Love Is Red (4 page)

There's somebody coughing in the Rose Main Reading room of the New York Public Library. Deep racking, hacking coughs. You look up. Locate the cougher. He's two tables down from you, a white-haired man in his fifties with an angry expression, earnest, staring deep into his laptop screen. Look down again. Again the cough, again you look up. This time you catch the eye of another disturbed reader as she turns around and then back again. A girl in her twenties, sitting at your table, with shining red shoulder-length hair. You exchange a quick smile, a second at the most. You don't let your eyes linger too long. Otherwise it might be creepy. A minute goes by, another, and then he coughs again. You both look up again, this time she's waiting for you, wanting to connect with you. Connect with the attractive man at her table. Now you can maintain eye contact. A smile. You're in this together as that old selfish asshole coughs and coughs.

Aren't other people hell?

You allow your smile to spread; then you get up and walk over, around to her. You do this quickly. She stiffens. Suddenly she's nervous. She's thinking,
Smile at some guy, and it's a come-on.
She's thinking,
I'll tell him I have a boyfriend.
She's thinking,
A woman
was found murdered the other day.
You lean over, her shoulders are tight, she's ready to flee. Flight or fight or not fight, exactly, she'll just scorn you. You lean over and whisper, “Sorry, can you keep an eye on my stuff for just a moment?”

Her shoulders descend. She exhales. Jesus, you made her nervous, but now she's already chastising herself. Look at the way you're dressed—there's no way you could be crazy.

You walk with a quiet confidence out of the silent section of the library. You can feel that she's secretly watching you, taking in all the clues about who you are, your shirt, your pants, your shoes. Her father once told her, “Never trust a man with gray shoes.” Your shoes are not gray. They're black. Almost a little old for you but professional. Italian, maybe. Dark pants, white shirt, broad shoulders, slim hips, long legs. You're tall. She's watching the way you walk. She's checking out your ass. And why shouldn't she? Guys watch her all the time. Why shouldn't she be allowed to do the same? So when no one else is looking, she'll stare at you, this attractive man walking away. You smile.

You are gone for a while. She finds herself looking up to see if you've returned. You haven't. She grows irritated with herself. It shouldn't be a big deal either way. Eventually she'll have to go to the bathroom. Eventually she'll have to leave. If you haven't returned, that's your own fault. She continues to check. She wills herself to concentrate on her own work. Now everything becomes annoying—the way that woman is breathing through her mouth, the tap and then another tap of someone's pen across her teeth, a compulsive throat clearer, a sniff.

She looks up again and sees that you're back. You've come back silently. You mouth
Thanks
at her and then, with a nod of your head, you gesture over to the white-haired guy, the one who's been coughing.

She looks over at the cougher. He's fishing a wrapped cough drop out of a packet, then pushing it, crinkling the paper as he does so, into his mouth.

She stares at you in amazement.
You?
she mouths.

You give a little nod, smile, and shrug your shoulders in a winningly apologetic way as if to say,
What else could I do?
Then you give a little wink, not a lascivious one, just enough to say,
It's been taken care of.

She realizes at this moment that this is what she's been searching for all her life.
It's been taken care of.
Taken care of with humor, taken care of with charm, taken care of with a lightness of touch. She would like to be taken care of.

Maybe you'll oblige.

“I can't believe you did that,” she says. You're both standing on the steps outside the library. Right by the lions, their proud, worn faces impassive and resigned in the late afternoon. You turn to look at her; her hair, her face, are particularly beautiful in the last of the dying sun. “I wanted to kill that guy,” she continues.

You smile. You wonder what she would say if you told her that he'll be dead soon enough.

After all, he's rank with depression.

You don't say anything, though. You just look at her, as if you can see through the beautiful outside to her beautiful inside. No one ever looks at her like that. You smile.

She wonders if you'll ask for her number. She wants you to ask for her number. You don't ask for her number.

“So . . . ?” she says, and tilts her head, hopefully, nervously, unsure.

You tell her that you hope that next time it's quieter, but you confess that you're glad that guy was coughing; otherwise you wouldn't have had a chance to meet.

She's staring up at you in confusion. If you're glad to have met her, why don't you ask her for some way of contacting her? She's wondering if she should ask for your number or an email address, some way of contacting you, but no, she can't, she can't. She's already scanned your hands and found no ring. You must have a girlfriend. The nice guys always have girlfriends. You see a small flash of frustration in her eyes. She's used to men wanting her. You were her knight in shining armor. Why aren't you following through?

“Nice meeting you,” you say and then she has no choice; she must walk away, but before she goes you see the flash again.

You like this flash, this flash of entitled petulance.

Petulance is maroon, it crumbles like stale graham crackers, it smells of carpets stained with apple juice, it sounds like the tap of impatient fingernails, it feels like the scratch of pearls across your teeth, it gives a twist and pinch of salt to the lavender of insecurity.

You hope you get to experience it later.

She walks away quickly down Fifth Avenue, her back straighter than normal, knowing that you're probably watching her, and it's only a minute or so into walking that she relaxes into her normal stance, slowing her pace, her mind going over the events, trying to tell herself that she didn't fail, trying not to blame herself. You were probably a game-playing asshole anyway. Wondering how she failed. Wondering if she'll ever find anybody. She's so intent on not looking back that she doesn't notice when you begin to follow her.

Not hurriedly, but deliberately and with great pleasure.

You interlock your fingers and stretch; you crick your neck from side to side and up and down; a sweet hum rises from your chest, filling your throat; you ease your leather bag farther up over your shoulder before you head off.

It's going to be a wonderful afternoon.

I'm sitting in a bar. It's Tuesday. There is exposed brick and tufted leather. Golds and reds and browns. The bottles are many and soft in color, their pale greens and creams backlit.

I come here on Tuesdays. Wednesdays are reserved for the serious drinkers, Thursdays are the new Fridays, Fridays are the new Saturdays, Saturdays are intolerable, Sundays are sad, and Monday is too far away from Friday.

I sit alone, cradling my Côtes du Rhône. It's not the prettiest wine but it gets the job done. A worker wine.

It's been a long day and things haven't gone well. They haven't gone badly either. That would be dramatic if nothing else, but today things just limped along, starting with a run around seven a.m. It was already sixty-nine degrees and climbing. Then a shower. Listening to the radio as I got dressed. I heard nothing good. The callers calling with unanswerable questions.

What are the police doing to protect us?

My daughter's going to NYU in the fall—should we be worried?

Facing the bleak morning crush as I headed to the office where I'm temping for an administrative assistant currently out on maternity leave. Answering phones, taking messages, and replying to emails while working on a review about a postmodern artist
whose canvases of white triangles I have less than nothing to say about. Lunch was a slightly gritty salad eaten at my desk. I booked three glamorous flights for other people. My friend Leigh called; she's trying to get pregnant and the fertility consultation prices alone are a nightmare. My heart broke for her but I was in an office so my answers were muted. I got an email about my friend Sasha's birthday party next week and finally I left at six p.m., only to face the same stream of people, dogged and determined to get home so they can sit some more on their couches or sit at a restaurant or sit at a bar, which is what I'm doing now and why I realize that there's nothing to look forward to.

Maybe that's adulthood. A slow recognition that time keeps going whether or not we have things to look forward to or things to dread. It's a week with nothing but more of the same ahead. I have a bottle at my place but Andrea's out and there's something about drinking alone at home that raises a red flag. Now I'm still drinking alone but at least I'm surrounded by other people, witnesses, who see that I'm out and alive.

This is my local bar. Sweet Afton, in the heart of Astoria. They have very good-looking bartenders here. What's even better is that they don't really talk, at least not to me. They're amiable and good-looking and they have a heavy hand when it comes to pouring. And that's fine. It's one of those nights when I feel lonely but I don't want to talk to anyone. I'm tired of drinking alone, but the idea of small talk makes me feel weary. Wrung out and strung out and limp at the bar.

I can't help but hear the conversations going on around me.

I know, first time I was like “Thank God I'm poor!”

Mike, the bartender, puts down a glass of whiskey in front of me.

I look up.

“From that guy over there,” says Mike, aiming his head in the corner's direction.

I turn but I can't see the guy he's referring to. I steel myself to be nice, to be grateful, to make conversation, to talk about the invisible boyfriend I have, to explain why I'm drinking alone, to the “yes, this is my local bar,” and the “yes, I'm just thinking,” to the inevitable “yes, it has been a long day,” but I still can't see who sent me the drink. I raise my glass in the general direction and hope that he'll be satisfied with that.

I take a sip and the sip is golden and burning and lovely. It tastes of peat and wood. It tastes expensive.

“Do you like it?” He is next to me.

“David!”

He grins down at me. “You know, Katherine, you just have to stop stalking me. I mean I'm flattered, but no means no, take the hint.”

“Oh, shut up.” I punch him lightly on the arm. “What are you doing in the deepest darkest borough of Queens?”

“My friend heard about this place, heard it had a ridiculous selection of beers. We thought we'd risk it, just this once.”

“My friend,” huh? Male or female?
“Yeah, this is my local.” I give a tired shrug, a little smile. I'm world-weary. I don't care that he's come here with some other woman who might or might not be just a “friend.”

David turns to Mike. “She's a local?”

“Yup.” Mike moves to take another order.

“He's crazy about me,” I tell David.

“Of course.” He is straight-faced. “Who wouldn't be? So how have you been?”

“Can't complain. You?”

“Good, but insane with work. Forgive me for not calling sooner.”

“No worries, my workload has been insane too.” This is a total lie. I desperately need more work. I would kill to have too much work. I'm trying to remember what David does, something to do with technology law, I think. I can never remember that kind of stuff.

“We're actually in the middle of a big project, but we needed a break and so I dragged him here for a drink.”

The friend is a “he.” Thank God.

“Come join us?”

My heart lifts. He wants me to meet his friends already. That's a good sign. Apparently I don't want to drink alone after all. “Really? I don't want to intrude on your male bonding.”

“Male bonding happens on Wednesdays.”

“Well, if you're sure . . .”

“Come on.”

Holding my whiskey carefully, I follow David, shouldering past the growing crowd to the most desirable tables at the back.

“Hey,” he says, “move over, we've got company.”

A dark curly-haired man looks up from his phone.

Oh shit.

“Sael, this is Katherine. Katherine, meet Sael.”

Get up.

“Actually I think we may have met before.” His voice is expressionless, polite, but his pale eyes gleam.

“Oh really, where from?”

Stop.

Sael stares at me, pretending to think about it.

Come here.

Finally, “I think it was Jerry's party.”

“What party?”

“It was one of those shitty ABC, no-clothes things.”

Take off your jeans.

“Hey!” David turns to me. “Is that the costume party you were telling me about on Saturday?”

Take off your clothes.

“Yes.” My voice is weak. I feel very far away, as if floating and looking down at myself from a great height.

Slowly.

David looks horrified. “Jesus, I know Katherine promised a friend she would go, but why the hell where you there?”

“Networking.” He's still staring.

I need to say something. Anything. I need to say something. This is the moment. The moment when I say,
You know, it's the funniest thing.

I try to clear my throat. My mouth is a desert. As if sensing this, Sael partially rises.

“I don't think we met officially,” he says, and offers me a hand.

It's like the thirty pieces of silver. If I take his hand, then the time for telling the truth is over. If I let this moment go by, I'll never be able to tell David.

I take his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Katherine.”

“Nice to meet you, Saul.”

“It's pronounced Sah-El.” His tone is casual and friendly. His eyes are not.

I see David patiently standing, waiting for me to move. “Oh, sorry.” I sit down.

Then, “Shift over,” says David.

I do. “Sael, that's an unusual name.”

Come on, Katherine, nothing like some light conversation.

“I think it might be Latin in origin. It means ‘beyond,' according to the Native Americans.”

“Are you Native American?”

David gives a snort of laughter. “His ancestors were total imperialists, probably responsible for slaying entire tribes.”

Sael shoots him a cold look. “They were originally English. My name is probably the result of my parents' whimsy, otherwise expressed as excessive drinking and a tragic desire to be original.”

David shakes his head. “You're a cheerful little sunbeam, aren't you?” He turns to me. “I'm always telling him, easy on the positive energy.”

They are supremely comfortable with each other. They are friends and they have known each other for years. Still, they are so different. David, peering through round glasses, is warm and engaged like the wisecracking friend in a romantic comedy, while Sael's odd, almost yellow eyes remind me of a predatory cat. He sits quietly enough but I feel that at any moment he could spring. I have yet to hear him laugh, or even crack a genuine smile. After a moment of silence I try again. “So a big project, huh?”

Sael says nothing. Only looks at me while David launches into an explanation. It's something to do with the copyright and legality of systems and apps and launching. I'm trying to listen but—

He is standing in front of me naked, aroused, his face impassive.

“Oh! That reminds me, the weirdest thing happened the other day.”

“Five,” I whisper in his ear.

“Katherine—”

I am jerked back to the present.

“—and I were at a museum and we came across your name. It was on some sort of ancient manuscript. Very pretentious, fairly nauseating.”

Sael shrugs. “De Villias is my family name. There's little I can do about it.”

“Life is hard for the one percent,” agrees David.

The night is endless. I want to leave but there's nowhere to go. David is sitting next to me and I'm trapped. He and Sael do most of the talking, and I take sips of scotch, hoping it will get
easier if I drink enough. The crowd swells, more legs, more jostling, and the volume of the room rises around us. The music is good and cheesy. Hall and Oates warn us about a woman who will only come out at night. I see some people carrying umbrellas in. I don't have one. Well, I'm only two streets away. I'd gladly get soaked if I could slip away now.

“I'll get you another one,” David says.

I look down. I'm gripping an empty glass. I have no recollection of finishing it. David is standing up. “The table service is nonexistent at the moment.”

“Don't worry about it.”
Please don't leave me.

“It will only take a second.”

“No, really,” but he's gone.

Sael de Villias wears a gray T-shirt, a thin black sweater. Jeans. I see that he has a copy of the
New Yorker
with him and what I presume is his phone on top of it. Maybe with any luck he'll ignore me and check out at least one of them. He doesn't. Instead he stares at me.

“So,” he says.

“So,” I say.

“Shall we tell him?”

“Why not?” I'm nonchalant. I'm bluffing.

“Sure?”

I decide I mean it. “Sure.” I don't want him holding anything over me. I'm ready to come clean.

“Hey!” David's back with drinks. “It's ridiculous out there—since when did they let in twelve-year-olds? Also why am I being served by sculpted male models? It's depressing.”

No, I can't do this. I turn to Sael. “Don't.”

Sael narrows his yellow eyes and smiles a little.

“Don't what?” David is carefully putting my drink down.

Sael turns to him. “Katherine didn't want me to tell you—”

“Wait!”
Please God, stop.

“She thought you'd be pissed but—”

“Tell me what?” David scooches back in beside me, looks at his friend.

Sael pauses, looks at me deliberately. “I took care of the tab.”

“What? No!” David is incredulous. “Don't be insane, you only had two drinks. Besides, I have one here for you.”

“You have it.” He uncoils in one easy motion.

“Leaving?” David gives him a searching look. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just have some things I need to take care of. Nice to meet you, Katherine. Maybe we'll run into each other again.”

“That would be cool.”
When hell freezes over.

“Night.” He turns and pushes his way into the throng.

David and I face each other.

“Charming, isn't he?”

“Charming,” I echo, and find that I can laugh after all.

“He probably went to go meet yet another woman. He's a total player, the worst,” but he smiles affectionately as he says this. Then he takes my hand. “Sorry if that was awkward.”

“No worries.”
Holy crap.

“I know he can be a bit strange at times—”

You have no idea.

“—but we've been friends since college. The guy's a genius. He's like a dark Vulcan.”

“That's an amazingly nerdy reference,” I say, but I feel better. A tension has been lifted. Things are easy again and natural. We talk, shouting a little to be heard over the shouts and laughter, and David tells stories and I do and we drink and a bluegrass song plays, and after a time David looks at his watch, is reluctant, but—

“Maybe we should be leaving too. After all, it is a school night.”

I see with a pang that two hours have gone by. “You're right. I wish we didn't have to.” It's true, I like being with him.

“I'll walk you home and protect you from all the bad guys.”