Chapter 9 - Hair and Hands
The upstairs hallway smelled like hairspray and coffee by nine, and the doors to the guest suites were all open. I stood at the end near the linen closet in my robe, my scarf tied low and tight, and watched the women move in and out of Sabrina's room with curling irons and garment bags.
I told myself I was just checking on the schedule. I wasn't. I was counting steps.
From the linen closet to my bathroom doorway was eleven of my barefoot steps that morning. I had walked it twice before anyone woke up. From Sabrina's suite to my bathroom doorway was shorter. I walked that too, slow, while a makeup girl ran past me with a tote. Seven steps. A straight line past the stair rail where no one would look twice at a bride who couldn't sleep.
Sabrina sat in the center of it all in a white silk robe, her dark hair already pinned in sections. She looked rested in a way that made my scalp throb. Two girls worked on her at once, one on makeup, one teasing the back, and she scrolled her phone and laughed at something on the screen.
"You slept okay?" I asked from the doorway.
She looked up and smiled so fast I almost believed it. "Like a rock. Did you?"
"Not really," I said. I let my hand rest on the doorframe. "I heard someone up late. Thought it might be you."
One of the stylists glanced at me. Sabrina didn't blink. "I was up for a while. Nerves, you know? Michael and I were texting until almost two."
That landed wrong. Michael had told me he turned his phone off at eleven because his best man took it. He'd said it at breakfast like a joke, holding up his hands. No phone, Mom. I'm all yours.
I nodded like I understood brides. "You stayed in your room?"
"Mostly." She turned back to the mirror. "I got water. Walked around. This house is huge when it's quiet."
Behind her, in the mirror, I could see her hands. Her nails were perfect, pale pink, freshly done. But the cuticle on her right thumb was torn, red at the edge. She caught me looking and tucked her thumb under her fingers.
I moved down the hall before she could ask about my scarf. Rosa was changing the towels in the blue suite, humming low. She'd worked for me three years, came twice a week, and that morning I'd asked her to come early for the wedding mess.
"Rosa," I said quietly, "last night, did you leave the upstairs bathroom doors locked?"
She frowned. "Your bathroom, Mrs.? I cleaned it yesterday afternoon. I left it open to dry the floor. You like it open."
"Did anyone ask you about it? About where my room was?"
She folded a towel, thinking. "The bride. Yesterday evening. She asked which door was yours because all the doors look the same. I told her yours is the one by the marble arch. She said thank you."
My mouth went dry. "What time was that?"
"Before dinner. Six, maybe." She paused. "This morning, when I came at seven, your bathroom door was open. The light was on. I thought you were awake."
I hadn't turned that light on. I'd found it on when I walked in barefoot at six-forty and saw myself in the gold mirror.
"Did you see her out of her room last night?" I asked.
Rosa shook her head. "No. I left at eight. But this morning her bed —" She stopped herself. "Her bed was made when I went to drop the robes at eight. Made neat. Nobody sleeps neat like that."
I heard the girls laughing in Sabrina's suite and the flat iron hissing. My hands were shaking, so I pressed them into the folded towels.
May you like
Seven steps. Awake until two. Knew which door was mine. My bathroom light left on.
I walked back toward my room and stood in the hallway where anyone could have seen her and no one did. I had motive laid out like silverware and opportunity measured in footsteps, and still no hand on my head, still no witness, still nothing I could say to Michael that wouldn't sound like a jealous old woman trying to stop a wedding.
