by Mary Carter
“Because of you,” Brad had said, “I’ll never think of yellow the same way again. No matter what.” She was twenty-one when he said that to her. First she obsessed on how romantic that was, then she switched to analyzing the “No matter what.”
What did he mean by that? Was he already forecasting a future breakup? She’d forever changed his relationship to the color yellow. Was that supposed to be a consolation prize? And if so, was that enough?
“Bails,” he said when she complained to him. “Name all the things you can that are yellow. Go.”
The sun, flowers, signs, school buses, traffic lights, lemons, plastic squeeze containers of mustard, not to mention the mustard itself, urine—
“Urine?” Brad said. “Urine?!”
Gross maybe, but it still counted, and since he drank a lot of water, always carried around whatever new magic water was on the market, it was a logical choice.
For the rest of his life, simple, everyday and sometimes mundane, ugly objects or disgusting bodily fluids would remind him of her. And she supposed that was good enough.
If, each time he saw the color yellow, some semblance of a thought of her ran through him, yes, that would definitely be of some consolation. Although there was no court of law, no law-abiding-yellow rule that would force him to follow it, still it was out there, as energy, his proclamation. They were forever bound by the color yellow till-death-do-they-part. It would have to be enough.
Was that what love was? Forever changing you in the tiniest of ways, so that no matter what, you’d never be the same again? She had a million little references like that with Brad as well, probably way more than he had with her, but it was enough, knowing he would never look at yellow the same way ever again. And they were still together. She’d never faced “No matter what.” At their wedding he gave her a hundred yellow roses.
If Faye and Jason weren’t watching her every move, she’d love to cut a few of the tulips to bring up to the penthouse. Not that she’d ever really do such a thing. There were a million things Bailey thought about doing, and very few she ever actually did. Brad was the risk taker, the kite soaring for the clouds; Bailey was the one with her feet on the ground, holding the string, poised to tug him back to earth whenever he’d gone too far. So, no stolen tulips for her clients today, but at least she had the chocolate-chip-scented candle in her purse. If only she’d had the time to actually bake chocolate-chip cookies. Imagine a New Yorker having that kind of time! She paused for one more look at the glorious bulbs and soothed her rule-following self with the thought that, once cut, the tulips would have lost most of their brilliance anyway. After all, it was the targeted ray of sunshine making them glitter, and even a wild child couldn’t cut down the sun.
“Hands behind back,” Bailey said. “Smile, but not too much.”
“I just don’t get it,” Jason said. “How come I can smell the garbage but I can’t see it?”
Bailey dug the candle out of her purse and held it up. “Maybe I should light this now,” she said.
Chapter 2
Brad Jordan saw the whole thing. There was a man lying on the sidewalk in a pile of glass. Sharp little pieces that glittered in the sun. There was a Cadillac sticking out of an electronics store, smashed like an accordion. The sign above the store read EDDIE’S ELECTRONICS. There were people, so many people. They rushed out of their shops, and apartments, and emerged from subway stops. They pulled over on their bicycles, and cars, and skateboards. So eager to see what was going on. They gathered around the accordion-car and the electronics store, they circled the man, shouted for help, knelt down on the sharp glass.
“Hey,” Brad wanted to shout. “Don’t hurt yourself.” It was strange, he no longer had a voice. People whipped out cell phones and pointed—Brad had never realized how important pointing was in a crisis, but obviously the arm and the index finger were essential—they pointed and they cried out, and they all yelled for somebody else to do something. There were a lot of people leading but nobody following.
They ignored Brad’s offer to assist, and rolled the man onto his back. A river of red filled the bed of glass. “It’s too late,” Brad said. “He’s dead.” Nobody paid any attention to him. He was surprised that he felt no sympathy for the good-looking dead man, although he had to say, he very much liked his shoes. Would it be wrong to take the shoes off the dead man’s feet? Somehow he knew it was wrong, yet he really wanted to do it. Somehow he knew they were really comfortable shoes. And the dead dude certainly didn’t need them anymore.
Dude. He hadn’t said “dude” since college. How could that be? He didn’t go to college, did he? He didn’t have the money, and his strung-out mother certainly didn’t care what he did with his life. Somebody he knew went to college and he used to visit that someone, and her hair smelled like strawberries, her lips were always shiny and wet with gloss, and she liked the color yellow, and she let him sleep in her dorm room, and read her textbooks, and use her food card in the cafeteria, and he used to say “dude” all the time. Maybe he should have gone to college. Maybe if he had gone to college he wouldn’t have wasted so many years saying the word “dude.” Maybe he could go to college right now. Right this very moment he knew he could fly over any college in the world. He didn’t even need to buy a ticket or go through security, although he already had his shoes off.
He could fly over Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, even Cambridge! But he didn’t want to. He still wasn’t a very good student.
Brad laughed. He looked around to see if anyone else was laughing, but they were still so obsessed with the lifeless man. Someone was even kneeling over him, kissing him on the lips. An older woman. It was a harsh city for dating—how desperate did you have to be to make out with a dead man? “Open your eyes!” he wanted to shout at her. “There are live men all around you!” But she didn’t listen. She was unbuttoning his shirt, practically ripping it off. And, my God! He could not believe what he was seeing. She actually brought her own lie detector with her. She was hooking him up to it, attaching it to his chest. Now that was a jaded woman.
Good God. She must’ve hated his answers, she was shocking him. What was next? Was she going to waterboard him in broad daylight? Shouldn’t someone stop her? Brad was so lucky he was out of the dating world.
Maybe she should kiss the owner of the electronics store instead. Was that Eddie, in the flesh? He was standing in the doorway of his shop looking like his dog just died. Poor dude. “Kiss him!” Brad wanted to yell. He pointed at the electronics store’s owner. He didn’t know how he knew he was Eddie, the owner, but he did. He was Eddie, and he’d opened his shop twenty minutes late and that’s why when the Cadillac came crashing through he was in the back making coffee instead of standing right in the path of destruction. “Dude, it was a good day to be late!” But once again, Brad had no voice, and now the desperate older woman was pounding on the dead man’s chest. Trying to get his heart to beat just for her. He’s just not that into you, Brad thought. He couldn’t remember where he’d heard that one, but he thought it was really funny. Once again, he was the only one who laughed.
Brad quickly grew bored of hovering above the lifeless body. Even the glittering glass shimmering in a pool of shiny red rubies couldn’t keep his attention. Rubies. Shoes. Rubies. Shoes. Rubies. There’s no place like home. And with that, he swirled around and noticed the most remarkable bright light.
Chapter 3
“Imagine. If you lived here, you would be able to sip champagne on your balcony, gaze out at the Frick museum, and relive the moment where you began the most important journey of your lives—your journey as husband and wife.” Bailey finished her speech and waited, breath held in, fingers clenched, for her mentors to say something. Really. Anything. Any little thing. They were standing in the living room of the penthouse, on Brazilian cherrywood floors, glittering underneath hundreds of faceted crystals from the magnificent chandelier hanging above them, facing three floor-to-ceiling oval windows, interspersed
with a towering stone fireplace and built-in bookcases, topped off with ornate crown molding, and a sweeping balcony with panoramic views of Fifth Avenue and Central Park. The Fairytalers would have to be criminally insane not to fall in love with this place. Still, she’d best keep that out of her pitch. Bailey couldn’t stop drinking in all the splendid details of the penthouse, but Faye and Jason could only stare at her.
“That’s actually not bad,” Faye finally said as if someone had to drag the words out of her mouth with horses and rope.
“It has a whiff of promise,” Jason said. Bailey glanced at the glowing candle and laptop she’d propped up on the fireplace mantel. The scent of chocolate-chip cookies filled the air, and the laptop scrolled through pictures of the intimate art museum at both sunrise and sunset. Bailey smiled. But not too much, and folded her hands behind her back. Something lurched inside her.
“Excuse me,” Bailey said. She fled to the balcony, cozied up to the railing, and pretended to look at the view. Wow, it was wild being so high above everything. She looked down and marveled at the tiny little trees, tiny little cars, tiny little people with tiny little baby strollers. Tiny little shopping cart. She didn’t realize she was talking out loud until Faye interrupted her.
“Shopping cart?” Faye said.
“Carlos,” Jason and Faye said at the same time. In sync, they turned and flew out of the penthouse. After a few much-needed seconds alone on the balcony, Bailey followed.
Carlos was a homeless man with a bullhorn and a cardboard sign. He paced back and forth in front of his overflowing shopping cart parked directly on the street in front of the building. His sign read:
ARE YOU PREPARED FOR THE END OF THE WORD?
Didn’t he know this neighborhood? It was Fifth Avenue in the Seventies. The only thing the people living on this block were prepared for was Woody Allen playing his clarinet at Café Carlyle on a Monday night. Bailey was all for freedom of speech. Just not now, not tonight. This was hardly the picture of romance and serenity that she wanted to paint for her clients. She looked around for the doorman as Faye and Jason tried to plead with him.
“Fires, and floods, and earthquakes—” His voice raised to the heavens, and he threw his arms up in the air with each proclamation of horror. He locked eyes with Bailey and jabbed at her with his finger. She pointed at his sign, and interrupted his tirade.
“You’re missing an ‘L.’ ”
“The earth will open up and—what? I’m missing what?” He followed the trajectory of Bailey’s finger.
“You’ve got clients arriving in twenty minutes,” Jason said, poking Bailey in the back. “We don’t have time for Wheel of Fortune. ”
“Are you prepared for the end of the word,” Bailey read. “I think you’re missing an ‘L.’ ”
“Damnation,” he said. “Where’s my marker?” He dove into his shopping cart, pulled items out of it, and threw them to the ground. A coat, a hat, a coffeemaker, an Etch A Sketch. Bailey took a step closer and tried to peek at the Etch A Sketch to see if he could draw. Unfortunately, there was nothing but squiggly lines. “Where is it? It’s gone. Who stole it? It’s gone. Who stole it?”
Bailey wanted to point out that he was hardly prepared for the end of the world himself, given his overblown reaction to losing a marker. Besides, wasn’t the only potential good thing about the end of the world the fact that no preparation was necessary? Sort of a “Come what may”? She would say “Come Hell or High Water,” but he already had that covered.
“Would you like to borrow my pen?” Bailey said. His head shot up out of his cart and he eyed her suspiciously.
“It’s not one of those exploding pens, is it?”
“I highly doubt it,” she said.
“What about a Sharpie? You got a Sharpie?”
“No.”
“Carlos,” Faye said. “You promised not to patrol this block anymore.”
“So sue me,” Carlos said. His clothes were streaked with dirt. His fingernails were black. His shopping cart had old shoes, and rotting food, and wet newspapers. He lifted his head and sniffed. “What’s that smell?” he said.
I’m going to kill Brad, Bailey thought, backing away. Champagne or not, I’m going to freaking kill him.
Brad bathed in the light, entranced within its glow. It was a warm blanket, cocooning him. It was a disco light that made him want to dance. It was a shooting star he couldn’t look away from. It was a roaring campfire by the beach. It was drawing him in. Yet he held back. He couldn’t help feeling he was forgetting something. That was strange, it was his wife who was always forgetting things, running back in to check her straightening iron—
His wife. Brad held his hands up, as if to protect the memory from the light. His wife. The Cadillac. The squeal of tires, the scream rising in his chest, his body flying through the windshield. His beautiful, brand-new shoes. The dead man on the ground. Oh, no.
But the light. My God, the light. It was incredible. You could stare directly at it and it didn’t hurt your eyes. He didn’t want to leave. He floated higher. He felt filled with love. Had he ever felt such peace? Nobody in their right mind would want to leave this place. He picked up speed and soon he was flying. My God, what a rush! Wait until he posted about this on his Facebook page. He assumed he was heading for a tunnel, but he was in no rush to get there. Although if he could see the light, did it mean he’d already gone through a tunnel? He didn’t remember one, and he didn’t really care. He was free. He was totally free.
It was the best drug he’d ever taken, the best roller coaster he’d ever ridden, the most popular he’d ever felt even though he was utterly alone. He no longer cared about anything below him. He no longer cared about the Cadillac, or the fact that he’d never gone to college, or his drunk mother, or global warming, or cable bills, or softening bellies, or the deli running out of his favorite beer, or failed businesses, or smelly feet, or terrorism, or condescending want ads, or missing the end of a Yankees game because his wife found some urgent errand for them to run, or finding gray hairs where no gray hairs should ever, ever be found. None of it mattered anymore.
And even though he knew she was still down there, even though he could still somewhat feel her long brown hair falling over his face, and see her nail-bitten fingers, and high cheekbones, and the silver coyote ring on her middle finger, and she was washed in the color yellow—he just couldn’t go back.
Actually, that was the problem. He could go back. It was his choice. A voice speaking to him from inside his head said so. It’s your choice. It’s up to you. He didn’t even have to think about it. He didn’t want to go back. He never wanted to go back. Forward was the only way to go. I’m sorry, he thought. I’m not going back. Not even for my shoes.
“Are you all right?” the doorman said. Bailey froze in the entranceway of the building. She was hit with a horrible feeling, a sinking sensation of dread, like she’d forgotten something vital. Was it the candle in the penthouse? She never should have left it unattended. Had it tipped over, was the palace burning down?
No, that wasn’t it. It was something else.
A few feet away, Faye and Jason were holding cash out to Carlos, like drug addicts trying to close a deal.
“Someone just walked over my grave,” Bailey said. The words shocked her. She’d never said anything like that before. She’d certainly never felt anything like that before.
“Oh,” the doorman said. “You look pale. Do you want to sit down?”
“My husband. I want my husband.”
“Save your soul from the burning flames of hell!”
“Your husband?”
Bailey couldn’t think. Not with that bullhorn in her ear. And she had to think. What was she forgetting? Why did it feel like life or death? Maybe the taco plate had been poisoned and in addition to extreme gas she was being hit with paranoid delusions. Or maybe she wasn’t paranoid at all. Maybe this was a premonition. She was going to die. Why did she have to upgrade to the deluxe lunc
h? Would they know to do an autopsy? Would strangers watch her being dissected on one of those medical true-life shows? Would the autopsy reveal that the guacamole had been laced? Or was it something else?
Would the coroner stand near her exposed toes, slowly shake his or her head, look at the camera, and say, “If only she hadn’t eaten the refried beans”?
“They won awards,” Bailey said. “Brad said they won so many awards.” Maybe she’d gone to the wrong taco truck. It was possible. It could have been another, poisonous, non-award-winning taco truck parked in the vicinity, hoping to lure clueless, hungry victims to their death. Bailey was surprised she could even stand. She stumbled and clutched onto the doorman’s lapels.
“Tell Brad I love him,” she said. “I’ve always loved him. And tell him not to blame himself. Even though he was the one who made me eat from the Taco Truck. Things I didn’t even want to eat. A few things that I didn’t even know what they were. How could I be so stupid? Have you ever done anything stupid? Stupid for love?”
“Please, if you’re going to be sick, could you just step outside?”
“Promise me,” Bailey said. “He’ll blame himself because it was all his fault. Promise me you’ll tell him.”
“Armageddon!” Carlos shouted. “Armageddon is here. Armageddon is real. Armageddon is now!”
“I don’t even like refried beans,” Bailey said. “But I ate them anyway. I ate them for Brad.” The doorman was trying to remove her hands from his chest and maneuver her outside at the same time. “Because that’s what you do when you love someone,” Bailey said. “You eat all sorts of things you hate for someone you love.”
Bailey’s cell phone came to life, blasting out “I Got You Babe.” It was her ring tone for Brad.
