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{the color of spring} rachel marston The small man, who lived across the hall, practiced Tai Chi in the elevator every morning at nine. She pushed past him on her way to work. She had stopped saying excuse me two weeks earlier. “Ground floor,” she said. John reached around Mr. Wong and closed the door. He paused for a moment. “Off to work?” he asked. She looked up from her Tribune. She wore a blue scarf knotted at the hollow of her neck. It reminded him of spring. He wanted to touch her. If he could just reach around the shiny belly of Mr. Wong, he could almost touch her. “Yes,” she said. She folded her newspaper and tucked it under her arm. “Ground floor,” he said. She gave him a smile from the corner of her mouth. Her lipstick was a pale shade of pink called Summer Rose. He found it that night at the Esteé Lauder counter. He wondered if she wore the same shade when she went out at night. He never saw her at night. He only worked mornings, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. He didn’t want her to wear Summer Rose at night. He pictured her wearing a dark red, something called Crimson Dusk, a color that would be a vivid slash across her pale face. He saw it when he found the Summer Rose. She picked up her leather carrying case and stepped out of the elevator. “Have a good day,” he said. She walked to the door and nodded. She didn’t look back. She answered phones for a living. She sat at a laminate particleboard counter top, with an earpiece tucked around her ear, answering phones. She said “Hello. Thank you for calling Nordstrom Salt Lake.” She said that hundreds of times every day, some days hundreds of times an hour. The phones automatically answered the calls. There was no time, just a quick three-tone beep in her ear. Suddenly they were there, the employees and the customers, hurried or anxious or rude, needing to find the department that sold women’s clothes, needing to call their customers, needing to complain. They always needed something. She sat at the counter, alone in the tiny room, and stared at the yellowed wall. She saw her reflection in the dark computer screen, reach up and pulled off her scarf. Her eyes scraped against her contacts, blinking away the dryness, but the dryness remained. The television in the break room broadcast sounds of a basketball game that surrounded and overwhelmed her. The phones kept ringing. All she wanted was silence, just for a minute or two, but the voice of the announcer filled the hallway and the room and the phone rang and rang. “I need cosmetics.” “Give me the shoe department.” “Call this customer.” “ I have a return.” “I need to speak to the manager.” “I’ve been holding forever.” “Can you page…” Nothing that mattered at all. The lights bore down upon her, heat lamps, keeping her half-awake, her sullen mind warm and juicy. She laid her head on the counter, and pretended to listen to the woman on the phone. She imagined the woman’s face, floating disjointed in front of her dry tired eyes. The woman would have lipstick stuck to her teeth, waxy bits of red that fluttered every time she spoke. “I need the young man who helped me the last time,” the woman said. “He picked such lovely colors.” “Which department?” she asked. “His name was James. He had dark hair.” “I’ll transfer you.” She pressed the release button. She looked at her watch. She adjusted her skirt. She pictured the woman sitting, shocked at being disconnected and the little red flags of lipstick waving in the breeze of her indignant breath. John waited in the foyer on Thursday morning. He stood behind the potted palm that was planted in a gold bucket. He touched the black tube that was in his pocket, sleek and smooth. He waited for her to step out of the elevator and through the door. She was wearing a yellow cardigan over a cream dress. He scratched his thumb. She paused at the mailbox. He stepped forward. “Hello,” he said. “Hello,” she said. She put her keys in her bag. “I didn’t think you worked today. Today is Thursday, right?” She pulled at the ends of her hair, then at her sweater, and then held onto the strap of her bag. He wanted to stop her hands, always moving. “I,” he said. “I needed to get something. My paycheck. It is Thursday. I don’t usually work on Thursdays. You’re right about that.” She watched him. He couldn’t stop talking. He wanted to stop talking. “But today, you know, even though it is Thursday, I came by. I came here.” “For your paycheck,” she said. She looked at her watch. “Yes,” he said. She looked at her watch again. “I’ll be late.” She smiled at him, those pink lips parting, showing just a tiny bit of teeth. “Take care,” she said. “Tomorrow will be different,” he said. He rushed for the elevator and squeezed in next to Mr. Wong. Mr. Wong stretched his arms to the sky and the elevator doors closed. She returned from work and tripped on a tube of lipstick as she opened her door. She kicked it out of the way. It rolled across the carpet and settled against the elevator door, a lonely tube of Crimson Rose. She stepped into the still, cool, silence of her apartment. “Hello,” she said, “Hello.” She cleared her throat. She instinctively spoke, but now there was no one there to answer. She ate nothing that night but green beans and a glass of milk. She sat on her couch and watched the lights of the passing cars streak past her balcony. At ten o’clock, she turned off the lights and went to bed. On Saturday, she stepped into the elevator. She wore red boots to celebrate spring. John stepped aside. Mr. Wong stood between them. “Ground floor,” she said. She was still wearing the Summer Rose. He pushed the buttons and didn’t look at her. “Ground floor,” he said and the doors closed between them. She walked up and down the sidewalks of Liberty Park. She liked the sound her boots made when they hit the concrete. They were firm, loud, and companionable. She frowned as she walked, but no one saw her. The people played with their children and with each other. They ran and biked and walked their dogs. No one noticed her red boots. John searched for the perfect combination of flowers. He knew that only certain flowers could speak to her. But still he wrote her careful notes placed each note in his breast coat pocket. The flowers sat outside her door Friday evening. There were daisies and snapdragons, but no card. She set them on the table in the entryway. Talk to me, they said. “What would you do if they cut out your tongue?” she asked the flowers. They stared at her, inviting and unrevealing. “But you don’t have tongues,” she said. Her doorbell rang twice. A quick ring and then a longer one. She looked through the peephole. The delivery guy stood in the hallway. “Take out,” he said. He was wearing a red t-shirt with a flaming dragon flying across his chest. He handed over the weighted plastic bag with green receipt. “Twelve-fifty,” he said. “My wallet,” she said, waving her hand toward the back of the apartment. “Come in.” He stood in the entryway, shifting from foot to foot and scratching at a scab on his hand. She dug through her wallet. She handed him fifteen and then waited. He fumbled in his pockets for change, looking worried. She watched his fingers pull out dollar bills. “Don’t worry about the change,” she said. He shoved the money into his front pocket and turned toward the door. “Wait,” she said. She walked to the door and stood between him and the hallway. He kept his hand on the door. “What?” he said. She reached over and smoothed his hair. “Do you want to stay?” she asked. She reached for his hand. He just looked at her and then he walked away. “Do you like my boots?” she asked. He didn’t wait for the elevator, just straight down the stairs, not looking back. John picked up an extra shift that Saturday night. He kept the elevator at her floor, just in case. When his replacement arrived, he slipped up the side staircase and watched her door. He touched the notes he wrote and whispered her name, not her real name, but the one he thought she should have. He wondered what she would be wearing. He knocked at the door, softly. He knocked again. She never answered. She knew that it was him. He knew that she knew it was him. She hated the flowers that he sent. She hated the flowers and she hated him. He thought he could hear her on the other side of the door. He grabbed the notes from his pocket and flung them at her door. The elevator opened and there was Mr. Wong, arms extended out in what seemed a gesture of welcome. He turned toward Mr. Wong as the notes fell, dedication to last a lifetime manifested in purple ink on blue paper, blue the color of spring. |
