Early Autumn Read Online Free PDF Page A

wise,” I said. “If you can pull it off.” I turned out of Emerson Road. “Which way?” I said.
    “Left,” he said.
    “I don’t think I could pull it off,” I said.
    “What?”
    “Not caring,” I said. “I think if I got sent off to eat with a stranger my first night home I’d be down about it.”
    “Well, I’m not,” he said.
    “Good,” I said. “You want to eat in this Chinese place?”
    “I don’t care,” he said.
    We came to a cross street “Which way?” I said.
    “Left,” he said.
    “That the way to the Chinese restaurant?” I said.
    “Yes.”
    “Good, we’ll eat there.”
    We drove through Lexington, along dark streets that were mostly empty. It was a cold night People were staying in. Lexington looks like you think it would. A lot of white colonial houses, many of them original. A lot of green shutters. A lot of bull’s-eye glass and small, paned windows. We came into the center of town, the green on the right. The statue of the Minuteman motionless in the cold. No one was taking a picture of it
    “It’s over there,” Paul said, “around that square.”
    In the restaurant Paul said, “How come you wouldn’t let her pay for it?”
    “It didn’t seem the right thing to do,” I said.
    “Why not? Why should you pay? She’s got plenty of money.”
    “If we order careful,” I said, “I can afford this.”
    The waiter came. I ordered a Beck’s beer for me and a Coke for Paul. We looked at the menu.
    “What can I have?” Paul said.
    “Anything you want” I said. “I’m very successful.”
    We looked at the menu some more. The waiter brought the beer and the Coke. He stood with his pencil and paper poised. “You order?” he said.
    “No,” I said. “We’re not ready.”
    “Okay,” he said, and went away.
    Paul said, “I don’t know what to have.”
    I said, “What do you like?”
    He said, “I don’t know.”
    I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, “somehow I had a sense you might say that.”
    He stared at the menu.
    I said, “How about I order for both of us?”
    “What if you order something I don’t like?”
    “Don’t eat it.”
    “But I’m hungry.”
    “Then decide what you want.”
    He stared at the menu some more. The waiter wandered back. “You order?” he said.
    I said, “Yes. We’ll have two orders of Peking ravioli, the duck with plum sauce, the moo shu pork, and two bowls of white rice. And I’ll have another beer and he’ll have another Coke.”
    The waiter said, “Okay.” He picked up the menus and went away.
    Paul said, “I don’t know if I’ll like that stuff,”
    “We’ll find out soon,” I said.
    “You gonna send my mother a bill?”
    “For the meal?”
    “Yes.”
    “No.”
    “I still don’t see why you want to pay for my dinner.”
    “I’m not sure,” I said. “It has to do with propriety.”
    The waiter came and plunked the ravioli on the table and two bottles of spiced oil.
    “What’s propriety?” Paul said.
    “Appropriateness. Doing things right.”
    He looked at me without any expression.
    “You want some raviolis?” I said.
    “Just one,” he said, “to try. They look gross.”
    “I thought you liked to eat here.”
    “My mother just said that. I never been here.”
    “Put some of the oil on it,” I said. “Not much. It’s sort of hot.”
    He cut his ravioli in two and ate half. He didn’t say anything but he ate the other half. The waiter brought the rest of the food. We each ate four of the raviolis.
    “You put the moo shu in one of these little pancakes, see, like this. Then you roll it up, like this. And you eat it.”
    “The pancake doesn’t look like it’s cooked,” Paul said.
    I ate some moo shu pork. He took a pancake and did as I’d showed him.
    I said, “You want another Coke?”
    He shook his head. I ordered another beer.
    “You drink a lot?”
    “No,” I said. “Not as much as I’d like.”
    He speared a piece of duck with his fork and was trying to cut it on his