Love Is Red

by Sophie Jaff

  Finally his translator turned to me. I remember the strange blank gaze of Mr. Nakamaru’s little smoky lenses, his soft voice carrying weight and meaning in the hushed room. It was oddly solemn—perhaps that’s why the scene has imprinted itself so clearly on my mind. Perhaps that’s why I can remember it, word for word. The translator’s voice was light and musical, with only the hint of an accent.

  “She said, ‘Mr. Nakamaru says that there are many great legends about meteor showers. Some cultures thought they brought great luck and others believed that a shower would bring doom. Some people see in them the hand of God, and others death and evil. One thing, though, is certain. Those born during this auspicious hour are known to bring great change and wield much power.’”

  “That’s a little abstract,” David remarks.

  Andrea smiles knowingly. “Weird how he didn’t go into specific details.”

  “So what did everyone say?” Sael asks. I can’t read his expression.

  “Well, Cherry said I should be honored and that I was a lucky little girl, but I think she was mostly pissed because I was getting all the attention.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Pretty much. I was mad because Cherry had called me a little girl in front of all those people and I never managed to get any of the smoked oysters because my mother told me to go to bed.”

  “The meteor shower does explain one thing,” says David.

  “What’s that?” Andrea and I ask together.

  He bats his eyelashes dramatically as he takes my hand and kisses it. “Why you’re such a shining star.”

  “Awwww,” Andrea and I say, but when I glance at Sael his eyes are flat and cold.

  “That’s adorable.” Andrea stands. “Now let’s clean up.”

  I try to rise but she pushes me back down gently. “No, no, the shining star made dinner; the shining star gets to finish her wine first.”

  “All right then,” I say, “twist my starry rubber arm.” I watch them all get up, groaning theatrically, and move off into the kitchen. Then I lean back and close my eyes. I think of the other part of that story, the part I have never told anybody.

  I was on my way back up the stairs, still angry about Cherry calling me a little girl, when the translator stepped into the hallway. She walked to the bottom of the staircase and looked up at me standing three stairs above her. I involuntarily shrank away; I had no idea what she would want with me.

  “Sorry if I startled you.”

  “That’s okay,” I mumbled. I looked down, embarrassed that I had been so jumpy. I saw she was smiling. She was so pretty and gentle I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “If I may ask you, what do you know of meteor showers?” She seemed genuinely curious. She spoke to me as if I were a grown-up, not some “lucky little girl.”

  “They’re rocks?” I hazarded. “Smaller rocks from comets?” Recalling Mrs. Wilson’s fourth-grade science class, I grew braver. “When they come too close to the earth’s atmosphere they burn up.”

  “That is right”—she nodded—“but our ancestors believed that they were signs from the heavens. They believed that the fallen stones held powerful magic. They built temples where they had landed and they worshipped them.”

  “Worshipped them?”

  Her smile widened. “Does it seem strange to you?”

  I had half shrugged. I didn’t want to seem rude. “A little?”

  Accepting this, she nodded again. “Yes, though I think our ways would have seemed strange to them. What else do you know about the day you were born?”

  “My father said—” I stopped, suddenly choked with shyness.

  “Yes?”

  There was no escape now. “My father said that I was special because I was carried into the world on a sea of stars.” My cheeks burned. I waited for her to laugh at me.

  “Your father was right.” Her expression was grave.

  I gaped at her, speechless.

  She hesitated for a moment, as if choosing her words with care. “You see, there is a balance. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras described it as a universal harmony, a ‘music of the spheres.’” She saw my confusion. “The spheres are the planets.”

  “Music?”

  “Not that you can hear, but yes, a kind of music. The person who is born under this sacred time has the power to change that harmony, some would even say to end it.” She looked at me, and I realized that though she was smiling, her eyes were the saddest I had ever seen. “It is true that your line has not been lucky.” Her hand floated out to touch my cheek, her fingertips as light as snowflakes. “But as a wise man once said, ‘When there is life, there’s hope.’”

  Then she leaned in and whispered, “You have a right to know.”

  Before I could respond, she bowed, turned, and walked back into the dining room, where Cherry was shrieking with laughter.

  —and I hear further laughing and Sael’s voice saying, “Watch it!” I open my eyes and I give myself a mental shake and head to the kitchen, where there’s light and people and no old, unsettling memories.

  Andrea’s starting to yawn. She has a four-year-old so there is some excuse, but it’s contagious and soon David and I are standing together in the hallway while Sael and Andrea say their good-byes.

  “It was a wonderful meal,” he says.

  “It wasn’t bad, was it?”

  He holds me in the safety of his arms. “I kind of wish we were at my place, though.”

  “Me too.”

  “Thanks again for handling that curveball so well.”

  “No problem,” I say, and wince inwardly.

  “Speaking of, I had better escort this guy home; it’s dark out there.”

  “At least neither of you seems like the Sickle Man’s type, not being a single female.”

  “You haven’t seen me with a wig.” He looks hurt.

  I laugh. We’re being ghoulish, but occasionally you have to let go a little.

  He gives me a kiss and looks at me. “Will you take care of yourself until I see you again?”

  “How can I make any promises until I know when will that be?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I’ll try until then.”

  So this is what happiness feels like.

  “It would have been cool.”

  Andrea has come back into the kitchen. I’m doing a last go-over, making sure things are put away, not wanting to invite roaches. She’s in her bathrobe and is pouring a glass of water from our pitcher, her back to me.

  “What would have been cool?” I’m fuzzy from the wine.

  “If he wanted to stay the night.” Her back is still turned.

  I’ve never invited anyone to stay over. Theoretically I could, but I haven’t. It always made more sense for me to stay at the guy’s place: sleep in his king-sized bed, walk on his wooden floors, shower in his shower while using his soap, his masculine shampoos. I love sleeping at men’s apartments. I love being there, feeling clean and newly made and exciting as if I have left all my woes and my mess behind and become a different person, an efficient woman who needs nothing but a toothbrush. The real reason, though, is Lucas. Lucas’s large brown eyes watching strange men using the bathroom, sitting at the kitchen table, using a spare towel. It seems weird to bring some man into his home, his world.

  Andrea doesn’t talk about Lucas’s father. “I want that chapter in my life to stay closed,” she’d once said.

  I have a feeling things got bad, like really bad, like domestic-abuse bad. Things have to be pretty bad to move with a one-year-old, to New York.

  It’s hard not to see her primarily as a mother, but I sometimes wonder who Andrea was pre-Lucas. Andrea laid-back, drinking beer, Andrea sexy and ready to dance, who gets involved with the wrong kind of man, makes bad choices. Who knows what makes couples couple, what makes the heart flutter, the pulse race? I know more than anyone that stupidity can happen in the moment. I’m the last person to judge anyone on their choices when it comes to love.


  I’m more familiar with the Andrea who works hard, Andrea the tired, Andrea the lawyer, Andrea the laugher, Andrea the wise friend, the tough but good single mother. Andrea, whose shoulders and voice grow tighter when she feels judged, as she so often is, by a world that doesn’t seem to understand that the heart wants what the heart wants, the world that makes us pay and pay and pay. We weren’t born only children, but it feels that way. I have stepsiblings but they don’t count, and Andrea has a half sister with what social workers would call “serious substance abuse issues” and she would call “a drug problem.” Her parents are Christian, full-on Baptists she’d said, but apparently not the kind of Christians who would accept their unwed daughter or her son. She once told me she gave up on her family. “Nobody’s turning the other cheek.”

  I can relate. In this city we adopt people; our friends become our family.

  So I know what it means for Andrea to say this about David, and this is why I ask again. “That would be okay?”

  “I said so, didn’t I?” Andrea turns now and smiles.

  “Think he’s a keeper?”

  “I do.”

  “What do you think of Sael?” Andrea has always been a good judge of character.

  “Well, he really is amazing-looking,” she says. “But—”

  “But what?”

  “There’s something there . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “I got the sense that he was holding something back, keeping something in. You get a feeling for that in my line of work.”

  “Think he’s sketchy?”

  “It’s not exactly sketchy.” She pauses, thinking. “He’s the kind of man other people describe as being ‘the quiet guy,’ or ‘I never saw him lose his temper, he always seemed so polite.’ The kind of man who makes work colleagues say, ‘So-and-so had a long fuse.’”

  “So what are you saying?” I think of the first time I saw Sael, watching, poised to strike.

  “I’m saying that you don’t want to be around him when the fuse burns down.” She looks at me for a beat too long. “Anyway, you’re with David, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, good, I give my blessing.” Then she yawns. “I’m exhausted. Tonight was fun. Lucas and I had a great time.”

  “We all did,” I say.

  I can feel the faint outline of the folded drawing in my pocket.

  I’m finally in bed. I think about the evening, which could have been so much worse. It could have been a disaster. It turned out great, actually. Even though he brought Sael. Everything seems to be fine now.

  I look at my phone, thinking about that missed call from earlier, yet another call from a number I don’t recognize, like yesterday’s phone call and the one the day before. I don’t answer them. Now I listen to the message. A robotic voice greets me.

  “Hello. This is a reminder call for Daniella Zaretti from Dr. DeLuca for an appointment scheduled for Monday, June twenty-seventh, at ten thirty a.m. If you are unable to keep this appointment, please call our office as soon as possible to reschedule, between the hours of nine a.m. and five p.m. Thank you!”

  “Daniella Zaretti?” I’ll have to call them on Monday and let them know they have the wrong number. What a pain in the ass.

  My phone gives an angry little buzz. I look down.

  Let me in

  I bolt upright, heart pounding.

  I’m at the window

  I look up, preparing to run.

  Sael stands on the fire escape. I stare at him. He mimes furiously at me to open the window.

  I could shake my head and refuse to let him in but I’m terrified he’ll fall. The fire escape was built probably a hundred years ago. It’s rusted and tiny and looks as treacherous as hell.

  I get up, cross my room, and open the window. He bends down and eases himself through as a large cat might, letting in a breath of warm night air.

  “What are you doing here? Are you crazy?” I’m whispering despite my fury. I don’t want to wake up Andrea or Lucas.

  He stares at me. The intensity in his eyes is frightening. His voice, though a whisper, is urgent. “Katherine, I’m sorry, but I had to see you.”

  “You need to go. This is wrong. You need to go right now.”

  “Katherine—”

  My lips are numb and tingling. “Seriously, you need to—”

  “Can I stay here tonight?”

  “What? No!”

  “Please, not for sex, I promise, just to sleep here.”

  I’ve never seen him like this. So pressing, so focused. As if at any moment he could lose control. “No, you can’t.”

  “Katherine—”

  “Sael, we’re done.”

  “It’s not that, I just need to sleep.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been having these nightmares, I can’t sleep, I just need to be with someone.”

  “Sael, you say that David is your best friend.”

  He recoils as if I’ve struck him. In a way I guess I have.

  “We can’t do this to him. It’s bad enough what happened before.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” He practically spits this back at me.

  “So why are you here?”

  He glares furiously, and for a moment I think he’ll leave, but he won’t be deterred, no matter what acts of betrayal I throw at him.

  “Katherine, please, just this once. I promise if you let me sleep here tonight I’ll never bother you again. I won’t make a move. I just want to . . . to be here with you.”

  “We can’t do this.”

  But he senses weakness. “It’s only for tonight, no sex, just sleeping, I swear—”

  There is a charge between us. I think of the night we spent together, his broad muscled back, his acres of smooth skin under my fingers, moving together, the weight of him.

  I hesitate, and then I think of David bringing out the sweetness in the strawberries, with his easy grin, his affectionate laugh.

  The thing I love about you is . . .

  The thing with Sael and me is a poisonous spider bite that grows inflamed and itches and itches, but when you scratch it, it turns septic, oozing.

  “No, I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”

  His voice cracks a little. “Please.”

  “No, you need to leave.”

  There’s a final frozen moment. His eyes burn in his white face. He moves toward me and I think he will take me by force. I open my mouth to call for Andrea when abruptly he turns and climbs back out of the window. I see him shadowlike on the fire escape, and then he’s gone.

  I sit on the bed, my heart thudding.

  I lie back. I wonder what his dreams were, why they’re so bad.

  I think about his pale face, his feverish eyes.

  I can’t sleep.

  The Maiden of Morwyn Castle | PART FOUR

  HE LORD’S KNIGHTS WERE MUCH discontented. Their lord had been spending many of his days and all of his nights with the Maiden and they knew that no good could come from it, for it does not become a lord to spend time with a lowly servant. In their hearts they feared that she had too great a hold over him. “Perhaps she bewitches him with the drink she brews,” they told one another, “and what is to stop her from poisoning him should they quarrel?”

  And so the knights told his council that she did make a mockery of them. His advisers grew alarmed and agreed to rid themselves of her. They sent an invitation to the neighboring baron, who came to call with his daughter. The advisers told the lord, “She is as beautiful as she is good, and of noble birth, a bride who befits a lord such as yourself.”

  But Lord de Villias would not heed his advisers and went to shun the baron’s daughter; then he saw that her tresses were as golden as the sun, her complexion was fairer than the fairest lily, and her eyes were bluer than the bluest pool of water, and he could not speak. When she saw that his eyes were upon her she blushed rose red to her crown and he knew her to be both a good and
a gentle lady.

  Then Lord de Villias made up his mind upon the instant that he would wed the baron’s daughter. So he told his advisers to order the Maiden back to the kitchens where she belonged, before his betrothed set foot over the hearth. When they told her, the Maiden grew as pale as a corpse and wept so bitterly that even a stone would be softened, but the advisers were hard against her. And down in the kitchens the servants tormented her, saying, “This is what comes of holding yourself so high.” She was made to sleep on the filthy flagstones and given only the slop and the dregs kept for the pigs.

  The Maiden wept and wept. She wept until she had no more tears to shed; she wept until it seemed a serpent had coiled around her heart and had wrung all the tears and love from her. Then the Maiden dried her eyes, no longer red with sorrow, and smiled, and her smile was as cold and as pitiless as a winter night.

  11

  Love is red.

  Anticipation is aquamarine, it glistens like grapes and smells of melted pizza, it brushes against your cheek like party streamers, it feels like the hush of a theater as the lights dim and the curtain rises.

  You smell it in three people who are waiting for the train, scratching their lottery tickets, and in that little girl standing with her father, who only gets to see her on the weekends and is now taking her to her first Broadway show.

  Ambition is orange, the color of a traffic signal. It sizzles like bacon. You smell it in the bartender pretending to listen to what the red-cheeked guy is droning on about, droning on and on, and on and on, and meanwhile the bartender is working out a plot point in her book; meanwhile she’s thinking about characters; meanwhile she’s planning chapters, making revisions, editing lines.

  Anxiety is light blue, the color of varicose veins; it has the old stale-coffee smell of a long flight, the musk of a high school locker room, of the corner the cat urinated in when it found out it was going to the V-E-T.

  Here in the subway car, riding down to Union Square, you smell this on passengers almost too numerous to count, on a beautiful woman still wearing her sunglasses and standing next to an older woman who’s going to be cleaning her apartment later in the week, hired from a service she found on the Internet and—