Mark was remarking to Sabrina how nice it was not to be awakened in the middle of the night by bloodcurdling screams. They were having their morning coffee in her kitchen. He said it in a quasi-joking manner. Sabrina thought she would keep Eve's method of preventing a kidnapping a secret, for maybe ten or fifteen years.
The intercom rang and Sabrina ran to answer it. She pushed the Speak button. Jack told her there were Census Takers downstairs. They wanted to ask her some questions.
Sabrina was silent for so long Jack asked, "Sabrina, are you there?"
"Yes. No! Tell them I'm not here."
"They heard you answer," Jack whispered.
"I sent the forms in, months ago."
"They're going to each apartment. It only takes a minute."
"Okay. But tell them to wait a while. I have to get dressed."
It was probably government agents, trying to spy on her and using a ruse to get inside her apartment. Apparently Jack was satisfied with who they said they were. Now they had access to the entire building.
Even worse, Eve would be coming down any minute. They would probably ask her where she was living. They had the right because they were supposedly checking each apartment for their periodic population count. If Eve told, their safety-escape apartment would be gone.
Sabrina ran and told Mark.
The doorbell rang.
There were three men. One was carrying a red, white and blue briefcase with the word Census on it. Sabrina invited them in and asked them to sit down. One of the men opened the briefcase and took out the form that she had filled out several months ago. They were very organized; Sabrina recognized her own writing on the questionnaire.
All three men apologized for taking up her time since she had already answered the Census, explaining that they were 'spot-checking' in the neighborhood.
Mark walked into the living room and stood with his arms folded in front of him. He started tapping his foot.
One of the men brightly asked if he lived in the Miller household, also. Sabrina said he was a guest.
All the men smiled, but Sabrina was thankful Mark was there. They couldn't harass her in front of a witness.
One of the men, still smiling, asked her if she was indeed Sabrina Miller. Sabrina said yes.
He asked if another woman was living in the apartment.
Sabrina shook her head, no.
They had heard that there was another woman who was living here. A couple of people in the building had mentioned it because the two women looked so much alike. Except for their coloring. The tenants had described a woman with black hair.
Even with all the care she and Eve had taken not to be seen together, Sabrina realized her neighbors had noticed them and had been willing to gossip.
Sabrina looked at three bland smiling faces. Not a hair was out of place. All six shoes were shining with a mirror-like polish. She felt intimidated by snowy white shirts. They didn't appear threatening, but Sabrina was terrified. She hoped she was not noticeably trembling, but could feel moisture beginning to form on her upper lip.
Mark mentioned they had to go to work.
Sabrina said they must mean her cousin, Eve Miller, who had just left the day before. She had been visiting for a while.
Mark pointedly said that he would bring the car out in front to take her to work. He left the apartment.
Sabrina was shocked that Mark had abandoned her, but the three men did not ask any more personal questions. They declined coffee and smiled their way out the door.
Sabrina watched from the peep hole as they got on the elevator. When the doors closed, she grabbed her keys and ran out of the apartment, over to the stairwell. She raced up the stairs and made sure the hall was empty before running to Eve's apartment. When there was no answer to her knock, Sabrina used her key. She quickly checked all the rooms.
The apartment was empty.
While she had been talking to the 'Census Takers,' some other people had taken Eve. She looked outside the window and saw that Mark's car was down below, waiting for her. She sped down the stairs to her own hallway, got an elevator to the lobby and hurried outside, leaning into Mark's window.
"They took Eve! We have to do something right away. Call the police. Get help!"
"Stop yelling. Get in. Everything's fine," Mark said.
"No it's not. She's gone," Sabrina wailed as she got in the car and Mark started away from the curb. "You don't understand. They might hurt her. Experiment on her. We have to do something, Mark!"
"Mark came and got me."
Sabrina swiveled around and looked in the back seat. She craned and saw Eve lying on the floor in the back of the car. She felt relief so great she almost went limp.
"Turn around and act normal," Mark demanded.
Sabrina turned around and smiled at him. "I love you, Mark."
Assuming that the Census Takers had indeed been agents of the United States government there was only one solution. They had to look identical again, if only to cause confusion and buy a little time.
Sabrina and Eve walked into a beauty salon next door to Sabrina's Fashions at lunchtime. Sabrina stated their hair color had to be the same exact shade of blond. She also wanted her's cut so that it would be the same length as Eve's. The air was permeated by penetrating noxious chemical odors that caused both Sabrina and Eve to sneeze repeatedly.
While Eve was under the hair dryer she had time to think about Ivar. He had not called her last night as he had promised. It pained her heart. When she thought about Ivar she could feel the heart skip a beat and then thump again, real hard. Eve wanted to see his face; his nose and chin and the way his mouth curled up on the sides. And she wanted to feel safe and warm again in his arms. She supposed he didn't understand why she had bitten the Russian spy, and maybe she would have to explain it to him, like she had to Sabrina, who still liked her.
When their hair was finished and brushed out Sabrina and Eve stood side by side, looking in the mirror. The process was a success. The small differences were apparent to them, but they thought no one else would notice.
When they got home that night Sabrina immediately looked at the blinking light on her answering machine. There were three messages from Sato Hashimoto for Sabrina and Eve Miller. There was a message for Eve from Ivar.
Eve started jumping around in circles and clapping her hands. She pushed off the ceiling when she jumped too high and almost hit her head.
Sabrina was thinking, Oh dear, now the Japanese know where we live. The American were studying them, the Russians were trying to abduct them, and the Japanese wanted to buy them.
Eve caught Sabrina's expression and stopped jumping. "Not very mature or sophisticated behavior?"
"I was thinking that the Japanese know where we live. You can jump all you want."
"Drink all the syrup you want." Eve started jumping again.
Sabrina looked at Eve with concern.
"I'm not going psychotic. You say such nice things to me. When I drank your syrup you said, Drink all you want. It reminded me, when you said I could jump all I want."
Sabrina nodded. "Maybe you should call Ivar."
"Oh, yes!" Eve ran to the phone in the kitchen.
I think I have a teenager on my hands, Sabrina thought, and started giggling. She knew she should be concerned because she just knew that Eve would go out with Ivar tonight, but it was so much fun to see Eve happy. Even if Ivar was a creep, Eve was smart enough to figure it out for herself.
Sabrina had to admit she was really worried, though. It had been horrible today when she had found Eve missing. Sabrina had to face the possibility that it might actually happen one day.
Eve came bouncing out of the kitchen and started dancing around the room, "I'm going to see Ivar in two hours!"
"Good. Are you hungry?" Sabrina asked.
"Famished. Starving. My stomach is making noises. Growling." Eve made a noise that sounded more menacing than hungry.
"What shall we do about that Japanese man, Hashimoto?" Sabrina asked when they began eating.
"Nothing." Eve sounded unconcerned. "From what I have read, the Japanese think they're very civilized. They will try to negotiate. And we can put them off until we decide what to do with me."
"What do you mean?"
"Either we have to come out in the open, tell about the computer implanted in my brain, or I'm going to have to go into hiding in another country."
Sabrina didn’t like either option much and ate in silence. It was difficult to conceal that there were two of them. They had to separately enter and leave the building. Then, at the shop, one of them kept to the back room while the other was in front. Luckily, Eve was now adept at acting normal. The customers believed Eve was Sabrina. Still, even one day of trying to hide the fact that there were two of them was becoming a strain.