The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [23]
“You didn’t like the Culler?”
“The Culler’s good. But Derrida’s a heavyweight. You can’t just write him off.”
Madeleine looked dubious, but Derrida wasn’t who she was mad at. “Considering how Thurston’s always going on about how much he worships language, you’d think he wouldn’t parrot so much jargon. He used the word phallus three times today.”
Leonard smiled. “Figures if he says it it’ll be like having one.”
“He drives me crazy.”
“You want to get some coffee?”
“And fascist. That’s another of his favorites. You know the dry cleaners on Thayer Street? He called them fascist.”
“Must have gone extra heavy on the starch.”
“Yes,” Madeleine said.
“Yes, what?”
“You just invited me for coffee.”
“I did?” Leonard said. “Yes, I did. O.K. Let’s go get coffee.”
Leonard didn’t want to go to the Blue Room. He said he didn’t like to be around college students. They headed through Wayland Arch up to Hope Street, in the direction of Fox Point.
As they walked, Leonard spat into his Coke can every so often. “Pardon my disgusting habit,” he said.
Madeleine wrinkled up her nose. “Are you going to keep doing that?”
“No,” Leonard said. “I don’t even know why I do it. It’s just something I picked up from my rodeo days.”
At the next trash can they came to, he tossed the Coke and spat out his wad of tobacco.
Within a few blocks pretty campus plantings of tulip and daffodil gave way to treeless streets lined by working-class houses painted in cheerful hues. They passed a Portuguese bakery and a Portuguese fish store selling sardines and cuttlefish. The kids here had no yards to play in but seemed happy enough, wheeling back and forth along the blank sidewalks. Nearer the highway, there were a few warehouses and, on the corner of Wickenden, a local diner.
Leonard wanted to sit at the counter. “I need to be close to the pies,” he said. “I need to see which one is talking to me.”
As Madeleine took a stool next to him, Leonard stared at the dessert case.
“Do you remember when they used to serve slices of cheese with apple pie?” he asked.
“Vaguely,” Madeleine said.
“They don’t seem to do that anymore. You and I are probably the only two people in this place who remember it.”
“Actually, I don’t remember it,” Madeleine said.
“You don’t? Never had a little slice of Wisconsin cheddar with your apple pie? I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Maybe they’ll put a slice of cheese on a piece if you ask them.”
“I didn’t say I liked it. I’m just mourning its passage.”
The conversation lapsed. And suddenly, to her surprise, Madeleine was flooded with panic. She felt the silence like a judgment against her. At the same time, her anxiety about the silence made it even harder to speak.
Though it didn’t feel nice to be so nervous, it did feel nice, in a way. It had been a while since Madeleine had been that way around a guy.
The waitress was down at the end of the counter talking to another customer.
“So why are you taking Zipperstein’s class?” she asked.
“Philosophical interest,” Leonard said. “Literally. Philosophy’s all about theory of language right now. It’s all linguistics. So I figured I’d check it out.”
“Aren’t you a biology major, too?”
“That’s what I really am,” Leonard said. “The philosophy’s just a sideline.”
Madeleine realized that she’d never dated a science major. “Do you want to be a doctor?”
“Right now all I want to do is get the waitress’s attention.”
Leonard waved his arm a few times to no avail. Suddenly he said, “Is it hot in here?” Without waiting for an answer, he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a blue bandanna, which he proceeded to put over his head, tying it in back and making a number of small, precise adjustments until he was satisfied. Madeleine watched this with a slight feeling of disappointment. She associated bandannas with hacky sack, the Grateful Dead, and alfalfa sprouts, all of which she could do without. Still, she was impressed with Leonard’s sheer size on the stool next to her. His largeness, coupled with the softness—the delicacy, almost—of his voice, gave Madeleine