First there was yellow. Yellow jasper. Topaz. 18k gold band her father wore on his left hand. The yellow walls her mother painted while she was pregnant but didn’t know yet. Is it too girly? Second trimester and all she had were girl names. They put mustard on everything and ate yellow potatoes with cheese. Old movies about the gold rush. Hurricane Florence in Pensacola. The water damage ripped cracks in the yellow ceiling. Yellow diamond engagement ring on her mother’s neck. Rise of malaria. Children with yellow eyes and she cried for days. Bottles of chardonnay in her father’s office. Spring night, golden sky—supermoon. Her mother in the backseat of their Fleetwood Cadillac screaming. Yellow goo in the IV drip. Drowsy. Determined. Push, push, push! Like in the movies. Eyes open, entry to the world. Jaundice. Her father’s first words: “What’s wrong with my daughter?”
And so she was. Natasha.
It didn’t happen all at once, of course. There were yellow booties to match the walls. Furry duck toy and she laughed and laughed and laughed. “Yellow Submarine” on the radio; orange graffiti when the wall fell in Germany. “That city could use a little color,” her grandmother said while they watched the news. Orange sunsets her mother would number in her journals. July. August. September. Walks without Natasha. Her mother only ate tangerines at first, and when Natasha wouldn’t latch on she cried. They ate apples–pink ladies. She hated sweet potato purée. Foot caught on the orange shower curtain, head bleeding in the emergency room. Bruises in yellow, blue, green. Yellowjacket bites. “You’ll be fine.” Orange hat her father wore the night he left. Last hug, yellow lint in the sofa.
That. Fucking. Blue. Sweater. In every photo until she gained weight. B- for using blue ink. Natasha in blue eyeliner, protesting to the principal. Detention. “Parents’ signature here” stamped in red. “That joke was blue,” her mother whispered, laughing on the phone. When Natasha came home with blue hair – MANIC PANIC – and a nose ring her mother slapped her. Pink cheek. She was blue but seeing red. First kiss with Nancy, blue uniforms touching. Her mother, sweating, in 501’s. Door slammed, out of breath. “We’re leaving.” Boxes in the trunk of the Toyota Corolla Azure her mother sold when they got to the city. Their neighbor played “Purple Rain” every morning. Blue stripes on the city bus. Blue Man Group in Union Square. Public school, plastic chairs. First test. “Sorry kid,” when Natasha’s teacher handed her a blue pen. She wore it down to a dry ballpoint. A+. Navy graduation cap. Tears. Most Likely to Get Married First.
Crimson lipstick in Paris. Trés jolie, mademoiselle. Natasha put it on every morning, blotted on a napkin before leaving the house. Louboutin boots. Little notes in red pen from her professor. “He wants to sleep with you,” her mother said. First apartment on Carmine St. Studio, 500 sq feet. She painted an accent wall—barn red. Low-neck poppy red dress with a drop waist sliding off her hips. Just two formations shy of a red belt. Taekwondo. Her first serious relationship was with a redhead who played the trumpet. Smeared lipstick after last call at Red Room. Heartbreak. Lingerie, Malbec, Marlboro Reds. Walking circles through the kitchen and crying. “Red Right Hand,” Nick Cave. Blood pouring through Natasha’s pants on the way to the hospital. Red robes. Tibetan monks. Dalai Lama in Central Park. What do you want out of life, Natasha? Red light therapy in Oslo. Roses. Return of the ex. “Where did we go wrong?” Red velvet cake after the hysterectomy. Infrared panel in her bedroom, but she still couldn’t sleep. Weekly manicure, new color—Fire—when her phone rang. Nail polish still wet on the train home.
French manicure in Pensacola. Natasha wiped her black dress clean after setting down a flower. Yellow carnation. She started over.
The leaves hadn’t turned color when Natasha reached what her therapist called the autumn of her life. Her window garden persisted. Basil, parsley, thyme. She repainted the accent wall. Duck green. Quack, quack. Hunter green armchair against the opposite wall. Such style! She still sat on the floor Criss-Cross-Apple-Sauce when her friends were over. Emerald necklace in the family vault after her mother passed. Natasha wore it on Sundays. Running circles around a Doberman, her pup saved her from spinsterhood. Leashes caught. Lucky and Tourmaline in a scuffle, amidst the chaos there was Robert with green mittens, hazel eyes. Words immortalized in the winter breath she could still see years later. Laughter. Love that arrived almost too late. Spring courtship in Washington Square Park. “Green Eyes,” Erykah Badu. Barefoot on the stoop, they were crazy! He leaned Natasha against the railing. Chipped green paint and when it squeaked while they were kissing they screamed. She chose the venue, the flowers, the dress. Middle-aged bride in a green gown. They could make love in it before the ceremony on the condition that he try it on and so there they were that morning. Robert’s arms trapped in her dress. Naked. Laughing. Natasha Greene, now her maiden name.
Time is different in color–Natasha learned this on LSD many years ago. Decades were sewn into sections of her closet, color-coordinated, and whittled down to essentials. Marie Kondo, beige. The colors she lost were replaced by new bodily attractions – pink skin tag, brown melanoma, scars, the pale blue varicose spread out like a constellation that a friend’s son touched. “Are you sick?” “No,” Natasha said, “I have superpowers, bzzzz!” Before finding her glasses every morning, Natasha looked at her apartment through the bedroom door. A hodgepodge of furniture she and Robert had acquired before they met, her living room was a swirl of color. Her favorite night dress was blue, pink, and purple. After Robert passed, she bought a rainbow suitcase so she wouldn’t get a headache while waiting for her checked luggage. Naples. Santa Fe. Zanzibar. The cities Robert hadn’t been interested in visiting. Natasha wanted to know what color was at the edge of the world, but at night it was always the same. Stars, planes, and satellites.