An Invisible Sign of My Own Read online

  I leaned on the far wall.

  Do your thing from there Mimi, I said, keeping my nose passage plugged. I’m just going to stand here, I said, and see if you’re talking loud enough.

  So Mimi, still sniffing, shouted her whole presentation, telling us about how 9 was her favorite number because it was how old her older sister was and also her bedtime and she said it all so loud that most of the kids had to clamp their hands over their ears. She continued by doing some subtracting on the board, in her curly girly handwriting, and finished by telling everyone that before lunch they could wash their hands with her 9.

  We will subtract from it more, she said.

  She looked up at me, eyes clear. She’d prepared that sentence all week.

  She passed around the 9 and the class was especially nice, pretending to shower with it, and before the bell rang I kept a hand near my mouth and assigned Danny next week’s Numbers and Materials.

  I could hear the class sigh with relief, that it wasn’t all over.

  Yes! Danny said. I know exactly what I’m going to bring. He gloated at Lisa.

  When class was dismissed, I went straight to the medicine chest and took a stomach pill. Found an empty bathroom stall and knelt in front of the toilet. Held my arms around my waist. It was as if a ghost had entered the classroom, invisible but focused, arms warm, snaking around my waist, lips like wind on the neck. My body waking up, in math class, the wrong place to be woken up. And sickened. And awakened. And nauseous. And distracted.

  I stayed in the bathroom for five minutes. My stomach heaved a couple times but nothing came out. When I could stand to go outside, I straightened my legs, and for just one second my fingers crept inside my shirt and rode the skin of my stomach up and found my breast and held it. So swift, soft, and there was my breast just sitting there, handless, waiting for me to do that. All my skin rose up to meet me.

  I flushed the empty toilet and went outside for recess duty.

  I looked for the science teacher, wondering what would happen if I saw him right then, right then, or right then.

  On the yellow plastic bench, I breathed in the mild afternoon air. After a few minutes, Lisa, wearing her I.V. as a belt now, ran over and sat next to me. It’s the last day of bench time, she said. Will you tell me when fifteen minutes is up? I checked my watch. Across the playground, Danny was sitting on the orange plastic bench, kicking his legs. Ann was on the blue plastic bench, arms folded. Lisa sat quietly next to me. I asked her if she remembered why she was benched and she said yes, she was benched because her mother had cancer.

  No no, I said, that’s not it at all, Lisa, it’s because you shoved Danny and Ann on Monday, remember?

  Oh yeah, she said vaguely.

  John kicked a home run. I kept deep-breathing. Lisa asked if I was okay. She said I looked pale and flushed.

  You were awful today, she said. You can’t ever take away Numbers and Materials, she said.

  She studied the kickball game for a while. Elmer missed the ball four times in a row.

  I didn’t much like your fake cough either, I said.

  Lisa filled her cheeks with air, popped them, then turned her head and looked at me.

  Sorry I spit on you, she said.

  I looked back. Pieces of sleep were parked in the corners of her eyes, and her face seemed small and seven years old.

  I won’t take away Numbers and Materials, Lisa, I said.

  She turned her eyes away, fast, and I saw them fill with water, brief and bright.

  You know, she said after a bit, some people like to keep it secret and maybe you shouldn’t tell all the other kids, but I am different and I would want to know.

  Want to know what? I asked.

  When you got cancer, she said.

  My shoulders sank a whole level lower. I almost smothered Lisa, I felt such a quick and crushing wave of love for her.

  I just had a little stomach problem, I said, but I’m better now. I don’t have cancer, I said.

  Stomach cancer, she said.

  No, I said, smiling a little.

  There’s such a thing, she said.

  I put my hand around her shoulder and squeezed her. She was wearing a yellow T-shirt that used to say SUN on it but the letters were falling off and now it just said N. I know, I said, but that’s not it; it’s Mimi’s 9. It’s nothing to worry about, I said. I just can’t handle the smell of soap.

  Why not? she asked.

  Allergic, I said.

  No one’s allergic to soap.

  I am, I said.

  She shook her head.

  Lisa had been having a bad week, hair rattier than ever. I’d brought a hairbrush on Tuesday and tried to use it on her during lunch, but combing through those bundles was like walking through peanut butter. The prongs kept sticking in her hair and one broke off and got lost. She had no one to make lunch for her at the hospital, and kept showing up at school with thematic lunches she’d made herself, like the entirely orange lunch of carrots, oranges, and cheddar cheese. Or the circular lunch of crackers, cucumber slices, and bologna. Or that Cancer Lunch, which consisted of some combination of salami or bologna with margarine on white bread, smoked fish, fake sugar packets, and cigarettes, wrapped in tin foil, all to be eaten in direct sunlight.

  Or what she called the invisible lunch, which happened most often of all.

  My parents used to wash out my mouth with soap, I told her. So the smell reminds me of that.

  She took that in, heels kicking around.

  Is your father contagious? Lisa asked.

  Out on the playground, I saw the art teacher tell Danny his fifteen minutes were done, and he got up and began chasing Elmer around the kickball field, and Elmer’s running was so slow even Danny got bored and ran off to torment someone faster.

  Snail! he yelled as he left Elmer behind.

  144 Main! Elmer cried back.

  Ann slipped off her bench and went to the kickball field, never once unfolding her arms, a human envelope.

  I wasn’t sure what to do with Lisa’s question. It kept slipping out of my mind. How’s your mom doing? I asked instead. Lisa slid off the bench and walked away.

  It’s not time yet, I said, but I looked at my watch and she was right.

  Mimi ran over with the huge slippery 9 in her hands, losing its clean numerical form, pawed by the dirty fingers of a million kids. She offered it forward.

  I can’t, I said. Sorry about earlier, Mimi. You worked really hard on this.

  My stomach was acting up all over again, just looking at it.

  She seemed hurt anyway. Ms. Gray, she said, subtract!

  She brought it closer to my face and I felt like I might choke, or take off my clothes, or both at the same time, and I told her to stop, please, that I was allergic, to please take it away. Then she looked guilty. She ran back to the kickball field and they used it as a kickball for a while, and Lisa joined the game, which I was relieved to see.

  When classes were done, and my school day was over, I did pass the science teacher in the front hallway, picking up his black coat. I thought of pushing him into the bushes, breaking his face open with mine. I could taste the soap skein hovering on the air. I considered leaving my stuff and going out the side door like usual, but he saw me first.

  He didn’t say anything. I waited for some kind of greeting.

  I waited. I considered turning away before he greeted me. I stopped. I could turn away. He was looking right at me, but he wasn’t saying anything.

  I walked over.

  Hello, I said then.

  Hello, he said.

  I put on my jacket. He had more stains and burns all over his arms.

  So, I said, how are those scurvy kids doing?

  He put his hands in his pockets. Good, he said. They just get sicker and sicker each week.

  I picked up my bag and opened the door, and we walked through it, into fresh air, away from the sounds of a hundred kids hitting each other.

  I’m going h
ome, I said.

  I’m going to the matinee, he said.

  I nodded.

  It’s at four, he said. I passed a tree on the left and slapped the bark with my palm. The smell of three-o’clock sunshine felt like someone had broken open the sky.

  I don’t like movies, I said. I have two minutes, I said.

  He smiled, but didn’t look over. We kept walking. We rounded the corner.

  I didn’t mean you should come with me, he said after a bit. You don’t have to lie about it.

  In the distance the blue hospital rose up against the sky, a jellyfish against water.

  Excuse me? I said.

  By the way, I can make the bubbles now, he said. I remembered how you did it and now I can do it.

  He had his head tilted back, looking at the leaves above us while we walked. We went through the vacant lot, stepping on tall whitish weeds. A woman in a baseball cap was carefully polishing the iron geese on her lawn with a cloth.

  I don’t like to be accused of lying, I said.

  He shoved his hands deeper in his pockets.

  Well, he said.

  What?

  Well, except that was a lie too, he said.

  I could still find the soap smell in my nose. A couple of people walked by: boy and girl. He had a hand hovering at her back, unsure whether or not it was okay to touch. She was walking an inch ahead of his hand, pushed by the air between them.

  I cleared my throat. So what movie? I asked.

  The science teacher gave a matching cough up to the trees. Mona, he said, there’s only one movie ever playing.

  My face curdled with annoyance.

  So, I said.

  It’s been two minutes, he said.

  I have five minutes, I said.

  We were almost at my apartment. If I followed the pattern, I’d go in and stare at the 50 for the rest of the day, but the idea of sitting on that sofa and having the same awful afternoon I always had made my throat close.

  The apartment loomed; we walked up to it; I looked at the window that was mine. We walked past.

  I should go to the hardware store, I said. I need some nails.

  He rubbed his forehead. It’s a cop movie, he said. You have more than five minutes?

  I hate cop movies, I said.

  He smiled again. I felt like destroying him. He didn’t say anything more, and we kept walking, past the houses, fences, windows, cars, driveways, lawns, sprinklers, trees, sidewalks, front doors, address after address, each assigned and made individually by Elmer Gravlaki’s father, some iron, some wood, some plastic, one made of glass that shone over the front door in a wind-chime bauble of numbers. We’d been quiet for long enough and I wasn’t sure what to do in the space so I told him I was glad he could do the bubbles, and that I was worried about Lisa Venus. He said it was lucky Lisa had me.

  I don’t think she’s doing too great, I said. Her hair’s a wreck, she keeps doing your stupid fake disease stuff, she has no one making her lunch, and she asked me today, for the second time, if I was sick. I kicked a flat black rock on the sidewalk.

  His voice was agreeable. So, he said, what did you say?

  I cleared my throat. I had an urge to put the rock back. I said no, I said. What do you mean? What would you say?

  He looked right at me. I’d say no, he said.

  And there was something different in his tone then and it made me need to knock so I paused the way some people do to tie their shoe and went over to the tall skinny sidewalk tree with the peppery bark and hit it, knock knock knock knock, inhale, exhale. He waited for me. He didn’t comment on what I was doing so I pretended I was itching my hand, and asked how his class was going.

  Bad, he said. Danny O’Mazzi wants to make a bomb.

  I laughed and finished with the tree and we were approaching the park now, my mother’s tourist office a squat hopeful cabin in the middle. Several ducks, both beige and green, wandered about, tails lifted.

  I don’t go to movies anyway, I said.

  Ever? he said.

  Well, I said, no.

  That’s dumb, he said. That’s like not eating dessert.

  I smiled. Exactly, I said. I hate dessert.

  So what lie is that one? he said. Three? Four?

  Really, I said. I have stuff to do. I think it’s three, I said. I do need some nails, I said.

  Five! he said, smiling back really nicely at me. We crossed the street into the park, lush and well-watered. There were a few people sitting on benches, feeding those ducks.

  I have to go visit my dad at the track field, I said.

  Liar! he said, without a pause.

  I blinked, startled. Helium flooded the air.

  Am I right, am I right? the science teacher asked. The movie theater was across from the park, with BANK ROBBERY! over the marquee in huge puffy black lettering.

  No, I said.

  Seven! he yelled.

  We both buckled over with laughter. It’s not funny, I kept saying. My chest was tight with everything.

  We stood, poised, on the sidewalk.

  It starts at four, he said. Come see it with me. You need a break too. Let’s go. It’ll be fun. You can buy me popcorn.

  How did you know my dad wasn’t at the track?

  He shrugged, scratching his chin.

  I don’t know, he said, after a minute. Sometimes I’m good at guessing. I always used to bust my parents. How long has it been since you’ve gone to the movies, really? The truth, he said.

  I hovered on the curb, thinking.

  Really? I asked. He nodded.

  Three years? I said. Four? Five?

  Well Ms. Gray, he said, bobbing his head. You’re due.

  I backed away toward the middle of the park. I do have to get something at the hardware store, I said.

  He crossed the street away from me, toward the box office. I sit in the middle, he called.

  I waved bye and walked through the park again, in the other direction. I ran through the conversation in my mind: Is your father at the track field? No, he is not. He’s up in an office licking a tar lollipop. I was running through it all again when, on the east end of the park, I saw Mr. Jones walk by, swiftly striding, light on his feet, wearing around his neck, of all things, a 42. The sunlight was hitting his face and he looked younger, brighter, higher, better.

  Mr. Jones! I yelled, waving.

  He didn’t seem to see me. He stopped at the street corner, and pushed the WALK button. Pushed it again. Ready to walk. Walk, walk, walk. Walk, walk, walk, walk.

  A woman standing there in a red coat said something to him at the corner, and he nodded, and smiled at her, and made some joke. She laughed. His teeth were long and showing.

  The light turned green and he strode off, 42 bouncing on his chest like a rich man’s ruby.

  He walked past his shop, in the direction of first the hospital and then the highway, but I went to the hardware store anyway. The door was wide open, so I walked in and just took a few nails. Stuck them in my pocket, and left a dollar on the empty counter. Seeing that 42 had left me feeling literally groundless. 42 was a big deal. 42 was leaps and bounds. I’d never seen him wearing a 42 before, ever. Once I saw him at 10 in the morning, leap to 34 in the afternoon, and back down to 17 by evening. He was like the living breathing stock market. And that 34 had been a huge high. I tried to gauge my own mood by his but his always seemed to influence mine: 22? I walked home calm and peaceful. 8? I dragged my feet. If I didn’t see Jones at all and his door read CLOSED, then I got a ride home and lay on the living room couch for a while staring at the other objects in the room. I found it difficult to be all joy and humming if when I walked by Mr. Jones he had the 3 on and was lugging out his garbage like a slug. But 42?

  I rolled the nails in my pocket and walked out of the store. Outside, the park was quiet and empty. I took my time walking over to the movie theater. The marquee read BANK ROBBERY! and the soap smell was still in my nose, a guard, a big mean bouncer, a slap on the han
d, but I took out my wallet anyway, bought a ticket, and went inside.

  16

  That one boyfriend had a darkroom where he developed the photos he took of rooftops and scaffolding and the occasional one of me naked. I’d sat with him, and once, in the middle of developing pictures, he’d lifted off my shirt and started in on me, two people in the darkest room, smelling of fixer. The black air in the darkroom was way too big for me, I found the darkness to be like a huge black ocean, so in a moment when my arm was free, I flipped on the light and ruined all his photographs. Hey! he said, hey! Jumping back, he dipped his fingers in the fixer tub and lifted up the wrecked image. And there it was, my torso, bleaching out with the light, just dark spots in the center of my breasts, a dark spot of belly button, and then a sheet of white. Look at that, I said to him, it’s me.

  When I entered the theater, I stalled for a few minutes, going to the bathroom, looking at the candy, reading a review about the movie I was about to see, which said it was action-packed. Finally I walked in, straight down the aisle.

  There had been five years of audiences in here since I’d last stepped inside, sixty months of people weeping and laughing at the pictures on the screen, putting hands down each other’s pants, or heads on shoulders, or nothing at all—straight up and separate. The room looked pretty much exactly the same. I found Benjamin Smith smack in the middle as promised and took the seat next to him. He turned and his face lit bright when he saw I was there and I felt so good at that I stood, left, flustered, not sure where to go, deciding to buy popcorn. By the time I was back, butter flavoring already seeping over everything, the previews had started and it was dark. I hadn’t remembered how loud movie theaters were. I felt like I was inside someone’s big loud brain. I passed the popcorn over to him, and twice our hands met in the popcorn bowl and I almost mistook his finger for a piece of popcorn and grabbed too hard and he whispered: Mona, that’s my thumb, and I laughed out loud.

  He had his arm on the armrest and I put mine on by accident and when I felt his there I moved mine away as fast as I could. He moved his away too. The armrest remained unused for the rest of the movie.

  The movie began, grand and booming, and it was about two men who were expert bank robbers. When they robbed their last bank, the job that would make them safe forevermore from money problems, they were caught and sent to jail. There was a scene or two with them in jail, talking about stuff; they didn’t seem so bad after all. What happened next was that the city discovered an evil serial killer in its midst and this serial killer tended to leave his victims, coated in money, in banks; the police decided to seek the wisdom of the two seasoned bank robbers, figuring they might be able to help. The police released the bank robbers on the agreement that if they could examine the serial killer’s tendencies and solve the problem, they would be freed from jail. I didn’t like the scene where the young girl got nabbed off her bike on the way to see her friend, and my eyes were half-shielded by a visor made of my hand when Benjamin turned to me, just tilted his head, speaking the words forward, and said: There’s something about you, Mona Gray, that inflates my heart. The serial killer was tying up the woman with white rope. I said: What? very loudly, so loudly that the woman three rows behind us, alone with chocolate mints, said Sshh and that made me laugh again because I was nervous. He was facing me now, trying to read my expression, to see if he should repeat himself, and I was praying he would not.