Terms of Endearment (47 page)

Babe and Bobby were cooking a grillful of eggs for a half dozen pipecutters when Vernon and Aurora walked in. The sight of Vernon with a woman almost caused them to overcook the whole mess. They were hard put to do anything but stare, and
Vernon, for his part, was hard put to mumble out an introduction.

Aurora smiled when she was introduced, but it didn’t help much. Bobby took refuge in professionalism, but Babe tried gallantly to rise to the occasion.

“Honey, any girl of Vernon’s is a pleasure for us to meet,” she said, not sure if she was striking the right note. She patted her hair a few times and said, “Y’all excuse me while I get this order out.”

Aurora had an omelette, and Bobby snuck as many glances as he dared while he was making it.

“I like your night watchman,” Aurora said when conversation flagged.

“Aw, Schweppes?” Vernon said.

“Don’t say aw,” Aurora said. “It’s very annoying that you didn’t hang in there long enough for me to improve your English.”

“I give it my best try,” Vernon said.

“I hardly think so. You accepted defeat rather calmly—almost with relief, I would have said. You’ve obviously discussed me with these people, and with your night watchman. Why didn’t you discuss me with me instead of with your various cronies and employees?”

“Babe says I’m a born loner,” Vernon said. “She’s always said that.”

Aurora glanced over her shoulder at Babe. “If you’d rather believe her than me, fine,” she said. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve decided I’d rather have you take me to breakfast once in a while. It will irritate General Scott exceedingly, but that’s his lookout.”

“Now what do you make of that?” Bobby asked Babe the minute they went out the door.

“I wish I hadn’t suggested he give her that goat,” Babe said. “I never knowed she was so old. She’d look nice with a diament, an’ lord knows he can afford to give her one.”

2.

R
OSIE POPPED
out of the plane the minute its doors opened, at a little airport far out Westheimer. Aurora and Vernon stood watching.

“We bounced around like a boll of cotton,” Rosie said, hugging Aurora.

“Shame on you for running away,” Aurora said. “You could have come and lived with me.”

“Don’t like to impose,” Rosie said.

“No, I’m the only one who seems to. I’m only sorry there aren’t more people willing to be imposed upon.” She picked up a car phone and called Emma, who didn’t answer.

“I bet she’s gone to the hospital,” she said, and at once called the General.

“General Scott,” General Scott said.

“We know that, Hector,” Aurora said. “Has Emma called?”

“Yes, and it’s about time you thought to check,” the General said. “I don’t know what you’d do if I wasn’t around to take messages for you.”

“Get to the point,” Aurora said. “We weren’t discussing what I’d do without you. No doubt I’ll find that out soon enough. What’s my daughter up to?”

“She’s having a baby,” the General said.

“Thank you, Hector. Have a good day if you can,” Aurora said.

“Where are you?” the General asked. “I’ve been worried.”

“On our way to the hospital. Rosie’s in quite good spirits.”

“Well, I’m not,” the General said. “I don’t see why I couldn’t have come along. There’s nothing to do here.”

“I guess it’s not fair to exclude you from all this excitement,” Aurora said. “The baby’s being born at Hermann Hospital—make F.V. bring you there. We have to go to Ben Taub first to see to Royce. Try to look commanding when you come. You know how difficult hospital personnel can be.

“As long as it’s going to be a party I must invite Alberto,” she said when she hung up. “You know how happy babies make him. On the other hand, he’s never much good in the morning. Perhaps I’ll have everyone to dinner instead.”

“This is Emma’s baby,” Rosie said. “I ain’t gonna sit by and watch you take it over like you’ve taken over every’body else.”

“Emma won’t care,” Aurora said. “She’s one of the meek, like Vernon here.”

“I ain’t one of the meek,” Rosie said.

When they got to the ward where Royce was, Shirley Sawyer was there. As Aurora and Rosie and Vernon walked through a long aisle between beds they saw a large woman stand up in confusion. She was by Royce’s bed.

“You mean she’s that old?” Rosie whispered in astonishment, unprepared for Shirley to be large, ugly, and confused.

“I think she’ll leave, if we let her,” Aurora said.

Shirley looked at Royce, who was unconscious, and began to tiptoe out. She had to come right past them, and she continued to tiptoe, rather pitifully, Aurora thought.

“Miz Dunlup, I just had to see him,” Shirley said plaintively. “I know you hate me—I’m the cause of it all.”

She began to cry and went on up the aisle. Rosie didn’t speak, though she did nod a kind of acknowledgment. Then they all went and looked at Royce, who was asleep but obviously not dead. He looked pale and unshaven and had several tubes running into his body. “He’s breathin’, but he ain’t snorin’,” Rosie said tearfully.

Aurora put her hand on Vernon’s arm. Life was such a mystery, and such a drama. She had just seen two grown women moved to tears by the sight of the pale bandaged hulk of Royce Dunlup. Few bodies could have contained less of human grace than Royce’s, it seemed to her, and she could find nothing at all to say about his spirit, since in her presence he had never shown any. Royce was as near to being a human zero as she had encountered, and yet her own Rosie, a woman of morality and good sense, was ruining several Kleenex over him as she and Vernon watched.

“I better tell her he can have his job back,” Vernon said.

“Oh, be still,” Aurora said. “You can’t cure all the ills of humankind with your jobs, you know. You’d do better to cure a few of your own and let the rest of us flounder.”

Vernon shut up, and, while Rosie was examining the countenance of her husband, Aurora looked about the ward. It seemed to be mostly filled with old, hopeless Negro men and young, hopeless Negro men, some of them grotesquely bandaged, none of them looking at anyone else. Thirty people were sitting around in one room, quite removed from one another, and when Aurora looked at Vernon she too felt removed, and rather personless. Who could she weep for? Not likely Hector, at least not at the moment. Perhaps Trevor. It would be just like Trevor to contract some horrible disease, become beautifully gaunt, and die splendidly, thus breaking at last all those sunny hearts who had so relentlessly melted his own over the years. But that was remote. With a sigh she went over to Rosie.

“Ain’t it somethin’,” Rosie said. “An old man like Royce havin’ the gumption to carry on that way.”

“It’s something,” Aurora said.

“You know, if I’d of known she was that old, I never would have run off,” Rosie said. “Royce told me she was nineteen, the liar.”

“You never told me that.”

“Didn’t want to make it look no worse than it was,” Rosie said.

“Dear, we’d better get over to Emma,” Aurora said. “I’ll check on you later, when I can.”

Walking out, she found herself pondering what Royce had told Rosie—that his mistress was only nineteen. It struck her as being a remarkably keen piece of invention for a man of Royce’s stolidity—the detail most likely to cause Rosie the keenest jealousy, for whatever she might manage to be or do as a wife she would certainly not be able to be nineteen again.

“Human beings have such genius for deception,” she said once they were in the car. “I’ve not been fortunate. I’m far more gifted at deception than any man I’ve ever known. In my heyday I
deceived everyone I knew, and never got caught. I hesitate to think what I might have been capable of if I’d found a man smart enough to deceive me and then let me find it out. I doubt that my admiration would have known any bounds. Unfortunately I was always the more cunning, and I still am.”

When they walked up to the other hospital they saw the General’s old blue Packard sitting out front, with F.V. in his chauffeur’s cap at the wheel. The General got out and stood at attention as they approached.

He had decided, while waiting, to take a businesslike approach to Vernon, and he shook his hand briskly. “What’s the situation?” he asked.

“Well, I’m feeling very philosophical, so don’t ruffle me,” Aurora said. “Talk to Vernon while I calm down. I just remembered that Emma’s having a child.”

“That must be an antique car,” Vernon said, looking at the Packard.

“It’s no better than mine,” Aurora said, looking in her mirror. She felt a little confused. Inside, nothing seemed certain. Emma had given her the slip, finally, and looking at Vernon and the General trying awkwardly to talk to one another made her realize how strange it was that she should be involved with either of them in whatever way. No sooner did she gain a sense of herself and feel a little authority than it all slipped away. Having nothing to say suddenly, she walked into the hospital, leaving the two men to follow uneasily.

“Is she all right?” the General asked awkwardly. “I never know.”

“She ate a good breakfast,” Vernon said. “I guess that counts for something.”

“No, I don’t think so,” the General said. “She always eats. She seemed a little out of sorts when she left home.”

Aurora heard the sound of male voices behind her and whirled on them. “All right, I feel quite sure you two are discussing me,” she said. “I don’t see why you can’t keep up with me. It would be a good deal nicer if we all walked along together.”

“We thought you wanted to be alone to collect your thoughts,” the General said hastily.

“Hector, my thoughts have been collected since I was five,” Aurora said. “You know I become irritable when I think I’m being discussed. It does seem like you and Vernon could remember that. I’d rather not have a scene right now, if we can help it.”

She waited until they caught up and obediently and silently kept pace with her. The nurse at the registration desk had trouble finding Emma’s room number, and Aurora was just on the point of an acid remark when she finally found it.

Immediately she went striding off. Vernon and the General tried to anticipate which way she might turn so as not to bump into her. It was obvious to both of them that she was in no mood to tolerate minor awkwardnesses.

Indeed, riding up in the elevator was terrifying to both of them. Aurora had a tigerish look in her eye—she seemed the very contradiction of everything a grandmother ought to be. It was plain that she suddenly felt almost intolerably hostile to both of them, but neither of them knew why. They felt their best course lay in keeping silent, so they kept very silent.

“Well, you’re both total failures as conversationalists,” Aurora said angrily. Her bosom was heaving; she herself could not remember when she had felt so mixed and so violent.

“Evidently you’re only able to talk about me,” she said. “You’re not at all interested in talking to me. The sight of the two of you makes me wish I was ninety instead of forty-nine. I might as well be ninety, for all the good it’s going to do me. In a healthier age I’d still be having babies, you know—in a healthier age I could probably find someone worth having them by.”

Fortunately the elevator opened just then, and Aurora strode out, giving them a haughty, rather contemptuous glance.

“I knew she wasn’t all right,” the General whispered. “I’m getting so I can tell.”

Aurora walked rapidly down the long white hall, the two men forgotten. She felt like she might burst into tears or fury at any moment, and she wanted to get away from both men. Then, before she had time to calm down or even to consider why she felt so pent up, she was at Emma’s door, Room 611. The door was partially open and she could see her pale, unshaven son-in-law
sitting by the bed. Without a glance at the two tag alongs, she opened the door and saw her daughter. Emma lay back amid some pillows, her eyes unusually wide.

“He’s a boy,” Emma said. “So much for family tradition.”

“Oh, well, I’d just like to see for myself,” Aurora said. “Where have you put him?”

“He’s splendid,” Emma said. “You won’t be able to resist him.”

“Un-huh, and how come you didn’t wear that blue gown I bought you—for this very occasion, I seem to remember?”

“Forgot to pack,” Emma said. Her voice sounded tired and cracked.

Aurora remembered that she had two men with her and looked around for them. They were standing quietly outside the room.

“I brought Vernon and the General to share your moment of triumph,” she said. “I believe they’re both too timid to come in.”

“Hello, hello,” the General said when they had been ushered in. Vernon managed a greeting, and Flap gave them cigars.

“Thank God, someone to give them to,” he said.

“I’ll leave the four of you to complete these formalities and go have a look at that baby, I believe,” Aurora said. She left them all looking vaguely at one another and went down two floors to the nursery. After some prodding, a nurse produced a tiny midge of an infant, who refused to open its eyes. She had wanted especially to see whose eyes it had, but saw she would have to wait. She wandered down the hospital corridor shaking her head and clenching her jaw. Everything was wrong—everything—but she couldn’t say what.

When she got back to Emma’s room she found conversation at a lull, as it had been when she left. “Thomas, you look quite tired,” she said. “Fathers are allowed to rest while the infant is in the hospital, you know, but seldom afterward. If you’d like my advice you ought to go home and go to bed.”

“For once I’ll take your advice,” Flap said. He bent and kissed Emma. “I’ll be back,” he said.

“All right, gentlemen, I’d like a private word with my daughter,” she said, looking at her very uncomfortable suitors. “Perhaps
you’d like to wait for me in the lobby. I’m sure you have notes to compare, or something.”

“Why are you so itsy?” Emma asked, once the men were gone.

Aurora sighed. She was pacing the room. “Is that what I am?” she asked.

“Well, something,” Emma said. “Remember when I told you I was pregnant and you had that fit?”

“Um,” Aurora said, sitting down. “Yes, I suppose I need to burst into tears, but neither of those men is man enough to provoke me to it.”