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 1”9 i b I e sign of 4 % 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 groundless4:z was a big deal.
42 was leaps and bounds. I’d never seen him wearing a 42 before, ever. Once I saw him at io 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 hand, but I took out my wallet anyway, bought a ticket, and went inside.
hat 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.
But he’d changed the air, just like that. Now it was different, concentrated-palpable, like smoke.
He returned his face to the movie. It was getting more intense: