Section 1

August 23, 1956.

Mrs. Johnson gasped as she threw open the door. 

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “It’s so modern!” her eyes dragged across the room, her pitch-colored handbag swinging from her elbow. “Darling look, the kitchen is so… red.” Mrs. Johnson spun on her heel with a pink-lipped grin, turning to her husband and pointing at the cherry kitchenette that was nestled into the corner of the apartment. Mr. Johnson’s eyes widened as he saw that the kitchen was indeed, as described, quite red.

With laminated checker floors and both the oven and the refrigerator in a highly saturated crimson, the kitchen followed the current trend of bright and joyous colors where family was involved.

“Yes dear, lovely,” he responded.

“Indeed, the color is ‘Marilyn in Red’ and it wonderfully complements the cabinets, don’t you think Mrs. Johnson?” The realtor took off towards the kitchenette, Mrs. Johnson trailing behind.

“Oh I just adore it.” she twittered.

Mr. Johnson sighed as he trudged over to where the realtor was talking about the benefits of an apartment in the city, and how popular the atomic and space-age themes were becoming in family homes. He began to pluck at one of the little plastic buttons on his polo shirt.

He looked around at the vibrantly decorated apartment with slight trepidation. Why did everything have to be so gaudy? For God’s sake, there were only five rooms in the whole place and yet every color of the rainbow was represented. The office space was a small carpeted square drenched in oranges, while the bathrooms resembled a verdant meadow. The living room was by far the most tolerable with a leisurely mix of beiges and light blues with silver tones. It reminded Mr. Johnson of a few waiting rooms he had been in when doing job interviews or bank visits.

The realtor swiveled to try and include Mr. Johnson in the conversation he was having with Mrs. Johnson. 

“As I was saying, the apartment comes fully furnished, so there’s nothing to worry about in that regard. Say, have I told you two about the electroplated chrome chairs that we’ve had recently brought into this apartment?” he gave a nervous smile, and began rambling about the novelty that is green electroplated chrome chairs.

Mrs. Johnson beamed at her husband with a grin that said We are going to live here and you know it.

March 11, 1958

Not much had changed since the Johnsons moved in, the kitchen was still “Marilyn in Red”, the office was still orange, and Mr. Johnson still thought it was relatively ridiculous (though this particular apartment had grown on him quite a bit, not that he would ever admit that out loud). However, the occasional photo or letter had been framed, and a slightly surprising number of snow globes were littered around each room. Also, a small grey Scottish Fold had come to inhabit the apartment as well.

Mrs. Johnson’s recently purchased gramophone projected the lyrics of “All I Have to do is Dream” throughout the apartment as she swayed and hummed around her kitchen. Supposedly she was cooking, but it would be a stretch to call the resulting concoction “food.” 

When I want you, in my arms

When I want you, and all your charms

When Mr. Johnson opened the door into the small entryway of the apartment, he was greeted by a hazy layer of steam, the small cat headbutting his shoes, and the faint smell of something being left on the stove a bit too long.

When I feel blue, in the night

And I need you, to hold me tight

“Hello, darling!” Mrs. Johnson called out.

“Is something burning?” Mr. Johnson asked. It was a few seconds before he got a reply.

“Not terribly,” she answered, clearly proud that no cooking-related event had resulted in a call to the local fire department. “How was your day?” 

I need you so, that I could die

I love you so, and that is why

“Just wonderful, dear. Mr. Moore thinks I put the sun in the sky.” The man in question, Mr. Moore, is the rather starchy corporate manager at the office where Mr. Johnson works, and by no definition or interpretation would he ever think that highly of one Mr. Johnson (or anyone, really). Mr. Johnson didn’t think Mr. Moore was all that remarkable either, which amused his wife to no end.

Mrs. Johnson laughed, choosing to ignore her cynical husband’s sarcastic reply, and emerged from the wall of smoke with a wooden ladle in hand. 

She threw her arms around her husband’s shoulders and gently started to spin in a circle. Mr. Johnson never knew what to do with the unexpected, but realized a while back that when life’s events are too difficult to understand, it’s better just to go with whatever it is that’s happening.

Whenever I want you, all I have to do is

Dream… Dream, dream, dream

Dream… Dream, dream, dream

November 9, 1959

The Johnson’s everyday routine was just that, routine. Monday through Friday Mr. Johnson would be startled awake by a rather obnoxious alarm clock, eat a piece of toast, shower, and be out the door in a fresh pair of slacks and a button-down shirt by 7:00am. 

Mrs. Johnson, on the other hand, usually slept in quite a bit, listened to music while reading the morning paper, made eggs on toast with potato (the only meal she could cook without destroying something), and proceeded to do the occasional chore, or the not-so-occasional social call to fill the rest of the day. On every second Tuesday, she went to the salon for a fresh coat of nail polish.

The only days that strayed from the routine were few and far between: holidays, anniversaries, sick days, and November 9th, 1959.

On the particular day in question, Mr. Johnson had his weekly altercation with the alarm clock, ate breakfast, and left for work. The only thing that sets this particular day aside was that he never arrived at work. In fact, after that morning, he would never arrive anywhere ever again.

Mrs. Johnson had no alarm clock, and was fitfully sleeping when the phone rang at the ungodly hour of 9:27 in the morning. Sighing, she pulled herself out of bed to stop the blasted ringing noise of the phone.

“Yes?” 

“This is she.”

“That isn’t possible. He was fine this morning, he left just a few hours ago.”

“No, I’m telling you, you’ve got the wrong person, it can’t be him.”

The black plastic phone was slammed back into the receiver, efficiently ending the call. Mrs. Johnson slowly lowered herself onto the floor, staring in horror at the wall of the kitchen. For the first time, she despised that bright and cheery red, the crimson that plagued the counters and the floor.

As the weeks passed, flowers piled up at the doors, and the answering machine eventually stopped taking messages. Knocks at the door were frequent, and frequently weren’t acknowledged. 

Finally, on a grey December afternoon, someone dropped off a stack of cardboard boxes. The visit was short, all things considered, but a woman in blue threaded softly around the apartment, and tentatively moved aside stacks of newspapers and half-empty coffee mugs, whispering words to herself. She went into the living room, where Mrs. Johnson was sitting stiffly on the sofa. The woman walked over to the sofa and told Mrs. Johnson that she should start packing anytime she wanted, and that she was always welcome. 

After the woman had left, Mrs. Johnson stood up, and began to fill the musty moving boxes, one by one.

Section 2

The fall of 1960 brought new tenants and lots of refurbishing. Due to a generous donation from a slightly off-putting financial investor, the red kitchen was exchanged for “Orange Tulip Trellis” wallpaper with matching wooden cabinets and linoleum countertops, and the office space was converted to a rather cramped bedroom, complete with an orange mushroom table lamp.

The first tenant was a young lady who only stayed for two months, but often stayed up until the early hours of the morning, perched at a blue corona typewriter. Twice, she hosted a writers group. The writers group consisted of four other people: a fantasy writer, a romance writer, and two science fiction writers, but none of them could compare to the stories she spun of futuristic plagues and collapsed societies.

The second tennants stayed for quite a bit longer, almost eight months. A man and his son, an aspiring astronomer. The eleven-year-old boy could often be seen staring at star maps and textbooks from the library, his father sitting in the other room trying to figure out how to pay the next month’s rent.

Once they had left, the apartment was vacant for quite some time, until a woman with an affinity for yellow and heavily scented cigars decided to become more independent. She lived in the apartment for two years before she became the beneficiary of a fairly large sum of money, which was automatically poured into acquiring a penthouse.

The fourth tennant was a retired firefighter who’s most prized possession was a crystal decanter. He had days where he felt every emotion at once, and weeks where he couldn’t make himself get out of bed. Occasionally, he possessed a barely controlled anger that glowed a fiery blue. He died of a heart attack three years into his stay, leaving his decanter to sit in a box in the hallway closet.

By now it was 1966, and building codes had been updated, meaning that the apartment was no longer safe for people to live in. Dipping back into that donation from the skeevy financial investor, the entire apartment block was updated once again.

It took quite a bit of convincing to get a new tenant to stay due to the previous death, but, after a price drop, a couple and their young daughter moved in. The little girl was a miracle worker with plants, and loved to bring small bushes and trees into the kitchen, where she would transplant them into assorted bowls and cups. For her ninth birthday she was given a potted rose, which she cared for with painstaking precision, even saving her pocket money to purchase a glass dome to protect the rose from the cool drafts of the winter nights. 

After their daughter started the fifth grade, the couple decided that they had the financial ability to move to the suburbs, and they left shortly after the summer of 1968.

The next tenant was a soft spoken man with a gentle nature and a passion for creating comics. He spent most of his days working on sketches for the Sunday paper, but always set aside time to draw stories for his little daughter, who he wasn’t allowed to see any more. He stayed for about ten months, before finally a fancy court document allowing him joint custody.

The last tenant, who stayed from the summer of 1969 to the late winter of 1970, was a bespeckled man who wrote in cyphers and often disappeared in the middle of the night. He hand-wrote dozens of drafts of letters, and a select few were sent to taunt the police.

Finally, in the winter of 1970, a new family moved in. 

Section 3

December 17, 1970

The Carter’s arrival to the apartment was a bit of a chaotic one, with bags being thrown and an upsettingly energetic eight-year-old exploring his new domain. It didn’t help that there was also a highly exasperated sixteen-year-old in tow, lugging boxes through the door and looking to his mother for directions on which box goes on which stack.

Georgia Carter was a tall woman who could usually be found in brightly patterned clothes and commanded attention when she entered a room. Today was no different, with her shouting orders and waving her brown hands around, her poofy black hair stacked atop her head.

Darting in and out of each room, Ethan came to a jarring halt in front of his mother, a dreadful realisation dawning on him.

“Momma? There are only two bedrooms here, where’s Jackie gonna sleep?” the little boy turned his gaze towards his brother.

“You an’ Jackson are gonna be sharing a room, baby,” she replied sweetly.

A poorly stifled gasp came from the kitchen. “Oh, Momma, you can’t make me share with him. I’m twice his age! He’s just a little kid,” Jackie moaned.

“I can, and I will. You want to go sleep in the hall? I don’t think so little man. You get the rest of those boxes in here and start unpacking,” came the rather cross retort. 

Ethan made a sound that could only be described as somewhere between a coo and a laugh, and wrapped his arms around his brother's legs. “We’re gonna stay up all night an’ make popcorn, an’ sneak snacks…” he giggled as he thought of all the things he wanted to do.

“Shut up, Ethan. This ain’t a sleepover.” he ruffled his little brother’s afro, receiving an annoyed yelp in return.

“Hey! Don’t touch my hair, man.” Ethan took great pride in his hair, and used his fingers to comb it back into place

“What are you to doin’ sittin’ round like that? Get your stuff outta my car.” Momma had her hands on her hips, glaring at the two boys.

“Lil’ Bogart.” Jackie whispered teasingly as he walked towards the door.

“I’m no Bogart!” Ethan yelled back, before racing after his brother.

January 12, 1971

School had already been in session for about a week, but the boys still had no sense of scheduling. Usually by 6:30 in the morning, Jackie was running around looking for his lunch, his English assignment, and his shoes. His brother would get up an hour later for elementary school, and would repeat the same process, only by this time Georgia was actually awake (as opposed to sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and nodding at all audible things) so there was a bit more yelling about hurrying up.

Georgia would follow her younger son out the door and they would all be gone for several hours, leaving the apartment in the kind of silence that seams to make the dust in the air slow down. Of course, there was this little red fox that liked to try and jump at the bedroom windows, but he never really made it.

Jackie almost always made it home first, sitting down in the kitchen to do whatever numerous amounts of homework had been assigned, followed by his brother, who never had homework but liked to cook random meals in the middle of the day. Their mother would return at seven o’clock sharp every night, and they would all eat dinner together, complementing Ethan at his superb cooking skills.

Weekends were the breakfast days. Ethan always cooked each sit down meal, but weekday breakfasts were rather sad. Pieces of toast that were thrown together at a moments notice, and watery coffee or a glass of milk if there was time. But weekends meant real breakfast. Fried eggs, quiche, waffles, all made with alarming amounts of energy and speed.

Unless it was a birthday or the Fourth of July, Ethan made breakfast and dinner, and on birthdays or the Fourth of July he also made cake, solely in the color blue. He always wanted to get more jars for the kitchen, and every once in a while he would bring home an armful of mason jars. Once, he found an old crystal decanter sitting in a dusty box at the back of a closet, which was immediately cleaned and placed with great care on one of the kitchen shelves.

Ethan would present his creations to his family with great gusto, unveiling the first meal of the day with a peculiar level of showmanship, and would never shy away from a bit of clapping. Everyone knew that the kitchen was Ethan’s, and they were all perfectly happy with this arrangement.

January 27, 1971

Jackie had burst into the apartment slightly later than usual, but since no one else was home, there was no one to yell at him. Slightly flustered, he led a thin Latino boy to the kitchen. The boy also seemed to be a bit nervous, his amber eyes flicking around the room, taking in the wooden cabinets and the saffron counter top. 

“Ah, you can sit down over here if you want.” The boy’s attention was brought back to Jackie as he pulled out a chair from the white oak table set in the middle of the room. 

“Thanks,” he replied, plopping his fraying blue backpack on the floor next to his chair. The rather uncomfortable silence was broken when the boy pulled an unruly stack of paper and books from his bag and set them with a thud on the table.

“So…” he began. “Math?” he used one hand to push his side-comb out of his eyes.

Jackie had been staring at the boy, and took a second to register the suggestion. 

“Math? Math homework! Homework is why we’re here. Yes. Homework.” he babled pointlessly. The other boy gave him a strange look, but pulled a piece of graph paper from his stack and neatly printed his name at the top: Marty Rodriguez. He scooched his chair closer to Jackie and propped open a math textbook.

Jackie followed suit, pulling open one of the numerous kitchen drawers to find a sharpened pencil and a piece of paper that was slightly less crumpled than all the others he had found.

“Mr. Kent sure is cracking down with this algebra stuff, considering that you only joined a couple of weeks ago, you know?” Marty said.

“Yeah, man. But the guy from my old school was worse. Gave us, like, an hour of homework every night, and I still didn’t get it.” Jackie told him, grateful that a conversation had started up.

“That’s totally bouge, dude.” the other boy laughed.

“I know! Hey, do you have an eraser? I can’t find one.” Jackie shifted through the drawer a bit more, but an eraser was nowhere to be found.

“My little brother probably stole it, lil’ Bogart.” he sat down and wrote his own name at the top of his paper, though his handwriting was more like chicken scratches in comparison to Marty’s looping print.

“Yeah, here you go.” Marty dug a stubby pink square out of his bag and handed it to Jackie, smiling to himself when the other boy bashfully looked away.

For the next several moments, Marty had a look of great deliberation on his face until he slowly slid his left hand over to grasp Jackie’s right one. The boy looked surprised, and for a moment Marty wondered if he had made a dreadful miscalculation. But Jackie just squeezed his hand reassuringly, and slid ever so slightly closer to his homework partner.

And they just sat there, for almost forty five minutes, holding hands and doing math. Not what everyone would call romantic, but no one was bothering them, so it was truly a win-win.

Once the clock had struck half past four, Marty reluctantly decided that he should probably head home for dinner. After all, they did have school the next day. 

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” Standing just inside the doorway, Marty leaned out slightly to look left and right, before leaning in and placing a quick kiss on the side of Jackie’s cheek.

“Yep. See you then.” he squeeked, unable to stop smiling.

A short wave and a closed door later, Jackie walked tentatively back to the kitchen. He sat on the floor next to the wall phone, rerunning what had just happened in his head. Who would believe his luck?

When his brother arrived back from his oddly long walk home, he took one look at his brother sitting on the floor and jovially shouted “Who’s the Bogart now, huh?”

“Still you!” came the reply.