At that moment I fell in love with Sabella: as she set his clenched fingers to her mouth, drawing his footsteps after hers in spite of his shoulders withered back.
Right now her name is Sabella Cotter, but I might change her last name.
She's not being easy on me. There's a lot to her, and she's just not going to show herself at once. She's hard and cold and guarded and kind and affectionate and trusting.
“Stop the car.” Caleb said.
“What?”
“Pull over!”
I did, and before the key turned my friend jumped out. I followed him.
We ran back the way we had come, turning into an alleyway. Before us slouched a bundle of black wool. Caleb knelt beside it, slipped back the hood to reveal a woman’s face.
“My God--”
“Hush.” He eased the thin, still mouth to his ear. A rapid instant later he had her in his arms and we ran to the car.
“How long?” he asked, in the back seat with the woman’s head on his knees.
“Just a few minutes. Can she make it?”
He’d unbuttoned her coat, and now pressed his hand up and down her back. “I’m trying.”
I don't know if her story will ever be told in the book. Some of it will, at least, but probably not the entire story. Caleb hears the entire story. Evan, most likely, does not.
Sabella's parents are quite wealthy and quite distant; she was their problem child. At fifteen she ran away with the guy she was in love with. He, like most guys who would seduce a girl of fifteen, had no intention of marrying or taking care of her in any way. He was abusive, but she loved him and is loyal by nature, and so took it for a long time. Eventually she could't take more, and left. She tried to go home, but her parents wouldn't take her back. Thus she lives on the streets of San Francisco.
When Caleb finds her she is unconscious in an alley, having overdosed on some medication with the intent of committing suicide. She is nineteen, at this point. I don't know which medication. Xanax (anxiolytic) has the exact side-effects, but is fairly difficult to obtain. Prozac (antidepressant) has side-effects which would work though they are not exact, but is ridiculously easy to obtain. Disgustingly easy. My uncle went to the doctor for bronchitis and came home with an antidepressant. Apparently his being a police officer was enough to demand one. The only person to ever have trouble getting sufficiently strong medication is my father, who just happens to have bipolar disorder. Go figure. Anyway, Sabella is smart and knows how to get a hold of
something, and attempts suicide. If Caleb hadn't noticed her from Evan's moving car, she would have succeeded.
She came to slowly, rolling her head from side to side, extending and releasing her back. Then her eyes opened, just tired, at first. But shortly they turned confused. Then remembering. Then frightened. Caleb cut to her side and knelt, whispering as he brought her into his arm and tilted her head toward him. A little hand raised close, as if by weakness it could stay him, but he took the hand and pressed it, whispering while the fear in her eyes recoiled into blankness. He stood; still I could not tell her age.
Sabella is five-foot six and on the slim side. When she gets too thin the bones of her shoulders poke out rather noticeably. Her hair is black when Caleb and Evan first meet her, but, naturally, it is a medium brown. Her eyes are darker even than Evan's; when filled with water their pupils and irises meld together into unfathomable and beautiful darkness.
Sabella has a sweet voice, though not sweet in the way sweet voices are usually sweet. It’s a rich, warming kind of sweet. A low kind of sweet. Maybe. Really it has no tone, or else eddies soft as all tones rolled together. If the whispers which swell along the ocean floor are low, then her voice, too, is low.
I recently shared a favorite film with some friends. It's also one of Evan's favorites.
Tiny circle. Sabella’s lovely hand sculpted a deep, tiny circle [on my friend's back]. She looked at me and I looked at her.
“Do you ever watch silent films?” I asked.
“I haven’t. Should I?”
“I like them, but I like things like that.”
“What are your favorites?”
“That’s a hard question. I was thinking of one called The Lodger when I asked, though.”
“What’s that one?”
“It’s a Hitchcock actually.”
“I didn’t know he made silents.”
“Neither did I, for a long time.”
“What's it about?”
“Jack the Ripper. Sort of. I guess that’s not exactly a nice topic.”
She laughed again. Softly. “Not exactly. But you like the film, so it must be good.”
“It’s slow at first. Almost like the editor drank too much before work. But then you find that what you thought all along isn’t true, and the guy you thought the villain is actually a hero--which is nice because even though he’s set up to seem evil you can’t help but like him. And at the end there’s some really great symbolism, and a love story throughout the whole thing.”
Caleb started suddenly, apologizing. Sabella crossed her arms over his chest and asked why. Why, Caleb? Because you relaxed a moment? Relax again. Relax again. He had, laying only half-conscious in the bend of her arm. Yet his breath heaved wildly. That was when I first realized how the dark terrified him. Even more--even far, far more than the scathing light did the dark terrify him. The woman’s magnificent eyes looked at me and I stretched out a hand to take my friend’s.
“What made you think of it?” Sabella asked. “That film, why did you think of it?”
“You remind me of the daughter.”
“Do I?”
“I always liked her. She’s gentle and comforting. And lovely of course. You remind me of her, anyway.”
The scenes I have 'finished' are lame because Sabella is making herself a great deal of work. I can't seem to write her right. I think working with me a bit is the least she could do.
If you haven't seen
The Lodger, by the way, you really should. Don't watch the talkie--the story is different. Apparently someone recorded new music to go with the silent version, which I hope is excellent. The music on my copy is just so wretched. There is no way it was actually written to go with the film. It ruins the story for Matthew.
Matthew is my musically brilliant younger brother. Who grows taller every day. Who is incredibly thin. Who is painfully shy. Who is one of the best people in the world. Hmm.......
I'm going to show you a photo from
The Lodger simply because I can. So there.
AW!!!!!
