Little Red. People laughed when she told them her name. They should have been laughing at her parents for the lack of creativity, but that would have been disrespectful. Little Red, Lucky Red. So when the runner-writer boy asked her name, all she said was Red. Red did not mean lucky here.
“I’m George,” he said, all polite.
“George.” She said the name clumsily, the rge coming down too hard on her tongue. She noted the error but did not bother to correct herself. “What are you really good at?” It sounded like What are you really GOOD AT? in a dim voice, as if she had to be harsh within the realm of her calm little voice. He shrugged. “I know,” she said. She stared at him and twisted a small piece of his skin and after class ended, she bought him a sundae, which he accepted without an explanation.
They were not attractive together: he too thin and moony pale even against her apricot skin and sticky limbs. They formed an ugly, unnatural shaped clump when they walked, like a slug with two brains. But it had ceased to matter. After class each day they walked down the stairs in silence and then one day Little Red had tapped his arm and beckoned towards the trains instead of the buses he usually boarded to take home. All right. It was an ego-boost desire that made him agree. Someone desired an adventure flavored by his presence. Fine. He would go, gracious as one accustomed to doing such favors.
He actually felt terrified, as if being drenched in a toxic cream. All of the things happening curled around him in delicious, purple waves. He did not feel drawn to Little Red other than there was no other thing to attract his attention and that made her immensely desirable when nothing was the option.
“Where will we go?” he asked, and she raised her brows at such a question. The passengers boarded, swaddled in suits and silk scarves and New York, he thought, the answer obvious, where else but New York? The train began to pick up speed and George began to remember an article he had read somewhere about how train rides were impossible places without time and sense.
“You do not think you are good at writing,” Little Red said. She said everything with no explanation, the storyteller of her own Holy Book.
“I am chicken-like. I am good as chickens raised for eating are good at being chickens,” George said, hoping to sound clever, but Little Red stared back at him vacantly.
“What did you mean by you are good at being bad?” he asked. Little Red shook her head.
“I meant I like to try. To displease. That is not bad to you, that is bad to me,” she said. She beckoned towards her girly dress. “Like this. Lots of yelling over this.” She stared out the window. George thought faintly the word stupid but then caught himself, remember the writing class.
