Matrimony Read Free

whether he was awake or asleep. He wore a look of aloofness and superiority, which attracted Julian, who was hoping to appear aloof and superior himself. “Let’s say you’re a cripple,” Carter said. “Paralyzed from the neck down. So I say to you, ‘Could you please pass the salt?’”
    Professor Chesterfield began to laugh. Slowly, his laughter built until the classroom vibrated. “That’s the most brilliant thing anyone has said all year.”
    The year was all of thirty minutes old.
    Now it was time for the in-class writing exercise. Professor Chesterfield asked the students to describe a greasy spoon, first from the perspective of someone angry and then from the perspective of someone lovelorn. No mention was to be made of anger or lovelornness; the descriptions themselves were to do the work.
    “A real-life greasy spoon?” Astrid said. “Like Denny’s?”
    “Or IHOP?” Rufus said.
    For the next half hour Professor Chesterfield sat unflinching on his desk as if he’d been cast in plaster; he looked scarily dead. Finally, his features thawed and he collected the students’ exercises and began to read them. But no sooner did he pick one up than he appeared to tire of it and he moved on to the next one. He laid the exercises across his desk like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
    “What does ‘lovelorn’ mean, anyway?” someone asked.
    “It’s when you love someone,” Rufus said, “and they don’t love you back.” There was a longing, dolorous tone to Rufus’s voice. He appeared to be speaking from experience.
    Professor Chesterfield read from Sue Persimmon’s exercise. Sue was blond and full-figured, and she was staring raptly at Professor Chesterfield, but she had written, literally, about a greasy spoon and only now had she realized her mistake.
    “‘The spoon was very greasy,’” Professor Chesterfield read. “‘Megan didn’t want to eat from a spoon that had so much gunk on it.’”
    Professor Chesterfield read from Rufus’s exercise. “‘Bill picked up his fork and knife, looked warily around him, and cut into his collared greens.’ Rufus,” Professor Chesterfield said, “kindly undress your vegetables.”
    Professor Chesterfield read from another exercise. “‘Tom’s French toast stared back at him, uncomfortable, indignant.’ What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a piece of indignant French toast. I’ve never seen one of those before, but then it’s a new year.”
    The students looked up mutely.
    “Class dismissed,” Professor Chesterfield said. He motioned to Julian and Carter to stay behind. “I like you guys,” he said. “You’re the only two students in the class with even an ounce of talent. Not that you have much of it.”
    “No, sir,” Julian said.
    “Are you two friends?”
    “Don’t know him,” Carter said.
    “Well, you should get to know each other.”
    Outside the classroom Julian read through his exercise. Professor Chesterfield had written one word on it. “Sophomoric.” On Carter’s exercise there was one word, too. “Pusillanimous.”
    “Jesus,” Julian said.
    “Well, fuck,” said Carter, and he crumpled up his exercise and fired it across the hallway, where it landed in the trash can.
             
    The next morning in the courtyard Julian saw Carter leaning indolently against a tree. Julian was tall and thin, with straight dark hair that fell across his face. Carter was squatter and more compact, but he held himself in such a way as to make a person think he had no shape at all. He had short-cropped blond hair and a tiny scar above his upper lip.
    “So we’re supposed to be friends,” Julian said.
    “Papal decree,” said Carter.
    “‘Sophomoric’ and ‘pusillanimous.’ Do you know what those words mean?”
    “They mean Chesterfield thinks we suck.”
    “Actually, he likes us,” Julian said. “Why else would he bother to criticize us? You heard what he said. The only two students with any talent.”
    “He said we