Terms of Endearment Read Online Free PDF Page A

same time. It was his best look, and Emma had never been able to resist it—almost any sign of friendliness was enough to win her over. She sat down on the bed and took his hand.
    “Did you tell her you were pregnant?” Flap asked.
    “I told her. She had a fit.” She described the fit in full detail.
    “What an absurd woman,” Flap said. He sat up suddenly, smelling of beer and salt water, and began to make a pass. His passes were always sudden. Within five seconds Emma was flustered and breathless, which seemed to be exactly the effect he wanted to make.
    “What is it with you?” she asked, struggling to get at least partially undressed. “You never seem to want to give me time to think about it. I wouldn’t have married you if I wasn’t willing to think about it.”
    “One of us might lose interest,” Flap said.
    It was the one thing he did quick—everything else took him hours. Sometimes, in cool moments, Emma wondered if it might not be possible to reverse his priorities, get him to do sex slow and other things quick, but when put to the test she always failed. At least, though, when he sat up afterward to take off his shoes he looked really happy. Ardor seemed to stay in his face longer than it did elsewhere, which was actually all right with her.
    “You see, doing it my way neither of us loses interest,” he said over his shoulder while on the way to the bathroom.
    “Getting laid by you is more like getting sideswiped,” Emma said. “Interest has little to do with it.”
    As usual, she finished undressing after the fact and lay with her head propped on two pillows, looking at her feet and wondering how long it would be before her stomach rose and blocked them from view. Hot as it was, the late afternoon was still her favorite time. She was cooled for a few minutes by her own sweat, and a long slanting shaft of sunlight fell across her, right where her panties should have been. Flap came back and flopped on his stomach to resume his reading, which made her feel slightly left out. She put one of her legs across his body.
    “I wish your attention span were longer,” she said. “Why are you reading Wordsworth if you don’t like him?”
    “He reads better when I’m not so horny,” Flap said.
    “Momma isn’t really absurd,” Emma said. Her body had somehow been rushed off far from her mind, but that was over andher mind wanted to go back and have the conversation it had been beginning when the rush occurred.
    “I’d like to know what she is then.” Flap said.
    “She’s just absolutely selfish,” Emma said. “I wish I knew whether that was bad or not. She’s a great deal more selfish than you are, and you’re no slouch. She may even be more selfish than Patsy.”
    “Nobody’s more selfish than Patsy,” Flap said.
    “I wonder what would have happened if you two had married one another,” Emma said.
    “Me and Patsy?”
    “No. You and Momma.”
    Flap was so startled that he stopped reading and looked at her. One of the things he had always liked about Emma was that she would say anything that popped into her head, but he had never expected that particular thought to pop into anyone’s head.
    “If she heard you say that she’d have you committed,” he said. “J should have you committed. Your mother and I may not have much integrity but we at least have enough to keep us from marrying one another. What an abhorrent thought.”
    “Yes, but you’re a classicist, or something,” Emma said. “You think people only do reasonably normal things, or reasonably abnormal things. I’m smarter than you and I know that people are apt to do anything. Absolutely anything.”
    “Especially your mother,” Flap said. “I’m not a classicist, I’m a romantic, and you’re not smarter than me.”
    Emma sat up and scooted over near him so she could rub his back while he read. The sun had moved down her legs and onto the floor, and she had stopped being sweaty and cool and could feel the