American Pop by Snowden Wright

Author:Snowden Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

3.6

The Magnolia and the Mayflower—Return of the Academic Punk

“Knew from day one I should have kept my maiden name. Right? I can’t blame them for not giving a bid to Jane Marunga.”

For the past twenty minutes she had talked of nothing but the Junior Auxiliary. Robert was only half listening. In a booth at the Magnolia, the second oldest restaurant in town, he tried to feign interest as his gaze drifted, from the photos of celebrities behind the counter to the house specials painted on the backsplash, from the framed magazine covers to the models of sailboats on shelves with collectible soft drinks, Archie Manning peering from a bottle of PanCola.

Jackson’s oldest restaurant was the Mayflower. Established in 1935 by Greek immigrants, the café on West Capitol Street formed, along with the Magnolia across town, a binary of historical significance, particularly during the civil rights movement. John Doar supposedly quelled an angry mob by inviting them for lunch at the Mayflower, and Medgar Evers was said to have conducted secret meetings in the kitchen of the Magnolia. Both restaurants provided activists with boxed meals of fried catfish, bread pudding, collards, pork chops, coleslaw, and burgers doused in comeback sauce during the Freedom Summer. The Mayflower had once been the site of a sit-in held by the progressive students at Millsaps, and decades later it remained a popular hangout among undergrads. For that reason the more logical place for a tryst with the wife of one’s thesis adviser was clearly the other half of the historical binary.

I may be an idiot but I’m damn sure smart enough to know that much, thought Robert at the same time as Jane asked, “Are you even paying attention to what I’m trying to tell you right now?”

“Of course!”

“It’s just, with all that’s going on, I need to think about me, not others. I need to center myself.”

“Right.”

“I’m so glad you understand.”

Jane grabbed her oversize purse and began to slide out of the booth. “Where are you going?” said Robert, his mental recording of their conversation fast-forwarding through his head. “Are we breaking up?”

“Of course you were paying attention. Of course.”

Unable to respond, Robert watched Jane march out of the restaurant, purposeful as Dukas’s broomstick. Was that it? They may have only been dating for the past four months, but he figured their relationship deserved a more climactic ending. It felt like she had gotten up to use the ladies’ room. Jane hadn’t even seemed sad. Robert was trying to think of a word to describe her when someone in the next booth gave it to him.

“Got to say, that was cold.”

The girl from earlier that day turned around to face him. Karl Marx’s beard poked out from her sleeve, and the bangs of Chrissie Hynde hung in front of her eyes. Robert said, “You.” Never had a pronoun made him feel like such an idiot.

The girl grabbed her plate and stood up from her booth. She sat down across from him and took a bite of her po’boy.

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