Her Lips, Irina Tall Novikova, 2023. Ink, gel pen, collage, cardboard, colored paper. 40 x 30 cm.
Say Red
Jessica Klimesh
I ask Ellee what her favorite color is, and she says yellow.
“No,” I say, “say red.”
Ellee has yellow hair and likes to ride the school bus because it’s yellow. She likes my family’s yellow Ford Pinto that my mom calls Sunshine. And she likes summer and dandelions and bananas and corn. Anything yellow.
“My hair is blonde,” Ellee says, giggling, “not yellow.” But when I draw her face and color in her hair using my Mr. Sketch scented markers, I use yellow.
“Your hair is yellow,” I tell her, “and your favorite color is red.”
I ask Ellee what her favorite color is, and she says yellow.
“No,” I say, “say red.”
Ellee is the color yellow and I am the color red because my favorite color is red and hers is yellow, but I want us to have the same favorite color because we’re best friends and that’s what best friends do. My hair is red, and I like strawberries and apples and want to paint my nails and lips and cheeks red, but my mom says I’m not old enough yet.
“Your hair isn’t red,” Ellee says, “it’s brown.”
“I have red highlights,” I say. “My mom said so.”
I ask Ellee what her favorite color is, and she still says yellow.
“No,” I say, this time with a glare, “say red.”
But Ellee is in love with yellow, wants to marry it someday, and then she and yellow will live on a yellow street in a yellow town, and their house will be yellow with yellow doors and yellow shingles and everything. She and the color yellow will raise yellow chickens and have a golden Labrador retriever.
“And you can have a red house across the street,” she says.
But I want her to live on my street instead. A red street in a red town.
I ask Ellee what her favorite color is, and she says yellow.
“No,” I say, stomping my foot, “say red.”
When we color, she draws a yellow sun in the sky and makes yellow clouds and yellow trees.
I draw everything red.
When Ellee is older, she will paint in yellow. Like Picasso’s blue period, but yellow. And she will dance in yellow toe shoes. She will plié in yellow and pirouette in yellow. She will wear a yellow bikini with white polka dots, and when she’s even older she will wear yellow panties, with just a little lace around the edges, and she will invite men to touch the lace of her yellow panties but nothing else. And she’ll never tell them her name, will only say her favorite color is yellow.
I ask Ellee what her favorite color is, and she still insists it’s yellow.
“No,” I say for the bazillionth time, “say red.”
I pick my scabs until they bleed because blood is red, and when I’m older, I’ll buy a red dress that’s too tight and too short, and red heels that are too tall. And when I’m even older than that, I’ll have somewhere to wear the dress and shoes—the theatre, a wedding, a dinner party—but I won’t actually go. I’ll just stroke the dress on its hanger and stare at the shoes in my closet, because I’ll only go outside at sunset, at the exact moment that the sun is a red ball of fire, radiant and hot. And Ellee will only go outside when the sun is a lustrous yellow, beaming down in smiles.
I ask Ellee what her favorite color is, and this time she hesitates.
“Say red,” I say in a hoarse whisper, prodding her on. But she won’t say it because red isn’t her favorite color and she doesn’t want to lie just to please someone, even if it’s her best friend. And she likes yellow. She watches warily as I use my red Mr. Sketch scented marker to color my nails and lips and cheeks.
This time, instead of saying that her favorite color is yellow, she says that red and yellow make orange. “Maybe that could be our favorite color together?”
But neither of us likes orange.
Jessica Klimesh (she/her) is a US-based writer and editor whose creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Frog, Cleaver, Atticus Review, trampset, Brink, and Whale Road Review, among others. She is currently working on a collection of linked flash stories. Learn more at jessicaklimesh.com.