by Sophie Jaff
He nods but doesn’t meet my eye. His lip is trembling.
“Hey, look at me.”
Finally he looks up.
“I’m sorry you made her scared, but you had to get her to call because I needed help. Your momma and Mindy knew that. You had to help me and I’m very, very proud of you.”
“Kat, the pretend man, is he gone now?”
“Yes, babe, he is.”
“Good. He was bad.”
“Well, it’s complicated.” I can feel my throat close a little; tears prick at my lids.
“But he hurted the ladies and my momma.”
Can I tell you a secret? I have not been David for a while now.
“Yes, that part of him was very bad.”
“He won’t come back?”
“No, babe, he’s not coming back.”
He looks at me a moment longer and then nods. “Okay.”
“So, there’s a lot of new things coming up for us.”
“Like what?”
I try to sound casual. “I was thinking, how about a new school, how do you feel about that?”
I’ve been really worried about this. I want him to have the security of a place he knows, but there he’ll always be seen as the child of one of the victims. The looks, the talk—he needs a fresh start. Let people draw their own conclusions when they see us. They don’t have to know anything.
“Okay.”
“Not worried?”
“No. Mrs. Ryder was kind of mean.”
“Well, I guess she also got a little scared.” I take a breath, plunge on. “Lucas, maybe it’s a good idea not to tell people about the ladies.”
He smiles, shakes his head. “But the ladies aren’t here now.”
That’s a mercy at any rate. “Well, maybe with . . . stuff like that you can tell me first? Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And guess what the other new thing is?”
“What?”
“We’re going to be moving.”
This gets his attention. “With a truck?”
I laugh at this reaction. “There might be a truck involved. Why?”
“My friend Caleb’s family moved and he said there was a huge truck bigger than T-Rex!”
“Wow, that’s pretty big. I don’t know if our truck will be that big. I guess we’ll see.”
“Where are we going to live?”
“Where do you want to live?”
“Somewhere where I can have my own room.”
“I think we can manage that. What else?”
“And my crayons.”
“Okay.”
“And a fireman’s pole.”
“Why?”
“So that when we need to go somewhere and you call, ‘Lucas, come down and have your breakfast!’ I can just slide down the pole!”
“Well, we’ll certainly keep it in mind when we’re looking. Anything else?”
“Kat?”
“Yeah?”
He looks nervous now. This makes me nervous. I don’t want to think about what Lucas is capable of asking me, what I’ll be forced to answer.
Are you sure the pretend man is gone? Why can’t we live with my momma? What if the ladies come back?
I brace myself.
“Can we get a dog?”
“A dog?”
“Yeah, can we?”
The relief makes me feel a little high. Actually a dog would be pretty nice. “Why not?”
“Yay!” He bounces up and down, does a happy dance, singing, wiggling all over, and shaking his little butt. “A dog! A dog! A dog!”
It’s completely adorable and hilarious. I start laughing. “I just wish you’d be a little more excited.”
“Oh!” A sudden thought has just occurred to him. He stops. Looks at me worried again. “Kat?”
“Lucas?”
“Would a dog be bad for the baby?”
I look at him. A car horn blats, the guitar plays, and the teenagers’ laughter sounds muted and far away.
“What baby?”
“The baby who’s coming, the one you’re going to have.”
It has only been a feeling. It could have been stress; there could have been a million reasons why I’ve been late. I haven’t even bought the test yet.
I force myself to keep my voice calm, to speak carefully. “The baby that’s coming, you know about that, huh?”
“I guess maybe a dog would hurt it.”
Already he’s preparing himself for disappointment, trying to be a big boy, trying to be strong. I look at him. He looks back, all of four years old, brown eyes anxiously watching me, waiting for my answer.
“No, Lucas,” I say at last, “I don’t think a dog would hurt the baby.”
His anxious look melts away, his whole face lights up with a smile. He puts his small, slightly sticky hand on mine and confides his final secret into my ear in the warm late afternoon.
“I’m going to call him Noodle.”
EPILOGUE
He hadn’t even wanted to take the extra course in the first place. “Photography using darkrooms?” he asked. “Really?”
“Every little bit helps,” his friend Ian had said. “Try out everything—colleges love that kind of crap.”
It hadn’t been too bad at that. The instructor, Phil, used to be something of a big deal, took pictures of some pretty famous people back in the day. It was generally understood that as long as you didn’t get him started on light because he’d probably come in his pants, he was cool enough.
It was about two weeks into the course that she had sat down next to him and asked if he was wearing his Yankees cap ironically.
“No,” he had said, surprised.
“Good,” she had said, “irony is so last year,” and smiled.
Her name was Lorna. She had one side of her head shaved, though she could put her hair over it, and a small stud in her lip and a gummy bear tattoo on her right upper arm. He thought she was beautiful and unlike anyone he’d ever met, fiercely opinionated and funny. He’d been too terrified to ask her out on a date. She’d probably laugh in his face if he suggested movies and dinner.
He didn’t remember who had suggested they go to the small park in Union Square for their assignment, but now they were here. Lorna had wanted to take pictures of the tourists reacting to the Hare Krishnas singing and dancing and tripping out. Only the Hare Krishnas weren’t there. “Typical,” Lorna said. “Well, let’s see what else we can find, now we’re here.”
There had been a homeless person sitting a few yards away from a wealthy-looking woman with several shopping bags at her elegantly sandaled feet, sunglasses on, talking on her cell phone, but Lorna wasn’t having it. “Been done a million times before,” she said. However, she had perked up at the sight of the pigeons fighting over a bread roll near a sleeping Rastafarian. “Not bad!” She began to take pictures.
He took a few and then saw them sitting just a few yards over.
He liked the play of light, the way they were sitting together, independent but comfortable. The little kid was downright cute and the woman was striking. She had a familiar quality, something—he couldn’t put a finger on it.
He nudged Lorna. She took in the scene, the woman and little boy sitting on the bench, underneath the trees, the golden light, the ice cream cone, the sense of peace, and dismissed it with a shake. “Total Hallmark.” She yawned and went back to the pigeons and the Rastafarian.
He looked again and without thinking, or even adjusting his lens, turned and pressed the button.
Click.
Later down in the darkroom, dimly red and chemical-smelling, they took turns fishing at the pictures, and sure enough there was something cool about seeing the image rise and appear, like an old-timey magic trick.
He figured Phil was right. You had to go a little old school to truly understand and appreciate photography.
He was standing, staring at the picture, when Lorna came up behind him.
“What?” she asked
. “What is it?” Then she had looked herself.
“Not my kind of thing,” she conceded at last, “but I like the way you got the woman with the short hair all kind of glowing and out of focus. How’d you do that?”
“Don’t know,” he said, still staring. She looked, shrugged, and then started putting the equipment away.
The woman and the little boy sitting on the park bench, eating ice cream, holding hands—all that he remembered. The white chick glowing and smeary in a cool way, as if he had managed to overexpose only her, somehow, but that’s not what bothered him. It was the other woman he didn’t remember. But there she was, black and thin and attractive, standing a little to the side of the bench, her hand lightly resting on the top.
Lorna called his name. “Some of us are going to Cort’s for some beers! Wanna come?”
The woman in the picture was looking down on the two who sat on the bench with a wistful look, half smiling. It was a strange sort of smile, sad and proud all at the same time.
“Mike?”
“Coming,” he called as he ran up the stairs.
“Geez, what took you so long?” But she said it with a smile.
“Sorry,” he said, returning her smile as they started off down the street.
Ultimately Lorna was right, he decided. Apart from the exposed quality of the woman on the bench, there was nothing really special about the scene after all. But that was okay; there were plenty of other pictures to choose from. He wasn’t going to think about it anymore. All that mattered was that he was out with the girl of his dreams and the night was still young.
Acknowledgments
It took me around four years to complete this book, and along the way I was supported and encouraged by a score of amazing people. I can only trust and pray I will be forgiven if I don’t mention each and every one of them. There are some, however, that must be thanked for playing such a crucial role. To my phenomenal agent Alexandra Machinist, thank you for believing in me from the first; you are the ultimate reader and doer. To my shining star of an editor Hannah Wood, who has been with me every step of the way; Hannah, without your brilliant insight and passion, this book would not be what it is. You rock. Thank you to everyone at HarperCollins, for their incredible work and commitment. To Dorothy Vincent, for her excellent international representation and board game nights! Thanks to senior trial attorney Richard LaFontaine, for talking with me about lawyers and crime, and to Heather Haddon, for helping me with my article. Thanks to John Vincler and the staff at the Sherman Fairchild Reading Room of the Morgan Library, who provided such inspiring material and made me feel so welcome. Thanks to Mike Javett, for his support during my writing days, and to Fred Wistow, for his help and advice. Thanks to my earliest readers Alex Goldmark, Mariana Elder, and Jean Casetelli, your feedback and thoughts were invaluable. To the Paragraph: Workspace for Writers, for providing me with the perfect space to write this book, and to all the amazing writers I know there, and whom I think of as my writing family. To the Arismans, for their continued love and friendship throughout the years, and to Kathy Tagg, for always raising a glass with me. Thanks also to the late, great Cortland McMeel, who first took a chance on me and published my work. Cort, I miss you and wish you were here. Thanks to Lucy, who has talked me through some of my darkest days back into a lighter place. You helped me become a better writer. To New York and the people who live here, for the endless inspiration. Finally, my deepest thanks to my most beloved Armando. Armando, you keep me anchored in all storms. Wherever you are, that place is home. Te amo, mi amor.
About the Author
A native of South Africa, SOPHIE JAFF is an alumna of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and a fellow of the Dramatists Guild of America. Her work has been performed at Symphony Space, Lincoln Center, the Duplex, the Gershwin, and Goodspeed Musicals. She lives in New York City.
WWW.SOPHIEJAFF.COM
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Credits
COVER DESIGN BY ROBERTO DE VICQ
COVER PHOTOGRAPH © FLORIANA BARBU / GETTY IMAGES
BOOK PHOTOGRAPH BY PALOKHA TETIANA/SHUTTERSTOCK, INC.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LOVE IS RED. Copyright © 2015 by Sophie Jaff. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition © May 2015 ISBN 9780062346278
ISBN: 978-0-06-234626-1
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