A fiction Red to Green by Maile Meloy is a story about a girl named Sam. This story is basically about a girl who is offered a scholarship to a boarding school hesitates to accept it then after what happened while her trip she decides to accept the offer. The main happening that affects her mind to accept a scholarship and leave far away from home happens when Sam, her father, her uncle, and her uncles client Layton take the float trip down the river. The reason she was hesitating to accept the offer in my opinion is because Sams mother died and there are only Sam and her father living in her house so she did not want to leave her father alone and leave far away from home. The father feels same as what Sam feels. It was his idea of Sam going to the boarding school but then after she got the offer, he feels dismay.
In one of the night during the trip, something happens that affects Sam’s decision. Layton, a client of her uncle, sexually harasses her. S’s father left her alone with Layton and went to sleep. Of course, he did not know something will happen and did not expect it to happen and wanted it to happen. The one thing comes up in her mind after Layton harassed her is why did her father left her alone with some stranger even though they stayed together for sometime and not take care of her. After they come back home, Sam filled out the acceptance form for the scholarship to boarding school. She decided to go to the boarding school and leave her father. The first break she got after she left for the school, she called her father telling him she will go with her roommate to her roommates house.

By once reading this story, I think no one will get the point or main idea of this story. This story is complicated that is hiding a main point and so requires you to read more than once and explore to understand it better. One question that most of the reader would ask and which is also my first question is why Sam’s father leaved her with a stranger man. But we can also come up with simple answers which are that he left her behind and left to sleep because he was really tired and he also had a trust in Layton and so did not think of what he actually did to his daughter will happen. Another question I had is if the title of this story is really significant to this story. When I saw the title I was able to rephrase it as stop to go, because when you look at the title Red to Green you can think a traffic light and I think that the author also referred it to a traffic light. A Green light means you are allowed to go and a red light means you must stop. Also in the story, the author mentioned twice the red light that is from a traffic light. There is this woman who works in a lab and got damages so she is not able to drive anymore. She cannot tell a red light means stop or go anymore. Does it have to do something with Sam’s decision?
What has changed Sam’s decision or helped her to make decision? First thing I can think of is the fact her father left her alone and did not take care of her. Her father is the only person she can always trust and maybe her father’s act had broken her faith so she needed some time away from her father to think calmly what is going on between her and her father. Maybe she realized that she needs to be tough enough to protect herself so she decided to live her own. Maybe she chose to leave her father in a way to forget faster what had happen to her. I think she is also mad at her father.
Another question is why not the author stopped writing after the point Sam filled the acceptance form. In my opinion the author could have stopped after telling the reader that she decided to go to the boarding school. Probably the last few paragraphs, which also contain the conclusion, are significant to this story. There are students in her dorm who take drugs and have sex. Is this one of the important part in the story? I guess so. That is why the author wrote in her story.
The author once mentioned about the red light before sexual harassment happened and once at the end where she talks about the drugs and sex. I think possibly the second red light is a hint to readers that Sam now faces a decision of taking drugs and having sex. Just like a woman who stopped driving after the damage because she cannot tell whether red light means go or stop, Sam experiences same thing. Sexual harassment was big damage to her and that makes her confuse and ambiguous whether she has to keep going or stop. Since her roommate is also wide open to sex as her other neighbors are it is easier for her to be like them because there is always a flow that seems hard to break and if there is a way then it is easier to follow it.
I do not want to agree with it but most of other readers say the main focus of this story is Sam’s question. The part where Sam asking herself why would her father left her alone and not asking her father for the real reason, I think you can say she is afraid to ask him. But then if you say she is afraid of asking him that question, does that mean there is small possibility of her suspecting that her father new what was going to happen and let it happen? Her question about her father leaving her keep gives me a feeling of the father knew everything before which I do not want to believe or say.

"Her dorm was in a cluster of stately brick buildings surrounded by trees, set apart from the little town, and the walls of her room had been painted over and over, for generations. She read 'The Portrait of a Lady' there, and also 'The Beach House' and 'Candy.' Fifteen was old at boarding school. Most of the kids' parents didn't want them at home, and, knowing that, the kids seemed to know everything. A girl down the hall had done Ecstasy with her boyfriend back in Maryland, and had sex for three hours straight. Sam's roommate, Gabriela--whose last roommate got the Latin teacher fired--was surprised and impressed that Sam was a virgin."

Sam is between two worlds--the world of childhood, predictability, taboos; and the permissive world of adult behavior, a world in which people have trouble telling "red from green." Sam acts the part of the obedient young daughter; she resists mailing off the application that will win her admission to a distant, glamorous boarding school. She hesitates to fire a shotgun, because she knows her father will disapprove. When a stranger speaks to her, she buries her head in "The Thorn Birds"--a book her father picked up for her at a convenience store because it was "the best they had." And yet, something tugs Sam toward the danger and moral ambiguity of adulthood. On a rafting trip, Sam becomes involved with her uncle's client. (Her uncle wants to represent victims of a corrupt business in a law suit. These victims worked with chemical solvents that caused loss of memory--"whenever I smell detergent, I can't remember my child's name"--and in some cases prevented people from telling the difference between red and green. The client Sam meets is a victim, and he could help Sam's uncle's case: "It was good...to have a man involved...People were less likely to assume he had invented his symptoms." But the client thinks the law suit is a big nuisance, and he might just drop out.)

When the client begins to harass Sam, Sam notes that her father is turning a blind eye. Is he deliberately allowing the client to have some "fun" with Sam as a way of ensuring that the client will testify in the chemical-solvents case? Sam acquires some disturbing, mature insights into human behavior. At home, she submits her application to boarding school: "She was red-eyed and nervous, but had decided she didn't know anything, and the idea of going away was to learn." She leaves the safety of childhood and becomes a precocious, semi-jaded young adult:

Sam nodded and rolled over to listen, tucking her pillow under her arms and her chin. The detergent on the pillow-case was Mountain Fresh. Gabriela flopped down on the new rug, and tossed back her long, conditioned hair. The rug was cream colored and Gabriela ran her hand across it, smoothing the fibers down. She looked a little flushed. "Okay, here's how it started," she said, and the story, full of longing and intrigue, began.

I love this story because it moves along like a thriller, but it's entirely plausible. A critic once said "The Sopranos" is a short story masquerading as an HBO series: It combines exquisite attention to psychological detail with the sex and body counts that keep audiences engaged. I think Meloy is similar to David Chase: I think she is an HBO guru masquerading as a writer of literary fiction. Moment by moment, she makes you believe everything, and yet she keeps you continuously surprised and unnerved (a feat few writers of contemporary literary fiction are able to accomplish). Notice the detergent Sam smells in the last paragraph: On some level, Sam is recalling the victims in her uncle's failed law suit--the women who can no longer remember their children's names when they are in the presence of strong smells. Meloy never relies on pyrotechnics; there is never anything self-consciously lyrical about her writing; and yet each detail "pops," and each sentence works toward a breath-taking conclusion. We move along so swiftly in this story, and yet we have a clear sense of the complex relationship between Sam and her father, and of the power struggle between the client and Sam. It's hard to think of a living writer whose work is both as spare and as memorable as the work of Maile Meloy.

Red from Green is a short story written by Maile Meloy. The story is from 2006. It consists four people: Sam, who is the main character, her father, her uncle, Harry, and his client, Layton. The story takes place at a river, where these four people are on a float trip down the river. Through the trip Layton is getting more and more interested in Sam. Sam is not sure about her being interested, but as time goes, she let him seduce her. They go for walk and Layton teaches Sam how to shoot with a gun. And at the same evening things get a bit heated up, as Sam gives him massage. But nothing serious happens.

The main theme in this short story is “growing up” and “being a teenager”. Sam is about to go from being a child to being a grown up adult and this transition brings a lot of confusing to Sam. When you are a teenager you suddenly get an identity crisis, because you are lost in the middle of being a child and adult. This is seen when we hear about Sam’s feelings about her soon being a sophomore “In the fall, she would soon be a sophomore, which sounded very old to her.” (P.8 L. 4-5). Besides the identity crises, you will face a frustration over your sexuality. You suddenly realize that someone is interested in you as a woman – or a man. Sam has never experienced a man who is sexual attracted to her. So when Layton shows her his interest, she does not know how to react.

Sam has just turned fifteen. She lives with her father and every year they take a trip down the river. This year Sam is taking her last trip with her father. She has been offered a scholarship for a boarding school, which she does know if she is going to accept. Her dad is convinced that it is the best for her to do, and Sam feel that she is being pushed I certain direction. It is obliviously something they do not talk much about. She feels that everybody is teaching her about what a good for her “Everyone said what an opportunity it was…” (P. 8 L. 7-8).