Every night at midnight, Red watches the purple clouds dance across the Parisian sky. Once, their movements soothed her; now, they remind her of everything she’s lost: her art, her faith, and the quiet connection she once shared with her wife, Marisol.
When Marisol insists on a lunch date with old friends at a trendy new restaurant called the Raving Bull, Red reluctantly agrees. But what begins as a simple outing becomes something strange and transformative, a surreal encounter that forces both women to confront the distance between them. As illusion and emotion blur, they find the truth of love might lie not in perfection, but in rediscovering the green light that first brought them together.
Can Red and Marisol find their way back to each other before the color fades for good?
Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.
Red had been having trouble sleeping. This was a problem as she felt that her habit of going on the roof at midnight to see the night sky -- to see that there was something floating in the air that seemed oddly familiar to the Northern lights, soothed her as closely as it unnerved her. She tried to have poetic thoughts of the strange feeling that the dark purple clouds dancing gave her, to no avail. She felt something was coming, as sobering as it was.
As the early morning dawn hit, she switched the lighter curtains to darker ones to blot out the harsh light from their bay window in the kitchen as it looked green. It was green from the trees, she suspected. Summer was just beginning, and Red hated summer.
She started to put water in the kettle for Marisol, putting it on the stove, setting it to high. She liked the light in the morning -- it felt raw, honey toned at times in their small space in Paris, and now, it was green -- her favorite color. Green meant many things to her.
Christmas. Her father stringing up lights. Her mother making endless types of pumpkin and apple pies and homemade sugar cookies with real buttercream icing on top. The green tree in the living room with all the tinsel and ornaments, shining like a beacon of magical, beautiful, luminous light.
They didn’t celebrate Christmas, Marisol and her. Marisol was raised in a strict Jewish household. To eat pork was shameful.
Green also meant Marisol. She had deep, gorgeous, shiny green eyes. Red loved her eyes; so expressive and always laughing. She would sing in Hebrew to her whenever they cooked together, and Red would play with Marisol’s dark curls as she cut up the garlic.
“Don’t get my hair garlicky, libling!” Marisol would laugh.
Red would only laugh along with her, kissing her cheek.
Recently, Marisol had been receiving calls from her friend Marcel. He had been requesting a dinner or lunch date between all four of them. Marcel had a wife named Madeleine who was five years his senior.
“Marcel is your old colleague, oui?” Red asked.
“Marcel is an old friend. He wants us to check out this new place. Intimate space with small plates. We will go this Saturday for lunch.”
“What is it called?”
“The Raving Bull.”
“I don’t particularly care for those type of places, baby. It’s too ... trendy!”
Marisol got up and went over to Red in the bathroom. “I know, mi amour, but let’s go just this once. Please?”
