Free Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry Page B

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 controlledmillions, 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 itisn’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