Part 1: Sabrina
 Her foot rests gently against the iron railing with its flaking paint and rust. Her caramel skin is a delicate contrast to the 19th century wrought iron balcony. Below and across, the Parisian night is ablaze with light, laughter and music. She taps her foot to the beat of music coming from the Argentinean tango cafe next door. The autumn night is cool but she is too comfortable to go in for a shawl to cover her shoulders. The red wine she has been sipping keeps a shell of warmth around her skin. The building across from her view is speckled with windows and lights dimmed by blinds and wispy curtains. She puffs a slim cigarette and taps the ashes in an empty flower pot. She sips the wine and coats her teeth with the bitter juice before swallowing. The air whispers music, lovers on street corners, impatient taxis and desperate men selling roses at unfairly cheap prices. She feels at home in this city, where she only knows the basic words of the language and still looks over her shoulder cautiously as she makes her way down the boulevards. Her friends tell her she is beautiful. Even by Parisian standards, she is a beauty amongst them all and if she would only let herself be seen, in no time she would have admirers lined up just to have the chance to hear and repeat her name. She grins when she hears these compliments; she had never thought herself a beauty just an ordinary woman with a timely face. She whispers her name. Sabrina. Slowly as if speaking words in a language she had only just learned and then faster. Sabrina. With the confidence of a child who knows she is being understood. Sabrina. Sabrina. Sabrina. She draws the cigarette, hears the scorch of paper through the Tango and exhales a mushroom of smoke. She craves something sweet; something rich and filling. Perhaps she should have taken her roommates advice and gone to the bistro in Montparnasse. At least she could have left them early, returned to her solitude on the balcony with a full belly and the new sounds to keep her company. She sips the wine and feels the sting in her empty stomach. She taps her toes to the sound of an accordion and a woman singing about misery in an infused crescendo of French and Spanish. Her toenails are plain, natural, clear, and straight edged. She could paint them. That would be something to do. It would also mean searching for a manicure kit, extinguishing her cigarette and paying attention not to let her toes rub across the wet nails. She decided it can wait. The gentle breeze, billowing her skirt and chilling her skin is all she wants for the moment. She is beautiful though she would never admit it. The grace of the Dutch Antilles is in her, though she had never visited the islands and never got a chance to learn its smooth seductiveness from her mother. She was a child, raised in a city much like Paris, with the same life and energy but without the chic of the popular European city that attracts lovers from all over the world. The day she left home, with her most important belongings and the feel of tears stinging her eyes, and the words of goodbye she wrote to her father tumbling through her head, she knew that Paris was a city where she could discover herself and find immense joy and fulfillment. On the balcony, at the age of only twenty, hungering for food she desperately needs, and Caribbean tendrils hanging down her face she feels a slight and sudden panic. As if she suddenly forgot how to inhale, terror strikes her and her body convulses. Perhaps the wine has gotten to her. Perhaps it is her rash decision or the lamenting wail of the woman singing nearby. Sabrina cries. She chokes and coughs, forcing herself to inhale. She rests the wine glass on the ground and huddles to her knees. Perhaps she just needs to cover her shoulders. A blanket is within view, inside the apartment but she cannot move. Perhaps a good cry will suffice, and then she will move “Sabrina” She says her name as if it is being said by somebody who has come upon her in her state of fear and loneliness. “Sabrina. Sabrina” She stops crying and can sit up once again. A figure, in one of those dimly lit rooms is at the window. It is somebody with a red coffee mug in the palms of her hands, wearing an evening gown and a flawless chignon. Sabrina stares at her. She is struck by her very red lips and the cascading black fabric she is clothed in. She thinks she recognizes the dress from the Galleries. The figure sips and seems to be watching the people dancing tango. A man in a tuxedo comes up behind her. His hair is dark, combed back and stiff. He touches the woman’s prominent collarbone and takes the mug away from her. They both leave the window and everything is dark. Sabrina puts her foot back on the balcony and lights another cigarette.
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