The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [43]
“We’re confiscating this,” she said.
“Give it back.”
“You’re not reading that book,” Olivia said. “You’re wallowing in it.”
“I just wrote a paper on it. I was checking something.”
Abby held the book behind her and shook her head. “You can’t just lie around moping. This weekend’s been a total bummer. But there’s a party tonight at Lollie and Pookie’s and you have to come. Come on!”
Abby and Olivia thought it was the romantic in Madeleine who wept. They thought she was delusional, ridiculous. She would have felt the same, if it had been one of them, pining away. Heartbreak is funny to everyone but the heartbroken.
“Give me my book,” she said.
“I’ll give it back if you come to the party.”
Madeleine understood why her roommates trivialized her feelings. They’d never been in love, not really. They didn’t know what she was dealing with.
“We’re graduating tomorrow!” Olivia pleaded. “This is our last night at college. You can’t stay in your room!”
Madeleine looked away and rubbed her face. “What time is it?” she asked.
“Ten.”
“I haven’t showered.”
“We’ll wait.”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“You can borrow a dress from me,” Olivia said.
They stood there, obliging and pestering all at once.
“Give me the book,” Madeleine said.
“Only if you come.”
“O.K.!” Madeleine relented. “I’ll come.”
Reluctantly, Abby handed Madeleine the paperback.
Madeleine stared at the cover. “What if Leonard’s there?” she asked.
“He won’t be,” Abby said.
“What if he is?”
Abby looked away and repeated, “Trust me. He won’t.”
Lollie and Pookie Ames lived in a ramshackle house on Lloyd Avenue. As Madeleine and her roommates approached along the sidewalk, under the dripping elms, they could hear throbbing bass and alcohol-loosened voices coming from inside. Candles flickered behind the steamed-up windows.
They stashed their umbrellas behind the bikes on the porch and entered the front door. Inside, the air was warm and moist, like a beer-scented rain forest. The flea-market furniture had been pushed against the walls so that people could dance. Jeff Trombley, who was DJ-ing, was using a flashlight to see the turntable, the beam spilling onto a poster of Sandino on the wall behind him.
“You guys go first,” Madeleine said. “Tell me if you see Leonard.”
Abby looked annoyed. “I told you, he won’t be here.”
“He might.”
“Why would he be? He doesn’t like people. Look, I’m sorry, but now that you’re broken up, I have to say it. Leonard’s not exactly normal. He’s weird.”
“He is not,” Madeleine objected.
“Will you please just get over him? Will you at least try?”
Olivia lit a cigarette and said, “God, if I worried about running into old boyfriends, I couldn’t go anywhere!”
“O.K., forget it,” Madeleine said. “Let’s go in.”
“Finally!” Abby said. “Come on. Let’s have fun tonight. It’s our last night.”
Despite the loud music, not many people were dancing. Tony Perotti, in a Plasmatics T-shirt, was pogoing, all alone, in the middle of the floor. Debbie Boonstock, Carrie Mox, and Stacy Henkel were dancing in a ring around Marc Wheeland. Wheeland was wearing a white T-shirt and baggy shorts. His calves were massive. So were his shoulders. As the three girls pranced in front of him, Wheeland stared at the floor, stomping around and, every so often (this was the dancing part), minimally lifting his muscle-bound arms.
“How long before Marc Wheeland takes off his shirt?” Abby said as they headed down the hall.
“Like two minutes,” Olivia said.
The kitchen resembled something in a submarine movie, dark, narrow, with pipes snaking overhead and a wet floor. Madeleine stepped on bottle caps as she squeezed through the throng of people.
They attained the open space at the kitchen’s far end only to realize it was unoccupied due to the presence of a reeking litter box.
“Gross!” Olivia said.
“Don’t they ever clean that thing?” Abby said.
A guy in a baseball hat was standing proprietarily in front of the refrigerator. When Abby opened it, he informed them, “The Grolsch are mine.”
“Excuse