4 That’s right, I said. We had awful substitutes the whole time.
I leaned harder on that wallpaper. Mr. Jones turned his face to
11”Sihle sIgn mine, eyes bright. He lifted the old 15 off his neck, broke the string off with his hands, and tossed it straight into the cauldron. It drifted on the waxy hot sea for a second, shoddy old 15, a faithful true life it had led, until it sank slow as a doomed ship into the beige depths. Jones watched it, we both did, then he turned around and walked to the number wall, took down i9, and slipped it over his head.
I like visitors, he said. This is good for me. I shifted my weight on the wall.
So how come you never said anything, I asked. If you noticed all this stuff.
What do you mean? he asked.
I mean, there you were, saying how important it was to notice things. You noticed the pencil, I was grateful for that, I said.
But how come you never said anything about this fading stuff?
But I did, he said, blowing on the 42I shook my head. What are you talking about? I asked. I even egged your garage one year because you said nothing to me about anything.
That was you? His eyebrows raised. I blanched slightly. My goodness, he said. That was really awful of you.
I know, I mumbled. Sorry about that.
He fiddled with the i9, supporting the bottom with his thumb, and re dipped the ladle to give 42 its second coat.
Well, he continued, you must’ve egged me for saying something then. Because this is exactly what happened. I went to you some afternoon, you were playing on the lawn, and I said: Mona, you seem upset. And you said to me, and I’m certain of this, you said: Shut up Mr. Jones.
I did not say that, I said.
Well, he said, I am quite sure you did. I asked you if your father was okay and you said he was just fine and why was I even asking. You were a very snotty little kid.
I was a great math student, I said. I really said that?
Sure, he said. You were an excellent math student. The ladle brimmed with wax, and he stood there, poised. But you were a very snotty little kid, he repeated.
Hang on, I said, how come you remember all of this all at once?
Five minutes ago you thought I was here to sell you cookies.
He scrunched up his lips, close to his nose, then lowered them.
Didn’t you buy the ax for your twentieth birthday? he said.
I had a sudden urge to melt down all his numbers all at once in that cauldron, dump every wall-hanging mood inside, then take off my clothes and step into it, a smooth wax glove, coating myself with every age, every mood, everything as available as skin.
You really asked that? I said.
He nodded. Sure did, he said. Then I stopped asking. His eyes were away, reviewing it all in his head. He poured the ladle down on the 42, second layer.
I don’t remember any of that, I said.
So is he all right? Mr. Jones asked, his eyes returning to me.
The 50 was still tight in my hands, paper untouched by the new warmth in my palms.
He thinks he’s about to die, I said quietly.
Mr. Jones nodded. I see, he said. He blew again on the 42, a gentle careful wind. The number settled and hardened. And you? he asked.
Sometimes I think I’m about to die, yeah, I said.
No no, Mr. Jones said. I meant do you think he’s about to die?
I looked straight at him. He was looking straight at me. My palms were all over the 50, lifeline direct on those black fast numbers. Mr. Jones was waiting. The 42 was gel ling I opened my mouth, and the response that came out of it shocked me entirely. No, I said. I don’t.
The next day I walked over to Lisa’s house, because I knew the address, because Elmer said it all the time now: 265 Ogden Place.
No one was home, so I left a note in the mailbox saying I’d be coming by the school next week to pick up my things and some afternoon I’d like to take her to the park, or the movies, or the hospital, and that just because I was fired didn’t mean she would never see meI know where you live, I wrote. Inside the envelope I also put a leaf that I’d ripped into the shape of a 3, and wrote:
3 X 3 =? Love, Ms. Gray.
On Saturday, I spend the whole day cleaning the apartment. I make the kitchen floor so white it’s a dentist’s dream; I vacuum; I scrub the shower grout. I shine the kitchen faucet until I can see my eye on the nozzle. I fill the trash can with a bouquet of dirty paper towels from dusting. I throw out magazines. He shows up at eight. The apartment smells of detergent which reminds me of axes and he sits on the couch where I lied and fiddles with the pillow corners and says he saw Ann a
few days ago. A mess of stitches “?1‘183ible si Wn Of up her leg, he says She was bossing all the nurses around, he says, laughing. She’s okay? I ask about five times. She’s limping a bit for now, but she seems to be all right, he says. I keep nodding.
I’m not sure where to put my relief plus I’m so nervous I can hardly look at him. He’s wearing a T-shirt that says SCIENCE on it in block orange letters. His hair is messy. I think of Ann in her bed at home now, trays piled by her bedside, every different kind of pudding, spoons drying inside plastic cups. I get Benjamin a glass of water that he hasn’t asked for, and he stands up to take it and I know I have to make the first move so I do it fast-he’s swirling the water, clear liquid inside hard glass, it reminds me of the hospital, and I step in closer, halve the space, and I just spend some time with the inside of his elbows, the burn marks from the science class. He watches me closely. I don’t kiss his mouth right away, I kiss instead his neck and the side of his check and the inside of his elbow.
We walk over to the couch and then we decide to walk over to the bedroom and our shoes are coming off and the magnets are charging up and I can feel the soap waiting for me in the bathroom, sitting there in its porcelain soap dish calling my name, Come on in Mona Gray, yoohoo Mona, get this over with. Come on in and visit. Come ruin everything. I’m holding his fingers, lightly, and I don’t know if I can do this on my own. Our faces are close and I’m learning about his mouth again and his lips are warm and Ann is okay and the kiss keeps changing shape and size and speed and I’m going to try to foil this, I can just feel it, and the lights are off in the whole apartment and the bedroom is just shadows, curtains hanging, unmoving, and the bluish form of the bed. We stand over the bed and he sits down on the edge
and I am straddling him, and our hips are starting to glue together, and I am in love with the way his elbow meets his forearm, the muscle on his shoulder, the hardness of his collarbone, the way he’s made, so complete and simple, so mysterious and complicated, and I’m getting scared. I open my mouth to speak, tentatively, terrified, and I say it. I need to go to the bathroom, I say. Next door, the soap rears up in the soap dish, lathered, foaming, eager, ready. His hand is on my stomach. Come in here; come ruin it. He stops kissing me and looks straight at me and his teeth are white in the darkness.
There is a long pause and I am waiting, and my hope is eighty airplanes, poised on the runway, ready for takeoff: please, please, please, please. And then he smiles. No, he says.
As soon as he says it my eyes fill up, just like that, the gratitude is that fast and that immediate, but I don’t trust anything so we’re kissing more and his lips are sweet as orange slices on a plate on a porch in the summer with weeping willow trees and larks, and then I ask him again, sure he’ll get reasonable here; I say, in a more urgent voice: Hang on, I have to go to the bathroom. He is still looking at me, watching me, and says, no, voice stronger now, and I say, But I have to go, really, I mean it, and he shakes his head and says: No. Today I have decided to be your bathroom monitor and today I say no. The soap lather crawls over the edge of the porcelain and spills into the sink, somersaults of white. I was just kidding, I tell him, that thing I said the other day, I was just kidding, but he looks at me and shakes his head again. No. I grip his shoulders and his lips are drinking mine and then hands on my shirt and he’s unbuttoning me and