mallyhanna it's an amalgamation

My nails are red – brand new, painted today by a lovely Asian woman with khakis and surprised eyebrows and a steady hand. She complimented my color choice. She complimented the colors and shapes and sizes of the dresses in the magazine she’d laid in front of me. She showed me the long strings of dead skin she’d pulled from my cuticles.”Woow,” she said, and both of us laughed.

Red is the color of the coat of the girl I met yesterday on the train. She, Wendy, I later learned, was in the seat in front of me, and neither of us had given a thought to the other’s existence until the train decided to stop.

And start.

And stop.

And start.

And go back to where we’d come from and stop again.

The experience of being thirty minutes behind in our lives brought Wendy and me together in conversation. Wendy had beautiful long hair and nail-straight posture, and then she told me she was in high school. Here I was imagining I’d met a new friend and wondering what startup she must work at, and the girl hasn’t even decided on colleges yet.

But that’s not the thing. The thing was that I’m pretty sure Wendy was about ten times more mature than I. While I worried about the next lull in the conversation (as I do) and wondering if I should turn back to my book, (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao), Wendy continued eye contact and nodded and listened and spoke with such elegance and kind humor about the earthquake drills at her high school and her older sister’s days at CalTech and, as I was leaving, wishing me good luck on the book I’m supposed to write.

Red was the color of the sauce that was mixed with our chicken and potatoes at lunch. We cater on Friday’s, and today is Friday. Therefore the transitive property. During lunch I sat next to our new COO and across from Jenny (who was wearing a red sweatshirt) and we talked about the silliness of Twilight and whether or not we should kill the mouse that’s invaded the office.

But the entire time, in the BACK parts of my mind, were questions about the boy and his unusual silence and why he hadn’t responded to my last chat. And I had that nauseous feeling, which made the rice extra satiating.

And later, between the red sauce and the red nails, I learned and decided and remembered that there was nothing to worry about with the boy after all. But it’s always a bit irritating to the self that I can’t remember to remember to begin with.

Next time though. Next time maybe I can just remember to think about the beauty of all things red.