Terms of Endearment

by Larry McMurtry

  When Flap had gone away, and her mother had called, and she had peeled half the orange and not eaten it, she thought of a number of things she might do. She was a senior biology major, and there was all sorts of lab work she could be doing. She had a part-time job in the zoology lab and could always go over and prepare specimens when she wanted company. There was always company to be had in the lab. What kept her home was simply a liking for home. Perhaps it was an inheritance from her mother, for her mother had a hundred possible outlets too and seldom used any of them. Both of them liked staying home, but then her mother had every reason to like it, since her house was one of the nicest places in Houston. Immediately upon moving from New Haven, her mother had decided that good Spanish Colonial was about the best one could do architecturally in the Southwest and had made her father buy a lovely Spanish Colonial house on a fairly old, fairly unfashionable one-block-long street in River Oaks. It was open and airy, with thick walls and rounded doorways. There was a small patio upstairs and a long one downstairs, and the green yard behind the house backed up against a heavily wooded gully, rather than another street. The trees along the gully were immensely tall. Her mother had the house painted every few years to keep it white. She had never air-conditioned, except, after long argument, her husband’s den and the little guesthouse in the back yard, where her father, Edward Starrett, had lived his last years and died. Aurora loved her house so much that she seldom left it, and Emma could sympathize. Her own cluttered garage apartment was hardly that lovable, but it was an easy enough place to be suspended, and when Flap went off with his father that was what she did.

  She washed her hair first, and then sat on the bed with her back to an open window, letting the hot midday Houston air blow it dry.

  It was late that night, while still somewhat in her suspended state, that Emma seduced her old friend Danny Deck, the writer. Her first impulse the next morning—once Danny was gone and she had time to think—was to blame Flap for it, although she told herself at the time that the only real reason he was to blame was that he hadn’t been there to stop her.

  It was a night, though, that she was to brood on intermittently throughout her life; and years later, while she was living in Des Moines, Iowa, she managed to articulate Flap’s culpability more to her own satisfaction. He had not said anything honest to her before going away with his father. If he had she would have had his honesty to be loyal to, and that, she felt, would have stopped her somewhere short of seduction. Still, by the time she came to that articulation she had other, rather more serious things to worry about than one night of confusion ten years back. The awareness that his dishonesty might have been part of what was working in her that night was no more than a small click that caused her to think of Danny for a moment, and of Flap as he had been then, before going on with her day.

  Emma was working her way backward through the newspaper when Danny finally came. He had called in the afternoon, sounding hard up—his wife had left him months before and he was looking for her, since their child was about to be born—also he had an autograph party to go to and he had just driven non-stop from California, or practically so, and he was tired and at the end of his rope. Since Danny made a practice of living at the end of his rope, Emma paid it no mind. Periodically, almost day to day, Danny Deck managed to convince himself that he was finally and totally defeated, but that had never worried Emma. She knew quite well that it only took a beautiful or a friendly woman to cause him to change his mind; she didn’t let his end-of-my-rope tones affect her day.

  Since she had been suspended most of the day, she had still not finished the morning paper, but she had managed to work her way from the want ads almost to the front page. Flap hated to see newspapers read that way, so she had a better time with the news when he was gone. She had worked her way back to page three and was absorbed in a story about a rich gun collector whose wife had shot him with one of his own guns when she heard Danny’s old car pull up outside. The sound only made her read faster. The reason the gun collector’s wife had shot him was because in a fit of rage he stuffed her favorite earrings in the garbage disposal and ground them up. For some reason the story gave her a strong sense of déjà vu. Things seemed to happen over and over again. It seemed to her she was always reading stories about some crazy Houston killing just as Danny chose to arrive. While she was waiting for him to walk up the driveway she said hello to the mirror a couple of times, to be sure her voice would work.

  It had come a terrific thunderstorm that evening, and the driveway and the wooden steps up to her apartment were still wet. In the years ahead she remembered the wet smell of the steps, and only a few other things. The second time they made love was around seven-thirty the next morning and she couldn’t concentrate because she was feeling the phone was about to ring. It was just at the time her mother always called. It was drizzling; Emma hurried and the phone didn’t ring. They went to sleep with the rain around them like a kind of curtain, very restful, though they only slept about half an hour.

  When she awoke, Danny was sitting up in bed looking out the window at her dripping back yard. “I see you still have hummingbirds,” he said. “I see your feeder.”

  “Yep. I feed them Kool-Aid,” she said. “You’re too skinny.”

  “It’s because I’m at the end of my rope,” he said mischievously, well aware that she took a light view of his little desperations.

  Emma sighed. He had come in looking like a bedraggled and hopeless washout. His father-in-law had just beaten him up, his suit looked like he had crossed a swamp in it, and he had been forbidden to see his newborn daughter, ever. Also one of his ears was bleeding. She had been bathing it when she decided she had to kiss him. Mostly what followed was that she squirmed fearfully all night and got out of bed a dozen times to see if Cecil’s car was pulling into the driveway. It was partly Flap’s handiwork anyway, since he was the one who had conditioned her to feel that sexual intercourse had to follow kissing within two minutes or less.

  “Now we’re both at the end of your rope,” she said. “I must be losing my mind. All I really wanted was to kiss you.”

  “I think your motherly nature just undid you,” Danny said, grinning. “What you really wanted was to get me out of that wet suit. Mortal sin probably seemed a small price to pay.”

  When she sat up he learned over and rubbed his cheek against hers, pleasantly. He had done that the night before too. It was part of the start of the trouble. Then he looked out the window into the veil of rain and started to explain his latest theory, which had something to do with love being radical and sex being conservative. Emma snuggled against him, too cozy to listen, but glad at least that he was sounding like a promising young author again instead of a beaten young man. “Radical acts are done with the heart,” he said. “I might be able to write better now. I have more to forget.”

  Emma moved her fingers over the smooth skin that covered his arm muscle. “Why is it that that’s always the smoothest part of a man?” she asked. “That area right there?”

  At breakfast they sat on the same side of the table and played hands while they talked. As regards his wife and daughter, Danny seemed to face an impenetrable wall; his wife’s parents would only have him arrested if he tried to see them. Emma became slightly melancholy at the thought of how everyone’s life was being lived—also she had begun to feel a strong wifely nervousness again, expecting Cecil’s car to pull in the driveway any second.

  “I’m leaving before you explode with nervousness,” Danny said at once. “Are you feeling very guilty?”

  “Not very,” Emma said. “I have too bad a character for that.”

  His car was filled with junk, but he managed to find a copy of his novel for her. “Don’t those bottles rattle when you drive?” she asked, referring to the twenty or thirty Dr. Pepper bottles in the back seat. Danny was trying to think of something to scribble in his novel for her and didn’t answer. Emma knew that it was not very likely she would ever know a man with
whom she had more accord—during breakfast they had had a lot of accord. He seemed to be the one person whose estimate of her had never wavered.

  “Best I can do,” he said tightly, handing her his book. It was called The Restless Grass.

  “Please don’t marry for a while,” she said. From the look on his face it seemed to her he was likely to marry in the next day or two, bigamously, if he met anyone he could win.

  “You mean until I get smarter?” Danny asked, grinning. His hair had gotten quite long.

  Emma couldn’t stand it. Her mother was right. He ought to have been hers. She turned, feeling she had to go.

  “Oh, Danny,” she said. “Nobody cares about that.”

  2.

  WHEN HE drove away she went in and removed all traces—she even emptied the wastebaskets. Then she felt such a deep relief at having been allowed to get away with it that she relaxed and dozed on her steps too long. The morning clouds had blown away and she got sunburned. She decided to say that his book had come in the mail. Flap was someone to whom—if he had caught her—she would have owed an explanation; since he hadn’t, she was not sure that she owed him anything. She and Danny had been caught, all right, but caught by one another: the absence of those feelings she could only feel with him was going to be the punishment that fit her crime.

  The moment Danny left she stopped expecting Flap. If he hadn’t had instinct enough to come home and catch her sinning he was not likely to come home just to keep her company. The fish were probably biting. She put some cream on her sunburned cheeks and worked her way rapidly backward through the paper to the follow-up story on the man who had ground up his wife’s earrings. While she was reading it the phone rang.

  “Well, I hope you’re in a better mood than you were in yesterday, dear,” her mother said.

  “I don’t know if I am or not,” Emma said. “We’ll have to see how things develop. How are you?”

  “Beset,” Aurora said. “Harassed as well. I’m summoning you and Thomas to dinner, pre-emptorily. I didn’t call this morning, because I allowed the General to take me to breakfast, which was a good deal more trouble than it was worth. I hope you aren’t feeling sluggish as a result.”

  Emma remembered how strongly she had felt the phone about to ring while she had been trying to feel Danny.

  “Sleeping late doesn’t make me feel sluggish,” she said.

  “Well, having to watch that man eat eggs made me feel sluggish,” Aurora said. “I suppose he eats them in the correct military manner, I don’t know. The two of you will be here at seven, won’t you?”

  “No,” Emma said.

  “Oh, God,” Aurora said. “Don’t tell me you’re going to be difficult two days in a row. Why do you need to be difficult when I am harassed?”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions, as usual,” Emma said. “I’ll be glad to be there at seven, but Flap happens to be gone.”

  “He’s left you?” Aurora asked.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Emma said. “I don’t think he’d leave me without waiting to see how this child turns out. He’s off with his father, fishing. They have a new boat.”

  “Oh, foolishness,” Aurora said. “It would have been less trouble for all of us if that boy had been born a fish. I’m growing more irritable by the minute.”

  “Who’s your date?” Emma asked.

  “Oh, Alberto,” Aurora said distractedly. “I consider that I owe him a dinner. He’s been plying me with concerts lately.”

  “Good. I adore Alberto,” Emma said.

  “Well, I won’t have you singing his praises. He sings them loudly enough, as you know. Incidentally, he has been forbidden to sing this evening, so don’t ask him. Also he has been forbidden to mention Genoa, so don’t you mention it either.”

  “Keep him on a tight leash, don’t you?” Emma said. “Why can’t he mention Genoa?”

  “Because he’s excessively boring on the subject,” Aurora said. “The mere fact that he was born there makes him think he has the right to describe every cobblestone in it. I have already heard him describe every cobblestone in it, and it’s quite unnecessary. I’ve been to Genoa and you couldn’t tell it from Baltimore.

  “I know,” she added. “I’ve had a stroke of brilliance. Your young friend Daniel is in town—you must bring him. A young writer would make a very nice fourth. Besides, I’m anxious to see if he’s dressing any better.”

  “No, Flap wouldn’t like me bringing him, even if I could find him,” Emma said. “I think he’s jealous of Danny.”

  “My dear, that’s entirely his problem,” Aurora said. “Don’t give it a thought. I am your mother and it’s perfectly proper for a friend to escort you to my table in your husband’s absence. Civilized procedure takes allowance of the fact that husbands are sometimes absent.”

  “I don’t think mine is very impressed with civilized procedure,” Emma said. The unexpected ironies of the situation made her feel bold.

  “Do you really think all that’s a good idea?” she said. “I mean generally. Married ladies being escorted by men they aren’t married to. Doesn’t it sometimes lead to problems?”

  Aurora snorted. “Naturally,” she said. “It often leads to disgrace. I hardly know why I wasn’t led to disgrace myself, considering how active I am and how reluctant your father was to take me to parties. You’re taking up too much of my time, asking these questions. Disgrace abounds, if I may coin a phrase, but good dinner parties are rare. I will expect you and young Daniel at seven and I hope you’ll both be witty and scintillating.”

  “Hold it,” Emma said. “I don’t know where he is and I don’t think I can find him.”

  “Oh, Emma,” Aurora said. “Stop that. I happened to be passing your street this morning and I saw an extremely disreputable car sitting in front of your house. It could only have been Daniel’s. Just fish him out of whatever closet you’ve hidden him in and clean him up as much as possible and get him over here. Don’t slow me down with nonsense when I have cooking to do.”

  Emma stopped feeling relaxed. She hadn’t gotten away with it, after all. The picture was changed—worse yet, it was ambiguous. She felt hostile suddenly, but she tried to choke it down. She had to find out what game her mother wanted to play.

  “You’re a snoop,” she said hotly, despite her resolve. “I wish I lived in another town from you. I demand privacy. And I can’t bring Danny. So far as I know, he’s left town.”

  “Humph,” Aurora said. “It seems to me he ought to keep you informed of his movements if he’s going to jeopardize your reputation. I have little respect for men who aren’t around when they’re needed. Your father was always around when I needed him, though of course he was also around when I didn’t. I’m hanging up now. I suppose I’ll have to allow Alberto to bring his wretched son.”

  “I don’t like you driving down my street,” Emma said as the phone clicked.

  CHAPTER V

  1.

  BY THE time Emma arrived Aurora had done everything and, having nothing more to do than finish dressing, had suffered a small loss of impetus, of a sort that was particularly apt to afflict her in the evening when guests were expected. She was standing in her bedroom looking at her Renoir. It was a small Renoir, true, and early, but still it was superb: a small oil of two gay women in hats standing near some tulips. Aurora’s farsighted mother, Amelia Starrett, whose eyes had been a Renoir green somewhat unsuited to Boston, had bought the picture in Paris when she herself had been a young woman and Pierre Auguste Renoir quite unknown. It had been the dominant painting of her mother’s life, she felt quite sure, as it had been of hers, and as it would be, she hoped, of Emma’s. She had resisted all pressures to hang it where others could see it. Others, if they were worthy, might come to her bedroom and see it, but her bedroom was the only place she would allow it to be. The dresses of the women were blue; the painting’s colors were light blue, yellow, green, and pink. Still, after thirty years, tears sometimes came to her eyes wh
en she looked at it for too long, as they might have that evening had not Emma appeared at her bedroom door just when she did.

  “There you are, you spy,” Emma said. She had decided attack was the best plan—it was certainly the easiest, since she still felt full of hostility. Her mother was wearing one of her many trailing gowns, this one deep rose, belted with a turquoise belt she had found somewhere in Mexico. She was holding an extraordinary necklace in one hand, amber with silver, that had come from Africa and that Emma understood had been lost.

  “Hey, you found your amber necklace,” she said. “That’s so lovely. Why don’t you give it to me before you lose it again?”

  Aurora looked at her daughter, who was dressed creditably for once in a nice yellow dress. “Ha,” she said. “Perhaps I will, when you acquire presence enough to wear it.

  “I’ve just been looking at my Renoir,” she added.

  “That’s nice,” Emma said, looking at it herself.

  “It certainly is,” Aurora said. “I’m afraid I had a good deal rather be looking at my Renoir than talking to Alberto. I was forced to ask his son, thanks to you. Probably we’re in for a good deal of Genoa, no matter what.”

  “Why do you see him if you don’t like him?” Emma asked, following her mother, who had drifted out on her second-floor patio. “That’s what I can never understand about you. Why do you see all these people if you really don’t like them?”

  “Luckily for you, you aren’t old enough to understand that,” Aurora said. “I have to do something with myself. If I don’t, old age will set in next week.”

  She rested her hands on the balcony of her patio and stood with her daughter watching the moon rise over her elm, over the cypress that she loved above all trees in the world, over the tall wall of pines that bordered her back yard.