Anne Tyler - The Tin Can Tree

'Well, no.'

'It's as plain as the nose on – Boy? Come on, now, quit that poking. I'm saying it's Simon should be in her beauty shop with her.'

'In her-?'

'I mean in her sewing shop. Look what you done now, got me all confused. Well, that's who you want.'

'You mean he should entertain the customers,' Joan said.

'That was my point.'

'Well-'

'He's the only one can help now. Not hot tea, not people circling round. Not even her own husband. Just her little boy.'

'I don't see how,' said Joan.

Missouri made an exasperated face. "You don't know,' she told her. 'You don't know how it would work out. Bravest thing about people, Miss Joan, is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there's such a thing as dying. Do I have to tell you that?'

She snapped her twine tight and held it there while she watched Joan scrape up the last of the leaves. 'I despise finishing the day on half a stick,' she said.

'Well, I'll be,' said Charleen. She leaned back against the table, shaking her head and watching Mrs Hall tie the end of her stick. 'I never. Was that what you did all this talking to say?'

'It was,' said Missouri.

At the other end of the table, Mrs Hall suddenly looked up. 'That's true,' she said slowly, but when they turned toward her she only shook her head. 'That's true,' she said again, and lifted her tobacco rod gently from its notches and handed it to the waiting boy.

James was halfway through his second beer before he saw Joan coming toward him. He was sitting on Mr Terry's porch, leaning back against the side of the house in a folding chair and lazily listening to the other men talking, and the beer can was making a cold wet ring on his knee. There were four other men there, all sitting just like he was in a line against the house. Maybe if Joan hadn't come he would have sat with them till supper, just to rest up from the long day's work and let the breeze dry his damp shirt. But then Mr Terry said, 'If you'll look out yonder -' and James raised his eyes toward the fields and saw Joan padding down the dirt driveway in tare feet with a sandal swinging from each hand. 'Out yonder to the east is what I mean to cultivate year after next,' Mr Terry went on. He had been saying that for as long as James had known him. 'I aim to extend the alfalfa a bit. No sense in letting good land grow wild, I say.' James only nodded, not really listening. He squinted his eyes so as to see better -Joan was still far away – and watched how she picked her way so quickly and gently along the dusty wheel-tracks. Her head was bent, so that her hair fell forward and nearly hid her face. Way behind her were the other women, going in the opposite direction toward town, and once they turned back and waved at Joan but she didn't see them. The women bobbed on, farther and farther, until all that showed of them was their bright dresses between the tobacco rows and two huge black umbrellas shading Lily and Missouri from the sun.

'I also been thinking about the eight acres out back,' said Mr Terry. 'They're Paul Hammond's, but he's not using them.'

'No,' James said.

'You listening?'

Joan had reached the edge of the Terry's front yard. She crossed onto the grass, sliding her feet a little as if she liked the coolness of it, and Mr Terry stopped talking and the others sat forward and took their hats off.

'Hey, Joan,' said Mr Terry.

'Hey.' She stopped at the bottom of the steps and smiled up at them. 'Lem,' she said, 'Missouri sent you a message. She said to come right on home.'

Lem tipped back again in his chair, shaking his head. 'Must be a mistake somewheres,' he said. His eyes were faraway and dreamy, and the others laughed softly.

'Well, anyway,' said Joan. 'I came to see if you're ready to go yet, James. Or do you want to stay on a while.'

'No, I'm ready.'

He finished his beer in one gulp and stood up. Down at the end of the porch, Howell Blake looked up from cleaning his fingernails with a pocket knife and said, 'You coming tomorrow?'

'Depends on Roy Pike, I guess. Looks like he'll be sitting with his wife a while.'

'Well, just so's one of you makes it,' said Mr Terry. 'You tell Roy I know how it is. You tell him, Joan.'

'I will.'

James went down the steps toward Joan, and she switched one sandal to the other hand so that he could take her free hand in his. Both of them were coated with tobacco gum. The gum had lost its stickiness by now but it still clung to their skin in heavy layers, so that it was like holding hands with rubber gloves on. He kept hold of her anyway, and turned partway back to nod at the others. 'See you tomorrow, I guess,' he said. 'I or Roy, one.'

'Okay. So long.'

'So long.

They crossed the yard together and then they were on the dirt driveway again, heading toward the gravel road. When James looked down, he could see the dust rising in little puffs around Joan's toes every time she took a step. Her toes were gum-covered too, and the dust had stuck to them like a layer of sugar frosting.

'I have to have a bath,' Joan said, as if she had been following his eyes.'

'No. I like you this way.'

'I'm serious. You have to have one too, and then we can sit outside and cool off.'

'Okay,' James said. He pulled her along faster, because he liked the idea of just the two of them sitting out on the porch a while. But Joan slowed him down again.

'I have to put on my sandals to walk fast,' she said. 'Do you want me to?'

'No, that's all right.'

But she bent down anyway, and James stood waiting while she slid her feet into the sandals. She was wearing bermudas and a faded blue shirt with the tails out, and when a breeze started up it ballooned out the back of her shirt and made her look humpbacked. He put one hand on the hump. It vanished, pressed flat by the weight of his hand, and he could feel the ripple of her back-bone through the thin cloth of her shirt. It seemed to him he knew Joan's clothes by heart. He could tell the seasons by them, and if she bought something new, he felt uneasy and resentful toward it until it had become worn-looking. When spring came he never really felt it until those old cotton shirts had come out again, though for days he might have known about the bits of green on the trees and the flowering Judas buds by the side of the road. He smiled down at Joan now and she straightened up and looked at him, not knowing anything about what was going on in his mind.

'What're you thinking?' she asked him.

'Nothing.'

They turned onto the gravel road, holding hands again. A station wagon drove past, clanking and rattling as if it would fall apart before their eyes, and Joan waved at whoever was driving but James didn't look up. He was concentrating on the gravel beneath his feet, and on steering Joan into the sandiest part of the road. Finally he said, 'I've got an idea.'

'What?'

'How about coming over and cooking supper tonight? We could sit out and eat it on the porch.'

'You know I can't cook.'

'Well, hot dogs is all right.'

He dropped her hand and put his arm around her, so that he could feel her shoulder moving against his rib cage as they walked. They were going very slowly now; he had stopped caring if they never got anywhere at all. He would like to go on down this road indefinitely, with everything around him shining and wearing a clean, finished, end-of-the-day look. The sun picked things up slantwise, and the fields were very still in between the gusts of breeze. When they rounded the bend and their house appeared, long and shabby with its tin roof batting the sunshine into their eyes, it seemed surprising and out of place. Both of them slowed down still more to stare at it. Then Joan said, 'Well, I'll race you home.'