“Is there another way?”
“The easiest – get a strand of her hair. You can pluck one off her head or you can get one from her hair brush or a hair pin or from the drain of the sink or the shower – you get the picture.”
I do.
So, all I have to do is go to her room and search for a strand of hair in her bathroom, huh?
That shouldn’t be too hard.
***
Wrong. It is hard.
As soon as I step inside Sabrina’s bedroom, I feel like a criminal even though I’m playing the role of the detective. Yes, it’s my house, but this is her room. Everything about it speaks of her: the leftover red bedroom slipper on the bedside table that she now uses as a coaster, the new pink pair hanging from a hanger on the closet door so Zombie doesn’t easily run away with them to the folded sweater on the bed, the poetry books that she borrowed from the library on a chair, and the bottle of sanitizer in front of the mirror. The room even smells like her. In such a short time, she’s made this place her own just like she’s made room in David’s heart.
I find myself pausing to run my hand over the sheets of her bed as I imagine her sleeping on them and then I approach the vase containing the flowers I gave her this morning – roses that I had the gardener pick in order to put her in a good mood after that hell of a night she’d gone through. She seems to have arranged them and watered them and they look even more beautiful by her window than they did in the garden.
Looking around this room, I find no trace of the past she’s trying to hide, of the memories she’s trying to run away from. Should I snoop around since I’m here? No. That’s beneath me. I should just get that strand of hair and leave. The sooner I can send it for analysis, the sooner I can find out what Sabrina is hiding and the sooner I can help her.
I want to help her.
I go to the bathroom, searching. I see her hair brush but there are no strands of hair in it. The hair pins look clean, too, along with the drains. Even the shower tiles are pristine, not a single strand of hair sticking to them.
Now what?
I take a minute to look around, pushing aside the image of Sabrina undressing here, showering here.
Concentrate, Randall, damn it.
Finally, my eyes rest on the trash can. I look at it, seeing a clump of hair there.
Okay. I’ve never really rummaged through trash before but this is for a good cause. I pick up the clump, grabbing just two strands of hair from it – one as a back-up. As I do, I notice the box of hair dye at the bottom. So, copper isn’t her natural hair color?
It isn’t just that. I see a bottle of contact lens solution near the sink. Does that mean her eyes aren’t naturally the mysterious shade of black they appear?
Now I know she’s really hiding something. Though, of course, she could just be dyeing her hair for no reason like most women or wearing contacts because she has poor vision.
I thought you weren’t going to snoop around, Randall.
Right. I put the hairs in the tiny Ziploc bag I’ve brought with me, having a bit of trouble because my hands are too big and the opening is too small and the hairs don’t seem to want to be shoved inside. I hear the bedroom door open.
Fuck.
Quickly, I put the hairs inside my pocket.
At first, I think it’s Zombie. I hope it’s Zombie. But I hear the heavy, hurried footsteps and the sobs and I know it’s not.
Why is Sabrina sobbing? I thought she was in a better mood. And why does she seem in a hurry?
Suddenly, she barges into the bathroom, almost bumping into me since she has her head down.
“Whoa!” She steps back, hastily drying her eyes. “I almost bumped into you there.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “It was almost déjà vu.”
She looks around. “Um… What are you doing here?”
That is the question, isn’t it?
“Um…”
Quick, Randall, think of something.
“I was trying to find out what kind of lipstick you wanted,” I say. “Tess’ orders.”
Good job.
“Oh. She just asked me that earlier, though.”
Oops.
“Well, we said we’d both ask.”
“You could have asked me.”
“Yes, but I couldn’t find you.” I lean on the sink. “Where were you?”
She hesitates. “In the library with Carol. She did a routine check on me.”
“Oh. I didn’t know she would do that. What did she say? Anything bad?”
She looks at me in surprise. “No. She… Everything’s fine.”
And yet, something tells me it isn’t.
“Then why were you crying?” I ask her.
“Oh. I wasn’t crying. I just had dust in my eye.”
Cliché.
“You mean in your contacts?”
Sabrina pauses, looking worried.
“I didn’t know you wore contacts.”
And I didn’t know you liked snooping around in women’s bathrooms,” she says, annoyed. “I can’t see that well.”
“I–”
I think of making an excuse but I don’t. In the end, there’s no excuse for my behavior.
“I think I’ll go now.”
“Yup.”
I walk past her, heading to the door. As I do, I pass by her closet, seeing her open suitcase at the bottom of it. I’m tempted to glance inside, but I don’t, simply leaving.
I’ve already made her angry. I should just leave the detective work to the detectives or to computer geniuses like Gil and his people.
It may not be my forte, but I have to be patient.
***
“Give me that.” David grabs the piece of paper from my hand, losing his patience.
It’s already past his bedtime, but I decided to check on him while he’s sleeping, which I sometimes do. Only this time, he woke up as soon as I started going through the stuff on his desk.
“Has anyone taught you not to get other people’s stuff?” David pouts.
“All right, all right.” I lift my hands. “Calm down. I was just looking.”
He still glares at me before shoving the piece of paper in the drawer of his bedside table.
“What’s that anyway? Something you wrote at school?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
He doesn’t answer.
“What? It’s some sort of secret? A letter from a girl at school that you like?”
He glares all the more, his small eyebrows bunching up as he sits against his pillow. “It’s from Sabrina.”
“From Sabrina?” My eyes grow wide.
“Yeah. She said it’s her favorite poem, and she wanted me to always remember it, especially when I feel sad.”
I sit on his bed. “I see.”
I wish I had seen it a little longer.
“The two of you seem to be getting along, don’t you?”
“She’s nice, but she still has to beat me at a video game before she becomes my friend.”
I nod. “I know.”
“I don’t think she can beat me, though.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, when we were talking about it, she seemed sad.”
She was sad this morning, too.
“What did she tell you exactly?” I ask David curiously.
“She said maybe we can’t play soon but she promised we’d play a video game together someday.”
“She said that?”