Cairo (fiction)

She likes to lean over the table or chair, so far that her hair grazes the top of her soup or the plate of food she cooked. One day I asked her what was in the Caesar dressing, and she cried. She ripped the recipe to shreds and watched it fall into the bin. Hopelessly praying for anyone to reveal her secret too. I guess that person was me. Before I left her place that night, I bowed my head.

May I?

She nodded.

I fished those paper scraps from the trash and put her recipe back together like a puzzle. I always admired everyone else’s handwriting but my own. Mine was chicken scratch like I just killed someone and didn’t know what to do next. But Cai wrote in cursive. Concise cursive. Which makes sense because she has a doctorate in Latin. I picture those with a doctorate taking their time to write letters. They must treat paper like a stone and engrave their research so deep that their mark may never perish. Cai was like that. Never to perish. I think I knew of her before we met.

Cai met me on the floor and studied me like her eyes were cameras. For a couple of minutes, I feared for my life until she grew impatient and finished the puzzle herself. Her long hair swept across the floor, almost interrupting the process. Where would we be if we had to start all over?

I held the final piece of paper up to my face like a mirror.

“I can show you,” Cai said

I raised my eyebrows at her.

“If you want.”

I gathered my breath and held it there in my chest. Cai is clever. She can outsmart a killer and make them think she’s on their side. Cai is a history book that can predict the future. She’s the knife that you need to stab someone in the back. She’s moody weather. She’s a safe.

I shrug. “Fine.”

She snapped her fingers and a pair of scissors appeared in her hand. She was going to cut my hair so long as I let her.

I closed my eyes. The snip snip snip of scissors was all I could hear in the background of my heartbeat.

She’s done this before. Open up in a way, so sincere, that those who put their trust in her leave with a renowned ownership. A reclaimed sense of self. But, to me, the sound of her voice would change into gibberish. I often questioned who this girl was. I’d watch her kick everything out of her way until I had to ask what made her so upset. Because Cai doesn’t beg. Her mom taught her dignity and her mom’s mom taught her grace. She took that seriously and withheld so much until she’d break.

I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair.

“Do you like it?”

I smiled. Of course. I liked everything she did.

Cai burst into tears. She spilled every detail of herself to me through giant gasps of air. I had no idea Cai could cut hair. I had no idea Cai had a secret recipe. I had no idea Cai’s dad left when she was nine and I had no idea she was a triplet. Cai doesn’t beg, but she’d die to be known. And from then on I listened.