The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [74]
The force of the rain increased as Mitchell wandered the surrounding blocks. The quarter, which had looked so charming from Claire’s window, seemed less so now, on the street, in the rain. The shops were shuttered, graffiti-covered, the sodium-vapor streetlamps giving off an evil light.
Hadn’t they just gotten out of college? Weren’t they finished with undergraduate politics? And yet here they were, staying with a women’s studies major on a junior-year-abroad program. Under the pretense of becoming a critic of patriarchy, Claire uncritically accepted every fashionable theory that came her way. Mitchell was glad to be out of her apartment. He was happy to be out in the rain! It was worth it to pay for a hotel if it meant not listening to Claire spout her platitudes for one more second! How could Larry stand going out with her? How could Larry have a girlfriend like that? What was the matter with him?
It was possible, of course, that some of the anger Mitchell felt at Claire was misdirected. It was possible that the female he was really mad at was Madeleine. All summer long, while Mitchell had been in Detroit, he’d been under the illusion that Madeleine was available again. The thought that Bankhead had been dumped, and was suffering, had never failed to lift Mitchell’s spirits. He’d even rationalized that it had been a good thing that Madeleine had gone out with Bankhead. She needed to get guys like him out of her system. She needed to grow up, as Mitchell did, too, before they could be together.
Then, less than forty-eight hours ago, on the night before he left for Paris, Mitchell had run into Madeleine on the Lower East Side. He and Larry had taken the train from Riverdale into the city. They were sitting in Downtown Beirut, around ten p.m., when, out of the blue, Madeleine had come in with Kelly Traub. Larry had directed Kelly in a show once. They immediately started talking shop, leaving Madeleine and Mitchell alone. At first, Mitchell had been worried that Madeleine was still mad at him, but even in the feeble lighting of the bombed-out bar, he could tell that wasn’t the case. She seemed genuinely pleased to see him, and, in his elation, Mitchell had started doing tequila shots. The night proceeded from there. They left Downtown Beirut and went somewhere else. Mitchell knew it was hopeless. He was about to leave for Europe. But it was summer, in New York, the streets as hot as Bangkok, and Madeleine was pressing against him as they rode across town in a cab. The last thing Mitchell remembered, he was standing outside a different bar, in Greenwich Village, blurrily watching Madeleine get into another cab, alone. He was wildly happy. But when he went back inside the bar and started talking to Kelly, he discovered that Madeleine was not, in fact, available at all. Madeleine and Bankhead had gotten back together shortly after graduation and were now about to move to Cape Cod.
The only thing that had cheered him up over the summer had been an illusion. Now, in his disappointment, Mitchell tried to forget about Madeleine and to concentrate on the fact that the last three months had at least put money in his pocket. He’d gone back to Detroit to live rent-free. His parents were happy to have him at home, and Mitchell was happy to have his mother cook his meals and do his laundry while he searched the classifieds. It had never occurred to him how few useful skills he’d acquired in college. There were no openings for religious studies tutors. The ad that caught his attention read: “Drivers Wanted—All Shifts.” On the basis of his valid driver’s license alone, Mitchell was hired the same night. He worked twelve-hour shifts, from six p.m. to six a.m., plying Detroit’s East Side. At the wheels of the badly