Preparations Begin

They came for my cell mate, maybe, thirty minutes later. I assume that she got the same uncomfortable exam before they brought her back an hour or so later. After that, I spent the two or three hours trying to talk to her, but it was clear she didn’t know English and I didn’t speak whatever dialect of Spanish she spoke, which seemed to be different from what our captors and the other Mexicans I had encountered spoke. From what little I could get her to say, it seems that her name was Garotinha.

During that time, I would hear the indistinct voice of the guards and what, I assumed, were the voices of other captives moving past my room every forty minutes or so. A while after the fourth group left, it was obvious that they were moving us in groups and that I would likely be moved soon as well. I prayed that Mira was in one of those groups and that we were both bound for the same place. Then, I felt a tiny bit guilty, knowing that none of those girls should be ignored, just because they were strangers, but it was my sister and I couldn’t help but care about her wellbeing more than the others.

The timing was about the same when they came for Garotinha and me.

We were led up the stairs and further down the hallway this time, where we were pushed into a room with big group showers, like they had back in school, on one side and a set of tall chairs on the other side.

The two men from before and another two, that I hadn’t seen previously, closed the door, leaving us alone in the room with a woman that looked like she should have been working at a spa. The woman gestured and said, “Shower.”

So, Garotinha and I stripped, and I carefully placed the {if resistance >0}dragonfly{else}dragonflies{endif} in my clothing, hoping they’d remain hidden, and stepped into the shower, where Garotinha resumed her mouse impression, timidly waiting as I turned on the water. When the hot water struck my skin, it was a moment of bliss that almost made me forget where I was. The mousy girl yelped in surprise, but it was clear that she quickly began to enjoy the change from sitting on the cold linoleum floor in the basement.

“You, come here,” the beautician said, gesturing from Garotinha to one of the tall chairs.

I stayed in the shower as the beautician set to work on my cell mate. The process began with drying and combing the rat’s nest of hair that the poor girl had and, finally, the clipping off of twenty centimeters of hair and then evening out the rest so that it matched the new shortened length. Then, she set to work filing Garotinha’s nails and the girl’s calloused feet and, finally, ended in a liberal application of lotion and, arguably, too much makeup.

Gesturing from me to the other tall chair, the beautician said, “You, come here.”

Reluctantly, I stepped out of the shower and began drying myself with one of the slightly damp towels that were hung on a rack. Just hoping for a clue, I sniffed each of the towels, but none of them held Mira’s scent. I chided myself for assuming that I’d be able to recognize her scent after she’d been held captive for most of a week as I sat down on the indicated chair.

What followed was a quicker process than on my cell mate and I only lost a centimeter or two as the beautician did an admirable job with my hair. The odd dissociated part of my mind wanted to thank the woman for what would have been an expensive trip to the barber’s back in New York, but I tamped it down.

The process continued as she pampered me and, like Garotinha, ended with her applying too much eye shadow and a shade of lipstick that made me look like I was going through a greatly delayed goth phase.

Finally, she deemed us finished, we dressed, and the four guards escorted us from the room.

This time, we were led down the hallway and outside, where an armored van, that reminded me of the ones we used to transport prisoners, waited to embark us.