“Come in!” Florence called from the bathroom.
Amina hovered in the doorway. Folded in her hands was Helen’s blue-and-white-striped scarf. Florence froze, mascara wand in hand.
“Where did you get that?”
“Le gendarme,” Amina said. The policeman.
“Idrissi? He’s here?”
“He left. You were sleeping.” She added, looking uncomfortable, “He asked about your friend. When she came home, when she left.”
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth. I don’t stay nights here.”
“Good,” Florence said quietly. “Thank you.”
Amina made no indication that she’d heard. She placed the scarf on the bed and smoothed out a wrinkle. Just then, the doorbell rang, and Florence jumped. She looked at her watch. It was a few minutes before eight. It must be Meg.
Amina went downstairs to answer it. Florence followed a few minutes later and found Meg in the courtyard, looking at her phone. When she saw Florence she exclaimed, “Wait, you look so nice!” Florence was wearing a silk dress and a pair of espadrilles. She had also put on the red lipstick that Helen always wore. Seeing herself in the mirror, she’d felt like she was wearing a mask. She looked utterly unfamiliar to herself. She’d raised her hand to see if the reflection waved back.
“Thanks,” she responded. “You too.” Meg was wearing short jean cut-offs and a blousy embroidered peasant top.
Outside, Florence climbed on the back of Meg’s rickety-looking Honda motorbike and tentatively put her arms around Meg’s soft middle. She gripped the cast on her left wrist gently with her right hand.
“You okay back there?” Meg asked.
“I’m great. Bonjour, l’aventure!”
Villa des Grenades lay on a narrow, twisting road. From above, it must have looked like a piece of hair strewn on the ground. The whine of the scooter’s motor rose and fell as it tore around the curves. Florence found herself enjoying the ride, the dangerous tip of the bike as it took the turns. She recalled the sensation of revving the engine on the drive to Semat, when she had imagined Helen’s head bouncing off the dashboard like a soccer ball. She shook her head to dislodge the memory.
After about fifteen minutes, Meg pulled into the parking lot of a charmless modern apartment building just outside the medina walls. She told Florence that four Australian guys had rented an apartment here, and various expats moved in and out every few weeks. Mostly kiteboarders, here for the wind. She pressed the buzzer on the intercom, which produced a jaunty little tune.
“Yeah?” crackled the speaker.
“It’s me,” Meg sang out, leaving a smear of lip gloss on the intercom.
There was a pause, then another crackle: “Who?”
Meg laughed and said, “Meg!” She rolled her eyes at Florence good-naturedly. She seemed like a woman used to being forgotten. At length the intercom buzzed and the door unlocked with a thud. As they climbed up to the third floor, Florence asked Meg how old she was.
“I’ll be twenty-two in September. Why, how old are you?”
She decided to split the difference between Helen’s age and her own. “Twenty-nine.”
Upstairs, a blond guy in board shorts and nothing else opened the door. He turned around and walked back into the room without saying a word. Following Meg inside, Florence took in the scene with mounting dismay. There were eight, maybe nine people draped around the room, which was dominated by an enormous black leather sectional couch patched with masking tape. A scummy table was scattered with full ashtrays and empty beer cans. Nobody was wearing a colorful kaftan. There were no lanterns.
“Hey, guys,” Meg said cheerfully. She walked around the room and introduced Florence to everyone with a formality that the setting didn’t warrant. “Helen is a writer,” she said every time. “A novelist.”
Most of the crowd wore the same bored, impassive expression as the guy who’d opened the door for them, but Florence noted with satisfaction that their masks seemed to slip a little when Meg introduced her as a writer. Something—if not respect, at least curiosity—flickered in their eyes.
“I’m a writer too,” confided an emaciated girl in a bikini top as she sucked on a vape pen. “I mean, it’s just like a travel blog right now, but I’m hoping to turn it into a book.”
“That’s great,” Florence said.
“Yeah, so if you have any tips on like getting an agent or anything…”
Florence smiled magnanimously. “Of course.”
“What about you? Have I read anything you’ve written?”
“Well, I don’t know what you’ve read.”
The girl smiled and shook her head. “Sorry, that was such a dumb question. What have you written?”
Florence wondered what Helen said when she was asked this question. She had so rarely seen Helen interact with people. Maybe she didn’t tell people she was a writer at all. But it was too late for that now. “To be honest,” she said, “I write under a pseudonym. And I don’t really share it.”
The guy who had opened the door for them looked up from rolling a cigarette and said, “Christ, don’t tell us you’re Maud Dixon.”
Florence laughed forcefully. “I wish.”
“Oh my god, I looove Maud Dixon,” said a sunburned American girl on the couch. She turned to the guy whose lap her legs were draped over. “Jay, aren’t I always talking about her?” He gave no indication that he’d heard her. She jiggled her legs. “Babe—aren’t I always talking about that, like, killer redneck?”
“Mmm,” Jay said. He was scrolling through his phone.
“I’m gonna stab you!” she said merrily, pretending to plunge a knife into his stomach.
“Stop,” he said dully.
Meg reappeared from the kitchen holding two bottles of Casablanca, and they settled on a pair of white plastic chairs on a balcony overlooking the parking lot.
“So!” said Meg cheerfully.
“So,” said Florence less cheerfully.
“This is fun.”
“Mm.”
“Tell me about how you became a writer.”
“I don’t know. I always wrote. And then one day I guess I just got lucky.”
“That’s so cool. I’d love to be a writer.”
“Do you write?”
“Not really. I’m super left-brained. Like, really logical and stuff?”
“So what’s your plan?”
“I don’t know. My parents really want me to go back to college. But I don’t know if I’m into that. I might want to act?”
“Like movies? Or the theater?”
“Yeah, I think I’d like movies. I don’t know. Maybe. I might also become an actuary? That’s what my dad does.”
“So, an actress or an actuary. Those are really different.”
“I know, right?” Meg said with wide eyes. She took a cigarette from a pack on the table and offered it to Florence, who shook her head.
“So why do you write under a fake name?”
Florence tried to remember what Helen had said when she’d asked her that. Had it involved…tapeworms? “It’s complicated,” was all she could come up with.
Meg nodded. “Totally.”
One of the apartment’s inhabitants ambled out to the balcony swinging his limbs loosely. Nick, he’d said his name was. He was tall and tan and would have been strikingly good-looking if not for his long, blond dreadlocks, which nobody seemed to find as embarrassing as Florence did.
“Got one of those for me, Megs?” he asked.
Florence thought she saw Meg flush slightly as she slid him the pack of cigarettes. He was the first person at the party who’d actually used her name.
After lighting one, he turned to Florence and said, “So you’re the wild woman who drove off Rue Badr a few nights ago?”
“So I’m told.”
“You know, if you’re looking for thrills, I can just lend you my board.”
Florence smiled. “Thanks, I’ll keep th
at in mind.”
Nick shook his head. “Seriously though, that road is a death trap. I wrecked my moped up in those hills a few weeks ago.”
“There’s been like four accidents already this year,” Meg chimed in.
Florence felt somewhat cheered by the news. Maybe the accident wasn’t her fault after all. “How did you guys hear about it again?” she asked.
“I saw it in Le Matin,” Nick said.
“You speak French?” Florence asked, surprised.
“Un peu,” he said in an appallingly terrible accent.
“I’m gonna go get another beer. You guys want?” Meg asked. Nick and Florence both shook their heads. Nick collapsed into the chair Meg had vacated and rubbed the scruff on his neck. “So you’re a writer?”
Florence nodded.
“Very cool.”
Nick reminded Florence of someone, but she couldn’t think who.
“What about you?” she asked. “What do you do?”
“I’m still in school.”
“Really? You look older.”
“I’m twenty-four. I took a few years off. I’ll finish up at UC San Diego in the fall.”
“And then what?” Florence didn’t know why she was playing the role of career counselor. The truth was, she wouldn’t have known how to act in this situation—surrounded by strangers at a small, shitty party in a foreign country—even if she hadn’t been pretending to be someone else.
“I’ll probably go into real estate. My older brother Steve is a real estate agent and he makes bank.”
“That’s what my mom keeps telling me to do.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Her friend’s daughter is some big deal real estate agent in Tampa and has, you know, the husband and the four kids and the business card with her face on it. But basically I’d kill myself if that was my life.”
“Why? That doesn’t sound so bad—couple of kids, house near the beach.”
“But it’s so insignificant. It’s just, like, eighty years of driving to the grocery store and back. Can’t we aim for something higher?”
“No offense, but why is it any better to be a writer?”
“Why is it better to make art?”
“Yeah. Why is that better than helping someone find a home? That’s real.”
“Art is real.”
“I’d rather have a home than a story.”
“Okay, but stop thinking like the consumer for a second. What about your life? Do you really think you’ll be satisfied spending the majority of your time on earth touring people around houses? That’s your purpose?”
“I mean, my purpose is just to, like, be a good person.”
Florence looked at Nick’s face to see if he was serious. He was.
“I guess that’s important too,” she muttered.
Nick shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that has to be everyone’s purpose. I think it’s awesome that you actually think about this stuff and you’ve found your passion. All I’m saying is that no one’s path is intrinsically better or worse than anyone else’s, you know?”
Florence raised a skeptical eyebrow, and Nick laughed. He glanced at the sliding glass door that led inside. “Okay,” he said in a low voice, “don’t repeat this, but there are some girls in there who just want to be, like, Instagram influencers, and yes, I’ll admit that maybe that path is slightly less noble than, say, Gandhi’s.”
Florence laughed. “Well, I have like seven followers on Instagram, so don’t worry, I’m in no danger of falling into that career.”
Nick nodded enthusiastically. “See? That’s what I mean. Fuck what everyone else thinks of you, right? Fuck the likes and the comments and the constant posturing.”
“Exactly,” Florence agreed, aware even as she said it that she spent most of her time worrying about what other people thought of her.
But Helen didn’t.
Florence leaned forward and plucked Nick’s lit cigarette from between his fingers. “So what brings you to Semat?” she asked, taking a long drag.
“The wind.”
“You’re one of the kiteboarders?”
“Yeah. You?”
Florence laughed. “No. Definitely not.”
“I was serious before. You should try it. I can teach you if you want.”
Florence tilted her head. “I’ll think about it.” She wondered whether Helen would accept his offer or think herself above it. The problem with trying to predict what Helen would do in any given situation was that Florence had always found her highly unpredictable.
Well, she could be unpredictable too. She put a hand on Nick’s thigh. “Come here,” she said.
Fifteen minutes later, Florence was straddling him on a bare mattress, a filthy sleeping bag bunched at their feet. She unbuttoned his shirt roughly. He sat up and held her face in his hands. “You’re beautiful,” he told her. She pushed him back down.
“Say my name,” she said.
“Helen,” he gasped.
“Again.”
“Helen.”
33.
Florence dipped the last nub of her croissant into a small pot of jam and popped it in her mouth. She poured what remained of the coffee from the French press into her cup. Then she lit a cigarette from the pack she’d brought downstairs from Helen’s room. She tapped it on the edge of her plate. She smiled when she saw the red lipstick mark on the filter. Watching the gesture she’d seen Helen make countless times, she had the sensation that she was actually looking at Helen’s hand. It was unnerving. She took another drag. She thought she could feel the smoke charring her lungs, transforming her into Helen from the inside out. Then she was overwhelmed by light-headedness and stubbed the cigarette out in the jam.
Last night had been exhilarating. Not the sex—Nick had been altogether too stoned and too floppy. But the entire evening had been a revelation. She’d been Helen. She’d actually been her.
What had at first disappointed Florence about the scene—the shabbiness of the surroundings, the charmlessness of the company—had turned out to be the perfect environment in which to incubate her new self. Disdain, after all, has always been a useful stepping-stone to confidence, and that was what was required of her now. Something verging on hubris, not her usual muck of insecurity and self-doubt. Among the Helen Wilcoxes and Amanda Lincolns of the world, Florence was used to feeling small and inadequate. But last night, she’d had the sense that Meg and Nick and that girl who’d asked her for writing advice had actually been impressed by her. The power had been in her hands for once.
Helen had loved power. Not physical power; that was irrelevant. Emotional power, psychological power—that was her currency. She’d enjoyed exercising it just as a musician or a dancer takes simple, sheer pleasure in his craft. In conversation, Helen had dictated the direction and the tone. She constantly withheld information for no good reason, and she’d loved to throw Florence off guard with outlandish assertions. Even Mississippi Foxtrot was, at its heart, an exploration of power—first the power that lecherous Frank wields over Ruby, and then Maud’s, after she wrests it away from him in a single act of violence.
Florence’s own attempts to master interpersonal power dynamics had often floundered. Her friendships in middle and high school had been based on little more than a shared fear of absolute alienation. In college, she’d made friends in her English classes but none that she developed any particular closeness with. She’d always needed to retreat into solitude after spending a few hours in anyone else’s company.
This, then, was someplace she could practice a new way of being in the world; a way of relating to people not as a supplicant but as the object of supplication herself.
Just calling herself by a different name, a name that was for her associated with such magnetism and strength, had retuned the whole tenor of her being. She’d felt…transfigured. Even among people who didn’t matter, who didn’t know that Helen was a world-famous writer; even alone in the back of the tax
i on the way home. Putting on the guise of Helen, she really had felt more commanding, more interesting, more worthy in every possible way. Oddly, she felt more like herself—more like the woman she had always suspected was somewhere inside her.
She’d even seduced Nick, just to see if she could. She, who’d only ever been the mark, if rarely that.
Florence took a sip of orange juice and swished it around her mouth to get rid of the nicotine taste. She moved from the breakfast table to the desk inside where the laptop was set up. There was another email from Greta, this time to her own account:
Hi Florence,
How’s Maud doing today? Think she can get on the phone? I don’t want to bother her while she’s ill, but I just found out that TPR would want to publish the interview in the Fall issue so we’re working with a bit of a time crunch here.
It dawned on Florence: TPR was The Paris Review, the quarterly literary journal known for its in-depth interviews with famous authors.
In her earlier email Greta had said she wanted to discuss TPR “in further detail.” Did that mean Helen had agreed to do an interview? Florence frowned. That didn’t make any sense. Helen had no need to justify herself or her work. She wasn’t that type of person. Was she going to use her real name, reveal her identity? The Paris Review had published an anonymous interview before—using just the writer’s pen name—but only once.
She did a quick search of Helen’s inbox; there were no other emails that mentioned The Paris Review. She went upstairs and rooted around Helen’s room for her personal laptop; she’d caught a glimpse of it in Helen’s carry-on at the airport. She found it fairly quickly, in the drawer of the bedside table, but when she opened it, she was thwarted by the same password request that had stopped her when she’d been snooping in Cairo. Florence typed in a few feeble attempts: MississippiFoxtrot, Jenny, Ruby. None of them worked.
Back at the computer downstairs, Florence wrote to Greta:
Maud’s still sick, unfortunately. But she did say that she’s having second thoughts about the interview.
There was no way she could do the interview.
A few seconds later, an email pinged back. She looked at her watch. It was five in the morning in New York. On a Sunday.
Who is Maud Dixon? Page 17