Red: A Love Story

by Nicole Collet

  Marco blocked the lamppost light, bathing her face in shadow and her lips in kisses. Soft, brief. Until he threaded his fingers in her hair and lingered to explore her mouth with an intimacy that made Marisa melt. The kiss always soft but now slow in each recess, on the tip of the tongue and further in. She kept reluctant hands on his shoulders while he pressed the small of her back and brought her closer. The breeze surrounded them with the scent of flowers, and from an apartment window sneaked out a drowsy song from the fifties. I Don’t Know, in the voice of Ruth Brown. Marisa questioned if she should give her heart to him. And the chorus replied: I don’t know, I don’t know…

  Marisa extricated herself from Marco’s arms, feigning interest in the roses displayed beside her. For a moment they admired the arrangements on the shelves of half a dozen booths along the sidewalk. Flowers with all colors of the day, from gold at dawn to blood at dusk. Flowers as blue as the wings of a bird tinted by the night. On an impulse, Marco picked up a bouquet of red roses. They were Colombian, larger and more fragrant than ordinary roses. With no thorns.

  “Do you like them, Mari?”

  “Very pretty.”

  “They’re for you.”

  Marisa hesitated and shook her head as her disquiet increased. Why that whim now? Marco had never given her flowers precisely because they were impossible to hide. Maybe he felt guilty and was trying to relieve his own conscience.

  “Thanks, but my mom will get suspicious if I show up with them.”

  “You can leave them in my apartment. They’ll always be yours.”

  “Will they?”

  “Of course.” He half-smiled, frowning.

  “Better not.”

  ‘Why?”

  “They’re gonna wither, that’s why,” Marisa replied curtly.

  Taken aback by her tone, Marco returned the flowers to the stand with an air of frustration. He studied her face, reaching for her hand. Marisa retreated rigidly, unable to hinder her thoughts.

  “We’ve never discussed our situation,” she blurted out, and her voice carried such an edge he lifted an eyebrow.

  “True. I’ve never been involved with a student before, and I admit: sometimes I’m confused.”

  “Why confused?”

  “Because, strictly speaking, I should have never—”

  The sentence hovered incomplete as Marco sidestepped to make way for a couple approaching on the sidewalk. He waited for them to move away and, when he turned his attention back to Marisa, he found a pair of somber eyes.

  “You should have never done what, Marco?”

  “I’m your teacher, Mari. I’m more experienced and, in my position, I can’t afford to be irresponsible.” He sighed, improvising a tired smile. “I couldn’t have afforded, but now the damage is already done.”

  “I didn’t know you regarded our relationship as damage.”

  “That’s not what I meant—”

  Wasn’t it, really? And, here, Marisa emptied her chest of the suspicion consuming her. Maybe Marco would rather be with a woman his own age, someone with more experience and less problems at home. Maybe even Camila. How could she be sure he wasn’t seeing the other girl? Marisa tightened her arms across her chest to hide a tremor. She waited for him to speak out—to say anything, anything that would appease her.

  “There are plenty of opportunities. That Camila is already nineteen, attractive, and more than available,” insisted Marisa.

  Marco remained quiet, in search of words. Until now, he hadn’t mapped the consequences. When doubt or insecurity rose, he closed his eyes. But reality was sinking in and he needed to face it… While he followed the rugged topography of his musings, Marisa’s words diverted him. He frowned.

  “Camila? What’s with her?”

  “I see you together at school. On one occasion, you two were chatting on the corner and you handed her some papers. Yesterday she gave you a ridiculously expensive box of chocolate. And she emails too. I saw it in your cell phone,” Marisa retorted in an accusatory tone, which sparked a furious glare from Marco.

  “So that’s it.” He paused. “I can’t believe you’ve spied on me.”

  “Are you seeing her?”

  Marisa sustained her gaze and waited for an answer with ambivalent expectation. Fear and hope. Because there was no denying the email in his cell phone and Marisa needed to know. Because she wanted to believe there must be a plausible explanation for that message in the middle of the night…

  But which explanation?

  She thought of the messages she had exchanged with Marco in the beginning and of the text he gave her and of the smile that came with it. She remembered how exhilarated she was with the first message and the first kiss, thought of the happiness she felt with Marco. Would that all be a mistake? Marisa tried to decipher his face. Maybe he wasn’t who he appeared to be. She imagined him saying to Camila the same words he had said to her, and panicked because the world as she knew it might not exist. When would she learn? Believing what people said didn’t work. The only thing that mattered was their actions.

  They were evidently on different pages, languages, planets. Tightening his lips, Marco said nothing for a moment. His face reddened as he shook his head. A lock of hair rolled onto his forehead. He didn’t take notice of it.

  “I expected more from you, Marisa. What you did was low. Your question doesn’t even deserve an answer.”

  “That’s how it is?”

  “If you don’t trust me, we’re on for a bad start. I don’t tolerate that kind of behavior. You should be ashamed of following me and searching my things.”

  “Yes, we’re on for a very bad start.” She pointed one finger at him. “You refuse to answer a simple question and then make accusations so you can steer away from the subject. Do you think I don’t get it? Sérgio used to play this game to make me feel guilty, whereas he was the one cheating.”

  “I am not Sérgio,” Marco retorted with barely restrained exacerbation.

  “Then answer me.”

  Marco’s expression and voice became harsher at each word he spilled out: “I won’t answer because it’s useless, Marisa. Did I ever doubt you? The fact that you asked me this question is proof of your lack of trust. If I answer no, will it change a thing? Tomorrow you’ll find another message, another box of chocolate, and if it’s not chocolate it’s gonna be something else. Then we’ll have this conversation again. And over and over again.”

  “Oh, so you admit there will be other messages and more chocolate.” Exhausted sarcasm. “There’s my answer, right?”

  “Listen—”

  He directed a furious glare at the owner of a stand a few feet away, who looked from one to the other. The man started fussing with a bunch of tulips and virtually buried his face in them.

  “Listen, have you ever heard me talk about Camila?” Marco’s voice, a coarse whisper, grew louder. “I never mention her. I couldn’t care less for that girl.”

  “Really? Maybe you don’t mention her to avoid suspicion. You’re dating me, why wouldn’t you date Edible too?”

  “Edible?”

  “Camila, Edible, whatever. While I kill myself studying, she doesn’t mind idling and has all the time in the world to jump into your bed. Not to mention her mother doesn’t cause half the trouble mine causes. It’s quite convenient, isn’t it?”

  Now Marco’s eyes shot sparks. Only the eyes. Under the street lamp, his face became a frigid mask drawn with angry charcoal lines. Marisa could no longer reach him. How odd, she thought, the way relationships could be so fragile. One moment you were in someone’s arms sharing your heartbeat. The next, all that remained was distance and a track of words lost in translation.

  A flower brochure dragged by the breeze produced an intermittent rasping on the cement. It rolled to the curb and fluttered by the mouth of a manhole. Then it vanished.
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  “I have no control over your thoughts, your suspicion, your jealousy, Marisa. We can talk and be good today, but it’ll be just a temporary fix, because your lack of trust will manifest sooner or later. Do you recall Sartre? If that’s what you choose to believe, there’s nothing I can do,” he reasoned in a sharp tone.

  “Don’t you drag Sartre into this!”

  “Are you going to make a scene now? That’s the next move?”

  She was about to protest; however, Marco ignored her and averted his face, looking fixedly at a light sign across the street. He remained still while his indignation imploded in locked fists. Marisa felt a dagger being thrust into her heart and twisted with impassible meticulousness. She didn’t recognize Marco. As in a diorama, light shifted to reveal shadows in the cheerful colors of the canvas.

  The sidewalk under her feet seemed to crack, a sudden web of fine veins that branched throughout the cement, veins dilating in all directions, pieces of ground breaking and sinking down. And her in the center. The sidewalk on the verge of swallowing her just like the manhole had swallowed the brochure. She couldn’t believe it. Just a minute ago, the two of them laughed together in a fifth-rate bar. There was love in the laughter, joy in the plastic flowers. Love and joy made of plastic—was her mistake that huge?

  Marisa strived to keep standing. She grew dizzy. Intoxicated with pain.

  “Do you really have nothing else to say to me, Marco?”

  Her voice sounded like broken glass. His tore the air.

  “No, Marisa. I don’t feel like talking to you.”

  “The truth is, it doesn’t make any difference, does it? I’m only a pastime. I should have realized it sooner. But, as you said, I’m not as experienced as you. Goodbye, Marco.”

  Marisa spun on her heels and moved away, a splash of flowery dress waning amid the trees in the square, then farther down the street. Marco—his eyes immersed in the light sign—did not move.

  14. Carnival

  Marisa drifted disoriented. Everything empty. The streets, the hours, her heart. Her head spinning. Marco. The connection she felt with him was so strong it hurt. So strong it scared her. He understood her in a gaze, a caress, a word. He mattered. Not the others now inhabiting her past in small storage rooms locked with the key of indifference. They weren’t that many anyway.

  Louis, the older school mate with sandy hair who had taken her virginity when she was sixteen. The two of them had been dating for a while and were listening to music in his bedroom that day. Marisa remembered—The Beatles’ Revolution, the curtains closed, the odd sensation of having her intimacy touched by another person. But Louis erected an impenetrable block: in truth, he only had eyes for himself. Months later, when he departed to study marketing in France, there wasn’t much room for longing.

  Then Sérgio came into the picture. Handsome and dark and tall, alluring like a colorful gift box. An empty box. The perpetual bliss lasted exactly nine months, the time for a gestation and for Sérgio to replace her with his diving instructor. Heartbroken, Marisa refused to get involved with anyone again. Then along came Marco and she lowered her guard. She had presumed their relationship meant something to him but was clearly mistaken.

  A sob sprouted from deep down inside and tears flowed freely from her eyes. I was nothing more than a toy to him.

  And Camila… Marco’s falsehood triggered a wave of nausea in Marisa. She searched her recollections for an indication of his lies—and found many, since memory fabricated its own treacheries. Marisa felt torn between the hope of being wrong and the even stronger suspicion that he concealed something from her. One could only know a person when an extreme situation forced them to disclose their true nature. Marco had finally revealed his. Worse, he didn’t even show the decency of looking after her safety, leaving her to wander into the night on her own. Marisa yanked off the wig angrily, shoved it in her purse and let her hair loose.

  As if guessing her thoughts, the cell phone vibrated with a call from Marco. She didn’t answer. Another call, followed by a message: Where are you? Marisa ignored both. Now it was too late. To use Marco’s words, the damage had already been done. And, in that moment, a practical matter required her attention. She couldn’t go home because her mother believed she was at Valentina’s, and she couldn’t show up at two in the morning at her friend’s doorstep either.

  Marisa needed to find a hotel for spending the night. She hastened her pace—actually, she first needed to find a safe place in order to check her cell phone for a hotel. Glancing at the cars passing by, Marisa hoped to get a taxi. The few that went past her were already taken. A bar caught her attention yet soon discouraged her with its filthy counter surrounded by drunkards.

  At that point, she recognized the engine sound at her back and, squaring her shoulders, kept on walking. She set her eyes ahead and wiped the tears with a furtive gesture.

  “Mari!”

  Marco tagged along after her, and Marisa advanced at a brisker pace. She went around the corner and he followed her in the counterflow, with the black Ducati close to the curb.

  “Mari, stop. I’m sorry, let’s talk.”

  “We have nothing to talk about. You made yourself clear,” Marisa said without pausing.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Oh, yes, I do. You can go back to your apartment and fool around with whomever you want. I will mind my own business, which I should have done from the beginning.”

  “Will you listen to me?”

  His voice echoed on the deserted street. The imperious tone brought Marisa to a halt. She turned around to face him, crossing her arms.

  “Come with me.” Marco strained to sound calm. He seemed about to explode. “I won’t leave you roaming the streets by yourself at this time of night. Let’s go to the flat, and tomorrow I’ll drive you home.”

  “That’s what hotels and cabs are for.”

  “Mari, don’t be stubborn.”

  “Leave me alone!” she nearly yelled. “I’m not your toy.”

  Marisa resumed walking and then, all of a sudden, was running to the next avenue. There, like an oasis in the urban desert, she spotted the glass façade of a bar with interiors enlivened by candles and strings of multicolored lamps. Marisa read the yellowish sign as she crossed the street. It displayed a frame of suns, moons and stars around a name written in old-fashioned letters: Carnival.

  She entered the place in a state of daze, hardly noticing the counter across the wall and the round tables in the center, many surrounded by empty chairs. All Marisa registered was an out-of-focus snapshot as she headed to the bar in the back. She perched herself on one of the stools, tapping her fingers on the red Formica counter. Only then did she look around.

  The walls displayed vintage posters featuring a gallery of characters painted by hand—a magician with a top hat and a fortuneteller with a headscarf, a dwarf and a bearded woman, Siamese twins and a lizard-man. Near the entrance (Marisa just noticed) stood a natural-scale tin bear sporting a golden-trimmed red coat and cap. A drum hung from its neck.

  The house still entertained twenty or thirty patrons. Marisa ordered a vodka and tonic and decided to stick around until dawn: better to be miserable in that bar than alone in a hotel. A slow music selection began playing, and she recognized the track by Amadou & Mariam, Sans Toi. Her shoulders sank along with her thoughts. Without you there’s no song, no dance, no rest…

  The bow-tied bartender brought her drink and a miniature merry-go-round with seats filled with peanuts and potato chips. Marisa half-heartedly munched a chip and took a long sip of vodka and tonic. Retrieving the cell phone in her purse, she typed a message to Valentina.

  Call me asap, I need to talk to you. Marco and I broke up. You were right, I shouldn’t have dived head first into this…

  Marisa had a startle when she heard a roll of drums announcing… what? She turned in the direct
ion of the sound and realized the tin bear had started its number, blinking a pair of sky-blue eyes and maneuvering the sticks with its mechanical arms. Next to it, a girl in puffy pink pants laughed out loud as she pressed the control connected to the bear by a plastic cord.

  The toy continued to play until it stopped brusquely, paralyzed with a stick in the air, one irresolute eye half-closed and the other wide open. The bar fell once again into a discreet rustling. The after-hours quietness, pervaded with weekend activity exhaustion, crept into the building. Much like the circus it mimicked, the bar already signaled its fatigue after hosting the crowd. On the now-empty tables, the candles exhaled one last sigh before dissolving into a bed of melted wax.

  When Marisa turned back to her vodka and tonic, she noticed a young man with dark hair and olive skin staring at her from the end of the counter. She ignored him and resumed typing.

  I’m so shocked. You wouldn’t believe Marco’s coldness. I’m almost positive he’s seeing Edible. How come I was so naive…

  Someone took the empty stool by her side, and Marisa raised her eyes to face the dark-haired guy. Thin, medium height, he wore black clothes, red suspenders, a green belt and colorful sneakers. A clubber stranded amid the carnies, Marisa deduced.

  “Hi, what’s up?” He rested his elbows on the counter. “I’ve never seen you here. First time?”

  Oh-oh, here came an after-hours shark trying to score. She assented stolidly and returned to her unfinished message.

  “Nice to meet you. My name is Felipe. May I ask you something?”

  Marisa looked at him as if she had received an unsolicited call from a telemarketer at dinner time. Any other guy would have been intimidated. Not Felipe.

  “Are you waiting for someone?” he inquired in a nasal voice. Before she could answer, he added: “My girlfriend would like to talk to you.”

  Caught off guard, Marisa realized Felipe was gay. He indicated a tall blonde with short hair at the end of the counter. The girl had three silver hoops in each ear, and her black tank top exposed a pair of bracelets tattooed on her forearms. Her blue eyes widened as she grinned.