The Precise Shade of Blood-Redd

Enjoy.

And Beware.

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Rowann Redd was really not that kind of girl.

Sure, she was a girl. But it was always the really good ones or the really bad ones. The virtuous clean goody-two-shoes (What an awful freak accident!) or the boys and girls slinking unseen on dirty street corners with this week’s special, you know? Because for them it’s always I’m not surprised. Or, they had it coming. Which is worse?

But Ro Redd was just not that kind of girl.

She was un-curably clumsy and a little scatterbrained. She played hooky occasionally to get out of Sunday morning service. A lot of times, Ro forgot to do the dishes.  She snuck out once, but it turned out that she had the wrong date. She learned her lesson in the empty parking lot of the abandoned Drive-Thru. You know, that kind of thing scars a girl. Which is why this shocked Ro, shocked Ro just as much as anyone else.

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“RO! Oh my holy guacamole what did you do to your hair?”

“I cut it, you like?” Ro ran her fingers through her brutal sharp new do.

“I love it! It’s explosive! Before you looked like a cherry smoothie and now you’re a–”

“Cherry bomb,” interjected Mina sarcastically. As usual, she looked bored as she hacked away on her bright green gum.

“Chuck me one of those RedBull gums, will you, Mina?” asked Lizzie, hyper as always.

“No. So, Ro! Going for the hooded look, are you?” Mina asked Ro, brushing her straightened dark hair behind her ears.  Rowann squared her shoulders defensively.

“I didn’t really mean for anybody to notice it…”

“Well,” said Mina, “people are gonna notice when you show up to school looking like frickin’ little red riding hood!”

Rowann tried to laugh. It didn’t really work, especially because she felt insanely dizzy all of a sudden, and a streak of something red seemed to pass her vision.

“Are you okay, Ro?” asked Lizzie, bouncing around to look at Rowann.

“Fine,” she lied.

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Have I told you already? Rowann Redd was not that kind of girl. Her grandmother was, though. She still believed in fairytales. Rowena Redd was the woman who forced her daughter and granddaughter to keep their maiden names, knock on wood, throw salt in their hair or wherever it’s supposed to be. Seriously! I know. Her grandmother was the kind of woman who wanted to get stuck in Oz or Wherever the Wild Things Actually Are. But Rowann was not, and Rowann didn’t love hanging out with her grandma. That was always when things got weird.

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“Ro!”

“What, mom?” Rowann snapped her gum and screamed into the house, “I’m seriously busy right now!”

“Doing what? Chatting with your non-existent boyfriend? Get your cute little butt down here, Rowann Redd!”

Yup. Rowann didn’t have a boyfriend, and her mom enjoyed pointing it out. Ro groaned and swung her legs off her bed, because she knew that when her mom brought out the boyfriend and the butt in the same sentence, she meant business. Rowann stomped out the room, slamming her door behind her, hearing the letters on the front click and clack around.

Property of Rowann Redd, Stay Out.

“Rowann,” her mom said seriously.  She was business as always, because Alicia Redd never missed a beat, even after her husband died. She was just business as usual.

“Yes, Mom. I am very busy,” Rowann tried to appeal to her mom’s better nature.

“This is very important.” No go. Rowann listened, a little apprehensively. “Ro, I need you to deliver this to your grandmother,” her mother handed her an envelope, and Ro recoiled at the words on the front.

“Her will?!” Rowann barked at her mom, feeling tears spring to her eyes. “Great, mom! Great plan! Okay, let’s not tell Ro that her grandmother is going to die soon until the very last moment! What does she have, mom? What kind of cancer? What kind of storybook illness does she have now?” She huffed loudly. “Fantastic plan. Well, no can do. I gotta spend time in my room trying to find a boyfriend.” Her voice dripped sarcasm, but she quickly wiped away the single tear blooming in her left eye.

Rowann’s mom looked solemn.

“Well, nothing’s diagnosed,” she paused, as though to let Rowann have another outburst. When Rowann stayed silent, she continued, “but she went to her doctor with an odd complaint. She said…well, she said that she felt dizzy–” here, Rowann’s mom laughed strangely, “and she said, she said that she saw a streak of red and heard some stupid thing about reds being in danger…”

Rowann was feeling very strange, all of a sudden.

“I don’t know what kind of crazy notion that is, but–”

“It’s fine, mom, I’ll deliver the forms.”

“Really? Thank you, Rowann.”  Rowann felt awfully winded knowing that she and her grandmother were experiencing the same delusions, if that’s what they were.

Rowann didn’t know. She just grabbed the will, grabbed the forms. Left, as fast as her feet could carry her.

“Wait!” Alicia Redd’s commanding voice halted Rowann in her tracks. “Here, take my metro card. Take the subway, I don’t want you walking on some of those streets in Harlem.” Rowann clutched the cold plastic and left, white sneakers clicking on the sidewalk.

New York could hardly be described as magical.  Times Square at Midnight isn’t the only place in all of New York, and Rowann knew that while Broadway could be a pretty sight, the rest wasn’t always.  Rowann thought all this while pulling her foot out of a disgustingly large glob of gum on the sidewalk.  She ran to the nearest grimy, disgusting subway station and plodded down the stairs, knowing the train that she needed to take. With a mounting sense of hurriedness, she swiped the metro card and ran through the steps and dank hallways. She rushed up to a halt and was met with the beautiful streaking lights and busting sound of a clacking and rushing passing train.

“Oh, damn!”

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This is where it turns bad. This is where some readers go, “No, Rowann, don’t!” And some go, “I knew it would go this way,” and some just go, “She is that kind of girl!” But maybe you don’t know Rowann the way I do. Maybe you should just let the story go on, and hope with your fingers crossed for a happy ending.

No promises. But I’ll tell you, Rowann Redd was never that  kind of girl.

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“ ‘Scuse me, miss!”

The voice was distinctly polite and distinctly British. Rowann jumped around, knowing it was not a New Yorker.

“Miss, what’s the way to…” the man approached Rowann and, with an unusually long finger, stabbed a point on a map, “here.”

“But-but that’s!” Rowann felt herself babbling, “that’s my grandmother’s house, um, Gramma Redd, um, I mean, um, no I’m just–”

“That’s quite all right, Miss.” The man turned his eyes, which Rowann realized were ugly and yellow, to Rowann’s face. Then he smiled, and Rowann’s heart seized in unruly fright.

His teeth were yellow as the sun, pointed and bared. His wolfish grin closed as he spun on his heel and ran.

Rowann’s heart was pounding, and she clutched the will more tightly than ever in her hand. Would she need it sooner than before long?

She didn’t know.

Maybe.

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