The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [99]
“You’re going to be published? Marvelous! How can I subscribe?”
“The article’s not accepted yet,” Madeleine said, “but the editor wants to see it, so I’m hoping.”
“If you want to have a career,” Alwyn said, “my advice is don’t get married. You think things have changed and there’s some kind of gender equality now, that men are different, but I’ve got news for you. They’re not. They’re just as shitty and selfish as Daddy was. Is.”
“Ally, I don’t like to hear you talk that way about your father.”
“Jawohl,” Alwyn said, and went quiet.
The quaint village, with its weathered houses, small, sandy yards, and feisty rosebushes, had been steadily emptying since Labor Day, the vacationing crowds along Commercial Street thinning to a population of townies and year-round transplants. As they passed the Pilgrim Monument, Madeleine idled the car so that Phyllida and Alwyn could see it. The only tourists around were a family of four who were staring up at the stone pillar.
“You can’t climb it?” one of the kids said.
“It’s just to look at,” the mother said.
Madeleine started driving again. Soon they reached the other end of town.
“Doesn’t Norman Mailer live here?” Phyllida inquired.
“He has a house on the water,” Madeleine said.
“Your father and I met him once. He was very drunk.”
In another few minutes, Madeleine made the turn into the Pilgrim Lake Laboratory gate and came down the long drive to the parking lot near the dining hall. She and Phyllida got out, but Alwyn remained seated with the pump. “Just let me finish this side,” she said. “I’ll do the other side later.”
They waited in the bright autumn sunshine. It was midday, in the middle of the week. The only person visible outside was a guy with a baseball cap making a delivery of seafood to the kitchen. Dr. Malkiel’s vintage Jaguar was parked a few spaces away.
Alwyn finished and began screwing the lid onto the baby bottle. Her mother’s milk looked weirdly green. Unzipping the other bag, which turned out to be insulated and to contain a freezer pack, she placed the bottle inside and got out of the car.
Madeleine gave her mother and sister a quick tour of the compound. She showed them the Richard Serra, the beachfront, and the dining hall before taking them along the boardwalk back toward her building.
As they passed the genetics lab, Madeleine pointed it out. “That’s where Leonard works.”
“Let’s go in and say hello,” Phyllida suggested.
“I need to go to Maddy’s apartment first,” Alwyn said.
“That can wait. We’re here already.”
Madeleine wondered if Phyllida was trying to punish Alwyn by this, to make her suffer for her sins. Since she didn’t want to stay in the lab long, anyway, this suited her fine, and she took them inside. She had some difficulty finding her way. She’d only been in the lab a few times and the corridors all looked the same. Finally, she saw the handwritten sign that read “Kilimnik Lab.”
The lab was a brightly lit space of organized disorder. Cardboard boxes were stacked on shelves and in the corners of the room. Test tubes and beakers filled the wall cabinets and stood in formations on the lab tables. A spray bottle of disinfectant had been left next to a nearby sink, along with a box of something called KimWipes.
Vikram Jaitly, wearing a fat Cosby sweater, was sitting at his desk. He looked up, in case it was Kilimnik coming in, but, seeing Madeleine, he relaxed. She asked him where Leonard was.
“He’s in the thirty-degrees room,” Vikram said, pointing across the lab. “Go on in.”
A refrigerator with a padlock stood next to the door. Madeleine peered in the window to see Leonard, his back turned, standing in front of a machine that was vibrating. He was wearing a bandanna, shorts, and a T-shirt, which wasn’t exactly what she’d been hoping for. But there was no time to get him to change now, so she opened the door and they all went in.
Vikram had meant centigrade. The room was warm. It smelled like a bakery.
“Hi,” Madeleine said, “we’re here.”
Leonard turned. He hadn’t shaved, and his face was expressionless.