Part 5: Sabrina
 For: Misfit Ro Ladyinnothing and Dolly... Thank You for your encouraging words ladies The door is already open. There is a soft dim of light peeking through. She hears Astrid’s voice slightly higher than usual and bare feet pacing across the floor. She pushes the door open and sees Astrid standing in the kitchen, in her night dress, balancing the phone on her ear attempting to pour milk in a glass. She stares at Sabrina, her horizontal eyebrows amazingly arch and her brown eyes looks as if they had been dipped in melted chocolate. “Elle est ici.” She nods her head for the person on the other line, clicks the phone off then rests it on the counter. Sabrina takes off her sweatshirt, kicks of her hard brown shoes to the corner by the door and calmly leans against the kitchen counter. She smiles devilishly, fingering a loose strand of hair that escaped the bun at the back of her head. She takes the freshly poured milk, sips it and makes an awkward face. “Everything ok?” She asks coyly. “That was Nadine. I was so worried something had happened. I was ready to call the police.” Astrid throws her hands in the air theatrically. Sabrina’s eyes widen. She chuckles and takes another sip of milk. “The police! Why? You were the one who told me to go out the whole day.” “Yes, but it is well after midnight. I expected you home at six or seven. Where have you been the whole day?” “You wouldn’t believe me” Astrid pinches at Sabrina’s belly through her thin undershirt. She pours the last swish of milk into the glass Sabrina is holding. “Come, let’s get ready for bed and you will tell me everything.” Sabrina uncoils her bun and lets her long auburn curls fall down her back to her hips. She sits in bed, in an oversized tank shirt; her tailored pants are thrown over a chair. Astrid watches carefully as she stretches her smooth arms, yaws and blinks the sleep out of her honey coated eyes. Her collar bones, graceful as a dancer’s arm protrude through her tight skin. She has a small brown mole at the base of her neck. There are pink lines where her brassiere straps rested. The tango music is faint through the closed windows and the bright street lights outside cast a soft yellow glow in the room. Somebody is burning incense in the building. Astrid sits at Sabrina’s outstretched feet. She brushes her fingers across her polished toes. She takes a sip of milk and hands the glass to Sabrina. “So tell me Cheri, have you discovered yourself today? Where have you been? Have you seen all of Paris? Have you made a new friend?” “Yes.” “Yes? Yes what?” “Yes to all.” “Enough games!” She tickles Sabrina’s feet and pinches her toe. She takes the glass from Sabrina and sips. “Tell me, where have you been? “I’ve been across the street the whole time.” She closes her eyes and gins; pleased. Sabrina followed Sigrid to her apartment around the corner of the bakery. The croissant had not eased her stomach. The gurgles and whines of stomach juices embarrassed her. Sigrid did not seem to care. She walked with a determined gait, like a woman on her way to an important meeting. The face of the building was nothing like the view from the back. Once she pushed the brass lion claw knob they were in a pink marble lobby with white velvet lounge chairs and a banker’s desk near the chiseled stone steps. Sigrid rummaged through her black purse for a key and began to walk up. Sabrina suddenly felt lonely, like somebody Sigrid had known all her life and no longer found interesting. When she was invited to the apartment to have her pants altered, a hot flash of excitement overcame her. She felt important through Sigrid’s cool demeanor, but walking up the steps, her hands holding the cool stone railing, trailing a few steps behind Sigrid in her gray pants and black sweater, she felt invisible. They stepped into the apartment. Everything was white with subtle hints of color. A red vase, a blue cushion, a jade green elephant on the coffee table, the trunk raised, pointing at the window. A light pink, silk orchid, in a clear crystal bowl, clear marbles at the bottom and one black one. Sabrina’s eyes widened at the sterility, the serene calm and smell of what she could only place as vanilla. She stood with her hands in her pocket, her feet turned in, and her heels resting on the blackened cuffs of her pants. She allowed her wispy curls to fall in her face. Sigrid stood before her. She was very slim and petite. From the balcony, spotting her at the window, staring at her across a stall, or sitting crossed legged, she appeared bigger, more powerful and present. As a woman in her apartment, surrounded by white, her shoes at the door, her hair pale, loose and brushed back she was small. She stared at her visitor. Sabrina looked around the room, at the bright sun, no longer a yellow mess but an intense white ray coming in from the clear glass windows. She caught Sigrid’s cornflower eyes and smiled. Sigrid smiled. Her delicate lips spread and she nodded. “Would you like something to drink?” “No.” Sabrina shook her head. “Fine, then.” She paused, blinked smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear and tilted her head to the side gently. “The bathroom is at the end of the hall. You can take your pants off in there and I will give you something to wear in the meanwhile.” Sabrina swallowed. “Oh…Ok. I…ah… I don’t-“ “I can’t fix them if you are still wearing them” Sigrid walked off, down the hall, into a room and was gone beyond a shadow, in a room where there wais no light. Sabrina looked at the door. She could run. She could turn around, run down the steps, and tug at her pants so she did not trip, past the velvet sofas, across the smooth marble, into the white of day and as far away from that building and Sigrid as fast as she could. She waited for Sigrid. “Here you are.” She returned holding a light blue pair of pajama bottoms with delicate lace at the ends. “There is a string at the waist. I think they will be ok. Just for the time being.” She watched Sabrina, studied her outstretched hand, the flow of the silk, like an aquamarine stream over bleached stone. Sabrina took them. “Ok.” She swallowed. Sabrina looked at herself in the mirror as she unbuttoned her pants and zipped down to reveal a light caramel belly and the cotton panties loose around her hips. She had been feeding mostly on coffee and red wine for one month. Life had become very loose, and not juts at her hips. She slipped the pants down her thighs and cringed at the heart and star pattern on her underwear. She decided that she should invest in better underwear. She rubbed her stomach; the croissant felt like a squashed lump, threatening at any moment to come up. She placed each socked foot carefully into the silky material, closed her eyes and exhaled. She said her name “Sabrina” A hoarse whisper, ended with parted lips. She pulled the pants over her backside, drew the strings and looked at herself in the mirror once more. A bit of hair parted down the middle fell in a diagonal line past her eye across her nose and curved at her chin before plummeting off her face. For a moment she thought she looked like Lotje on the Caribbean road. She turned the light off instantly. “I like to sew by hand when I can. I have machines of course. I have a half dozen, but I like to sew by hand. It was how I first learned.” Sigrid cut the pants with a pair of thick shears, turned the cuffs slightly and began to sew. Sabrina watched intensely as the knowing hands poked, looped and pulled. Over and over. The tight thread hissed when she pulled it though the thick corduroy material. She sat in a white padded chair near where the light spilled in from the window, on her heels, her hair delicately pinned with a single wooden chopstick and a pair of oversized glasses rested on the bridge of her nose. “These are nice pants. They are well made. Did you bring them from America?” She kept her eyes on her work. She pulled the threaded needle in the air. The metal caught a ray of light and shimmered on the wall. “Yes.” Sabrina sat alone on the sofa, her legs crossed beneath her, her hair spilled into the hood of her sweatshirt on her back and her hands trying not to fidget. “I got them in New York” Sigrid stopped sewing and looked up. “New York? You come from New York.” “Yeah.” I was in New York two years ago. Perhaps we could have passed one another on the street.” Sabrina smiled; Sigrid nodded. She returned to her sewing. “I believe in things like that.” “What?” “That people don’t just bump into one another, or stare through windows, across flower stalls, or come up to apartments to have pants mended. There are explanations for things and never just simple ones.” “Oh.” The muscles on Sabrina’s neck tensed and poked through her skin. She placed her hands on her knees, then under her feet then smoothed her hair. “Are those pants comfortable?” Sigrid watched her stitches. “They’re really nice.” “I made them. I made lots of them and gave them as gifts. You can keep them.” Sabrina sucked her lips inward. “I…I can’t. They look really expensive and… I mean I hardly know you…and…” “Sabrina?” She looked at the young woman on her sofa, her tanned skin, unruly hair and light eyes. The crystalline slits focused on the obvious contrast of Sabrina’s color against the lack she was surrounded by. “Have I offended you?” “Oh no, It’s just that…” Her brow furrowed. “Yes?” “I hardly know you and maybe I shouldn’t have come…I uh mean that I think…” “What do you think?” She rested the pants on her knee. Her eyes were open and inquisitive, as if she were pulling the words Sabrina could not say into her thoughts and repeating them through her eyes. Sabrina sighed, looked up to the ceiling, caught Sigrid’s stare and smiled broadly. It was her first full smile since arriving in Paris. Though a smile of unease, exasperation and fear, it was genuine. “Nothing. Thank you.” Sigrid nodded and returned to her work.
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