Oblivion_ stories - By David Foster Wallace Page 0,136
on, and simultaneously, one, feeling like a bit of an idiot for standing out there waiting for her to finish so he could go back up, and, two, realizing that he loved and respected this woman for baring to him so nakedly the insecurity she had been feeling. He had told the intern that standing on that corner was the first time in quite a long time he had not felt deeply and painfully alone, he had realized.
Laurel Manderley’s caloric regimen included very precise rules on what parts of her Niçoise salad she was allowed to eat and what she had to do to earn them. At today’s lunch she was somewhat preoccupied. She had as yet told no one about any photos, to say nothing of any unannounced overnight package; and Atwater, who had spent the morning commuting to Chicago, made it a principle never to take cellular calls while he drove.
The longtime girl Friday for the associate editor of SURFACES, which was the section of Style that focused on health and beauty, had also been among the first of the magazine’s interns not to bother changing into pumps on arrival but instead to wear, normally with a high end Chanel or DKBL suit, the same crosstrainers she had commuted in, which somehow for some strange reason worked, and had for a time split the editorial interns into two opposed camps regarding office footwear. She had also at some point spent a trimester at Cambridge, and still spoke with a slight British accent, and asked generally now whether anyone else who traveled abroad much had noticed that in German toilets the hole into which the poop is supposed to disappear when you flush is positioned way in front, so that the poop just sort of lies there in full view and there’s almost no way you can avoid looking at it when you get up and turn around to flush. Which she observed was so almost stereotypically German, almost as if you were supposed to study and analyze your poop and make sure it passed muster before you flushed it down. Here a senior shade who seemed always to make it a point to wear something garishly retro on Mondays inserted a reminiscence about first seeing the word FAHRT in great block letters on signs all over Swiss and German rail stations, on childhood trips, and how she and her stepsisters had spent whole long Eurail rides cracking one another up by making childish jokes about travelers’ various FAHRTs. Whereas, the SURFACES head intern continued with a slight cold smile at the shade’s interruption, whereas in French toilets, though, the hole tended to be way in the back so that the poop vanished ASAP, meaning the whole thing was set up to be as elegant and tasteful as possible . . . although in France there was also the whole bidet issue, which many of the interns agreed always struck them as weird and kind of unhygienic. There was then a quick anecdote about someone’s once having asked a French concierge about the really low drinking fountain in the salle de bains, which also struck a nerve of risibility at the table.
At different intervals, two or three of the interns who smoked would excuse themselves briefly and step out to smoke and then return—Tutti Mangia’s management had made it clear that they didn’t really want like eight people at a time out there under the awning.
‘So then what about the US toilets here, with the hole in the middle and all this water so it all floats and goes around and around in a little dance before it goes down—what’s up with that?’
The design director’s intern wore a very simple severe Prada jacket over a black silk tee. ‘They don’t always go around and around. Some toilets are really fast and powerful and it’s gone right away.’
‘Maybe up on eighty-two it is!’ Two of the newer staff interns leaned slightly toward each other as they laughed.
Laurel Manderley’s roommate, who at Wellesley had played both field hockey and basketball and was a national finalist for a Marshall, asked how many of those at the table had had to read those ghastly pieces of Swift’s in Post Liz Lit where he went on and on about women taking a crap and how supposedly traumatic it was for the swain when he found out that his beloved went to the bathroom like a normal human being instead of whatever sick mommy figure