Read Love Is Red for Free Online

Raspberry, Cranberry Blueberry, Cranberry Apple, Cranberry Cherry, Cranberry Strawberry, Cranberry Tangerine, Cranberry Pomegranate Cherry, White Cranberry, Cranberry Lemonade, Cranberry Grape, White Grape, Grape, Mango, Mango Passion, Mango Papaya, Mango Carrot, Mango Orange, Orange, Orange Carrot, Orange Tangerine, Orange Strawberry, Strawberry Kiwi, Strawberry Banana, Strawberry Banana Orange, White Peach, Lemonade, Passion Fruit, Passion of Christ, Fruit Punch, Guava, Pineapple Ginger, Pineapple Guava, Pineapple Coconut, Pomegranate, Tamarind, Pink Grapefruit, Sorrel Ginger, Pear, Blackberry, Raspberry, Cherry, Ruby Pink, Ruby Red, Ruby White, Blueberry Pomegranate, Amen.
    Choice is a wonderful thing.
    The day you met, the third girl had wanted to say something to you but she had been shy. She wanted to say something to you, but she didn’t. So you started talking to her, by the cheese counter. You picked up a piece of Brie and remarked on the price. The third girl could take or leave Brie but she was happy to start a conversation. She also liked the way that, although you raised an eyebrow at the price, you still put it into the red basket that you were carrying with you. You aren’t rotten, like the “outside” fruit from the greengrocer’s the third girl is sometimes forced to purchase; you have money but you are still aware of prices. She liked the fact that you gave a smile and said, “A necessary luxury?”
    You phrased it as if it were a question, as if you wanted herpermission, as if, although she was a stranger, her good opinion was somehow important to you. She paused and you started putting the cheese back with a look of dismay and this made her laugh at your expression and your slow-motion placement of the cheese.
    â€œYou took too long,” you had told the third girl, “so it’s an un necessary luxury,” and she said, “Sorry,” but clearly she was not sorry; clearly she was happy. She was happy that you were talking and happy that it was a Thursday with no classes tomorrow and happy because there was an eighties song playing that she loves. The third girl gravitated toward songs in which the verse moves from the initial minor chord to an augmented fourth, then to a sixth, then a seventh, and back to one. She liked her choruses a little more predictable, though, with the chords moving from a first to a fourth, a fifth, and back to one.
    She didn’t know this, however. She just knew that she loved this song. You confided to her that you love this music but that you thought it was a plot to make you buy things. She stared at you amazed because she was just thinking that, and this made her happy too.
    That day the third girl was filled with hope, which is pale green and smells like new buds and tulip shoots and pencil erasers. Hope sparkles like champagne. It rings out like the first chord that the small live band plays at an outdoor wedding.
    Hope is a cool green swallow. It is delicious.
    If this were a different type of grocery store then there might be a variety of tabloids, like the New York Post or the National Enquirer , at the front near the cashiers. The majority of people who shop here might ostensibly look down on these papers, but secretly they’d want to read them. Paging through them is easy and comfortable and doesn’t require much thought, like gliding.
    These papers will be the first to break the news of this girl’s death. She will make the front page and also be given a generous two-page interior spread. It makes a change from the baseball games, and neither the politicians nor the celebrities are acting up, and most importantly, she is the third. Accompanying the two lovely, if somewhat blurry, pictures of her graduating from college, and another of her at a party, will be the description of her murder. Half a column will be dedicated to how the dead girl was only discovered after the better part of a week. It’s easy to