The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)(80)
Then he would take off his clothes, which reeked of cigarette smoke, like a toad shedding its skin, and Alice would stir sleepily in the sheets and sit up, the white sheet slipping down off her heavy breasts. She would lean against him, their backs against the cool, white, wooden curl of their sleigh bed, not speaking, and they would watch as the dawn came up and a garbage truck moved haltingly down the block, its pneumatic biceps gleaming as it greedily consumed whatever its overalled attendants flung into it, ingesting what the city had expectorated. And Quentin would feel a lofty pity for the garbagemen, and for all the straights and civilians. He wondered what they could possibly have in their uncharmed lives that made them think they were worth living.
He heard Eliot try the door, find it locked, and fumble around for his key; Eliot shared an[Rscov with apartment with Janet in Soho, but he was over at Quentin and Alice’s so much that it was easier just to give him his own key. Quentin strolled around the open-plan apartment, half-heartedly straightening up, snapping up condom wrappers and underwear and decaying food and depositing them in the trash. It was a beautiful place in a converted factory, all wide-planked, thickly varnished wood floors and arched warehouse windows, but it had seen more considerate tenants. He’d been surprised to discover when they moved in together that while he was an indifferent housekeeper, Alice was the true slob of the relationship.
She retreated to the bedroom to get dressed. She was still in her nightgown.
“Morning,” Eliot said, although it wasn’t. He loitered just inside the rolling metal freight door, wearing a long overcoat and a sweater that had been expensive before moths got to it.
“Hey,” Quentin said. “Just let me grab my coat.”
“It’s freezing out there. Is Alice coming?”
“I didn’t get that impression. Alice?” He raised his voice. “Alice?”
There was no answer. Eliot had already faded back out into the hall. He didn’t seem to have much patience for Alice lately, as somebody who didn’t share his rigorous dedication to pleasure-seeking. Quentin supposed her unfussy diligence reminded him unpleasantly of the future he was ignoring. Quentin knew it had that effect on him.
He hesitated on the threshold, torn between conflicting loyalties. She would probably be grateful for some quiet time to study.
“I think she’s coming later,” Quentin said. He called in the direction of the bedroom, “Okay! Bye! I’ll see you there!”
There was no answer.
“Bye, Mom!” Eliot yelled.
The door closed.
Like everything else, Eliot was different in New York. At Brakebills he had always been supremely aloof and self-sufficient. His personal charm and odd appearance and talent for magic had raised him up and set him apart. But since Quentin had joined him in Manhattan, the balance of power between them had shifted somehow. Eliot hadn’t survived transplantation unscathed; he no longer floated easily above the fray. His humor was more arch and bitter and childish than Quentin remembered. He seemed to be getting younger as Quentin got older. He needed Quentin more, and he resented Quentin for that. He hated to be left out of anything, and he hated to be included in anything. He spent more time than he should have on the roof of his apartment building smoking his Merits and God knows what else—there wasn’t much you couldn’t find if you had the money, and they had the money. He was getting too thin. He was depressed and turned nasty when Quentin tried to jolly him out of it. When annoyed he was fond of saying, “God, it’s amazing I’m not a dipsomaniac,” and then correcting himself: “Oh, wait, that’s right …” It had been funny the first time. Sort of.
At Brakebills Eliot had started drinking at dinnertime, earlier on weekends, which was fine, because all the upperclassmen drank at dinner, though not all of them bartered their desserts for extra glasses of wine the way Eliot did. In Manhattan, with no professors watching over them, and no classes to be sober for, Eliot was rarely without a glass of something in his hand from one in the afternoon on. Usually it was something relatively innocuous, white wine or Campari or[Rscov with a big dilute tumbler of bourbon and soda clunking with ice. But still. Once when Eliot was nursing a stubborn cold, Quentin remarked lightly that maybe he should consider something more wholesome than a vodka-tonic with which to chase his plastic jigger of DayQuil.
“I’m sick, I’m not dead,” Eliot snapped. And that was that.
At least one of Eliot’s talents had survived graduation: he was still a tireless seeker-out of obscure and wonderful bottles of wine. He was not yet such a lush that he’d abandoned his snobbishness. He went to tastings and chatted up importers and wine-store owners with a zeal that he mustered for nothing else. Once every few weeks, when he had accumulated a dozen or so bottles of which he was especially proud, Eliot would announce that they were having a dinner party. It was one such dinner party that he and Quentin were preparing for today.
They lavished a ridiculous amount of effort on these parties, all out of proportion to any actual fun they might get in return. The venue was always Eliot and Janet’s Soho apartment, a vast prewar warren with an implausible profusion of bedrooms, a set ripe for a French farce. Josh was head chef, with Quentin assisting as apprentice chef and kitchen runner. Eliot acted as sommelier, of course. Alice’s contribution was to stop reading long enough to eat.
Janet dressed the set: she formulated the night’s dress code, chose the music, and hand-wrote and illustrated amazingly beautiful one-off menus. She also confabulated various surreal and sometimes controversial centerpieces. The theme of tonight’s party was Miscegenation, and Janet had promised—over objections aesthetic, moral, and ornithological—to deliver Leda and the Swan staged as a pair of magically animated ice sculptures. They would copulate until they melted.