The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [28]
“It’s April,” she said. “Graduation’s not until June.”
“My experience with college towns is that the hotels get booked up months in advance. So we have to decide what we’re doing. Now, here are the options. Are you listening?”
“Yes,” Madeleine said, and began, at that instant, to tune out. She stuck the spoon back into the peanut butter jar and brought it to her mouth, this time just licking it.
In the phone Alton’s voice was saying, “Option one: Your mother and I come up the night before the ceremony, stay in a hotel, and we see you for dinner the night of graduation. Option two: We come up the morning of the ceremony, have breakfast with you, and then leave after the ceremony. Both proposals are acceptable to us. It’s your choice. But let me explain the pros and cons of each scenario.”
Madeleine was about to answer when Phyllida spoke up on another extension.
“Hi, dear. I hope we didn’t wake you.”
“We didn’t wake her,” Alton barked. “Eleven o’clock’s not late at college. Especially on a Friday night. Hey, what are you doing in on a Friday night? Got a pimple?”
“Hi, Mummy,” Madeleine said, ignoring him.
“Maddy, sweetie, we’re redoing your bedroom and I wanted to ask you—”
“You’re redoing my bedroom?”
“Yes, it needs freshening up. I—”
“My room?”
“Yes. I was thinking about recarpeting it in green. You know, a good green.”
“No!” Madeleine cried.
“Maddy, we’ve kept your room the way it is for four years now—you’d think it was a shrine! I’d like to be able to use it as a guest room, occasionally, because of the en suite bathroom. You can still have it when you come home, don’t worry. It’ll always be your room.”
“What about my wallpaper?”
“It’s old. It’s peeling.”
“You can’t change my wallpaper!”
“Oh, all right. I’ll leave the wallpaper alone. But the carpet—”
“Excuse me,” Alton said in a peremptory tone. “This call is about graduation. Phyl, you’re hijacking my agenda. You two sort out the redecorating some other time. Now, Maddy, let me go over the pros and cons. When your cousin graduated from Williams, we all had dinner after the ceremony. And, if you’ll remember, Doats complained the whole time that he was missing all the parties—and he left halfway through the meal. Now, your mother and I are willing to stay the night—or two nights—if we’re going to see you. But if you’re going to be busy, maybe the breakfast option makes more sense.”
“Graduation’s two months away. I don’t even know what’s happening yet.”
“That’s what I told your father,” Phyllida said.
It occurred to Madeleine that she was tying up the line.
“Let me think about it,” she said abruptly. “I have to go. I’m studying.”
“If we’re going to stay the night,” Alton repeated, “I’d like to make reservations soon.”
“Call me later. Let me think about it. Call me Sunday.”
Alton was still speaking when she hung up, so when the phone rang again, twenty seconds later, Madeleine picked up and said, “Daddy, stop it. We don’t have to decide tonight.”
There was silence on the line. And then a male voice said, “You don’t have to call me Daddy.”
“Oh, God. Leonard? Sorry! I thought you were my father. He’s freaking out about graduation plans already.”
“I was just having a little freak-out myself.”
“About what?”
“About calling you.”
This was good. Madeleine ran a finger along her lower lip. She said, “Have you calmed down or do you want to call back later?”
“I’m resting comfortably now, thank you.”
Madeleine waited for more. None came. “Are you calling for a reason?” she asked.
“Yes. That Fellini film? I was hoping you might, if you’re not too, I know it’s bad manners calling so late, but I was at the lab.”
Leonard did sound a little nervous. That wasn’t good. Madeleine didn’t like nervous guys. Nervous guys were nervous for a reason. Up until now Leonard had seemed more the tortured type than the nervous type. Tortured was better.
“I don’t think that was a complete sentence,” she said.
“What did I leave out?” Leonard asked.
“How about, ‘Would you