The Little Black Book

I stumbled out of the life sciences building, shielding my face as the bright sunlight overwhelmed my weak, fluorescent-lighting adjusted eyes. I reached into the bag I had slung over my shoulder to grab my phone when some impatient student barreled into me from behind. The contents of my bag and I lurched toward the 3 steps at the entrance to the building. I flailed unceremoniously for the railing but missed. I landed hard on my hands and knees which were left exposed by the summery floral dress my roommate had talked me into wearing that morning. I jumped up quickly, cheeks burning from the eyes I could feel on me, and my head cracked into someone. I whipped around to see a guy rubbing his jaw. A handsome guy, a handsome guy who I had probably just flashed my underwear to and then concussed.

“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

The hand he had been rubbing his jaw with lifted to run through his scruffy brown hair.

“I’m fine. Karma really. I was in such a rush to escape that soul-sucking building I didn’t notice you standing there, and I think I knocked you down the stairs. Are you okay?” His hazel eyes swiveled to the road rash on my knees.

“I’m good, totally fine, just a little scrape, have definitely had worse.” I could feel my cheeks heat up again as the spazzy words kept spewing uncontrollably out my mouth. The guy tilted his head and gave me the most knee-buckling crooked smile.

I ducked down to scoop my scattered belongings back into my bag and to hide my continuously pinkening cheeks. He handed me my cell phone which had skittered farther down the sidewalk.

“If you’re sure you’re okay. I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Yes, definitely,” I responded a little too eagerly. He grinned again then gave me a little half wave before turning and walking away. I didn’t even think to ask his name. I had no idea how significant that silly little encounter would later become.

When I got back to my dorm room, I flung my bag on the floor and examined my stinging hands and knees. I winced through applying antiseptic and bandages, and then turned to the even more painful task of starting my homework. I unloaded my bag onto my desk, but as I pulled out my pencil bag I noticed something unexpected. There was an unfamiliar notebook resting in the bottom of my bag. A smooth-covered, black Moleskine notebook, the black elastic band holding the cover firmly shut. Where had this come from? Had that cute guy who helped me pick up my stuff accidentally dropped it into my bag?

The elastic band slid back from the cover begrudgingly as if it knew I was violating its master’s secrets. Beneath the ‘if lost return to’ on the first page, the owner had written in small, tight cursive “Wouldn’t you like to know?” The words raised goosebumps on my arms. My gaze whipped ridiculously around the room, as if I might catch someone watching me from the corners. My hand had the slightest tremble to it as I turned to the next page. There was a rough pencil sketch of a girl sitting on the ground, her back leaning on the trunk of a tree, and a book propped up in her lab. The words read like the beginning of a romance novel.

The first day I saw R. I am a thirsty man who has suddenly found an oasis, a lost traveler who looks up into the breaking clouds and sees the north star, a castaway finally washing up onto warm golden sand. Her hair holds the mysteries of the universe in it, her laughter more lovely than any music, and those eyes are crystal-blue depths beyond compare I long to dive into and explore. She smiled at me from her spot under the willow tree, and I knew she was the one. She will be mine.

The next page was a list of times and different locations on campus. Nearly every minute of a single week was outlined with notes in the margins like ‘coffee with loud friend again’ and ‘must be a MWF night class.’ Was he…? Was he following this girl, and taking notes about her routine?

The last day I saw R. R was a disappointment like the rest of them. She had deceived me with that smile. The sunlight had conspired to make her seem more than she was. When I examined her eyes more closely they were murky, shallow pools.

My bandaged palms were sweating, and my stomach churned up a metallic taste into my mouth. What was this? Despite my increasing unease, some instinct, some voice in my head urged me to turn the page, to keep reading. I skipped ahead in the notebook to the most recent entry marked by the ribbon. There was another pencil sketch of a girl, but this one was from behind. She sat in what appeared to be a lecture hall. The girl’s long hair was swept over one shoulder, and you could see the back of the flower print, spaghetti-strap top she was wearing.

I have found hope again. A has everything the others were lacking. I find myself mesmerized by the hypnotic emerald of her eyes. They will truly see me. She will understand.

Something was bothering me, some detail my subconscious had picked out that the rest of my mind hadn’t caught. My eyes wandered back up to the pencil drawing. The room in the sketch looked familiar. I pulled the notebook closer to my face. The room in the sketch was definitely one of the lecture halls in the life sciences building on campus. My heart clenched in my chest. The lecture hall in the picture could easily be the one I had just left before coming back to my room. Could that girl in the floral top actually be me in my flowery dress? My eyes darted over the entry again. ‘A has everything the others were lacking.’ A, for Alice, my name. The notebook dropped from my hands and fell pages down onto the floor. I am being crazy right? A could stand for any number of names. I took a deep breath, and picked the notebook up off the floor. I held it away from me like I was afraid it might bite. I flipped back a page from the drawing of the lecture hall. The page was covered with another schedule, my schedule. My classes, the building I always ate lunch in, the picnic table my roommate and I had sat at while playing cards on Wednesday afternoon. I froze. Staring at that page, unmoving, suddenly understanding why deer freeze in oncoming headlights rather than jumping to safety. I have no idea how long I would have sat there if my roommate hadn’t walked into the room. I jumped up so fast, my wooden desk chair slammed to the floor.

“Come with me right now. We have to go to the police station,” I practically shouted at her.

“What’s going on, I…” before she could finish the sentence, I had scooped the notebook off the floor, grabbed her by the arm, and practically dragged her out into the hallway.

“I’ll explain later, but I have to go right now, and I really need you to come with me.” She had a stunned, confused look on her face, but she nodded and didn’t protest.

We practically sprinted to the police station that was a few blocks from our dorm building. I whipped open the glass door at the front and charged to the front desk. The middle-aged bottle blonde at the reception desk looked up at me, eyes wide behind her tortoise shell glasses. I am sure I looked crazy since I was out of breath, red-faced, dragging my confused roommate along behind me.

“Can I help you?”

“I need to talk to an officer. I found this creepy notebook in my bag, and I think someone has been following me,” I blurted.

I was led back to a desk where I explained everything that had happened that afternoon to a police officer with salt and pepper hair and a lightly lined face. He looked through the little black notebook. He walked over to another officer’s desk and showed him the notebook. They called over a third officer, and they all talked in urgent tones, low enough that I could not make out what they were saying. I saw them slide the little black notebook into a plastic evidence bag.

“Do you think you would be able to identify the man you ran into if you saw a picture?” The officer asked me when he finally returned.

“Yeah, I think I could.” The officer pulled out a book and turned to a page with 16 different photos on it of young men with brown hair and hazel eyes. The guy I had bumped into looked up at me from the center of the page.

“That’s him,” I pointed. The officer leaned back in his chair and looked at me with an unreadable expression.

“You are absolutely certain that is the guy you saw before you found the notebook?”

“Yes.”

“Well my dear, you may have just helped us catch a serial killer.”

The officer proceeded to explain that there had been a series of disappearances of young woman around the city. They had suspected the guy I had run into was involved, but they were having trouble connecting him to the crimes. The notebook could potentially provide critical forensic evidence and at the very least would serve as leverage in an interrogation. One of the officers escorted my roommate and I back to my dorm room, and they kept guard until the guy was arrested later that evening. The man eventually confessed to his crimes, and I received a $20,000 reward for information that made his arrest possible.