Terms of Endearment

by Larry McMurtry

  The house key was under an old washpot in the back yard. A large colony of bugs was also under the pot in a circle of bleached grass. The back yard also contained two broken tricycles and the motor of a Nash Rambler Royce had owned many years before.

  Once they were inside, it took only seconds to determine that the Dunlups had vanished. Three of the four rooms bore the stamp of Rosie’s orderliness: the dishes were washed in the kitchen, the toys neatly stacked in the children’s room. Only the bedroom showed signs of activity. The bed wasn’t made, the bureau drawers were open, and, most mysterious of all, the telephone receiver was lying on top of the bureau.

  “That’s rather drastic, don’t you think?” Aurora said. “If she wasn’t in the mood to talk she could have stuck it under a pillow. I didn’t think she’d be this mad at me.”

  “It could be Royce,” Emma said. “Maybe they broke up again.”

  They went back out and dropped the key back amid the bugs.

  “Most inconvenient,” Aurora said two or three times.

  They got in the car and started back down Lyons Avenue, but they had not gone three blocks before Emma, glancing casually at a drive-in and wishing she could have a milkshake, spotted the very person they were looking for carrying a large tray of food to one of the parked cars.

  “Stop, Momma!” she said. “There she is at the drive-in.”

  Instead of stopping Aurora executed a majestic turn, narrowly missing a pickup full of Mexicans, all of whom began to curse her in spirited terms. When she did finally stop it was in the middle of a side street that ran by the drive-in—the street, as it happened, that the pickup full of Mexicans had been meaning to drive down. They began to honk, but Aurora was not to be hurried. She peered calmly across the parking lot, trying to ascertain if Rosie was actually there.

  “I don’t see why those men didn’t pass me when they had the chance,” she said. Then she coughed, almost overcome by exhaust fumes as the old pickup roared by. A number of brown fists were shaken at her.

  “I’m glad I don’t live in a Latin country,” she said. “I’m sure I’d have a great deal of trouble if I did.” She did another majestic turn and brought the Cadillac to rest midway between two convertibles, both of them full of raucous white boys with long sideburns.

  “You’re taking up two spaces,” Emma said. “Maybe three.”

  “That’s fine,” Aurora said. “I don’t like our neighbors. I’m sure they’re saying very profane things. I’d rather your young ears weren’t sullied.”

  Emma giggled at the idea, and as she did Rosie walked out toward them. Her head was down and she was not noticing much. She had only been working an hour, but she had already learned that it was better to keep her head down and not notice much. Before she had been at work ten minutes a heavy equipment operator with a little bulldozer tattooed on his arm had hinted that he might like to marry her if, as he put it, they “hit it off.”

  When she looked up to take an order and found herself looking into the apparently uninjured eye of her former employer, the shock was almost too much. It rendered her speechless.

  “Yes,” Aurora said. “There you are, aren’t you? You’ve already secured employment. I suppose I’m to be given no chance to ask to be forgiven, though I would have thought you might offer me that chance after all our years together.”

  “Aw, Aurora,” Rosie said.

  “Hello, over there,” Emma said.

  Rosie couldn’t answer. She was about to cry. All she could do was stand and look at her boss and her favorite girl. Their appearance at the Pioneer Number 16 seemed nothing short of a miracle.

  “Why did you cut that phone?” Aurora asked. “I only waited a reasonable interval before I called you.”

  Rosie shook her head, then leaned it against the car door. “Honey, it wasn’t over you,” she said. “I come home an’ caught Royce talkin’ to his girl friend. I don’t know, I just got the shears and cut it before I even thought.”

  “I see,” Aurora said. “I should have guessed. That was perfectly sensible, only you might have called me first so I would have known what was happening.”

  “I thought of it two seconds too late,” Rosie said. “Y’all want anything to eat?”

  “Milkshake,” Emma said. “Chocolate.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Rosie said.

  They watched silently as she delivered two large trays of food to the adjacent convertibles. “Look at her,” Aurora said. “She acts like she’s been doing it for years.

  “Go take off that uniform and get in the car,” she said when Rosie came back. “I take it back about firing you.”

  “That’s a big relief,” Rosie said. “I’ll be there in the morning. I can’t walk off the job just when they’re busiest. Did Royce tell you where to find me?”

  “No, Royce was not about. My eagle-eyed daughter spotted you.”

  Rosie heaved a deep sigh and without a word walked off shaking her head. Two or three cars had begun to honk for service. It was several minutes before she got time to stop at the Cadillac again.

  “That means he’s gone back to her,” she said. “I guess that’s that. I ain’t takin’ him back no second time.”

  “We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” Aurora said, but Rosie had already taken their tray and gone.

  3.

  “DO YOU ever hear from Vernon?” Emma asked as they were riding back. The moon had risen early, and it hung above the buildings of downtown Houston.

  Aurora didn’t answer.

  “I think you might have made something of Vernon if you’d tried,” Emma said.

  “I’m not an educator. Enjoy that nice moon and mind your own business. When I was younger it was sometimes amusing to draw people out and give them polish, if they needed it, but it’s been my lot to know quite a number of people who are already polished, and I suppose they’ve pampered me.”

  “Are you and the General thinking of marrying?” Emma asked timidly.

  “Hector is thinking of it,” Aurora said. “I am not. I thought I told you to mind your own business.”

  “I’d just like to find out what makes you tick,” Emma said. “I don’t care what it is, I’d just like to know.”

  “Yes, that’s your academic bias showing,” Aurora said. “In this case you made a bad choice of metaphor, since clocks tick and I am not a clock. If you’re interested in the source of clicks you will have to study clocks. Horology, I believe it’s called. You’ll never know much about me, I’m afraid. Half the time I’m a mystery to myself, and I’ve always been a mystery to the men who think they know me. Happily, I enjoy surprises. I’m always happiest when I manage to surprise myself.”

  “I wish I’d never brought it up,” Emma said.

  “Since you are my daughter, I’ll tell you something,” Aurora said. “Understanding is overrated and mystery is underrated. Keep that in mind and you’ll have a livelier life.”

  When she stopped at Emma’s apartment, they could both see Flap. He was sitting on the steps that led up to the apartment. They both sat and looked at him through the deep twilight.

  “He isn’t running out to embrace you, is he?” Aurora said.

  “Is the General going to run out and embrace you when you get home?”

  “Well, at the very least he’s going to be pacing the floor,” Aurora said. “Thank you for accompanying me. I trust you’ll give your old mother a call when you sense that you’re about to give birth.”

  “Sure. Give my best to the General.”

  “Thank you, I shall. I always do anyway, but it was nice of you to say it. This time it can be legitimate.”

  “Why do you always say it?” Emma asked, waving vaguely at Flap in reassurance.

  “The General’s fond of believing that he’s widely loved and adored,” Aurora said. “In fact he’s hardly loved or adored at all, but since I seem to have taken him under my wing I have to do my best to conceal that from him. The slightest whiff of disapproval
casts him down.”

  “You mean you become an approving person when you’re not around me? I’d like to see that sometime.”

  “It’s quite a sight, I admit,” Aurora said, waving as she drove away.

  4.

  THE MINUTE she turned into her driveway Aurora knew there was trouble ahead, because Alberto’s disreputable old Lincoln was parked where her Cadillac was supposed to sit. Alberto was not in the Lincoln, which meant that he was probably in the house somewhere. There had been no light on in the General’s house when she had passed it, so it was not unlikely that he too was in her house. She managed to squeeze the Cadillac in past the Lincoln, wondering how in the world Alberto had managed to squeeze in past Hector.

  She sat and thought about the whole matter for perhaps a minute, and decided that the more leisurely her entrance the better, if only because it would save her breath. A lot of breath was going to be necessary, she felt sure. Despite several lengthy telephone calls on the subject, Alberto evidently refused to accept that the General had become a serious part of her life; the General, for his part, had never accepted that Alberto was a member of the civilized orders. It seemed likely to be an interesting evening, so she brushed her hair for a while before getting out of the car.

  She opened her back door a crack and listened for the sound of angry male voices, but she heard nothing. The house was intimidatingly quiet—so quiet, in fact, that she allowed the situation to intimidate her briefly. She eased the door shut and took a short walk along the sidewalk, trying to work out in her mind what her position ought to be relative to the two men. They had been rivals for a good twenty-five years, and matters would require some delicacy, she knew. Alberto had had his success early, and the General was having his late—the twain between the successful and the disappointed was not likely to meet. All she really hoped to accomplish was to get Alberto out alive. He had always been the least self-protective of men, and she lingered a while on the sidewalk in the hope that perhaps he would emerge on an errand, or in disgust, or something, so she could have a moment or two alone with him before the storm broke.

  But Alberto did not emerge and Aurora went back and opened the back door wide. “Yoo hoo,” she said. “Are you boys in there?”

  “Of course we’re in here,” the General said. “Where have you been?”

  Aurora stepped into the kitchen and saw that the two of them were sitting at the kitchen table, one at each end. A vast profusion of flowers were ranged along the cabinets. Alberto wore a familiar much-injured look and a shabby brown suit. The General was glaring at her with his usual fierceness.

  “Why, I’ve been out,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Aurora, I won’t have you answering questions with questions,” the General said. He seemed about to say more, but then abruptly he stopped.

  “Alberto, what a surprise,” she said, giving him a pat. She set her purse on the table and looked both men over.

  “You’ve raided the flower shops again, I see,” she said.

  “Well, I buy a few flowers … for old times’ sake,” Alberto said. “You know me, I have to buy some flowers.”

  “I’d like to know why,” the General said. “Look at those things. It’s ridiculous. I haven’t bought that many flowers in the last twenty years. I don’t expect to have that many flowers at my goddamn funeral.”

  “Oh, stop grumping, Hector,” Aurora said. “Alberto has always had a weak spot for flowers, that’s all. It’s his Italian heritage. You’ve been in Italy surely. You can appreciate that.”

  “I don’t appreciate anything,” the General said hotly. “I find all this very goddamn mysterious. I find it irritating too, I might say. What does he think he’s doing here?”

  “What is you doing here!” Alberto said, growing suddenly red in the face. He pointed a finger at the General.

  Aurora slapped his hand lightly. “Come on, put your finger away, Alberto,” she said. She looked around to see that the General was silently shaking his fist.

  “Stop shaking your fist, Hector,” she said. “May I remind both of you that none of us met yesterday. Whether either of you like to admit it or not, I’ve known both of you for a very long time. We’re products of a rather lengthy acquaintanceship, and I think the less finger pointing and fist shaking we have the more we’ll all enjoy the evening.”

  “What do you mean, enjoy the evening?” the General said. “I certainly don’t intend to enjoy any evening with him around.”

  Alberto chose that moment to rise and burst into tears. He started for the door, abasing himself as he went.

  “I go, I go,” he said. “I am the one who is wrong to be here, I see it Aurora. Is nothing. I was just bringing some flowers for old times’ sake, and perhaps say hello, but I make a mistake. You can be in peace.”

  He threw her a tearful kiss, but Aurora raced around the table and caught him by his shabby brown coat sleeve just before he got out the door.

  “You come right back here, Alberto,” she said. “Nobody’s leaving just yet.”

  “Ha!” the General said. “That’s the goddamn Italian heritage that I remember. They’re all a bunch of crybabies.”

  Alberto switched abruptly from tears to rage. Several large veins stood out on his forehead. “You see, he has insult!” he said, waving his left fist. Aurora clung calmly to the right and managed to drag him back to his chair.

  “Sit, Alberto,” she said. “This is extremely colorful and on the whole flattering to a lady of my years, but my tolerance for colorful behavior is limited, as you both ought to know.”

  When she saw that Alberto was going to sit, she released him and walked down to the other end of the table. She put a hand on the General’s arm—which, despite his pretense of cool, was quivering somewhat—and looked him calmly in the eye.

  “Hector, I would like to inform you that I have decided to ask Alberto to take dinner with us,” she said.

  “Oh, you have, have you?” the General said, faintly intimidated. Being looked directly in the eye had always made him somewhat uncomfortable, and Aurora did not shift her gaze in the slightest.

  “I don’t see that I need to repeat myself,” she said. “Alberto is a friend of long standing and I have been rather negligent lately where he is concerned. Since he’s been so considerate as to bring me these nice flowers, I think it’s only appropriate to use the occasion to repair my negligence, don’t you?”

  The General was not about to say yes but did not quite dare say no. He held his silence.

  “Besides which,” Aurora went on, with a slight smile, “I have always felt that you and Alberto should get to know one another better.”

  “Like fun we should,” the General said grimly.

  “Yes, it would be fun,” Aurora said, blithely ignoring his meaning. “Don’t you think so Alberto?”

  She glanced down at the table and fixed Alberto with the same direct gaze. Alberto took refuge in a profound if somewhat exhausted Italian shrug.

  “You’re being goddamn dictatorial, you know,” the General said. “Nobody’s going to enjoy this dinner but you, and you know it.”

  “Far be it from me to dictate to you, Hector,” Aurora said. “If you feel this to be the slightest imposition, then of course you know that you’re free to leave. Alberto and I would be sorry to lose you, but we’ve dined alone before, and once more probably wouldn’t hurt us.”

  “Oh, no you don’t,” the General said. Aurora continued to gaze at him. She seemed to be smiling, but he hadn’t the least idea what she was really thinking, so he repeated what he had just said. “Oh, no you don’t.”

  “You’ve said that twice, Hector,” Aurora said. “If it’s some kind of military code, would you mind translating? Does that mean you’ve decided to stay for dinner after all?”

  “Of course I’m staying for dinner,” the General said. “I was invited properly, I might remind you. I didn’t just come driving up with a car full of flowers and force my way in. At lea
st I do these things by the book.”

  “So you do,” Aurora said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not why you and I so often find ourselves in disagreement, Hector. My old friend Alberto and I leave a bit more room for impulse in our lives, don’t we, Alberto?”

  “Sure,” Alberto said, yawning despite himself. He was already exhausted from his own emotion. “Anything we can think of, that’s what we used to do,” he added, once he had completed his yawn.

  The General merely glared. It was not to be his last glare, nor Alberto’s last yawn either. As soon as she saw that she had command of the situation, Aurora applied herself to it with complete precision. She forced a large rum drink on the General, having found from long experience that rum was the only drink that was likely to cause him to mellow. Alberto she restricted to wine, on the grounds that it was better for his heart. Then she sang a medley of Alberto’s favorite songs while she whipped up some pasta, an excellent sauce, and a salad. Alberto’s eyes shone briefly. He managed to compliment her twice, and then, quietly, halfway through his third glass of wine, he went to sleep. He went to sleep sitting up, at a tilt, but Aurora got up, removed his plate, lowered him gently until his head rested where his plate had been, and, after thinking a moment, left him his wine glass.

  “I’ve never known Alberto to spill wine,” she said. “He might want to drink it when he wakes up.”

  Before the General could say anything she took his plate, which was empty, and gave him another helping of pasta and what was left of the sauce. She set his plate in front of him sharply, as if she were a military orderly, and then gave him a little rap on the head with her knuckles before sitting down to finish her salad. She glanced for a moment at Alberto, peacefully sleeping, before turning back to the General.

  “He’s not got quite your vigor, you see,” she said. “You were quite foolish to make that scene. What’s it to you if Alberto comes over and goes to sleep at my table once in a while?”

  Alberto’s quick fade left the General mildly abashed, but not so abashed that he lost sight of the main point. “I don’t care if he went to sleep,” he said. “Look at all those flowers.”