Love Is Red

by Sophie Jaff

  He hasn’t called me yet, they never stay past the first two months, and my boss is driving me crazy, how am I supposed to do the intern’s work as well as my own? And I’m gaining weight, I’m gaining weight, I shouldn’t have eaten those chicken wings last night—

  The older one sits staring off because—

  My sons, one in the army and one who can’t seem to make it past high school, both of them trapped—what did I do, what didn’t I do?

  Hatred is the color of a dried-up scab. It smells like a bar the morning after. It reeks of menstrual blood. You smell it less, but when you do it’s strong. On the elderly woman who stares at a group of too-loud teenagers—

  Fooling around, putting their goddamn feet on the goddamn seats and cursing, being too goddamn loud. They don’t care for anyone else. They’re like animals—

  She wishes them dead.

  On the “not old, but older” woman who stands, leaning against the pole. She was offered a seat. She said no, thanks—

  Am I really that old? I’m really that old. Paul ruined my life. He took all my good years from me, that fucking waste of space. Once I was beautiful and believed in love. Now I’m being offered seats. It’s over—

  She holds the pole tight with hatred.

  Jealousy is piss yellow, it tastes of old cough syrup, it tastes of cotton candy and of bile. An unhappily married woman whose friend just “met someone”—

  I’m so happy for you. That’s awesome. Congratulations. Great, wonderful, good, cool, fantastic news. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. Well done—

  Contentment is eggshell brown. Contentment smells like the fine hair on an infant’s head; it tastes like French bread with a widely spread helping of butter.

  You hardly ever smell this.

  And you walk up the stairs with the crowd into the summer evening.

  Here you stand in Union Square. The humidity is drawing away, unveiling a soft and perfect sky. Up the broad curved brick steps the crowd shifts and murmurs. Some commuters descending the subway stairs give only a passing glance, determined not to be drawn in, but others stop midstare. The park is filled with summer ghosts. Hundreds of people wearing white: white shoes, white shirts, white skirts, white dresses, white tanks, white shorts. The skateboard kids with the hanging pants and the pierced girls with green hair have moved to the benches on the paths under the trees. They respect the crowd and their purpose. Only the old chess sharks fold their arms and lean back on their plastic chairs, their passive, lined faces giving nothing away; they’ve seen it all before.

  You, who are wearing white, close your eyes and breathe in.

  Inhale the sorrow, which is the color of a bruise. It smells like Sunday evenings; it tastes like old cucumbers.

  Inhale the desire, which is the color of a clean pool. It prickles like the fine hairs on your arm standing up, and smells of the sandy dip in the dunes just before you spot the ocean.

  Women are here, mothers, young girls, students. Young men and older men, fathers too with little kids on shoulders, have come to give support. There is little shoving or jostling; people are kinder, muttering sorry when they occasionally step on toes, nudge into others’ backs. There are dead girls, dead women, to be remembered and it’s important because—

  I was here, I was here, I was here.

  They are pushing a little, though, trying to see the families up on the stage, the families speaking in quiet tones because they are weary unto the bone, trying to hear Susie Ranford talking through a microphone.

  Weariness tastes like your mouth does after you brush your teeth when you have a cold; it’s the milky gray of a forgotten mug of tea. It whirrs like an old fan.

  You also smell a sullen resentment, an itch to hurt, to stir up trouble.

  Resentment hums like beehives and stings of smoke and drain cleaner; it sticks like old Band-Aids and the arid stink of jam-packed classrooms.

  They are all here because of you. All these beautiful, passionate, sad, frightened, anxious, excited, grieving, lecherous, hopeful, mournful souls, their colors flickering like the flames of the candles they hold. We will not forget you, they say to the dead. But they will, they always do, faces fade, lives seep away into anecdotes. As the years pass, change, inexorable, plows through; wheat is reaped, seeds sown, young shoots rise, stalks are grown and then reaped again. The numbers of those who do remember when, and when, and when grow few.

  Tonight is an unfolding flower, as perfect and impermanent as each of the women you’ve taken. You honor all their wonderful colors caught and lashed within you.

  The crowd listens as the names are read.

  Kathleen Walsh.

  Samantha Rodriguez.

  People seeking faith—My God, My God—which is a deep blue; it feels like parchment under the fingertips, it smells like hospitals, it dissolves like white icing on the tongue and curls like incense.

  You breathe in, ecstatic.

  People overcome by hopelessness—There is no God, no God would let this happen—hopelessness, which is putrid yellow like moldy cheese, creaks like a child’s bedsprings supporting too heavy a weight, snaps like a tarpaulin wetly flapping where a wall used to be.

  Jennifer Wegerle.

  You stand patient in the crowd, waiting while the members of each woman’s family stumble forward to call out their child’s, their sister’s, their niece’s name. To say it aloud, to acknowledge that they lived.

  Emily Ranford.

  Melissa Lin.

  And now you see her. Here she is. The one who is truly responsible for all of this, the one who has brought you here.

  Lauren Cooper.

  Katherine. Her laughter single grains of sugar, her breath warm pink. Her skin, her eyes, her words are water. Her fingers on your arm, their weight.

  Rebecca Lamb.

  Each time you see her, you drink her in. Often you watch her. Watch her in the distance, walking to work. You follow her. Look at the way she resists gravity. The way her skirt moves and shifts over her side, how her shirt pulls up as it strains against the confines of the waistline.

  Daniella Zaretti.

  Then silence. A grief-stricken man clutching a piece of paper totters up.

  Katherine and the crowd bow their heads as he begins to read in a faltering voice, “Dear God, we pray you grant us peace . . .”

  Peace is the color of the underside of clouds, dove gray, almost pink. Peace is an ancient smell. It’s very faint here tonight. Green pears, bay leaves. It tastes like melting snow; it tastes like rice paper that once wrapped sweets.

  Love is red. A little green, a little gold, but love—real love, true love, divine love—that love is red. It smells like pavements washed by the rain. It smells like the nape of your lover’s neck. It smells like fresh dirt. It sounds like a match being struck, and a jar being opened. It feels like a hand on the swell of your hip. It sounds like a song sung in the dark.

  Katherine is not that color yet.

  There are shoots of doubt, tendrils of gray and black threaded through the wonder. There is hope. There is lust. There is tenderness. But there is the spotted and mingling green and yellow of mistrust and the lingering blue of uncertainty.

  Blood is red. Wombs are red. Hearts are red. Apples are red. Fire is red. The sky is red.

  Blood unto blood, womb unto womb, heart unto heart, apple unto apple, fire unto fire, sky unto sky, love unto love unto love unto love.

  Katherine. Here she stands. She does not see you. But it is enough for you to watch and think.

  Soon the seeds will be sown, and they will bud and flower and twist up and out and through, and the spheres will shift off course, and the Universe shall falter and stammer, it can’t end. Danger is red. Courage is red. Pain is red. Love is red.

  And so soon now, so, so soon, Katherine will turn red. All the Vessels do, soon enough.

  12

  I sit on this comfortable black couch. I sit in this pleasant neutral office with its pale yellow walls
and the box of tissues on the small table. I look at the woman who sits opposite me. I wonder how we will begin. Who makes the first move? We’re like two gunslingers having a showdown.

  Q: You seem anxious. Would like you to talk to me about that?

  Where should I begin? What makes the most sense? There are some things that are more tangible. The messages, the drawings, the pennies. No, not the pennies. Maybe I’ll start with the little things, the things I see out of the corner of my eyes. Like a woman sitting in a chair, and I’ll turn around and there’s no one. Movement just sliding on the side of my vision.

  Last week I made an appointment with an eye doctor. Spots? he asked me. Floating dots, shimmering?

  Not dots but reflections.

  A: “I’m seeing reflections of things that aren’t there, reflections of people who aren’t there.”

  These are not reflected in the mirror but on the flat and neutral surface of the turned-off television screen or my cell phone. I turn these devices on more often these days, their pictures better than the ones in my mind.

  It’s early July. I’m here, sitting in this brown leather chair, unwilling to be comforted.

  Q: Can you tell me what you think you saw?

  A: “I thought I saw—”

  Like the other day on the TV set I thought I saw . . .

  “—a woman lying on a bed with her neck broken. Like in the drawing Lucas made.”

  Lucas saying, “I drawed her a shirt, pink ‘cause she’s a girl.”

  There on my television screen’s blank face was a woman sprawled on the bed, naked. A jagged triangle etched into her chest, red pooling out.

  I looked again and there was nothing.

  Q: Who is Lucas?

  A: “He’s my roommate’s four-year-old son.”

  Andrea is distraught. She was horrified when I showed her the first drawing. Now there are more. Women lying in twisted positions, blood scribbled red, mouths screaming black holes. The voice, an awkward bubble coming from the closet or from under the bed. She called the school, spoke to the teachers. No, he hasn’t been drawing pictures like that or saying anything out of the norm, but they would keep an eye out. Hard with the news of course, children have a way of picking things up, ferreting things out. She thinks maybe he found out too much.

  I overheard her talking to Lucas, wanting to know. How could you have heard about something like this? Have you seen any ladies? What did you mean, “the pretend man”? She kept her voice low, steady, but there had been tears. He had picked up on her anxiety.

  Over and over I heard him, No, Momma, no. He promises, promises, promises, cross my heart, he’ll tell her if he hears anything from the other kids.

  Did he see anything on TV? Hear something on the radio? She won’t be angry, but No, Momma, no.

  Last night we sat up, drinking the last of the white wine that the guys had brought. Andrea had needed a drink. I wasn’t so far behind. With our feet up on the couch, life seemed more manageable.

  They wanted him to see the school counselor, she had said.

  Would that be so bad? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

  It’s not that. She sighed and rubbed her neck. It’s just the counselor is a really creepy guy.

  He’s a man?

  Yes, you sexist. She smiled.

  Ugh. Seems weird.

  I don’t care that he’s a man but he’s got this thinning hair and a soft saggy belly and a wet mouth and he always gets too close when he talks to me at parent-teacher conferences. A real space invader. I’m pretty sure he was trying to look down my top.

  As I said, ugh.

  The point is that I wouldn’t want him looking after my dog, let alone my son.

  You don’t have a dog.

  Well, if I had one.

  Point taken.

  Anyway, school’s almost over. If he can just hang in till next week I can try to look for someone decent, though God knows how I’m going to afford it. I don’t think my health care plan covers scared little children. She sighed again. I don’t know, maybe it’s those damn posters. They’re everywhere. Kids are asking questions.

  It’s true. I just saw a new one.

  What do you think? Think he can hold on, or am I being a shitty parent?

  She looked exhausted and stressed out and miserable.

  Then I said, You’re a pretty shitty parent, so why not hang on?

  She grinned, poured me the final splash.

  “And then there’re the pennies.”

  I still haven’t told Andrea about Lucas and the pennies.

  Q: The pennies?

  A: “He’s been putting these pennies in my room, pressed up against the wall, in a line.”

  These days I avoid looking in the corner. It’s ridiculous. I’ll tell Andrea; I’ll get it dealt with. I go to look at them, forcing myself. There are more of them. Pressed up against the wall. I bend down to look. I crouch down to look. When does he do it? Why?

  “But I’m not picking up these pennies because I need to show Andrea what he’s doing and besides they’re . . .”

  They’re art.

  “But the thing is—the other day I decided ‘I’m just going to check, to see what dates they have on them.’”

  If I get down close enough I’ll see it. The first penny will have the tiny date engraved upon it. And all of them will have it.

  All one to three, four, five, six, seven, oh dear God, all nine of them will have the same date.

  Q: Was there a date you were looking for?

  A: “1981, the year I was born.”

  It’s hard to look without touching them. My heart is pounding in my ears. This is stupid. I know what I’m going to see. 1981.

  1981, 1981, 1981, 1981, 1981, 1981, 1981, 1981, 1981 . . .

  I peer but the date is blurred. Am I crying? I think I’m going to pass out. Then I realize what it is. It’s sweat. Sweat has rolled from my forehead into my eyes. I rub at my stinging eyes. I peer closer. The date on the first penny is . . .

  1979.

  1992, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1978, 1989, 1987, and—

  There’s a sound; it is me, gulping in the air. I’m breathing. Then I start giggling and then I am laughing. I am laughing like the idiot I am. Like the fucking moronic idiot that I am. Laughing like someone who was really frightened and who is now relieved, and what is there to be frightened about? Why am I so relieved when it’s only Lucas? Of course it is Lucas. It’s been Lucas the whole time.

  Q: And was it there?

  “I check all the dates and right up to the end there’s not one 1981 penny. Random, random dates. Most of them are mid- to late 1980s, some early 1990s.”

  The last date is 1996.

  Oh Jesus, how could I have even thought . . .

  “It doesn’t matter and now I know I can clear them away.”

  Q: And have you cleared them away?

  A: “No . . . but that’s because now it seems more sweet than anything else.”

  It’s a sweet gesture. His way of saying (helo) hi.

  “Really, it’s cute.”

  Q: Tell me more about Lucas.

  A: It happened when I picked Lucas up from school because it was a half day and Andrea had to be in court.

  His teacher, an older, plump woman named Mrs. Ryder, had handed me a note asking if Andrea could contact her as soon as possible. She had also given me a sharp look, one I didn’t understand.

  I think about how, when we got home, he sat on the couch with his rabbit’s foot, now a constant attachment, under his nose, watching a kid’s show, a friendly show with baby animals bouncing about the screen. He seemed dangerously close to tears. I risked a conversation.

  So, kiddo. How’s it going?

  S’okay.

  What happened?

  Mrs. Ryder wants to talk with Momma

  Do you know what she wants to talk about?

  The ladies.

  My stomach tightened. What about them?

  I drawed them for you like th
ey told me to and Mrs. Ryder saw them and now she want to talk with Momma.

  No wonder Mrs. Ryder was giving me the stink eye. I just assumed she was an evil old bitch. She probably assumes I’m corrupting him. Do you know why the ladies want you to draw those pictures for me?

  They trying to tell you . . .

  Tell me what, honey? Oh God, I didn’t want to know.

  They say it’s a secret.

  Well, you know you can tell me anything at any time. Right?

  Mmm-hmm. Dark eyes on the screen, making the rabbit’s foot stroke his nose, up and down and up.

  Lucas?

  Mmm . . .

  I didn’t want to scare him, but it had to stop.

  Are the ladies making you put pennies in my room?

  What pennies?

  Remember I once asked you about some pennies in my room?

  You s’posed to knock, he said, just like the last time.

  You’re right, that’s the rule.

  Back and forth, tickling his nose with that rabbit’s foot.

  Okay, well, I’ll be in my room.

  Kat?

  I turned when I heard him call. He held out his rabbit’s foot.

  You want me to hold it? Really?

  Hold it.

  I knew what an honor this was. No one is allowed to touch the sacred rabbit’s foot. From the first moment it’s been strictly Lucas’s private property. Andrea had told me the story.

  We were waiting in the checkout line at the Associated when he saw some little kids getting some gum from the gumball machines near the exit. Who knows what first made him look over there but it was torture for him, like a fat man on a treadmill watching people eat ice cream. His lower lip was trembling but he knows I don’t let him chew gum, especially not that kind of huge hard bubble gum. It’s like a choking accident waiting to happen. So I shook my head and he got that hangdog look—you know the one? I felt terrible all the same, really guilty. He’d been so quiet lately and I really wanted to cheer him up. I’d bought him a little bar of chocolate that I planned to give him later, after dinner, but I still felt kind of mean.