Terms of Endearment (8 page)

Aurora, aside from pulling her skirt down and tightening her lips slightly, made no movement at all. She did not look at Edward Johnson, she did not look at the bus driver, and she did not so much as frown. She gazed ahead with a pleasant but slightly aloof expression and allowed a small silence to grow. She was adept at small silences, and knew it. Silences were the equivalent, in her repertoire, of the Chinese water torture—they fell, second by second, upon the most sensitive nerves of whoever had been so foolish as to occasion them.

The man who had occasioned this one was not, as Aurora knew, any sort of stoic. Five seconds were quite enough to break him.

“What did he say?” he asked witlessly.

Aurora smiled. Life, she knew, was something one had to make the most of, but there were certainly times when it was difficult to know how to go about it.

“The young man’s remarks were quite distinctly put,” she said. “I don’t think I care to repeat them. I have a date with a gentleman
inside
a nearby restaurant, I believe. I have never yet made a date that required anyone to wait on a curb, that I can recall. Late as I usually am, one of my escorts might grow dizzy from hunger and fall in front of a bus if I did that. Given a choice, I’d far rather my escorts applied their time to seeing that we get a good table.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” Edward Johnson said. “You take your time. I’ll just run back in and see about ours right now.”

Ten minutes later Aurora stepped into the restaurant and smiled at him as if she had not seen him in weeks. “Why there you are, Edward, as usual,” she said. Thanks to nervousness his kiss landed somewhere between her cheek and her ear, but she seemed not to notice. Her stockings were on, but the backdraft from another passing bus had blown her abundant hair into a wild upward shape, and she paused a moment to comb it down.

Aurora never allowed herself to take the slightest notice of the reputation of restaurants—not in America, at any rate—and in her view it was quite obvious that no self-respecting French restaurant would have allowed itself to be in Houston anyway. She soon swept on toward the dining room, trailing Edward Johnson behind her. The maitre d’ saw them coming and rushed to confront them—Aurora had always unnerved him, and she did it again. He saw her patting a few vagrant locks into place and failed to realize that in her view her appearance was quite as it should be. He himself was fond of mirrors and at once suggested one.

“Bonjour, madame,” he said. “Madame would like the ladies’ room?”

“Thank you, no, and it’s not quite your place to raise such topics, monsieur,” Aurora said, walking right past him. “I hope we’re going to be seated well, Edward. You know how I adore watching people come in. I’ve been rushing, as you can see. Probably you’re very annoyed with me for being so tardy.”

“No, of course not, Aurora,” Mr. Johnson said. “Are you feeling well?”

Aurora nodded, glancing around the restaurant with happy disdain. “Why yes,” she said. “I hope we’re having pompano, and as soon as it’s practicable. You know I love it above all fish. If you had a bit more initiative you might have ordered it in advance, Edward. You are rather passive, you know. If you had ordered it in advance we could be eating it now. There was little enough likelihood that I would have wanted anything else.”

“Certainly, Aurora,” he said.

“Uh, pompano,” he said to the first passing busboy, who looked at him blankly.

“That’s a busboy, Edward,” Aurora said. “Busboys do not take orders. The waiters are the ones in the dinner jackets. I do think a man in your position ought to keep these distinctions a little more clearly in mind.”

Edward Johnson could have bitten his tongue off. Almost always Aurora’s mere presence was enough to cause him to say things that made him want to bite his tongue off. It was absolutely inexplicable. He had known the difference between waiters and busboys for at least thirty years. He had even been a busboy himself once, as a teenager in Southampton. Yet the minute he sat down beside Aurora Greenway foolish remarks of a sort he would never otherwise have made seemed to pop out of his mouth with no warning. It was some sort of vicious circle. Aurora was not one to let foolish remarks pass, and the more she didn’t let them pass the more he seemed compelled to make them. He had been courting her for three years and could not remember a single foolish remark that she had ever let pass.

“I’m sorry,” he said humbly.

“Well, I don’t think I want to hear about it,” Aurora said, looking him in the eye. “I’ve always thought that people who are too quick with their apologies can’t have a very healthy attitude.”

She took off a few of her rings and began to shine them up with her napkin. Napkins seemed to work better on rings than anything else, and as far as she could see, the fact that the restaurant had nice napkins was about the only justification for having lunch with Edward Johnson. A man who would order pompano from a busboy was hardly inspiring. On the whole, men who stood in awe of her were even worse than men who didn’t, and Edward Johnson seemed mired at least hip deep in awe. He had lapsed into nervous silence and was munching a piece of celery that seemed to her much too wet.

“You had better put a napkin in your lap if you intend to keep eating that celery, Edward,” she said. “I’m afraid it’s dripping on you. On the whole you don’t seem quite attentive to things today. I hope you haven’t had setbacks at the bank.”

“Oh, no,” Edward Johnson said. “Everything’s going just fine, Aurora.” He wished some real food would come. If there was
some real food on the table to talk about he might stand a chance of saying something sensible; there would be less risk that ridiculous remarks would pop out of his mouth to embarrass him.

Aurora quickly found herself driven to the wall with boredom, as was usually the case when she lunched with Edward Johnson. He was so afraid of making a fool of himself that he said nothing at all; the best he could offer in the way of conversation was to munch his celery as loudly as possible. She took refuge, as was her custom, in a minute examination of everyone in the restaurant—an examination that was hardly reassuring. A number of well-dressed and obviously influential men were lunching with women much too young for them. Most of the women were young enough to be their escorts’ daughters, but Aurora doubted very much that that was the case.

“Humph,” she said, offended by the sight. “All is not well in the land.”

“Where?” Edward Johnson said, jumping a little. He assumed that he had spilled something on himself, but he couldn’t imagine what, since he had stopped eating celery and was sitting with both hands in his lap. Perhaps the busboy had spilled something on him in revenge.

“Well, I must say the evidence is all around us, Edward, if you’d only open your eyes and look,” Aurora said. “I distinctly dislike seeing young women debauched. A great many of them are probably secretaries, and I doubt they can have had much experience of the world. I suppose when I am not able to lunch with you you resort to younger women, don’t you, Edward?”

The accusation left Edward Johnson momentarily speechless. It was, in fact, true, and he hadn’t the slightest notion how Aurora had found it out, or any hint of how much she knew, not that there was much to know. In the four years since his wife’s death he had wined and dined at least thirty of the youngest and most inexperienced secretaries he could find, hoping that some one of them would be impressed enough with his rank or his table manners to sleep with him, but it had been a forlorn effort. Even the greenest little eighteen-year-olds, out of Conroe or Nacogdoches, had no trouble finding ways around him. Scores of fancy meals and hours of his suavest conversation had not so
far swayed any of them even to the point of holding hands with him. In truth, he was not far from despair with it all, and his most cherished dream was that maybe someday Aurora Greenway, through some whimsy of the heart, would suddenly decide to marry him and save him from such punishing pursuits.

“You don’t seem to be speaking up, Edward,” Aurora said, looking at him closely. She had not really meant anything by her accusation—it was her habit, on occasion, to toss out nets of accusation just to see what she could drag in. Those with any sense denied everything at once. The denials might fall on deaf ears; but more often the ears they fell on were just disinterested, Aurora’s thoughts having wandered away in the time it took the accused to frame his denial.

The only thoroughly stupid tactic possible when faced with one of Aurora’s accusations was to confess; it was the tactic Edward Johnson immediately took. He had meant to lie—he almost always lied to Aurora about everything—but when he looked up and attempted to face her she seemed so convinced that he faltered. She was the only woman he knew who could look absent-minded—distracted, even—and yet seem utterly convinced of the truth of whatever lay uppermost in her mind. She was continuing to inspect the restaurant’s clientele, continuing to polish her rings, all with a happy hauteur, but she shot him a look out of the corner of her eye that said plainly enough, he was sure, that she knew all about his secretaries. Confession seemed his only hope, so he blurted one out.

“Oh, not often, Aurora,” he said. “Once a month maybe. No more.”

Aurora stopped polishing her rings. She looked at him, quite silent. In an instant her look had become grave. “What did you say, Edward?” she asked.

“Very infrequently,” he said. “Very infrequently, Aurora.”

He was aware from the way her face had changed that he had made a real blunder, something far more serious than ordering from the busboy. She was looking him in the eye and she wasn’t smiling. He felt a coward suddenly. He often had, with Aurora, but never so much. Something was wrong—it had never been right. He was a bank vice-president, an important man, he controlled
millions, he was known and looked up to; an Aurora Greenway was none of those things. She was well known to be flighty; he didn’t even know why he was courting her, why he wanted to marry someone whose mere look made him quail inside. But it was happening. Why was he wasting time, spending money, making a fool of himself, all for a woman he was scared to death of. It made no sense, but he was sure he was in love with her. She was an awful lot livelier than his wife had ever been—his wife had never been able to tell a pompano from a carp—yet there was terror at the heart of it, simple terror. He didn’t know what to do or say when Aurora leveled her blue eyes at him. Why wasn’t he the man he seemed to be when he was around men? Why didn’t he defend himself better, or attack her in return? Why did he have such a feeling of not knowing what to do?

“You mean to say, Edward,” Aurora said quietly, “that you bring young women here, where you’ve brought me?”

“Oh, trivial, Aurora,” he said. “Of no consequence. Not relevant at all, really. Just secretaries. I mean for company.”

He paused. The pompano arrived. Aurora received it in total silence. The maitre d’ had started to suggest a wine, but she chilled him with one look. She considered the fish for a moment but did not pick up her fork.

“What’s a man to do?” Edward Johnson said nervously, thinking out loud.

Aurora sat quietly looking at nothing for what seemed to Edward Johnson like a very long time. She did not touch her fork, and he didn’t dare touch his.

“I believe you have proposed marriage to me, haven’t you, Edward?” she said, looking at him quite expressionlessly.

“Of course, of course,” he blurted. His stomach had stopped being a sac—it felt more like a kernel.

“Did you mean it?” Aurora asked.

“Of course, Aurora,” he said, his heart suddenly leaping up irrationally. “You know I’m nearly… crazy… to marry you. I’d marry you this afternoon, right here in this restaurant.”

Aurora frowned, but only slightly. “The best marriages are not performed in cheap restaurants, Edward,” she said. “Though it
isn’t really a restaurant, is it? It’s more a sort of seraglio, if I’m not confusing my terms. And I’ve let you bring me to it, haven’t I?”

“Marry you this afternoon,” Edward Johnson repeated passionately, thinking from her strange manner that there must be some chance.

“Uum,” Aurora said with no expression at all. “I do hope my memory isn’t failing me, Edward. I’m a little too young to have my memory fail me just now. If it hasn’t already begun to slip, then I seem to recall that you have often said I was the only woman in your life.”

“Oh, you are,” he said urgently. “No doubt of that, Aurora. Why even before Marian died I was crazy about you.”

Aurora frowned again, still very slightly.

“I should think insulting me would be quite enough for you, Edward,” she said. “I don’t believe it’s necessary for you to go on and insult the memory of your dead wife. I’m sure she had more than enough of that to put up with while she was alive.”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry, you misunderstood. No insult,” Edward Johnson said, lacking any clue as to what he ought to say. “Last thing I would ever do.”

Aurora began matter-of-factly to fold her napkin. “In point of fact it is not the last thing you’ll ever do, Edward,” she said, looking at him coolly, “not, at least, unless you propose to perform hari-kari with that butter knife. You’re holding it in the wrong hand, by the way. At least it’s the wrong hand for buttering—I’m not versed in the etiquette of hari-kari.” She stopped and looked at him silently. Edward Johnson changed hands with his butter knife.

“Speak to me, Aurora,” he said, completely panicked. “Don’t look like that. Those women were just kids. Just teenagers. Inconsequential. I just take them out because they’re young.”

Aurora chuckled dryly. “Edward, I can assure you you don’t have to convince me they were young,” she said. “No doubt some of them are seated here under my very eyes. I imagine you and your fellow executives have worked out some satisfactory method of exchange between yourselves. In any case it’s your business, not mine. I’m only curious about one thing. If you have been
telling me, as you admit you have, that I’m the only woman in your life, what am I to think you’ve been telling your teenagers?”