Love Is Red

by Sophie Jaff

And now? “Okay, well,” I say helplessly, “let’s remember the rule, okay? Always knock, only go in when I’m there.”

  He nods.

  Well, that went brilliantly.

  There’s a pause. He’s unsure how to proceed. I’ve veered from our comfortable routine.

  “Snuggle down,” I order, and he does, pleased to be back on course, back to the normal way of things. “Now what book are we reading?”

  He hands me his favorite. It was my favorite too.

  There are monsters in Where the Wild Things Are . . .

  Creatures cavorting, beasts bumbling, and hairy things howling—He bites my neck—The wild things, monsters reveling—A naked woman standing in the rain—But then—Don’t move—They’re seduced by magic, by trickery—Take off your clothes.

  I wonder why my thoughts have turned this way, turned sour and twisted in a child’s room when I am so full of happiness. Why would these harmless monsters make me think of the real monster? But these days the news is full of—

  They crown the little boy as their king—It’s pepper spray. Don’t spray it on your neck! David made a joke but he’s been thinking about it too. It’s hard not to think about it.

  —There's mayhem most wild—

  How many women dead? How many posters? It’s already high—seven faces now, blown up on posters, reduced to grainy shots; the police are taking heat, the mayor drawling his nasal drawl, “Use caution,” “The police are doing everything in their power,” “Be sensible. Use your discretion. It’s not an official curfew but—”

  “Oh please don’t go—we’ll eat you up—we love you so!”

  I always loved that line, always understood it, because sometimes you do want to eat something up because you love it. Some younger comedians tenuously trying out their jokes about getting rejected: “It’s not you, it’s just that I suspect you might be a serial killer.” The older ones know better, have lived in this city, know it will get ugly.

  —But the boy grows homesick and sails back through time—

  Steering us back, Lucas is riveted, breathing openmouthed as I turn the pages until Max comes back where someone loves him best of all, surrendering his golden crown for his mother and his dinner, which . . .

  Waits for him.

  “Now, it’s time to sleep.”

  I suddenly want to go to my warm supper too, except it will be a glass of wine, not milk, and the comfort of others waiting for me. Maybe I’ll catch David looking at me and smiling. I turn off the bedside lamp but there is still the glow of the night-light. I wouldn’t mind one of those. Grown-ups deserve them more. We know what’s really in the dark.

  “You want me to sing a song? After all, you’re getting the full treatment.” I feel bad about earlier on. I wouldn’t say I was the Spanish Inquisition, but asking him about the pennies made me uncomfortable.

  “Uh-huh.” He’s quiet now, with his green rabbit’s foot key chain held under his nose.

  “Isn’t it hideous?” Andrea had said when I had mentioned it. “It’s from one of those prize-filled gumball machines.” She’d sighed. “I’ll tell you about it later, when I have the strength.”

  I sing him the only lullaby I know. The one my father used to sing to me. My charming father, who couldn’t sing but sang anyway. It’s an old song, sad and sweet, which is everything a lullaby should be. All about a man who meets someone in Monterrey—I thought it was “Mountain Ray.” The song includes stars, steel guitars, and luscious lips as red as wine. Unfortunately the singer has his heart broken, but then again, as he says, it was a long time ago.

  I think he’s asleep when—

  “Kat?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  It’s hard to hear him, so quiet through his thumb and rabbit’s foot. “I drawed you a picture. On the table.”

  I get up, pick up the picture, and return to sit on the bed. Great, I’m grilling him and he’s drawing me pictures. “Thank you, love. It’s dark in here but I can’t wait to look at it tomorrow.”

  “She wanted me to give it to you,” he says sleepily.

  “Who did?”

  “The lady.”

  “Which lady?”

  “The one tonight”—his voice is fading—“with the man.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know—” I am unsure of how to proceed in the area of imaginary friends, especially imaginary lady friends. I guess the kid’s starting early. It should be funny, sweet, but somehow it seems a little off. Andrea’s been worried about Lucas. I’m worried about him too. This is a new development.

  “She say you can’t see her,” he says, matter-of-factly.

  So that’s settled, I think, and as I do he pulls me in close and whispers loudly in my ear, in that stage whisper small children have:

  “She doesn’t have no shirt on.”

  I was not expecting this. “Is this lady at school?”

  “No!” Lucas sounds almost shocked. “You have to wear clothes at school, and also she a grown-up.”

  I decide to opt for a light tone. “I hope she wasn’t cold.”

  “I drawed her a shirt,” he continues. “I made it pink ’cause she’s a girl.”

  “That was nice of you.”

  “Kat?”

  “Yes?”

  “She says he is just pretend.” His voice is low.

  “Who is?” He’s almost asleep. “Lucas? Who’s just pretend?”

  “The man.”

  “Which man?”

  The last word almost inaudible: “Pretending.”

  “Who?”

  But Lucas is asleep.

  I smile, a little ruefully. Usually he never gets to sleep and the adults become desperate, and here I am disappointed he’s asleep. I wonder what Andrea will think of her son mentioning topless women. Now that he’s sleeping, I wonder how to bring it up, that and the growing line of small change against the wall in my room. Not tonight, when Andrea’s laughing, relaxed and happy. I get up slowly and carefully and head out into the hall. I look at the picture.

  Hands cover my eyes.

  A low voice in my ear. “Hey.”

  Later I’ll reflect that it was only by some heavenly intervention that I didn’t cry out, that I didn’t scream. I don’t scream but my gasp is a painful wedge of breath. I turn sharply and see David.

  “Are you all right?”

  Wordlessly I hold out the picture.

  He exhales through pursed lips, a silent whistle but more forceful. We stare at Lucas’s picture together.

  The woman is lying on a bed. She is a woman because she has a yellow ponytail. She wears short blue shorts and white sneakers. She is wearing a long-sleeved pink shirt. Pink because she’s a girl. Her legs are sticking straight up in the air. The bed is light blue but there are red patches all over it. The woman’s face is a round balloon. It’s also at an angle that Picasso would be proud of. She looks out at us. Her neck is impossibly broken. The woman’s face consists of three circles. Two circles are small and blue. Those are her eyes. The other circle is bigger and black. That’s her mouth. It’s a black circle because she’s screaming. Screaming and screaming. There is a red squiggle coming from her mouth too. The bed faces the closet. There is a voice bubble coming out from the closet. The word in the bubble reads:

  hELo

  “Kids draw the darnedest things, don’t they?” His delivery is deadpan.

  I try a smile at this. I, meanwhile, am wondering how I didn’t wet myself when he came up behind me. It’s one of the worst things I have ever seen. Andrea’s going to have a fit.

  “What do you think it is?” I’m glad that my voice betrays little of my raw panic beneath.

  “It must be all this stuff about that killer. Sucks that it’s getting to the little kids.”

  “But Andrea’s really strict about TV.”

  He smiles at me, but not meanly. “It only takes one kid in class with parents who don’t give a crap, and think about all the posters—”

  “Still—”

&nb
sp; “Still,” David finishes my sentence, “it’s horrible.”

  We look down at the drawing in my hands. Now I see it as a bomb, a thin, colorful bomb set to decimate our gift of an evening. And on cue from the main room, as if to taunt us, Andrea’s laughter rings out. It’s a laugh that’s brewed in her belly, honest and throaty and real.

  Don’t kill the messenger, I think glumly. I’m frightened and somehow I also feel guilty. “I put him to bed, he drew it for me, the lady told him to—”

  “Do you have to show her tonight?”

  I’m shocked. “Of course, she needs to see this.”

  “Well, yeah,” he says, a little impatiently now, “I’m not saying keep it from her. I’m asking if it can wait until tomorrow?”

  I’m about to say no; no, it can’t wait until tomorrow. Andrea has to know, has to see this, and then she laughs again. She’s laughed a lot tonight. The guys have been good for her. I think of the lines around Andrea’s eyes.

  “Tell her tomorrow not tonight.”

  “Really? You think so?”

  “Did the kid seem freaked out?”

  “Lucas?”

  “That’s the one.”

  I think about it. I answer as honestly as I can. Lucas calmly telling me that he “made it pink ‘cause she’s a girl.”

  “Not really. He did say the woman didn’t have a top on.”

  “Advanced.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I know.” He puts his arms around me. The unexpected gesture is kind and surprising. “I’m sorry. I would be rattled too. I think I am.”

  I close my eyes. He is comforting and inside the circle of his arms I feel safe.

  Safe, I feel safe.

  “You know, I think Sael once told me that his imaginary friend was a woman.” His voice vibrates through his chest.

  “Really?” I look up at him.

  “Yeah, we were talking about it once. Now, me, I had a dragon, a purple dragon called Rufus, because when I imagine something I do it right.”

  “The thing I love about you is your modesty.” Oh shit, I said “love.”

  He smiles. “My modesty,” he says lightly, shifting from our hug and taking my hand, “is one of my best attributes, one of my many, many, many wonderful attributes.”

  Oh shit, love, the thing I love about you, shit.

  “Come on,” he says. “I want to see if there’s more ice cream.”

  I fold the drawing and place it in my pocket without looking at it again. I never want to look at it again.

  We are about to go through when he stops.

  “Oh, here.” He hands me my phone. “It’s why I came here in the first place. You have a missed call.”

  Love, the thing I love, the thing I love about you, the thing I love about you. . .

  “Thanks.” I glance down at it.

  “From one of your many unwanted lovers?”

  “Must be.”

  “How many lovers do you have?”

  One you’ll never want to know about. “A million and one.”

  “Sounds about right.” He looks at my face. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t get it. I did the whole ‘take me off the telemarketer list’ thing but I keep getting these phone calls.”

  “Do people leave messages?”

  “No.”

  “If I was a telemarketer, I would know when I was on to a good thing.”

  He smiles at me, a warm, embracing smile.

  Fuck. I’m getting in deep.

  “Come on, there’s probably not any ice cream left by now.”

  Back in the living room, the light is soft; Andrea’s pleasantly melancholy music is still playing; and there’s still a dig of ice cream in the bottom of the carton and still half a bottle of wine to be had. The conversation has drifted to this and to that with soft gaps for silliness; there’s talk of a TV show we all love to hate. Sael is making a valiant case for it and Andrea is rolling her eyes, pretending to be disgusted. I ease my way into an easy chair. The thing I love about you, I love, I love. Well, I love them all tonight; tonight I’m in love with everyone in the whole world.

  And then Sael asks:

  “So what took you so long?”

  The question, though lightly posed, is jarring. After a moment David answers easily enough. “We got involved in a meaningful discussion about imaginary friends.”

  “Leaving your real ones back here? Nice.”

  Again there’s the tone of accusation, but Andrea is connecting the dots. “Everything okay?” She means with Lucas.

  I can see her biting her lip. David’s right; I’ll show her the picture later.

  “Fine.” I smile.

  But she’s persistent. “So why that conversation?”

  “I was reading Where the Wild Things Are and it came up.”

  She relaxes. “Oh, I love that book.”

  “Me too.”

  Everybody, it seems, loves that book.

  I look at Sael. “David told me that you had an imaginary friend, a woman? That seems unusual.” I’ll be the one to ask questions here.

  “Well, I wouldn’t have called her a friend; we just ‘hung out’ a few times.”

  He is straight-faced and it takes a moment for everyone to get it and start laughing.

  “Touché,” says David.

  Sael grins.

  “It sounds like you were very evolved to me,” says Andrea.

  Or maybe he had to imagine female figures in his life because his mom was so useless.

  “I don’t remember much. It was strange actually.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” he answers, pauses to think, and then, “I don’t remember her talking. I think she just watched me.”

  “Watched you? Sounds creepy.” Andrea looks at him, interested. “Could it have been an actual person?”

  He shakes his head. “I doubt it. I saw her sometimes in the doorway to my room or sometimes on the side of the street. She never came too close. Long dress, long hair.” He half smiles. “Sounds like my imaginary friend was an ancient hippie. Now that’s really terrifying.”

  “And she just looked at you?”

  “Well, I was a very beautiful child, obviously.”

  We laugh; he does too; the awkward moment is over.

  “And you guys? Any imaginary friends?”

  Andrea shakes her head. “None to speak of.”

  I feel that I have to represent the women; we look pretty unimaginative. “No, but when I was a kid a psychic got really excited about me.”

  Andrea is intrigued. “When did you go to a psychic as a kid? I wouldn’t have thought your mother would be into that.”

  I’ve only told Andrea snippets about my mother, but even from those she can decipher enough. Mostly she’s amused.

  “Oh, believe me, she isn’t! They came uninvited to her dinner party.” Like Sael, I realize. Mother, for the first time I think I can sympathize with you.

  “What?”

  “They came with a friend of my stepfather’s. She didn’t even tell anyone, just brought in these two Asian guests.” I had come downstairs to forage for hors d’oeuvres when I heard my mother and Richard “call me Dick” fighting about it in loud, angry whispers in the kitchen.

  “You mean this woman brought two uninvited guests to a dinner party? That’s insanely rude.” Andrea is outraged on my mother’s behalf.

  “Yeah, but she was the type, someone people call a ‘character.’ She had known my stepfather for ages. And I think she came from serious money, so people let her get away with all sorts of crap. She called herself Cherry. She was clearly manic, larger-than-life—you know, the kind of woman who wears turbans and eye-stinging perfume and could eat you like a prawn.”

  “Turbans are terrifying,” says Andrea. “I’ll give you that.”

  “So the psychic?” Sael prods.

  “Well, the gist of it was that Cherry had met him at some retreat and had convinced him to come
and stay with her.”

  “What did he look like? Did he also wear a turban?” David is having fun.

  “Hardly. He wore a black suit with one of those mandarin collars and little blue smoky glasses, John Lennon style, so you couldn’t see his eyes.”

  “Weird.” Andrea shudders theatrically.

  “There was a woman with him who was gorgeous, really tailored dress, perfectly made up.”

  I still remember her standing so pale and delicate among the white, suburban upper-middle-class guests, like an orchid surrounded by houseplants.

  “Wait, who was the woman?” Sael asks.

  “His translator.”

  “Sure she was.” David gives an exaggerated wink.

  I laugh. “Now that you mention it, I remember that Cherry didn’t seem quite so keen on the translator.”

  Sael is impatient. “So get to the good part already!”

  “Okay, okay. I had spotted these smoked oyster things my mother used to serve sitting on a low table in the far corner of the living room. I was heading for them when the man grabbed my arm. Then he turns and says something to his translator. She looks at me and says, ‘Mr. Nakamaru feels a great energy coming from you. He would like to know more about the day you were born.’”

  “Wow.” David seems impressed.

  “I know, but I didn’t know anything about that other than it was my birthday, so obviously it was the most important day in the whole world.”

  “Obviously.” Andrea nods.

  “So?” Sael prompts, refusing to be distracted by the side banter.

  “So Cherry gets all excited, and she calls my mother over, who by that point looked like she was ready to kill everyone.”

  Andrea is still sympathetic. “I’ll bet.”

  “And Cherry asks her if anything unusual had happened on the day I was born.” The room had grown quiet waiting for her answer. “My mom said nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but when the translator pressed her she said she thought there might have been a meteor shower that night.”

  “And?” Sael leans forward, intently.

  “And when the translator tells Mr. Nakamaru, he nods as if that explains everything.”

  “And then what happened?” Sael stares at me and for a moment it’s as if he and I are in a little restaurant together, exchanging stories that no one else will ever hear.