Love Is Red

by Sophie Jaff

  She didn’t know this, however. She just knew that she loved this song. You confided to her that you love this music but that you thought it was a plot to make you buy things. She stared at you amazed because she was just thinking that, and this made her happy too.

  That day the third girl was filled with hope, which is pale green and smells like new buds and tulip shoots and pencil erasers. Hope sparkles like champagne. It rings out like the first chord that the small live band plays at an outdoor wedding.

  Hope is a cool green swallow. It is delicious.

  If this were a different type of grocery store then there might be a variety of tabloids, like the New York Post or the National Enquirer, at the front near the cashiers. The majority of people who shop here might ostensibly look down on these papers, but secretly they’d want to read them. Paging through them is easy and comfortable and doesn’t require much thought, like gliding.

  These papers will be the first to break the news of this girl’s death. She will make the front page and also be given a generous two-page interior spread. It makes a change from the baseball games, and neither the politicians nor the celebrities are acting up, and most importantly, she is the third. Accompanying the two lovely, if somewhat blurry, pictures of her graduating from college, and another of her at a party, will be the description of her murder. Half a column will be dedicated to how the dead girl was only discovered after the better part of a week. It’s easy to go missing in the city, especially if you live alone. The papers will talk about how her neighbor’s terrier wouldn’t stop barking when the neighbor returned from her weekend away, and how the police broke down the third girl’s door. They’ll make much of the thin nylon ropes that tied her, how the sheets were soaked in blood. The third girl was found braless, her jeans still on. Half clothed, she is completely vulnerable. So much better to display your work, your art, your lines of release.

  But they’ll do no justice to the multitude of curls and swirls that spiral down her arms, the web of fine lace etched in her shoulder, the three delicate waves that tickle her navel. Instead they’ll focus on the mark in the center of her chest, what appears to be the eye of a snake within the outline of a leaf. And of course, the long deliberate slash across her throat. These papers don’t appreciate the finer subtleties of your work, your infinite skill. Instead they butcher your beauty with:

  WEIRD SEX CARVINGS!

  TEACHER’S THROAT SLIT

  GRISLY MURDER SHOCKER!

  Some details will purposefully be left out, at the police’s request.

  It’s early days still.

  No one takes these papers seriously, although they are the first to link your victims together. They will connect the first two murders you committed to her, the THIRD MURDERED GIRL FOUND WITHIN WEEKS. They render the women as flat and lifeless as the thin sheets they’re printed on. Once labeled “tragic victims,” these women are forever pressed down into the past. And after all it couldn’t possibly happen to us or anyone we know—those deaths would be too good for this tabloid trash.

  But these are the papers that will christen you. At first they will call you “Reaper Man,” “The Creeper,” or, even more crudely, “The Carver.” Eventually they will learn what tool you use to dispatch the girls, and one paper, inspired by the cuts, inspired by your blade, will call you by a name that all will know you by, in time. It’s not, of course, your true name, but it’s one that pleases you. It’s an old name. It’s a good name.

  In time the third girl will be reduced to one picture, to make room for other dead girls’ pictures. As the summer progresses she will shrink until she is merely a thumbnail included in the growing column of dead girls.

  There have been others before her and there will be others after her, but she is the one who establishes you and your place in this world. People will remember her as the third girl who made it official, who placed third in the race where the winners are losers.

  SERIAL KILLER AT LARGE!

  It feels right to go back to the place she loved, the place you first met, the place where she spent one of her last hours on earth. The checkout line that you exit from today is the same one that the dead girl exited from, in all senses of the word. The cashier won’t remember her, though, not even when she sees her picture in the paper a week later. The third girl was the two hundred and forty-ninth customer she rang up that day. All the cashier wanted to do was to—

  —get off my shift and find out what that son of a bitch who calls himself a man is doing and if he is fucking that bitch like I know he is then—

  You smile at the cashier, and despite her hot fevered thoughts, she smiles back at you. Everyone does. They can’t help it. You have such an infectious smile. Infectious, catching, irresistible.

  You have a reason to smile. This has proved to be a great place for getting what you want. You with a single goal, closer, closer ever still.

  There’s nothing like a little shopping to get the party started.

  The Maiden of Morwyn Castle, Transcribed by John Lamb | PART ONE

  NE NEVER KNEW WHERE THE MAIDEN first came from; some said from the neighboring village and others said by way of another town, but most said she came unbidden into their presence from the woods, without kinsman or clan. And whether the Maiden was fair or not, it could not be agreed upon, for her hair was as dark as a raven’s wing and her eyes were as black as a starless night. But since she was a maiden and all alone, the wives offered to take her in. However she refused their charity and let it be known that she would earn her keep. For she claimed to have a wondrous skill for brewing drink, be it ale or wine.

  All who heard this would have her make sure of her boast and so they took her to meet the alewife at the tavern there. Then the alewife, as stout as she was fierce, said, “Come, we shall see your skill for all your talk, but if you cannot best me then you shall be silent and work for your keep in some other manner.” For she hated on sight the Maiden’s youth and loveliness and feared for her business.

  Word traveled around the village that such a match was taking place and all the people came, noisy and rough with their bowls to taste the brew. The alewife grew red in the face as she stirred and stirred and sweated over the ladle, but the Maiden kept as gentle as the breeze and as cool as the water and the people remarked how she neither sweated nor strained, but only smiled and crooned a little song:

  Grown from the earth,

  Golden in worth.

  Barley and wheat,

  Belly full sweet.

  She stirred and hummed, and by and by both brews were ready for the tasting. Though the tavern wife’s ale was neither bad nor bitter, the Maid was declared the victor, for the people said they could not remember a time when they had tasted such a drink. It held full summer and sweet kisses, bubbling brooks and fresh bread, and made them exceedingly merry and gay, and they clamored for more, using their hands to scoop up the remains, and fell to fighting over the last drops.

  4

  There’s somebody coughing in the Rose Main Reading room of the New York Public Library. Deep racking, hacking coughs. You look up. Locate the cougher. He’s two tables down from you, a white-haired man in his fifties with an angry expression, earnest, staring deep into his laptop screen. Look down again. Again the cough, again you look up. This time you catch the eye of another disturbed reader as she turns around and then back again. A girl in her twenties, sitting at your table, with shining red shoulder-length hair. You exchange a quick smile, a second at the most. You don’t let your eyes linger too long. Otherwise it might be creepy. A minute goes by, another, and then he coughs again. You both look up again, this time she’s waiting for you, wanting to connect with you. Connect with the attractive man at her table. Now you can maintain eye contact. A smile. You’re in this together as that old selfish asshole coughs and coughs.

  Aren’t other people hell?

  You allow your smile to spread; then you get up and walk over, around to her. You do this quickly. She stiffens. Sudd
enly she’s nervous. She’s thinking, Smile at some guy, and it’s a come-on. She’s thinking, I’ll tell him I have a boyfriend. She’s thinking, A woman was found murdered the other day. You lean over, her shoulders are tight, she’s ready to flee. Flight or fight or not fight, exactly, she’ll just scorn you. You lean over and whisper, “Sorry, can you keep an eye on my stuff for just a moment?”

  Her shoulders descend. She exhales. Jesus, you made her nervous, but now she’s already chastising herself. Look at the way you’re dressed—there’s no way you could be crazy.

  You walk with a quiet confidence out of the silent section of the library. You can feel that she’s secretly watching you, taking in all the clues about who you are, your shirt, your pants, your shoes. Her father once told her, “Never trust a man with gray shoes.” Your shoes are not gray. They’re black. Almost a little old for you but professional. Italian, maybe. Dark pants, white shirt, broad shoulders, slim hips, long legs. You’re tall. She’s watching the way you walk. She’s checking out your ass. And why shouldn’t she? Guys watch her all the time. Why shouldn’t she be allowed to do the same? So when no one else is looking, she’ll stare at you, this attractive man walking away. You smile.

  You are gone for a while. She finds herself looking up to see if you’ve returned. You haven’t. She grows irritated with herself. It shouldn’t be a big deal either way. Eventually she’ll have to go to the bathroom. Eventually she’ll have to leave. If you haven’t returned, that’s your own fault. She continues to check. She wills herself to concentrate on her own work. Now everything becomes annoying—the way that woman is breathing through her mouth, the tap and then another tap of someone’s pen across her teeth, a compulsive throat clearer, a sniff.

  She looks up again and sees that you’re back. You’ve come back silently. You mouth Thanks at her and then, with a nod of your head, you gesture over to the white-haired guy, the one who’s been coughing.

  She looks over at the cougher. He’s fishing a wrapped cough drop out of a packet, then pushing it, crinkling the paper as he does so, into his mouth.

  She stares at you in amazement. You? she mouths.

  You give a little nod, smile, and shrug your shoulders in a winningly apologetic way as if to say, What else could I do? Then you give a little wink, not a lascivious one, just enough to say, It’s been taken care of.

  She realizes at this moment that this is what she’s been searching for all her life. It’s been taken care of. Taken care of with humor, taken care of with charm, taken care of with a lightness of touch. She would like to be taken care of.

  Maybe you’ll oblige.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” she says. You’re both standing on the steps outside the library. Right by the lions, their proud, worn faces impassive and resigned in the late afternoon. You turn to look at her; her hair, her face, are particularly beautiful in the last of the dying sun. “I wanted to kill that guy,” she continues.

  You smile. You wonder what she would say if you told her that he’ll be dead soon enough.

  After all, he’s rank with depression.

  You don’t say anything, though. You just look at her, as if you can see through the beautiful outside to her beautiful inside. No one ever looks at her like that. You smile.

  She wonders if you’ll ask for her number. She wants you to ask for her number. You don’t ask for her number.

  “So . . . ?” she says, and tilts her head, hopefully, nervously, unsure.

  You tell her that you hope that next time it’s quieter, but you confess that you’re glad that guy was coughing; otherwise you wouldn’t have had a chance to meet.

  She’s staring up at you in confusion. If you’re glad to have met her, why don’t you ask her for some way of contacting her? She’s wondering if she should ask for your number or an email address, some way of contacting you, but no, she can’t, she can’t. She’s already scanned your hands and found no ring. You must have a girlfriend. The nice guys always have girlfriends. You see a small flash of frustration in her eyes. She’s used to men wanting her. You were her knight in shining armor. Why aren’t you following through?

  “Nice meeting you,” you say and then she has no choice; she must walk away, but before she goes you see the flash again.

  You like this flash, this flash of entitled petulance.

  Petulance is maroon, it crumbles like stale graham crackers, it smells of carpets stained with apple juice, it sounds like the tap of impatient fingernails, it feels like the scratch of pearls across your teeth, it gives a twist and pinch of salt to the lavender of insecurity.

  You hope you get to experience it later.

  She walks away quickly down Fifth Avenue, her back straighter than normal, knowing that you’re probably watching her, and it’s only a minute or so into walking that she relaxes into her normal stance, slowing her pace, her mind going over the events, trying to tell herself that she didn’t fail, trying not to blame herself. You were probably a game-playing asshole anyway. Wondering how she failed. Wondering if she’ll ever find anybody. She’s so intent on not looking back that she doesn’t notice when you begin to follow her.

  Not hurriedly, but deliberately and with great pleasure.

  You interlock your fingers and stretch; you crick your neck from side to side and up and down; a sweet hum rises from your chest, filling your throat; you ease your leather bag farther up over your shoulder before you head off.

  It’s going to be a wonderful afternoon.

  5

  I’m sitting in a bar. It’s Tuesday. There is exposed brick and tufted leather. Golds and reds and browns. The bottles are many and soft in color, their pale greens and creams backlit.

  I come here on Tuesdays. Wednesdays are reserved for the serious drinkers, Thursdays are the new Fridays, Fridays are the new Saturdays, Saturdays are intolerable, Sundays are sad, and Monday is too far away from Friday.

  I sit alone, cradling my Côtes du Rhône. It’s not the prettiest wine but it gets the job done. A worker wine.

  It’s been a long day and things haven’t gone well. They haven’t gone badly either. That would be dramatic if nothing else, but today things just limped along, starting with a run around seven a.m. It was already sixty-nine degrees and climbing. Then a shower. Listening to the radio as I got dressed. I heard nothing good. The callers calling with unanswerable questions.

  What are the police doing to protect us?

  My daughter’s going to NYU in the fall—should we be worried?

  Facing the bleak morning crush as I headed to the office where I’m temping for an administrative assistant currently out on maternity leave. Answering phones, taking messages, and replying to emails while working on a review about a postmodern artist whose canvases of white triangles I have less than nothing to say about. Lunch was a slightly gritty salad eaten at my desk. I booked three glamorous flights for other people. My friend Leigh called; she’s trying to get pregnant and the fertility consultation prices alone are a nightmare. My heart broke for her but I was in an office so my answers were muted. I got an email about my friend Sasha’s birthday party next week and finally I left at six p.m., only to face the same stream of people, dogged and determined to get home so they can sit some more on their couches or sit at a restaurant or sit at a bar, which is what I’m doing now and why I realize that there’s nothing to look forward to.

  Maybe that’s adulthood. A slow recognition that time keeps going whether or not we have things to look forward to or things to dread. It’s a week with nothing but more of the same ahead. I have a bottle at my place but Andrea’s out and there’s something about drinking alone at home that raises a red flag. Now I’m still drinking alone but at least I’m surrounded by other people, witnesses, who see that I’m out and alive.

  This is my local bar. Sweet Afton, in the heart of Astoria. They have very good-looking bartenders here. What’s even better is that they don’t really talk, at least not to me. They’re amiable and good-looking and they
have a heavy hand when it comes to pouring. And that’s fine. It’s one of those nights when I feel lonely but I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’m tired of drinking alone, but the idea of small talk makes me feel weary. Wrung out and strung out and limp at the bar.

  I can’t help but hear the conversations going on around me.

  How does he get into their apartments?

  Gin and tonic.

  I’ll have two Stellas.

  Just a glass of water.

  What’s your name?

  Can I buy you a drink?

  I can’t tell you, I’ve never been so happy to have a roommate.

  I know, first time I was like “Thank God I’m poor!”

  We have a lovely Pinot Grigio for the lady.

  Yeah, that’s cool, and a pilsner for me.

  I think it’s a cop.

  They think he’s a locksmith.

  Mike, the bartender, puts down a glass of whiskey in front of me.

  I look up.

  “From that guy over there,” says Mike, aiming his head in the corner’s direction.

  I turn but I can’t see the guy he’s referring to. I steel myself to be nice, to be grateful, to make conversation, to talk about the invisible boyfriend I have, to explain why I’m drinking alone, to the “yes, this is my local bar,” and the “yes, I’m just thinking,” to the inevitable “yes, it has been a long day,” but I still can’t see who sent me the drink. I raise my glass in the general direction and hope that he’ll be satisfied with that.