Instead, she joined Kelly at the drinks table, which was lined with Jim Beam bottles, Oreo cookies, glasses, and ice. “Purple Rain” was playing on the stereo.
“There’s only bourbon,” Kelly said.
“Anything.” Madeleine held out a glass. She took an Oreo and began nibbling it.
Before she even turned around, Pookie Ames descended on her from the kitchen.
“Maddy! You’re back! How was the Cape?”
“It was great,” she lied.
“It wasn’t bleak and depressing in the winter?”
Pookie wanted to see her ring, but barely looked at it when Madeleine showed her. “I can’t believe you’re married,” she said. “That is so retrograde.”
“I know!” Madeleine said.
“Where’s your boyfriend? I mean, husband?”
It was impossible to tell from Pookie’s face how much she knew.
“He’s here somewhere,” Madeleine said.
Other friends elbowed in to see her. She kept hugging people and telling them that she was moving to the city.
Pookie began telling a story. “So I’m waitressing at Dojo’s, and last night this customer calls me over and goes, ‘I think there’s a rat in my sausage.’ And I look—and there’s a tail sticking out the end. Like, the whole rat was cooked inside.”
“Oh, no!”
“And one of the perks of the job is you get to eat there for free, so.”
“That is so gross!”
“But wait. After that, I brought the rat sausage over to my manager. Because I didn’t know what to do. And he goes, ‘Tell the customer, no charge.’”
Madeleine started to enjoy herself. The bourbon was so sweet it tasted like an alcoholic form of Coke. It was nice to be around people she knew. It made her feel that the decision to move to New York was the right one. The isolation at Pilgrim Lake might have been part of the problem. She finished her drink and poured herself another.
As she turned from the bar, she noticed a decent-looking guy checking her out from across the room. She’d been feeling so nurse-like and desexualized lately that this came as a welcome surprise. She met his eyes for a moment before looking away.
Kelly came up and whispered, “Everything O.K.?”
“Leonard’s in the bedroom.”
“At least he came.”
“He’s driving me crazy.” Immediately, she felt guilty for saying this, and softened it. “He’s just really tired. It was sweet of him to come.”
Kelly leaned in again. “Dan Schneider is plying me with liquor.”
“And?”
“I’m pliable.”
For the next half hour Madeleine circulated around the party, catching up with people. She kept expecting Leonard to reappear. After another fifteen minutes, when he still hadn’t, she went to check on him.
The bedroom was full of mission furniture and Shakespeare-themed etchings. Leonard was standing by the window, talking to a guy who had his back turned. Madeleine was already through the door before she realized it was Mitchell.
There were probably people it would have been more awkward to run into with Leonard, but at that moment Madeleine couldn’t think of who they might be. Mitchell had cut off his hair and gotten even skinnier. It was hard to decide what was more shocking: his suddenly being there, the strange way he looked, or the fact that he was talking to Leonard.
“Mitchell!” she said, trying not to seem thrown. “What did you do to your hair?”
“I got a little haircut,” he answered.
“I almost didn’t recognize you. When did you get back?”
“Three days ago.”
“From India?”
But here Leonard interposed himself. “We’re sort of in the middle of a conversation,