Terms of Endearment (26 page)

“You’re leaving matters in his hands, I take it,” Emma said, keeping the necklace on so she could enjoy her mother’s mild anxiety about it.

“Oh, well,” Aurora said. “I don’t see that you need worry about Vernon. He’s a self-made man and those are always the most resilient. If he doesn’t want to be bothered with me he doesn’t have to, that I can see.”

Emma took off the necklace and Aurora turned her attention back to the scene on the lawn. It was hard to tell who was the more fidgety, Vernon or Patsy. Both seemed to be talking at once.

“That girl rattles on worse than I do,” Aurora said. “She’s not letting him get a word in edgewise. It’s high time she married, you know.” She got up suddenly and started for the stairs.

“Where are you going so soon?” Emma asked, trailing along.

“I don’t see that he needs to spend the whole morning talking to your rattly little friend,” Aurora said. “You two need to be on your way.”

“This must be a case of opposites attracting,” Emma said.

Aurora didn’t look around. “You got your check, be off with you,” she said. “Your witticisms are beginning to grate on my ears. My experience is considerably more extensive than yours and I have found cases of opposites attracting to be far more uncommon than everyone supposes. When it does happen, the attraction is usually short-lived. In point of fact opposites usually bore one another. All my opposites certainly bore me.”

“Then what about Vernon?” Emma said.

“Vernon and I just met,” Aurora said. “All I want is a simple game of cards and a little friendship, for pity’s sake.” She stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked at her daughter indignantly.

“All right,” Emma said. “You were the one who said he was in love with you.”

“Oh, well, that was yesterday afternoon,” Aurora said. “I wouldn’t know about him today. I gave him a severe lecture about Royce. A vacation is the last thing a married man like Royce needs right now.”

“Poor Royce,” Emma said. “I think Vernon is right. Much as I love Rosie, I think somebody needs to be on Royce’s side.”

“Fine, you be in charge of Royce’s morale,” Aurora said, peeking out a window. “I don’t know what good it will do him, since you’re a little too toothsome to venture into that part of town.”

As they walked toward the kitchen Emma put her arm around her mother’s waist for a second. “Contrary as I am, I do want to thank you for the check,” she said. Aurora turned and hugged her, though perfunctorily. Her mind was elsewhere.

“I think if I were a man and met you I’d be terrified,” Emma said.

“Sweet little me?” Aurora said. “What’s to be terrified of?”

They stepped into the kitchen just as Patsy and Vernon came through the door. The little goat was nibbling timidly on one of Aurora’s blue pillows. Aurora hurried over and picked him up.

“Vernon, I hope you’ve brought your cards,” she said.

Vernon had a pack in his hand. “We could play four-handed,” he said, nodding at the girls.

Aurora immediately vetoed the suggestion with a shake of her head. “I’m afraid you don’t know these girls very well,” she said. “They’re both very high-minded and much too intellectual to sit around playing cards with the likes of us. Their lives are not devoted to play—they’re very serious young women. I imagine they’re going to go right off to some library and spend the morning reading serious novels—
Ulysses
or somesuch.

“In any case,” she added, “there’s no reason why Rosie and I should have to share you with the young. Little enough in the way of diversion comes our way these days.”

As the girls went out the door Vernon was just beginning to shuffle the cards. “You’re too soft on everybody,” Patsy said, poking her friend. “Your husband beats you and your mother bullies you. I guess I even bully you. You know perfectly well
she’s deliberately rude to me—why don’t you ever argue with her about it? What kind of friend are you?”

“A confused kind,” Emma said. “She gave me a hundred and fifty dollars without my even asking, just so I can keep up with you.”

Patsy was combing her hair and turning the car around at the same time. “One of these days she’s going to go too far,” she said. “I can’t see what she sees in that man either. I’m sure he’s nice, but she couldn’t live with a cowboy. Or an oil man. I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing.”

When Emma was broke she was always thinking of things she wanted to buy, but with money in her hand she couldn’t think of a thing she really wanted.

“I’m not a good consumer,” she said. “I can’t think of anything I want, except a new gown. Maybe I’ll just keep the money and buy something the next time I’m depressed.”

“Look at those ridiculous dogs,” Patsy said as they passed the General’s house. “Do you suppose he makes them stand there all day?”

Pershing and Marshal Ney were standing exactly where they had been on the General’s lawn. They looked as if they were waiting for him to come out and stand between them again. Both of them were staring straight ahead like soldiers on a drill field. Nearby, F.V. was unenergetically clipping a hedge.

Patsy shook her head. “You certainly grew up on a creepy street,” she said. “No wonder you’re timid.”

“Is that what I am?” Emma asked.

“Yes,” Patsy said. She looked over and saw that her friend was quietly folding and unfolding her mother’s check. Emma didn’t speak, and Patsy regretted what she had just said. When her friend didn’t speak it was usually because her feelings were hurt.

“Never mind, Emma,” she said. “I just meant you weren’t rude, like your mother and me.”

“Oh, hush,” Emma said. “I’m not that touchy. I was just thinking about Flap.”

“What about him?”

“Oh, nothing, I was just thinking,” Emma said.

CHAPTER X

1.

L
ESS THAN
two weeks after the advent of Vernon, Rosie came in one morning to find once again that all the phones in the house were off the hook. She was upset anyway, and the sight of the dangling receivers was more than she could stand. She marched upstairs to demand a reckoning and found Aurora barricaded into the snuggest corner of her window nook, with almost every pillow she owned piled around her. She looked almost as tense as Rosie felt.

“What’s wrong with you?” Aurora said at once at the sight of her maid.

“What’s wrong with
you
, you mean,” Rosie said.

“No, I asked first. Don’t play games,” Aurora said. “I know you. Out with it.”

“Royce has left for good,” Rosie said. “That’s all that’s wrong with me.”

“Oh, what an idiot,” Aurora said. “What’s wrong with him, then?”

“He found out he don’t have to live with me,” Rosie said. “It’s as simple as that. Can I put the phones back on the hook, in case he calls and changes his mind?”

“No, you cannot,” Aurora said. “I’ll instill some feminine pride in you if it’s the last thing I do.”

“I don’t know what I’d do with it at my age,” Rosie said.

“Did he beat you again?” Aurora asked.

“Naw,” Rosie said. “He just threw his house key across the street and said he wanted his freedom. Imagine Royce wanting his freedom. He never even knew there was such a word two weeks ago. That slut must have taught it to him.”

Aurora looked her sternest. “Well, he’ll find it’s not the answer to everything,” she said. “See that he gets about a year of it and he’ll sing a different tune.”

“So that’s my troubles,” Rosie said, feeling better for having told them. “Vernon just wasted his money trying to patch us up. What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing very serious,” Aurora said. “Nothing I wish to discuss, either. Go clean the house.”

Rosie knew that it seldom took Aurora more than five minutes to get around to discussing things she didn’t wish to discuss, so she sat and looked out the window for five minutes. Aurora was staring at the wall and seemed to have forgotten her existence.

“Now tell me,” Rosie said when she considered that she had waited long enough.

“I’ve been given an ultimatum. Over the phone too, which is the worst possible way to receive ultimatums. There’s no one to hit. I don’t know what men think I am, but whatever it is it’s not what I am.”

“Uh-oh,” Rosie said. “Who from?”

“Trevor,” Aurora said. “The best-dressed man in my life. I might have known I’d never get to keep anyone well dressed.”

“So you told him to go jump in the lake forever, hum?” Rosie asked.

“No, though I should have,” Aurora said. “It would certainly
be easy enough for Trevor to do; he’d only have to step off his yacht. Nothing surprises me very much, but I can’t think what’s got into Trevor. I’ve known him thirty years and he’s never behaved this way.”

She sighed. “Every time I think life is going to run smoothly for a while, something like this happens. I don’t believe life has any intention of running smoothly.”

“Well, it’s sure runnin’ bumpy over on Lyons Avenue,” Rosie said. “Reckon it’s the Lord callin’ down his wrath upon us?”

Aurora tried to swat her, but not very hard. “Hush and go mop,” she said. “This is the idiocy of men, not the wrath of God. I have a very hard day ahead of me and I don’t need any of your backwoods theology. We’re not taking any calls from your husband, just remember that.”

“What’s gonna happen?” Rosie asked, more alarmed than she liked to admit. Ordinary things seemed to be slipping away, one by one—pretty soon so many of them would be gone that life just wouldn’t be life as she knew it, and the prospect of life being completely unfamiliar was very upsetting.

Aurora said nothing, which was disturbing too. “What’s gonna happen?” Rosie said again. This time Aurora caught the note of distress in her voice and looked up.

“I don’t know if that’s a general question or a specific question,” she said. “If it’s general, I can’t answer it. Specifically, in my case, I can be a little more precise. Trevor is having me to dinner. If it’s going to rain it might as well pour. Tomorrow, as you know, is my dinner party for Emma and Flap and Cecil, and Vernon is coming. That’s as far ahead as I care to think.”

“What does Vernon think of all this?” Rosie asked.

“All what?” Aurora said, looking at her critically.

“All this rigamarole,” Rosie said.

Aurora shrugged. “Vernon doesn’t know a thing about it,” she said. “He’s insecure enough as it is. I certainly don’t plan to burden him with tales of my difficulties with other men.”

“It’s too bad Vernon ain’t educated, ain’t it?” Rosie said, hoping to get a hint of which way her boss’s feelings were inclining. “He’s a nice feller to play cards with.”

“Yes, too bad,” Aurora said, looking rather vague.

“Yep, a real pity,” Rosie said, unsatisfied.

“Oh, get out of here. You haven’t done a lick of work today,” Aurora snapped suddenly. “What you mean is if he were educated I might think about marrying him, which is plainly insulting. I’m not such a snob as all that. If I wanted him I’d educate him myself. Vernon is far too sweet for me to consider inflicting myself on him permanently. You know very well he wouldn’t stand a chance around the likes of me. I haven’t got past Trevor yet, so just leave Vernon out of it.”

“He’s gonna be heartbroken,” Rosie said. “You know that, don’t you? I never seen a feller fall so deep in love so fast. I’m gonna take up for him while there’s still a chance of getting him out alive.”

Aurora began to kick her pillows out toward the center of the room, one by one. It was a day when she found it difficult to feel right about anything. Life might be many things, but it would never be anywhere near perfect, not hers at least, and the problem of what to do about the innocent fifty-year-old heart she had so ruthlessly captured was undeniably a serious one. The heart had been there to take and she had taken it, an action as natural to her as taking a bite from a plate. She had never been inclined to pass over accessible hearts, if the person carrying them seemed somewhat palatable.

Self-denial of almost any kind was a mode of behavior she had always rejected—instinctively at the moment when something lay at hand to be grabbed, consciously later on when she had time to think about it. In an imperfect, frequently unsatisfactory life, self-denial seemed the stupidest of procedures. She didn’t leave palatable bites on plates, either; and yet, committed as she was, both by instinct and reflection, to having what she could get, she recognized quite clearly that hearts were not much like bites, and the thought of breaking Vernon’s, or anyone’s, was a very troubling thought. At moments she deplored her greed, but those were rare moments; restraint was not something she expected of herself. Since Vernon had not been passed over, a way would have to be found to take care of him.

It was just that at the moment she could not imagine what that way might be. The thought of him caused her to sigh.

“Well, I wouldn’t have thought any fifty-year-old would have been so incautious, to tell you the truth,” she said to Rosie. “Vernon has no self-protective instinct at all. I have only one way of proceeding where men are concerned: I try to be worth their while as I go along, one way or another. If I’m not, then they better scram, to use a crude word. I’ve never been able to vouch for tomorrow, not even with Rudyard.”

“Does that mean you never know what you might do next?” Rosie said. “I’m the same way. Wonder why we stayed married so long?”

“Oh, that has nothing to do with vouching for tomorrow,” Aurora said. “Who likes to break a habit?”

She got to her feet and wandered about the room distractedly, her dinner date on her mind. “I wish I had time to go buy a dress,” she said. “If I’m to be given an ultimatum I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a new dress.”

“Just keep in mind I’m on Vernon’s side,” Rosie said. “If you don’t do right by him I’m quittin’. I ain’t gonna sit by an’ see that man hurt.”

Aurora stopped and put her hands on her hips. “Don’t hector me,” she said. “I have Hector for that—or at least I did. Of course Vernon’s likely to be hurt, somewhat. Let’s just get some good food in him first. Do you think a man who waits fifty years to get involved with women and then picks me to try and get involved with is going to come out unscathed. It’s partly his own fault, for waiting so long. Meanwhile I hope you’ll allow me to take my problems one at a time. My immediate problem is Mr. Trevor Waugh.”