Morgan's Passing by Anne Tyler Page B

weeks. They were living on a cheap brand of water-packed tuna, and Mrs. Apple had stopped inviting them so frequently to supper. Their greasepaint box somehow fell apart. Tubes of ghastly pink flesh-tone, like fat sticksof chalk, rolled into corners and stayed there, sending out their flowery old-lady smell. Janice and Paula stopped speaking to each other, and Janice moved her sleeping bag to the kitchen.
    Then Barry found a job, but only for himself. A friend of a friend was putting on his own play. Emily wasn’t there when he announced it. She’d been helping out at Crafts Unlimited. All she knew was that when she got back, there was Barry packing his knapsack. A swelling was rising on his lower lip, and Leon was gone. The others sat on the floor, watching Barry roll up his jeans with shaky hands. “That husband of yours is insane,” he told Emily. Even his voice shook.
    Emily said, “What happened?” and the others all started talking at once. It wasn’t Barry’s fault, they said; you have to watch out for number one in this world; what did Leon expect? Emily never did sort out the particulars, but she grasped the main idea. She was surprised at how little it bothered her. There was something satisfying about the damage done to Barry’s lip. The skin had split where the swelling was highest; she was reminded of an overripe plum. “Oh, well,” she said, “I suppose it’s for the best.”
    â€œMark my words,” Barry told her, “you’re living with a dangerous man. I don’t know why you’re not scared of him.”
    â€œOh, he would never harm
me,”
Emily said. She couldn’t think why Barry was taking this so seriously. Didn’t it often happen in these people’s lives—drama, extravagant gestures? She removed some hairpins from her hair and pinned her braids higher on her head. The others watched her. She felt graceful and light-hearted.
    Janice and Paula went back to New York; Janice planned to accept an old marriage proposal. “I just hope the offer’s still open,” she said. Emily had no idea what Paula was going to do, and she didn’t care, either. She was tired of living in a group. She got on fine with them, right to the end, and she said goodbye to thempolitely enough, but underneath she felt chafed by every word they uttered.
    That left Victor. Victor wasn’t so bad. He was only seventeen, and he seemed even younger. He was a slight, stooped, timid boy with a frail tickle of a mustache that Emily longed to shave off. Once the others were gone, he moved his blankets to the rear bedroom. He showed up for meals looking shy and hopeful. It was a little like having a son, Emily thought.
    By now they were completely out of money, so Emily started work as a paid assistant at Crafts Unlimited. Leon found a part-time job at Texaco, pumping gas. Victor just borrowed from Mrs. Apple. Mrs. Apple lent him the money, but gave out lectures with it. She wanted him to go back to school, or at least take the high-school-equivalency test. She threatened to send him to live with his father, whom Emily had always assumed to be dead. After these lectures Victor would slink around the apartment kicking baseboards. Emily commiserated with him, but she did think Mrs. Apple had a point. She couldn’t understand how things had gone this far, even; everyone seemed to be living lives without shape, without backbone. “When you think of it,” she told Victor, “it’s amazing your mother ever let you go to New York in the first place. Really, she’s a very … surprising woman.”
    â€œSure, to you,” said Victor. “Other people’s mothers always look so nice. Up close, they’re strict and grabby and they don’t have a sense of humor.”
    Then Mrs. Apple came to Emily with an idea. (She probably felt that if she came to Victor, he’d turn it down automatically.) If