Love Is Red

by Sophie Jaff

  I hear laughter; I recognize some of the voices from the table; they’ve followed me. I freeze. The voices get louder just outside my stall, at the sink.

  “Hang on! Whoa . . . why didn’t you tell me I was so smeary? What kind of friend are you?” This comes from the blonde.

  “Bitch, please, you look fine.” Now it’s the brunette.

  “Yes, if you like killer clowns. You have some concealer?”

  “When am I ever without concealer?”

  “Pass it over.”

  There’s the rattle of a thousand cosmetics being scrunched around, a companionable silence, then—

  “So Margot, huh?”

  “Do you know who her father is?”

  “He’s that big producer, right?”

  “Apparently. I guess Sael’s really lucked out this time.”

  “Oh please, it will never last.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “I’ve seen this before. She’ll be with him a few weeks at best.”

  “Oh . . .” There’s a pause. The voice gets a little lower. “You mean it’s about Sara?”

  “It will always be Sara for him.”

  “Wow, that’s so tragic.”

  “He’s never gotten over her. I don’t think he ever will. In all the time I’ve known him, he’s never dated anyone else seriously, let alone lived with anyone after her.”

  “So sad.”

  “It really was. They were so perfect for each other.”

  “Wasn’t it just before their wedding?”

  “Like three weeks.”

  “Terrible. How many years has it been now since she died?”

  “Three.”

  “It’s crazy where the time has gone.”

  “I know.”

  There’s the kind of pause people might take to honor the dead while trying to apply lipstick at the same time. The clatter of cosmetics, a sound of a zip, and then—

  “Ready when you are.”

  “I’m ready.”

  He’s never gotten over her. I don’t think he ever will.

  Tragic.

  Wasn’t it just before their wedding?

  I want to stay in here forever but I can’t. I make my way out of the stall to the sink. I stare at my stricken face. Not pretty. Out of the corner of my eye I see someone sitting in the far corner. It’s the bathroom attendant. Sleeping. I’m glad she’s sleeping. I always feel terrible for these women. I’m not sure why we still have bathroom attendants. They never seem to be white. They always look so unhappy. Flocks of spoiled bitches coming in, either complaining or falsely complimenting one another and plastering on makeup while she sits on a small folding chair and waits to see if they tip her a dollar. This woman, in her fifties or sixties, looks foreign. That is to say, her skin is the color of sand and etched with wrinkles. She wears black pants and a white shirt, which I guess is suitable attire, but over this she wears an unzipped light gray hoodie. I wonder what the management would say about that. The hood obscures most of her face but it’s clear she’s asleep. The kind of sleep reserved for the truly bone-tired. Her head is a little back, propped against the tiles. There’s a small paper sign above her head that says:

  THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATION.

  It’s a little askew, a little grubby. It looks like it was stuck up in a hurry.

  I grin despite myself. I like the defiance of the sign and her apparel. I hope the woman sleeps on. I hope no one complains about having to get her own paper towels. It’s the sleeping bathroom attendant and me against the world.

  I just want the evening to be over. I want to go home. I want to go to bed. I want to crawl under the covers and never come out.

  As I’m gearing up to leave, another woman comes out of the stall next to the one I was in. She gives me a start. I’d thought I was alone in here, apart from the sleeping attendant.

  She moves silently up to the sink. She stares at herself in the mirror with an odd curiosity but she applies no makeup. Her blond hair is drawn back from her forehead in a tight ponytail. Her skin is the pale skin that real blondes often have, the kind that burns, not tans. Her eyes are a forget-me-not blue.

  She’s not dressed for the gala. She wears a good-quality, if innocuous, white blouse and a thin gray pencil skirt. She’s dressed as if she came from work, not as if she’s at a black-tie event. Maybe she’s running this thing. It doesn’t matter. The phrases continue to ring in my ears.

  It will always be Sara.

  I take out my lipstick from my poor abused clutch. Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick, and pull yourself together. Isn’t that what Elizabeth Taylor said?

  “She’s dead.”

  Startled, I look at the woman next to me, but she didn’t speak. She’s still gazing at her face in the mirror. Not with vanity, it seems, but with a detached curiosity. Her eyes are without light or interest.

  It was the bathroom attendant. She is sitting up a little now and looking at me.

  “What?”

  “It’s red,” she says, and points to my red-lipped reflection. She speaks conversationally, with no change of tone. I could have sworn she was out for the count. It just goes to show. Clearly I know nothing.

  “Thank you.” I need something to say, even though I know it was not a compliment but an observation. I’m thrown.

  The bathroom attendant leans back once more and closes her eyes.

  How many years since she died?

  I smile at the staring woman next to me, hoping to share a moment, hoping to reassure myself that yes, that exchange with the bathroom attendant was a little odd.

  She does not smile back. She turns and for a moment I think I see an infinite look of sorrow in her blue eyes. Then she walks out of the bathroom.

  Nice.

  The attendant seems to be asleep again. She snores gently. Maybe she’s having a nightmare and I’m in it, but that’s a kind of trippy, upside-down, shroom-ingesting Alice in Wonderland thinking, and it hasn’t been so wonderful tonight. Not wonderful at all.

  I move toward the sleeping attendant and help myself to some paper towels from the dispenser. Closer up, the THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATION sign seems even more grimy, its sentiment strangely aggressive. I look down at the contents of the plastic bowl to see if anyone has deserved the thanks.

  There appears to be a large dead mouse.

  I half shriek and take an involuntary step backward. I look up guiltily but the bathroom attendant hasn’t stirred.

  I look down again. There, curled sleepily in the center of the bowl, is a single green rabbit’s foot key chain. Is it the attendant’s, or did some tipsy guest drop it in for a joke? My arms are pricked with gooseflesh, but it’s only a rabbit’s foot. Just like Lucas’s.

  Hours later I’ll wake in the terrible, endless darkness, and the realization pitiless and cold and clear, will be:

  That wasn’t like Lucas’s rabbit’s foot. That was Lucas’s rabbit’s foot.

  But that thought is still far in the future. Now I merely feel uneasy. The beat of my pulse is Sara, Sara, Sara.

  The world outside the bathroom is darker and louder. The speeches are over. I hear music and see that couples are starting to dance. I push past the people who are determined to get their worth of drinks while the open bar is still open. “Excuse me,” I chant to a mass of endless shoulders and breasts and backs. “Excuse me, ex—”

  David turns to me. “Katherine! I was just about to send out a—” He takes one look at my face and the words die in his throat. “Hey, what’s wr—”

  I bend down a little, trying to speak quietly. “David, I’m so sorry but I think I have to go home.”

  “Oh my God, food poisoning?” Despite my low tone, someone at the table hears me. I wonder if I look as terrible as I feel. I don’t spare a glance for Sael and Margot, whom fifteen minutes ago I hated. Now I almost feel sorry for her.

  It will never last. It will always be Sara for him.

  “Migraine.” I look at David. “Would
you hate me if I went home?”

  “Of course not! I’ll go too—”

  “No! You need to stay, enjoy yourself.” I sound a little harsh. His face falls. I modify my tone. “I’m not going to be any fun tonight.”

  “You’re always fun, even when you’re no fun.”

  I try to smile. “Really, I think I’ll be better off with some sleep and some aspirin. I’m so sorry.”

  “At least let me get you a cab.”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  David guides me through the laughing, jostling crowd yelling at one another to be heard. My skull is made of glass and it could shatter at any moment. A woman gives a tittering scream, and I wince. Even the dim light is too bright. My head will explode.

  But finally we’re outside under the large stone arch of the entrance and the rain is falling, steady and growing heavier. I can hear the pavement almost hissing with relief, the rain falling on the remains of my night like reality drenching us all.

  “Taxi!” David calls, and somehow, he gets one, but then again he always does and I can’t even question how he manages this on a rainy weekday night before I’m inside and he’s at the window, getting wet, the window already misting up.

  “Text me when you get home.”

  “David, I’m so sorry.” Now I’m near tears again. Don’t you cry, don’t you dare cry. Hold it in.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I’m a terrible person.”

  “That’s true.” He smiles. “But promise you’ll text me.”

  “I will, I promise.”

  The taxi driver is playing an old pop song. Something about birds appearing every time the subject is within close proximity. Every song about love either taunts or teases. It’s agony. I rub my hand against the fogged glass and look out of the small portal I have created.

  In the torrential pouring wet, New Yorkers have abandoned their umbrellas and are rejoicing in the rain. Two women, in sodden business clothes, have crossed hands to swing around in a joyful circle, like young girls. A middle-aged man, his once-white shirt transparently sticking to him, has his head back, his arms wide, eyes closed, as the rain drives into his face. He seems oblivious of his leather suitcase and leather shoes, which grow darker by the moment. Several couples are slow-dancing. A young handsome man holds a hysterically laughing little boy as he jumps into an enormous puddle. This father-and-son team splashes a woman in her fifties, her graying hair plastered to her forehead, oblivious and twirling around like a fairy princess.

  People are pouring out of bars, some staring, some joining in. Another young guy, clearly an actor, does an excellent Gene Kelly impersonation, singing his heart out in the rain, one hand hooked around a lamppost, the other holding his now broken umbrella. Cars honk joyfully. A group under a restaurant’s dripping canvas cheers.

  “People gone crazy!” The driver is utterly incredulous.

  “Yes, I believe they have,” I say. How wonderful. I’m still beaming as we near my street, until I see a circling whirl of red and blue and red and blue, there are police cars, one, two—

  There’s been a fire, I think. There’s been a fire, or a gas leak, or someone has gotten into a fight, had too much to drink, had a heart attack.

  “Sorry, road close,” says the driver. “Something happen.”

  “That’s fine, I’ll get out here.” I pay him but I’m looking ahead and then I’m out and running up the wet street, the rain soaking my silk dress but I don’t care, and there are not just police cars but also loops of yellow tape and men and women in uniforms, and an ambulance, the yellow tape, the yellow tape—

  I’m stopped by a burly policeman. “You can’t go in there, ma’am—”

  “But I live there! My roommate is there, her son—”

  “You can’t go in there. It’s the scene of a crime.”

  “What happened? What’s going on? I live there, I—”

  My words are overheard by another officer, who makes a “bring her over” gesture. Now I’m faced with two cops and two other people, a man and a woman dressed in civilian clothes.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, you say you live here?”

  Then come the questions.

  “Yes, my name is Katherine Emerson.”

  “Yes, I live in that building, apartment 4G.”

  “No, I haven’t checked my phone. I had switched it off.” I had done so just for the evening, for my magical evening, for my wonderful, beautiful evening that I wanted so badly. I needed to take a break from the calls, now coming almost every other day. “Just for the evening, though, just for tonight—”

  The one night I needed my phone. The one night. Now I turn it on, and sure enough, my mailbox is filled with messages; it’s full, full, full. It’s Lucy’s parents—Lucy is a friend of Lucas—and—

  “We’re trying to get in touch with Andrea, and Lucas gave us this number. She’s not answering her cell phone and it’s now eight. Could you call us back please as soon as—”

  “Hello, Ms. Emerson, this is Detective LaFontaine from the 114th precinct calling you. We’re trying to get hold of you. Please contact us immediately at—”

  I turn to one of the officers. “Where is Lucas?! Where is he?”

  “He’s safe with Lucy’s parents for tonight.” Then the cop relents. “Apparently he’s been asking for you. We’ve been trying to contact you for some hours now. We’re trying to contact any family members.”

  No comment, I hear Andrea’s voice say in my head. No comment, I think, and so say nothing.

  “We’ll need you to answer some questions.”

  The hours are measured in bad cups of coffee drunk under the harsh, deadening lights specific to police stations, the patient way they take me through “did you?” and “did you know?” and “did you know where?” and “how?” and “when?” but there are so many things I don’t know. Andrea was a very private person. We are great friends—we were great friends—but there were still many doors she didn’t open. The smaller the space, the neater you have to be. That’s the way you survive in the city. You keep some private rooms for yourself. But they’re trying to do their best and I’m not officially being interrogated, I’m not a suspect even, though they—

  They found her in the apartment. They found her in her bedroom. In our apartment. Andrea, dead in the apartment. Andrea tied and gagged and murdered on her bed while I—

  I would have been home, home and showering and getting ready. The police don’t say it, but I work it out. He was in the apartment. When Andrea came home to meet the window-guard guys—

  I’ll wait for them, you enjoy your gala, you deserve it.

  —the Sickle Man was waiting for her in the apartment.

  “Excuse me,” I say, “but where is . . . ?”

  They point, I’m off and running, and in the small fluorescent acid-yellow bathroom I throw up and up and up. I can’t stop shaking. He was in the apartment. He was in the apartment. I was getting ready, listening to the radio, while Andrea was dead. Andrea’s dead and I’m alive. It’s like a bad urban legend. While I’m fantasizing about my evening ahead, my roommate lies dead, tied up on her own bed, and I never suspect a thing. Fuck. It’s a bad movie. It’s bullshit. It’s a joke. It can’t be real. It can’t be real. It is real.

  Finally I emerge, shaken, gray.

  More questions and more and where will you be staying? The officer wants to know. Which friend will you call? It’s now 3:14 in the morning.

  The pennies, I should have counted the pennies.

  “With me,” says a man’s familiar voice. “She’ll be staying with me.”

  It’s David.

  “How did you, when did you?”

  “Hold on.” He turns to the officer. “You don’t need to question her anymore tonight? No? Let me give you my information where you can reach me.”

  They have mine already and will be in touch within twenty-four hours and then we’re left and right down the hallways and out the door; it f
eels like an escape, but not for Andrea.

  I can’t, I can’t deal, but I turn to David, who is supporting me, and is a miracle. “How?”

  “I had a bad feeling about letting you go by yourself and then when you didn’t text me . . . You looked so terrible, and anyway, I just thought I’d swing by and that’s when I found out . . .” His voice trails away but the rest is clear. When I found out that Andrea was dead.

  I have no sense of time anymore. It seems to me that no sooner do we get into a cab than we get out because we’re here.

  David’s place is cozy but still elegant. I knew it would be. His bookshelves are overflowing. There are nice touches: little throw rugs on the wooden floors, a black-and-white print of a Parisian café. There are lush plants that, astonishingly, seem to be green and thriving. I have but to look at a houseplant and it withers and dies.

  His bedroom is massive. A king-sized bed in the corner, sheets a masculine metallic blue-gray. There’s an antique-looking desk and chair in the corner, carved from a dark wood.

  “It’s Shaker,” he says when I ask. Anything to make small talk. “Okay, I’ll take the couch,” he continues. He actually looks apologetic. “It was a two-bedroom but I made the extra room into kind of an office.” He is thorough. “Clean sheets on the bed.” A large T-shirt to sleep in, boxers, an extra toothbrush.

  My teeth are chattering, but I’m not cold.

  “You’re in shock. We’ll fix that in a minute.”

  He makes me some tea with honey and lemon and a massive shot of whiskey. We don’t talk. I’m grateful. Next to my bed he has placed a glass of water and two white pills. “Take them if necessary.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Need anything else? I’ll be in the other room.” As if I am a child who is scared of the dark.

  I’m not scared.

  I’m fucking terrified.

  “David?” He waits in the doorway. I look at him. It was David who ID’d her body. I couldn’t do it. I thought I would be able to but I wasn’t. Now he stands in the doorway and I try to form the words I need to tell him. “Thank you for this, for this and for everything.”