The Bellbottom Incident by Neve Maslakovic

were good that he wouldn’t remember hearing that particular fact.
    Dr. Little ignored the interruption. He looked alert, like the night’s sleep had been restful, and there was a fresh T-shirt under his denim vest. Abigail’s clothes and mine were rumpled from spending the night on the restroom couches, and I hadn’t even thought to bring a toothbrush along, but I didn’t care, not if we were on the verge of finding Sabina. He went on: “Besides being co-ed, this dorm is mixed between senior undergrads and grad students. The women undergrads are on the first two floors, and the men are on the third and fourth. The top floor, where the rooms have private bathrooms, is reserved for grad students like Mooney here who—”
    “Can’t afford to live off campus. Also, no car. Hold on, my visitors…from the future…” the professor-to-be said, stumbling a bit over the words. “Let me close the door so that no one overhears your… futuristic stuff.” He rose up from the chair, staggered where he stood, and leaned over to shut the door Abigail and I had left open in our hurry. He tumbled back into the chair, almost missing it, and murmured something about needing coffee. Besides the desk, with its stacks of textbooks and notebooks, Xave’s tiny room held a bed, a floor lamp, and a dresser. There were posters on the walls (one of Jane Fonda as Barbarella, another of the periodic table) and a pile of dirty clothes not too well hidden under the bed. The trash bin by the desk needed emptying and was overflowing with empty snack bags and candy wrappers—Xave had a bit of a sweet tooth, which would contribute to his health problems in later years.  
    “It seems a woman senior took Sally in for the night,” Dr. Little went on, still with the same maddening deliberation. “There were people going in and out of the dorm all day because of the Halloween party downstairs in the recreation room, so I suppose Sally wouldn’t have stood out—lots of people needed a place to crash for the night. What did you say was the senior’s name, Xave, the one who took Sally in?”
    “Gil—Gilb—why can’t people have simpler names?” Xave finally spit out in one long breath, “Gilberte Dubois. Canadian. Room 104. The undergrads share rooms. Gilberte’s roommate, Jenny, said a freshman wandered in sometime during the early evening. They guessed that she was a foreign exchange student.”
    I wanted to know everything. “Are we sure it’s her? Did Jenny say what her name was? What did she look like?”
    “Jenny said that she—the freshman, not Jenny—was wearing a joke Halloween costume. An ancient Roman scientist. A lab coat over a dress and sandals. A Roman scientist ,” he repeated, chuckling over the concept.  
    “Never mind the costume. Then what happened?” I asked.
    “Jenny and Gilberte lent her a pillow and blanket for the night and let her use Jenny’s bed.” Xave added in a slow afterthought, “Jenny wasn’t interested.”
    “In sleep?” Abigail had gone to perch on the edge of the windowsill, as if needing to sit down to keep her impatience at bay. “Jenny was at the party all night?”
    “She was, but I meant in going out with me. I asked her to join me for a breakfast coffee, but she said no.” Xave looked saddened by the memory.
    Even if I hadn’t known for a fact that he would end up finding somebody who was perfect for him, no matter their later marital issues, I wouldn’t have been interested in his dating problems at the moment. I breathed a sigh of relief. “So she’s in Room 104 downstairs?”
      We had found her. It was over. I hadn’t solved the mystery of my parentage, but that could wait for another day.
    “I didn’t think she’d come here.” Dr. Little said, still standing immobile. Why wasn’t he gathering his sleeping mat and other things from the floor so we could pick up Sabina and be on our way? Was he time-stuck in the open bathroom door, towel in hand?
    Apparently not,