Anne Tyler - The Tin Can Tree

'I said, "Hush" ! ' called Joan.

'Oh, I didn't tell. It was like I promised you, I didn't-'

The rest of his words were drowned out, but Joan understood his meaning. Nobody had told. Maybe they thought she'd just been to a movie, or off visiting. Maybe they knew that wherever she'd gone, she'd be back. And now they sat here, cheerful and in a party mood -but what was the party about? Just by looking, she couldn't tell. Miss Lucy and Miss Faye were making a silhouette of James – Miss Lucy holding a lamp up so that James winced in the light of it, and Miss Faye tracing the shadow of his wincing profile on a sheet of paper held against the wall. But that was something they always did; some instinct seemed to push them into making silhouettes at parties, and now everyone in the house had at least one silhouette of everyone else. Nor could she tell anything from Mr Pike, who seemed to be a little tiddly from some wine he was drinking out of a measuring cup. He sat smiling placidly at something beyond Joan's range of vision, tapping one finger against the cup in time to a jazz version of 'Stardust' that the radio was sawing out. And the person who confused her most was Mrs Pike, sitting in a chair in the corner with her hands folded but her eyes alert to everything that was going on. 'Fourteen!' she called out; she seemed to be counting the swallows Simon took from his own glass of wine. But her voice was lost among all the other voices, and Joan had to read her lips. She turned to Ansel, to see if he could explain all this. He had lain back on his couch now, like an emperor at a Roman festival, and when he saw her look his way he smiled and waved.

'Have a seat!' he shouted. He pointed vaguely to several chairs that were already occupied. 'We're celebrating.'

'Oh,' Joan said. 'Celebrating.'

'Simon ran away.'

'What?'

Simon smiled at her and nodded. 'I went to Caraway on a bus,' he said.

'Oh, Simon.'

'I saw those gold earrings.'

'But how did-'

'James and Mama came and got me. They made a special trip,' he said. 'We're drinking Miss Faye's cooking wine.'

Joan felt behind her for a footstool and sat down on it. 'Are you all right?' she asked.

'Sure I am.'

'Oh, I wish I hadn't gone off and -'

'No, really, I'm all right,' said Simon. 'Look, they're letting me have wine. They put ice cubes in it to make it watery but I drink it fast before the ice can melt.'

'That's nice,' Joan said vaguely. She kept looking around at the others. Ansel leaned toward Joan with his own jelly glass of wine and said, 'Drink up,' and thrust it at her, and then lay down again. 'Ansel had to find his own supper tonight,' Simon told her. 'He had one slice of garlic bologna, all dried out. James is going to cook him a steak tomorrow to make up for it.'

Joan took a long swallow of cooking wine and looked over at James. He was swivelling his eyes toward the silhouette while he kept his profile straight ahead, so that he seemed cross-eyed. When he felt Joan looking at him he smiled and called something to her that she couldn't hear, and then Miss Faye said, 'When you talk your nose moves up and down,' and erased the line she had drawn for his nose and left a smudge there. Mr Pike laughed. He clanged when he laughed; it puzzled Joan for a minute, and then she examined him more closely and found in his lap the elephant bell from Mrs Pike's mantlepiece. 'Why has he got that bell?' she asked Simon.

Simon shrugged, and Ansel answered for him. 'He used it while hunting for Simon,' he called. 'Weird thing, ain't it? Such a funny shape it has. Everything Indians do is backwards, seems to me -'

'Fifteen!' Mrs Pike said.

'India Indians, of course,' said Ansel. 'Not American. Hey, James.'

Miss Faye's pencil had just hit the bottom of James's neck. She finished off with that same little bump at the base of it that sculptors put on marble busts, and then James stretched and turned toward Ansel.

'What, 'he said.

'Funny feeling in my feet, James.'

James sighed and rose to go over to the couch. 'Well, thank you, Miss Faye,' he called over his shoulder.

'No trouble at all. Joan, dear, it's your turn.’

'How about Simon?' asked Joan.

'They did me first,' Simon told her. 'I'm the guest of honour.'

'Oh.' She stood up and went over to the Potters, still carrying her glass of wine. 'My hair's not combed,' she told them.

'That's all right, we'll just smooth over that part on the paper. Will you have a seat?'

They sat her down firmly, both of them pressing on her shoulders. The lamp glared at her so brightly that it made a circular world that she sat in alone, facing Miss Lucy's steadily breathing bosom while Miss Faye, strange without gloves, skimmed the pencil around a suddenly too-big shadow of Joan. Outside the circle was the noise, and the beating music and the dark, faceless figures of the others. Their conversation seemed to be blurring together now.

'I had a cousin once, who did group silhouettes,' said Miss Faye. 'I don't know how. It's a talent I never had – he could make everyone be doing something so like themselves, even in a silhouette of twenty people you could name each person present.'

'That was Howard,' Miss Lucy said.

'Howard Potter Laskin. I remember him well. If he was only here tonight, why, we could put him right to work. I wish I knew how he did it.'

'Where is he now?' Miss Lucy asked.

'I don't know.'

Joan looked at her shadow, staring almost sideways the way James had done. 'There is a whole gallery of silhouettes in this house,' she said suddenly.

'Quiet, dear, you've moved.'

'Didn't I have this blouse on the last time? There was that same sticking-up frill around my neck.'

'Yes,' said Miss Faye. She sighed and her pencil moved briefly outside the shadow of the frill. 'Simon had the same shirt, too,' she said.

'How do you remember?'

The collar's worn out. Little threads poking up.'

Joan looked over at Simon; he nodded and held up the corner of his collar. 'This is the shirt I ran away in,' he called.

'Didn't you get dressed up to go?'

'You didn't do the laundry yet.'

'Oh,' said Joan, and she turned back to fit her head into the silhouette. Miss Faye started on the back of her hair, skimming past the shadows of stray wisps the way she had promised.

'The mornings after parties,' she said, 'Miss Lucy and I cut these out and mount them. Don't we, Lucy? We talk over the parties as we cut.'

'I think we should take a picture,' said Simon.

'A what?'

'A picture. A photograph. With a camera.' He took a swallow of wine.

'Sixteen,' said his mother, still counting.

'I know. James could take it when you're done with Joan here. Me in my shirt that I ran away in. Everybody else standing around.'

'Cameras are all very well,' Miss Faye said. 'But who can't press a button? If Howard Potter Laskin was here -'

'Howard did everything well,' said Miss Lucy.

'I could take you and Miss Lucy drawing silhouettes,' James called. He looked up from rubbing Ansel's feet. 'Could Howard Potter Laskin do that?'

'Well, now-'Miss Faye said. She lowered her pencil and frowned into space a minute. 'A silhouette of a silhouette? I don't know. But Howard could -'

'I'll get my camera, then,' said James. He left Ansel's couch and crossed toward the darkroom, stepping carefully through the other people. But the minute he was gone, Miss Faye finished Joan's silhouette with two quick strokes, ending in a point on top of her head that wasn't really there.

'You weren't supposed to finish,' Joan said. 'How will we have you doing a silhouette if there's no more left to do?'

'Oh, now,' said Miss Lucy. 'People don't get photographed making silhouettes. We'll just sit down, I think -maybe on Ansel's couch, if he doesn't object.'