“Hector, can’t you be a little patient?” Aurora asked. “Rosie’s very upset.”
“I know she’s very upset,” the General said. “But why can’t she beat on her own seat? The one she’s sitting on, not the one I’m sitting on. If this keeps up I’ll have whiplash.”
Obediently, Rosie stopped beating on the General’s seat, but instead of beating on her own, she began to beat on the door, which alarmed Aurora.
“Don’t beat on the door!” she commanded. “It might come open and then you’ll fall out and be killed.”
“I doubt I could be so lucky,” Rosie said between sobs.
“I didn’t want to come on this trip,” the General said. “I was forced to come, and now I regret it, just as I knew I would.”
With all the beating on seats and doors, Aurora was having trouble steering a firm course. Several cars honked at her because they seemed to consider that she was in their lane. Also, while she had been seated close to Hector, she had twisted the rearview mirror around in order to take a reading on her looks and had forgotten to twist it back, which meant that she had only her instincts to inform her about what might be lurking to the rear. Her instincts told her there were probably large garbage trucks not far behind. A great many garbage trucks seemed to rove through Houston—it took constant vigilance to keep safely ahead of them, and with her rearview mirror in the wrong position she could not be sure that she was safely ahead of them. It was rather nerve-racking and became more so as she proceeded. She made an abrupt decision to switch lanes, hoping that whatever garbage trucks were behind her would use the opportunity to go on by, but instead, all that happened was that several more people honked at her and a few even seemed to be screaming at her.
The honks and screams of the people behind and on either side of her had the effect of making both Rosie and Hector forget their own troubles. They both looked out the window and saw signs of chaos on either side, which increased when Aurora, who decided she had given the garbage trucks enough time to go by, swung back into the fast lane.
“Don’t do it!” Rosie and the General said at the same time.
“What are you, a Greek chorus?” Aurora said, annoyed. “I will so do it, and you can both shut up if you can’t be helpful.”
There were screechings of brakes, and a lot of honking, but the traffic parted.
“She’s a maniac!” the General said over his shoulder to Rosie. “I don’t ride with her much anymore, so I tend to forget. She’s a goddamn maniac.”
“You ain’t telling me nothing I don’t already know,” Rosie said. “Is there any Kleenex up there?”
The General handed the whole box of Kleenex over to Rosie.
“Who said she could have the whole box?” Aurora asked. “Those are my Kleenex. I might need to cry soon myself if I’m not spoken to more kindly than I’m being spoken to at the moment.”
“Yes, and we’ll all need to cry if you don’t watch your goddamn driving,” the General said. “We’ll be lucky if we’re even alive so we can cry.”
“Hector, you are rarely alive enough to cry, no matter what’s happening,” Aurora pointed out. “Many’s the time I would have welcomed a few tears from you—tears that never fell.”
“Maybe he don’t have no oil in his tear ducts,” Rosie volunteered. She had begun to feel a little better. “I had an aunt that had that problem. It’s like a condition. We had to squirt stuff like window-washing liquid in her eyes before she could cry.”
“At least it’s a solution, no pun intended,” Aurora said. “I think I’ll get some and squirt it in your eyes, Hector—then we’ll see if you can think of anything to cry about.”
“Did you tell Rosie about our cruise?” the General asked in a bald attempt to change the subject. His tears, or the lack of them, was a subject they had been on long enough, it seemed to him.
“No, because it isn’t settled,” Aurora said.
“Of course it’s settled,” the General said. “You said yourself we ought to go to Asia.”
“That was before you made free to criticize my driving,” Aurora said. “You know how touchy I am about it. How dare you treat me with derision and then expect me to sail off to Asia with you!”
“You mean you’re going to go away and leave me?” Rosie said, panic in her voice. “I thought you’d at least stay around until Willie gets back—if he gets back.”
“Relax, we will not go away and leave you before Willie gets back,” Aurora said. “An Asian cruise requires months of planning. Since Hector just said he thinks I’m a maniac, he obviously won’t let me plan it, which means he’ll have to do it himself. He’s never planned anything, unless you count the invasion of Normandy, and I doubt he was allowed to plan much of that. So the planning stage for our Asian trip will probably take several years, by which time Willie will have been able to take a dozen cures, if he wants them.”
“You mean you think he won’t be able to kick it on the first try?” Rosie said. She herself had some doubt that Willie would be able to kick it on the first try, and was alert to any hint to what others might be thinking on that score.
“Rosie, it was a slip of the tongue,” Aurora said. “Must you seek the darkest possible implications in every word I utter?”
The General was contemplating how much he hated travel agents, or buying plane tickets, or trying to figure out which hotels Aurora might hate the least. If he had to make all the arrangements and things went wrong on the trip, Aurora was sure to go into a towering rage; sometimes she went into towering rages even if she had done all the planning and chosen all the hotels. Her towering rages were often followed by days, if not weeks, of deep chill. The time they went to Cairo she had scarcely spoken to him all the time they were there, all because of a mishap or two that hadn’t really been his fault.
It occurred to him that they were both getting on: the trip to Asia might turn out to be their last cruise. Having a large stateroom and a big bed wouldn’t do him much good if Aurora was pissed off before they even started. He decided that, for the sake of harmony, he would apologize for calling her a maniac, and he immediately acted on his decision.
“For the sake of harmony I’m apologizing,” he said. “Obviously you’re not a maniac, you just happen to drive like one.”
“Oops, you shouldn’t have said that last part,” Rosie told him. “It kind of cancels out the first part, even though the first part was real sweet.”
“Oh, never mind, I suppose he meant well,” Aurora said. “He knows he can’t plan a trip, so the fact that he worked up to one of his rare apologies counts for something, even if he botched it.”
The General felt a little relieved, but suddenly, peering out the window, he noticed that the street they were driving along wasn’t bordered by large green lawns with huge houses behind them, as the streets in River Oaks were. This street was bordered only by a warehouse or two, lots of weeds, a railroad track, and a few saggy, paintless frame buildings.
“This isn’t the way home,” he announced. “Are you lost, on top of everything else?”
“Hush up before you get in worse trouble than you’re already in,” Rosie said. “She ain’t lost, she’s just headed for the Pig Stand.”
“That’s good advice, Hector,” Aurora said. “This has all been an ordeal, and the healthiest thing to do after an ordeal is eat. I’m sure once you’ve had a piece or two of mince pie you’ll realize that I’m right.”
“I don’t like mince pie, but you two can stuff yourselves all you want to,” the General said. “Then maybe we’ll finally get home.”
In the cool green booth at the Pig Stand, after allowing Aurora to feed him a bite or two of her mince pie, the General began to feel very, very tired. Probably it was all that quarreling with Aurora, or waiting in the hot car or something. Thinking about Aurora and the large stateroom and the bed was nice, but just at that moment he was so tired he could hardly lift his iced-tea glass. His energy seemed to be leaving him, and he wondered
for a moment or two if he was really up to a trip to Asia. He had served in Manila and, more briefly, in Burma. Thinking about Asia made him remember what a difficult time he had had working with MacArthur—and working with Vinegar Joe Stilwell hadn’t been any cake-walk either. Both men had been impossible to satisfy—at some point he had developed a bleeding ulcer from the strain, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint whether that had been when he was with Stilwell or with MacArthur. What he remembered more clearly was his immense relief when he was finally transferred back to the European theater. Still, going to Asia with Aurora in a large stateroom with a big bed would be a good deal easier than working for either Stilwell or MacArthur. His energy might pick up, though now, sitting in the booth, it did seem as if his energy was all sliding rapidly away. It had been an effort to chew the last bit of pie. Now it was an effort just to keep his eyes open and to sit up straight in his booth. He looked over at Rosie and to his shock and surprise saw General Stilwell’s head where Rosie’s should have been. He was afraid to look up at Aurora, for fear she might have come to resemble MacArthur. The General felt sad, suddenly—deeply sad: life was passing strangely. Just because he and Aurora were thinking about going to Asia was no reason for his old commanders to start popping up in the Pig Stand. He had not liked them when he was young, and he didn’t want them showing up now that he was old. It was very confusing—he wished for a moment that Aurora could have been persuaded to pass up the Pig Stand and forgo her pie. If she could have been persuaded, they might be home by now and he could nap in his own chair. Of course, Aurora could never be persuaded—that was her charm, that was what he still found delightful about her. Even Rosie was not easy to persuade. So there they were at the Pig Stand, with his energies draining out of him like blood from a deep cut, and his old commanders were calling, and he felt very, very confused. The room turned a piercing blue for a moment—he thought perhaps he was imagining the harbor at Hong Kong as it might look when he and Aurora sailed into it aboard their ship. He saw himself wearing his white ducks—he would have to get some new ones. They could stand at the rail as the great harbor came into view. But then, slowly, the brilliant blue faded and a grayness long as the ocean, wide as the sky, spread before his eyes. A few shadows cut the grayness for a moment as waitresses moved around the room, clearing the tables, but then the shadows grew more faint, the grayness seemed restful, and he slipped gratefully into it as into a warm pool.
The General’s head tipped and rested against Aurora’s shoulder. She was, at the moment, occupied with finishing a crossword puzzle she had begun earlier in the day. She had often found that when stumped on a crossword, working on it at the Pig Stand often got her going again. Words that she would never have thought of at home just popped right out of her brain when she was at the Pig Stand with a piece of pie handy to help her think.
Rosie looked across the table and saw that the General had gone to sleep. She didn’t mind. Let the poor old thing nap. She also didn’t mind that Aurora was doing her crossword and ignoring everything else. As far as she was concerned, they could stay at the Pig Stand all day. The General could nap, Aurora could do her crosswords, and she herself could sip coffee and put off the moment when she would have to go back to her little house and face the fact that Willie wouldn’t be there to sit in it with her for forty-five days and also forty-five nights.
“Are you really going to drag that poor old man to China, or wherever you’re thinking of going?” she asked, emptying another Sweet ’n Low into her coffee.
“Look how tired he looked,” she added, bracing herself slightly for the moment when the General would start snoring. He seldom napped for more than thirty seconds without emitting his penetrating snore. His mouth just dropped open and out came the snore.
“A cruise was his idea, but I’d rather not think about it while I’m trying to do my crossword, if you don’t mind,” Aurora said.
“You ought not to have agreed to it unless you meant it,” Rosie said. “You know how he is once he gets his heart set on something.”
“Yes, I should know,” Aurora said. “After all, he’s had his heart set on me ever since I can remember.”
Lorna, an elderly waitress who had served the two women often, came tripping over to the table with a steaming pot of coffee. She meant to freshen their cups, and was just about to tip the pot and pour a little coffee over Rosie’s Sweet ’n Low, when for some reason she happened to glance at General Scott, who was dead.
Lorna had worked at the Pig Stand for many years, and had seen much, but even for a woman of her experience it was a shock to see a dead general sitting in one of her booths.
“Oh, good lord,” she said, in a tone that caused Rosie to look up. The same tone had no effect on Aurora, who, when engaged with a crossword, seldom looked up.
Rosie thought for a second that Lorna must have spilled the coffee, which would have been unusual. Lorna was such a good waitress that she could pour coffee from ten feet away. But there was no spilled coffee on the table, and when Rosie looked up Lorna tactfully inclined her head, with its blue perm, in the direction of the General, who seemed to be napping comfortably against Aurora’s shoulder. His mouth was open, it was true, but he wasn’t snoring.
A second later, Rosie realized why the General wasn’t snoring—why he would snore no more. Shock hit—she felt dizzy for a second, but only for a second. There was Aurora to think of—Aurora hadn’t realized yet that a dead man, not a live man, leaned against her shoulder. She was tapping one finger impatiently against the table—she often tapped one finger when she was about to get a word.
Rosie looked to Lorna for help, but Lorna was finding herself a little more unnerved by this development than was good. The hand that held the coffeepot began to shake, forcing her to give up the idea of pouring Rosie some more coffee.
Rosie looked at Aurora, hoping she would look up—one look would do it.
“Hon,” Rosie said, and stopped.
Aurora began to get a feeling she had had before—a sense of disquiet. Her feeling told her that something she wasn’t going to want to know about had happened. Around her in the restaurant there had been a change of atmosphere. Things had become too quiet. No glasses were rattling. Silence was spreading through the Pig Stand, a place that was usually full of the noise of life.
“Hon,” Rosie said again.
Aurora reluctantly looked at Rosie, who was very pale. She looked at Lorna, who had been forced to set the coffeepot on a nearby table. Lorna was also pale—she seemed to be trembling. Finally, Aurora looked at Hector, who was leaning rather too heavily against her shoulder. She knew at once that she wouldn’t be finishing her crossword, not just then. The reason for the quiet in the restaurant was clear, and her feeling about the something she didn’t want to know had been accurate.
Carefully, Aurora put the cap back on her fountain pen.
“Well, Hector, you would,” she said in a small voice. “You . . . would, and just when I was beginning to like you again, too.”
“He had a good life, I guess, your old boyfriend,” Rosie said.
3
Melanie had only been back from the General’s funeral two hours when Bruce told her he was sleeping with Katie. He had been pretty distant when he met her at LAX, and that was why. On the drive over to the Valley they had a hard time making conversation—even before they got to the apartment Melanie had begun to wonder why she had even come back. She had stayed in Houston ten days—her granny and Rosie were adjusting, there was no real reason for her to stay longer. When she talked to Bruce on the phone it made her nervous—it kind of made her wonder. He wouldn’t tip one way or another on the question of her coming back. He wouldn’t say he wanted her to, but he also wouldn’t say he didn’t want her to. His voice had an aggrieved tone, as if talking to her at all was this enormous burden. After just about every conversation, Melanie cried. She missed him and wanted him to say he missed her, but he didn’t say it, and if his tone of voice was any indic
ation, didn’t miss her either.
“So why go back?” Rosie asked once, when Melanie was crying. “If he can’t come up with a better conversation than that, then he’s a jerk, and if he’s a jerk, why go back? Stay here and help me with your grandmother.”
“Stay here and help you with you, I believe you mean,” Aurora said. “Sometimes I think you miss Hector more than I do.”
“I do, I miss him terrible, I don’t know why,” Rosie said. “I wish I could just hear his cranky old voice one more time.”
“People are odd,” Aurora said. “But that’s not Melly’s problem. There’s no reason she should sit around here being depressed by two moldering old women.”
“But Bruce is a jerk,” Rosie said. “He’s a stupid little two-timing jerk, and I thought so the minute I saw him.”
“That description more or less fits the male gender, you know,” Aurora said.
“It didn’t fit Willie, I just wish he was back,” Rosie said, wiping her eyes. She had to wipe them every time Willie’s name came up.
Aurora sighed, but she didn’t cry. She looked at her granddaughter, chubby and dispirited, and considered what to advise. Very probably Rosie was right about the young man, Bruce, but the fact that very probably she was right was no help to Melanie, who seemed to love him.
“Why don’t you two run off to your gym and bob up and down for a while?” Aurora said to Rosie. “Melly could stand to lose two or three pounds, and you need to get your mind off Willie, if it is humanly possible for you to get your mind off Willie.”
Only the day before they had received the bad news that Willie’s therapy was not going well and that he might have to be in Alabama for as much as another month. The news convinced Rosie of what she had been more or less convinced of anyway, which was that Willie, cured or not, didn’t want to be her boyfriend anymore and would never come back. Willie called collect every two or three days and said exactly the opposite—that he couldn’t wait to come back, that he did still want to be Rosie’s boyfriend—but Rosie in her heart of hearts didn’t believe him.