An Invisible Sign of My Own Read online

Hey! I said, grinning. Great! Now who wants to be the plus sign?

  Hands went up, waving. I brought Mimi Lunelle to the front and she held her feet together and spread her arms wide. This is good, I said. Now I loved teaching. I wished my boss would walk in. We had our first human equation and my spirits were rising and it would’ve worked beautifully if sour-face, the one named Ann DiLanno, hadn’t started stomping her foot and muttering because she wanted to be the plus sign. I explained that Mimi Lunette (Lun-elle, spoke the plus sign) was already the plus sign but Ann DiLanno wouldn’t settle down even when I offered her the very desirable role of equals sign. She kicked the table leg and Elmer started to cry and Danny O’Mazzi was making his arm into a rifle when, at Lisa’s suggestion, we sat down.

  I have an idea, Lisa said.

  Shoot, I said.

  Shoot! said Danny.

  Lisa asked something like: What if we, how about if we, could we go make numbers in nature? When I asked her to explain what she meant, she stuttered and rambled. I know! said John Beeze, we can find numbers. I didn’t know what that meant either but I was inspired by their eagerness, and wanted to keep them quiet, so on the spot, I made up Numbers and Materials.

  Listen, I said. How’s this.

  The plan was for Fridays, and the idea was that one student would present a number, made out of a material, to the class, and subtract with it. After all, I said, this is the year you learn subtraction. Their faces grew grave. Subtraction is far more daunting than adding, due to all that borrowing business.

  Who wants to begin? I asked.

  Lisa’s hand shot up and I told her to bring something good for Friday and we’d end the class with it and what a terrific way to start our weekend.

  To my utter shock, the class quieted. We spent the rest of the class going over the addition they’d learned last year from Paraguay. They seemed sharp enough.

  When the bell rang, they ran to recess and I slumped in a seat, kicking out my legs, already exhausted, but also laughing to myself, thinking of the look on Danny O’Mazzi’s face when he bent his knees and wove his fingers together to take the shape of that 8. I liked them. I stayed there for fifteen minutes, peaceful and quiet, listening to the rubber roar of recess outside.

  3

  When I bought the ax at the hardware store, I had a fine time walking it through town, swinging the wooden handle, wondering where to keep it. I strolled those shaded sidewalks, trying it out in different rooms in my mind. Should I store it under the bed? Dangle it from the towel rack? Jam it in the silverware drawer? I would come home from work and visit my ax, open the closet and say hello, beautiful tool, the same way I do when I buy a new pair of shoes and want to greet them, standing in the closet, waiting patiently for their right occasion.

  But when I did finally get home that night, at that point things had changed, and I was a trembling ball of worry, and didn’t care much about storage anymore, and just shoved the ax under the kitchen sink next to the dishwashing detergent.

  Regardless. Every young lady should have a weapon around the house.

  On Friday of that first week, I was on a teaching break in the school kitchen, knocking up the wood wall, when a young man walked in with chemical-burn stains all over his arms. He had a steady back, standing at the sink, washing.

  You’re Ms. Gray, right? he said, over his shoulder.

  I nodded, mute with concentration: knock knock knock knock, inhale, exhale, repeat.

  He finished washing, arms speckled as a painting, then came over and reached out a damp hand to shake hello.

  I’m Benjamin Smith, he said. I teach science.

  He indicated the marks on his arms, as proof.

  Math, I said, between knocks; Mona, I said.

  He smiled at me. He smelled like soap.

  About an hour later, halfway through my pumpkin-seed lesson with the second grade, Lisa Venus excused herself to the bathroom. I had just given each second-grader a pile of ten pumpkin seeds that I’d roasted the night before, and told them to take one away at a time and count what remained. Mimi of the whirlpool curls made her seeds into a heart shape. I heard crunching sounds under the table and squatted down. Elmer Gravlaki was settled on the carpet, busily chewing.

  Hey, I said. Stop eating the math.

  I’d barely noticed that Lisa had left, so busy was I telling Danny O’Mazzi to STOP flicking seeds at the wall, when she returned to class wearing a thin tube, one end connected to the other so that it made a loop, a clear crown resting high on her ratty head.

  What’s that? I asked when she walked back through the door. The class swiveled in their seats. They’d had enough of seeds.

  An I.V., said Lisa. Get it? Those are my initials. Almost.

  I looked closer. This was indeed the tube portion of an I.V.

  Isn’t it supposed to be saving someone? I asked.

  She scoffed, softly. It’s been used already, she said, walking to the front of the room.

  Excuse me, she said, I am Princess Cancer.

  I looked at her by the chalkboard wondering what she was doing. I didn’t really like seeing that I.V. here in my math room, ripped out from someone’s vein. Benjamin Smith the science teacher walked by, and who knew if he might peek in and call the hospital, report Lisa for stolen property. I went over and shut the door, knocking it gently.

  Lisa gave a careful nod at the front, keeping the tube balanced.

  I’m ready for Numbers and Materials, she said.

  I blinked. Numbers and Materials?

  Remember? she asked. We bring in numbers from the world of nature?

  John piped in. Or things that just look like numbers.

  I nodded. Of course! I said, half-remembering.

  Lisa raised her hands and pointed to the see-through I.V. tiara on her head.

  This is my zero, she said. From nature.

  I remembered the assignment then, like a punch.

  That’s not nature, called sour-faced Ann DiLanno from her seat. That’s plastic.

  Lisa glared at Ann. Ann scowled at Lisa. Their mutual hatred had been developing all week like a man-eating fast-growing jungle fern.

  Plastic comes from nature, Lisa said in the same royal tone.

  It’s man-made, said John Beeze.

  And man is natural, said Lisa.

  Ann rolled her eyes. Lisa resumed her pose of dignity. I walked to the back of the room to listen.

  This is my zero from nature, she said. Zero times anything is zero, she told the class. Zero wins every fight. Zero demolishes the world.

  The world is shaped like zero, said Danny O’Mazzi.

  Exactly, said Lisa, smiling. Danny made pow-wow sounds in his chair.

  Subtract, please, I said.

  She nodded. The I.V. caught the overhead light and glinted.

  20 − 0 = 20, she said. 4 − 0 = 4. Ten billion trillion − 0 = ten billion trillion.

  Good, I said, still thinking of that I.V. bag, right beside a dehydrated unmedicated person but unable to connect. Saline dripping to the floor. The hospital summons the janitor. Where is it? they ask. He shrugs. I have no use for an I.V. tube, he says, but his hands twist when he’s nervous and the dehydrated man is thirsty and mad.

  250 × 0 = 0! Lisa said.

  No multiplication yet, I said, knocking on the wood bookcase. You’re getting ahead of yourself.

  She grumbled, but did a few more, subtracting. When she was done she asked for questions.

  What does I.V. mean? asked one.

  Intra-venous, said Lisa.

  Lisa Venus, said John. Lisa smiled.

  So we’ll call you Intra, said Ann DiLanno.

  That’s fine, said Lisa. I think that’s pretty, she said.

  Ann raised her hand. I have a question for Intra. Intra?

  Who goes next time? someone asked.

  Ann kept talking. I intra-duce Intra, she said. This is Intra. Everyone say hello to Intra.

  The class mumbled a hello and I said, That was good Li
sa, thanks! That was our very first Numbers and Materials, who wants to go next week?

  Elmer Gravlaki raised his hand underneath the table, which made a thunking sound, and I said he could go only if he’d sit in a chair from now on. He said, muffled, that he already knew exactly what he would bring. John raised his hand too so I told him to bring something to show at recess as a supplement.

  Does it have to be in order? asked Ellen, the one so quiet I always forgot her. The one without a last name.

  I guess not, I said.

  I turned to the front. Lisa stood, waiting.

  Sit down Intra, said Ann.

  I told Ann we’d had enough from her.

  Lisa kept standing there, nostrils flaring slightly. We didn’t have enough time for anything else, so as we cleaned up the seeds I let her show how zero, when doubled, could make quite an unusual bracelet.

  The bell rang and the class ran out, Ann yelling: Bye Intra! in her flattest, meanest voice, and while Lisa was packing her bag I called her to the back of the room. She half-skipped up to me, crowned, the lightest I’d seen her yet. I asked her where she’d gotten an I.V. in the first place, and that’s when she told me about her mother. She’s got really bad cancer and wears a red wig, she said, doing little kicks with her feet. Lisa’s hair was so ratty it barely moved when she did.

  She’ll die in less than a year, Lisa said. Is that it?

  A year? I said. She nodded vigorously.

  She’s got no hair left, she said.

  Are you doing okay? I asked.

  Lisa started puffing her cheeks, in and out.

  What kind of cancer? I asked.

  She smiled a little. Guess, she said.

  Lung? She shook her head. Skin? I said. No. Brain? No. Bone? No. Mouth? No. Breast? No. Colon? No. Throat? No. Blood? No. Liver? No. Pancreas? No.

  What’s left? I asked.

  She leaned in, conspiratorially. Eye cancer, she said, winking.

  I’ve never heard of that, I said.

  Lisa nodded. It’s brand-new, she said. My mom is one of the first. They’re doing lots of tests. It spreads really fast.

  Is there anything I can do? I asked.

  She let all the breath out of her cheeks, leaned in, and looked at the skin around my eyes. Your eyes are like little blue zeroes, she said. 2 − 0 = 2, she said.

  My eyes aren’t blue, I said. They’re more gray than blue.

  They’re more blue, she said.

  I put my knuckles on the chair seat.

  I like the name Intra, she said. I hate Ann DiLanno. Are you sick? she asked. Her face was bright.

  It took me a second to catch up with her sentences, and then I did another knock on the wooden chair seat. What do you mean? I said. I’m fine, I said.

  She told me my class was already her favorite class and that if I really wanted to do something for her, then I should not get sick, ever.

  But sometimes I get a cold, I said. People get colds.

  She adjusted the I.V. and glued her eyes on me.

  I never get colds, she said.

  And even though the plastic on her head was fogged and dirty, and her hair was a nest, and she was not yet four feet tall, she was hard with poise right then, and I felt myself shrink in my chair. Oh, I said. Well. Intra is a perfectly good name, I mumbled.

  I didn’t know what else to say and now I wanted her to leave so I thanked her again for being such a good starting act for Numbers and Materials and told her to go to recess. She said she loved Numbers and Materials more than anything in any class, even more than Hands-on Health in Science, and ran out of the room.

  I blew my nose and knocked some more and kept knocking and thought: she wears the news on her head.

  Welcome back to school. My summer vacation was bad.

  4

  I had been ten years old and quitting nothing at the time when my skin-doctor father walked into the living room one day in August with death perched on his shoulder as high and pleased as an organ grinder’s monkey.

  His voice was quiet. Help, he said.

  The rest of us—three—were on the living-room couch. I was sitting with my rich aunt, my mother’s sister, looking at a sportswear and lingerie catalog she’d brought for her visit. My mother was cleaning out her purse. At the sound of his overwound voice, we all looked up.

  Arthur, said my mother, fingers laced with gum wrappers, what’s wrong?

  His face was gray. Truly, actually gray. All six eyes, the female majority in the house, fixed onto his, which were tight with fear and glittering silver.

  That first time, even my clearheaded aunt got worried. She was the head of a hotshot metal corporation in the big city, and very directive. She said: Go to the emergency room. She said: Do it. The force in her voice pushed tears to my eyes.

  My mother, lips together, led my father to the car. Just the day before, he and I had gone to the big green high school track, sang to the radio together in the car, and raced each other. I watched the way his feet hit the ground—heel, earth, toe—and he was so quick but I was faster than I’d ever been before and one time, I almost, almost won. He laughed when he saw me chasing his heels, and afterward we had orange drinks at the diner and he told the waiter my name was Miss Speedy.

  I pulled up a chair to the kitchen table and joined my aunt, who sat there with her catalog. We tried to focus on the clothes. She pointed out a skirt—long and straight and dark red—and I nodded but have since felt a wave of terror in stores when I’ve seen any relative of that skirt hanging on the racks. My tears were big and splatted directly on the models, fat drops that made their paper stomachs buckle.

  My parents were gone for four hours. One hour. Two hours. Three hours. Four hours.

  My aunt, overworked, fell asleep on the catalog.

  Four hours and ten minutes.

  Four hours and eleven minutes.

  Four hours and twelve minutes.

  I held my knees and watched the clock over the stove shuffle and restructure its red digital lines.

  Both my parents returned from the hospital at the tail end of the fifth hour, and my father still looked gray and now my mother, too, looked grayer. My aunt was still asleep on her catalog, but I was wide awake and I went over and hugged my mother because I was too afraid to hug him. He looked like he might be leaking. That ashy stuff, smoking out into the air. But he was upright, he was walking, and he was alive.

  Your father’s okay, my mother said. He didn’t look over at me and left the room. I heard the mattress in their bedroom sigh and sink as he lay down.

  It wasn’t a stroke? muttered my aunt, shaking awake.

  It wasn’t anything, said my mother. The doctor did a lot of tests and he’s fine.

  What do you mean? I asked.

  She shook her head.

  What was it? my aunt asked, standing.

  My mother opened the refrigerator, and stuck a spoon in a jar of peanut butter.

  So, she said. What did you two do while we were gone?

  My aunt marched out of the kitchen, and I heard her low voice speaking to my father who, as far as I could tell, wasn’t responding. I lifted the catalog from the table and ran a hand over it, bumpy from my tears. A record of four very bad hours. I held it up to my mother, to show her, to shove it in her face, but her eyes were focused somewhere else. She took a second spoon from the drawer and made me a peanut-butter lollipop too.

  Is he dying? I asked, in the smallest voice possible.

  She put down her spoon. No, honey, she said, touching my hair. I don’t think so.

  I nodded. I smiled. That’s good, I said.

  She poured two glasses of milk into two wineglasses. We drank. Her eyes, over the top of the wineglass, rain-colored against milk foam, looked sad and tired.

  What is it? I said to her, putting down my glass. Are you keeping something from me? Tell me the truth, I said. I am ten years old.

  But my mother just shook her head again.

  They complimented his ch
olesterol levels, she said. His blood pressure is low.

  What’s wrong with him? I asked, leaning forward, gripping the glass stem.

  Nothing, she said.

  By the next evening, my father was still alive and walking and he seemed to be in a slightly better mood, but I didn’t see him regain brightness and color, ever. We never went back to the track. He stopped singing with the radio. I walked so much faster than him now that the name Miss Speedy felt disgusting in its rightness. My aunt stayed a few more days, even going to the doctor’s office to drum up more information, but she returned with nothing but a dinner date. She took me shopping that week on the street of stores and bought me a turquoise jacket that she said was so cute and matched my eyes but halfway home I said it was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen. The rest of the walk was silent and deadly. She decided to cut her stay short. Judy, she asked my mother, do you really need me here? My mother shook her head, using a toothpick to spear kernels from a tin can of corn. A few days after my aunt had driven away, when I was sure she’d be home, I ripped out three pages from the warped lingerie catalog and mailed them to her; I circled several of the bras that were clearly the wrong size and wrote, in black pen: I bet these would look great on you. She wrote back after a month and said everyone in the big city was wearing the jacket I’d returned. I swiped my father’s tissue after he’d sneezed and mailed her that.

  At home, brightness seemed to be draining from the house. The orange carpet paled to beige. The burgundy sofa looked more nut-colored to me now. Brass quintets on the stereo sounded like drawers of silverware, clanking. No one read the glossy magazines on the coffee table anymore: What was the point of an alarm clock shaped like a turtle? I saved a page for posterity, but dumped the rest of the lingerie catalog.

  The warmth of afternoon, squares of sunlight, glowing reds—all of this darkened; it was as if someone had installed a dim switch on the side of our house and spun it down to Low.

  I didn’t know what to do about it, so I just got used to it. When I saw myself in a mirror at school, my eyes were blue and my tongue was red. I looked garish and over-made-up to myself, with blue eyes. Blue eyes! I knocked on trees as I walked home, thinking of the gall of my body, having eyes the color of the stupid sky. At home, the mirror in the bathroom reflected back a more acceptable shade of industrial lead. When I saw pairs of ducks in the pond at the park, each time I convinced myself that the female, brown and beige, was more beautiful than the male. She was direct, and simple. I ignored that male duck, whose iridescent green feathers I now found ostentatious.