By Steph Del Rosso

Featured Art by Reagan Settle

The mole was the color of charcoal, shaped like a raindrop sliding down a car window. Mona had gotten the call from her dermatologist in the bathroom stall of a dive bar. Two women were arguing at the sink.

“I can’t tell where his opinions end and yours begin,” said one.

“What are you talking about? I’ve always hated neoliberalism,” said the other.

“Unfortunately, we’ve detected melanoma,” said the dermatologist. “The good news is, we caught it early.”

But Mona hadn’t heard her above the whir of the hand dryer. She plugged one ear with her finger. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”

“We caught it early,” said her dermatologist. “And that’s helpful with melanoma.”

The word cut through the bathroom din like an un-tuned chord. Mona looked down at her bare thighs on the toilet seat.

“The bad news is,” her dermatologist continued, “I’m about to go on vacation. For four weeks.”

“Where?”

“Um. Mexico. Playa del Carmen.”

Mona pictured her dermatologist on a lounge chair with a salt-rimmed Paloma.

“So we’ll have to wait. To do the surgery.”

“Is that – bad?”

“No,” her dermatologist said. And then after a slight pause, she doubled down. “No.”

When Mona hung up, she lifted the hem of her t-shirt. There it was: oblong and mocking, a mass of toxic cells. “Fuck you,” Mona said to the mole.

“Pleasure to meet you as well,” the mole said back.

Mona dropped her shirt hem and rolled her eyes. Sarcasm was the lowest form of humor, someone had told her once.

*

When Mona returned to their bar stools, her date was sipping on the dregs of his second beer.

“Do you have any siblings?” he asked her, filling the silence.

“A younger brother,” Mona answered. She heard herself describe her brother’s electrician license exam and Milwaukee, where he lived, where everyone in her family lived except for Mona and her uncle, who was stationed at a military base in San Diego. As she spoke, her brain remained in the bathroom stall. Did she have cancer or was she carrying cancer cells? Was there a difference? Mona wished she had clarified. But her dermatologist exuded such clipped authority that Mona had tried to mimic her instead.

“How about we continue this conversation at my place,” said her date.

“Sure,” said Mona.

“You can’t be serious,” said the mole. Mona pressed down on her abdomen, hard, as if to say, “shush.”

*

A framed poster of the movie Reservoir Dogs hung above her date’s bed.

“Oh god, have we time traveled?” said the mole. “Did he just rush Sigma Chi and now he’s cramming for an econ final?”

Mona tried to stifle a laugh. Her date confused it for a flirtatious giggle and stuck his tongue down her throat.

“Do you want this?” the mole wondered.

“I don’t know,” Mona said as her date unbuttoned his jeans and then hers. “I’ll try to rise to the occasion.” He was attractive in a Patagonia catalog sort of way. He ran ultra-marathons and seemed like the kind of guy Mona would have been invisible to a decade earlier, not quite Homecoming King but adjacent. His teeth were so straight, she wondered if he’d had braces twice.

“Are you ok?” he asked while he was on top of her. Mona was surprised by this show of perceptiveness. “I mean,” he rocked back on his knees, revealing her stomach. “Is that a bruise?” He pointed at the mole, who balked.

“You don’t know the first thing about me, buddy.”

“Oh, no. That’s a – ” but her date was panting now, thrusting hard.

“Can you tell me something?” Mona said to the mole.

“Like what?”

“Like a fun fact.”

“Did you know that your pelvic bone isn’t one bone, but two? And during certain complications while giving birth, it can break?”

Mona bit her lip, trying to shut out images of fractured pelvises. “What about a fact that’s actually fun?”

The mole considered. “Every seven years, your body’s cells regenerate.”

“I’m coming,” her date said, which was obvious.

“You good?” asked the mole.

“Yes,” said Mona as she imagined thousands of new cells, blooming inside her body like the vines that climbed up her neighbors’ building each spring.

Her date rolled off her. “You’re so hot,” he said, picking at a bloody cuticle on his thumb.

“Well, there you go,” said the mole. “You exist.”

*

A tiny bell announced Mona’s tardiness as she shuffled through the door of the wedding dress store the next day. Her friend greeted her with a side-hug that was more like a swift tapping motion.

“You made it,” she squealed, but when Mona looked at her face, she was frowning.

Her friend’s mom perched on a white velvet couch. “You missed the mermaid,” she said. “The trumpet is up next.”

A store attendant with cat-eye glasses handed Mona a glass of something bubbly even though it was barely noon. She brought the glass to her lips and tried not to grimace while swallowing. The drink tasted like a frosted cupcake.

“When do you think it will be Your Time?” her friend’s mom asked, patting the empty couch cushion beside her.

“Is that her business?” said the mole.

“Actually, I met someone,” Mona told her friend’s mom just to say something.

“Oooooh!” she chirped her approval, eyes wide and unblinking. “Ooooh!” she said again, but this time because Mona’s friend had emerged from the dressing room, spinning in lace.

“You look beautiful,” Mona said, which was true, although she also looked like she couldn’t walk.

“I’m on the fence about the sweetheart neck,” her friend said, squinting.

“I agree,” the store attendant cut in. “You don’t want to look like the flower girl.”

“It’s too late to give you a plus one,” said her friend’s mom as her friend disappeared behind a curtain. “I’m thrilled for you though! Can I see a picture of him?”

“Sure,” said Mona. “Let me find a good one.” She picked up her phone as if to do just that, but instead she typed “skin cancer” into her search browser and scrolled. She read about lymph tissue and lymph nodes, about irregular borders and blurred edges, about black dots no bigger than a pen tip, about biopsies, about chemo, about nausea, about crusting, about lesions.

“Ok, that’s enough,” said the mole. “Google your celebrity crush. Or a baby elephant.”

Mona felt something round lodged at the base of her throat. She took three quick gulps of the cupcake wine, trying to loosen it. Her friend padded out then, a glowing silhouette.

“Honey that’s the one,” her friend’s mom said, tearing up. Mona cried then too, thinking of moles.

Her friend cocked her head, squinting again. “If this is the one, then I’ll need different shoulders. And different arms. And different hips. And different calves.” She peered at herself with deep disdain. “I think I need a break. Can we do Mona now?”

The store attendant snapped to attention. “Follow me,” she said to Mona. “You’ll have to leave that out here, though,” she motioned to the refilled glass of cupcake wine. Mona took a few generous swigs.

“For the road,” Mona joked, but no one laughed except the mole. The store attendant pointed to a blue bridesmaid’s dress draped against a floor length mirror.

“That looks perfect,” Mona’s friend said once Mona had climbed inside it.

“So perfect,” said her friend’s mom.

“Exquisite,” said the store attendant.

“That looks like a bag,” said the mole.

“That’s intentional,” Mona said back. But to everyone else she grinned and said, “I feel like a queen.” The room flinched. “Of course, not The Queen,” she tried again, gesturing to her friend. “I’m sorry, I need to make a call,” Mona offered instead, sliding a blue strap down her shoulder.

*

On the other end of the phone, Mona swore she heard the caw of tropical birds.

“Are you already there? In Mexico?” she asked her dermatologist.

“I’m sorry, who is this?”

“Oh it’s your patient, Mona. One of your nurses gave me your direct line.”

The dermatologist exhaled. “Is everything alright?”

Mona could hear the wine bobbing around her empty stomach. The sidewalk outside the dress store was empty except for an old woman with a curved spine and a cane. Mona felt a sharp pang in her knee. She reached for her wrist to locate her own pulse. Her upper back was sore, and it occurred to her that maybe she had a pinched nerve. She tried to stand up straighter, her bunions brushing against the sides of her boots.

“Hello?” the dermatologist repeated. “Did you have a question for me or – ?”

“Are you staying in one of those all-inclusive resorts?”

The line went so quiet it seemed to be dead. Until the dermatologist answered, “Yes.”

“That’s great. That’s so great. And do you think you’ll try some activities while you’re there or just relax? Maybe snorkel? I bet you could zipline?” Mona was drunk.

“Listen, I know it’s an overwhelming time for you. But I’d appreciate if you directed your questions to my staff until my return. Ok?”

“Oh sure,” said Mona. “Sure. I’d love to get your resort address though, so I could send you a postcard?”

“Um,” the dermatologist hesitated. “The person on vacation usually sends a postcard to the person who isn’t. Not the other way around.” And then she hung up.

Mona closed her eyes and arched her head back, letting the winter sun pour onto her face.

“Careful,” warned the mole. “You don’t have your SPF on.”

“Shit.” Mona tilted her body into the shade. Another bride-to-be entered the dress store. A ballerina in her youth maybe, all posture and bones.

“You know what I want?” Mona said to the mole. “I want to open up my body like a chest of drawers. I want photographs of every square inch of my insides, and a map, with a key. I want someone to set me a table with plates full of my own organs, like noodles.”

Mona’s phone dinged. It was a text from her date. When she swiped her screen to unlock it, she saw a photo of his dick. If anything, looking at it didn’t turn her on; it made her jealous. There was an organ he could externalize, that he could hold in his hand.

“Oh my god, is that him?” her friend had appeared by her side, jabbing at the dick pic. “My mom told me. But I’m so sorry, we sprung for the photo booth. So I can’t give you a plus one.” Her friend pouted. It was unclear whether she was genuinely sorry or just bending her mouth into an apologetic shape.

“Do you want to go get breakfast tacos?” Mona asked. “And see some bad movie that’s playing at that place with the too-small screen?”

Creases darted across her friend’s forehead. “My next appointment’s in 15.”

“I’m free!” said the mole. “And I love chorizo.”

“Let’s hustle girls!” Her friend’s mom pulled on her coat, not bothering to button it. Mona stared at the moles on her bare chest. There were dozens of them, circling her collarbone and descending into her cleavage. She noticed them on her friend’s face, too. A big one at the corner of her mouth and a few on her cheek. Mona peeled back one sleeve of her own coat and then the other. More moles, everywhere. Like little constellations of potential mortality.

“Don’t look at them,” the mole said. “Look at me.”

*

The mole kept Mona company while she stirred milk in her coffee, while she waited for the bus in the snow, while she wheeled a cart through the grocery store.

“Come on, you can do better than that,” said the mole as Mona reached for a package of frozen gnocchi. “Too many frozen meals and you’ll turn into a frozen meal.”

Mona imagined herself as a potato dumpling flopped on a pan. She piled the gnocchi into her cart anyway. “It’s delicious,” she said and the mole tsked.

“Too many carrots and your skin will turn orange,” said the mole in the produce aisle. The mini sprinklers turned on and “Singin’ in the Rain” started playing from a tinny speaker beside a head of cabbage. The mole sang along, flat but with gusto. Mona reached for a bouquet of cilantro.

“Nope. That was recalled.”

“So why would they put it on the shelf?”

The mole sighed. “It’s always about their bottom line.”

Mona pivoted her cart to the apple section, where the mole cautioned her about pesticides.

“And definitely rinse these with filtered water. Don’t forget about chloroform risk.”

“What’s chloroform risk?”

“Do you want to fill your body with just anything?”

“You’re kind of making it hard to think straight.”

“And that’s different from a regular day how?” the mole teased and Mona whispered “touché.”

They were fond of each other, she and the mole. They had bits. The mole was a little needy and a little possessive but Mona let it slide. Because the mole was reliable. Mona felt it everywhere she went, standing guard on her belly like a talisman.

At Mona’s pap smear appointment, the mole peeked out from a rip in the paper gown.

“I’m about to insert the speculum,” said the gynecologist. Mona winced, her legs splayed in the stirrups.

“It will be over in a jiffy,” said the mole.

“A jiffy?” Mona cracked a smile.

“See, I’m already distracting you.”

“They look good, I think,” said the gynecologist, palming Mona’s ovaries.

“You think?” said Mona.

The gynecologist wore several decorative pins on the lapel of her lab coat. One was a smiling beer mug with the words “Feeling Hoppy!” printed across the cartoon rim in bubble letters.

“There’s some irritation on the labia, but it’s probably fine.” She continued up Mona’s hips to her torso. “There’s something unusual in your breast tissue, but it could be nothing.”

“Why is this doctor so noncommittal?” Mona asked the mole.

“Maybe she’s worried about getting sued.”

“Sit up,” the gynecologist commanded. “Do you exercise?”

“Yeah,” Mona said. “I walk a lot. And do yoga sometimes.”

“Well it’s not working!” and then she let out a laugh that sounded like a bark. “What do you do for fun?”

“Hang out with my friends. I like to—”

“Uh huh,” said the gynecologist, studying Mona’s chart.

“We need to get out of here,” said the mole.

“You might want to do a mammogram, just in case,” said the gynecologist. “But that does expose you to radiation, so I’d be wary. Just in case. And you might want to take prenatal vitamins because you never know.”

“Never know what?”

“I’m sorry, this is very distracting.” The gynecologist handed Mona her phone, which was beeping.

“Look!” said Mona. There were eight texts from her date.

“He’s so unaware, it’s repulsive,” said the mole.

“No, no, look.” There was a message waiting in Mona’s medical portal from her dermatologist. She typed in her password, her thumbs clammy on the keys.

But it was just an automated message confirming her surgery appointment.

“You’re obsessed with her,” the mole said, jealous. Mona shook her head, scrolling ZocDoc.

“Do you guys know each other?” Mona held up her dermatologist’s headshot to her gynecologist. “She works in your building. Suite 703.”

“It’s a 20-story building,” said the gynecologist. Then she swung open the door, clicked down the hall, and left.

“Maybe I’ll stop by her office,” Mona said. “I’m already here.”

“She’s still on vacation.” The mole was annoyed.

Mona slumped in her paper gown, staring at a poster advertising the Gardasil vaccine. When her phone lit up again it was her friend, wondering where she was.

*

Outside the fitness studio, a clump of women shivered in spandex. Mona spotted her friend fuming in a white sports bra and white leggings. The class had been Mona’s idea. She worked the front desk, so she could get a discount rate and after-hours access. Her friend wanted bachelorette activities. “But nothing tacky,” she said. “Absolutely no composite photos of our future babies.”

“Are you all ready to have the time of your lives?” Mona jingled her staff keys and did a little disco move with her hands. She decided on the train ride over that being sheepish would dampen the mood. Her friend would thank her for her party energy.

“You look like you’re at a Bar Mitzvah” her friend hissed under her breath. Mona’s face felt warm. She fumbled with the keys.

“Whatever. I liked it,” said the mole.

Once Mona unlocked the door, the spandex women bunched up by the mirror, sucking their stomachs in and out. They were strangers to Mona except for a cousin she met at a party, years ago. The instructor they’d hired had a ponytail braid that snaked all the way down to her waist. She may have still been in high school.

“Just a heads up, I was only paid for a 45-minute class and it’s already been 15,” she told Mona before blasting a club mix of a Top 40 hit. “Gyrate, ladies! Gyrate!”

And the ladies did.

On a water break, the room hummed with forgettable small talk.

“So do you work here full-time?” someone in a cheetah-print tank top asked Mona.

“No, I’m a dermatologist,” she said so automatically it almost startled her. “I do this on the side.” Cheetah-print looked impressed. Then wanted to know if Mona thought she had rosacea.

“Those must be long hours,” a woman in a tangerine bra-let said, sizing Mona up anew.

“Yeah,” said Mona. “But luckily I just had a vacation. I went to Playa del Carmen.”

“Look out,” said the mole because her friend was approaching.

“There she is!” Cheetah-print shouted, suddenly dousing the room in confetti. Everyone whooped except Mona’s friend.

“Guys, it’s fine, but I said no confetti.”

For the rest of the class, Mona pretended she was her dermatologist. She rolled her shoulders like she envisioned she would shoulder-roll. Fan kicked like she would fan kick. Shimmied like she would shimmy. But when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, sticky and panting, Mona was disappointed to still recognize her own reflection.

“Ok ladies, repeat after me: I don’t have a body, I am a body! I don’t have a body, I am a body!” The high schooler shook her hips, sweeping her arms over her head and then down again, like wings.

“I don’t have a body, I am a body!” the room shrieked.

Mona tried to do the mental math. “What is this supposed to make me feel?”

“Jury’s still out on that one,” said the mole.

The room kept chanting. And because Mona was one to cave under pressure, she chanted too, their voices swelling to a crest, everyone craving catharsis.

“I am a body! I am a body! I am a body! I am a body!”

*

The dermatologist assured Mona that they’d scoop out a wide perimeter of her abdomen to be safe. They wouldn’t just excise the mole itself, but the ring of skin around it too. Mona lay on the operating table as the dermatologist applied numbing cream. Around her neck was a pendant that looked like it was made from obsidian. A souvenir from Mexico, Mona figured.

“You ready?” she asked.

“Later alligator,” said the mole.

“Goodbye,” said Mona and nodded at the dermatologist.

When she cut her open with the scalpel, Mona’s chest stiffened as if a horde of tiny hands were pressing down.

“Try to relax,” a nurse said. “We’re nearly there.” Mona noticed a small spider on the ceiling. She wondered if the ring around the light fixture was water damage or a shadow.

Her dermatologist traded her scalpel for sutures. As she knit together the wound, Mona felt her eyes get glassy.

“You did great,” the dermatologist said. She told her the suture line would be dark pink and the edges red before, with time, the colors faded.

*

The next morning, Mona woke up buzzing. Her dermatologist said to take it easy, but she grabbed her headphones and went on a run. She played a pop song she knew all the words to, running further, faster, sweet sweet fantasy baby hot in her ears and sweat traveling from the nape of her neck to the elastic waistband of her pants until her stiches split open. She slowed to a walk and then stopped beneath a tree, her hands on her knees.

“You ok?” a passing jogger asked.

A large burl jutted out from the tree’s trunk, as if it had sprouted a fist.

“I’m fine!” Mona said, smiling. She reached below her belly button to trace the wound with her index finger. It oozed, just as she expected.

Today she knew exactly what was wrong with her.

---

Steph Del Rosso is a playwright, fiction writer, and screenwriter. She is a 2024 MacDowell Fellow and a 2023 Bogliasco Fellow. Her plays have been produced or developed at Second Stage Theater, The Public, The Kennedy Center, Soho Rep, JACK and others, and are published by Concord Theatricals and Dramatists Play Service. Steph is a winner of the Steinberg Playwright Award and the Mississippi Review Prize in Fiction. She received her MFA from UC-San Diego and lives in Brooklyn. Stephdelrosso.com