They grew up fatherless in a home where their father lay sleeping in the next room. Locked doors, keyholes stuffed with wrapping, caged around their bed the girl, the boys, they felt free. “I wish my father would die” they exclaimed, too soon for the event, too late for their existence. They were famished, filthy, little sights to see. The girl grew up dwarfed, the boy grew up not knowing love from a man, so turned to men. The other boy became a masochist knowing that his little worth could allow a foreigner the chance to make her residence in America. This is the intro of the blood siblings who grew up fatherless in a home where their father lay sleeping in the next room.

All her life she was grounded and homebound. It wasn’t her fault - she was a first generation American. Her parents immigrated to the states from the Mainland and left their home, their family, their way of life in pursuit of something, something that would make them happy. From Communism they developed American principles. That is why they had to come to America. She believes that what everyone desires is change. A change from the norm. She believes that every person is a rebel. Nobody really wants to live in monotony, the continuous, boring lifestyle that consists of the 9-5, the facade of camaraderie that pervaded the corporate buildings. Perhaps she felt this way because she had begun reading 1984 by George Orwell, or perhaps it was because she had listened to Jake, the Goldman Sach’s employee who groaned, “I’m struggling. I’m struggling,” even while he was lying in bed. The morning commute, the pearly white smiles that would soon be browned, the captivity of the ticking clock - all that terrified her. She didn’t want to be insane. By definition, insanity is reserved to those who lead repetitive lives expecting different results. The 45-year plan meant that people would work day in and day out for years until they became wrinkled and old, with the retirement age always rising, before they retired. Is retirement the paradise that they expect it to be? Why retire at 65 when there’s a chance to retire at 21?

Train rides always gave her time to breathe. Time to remember she was human and relax her eyes from a screen; movie screens, television screens, computer screens - all the images of a history that would never be as real as the scenic urban landscape she viewed from the train window. Those windows were the rectangular screens that she had always loved looking at the most.

The two hour train ride into Jersey City never seemed too long for her because for two hours she would reminisce upon the lazy afternoon brunches she shared with him curled up on the couch. The philosophical conversations, the dreams they shared, the passions each had to offer - everything climaxed to a debate that disturbed the neighbors, but not as loud as when they made love in the evening hours. She loved it.

She loved him.

She had to let him go. She let him find “the one” and prayed that after all his searching she would not be the person who remained in his mind.

Because she loved him in the past. She loved him in a film that was shot months ago. 

And so when the day came that he called her out for the first time in weeks she was surprised. Eager. Humiliated. Depressed. Angry.

She hated him.

“Who does he think he is? He can’t just use me!”

And so for the last time she took the train and met him halfway in the city. She came down from Queens. He came up from New Jersey.

They met at the MOMA where he had waited for her since 4:00 in the afternoon. It was now 7:00. She did not feel guilty. She had spent more hours in her life waiting to see him, to smell him, to hear from him. She had waited to hear him tell her that he loved her but all he ever said was that he did not love her, never loved her.

“Why did you call me out? To cut your hair?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“You have Maks and Nastia to talk to.”

“I know what’s going on in their lives. I want to know how your life is.”

“It’s good. I met someone in Miami. A guy - I really like him. Please tell me you met someone too.”

“You really worry about it.”

“I just don’t want you to feel bad.”

She loved him in a past tense. She loved him when she was a different girl. She loved him when she wanted him, and she no longer wanted him. So she let him go again. And this time she let him walk out of her life. As for trains? To each her own.

She stood in her mother’s bedroom in her pajamas and imagined the moment she would become eighteen. At the moment eight years seemed a long time, partly because that would have been almost her entire existence on Earth. And what now?

January 1, 2012 came to New York and she found herself standing in a sea of people on Times Square watching a flashing television screen and dance crew members shaking on stage. “Come on guys! One-fifth of our lives is gone, four more to go!” she slurs as she raises the Monster can into the air. Her breath smells of an Appletini - served best in a Monster “glass.” Monster cans and Vitamin Water bottles shoot into the air and clink before being downed by four college guys from Singapore who supplied the juice to the city girls. Kudos to Singaporeans.

When she was a little girl she discovered the power of lipstick.

There is a picture of her with a lipstick cylinder in her hand, held as delicately as a paintbrush. The canvas was her face: her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose, her forehead, all told the story of her Pollock moment when the red stroked her. No mirror guided her - she was standing in her garden. Her hand imitated the movements she had watched her mother make in front of the mirror while applying makeup.

She looked ridiculous.

Her mum came rushing out with the Kodak.

And now the picture hangs in her brother’s bedroom. He was sticking bunny ears in the background but it was obvious who stole the show in the photograph.

The Girl With the Red Lipstick grew to eighteen, but where are the cameras now? Don’t worry. She’ll pose while you get your Kodak.