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 Dn 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 kick ball 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 kick ball 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 kick ball field and they used it as a kick ball 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 home, I said.
I’m going to the matinee, he said. Inodded.
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 pre tended 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.