Page 16 of Finders Keepers
Community and religious activities
Supports several charitable causes, including hospitals and orphanages throughout the region. Does not regularly attend any house of worship.
Description of informant
Approx. five feet ten inches, slender, with a shorter torso and long limbs. Eyes are gray. Hairis white with natural curl. Wears distinctive, old-fashioned large mustache. Dressed in silk pajamas with a fuchsia paisley print and slippers. Sitting in matching chair with one leg tucked beneath him and the other splayed over the chair’s arm.
Other points gained in interview
Informant would like it formally noted that he thinks interviewer’s tie is “atrocious.” [AA: Tie is a unique shade of green and was a birthday gift from my wife. It admittedly may not be what I would have chosen myself.]
8
“Whyyyyy?” I whine,sitting up in bed. It’s only…Okay, it’s actually almost eleven in the morning, so the loud power tool sounds happening outside aren’t as egregiously inconsiderate as I thought. But still, it’s not my preferred alarm clock.
I clear the crusties from the corners of my eyes and roll over to grab my phone from the nightstand. There are three emails from job search sites, helpfully informing me that there are no new posts matching my criteria, and a missed video call from my best friend, Sabrina. Shit. We were supposed to chat this morning. But since I’m now living on Unemployed Sad Person (USP) time, I completely slept through our usual Monday eight a.m. catch-up.
If it’s eleven here, it’s…twelve, one…four p.m. in Belfast? She used to teach a class around this time, but I’m pretty sure her semester also ended last week, so hopefully she’s free. I call her back, and my phone very rudely turns on my front-facing camera as I wait, prompting me to sit up so that I’m at least looking less like a blobfish when Sabrina answers.
“She lives! Hooray!” she shouts, throwing an arm into the air and almost dropping her phone. For a second all I can see is the top quarter of a row of beautiful old brick townhomes and a rectangle of light gray sky.
“Sorry,” I say. “I forgot what day it was and slept in. Is it too late to talk? Are you busy?”
“No, no, not busy at all. Just off to Malcolm’s for the night,” Sabrina says, then seems to recall that Malcolm is her boyfriend (a thing I no longer have), and winces. “Anyway, he can wait.” Her eyes dart around as she examines the framed poster hanging over the bed behind me—David Bowie jumping in the air while reading Dostoyevsky. “Ooh. That’s a strangely sensual picture,” she says, tilting her head.
“Bowie was a strangely sensual man.”
“Too true. You know, I thinkLabyrinthwas my sexual awakening.” She holds in a laugh as an elderly woman in the midst of entering her house, a fluffy dog cradled in her arms, gives her a stern look for saying the word “sexual” on the street like a hooligan. “How’s it being back home?”
“Mostly strange,” I say. “My parents seem glad to have me here. Almosttooglad. Well, Mom at least. Dad spends most of his time in his workshop, appearing only for food and to do whatever chores my mom asks him to do.” I pause, unsure if I want to mention Quentin. He feels like a can of worms, and even if I don’t provide a can opener I know that Sabrina will happily pry it open with her bare hands. Then again, not telling her feels like I’m hiding something. No reason to hide something that really is no big deal. So I add, “Also, an old childhood friend who lived next door has coincidentally just moved back too.”
“Ooh. What are they like?”
“He’s…” It’s hard to answer this question, I realize, because I’m not sure whether to base it on what I know of young Quentin or this new, grown-up version. I eventually land on, “Mostly very frustrating.”
“Hmm. Now that’s interesting.” Sabrina brings her topaz-colored eye closer to the phone, like a detective leaning over a clue with a magnifying glass.
“What’s interesting?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s only you paused before ‘mostly very frustrating.’ ”
“There was no pause,” I insist.
“There most certainly was. And, well, I don’t know if you remember, but that was also how you used to talk about…That’s what you said before…”
I know she meansbefore you and Cole got togetherbut isn’t sure how I would feel about her bringing up my ex less than a week after our split.
“Quentin is a verydifferentkind of frustrating,” I say, freeing her from having to finish her sentence. I found Cole frustrating back then because he always seemed to swoop in and check out whatever books I needed from the university’s library before I could get to them. Eventually that led to a realization that, if he wanted the same obscure monographs I did, we probably had a lot of things in common—including the areas we were focusing on for our comprehensive exams. Which led to me suggesting we study together. Which, perhaps inevitably, led to us doing a lot more than studying.
