I imagined draping a slow-moving rainbow of bubble around his body, and watching it surround him, an aquarium. I was thinking about him liking his assignment. Trying to understand how anyone could possibly like that assignment.
You know her mom has some kind of new cancer, right? I asked.
He flicked a few ashes. Sure, he said. That’s why she picks it.
And her mother is dying, you know that too, right?
He looked at me flat in the eye. Sure, he said. That’s why she picks it.
He didn’t move his eyes, and shook the string in his hand. I put my foot down and started to turn toward the door.
Leaving? he asked.
I didn’t answer.
I wish you could see a whole one, he said. They’re amazing. But the wand is broken or something, he said.
I was about to walk to the door but I hadn’t moved yet. Stayed put. Nodded. I stared at him. He exhaled loudly. I nodded a second time. I nodded a third time. But I knew I could do it;
that wand was not broken. I put my shoe back on my shoe, wobbling in the shadows while burst ghosts of bubble shimmied into the air.
Can I try? I asked.
He blinked, cigarette dart burning a small red circle in the air, poised to be thrown.
It’s hard, he said.
just to try, I said.
He shrugged and held forward the wand and the cigarette, which burned low, almost down to its filter.
I have to go back in ten minutes, I said, breathing in the soap smell of the bucket.
You can make one in ten minutes, he said, maybe. I have ten minutes, I said again.
I took the wand awkwardly-it was sticky and slick-and dipped it into the soap bucket. I picked the cigarette from his fingers and let it stick out from my knuckles.
He stood back by the climbing structure, and let me be. He didn’t do that thing that some men do holding my elbow and guiding me through the motions, and I was so grateful that he wasn’t touching me that I wanted, suddenly, acutely, for him to touch me, I lifted the wand from the soap bucket and let the excess drip off. Someone inside the school broke something made of glass and there was a burst of laughter and a few murmurs of concern.
I held up the wand, windowed by soap. I pulled back on the string and the bubble began to poke out its face, slippery and glimmering.
My hand slacked on the wand and the bubble started to recede.
Careful, he said, four feet away, rising up on the balls of his feet. Keep a tight hold.
I did. The bubble stayed put. The smell swept over me. Inside, I heard apologies being made about the broken glass, and I heard the art teacher’s high voice brushing them off-It’s okay, it’s okay.
I tensed my wrist, and taking the cigarette up to my lips with my other hand, sucked in. The smoke waited, patient, in my mouth, and I raised the swirling bubble with my arm, and released the smoke in a stream into the hole of the wand. It whooshed out of me: white, intimate.
I got ready to seal up the bubble and he was watching, I could feel him
waiting, and I felt the bubble wobbling, and smelled the bucket and breathed in the smoke and I knew right then that mine would work. Mine would seal up, take off, and rise over our heads. A beautiful shuddering pearl in a sphere.
I felt him waiting for me, and I wrecked it.
The bubble popped obediently and the smoke spread and thinned in the air.
Oh, I said. Oh well.
He was watching me closely. You had it, he said.
Oh well, I said. I gave the nearby tree trunk a quick knock. My stomach unsettled. It’s hard to do, I said.
He remained right where he was, by the side of the climbing structure.
You broke it on purpose, he said.
I didn’t look over. Was that more than ten minutes? I asked, remembering. Time for me to go. The wand was limp in my hand and I balanced it on the edge of the bucket.
Do it again, he said. Make a quick one. No, I said. I have to go now.
Hang on, he said. Tell me. Did you? Did you break it on purpose?
I could feel the night air underneath my dress. I kept the smell of the soap close; I was afraid of him moving forward, of the smoke caving around us, of his man hands.
He watched me closely. He had lit a new cigarette and was holding it in that same dart way, which looked even stranger now that it was full length.
Well, he said, if you can do it, show me how.
The wand slipped down into the bucket. There was a faint ringing in my ears. I knocked on a tree trunk; the wood was bumpy.
I feel sick, I blurted. It’s the soap. I have to go, I said.
He muttered something underneath his breath.
What? I said, holding out the cigarette to him, almost all filter now. Did you say die?
He shook his head. He reached over and took the cigarette back, touching my fingers for a second, and stubbed it out.
I started backing away. My stomach hurt. Thankyou, I said. I’ve got to go but thanks, that was great. Sorry about the other day.
I hope Mrs. Lunelle doesn’t find you.
He kept looking at me. He fished the wand from the bucket; it slipped in; he swore, retrieved it, and started to make a half bubble-letting it poke out, pulling it back to flat.
Feel better, he said. See you tomorrow. Thanks, I said, okay. You too.
I stopped at the door. I could see the art teacher now through a window, rings alive on her fingers, a few shards of glass at her feet. He cleared his throat and was about to ask another question. But I was now through the door and inside. I was in the bright room of plastic cups and needy parents. He was outside, air dark and clarified, attempting thin brief planets. When I looked back, I could barely see him whispering smoke into the new bubble.
He was facing the other way now and his T-shirt read COME BACK.
I got the plant food, said good-bye to my boss and a few key parents, and a special good-bye to Lisa, who was tagging along with Elmer’s family for the night. I let her slap her fist into my open palm for a minute, but my stomach was hurting and I had to go. On the walk home, I knocked on every single tree I passed.
On occasion I knocked twice, and so the walk home took twice as long. My stomach was upset and my hands were trembling. I knocked on one tree so hard I ruptured the skin on my knuckle. If I’d stayed, I
thought, if I’d made more, what would’ve happened come end-of evening? What. That lingering by the car door, or the school door, or worst: my front door. That door lingering, I couldn’t do it. I would not touch a man who disagreed, who knew when I folded; I would have to swallow the bucket to combat that. I would have to drink an entire bubble bath. I would drown in that blue bucket of lather and froth.
That night I lay close to the potted plant, knocking up a storm.
I’d finish knocking and then I wouldn’tfeel finished and I’d have to knock again. I wondered what glass it was that had broken in the art teacher’s classroom. A water glass? A window. A pair of glasses? A knickknack from Finland. A glass eye? A slipper. My fingers. My skin.
My glass watch face: break it. Fist down, smash the glass. The two hands halt. The longest ten minutes of my life. Is the ten minutes up yet? I look down. Nope, I say, even though the sun is rising now. Ten minutes aren’t up yet. I have to go in ten minutes but I still have ten minutes left. Let me make another bubble. Let me show you how it’s done. Three years later, all the soap is used and the kids are grown and the air is clear and the bucket is dry. Me and the man are sprawled out on the asphalt-lungs deteriorated, fingers pruned, legs interlaced. Clean and tired.
I’m hungry, I tell him, squeezing his hand. He nods, and we slip through the gate into the day.
he same week of high school that I quit track, I missed a math test. I never missed math tests but woke up that morning and something about the sun through the curtains, rolling out its smooth ivory rays, made me unable to move. The world can ask you to participate, but it’s a day-by-day decision if you want to agree to that proposal. When I didn’t show up in the rest of the house, my mother wandered into my room, put a cool palm on my forehead, declared me tepid, but said I could stay home if I wanted.