We reconvened on the other side of the checkpoint, in a large terminal with white walls and a ceiling that reminded me of the latticed foam sleeves that sometimes come on bottles of wine or shipped fruit. A driver met us there. We followed him outside, into the dry, warm air, where two Land Rovers were waiting. Anna and I rode in one car, Kacy and Jesse in the other. After a ten-minute drive, we pulled up to a palatial compound and entered through its gates. At the front entrance, we were welcomed by a host of men wearing fez hats and traditional Moroccan attire. We had arrived at our singularly opulent destination. Miss Delvey, our host, opted for a tour of the grounds for her and her guests. We proceeded directly, not having any need for keys or a traditional check-in procedure, since our villa was staffed with a full-time butler and, according to Anna, all billing had been settled in advance.
Our private riad was the size of a small house, and our butler, a nice man named Adid, met us at the front door. We entered through a foyer, then walked down three steps into the center of an elegant living room with a zellige-tile floor. There was a seating area to our left, containing a sofa, two chairs, and two ottomans—upholstered in saffron-gold velvet brocade. To our right was a dining space, anchored by a round, dark wooden table, on top of which white roses, chilled wine, and an assortment of fruits and pastries awaited us.
Two of the riad’s bedrooms were directly off the living room. Kacy took the room to the left, through a doorway in the seating area. Jesse claimed the room to the right, through a door in the dining space.
There was another door to the right of the dining space, leading to a long, dark hallway with crimson walls and a carved cedarwood ceiling. The corridor turned left and ran behind the living room, past Jesse’s room, to a master suite featuring a private drawing room, a fireplace and desk, and the riad’s largest bedroom. I shared the suite with Anna. All three bedrooms had doors that opened directly onto the patio, where we could take a dip in the villa’s private pool, sunbathe in a lounge chair, or pass through an ornate wrought-iron gate into the resort’s idyllic gardens.
The hotel had four restaurants: French, Moroccan, Italian, and the Pool Pavilion. As it was our first night in Marrakech, we opted for Moroccan. We sat at an outdoor table and kicked off the night, and our vacation, with a round of Aperol spritzes and a bottle of dry white wine. The four of us had the satisfied glow of freshly arrived travelers.
Each of us brought something different to the group. Vacation-mode Kacy was sporting colorfully patterned pants, a white silk blouse, and an energetic smile. She was vocal about her excitement at being in such a luxurious place, but her enthusiasm stayed within measure. She seemed invested in our discussion of possible group activities—going to the souk and the Jardin Marjorelle, for instance—but also content to do her own thing, which I would come to find out meant lounging by the pool. Upbeat but always balanced, Kacy was our ballast.
Jesse was wearing a light-blue oxford shirt and dark pants, his long hair tied into a messy high bun. He played the role of amused observer, regardless of whether or not he had his video camera in hand—which he usually did. In conversation, he would often chime in with facts, stories, and opinions. He would have the idea to make a day trip to the Atlas Mountains, for example, because he’d done some research and spoken to a friend. Jesse ruled with his intellect. At times, he inclined toward cynicism. He would confide in me with his observations or complaints, but after voicing them, he was usually quick to let them go. He and I sometimes fought like siblings. The rigidity of his opinions could make me crazy, and my occasional tendency to rule with emotion over logic could drive him nuts.
Anna Delvey, international woman of whimsy and mystery, was wearing head-to-toe black, as was her norm: black skinny jeans, a black shirt, and her feathery black coat draped over her shoulders. It was as though she had summoned us, and now that we were all here, it gave her pleasure to sit back and watch. She giggled mockingly as we processed the fanciness of our surroundings. She was just as jubilant and wide-eyed as the rest of us, only she was much faster at making herself at home. Above all else—and at this first dinner especially—Anna looked happy.
Me? I filled in the seams, gluing the group together and doing my best to please. Sitting at dinner, in the cool night air, I wore an irrepressible smile. I was surrounded by people whose company I enjoyed, in a country I’d never been to, in a hotel grander and more extraordinary than anything I could have imagined. I was invested in making sure the others felt as happy as I did, both in this moment and throughout the trip.
A funny thing happened during our meal. One cat at first, and then another, appeared on the restaurant’s terrace and moseyed over to our table. Marrakech is filled with feral cats, so their presence wasn’t a mystery. But both of them came right up to me—only me—and stared until I gave them some food (which of course I did because I couldn’t help myself ). Cats would single me out for the rest of the week, wherever we went. It became a running joke that I was their master. So maybe that was my role: pleaser of people and of stray cats.
After the boozy meal, on the heels of our travel day, we returned to the villa feeling tipsy. Kacy turned in for the night, while Anna, Jesse, and I hung around. I think it was Anna who first decided to get in the pool. In a city roughly fifteen hundred feet above sea level, the evening air was chilly. Despite the thick sweater I’d worn to dinner, I had shivered on the walk across the gardens back to our riad. I had no interest in a swim, but Jesse gamely joined our host.
Anna’s music played from a speaker in the courtyard while they swam. Meanwhile, I crawled under the covers in the master bedroom to get warm. Minutes later, I heard Anna’s voice: “Let’s get Rachel to come in the pool, too.” Not happening, I thought. I’m a miserable person when I’m cold—I hate it. Dinner had been fun, I was in a good mood, but I really, really did not want to get in the pool. Not for all the tea in China—no way, no how.
I don’t remember the exact sequence of events, but I do remember being chased. It was only Anna at first. She came toward me with a mischievous sparkle in her eye, which was enough to make me run. I darted around the bedroom, down the long hallway, through the living room, the courtyard, and past the pool. At first I tried to laugh off what was happening, but as the chase continued I could feel myself getting mad. “I mean it!” I yelled. “I am not in the mood!”
With Anna running after me, I sought refuge, through the rear door, back in our room. When I leaped onto the bed, she followed. I remember her grabbing my wrists. We tussled. She was laughing; I was not. I can still picture the look on her face when she realized that I was stronger than she was. I broke free from her grasp, rolled away, and kept running. At some point, Jesse joined in the pursuit.
I would not let them pull me in. If it was going to happen, I would do it myself. I made a dash for my suitcase, threw on a bathing suit, marched to the pool, and jumped in without hesitation, pulling myself out just as quickly. “There. Are you happy?” I said. They cheered. Dripping and cold, I stormed off.
Okay, I know—poor me, right? Chased by two friends who only wanted me to get in the pool of our private villa, on the grounds of one of the world’s nicest hotels. But alone in the bedroom, I was so hot with anger that tears burned in my eyes. Sure, we were all a little drunk. And so what? The stakes were low.
Anna and Jesse? Only horsing around.
But they had inadvertently hit upon one of my trigger points.
I gave Anna so much leeway—I abided her bossiness, her rudeness, and her lack of boundaries. This was one thing I had said clearly: I did not want to get in the pool. Why couldn’t she let me have that? Not only did she override my agency, she sucked Jesse in, too, using my friend against me. Anna knew that I was serious and still she hunted me for sport. I felt bullied, alone, and sorry I’d come.
I sent Jesse a text message and an email, just to be sure he got the point: Please do not gang up on me with Anna. It’s not fun. I do not find it amusing. He responded within minute
s to say that he was sorry and that it wouldn’t happen again. Just before I put down my cell phone to go to sleep, Anna walked into the bedroom looking sheepish, her head lowered and eyes raised. I glanced up from my phone just long enough to make eye contact before looking back down. For a minute, there was silence as she walked into the bathroom to change. When she re-entered the room, she ventured a few words.
“You were really mad, huh?” she said, her tone soft.
“Yeah,” I answered. I waited a beat before adding, “That was not fun.”
“I’m really sorry—we got carried away,” she said.
I felt something tight within my chest begin to loosen. “It’s okay,” I replied.
There was a pause. “I’ve never seen you get that angry.”
To my surprise, I felt myself begin to smile—and then laugh. Anna started to laugh with me.
By the time I fell asleep, the air had cleared.
* * *
The next morning, I decided to put the incident behind me. We had drunk too much wine, were overtired, and I’d no doubt overreacted as a result. Moving forward, I would make an effort to be less uptight. Anna took a private tennis lesson in the morning. We met her afterward for breakfast at the poolside buffet. We would spend the rest of the day exploring all that La Mamounia had to offer. We roamed the extensive gardens and relaxed in the hammam (a Moroccan steam room). Between adventures, Adid appeared, as if by magic, with fresh watermelon and chilled bottles of rosé. We luxuriated in the hazy bliss of a day without obligations. Lounging in the sun, we lost track of time. When we were hungry, we ate. When we were tired, we napped. By day’s end, we were fully relaxed and all getting along.
Early the next morning, we did a workout with Kacy. Thankfully, we had the gym to ourselves. Jesse was there with his camera, and while Anna may have liked for others to see her being filmed, I was reluctant. Afterward, Anna and Kacy both took a nap. That afternoon, we decided to go for a walk around Marrakech. We all agreed that La Mamounia was beautiful, but at this point we were ready to venture out.
Anna wanted two things: piles of spices worthy of an Instagram photo and a place to buy some caftans. La Mamounia’s concierge arranged everything, and within minutes we had a tour guide and had set off with a car and driver. Our van came to a stop, and we stepped out one by one, fresh from our sheltered resort life into the dusty warmth of the mysterious maze known as the medina—an ancient walled metropolis.
The tour guide knew what our priorities were; nevertheless, he made an unscheduled stop at an antiques store on the way. Next came the rug shop, which was something we’d wanted to see. Drinking hot tea, as was the custom, we sat on a couch and watched the workers unroll their wares. Anna got on her knees to feel the texture of a one-of-a-kind, hand-knotted wool rug, made by the Berber tribes of the Middle Atlas Mountains. Quietly, she said to me, “I’ll buy you one if you want it.” The rugs cost thousands of dollars. It was a generous offer—typical of Anna. I thanked her but passed. After finishing our tea, we moved on.
We were quite a sight, walking through the narrow alleyways of the marketplace, led by our tour guide, a chatty, round-faced man in blue jeans and a baseball cap. Kacy trailed a few steps behind him, dressed in all white and carrying a blue woven tote bag in her left hand. Anna walked beside her, in a coral-colored dress that tied behind her neck, leaving her arms and upper back exposed. Her sunglasses were on top of her head, and she carried the black clutch that she’d accidentally checked when we were leaving New York. Then there was Jesse, wearing a backpack, floating behind Kacy and Anna with his video camera lifted in front of his face. I walked behind everyone, stopping here and there to photograph alleyways with my phone. No one spoke much as we wandered—we were too busy marveling at the mystical people and places that surrounded us.
“Can you make this dress but with black linen?” Anna asked a woman in La Maison du Kaftan Marocain. Before the woman could reply, Anna continued, “I’ll take one in black and one in white linen and, Rachel, I’d love to get one for you.”
I scanned the store’s racks as Anna tried on a bright-red jumpsuit and a range of gauzy sheer dresses. I tried on a few things, too, but wary of the iffy fabric content and high prices, I soon joined Jesse and Kacy in the shop’s seating area for glasses of mint tea.
When Anna went to pay, her debit card was declined.
“Did you tell your banks that you were traveling?” I asked. “No” was her reply. In that case, I wasn’t surprised that such a purchase would be flagged. Anna asked to borrow the money, promising to reimburse me the following week. I agreed and charged the $1,339.24 purchase to my credit card, careful to keep track of the receipt. We wandered around until dusk. Then we went directly to La Sultana, a five-star luxury hotel nestled within the medina, where we sat on the rooftop terrace, bathed in lantern light and the mesmerizing sound of the Islamic call to prayer, echoing from minarets across the “Red City.” Pleased with our expedition, we ate dinner in high spirits. I paid for that, too, adding it to my “tab” with Anna.
When we got back to our resort, we stopped for a drink in the Churchill Bar (within La Mamounia’s main building). We were talking about what else we could do that evening when someone mentioned the hotel’s Grand Casino. “I’ve never been to a casino,” I said. That sealed the deal. We finished our drinks and walked straight over. We stayed only a short while, but within that time Anna helped me play roulette, explaining how it worked as she stood by my side. But my favorite game was the slot machines, and they seemed to like me, too. I won a little money in a lucky streak, and then lost it just as fast. We left when I ran out of cash—all of it except for one chip, which I held on to as a keepsake.
That night in the riad, Anna and Jesse got back in the pool. Jesse shot video while Anna swam around, wearing a black dress that she’d gotten in the medina. Eminem’s “Rhyme or Reason” played in the background. Anna was deliberate with her poses: she lifted her dress so it floated around her, revealing her legs. The performance was artificially sensuous. She was playing to the camera, clearly loving its attention, and grinning nonstop.
* * *
Kacy wasn’t feeling well. She had a stomachache that had started on Monday afternoon. So when it was time for our first outing on Tuesday, she stayed behind in the villa to rest. Anna, Jesse, and I were heading to the Jardin Majorelle. The hotel booked our car and driver—and the same tour guide from the previous day. We were walking through the lobby to meet them when a hotel employee waved Anna to a stop. “Miss Delvey, may we speak with you?” he said, tactfully pulling her aside. “Is everything okay?” I asked when she rejoined the group. “Yes,” Anna reassured me. “I just need to call my bank.”
Anna wore her new red jumpsuit that day, in the hope that it would photograph well. Jesse shot video, and I snapped a few pictures, as we walked together through the garden. We went from there to lunch at a poolside restaurant in the Dar Rhizlane hotel. After a successful search for photogenic spices—which we found in the Mellah, the city’s Jewish quarter—we returned to La Mamounia contented.
We were walking out of the lobby, toward our riad, when a hotel employee approached Anna once again. She quelled his concern with assurances: “Okay, I’ll just need to call my bank, it’s because of the way you are trying to run the card over and over.” Then we carried on with our day.
La Mamounia is surrounded by an ochre-colored perimeter wall, part of the city’s twelfth-century ramparts. We were walking along its bougainvillea-covered interior when Anna approached a guard at the entrance nearest our riad. “Can you tell us—is there a way to get on the wall?” she asked. At first, I thought I’d misunderstood her. But she asked again, trying to explain that she wanted a way to be on top of the wall. The question was nonsensical, as was the idea. The wall was high and narrow. There were no ladders or platforms in sight. Moreover, the top of the wall was uneven—if Anna somehow managed to get up there, she wouldn’t be able to sit.
Standing back, I
watched the interaction with bemusement. When the guard looked to me for a translation, I shrugged and shook my head. Either Anna was suffering from confusion—faced with something impossible but looking for a loophole—or she was asking the question for the sake of entertainment. I wagered the latter and stood transfixed.
* * *
On Wednesday morning, en route to breakfast, I was also stopped as I passed through the lobby: “Miss Williams, have you seen Miss Delvey?” When I joined the others at the poolside restaurant, I told Anna that the front desk wanted to see her. She was agitated by the inconvenience. You could always tell when Anna was agitated: she made almost comically huffy noises (“Ugh, why!”) and typed furiously on her phone. She left the villa and came back shortly after, ostensibly relieved that the situation was being resolved.
Not long after, Anna, Jesse, and I were in the back of a van, drinking a bottle of rosé, on two bench seats facing each other, speeding through the desert toward the mountains. Kacy, still feeling ill, had stayed in bed for the second day in a row. As usual, Anna blasted music, as loud as her phone would allow. An hour later we arrived at Sir Richard Branson’s Kasbah Tamadot, a destination hotel—with only twenty-eight guest rooms—situated in the remote foothills of the High Atlas Mountains. We’d come for lunch.
The hotel radiated a serene energy as its inhabitants lounged in the breeze, which was fitting since Kasbah Tamadot means “soft breeze” in the language of the Berbers, an indigenous people of North Africa. We sat around a table on the terrace, absorbing a sweeping view of the adjacent valley and mountains, before studying the food and drink menus, bound in beautiful handwoven casings. Anna and I ordered mojitos to start. Jesse went for a mimosa. The table would soon become a medley of flavor and color. We sipped Perrier from vibrant orange glasses and ate freshly baked Berber bread dipped in rich local olive oil. At some point, we switched to white wine. My vegetable tagine arrived so sizzling hot that I made Anna and Jesse look to see how it was bubbling. Not wanting the meal to end, we ordered dessert: raspberry and lemon sorbet, an Eton mess, and a round of espressos.
My Friend Anna Page 11