I didn’t wear red for Valentine’s Day, because I don’t own any red clothing suitable for a windy February weekday. Red is a color I should avoid, I was told once. With my ruddy-undertoned pale complexion, I best stick to cool colors – blue, green, maybe a bit of magenta or pink. Even if I had red clothing, I would not have worn it, for fear of looking festive. I am a career girl, to be taken seriously. I put on a green sweater, gray slacks, gray coat, and sprinkled myself with my sexiest perfume, Nina Ricci’s Premier Jour.
All day, my eye caught bits of red: The scarlet blouse of a gorgeous Asian lady in the restroom. The crimson tie of the security guard by the elevators. Clashing patterns of red-themed plaid on a bike messenger wearing a persimmon cap. A beaten candy-red windbreaker that is too thin for the frigid weather on an obese woman who I stride past on the sidewalk.
I read once that primitive instinct drives women to wear the color red to advertise their fertility when they are ovulating. This is simultaneously full and devoid of romance, for it affirms red’s stature as the most amorous color but reminds us that our modern-day notions of love evolved from the fancies of lusty cavemen.
On the train I sit across from a blond woman in a red beret, with red tights peaking out from under a red felt coat and red knee-high leather boots. She reads her Metro newspaper with a small smile, perhaps enjoying the bit of attention that her garish ensemble has garnished. I sneak peaks at her, thinking she is festive, she is fertile, and she is ruddy.
