“chicken salad”

“chicken salad” is Eli’s joking alternative to calling Auden’s search for something lost or needed a “quest.” The phrase begins as a comic interruption in their conversation about what they are doing together, but its return later—spoken by Auden before she realizes she has said it—gives the joke a place in her own language. It links the possibility of a do-over with a small, private exchange whose meaning depends less on any literal reference to food than on the circumstances in which the words are offered and remembered.

A Joke in Place of a “Quest”

Eli introduces the phrase while setting limits on the activity he is willing to join. He has already been taken to the police station for something similar, he says, and he appreciates Auden’s “quest” but will not go beyond a line. When Auden asks what he means by her quest, Eli explains it as a search for something lost or needed, comparing the idea to adventures in Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. The formulation gives their otherwise loosely defined time together a purpose: the pair may be looking for something, even if they have not yet named exactly what it is.

Auden initially thought they were simply hanging out and killing time. Eli’s description changes the frame without requiring her to accept that the word “quest” is the right one. He proposes “chicken salad” instead, explicitly treating the phrase as an interchangeable, nonsensical label: he does not care what she calls the undertaking, so long as she understands that he is participating “within reason.” The comedy comes from the mismatch between the elevated adventure-story comparison and the mundane food phrase. It also keeps Eli’s qualification in view. His willingness is real, but it is bounded by his previous experience of being hauled to a police station.

The phrase’s absurdity is sharpened by a brief test of shared knowledge. Eli suggests that “chicken salad” might be “a guy thing” and asks whether Auden never said it as a child. She repeats the expression as a question, then says she has not. Eli answers with surprise, asking what she has been doing all her life. The exchange does not establish a definite childhood meaning for the phrase; instead, it exposes a difference in what the two treat as familiar. Eli presents it as something he expects to be recognized, while Auden’s response shows that it is not part of her own remembered vocabulary.

From Playful Label to Do-Over

Auden’s response moves beyond the joke. She reflects that there are endless ways to spend one’s days, none inherently right or wrong, but that the possibility of a “real do-over” would be difficult to refuse. She says she is in, whether the idea is called crazy or “chicken salad,” and whether the search stays within reason or goes beyond it. The phrase thus becomes attached to her willingness to enter an experience rather than remain at the distance of observing or killing time. It does not name a specific object they find; its importance lies in how it lets her affirm the attempt.

The traffic light gives this decision a concrete pause. It turns green, but Auden does not immediately accelerate. Instead, she asks again about the phrase, making Eli explain the childhood reference and keeping their conversation suspended for another beat. After the exchange, her reflection shifts from the words themselves to what a different way of spending time might offer. The scene moves from an imprecise outing, through Eli’s definition of a search, to Auden’s acknowledgment that she wants the chance to try something over. “Chicken salad” is the deliberately ridiculous name that accompanies that shift, not a formal name for a particular adventure.

The Phrase Returns

Later, Auden’s mother complains about Hollis and Laura. Hollis has mentioned taking a job at a bank, and Laura thinks employment might make him more responsible and prepared for their future together. Auden’s mother considers their relationship dysfunctional and finds the prospect of Hollis spending his days processing deposits heartbreaking after two years of culture and travel. Into this discussion, Auden says, “Call it chicken salad.” The recurrence places Eli’s phrase beside another effort to label a complicated situation, this time one discussed by her mother rather than one undertaken by Auden and Eli.

Auden immediately realizes that the words have slipped out without her noticing. When her mother asks what she means, she answers that it is nothing. The response contrasts with the earlier scene, where she consciously asks Eli to explain the phrase and then embraces it as a name for a possible do-over. Now the words have become available to her before she has chosen to use them. The book does not give them a new definition in this exchange, nor does Auden explain their connection to the conversation about Hollis. Their force comes from the unplanned repetition: a joke first offered during a search becomes part of Auden’s speech, briefly surfacing amid her mother’s judgments without resolving them.

The two appearances also give the phrase different conversational functions. With Eli, “chicken salad” punctures the grandness of “quest” while preserving the idea of searching and trying. With her mother, it arrives as a compact, unexplained reply to a conversation full of evaluations about responsibility, relationships, work, and a future together. Auden does not claim that the phrase answers those concerns. Its recurrence instead marks how the earlier exchange has stayed with her: what began as Eli’s odd substitute has become a shared reference that Auden can carry beyond the original scene.