Love Is Red by Sophie Jaff Read Free Book Online Page A

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.

5
    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 artistwhose 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