Moo (34 page)

Dr. Gift bestirred himself. He let his gaze rest upon each of them in turn, then said, “Perhaps the best policy is to finish our work here, as we only have four candidates to go, and their cases are fairly clear-cut.”

Everyone nodded. After all, it was always a relief to take refuge in routine, thought Garcia. It gave you something to do while you were getting ready to do the next thing that you desired to do but knew deep down that you shouldn’t. In his case, that would be a little ride over to X’s house, where he would drop off Gift’s report. X, he knew, would commit it to memory on the first, fiery reading. Then, who knew? In Dr. Garcia’s experience, this matter was unprecedented. He smiled to himself. That was exciting, too.

G
ARY WAS
well aware that one of Professor Monahan’s favorite sayings was “Fear no research.” To that end, and solely as an exercise for intellectual growth, he called Lydia and invited her out, careful to do so when Lyle was at work, so as not to arouse his roommate’s entirely unjustified suspicions. Lydia had not seemed especially enthusiastic about their date, and seemed even less so when he assured her that it was no big deal. That was an annoying thing about girls—if they weren’t especially interested in you, and you tried to reassure them that you weren’t especially interested in them, either, they just got offended. Guys were not like that. Living with roommates, for example, depended on everyone’s conviction that they were almost totally indifferent to one another.

He had never finished any version of “The Boy” or “Lydia.” He had made a gallant effort with other material—a man in a spaceship hearing a voice that he finally realizes is God playing dice with the universe, and a crazy Vietnam vet who blows himself up because he can’t take it anymore. Professor Monahan had not cottoned to either story, and to tell the truth, Gary himself had found them a little boring to write. So, when the teacher reiterated that research for stories did not necessarily mean going to the library and sifting through primary source material, Gary returned to the theme of Lydia’s tragic future with renewed enthusiasm, and called her up.

They met outside the Black Hole but walked up the street to Down But Not Out, an undergraduate hangout that catered to both men and women. It was cold, and Lydia was wearing a matching scarf and mitten set of vibrant blue and purple mohair. When she took off her coat, he saw that she had a sweater to go with the scarf and mittens. They sat at a table, and with both hands, she reached behind and tightened her ponytail, which Gary knew she knew also lifted her breasts and separated them just for him. Gary slouched down in his chair and stretched out his legs. They both smiled, exchanging the information that these gestures were impersonally meant, impersonally
recognized. Now they could get down to business. Lydia said, “I didn’t see you at that party at Berkeley Hall? It was an unbelievable crush.”

“I heard they had four kegs.”

“They had everything. It was like the sixties.”

“Lot of people passed out?”

“And major puking.”

They fell silent for a moment, appreciating the good time had by all in Berkeley Hall.

“So what’s Lyle doing these days?”

“Nothing. Work, school, you know.”

“I saw him at that party.” She tried to make it sound casual.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He got up and went to the bar, then returned with a pitcher of PBR. She said, “The thing is, I need a Diet Coke. My roommates and I agreed we were going to stop drinking for a week, from that party.”

“Major puking?”

“Too major.”

He got up and fetched her a Diet Coke. They took thoughtful swigs from their drinks. Gary had the strangest feeling, one he did not recognize. After a moment, though, he remembered it from the earliest days of junior high school. He felt uncomfortable, and with a girl! Amazing! He didn’t know what to say, how to flirt! Astonishing! Gary Olson, the boy with five sisters, ill at ease! He said, “Well, it’s too bad you don’t come around anymore.”

“Why’s that?”

“I miss you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Well, you know Lyle and Bob. They don’t have a lot to say. And that girl Bob was seeing, that’s cooled off, so he’s moping a lot.”

“I didn’t know about that. Who was she?”

“Diane Somebody. Just a freshman.” “Oh.”

“Want another Diet Coke?”

“Sure.”

He went to the bar again, then trudged back to Lydia. The thing was, it was frightening to imagine how fat she was going to be, how bitter, how unhappy. Here she had this great hair, this beautiful voice,
this pleasant face, and this deep ignorance. She thought she was going to be a college girl forever, buying mohair sweater sets on her parents’ charge card with the absolute assurance that she would always turn every head in the bar. If she thought of marriage and a career and children, and what girl in this university didn’t—a couple of years ago in his English class Professor Bell had asked how many of the girls expected to have high-powered careers as well as large happy families, and every girl had raised her hand; when she’d asked the boys how many expected their wives to work, only three had raised their hands (“Who do you expect to marry, then?” she had remarked)—if Lydia thought of the future, then she was seeing this self, this slender, fluid, fleeting beauty striding around in it as around a stage set. She didn’t see the future entering her, reshaping her, as Gary did. It tied his tongue because now that he’d written those stories, that was what he knew about Lydia, and instead of doing his usual thing, which was getting the girl to tell
him
about herself, he wanted to do something very strange, which was to tell
her
about herself, and really, what had Lydia done to deserve this? She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time—in his roommate’s room, talking—just when he was supposed to be writing down some dialogue. Now she was doomed. Her own little boy would be terrified of her. Gary sighed at the unfairness of it.

Lydia, meanwhile, was looking around, and across the large room of bar tables she saw the redhead who had been talking to Lyle at the Berkeley Hall party. Even at this distance and in this light, she could see the girl’s dark roots. She sniffed. She was heavyset, too. Wasn’t that always the way? That’s what had happened with her father. Before her parents’ divorce, he worked all the time and never even picked his own clothes off the floor. If he wanted more food, Lydia’s mother or one of the girls got up and served him some. He had so little patience with his children that the only time he would willingly be in their presence was driving in the car with at least two of the four sleeping. In his second marriage, however, and Lydia was a witness, so she knew whereof she spoke, he changed diapers, dandled infants, washed clothes, learned to cook a repertoire of northern Italian specialties, and frequently stopped to smell the roses, which meant taking off plenty of time from work to be with his new wife and the two babies, while often remarking to Lydia or Holly or Roxanne or David during their visits that children were only young once, and he thanked God he had realized that and he hoped that they would never make the mistakes he had made. Every time she or one of her siblings
mentioned the sorts of things their father now enjoyed, Lydia’s mother would go bananas. Once she said, “You know, I’ve gotten over the divorce and I like our life together, but the idea of him making BRUNCH and eating PANCAKES drives me crazy!” Lydia had never mentioned that her father took especial pleasure in
serving
his new wife, Mary Beth, her pancakes, which he shaped into Mickey Mouse faces, just the way Mary Beth liked them.

Lydia looked again at the redhead, and realized that she had seen her before, in her Spanish class, early in the semester. After a week or so, the girl had either dropped or stopped coming. She had a flamboyant way about her. Lydia thought she was a little trampy-looking. She sniffed. Well, that wasn’t surprising, either.

Gary was saying, “So anyway, that’s why I’m thinking of switching my major.”

Lydia smiled with all sorts of apparent interest, and trilled, “I do think you should major in something you’re really interested in.”

“So did I, but now that I’m almost a senior, I’m beginning to think that’s impractical.”

“Oh, really?” The thing was, everything about Gary was impractical. He was good-looking and nice and could be lots of fun and a lot of girls she knew had had crushes on him for a while, but in Lydia’s opinion there was some little hard thing missing inside. There wasn’t enough friction with Gary, which meant, she thought, that he didn’t have any character. He was like the second edition of her father, a nice smiley face, compared to the first, an actual person that daily life brought you right up against.

“… law school,” he said.

“You want to go to law school?”

“No, Lydia, I don’t.” He looked amused. “What I said was ‘I’d do anything but go to law school.’ ”

“Oh.”

“Well, if you aren’t paying a lick of attention to me, what are you thinking about?”

Lydia wasn’t in the habit of revealing her thoughts, but she had been impolite, she decided, so she said, “Oh, that girl over there. I saw Lyle talking to her at that party. She’s fatter than I am, and her hair is dyed, too. And my dad and mom since the divorce. My dad’s always, like, ‘I’m a new person, don’t you think, aren’t I great?’ and then he points out some little thing on one of his new children, like
her belly button or something, and starts raving about the miracle of life.”

Gary laughed.

“Mark my words, Lyle’s going to turn over some new leaf.”

“Well, he stopped drinking straight out of the milk carton.”

“I told you—”

“No, Bob trained him. Every time he saw Lyle drinking out of the carton, he took the milk away from him and poured it down the sink, almost whole gallons. I think he showed him some slides of what grows in milk, too. Even Lyle got disgusted.” They laughed again, then Lydia said, “You know, I kind of miss you, too. Why don’t you kick Lyle out and find another roommate. Then I could come over and hang around.”

Gary settled in his seat. She was smiling now, relaxed. This was more like it. And he didn’t have to write down what she’d said about her parents, either, since he’d trained himself to remember. If he took her home by midnight, he thought, he could put at least a couple of hours in at his computer.

W
HEN THEY PASSED
in the halls or paused by the coffee machine, Tim Monahan seemed to have forgotten about his promotion. When Margaret said, “Congratulations,” the Monday after hearing about the sale of his book, he actually said, “For what?” He meant it, too. She said, “Why, on your book, of course,” and he said, “How did you hear that?” and then, “Oh, right. Well, thanks. It’s great.” A little smile. So she invited him to dinner.

He hadn’t been over, except for a Christmas party, since the end of their little affair years before. As he came in, he said, “Where’s everybody else?”

“I didn’t invite anyone else.”

She headed for the kitchen and he followed her. They passed the refrigerator, and he opened the door and took out a beer. She said, “Would you like a beer?”

He looked at the bottle in his hand, and said, “Got any Beck’s?”

“I might. Why don’t you check?”

They laughed, and Margaret realized that she had been just a little nervous about this evening. But after all, you could always rely on Tim to keep the conversation going at a superficial but entertaining clip. He said, “I know, you told people that I was coming, and they all turned you down.”

“Only the women.”

Instead of laughing, he sighed.

He didn’t tell her the price of the wine he brought. Nor, she realized, had he remarked upon her new carpeting—“Is it wool? Nylon? Olefin? How much was it? What else did you see? Was that more expensive? Pad and installation included?”

She shrugged. “Well, you know, it’s been so long since we talked, and I’ve been so distracted this fall, that I said, why not, I don’t have anything better to do that night.”

He smiled. “Hey, since I’m not getting any ego boost here, what’s for dinner?”

“Veal. Veal medallions with artichoke hearts and lemon, parmesan potatoes, and braised string beans.”

“Okay, then! I’m here, you’re here, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke!”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

She turned to the stove. Everything was ready except the veal medallions, which were a last-minute dish. She picked up a pale round of meat and began dredging it in seasoned flour. A mixture of butter and olive oil sizzled in the skillet.

Actually, Tim had been looking forward to some spicy black beans and red rice, ladled over cold orange slices, something Margaret had cooked for him three or four times because she knew he loved it. He was a little shocked at the veal, a dish he could have gotten from anyone who had a subscription to
Gourmet
. From Margaret, he expected principled food, nourishing, cheap, and delicious, food worthy of someone whose greatest monthly kitchen expense was olive oil rather than meat. And she had carpeted the living room, too, in the sort of closely woven and subtly colored plush that would run thirty dollars a yard from the sort of flooring place that charged extra for carpet and pad. He resisted a disapproving nod and called upon his most tactful tone of voice. “Remember that dish you used to make, black beans and rice, really spicy, and you would lay a big slice of cold orange in the bottom of the bowl before ladling up the beans?”

“Sure.”

“I loved that. You got a recipe?”

“Are you going to start cooking?”

“I might.”

“Why?”

“Well, I was teaching Kafka in my class a week or so ago, and I realized that the reason Gregor Samsa is redeemed by being turned into a bug is that he learns to live in the physical world, and take pleasure in simple actions like running over the walls of his room or hanging from the ceiling and rocking back and forth. Being turned into a bug is a step UP for him. So I think it’s time for me to start cooking. I don’t know. To start eating everything with a big spoon. Simple pleasures. I stopped showering.”