The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [54]
“I just saw Madeleine,” Mitchell said with urgency. “She decided to start talking to me again. But then I said something she didn’t like, and now she isn’t.”
“Nice job.”
“She broke up with Bankhead, though.”
“I know she did,” Larry said.
An alarm went off in Mitchell’s head. “How do you know?” he asked.
“Because she left the party last night with Thurston Meems. She was on the prowl, Mitchell. I told you to come. Too bad you’re over parties.”
Mitchell stood up straighter to blunt the force of this revelation. Larry knew, of course, of Mitchell’s obsession with Madeleine. Larry had heard Mitchell extol her virtues and defend or contextualize her more questionable attributes. Mitchell had revealed to Larry, as you did only to a real friend, the extent of his crazy thinking when it came to Madeleine. Still, Mitchell had his pride, and showed no reaction. “Get your ass up,” he said, withdrawing into the hall. “I don’t want to be late.”
Back in his room, Mitchell closed the door and went to sit in his desk chair, hanging his head. Certain details of the morning, previously illegible, were slowly revealing significance, like skywriting. Madeleine’s disheveled hair. Her hangover.
Suddenly, with savage decisiveness, he spun around and ripped off the lid of the cardboard box that was lying on his desk. Inside was his graduation robe. Taking it out, he stood up and pulled the shiny acrylic fabric over his head and shoulders. The tassel, class pin, and mortarboard were shrink-wrapped in separate sheets of plastic. After ripping these off, and screwing the tassel into the mortarboard so thoroughly it made a dent, Mitchell unfolded the cap’s bat wings and set it on his head.
He heard Larry pad into the kitchen. “Mitchell,” Larry called, “should I bring a joint?”
Without answering, Mitchell went to stand before the mirror on the back of his bedroom door. Mortarboards were medieval in origin. They were as old as “The Cloud of Unknowing.” That was why they looked so ridiculous. That was why he looked so ridiculous wearing one.
He remembered a line from Meister Eckhart: “Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.”
Mitchell wondered if he was supposed to erase himself, or his past, or other people, or what. He was ready to begin erasing immediately, as soon as he knew what to rub out.
When he came out into the kitchen, Larry was making coffee, wearing his cap and gown, too. They looked at each other with mild amusement.
“Definitely bring a joint,” Mitchell said.
•
Madeleine took the long way back to her building.
She was furious at everyone and everything, at her mother for making her invite Mitchell over in the first place, at Leonard for not calling, at the weather for being cold, and at college for ending.
It was impossible to be friends with guys. Every guy she’d ever been friends with had ended up wanting something else, or had wanted something else from the beginning, and had been friends only under false pretenses.
Mitchell wanted revenge. That was all this was. He wanted to hurt her and he knew her weak spots. It was absurd of him to say that he wasn’t mentally attracted to her. Hadn’t he been after her all these years? Hadn’t he told her that he “loved her mind”? Madeleine knew she wasn’t as smart as Mitchell. But was Mitchell as smart as Leonard? What about that? That was what she should have told Mitchell. Instead of crying and running away, she should have pointed out that Leonard was perfectly happy with her level of intelligence.
This thought, shiny with triumph, dimmed on the immediate reflection that Leonard and she were no longer going out.
Gazing at Canal Street through the distortion of tears—they refracted a stop sign at a Cubist angle—Madeleine allowed herself once again to wish the forbidden wish of getting back together with Leonard. It seemed to her that if she could just have that one thing, all her other problems would be bearable.
The clock on the Citizens Bank read 8:47. She had an hour to get dressed