Tangerine

by Christine Mangan

  I had since wondered at Alice’s move to Tangier, recalling the old worn map that had hung over my bed at Bennington. We had made a game of it, over the years, pushing pins into the wall, the tacky white plaster giving way with ease as we decided where we would go once we graduated. The adventures that we would have, together. Paris for Alice, or, on days when she was feeling particularly brave, Budapest. But never Tangier. My own pins were placed farther afield: Cairo, Istanbul, Athens. Places that had once seemed distant and impossible, but no longer, with Alice by my side.

  I’ll take you to Paris after we graduate, she said one evening, not long after we first met. We had sat, hidden behind the End of the World, that stretch of land at the end of Commons Lawn, where the earth appeared to abruptly give way—though if one was to look down, one would find only an unfurling of gentle, rolling hills. A mirage of sorts. An illusion. Night had already set in, the dampness of the grass bleeding through the cotton fabric of the blanket we sat upon, but still we remained, happy to ignore its encroachment.

  I squeezed her palm in response. I knew by then about the trust that had been set up in her name, about the monthly allowance that she received—checks with her full name, Alice Elizabeth Shipley, written in a careful, old-fashioned script that appeared in her mail slot at the start of each month, precisely—but to make the offer, to extend such an invitation to a girl that she had known only a few weeks, it defied logic as I knew it. My heart had clenched, as if refusing to believe that such generosity, such kindness, truly lived in other people, as my own past had not taught me it was possible. Born in a small town in Vermont, only miles away from the college, I had always considered my hometown a place one drove through on the way to somewhere else, somewhere infinitely better. A scholarship had given me that chance, snatching me from the close confines of a stuffy apartment over a garage, transporting me only a few miles away, though it might as well have been to an entirely different world.

  But then, Paris had never happened.

  Instead, Alice had come to Tangier, to a place that she had never pinned on our map. And she had come without me.

  “What are you doing in Tangier, Lucy?” Alice asked, shaking me from my reverie.

  I blinked, startled by her words. “I’m here to see you, of course.” I smiled, my voice catching on the words as I worked to hide the emotion behind them.

  I looked at Alice then—properly looked at her—for the first time. She was, as I had noted before, slimmer than the last time I had seen her—paler too, which was strange, considering the climate. There were dark circles underneath her eyes and she looked, I thought, like she hadn’t slept properly for quite some time. Her fingers were worrying at that spot just below her throat, which had turned a more threatening color since I had first arrived. She was wearing a housecoat, despite the hour, a yellow piece that tied at the waist with a simple sash and nearly touched her ankles. Her face was bare, without any trace of paint, and her hair—that once brilliant, thick tangle of golden curls—was shorter now and hung limply, its dingy color indicating that it was in need of a good wash.

  “Is everything all right, Alice?” I moved closer, setting my suitcase down beside my feet.

  “Of course, of course it is.” Those rushed words again.

  “You would tell me, wouldn’t you? If something was wrong? If you and John—”

  She flinched. “No, no. It’s all fine. Really. You’ve just surprised me, that’s all.” She smiled, though there was an edge in her voice—something sharp, steely.

  But then her shoulders seemed to relax, her smile became less tight, and for the first time, she seemed to notice me: from the new bouffant-style hairdo, held into place by a generous amount of hair spray—although it had already begun to frizz in the heat, I noted sourly—to the dark, belted shirtdress that had cost as much as one month’s rent. It was a far cry from our college days, I knew, but conscious of the fact that I would be seeing Alice for the first time in more than a year, I had wanted it to be evident how well I had done since those days—not in a gloating fashion, the way that other girls behaved around one another, passively flaunting their success only in order to make the others green with envy. No, I wanted to show Alice just how much our days and nights spent together at college had meant, how all our dreaming of the future had not just been a fanciful way to pass the time. I had meant it, every single word. That was what I wanted to show her. That I had never lied, not about any of it, despite what had happened between us.

  “You look well, Lucy,” she observed, though I thought it sounded as though it were a concession, as though the words had left her lips despite, rather than for, something.

  “So do you,” I replied, eager to match her compliment—whether easily given or not—although I suspected we both knew the words were offered out of politeness.

  She smiled again, that same inward smile I had witnessed often during those first few days of college, when she had been so shy and uncertain of herself. Toward the end of our four years, she had shed almost every one of those diminishing attributes, and yet here they were again, reemerging one by one. “I would offer you tea,” she said, as though anxious to cover any patches of silence, “but John’s forgot the bottle of gas again, I’m afraid. I won’t be able to boil any water until he brings home another one. But why don’t I show you to the sitting room. Then I can fix us another sort of drink,” she suggested, reaching for my suitcase.

  I stopped her, insisting that she let me carry it, fearful that she would buckle under its weight. I looked at her shoulders as she turned, the thin material of her robe doing nothing to hide the two jagged points underneath. I took in the sharp hollows of her cheeks, the bony elbows, the way her hands seemed to shake, almost imperceptibly, but still there.

  “I can’t quite believe how long it’s been,” I said, following her down the hallway. As we walked, I noted that almost every inch of the apartment was filled, so that it was nearly impossible to walk without tripping over the leg of a chair or the pouf of a cushion. Not even the walls were safe, I soon discovered, as on top of the layers of paint sat an additional one made up of various bric-a-brac. Plates seemed to be of a particular fascination, I noted. Silver, copper, china, some of them painted, some of them bare—there seemed to be no real pattern that I could decipher, row upon row of them affixed to the brightly colored walls.

  “I know,” she replied at last. “Bennington feels like a lifetime ago.”

  We moved into the sitting room, and I placed my suitcase down beside my feet, onto the carpet. A few seconds passed, both of us looking around the room, as if the way to reconnect, to find our way back to each other again, to that time, was hiding somewhere in its crevices, in the foreign city of Tangier.

  “I’ll just go and fetch us those drinks,” she said, making her way determinedly to the edge of the room.

  “Thank you, Alice.” I reached out my hand to touch hers. At my gesture, she flinched, the small movement pressing against my skin. “Alice, are you sure everything is all right?” I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper.

  At first, she would not look at me, but then slowly she lifted her thin, hollowed face, her eyes still shining and bright. “Of course, Lucy.” She moved quickly away, back toward the hallway. “Everything is wonderful.”

  Later, I reflected on the fact that she had not mentioned the accident.

  But then, neither had I.

  I SPENT SEVERAL MOMENTS IN THE BATHROOM, a towel pressed against my face, willing the color to disappear from my cheeks. When I emerged, my hair still matted to my face with sweat, I discovered a stack of pink, overly starched towels in front of the door, a few scalloped soaps sitting on top, and the sound of Alice, singing from the kitchen.

  I left the towels, following the lyrics and smiling to myself as I walked through the hallway, my hands attempting to push my hair back into place. She was singing a song I recognized from the radio. The girls in my most recent boardinghouse had gone in together on a cream-and-g
old-colored Silvertone, at first taking turns keeping it in their respective rooms, more to show it off than anything else, until it had at last ended up downstairs, largely forgotten, becoming a permanent fixture of the common area.

  I hummed the melody. “I see you haven’t improved your singing,” I teased, my voice raised just a note or two, so that she could hear me more easily.

  A sound of laughter escaped from the kitchen—no longer quite as hesitant, I noted. “Go ahead, take a seat. I’ll be there in just a moment.”

  I returned to the sitting room, taking it in for the first time. Similar to the other rooms, it too was composed of dark woods and leather—the sweet, sickly smell of which was overpowering in the late afternoon heat. A few dozen books lay scattered throughout the room. I glanced at one. Charles Dickens. Another was by a Russian author I had never heard of before. Alice, I knew, was not a big reader. I had tried to encourage her during our four years as roommates, but try as I might to interest her, she had only stuck up her nose. They’re all just so serious, she had complained. I remembered thinking that I would have detested the comment had it been made by anyone else, but with Alice, the words were strangely fitting. The idea of her trapped behind a heavy book seemed somehow wrong—she was made of lightness and air, she was made, it seemed, for living, rather than reading about the experiences of other lives. I had told her this once, and in response, she had laughed and waved me away. But it was true. It was Alice who would wake me early in the morning, when it was still dark outside, dragging me to the Adirondack chairs on the Commons Lawn, blankets slipping from her arms and onto the dewy grass, insistent that we be the first to see the sun rise. I would always marvel, in those quiet moments, watching as my breath billowed out in great white clouds, that we had found each other. That Alice’s mother, an American who had later moved across the pond and married a Brit, had been a graduate of our tiny Vermont college, which had, in turn, prompted Alice to attend her mother’s alma mater, in her memory. That Alice had somehow managed, with her tentative smile, to pull me from the comfort of my hiding spot in the library, had exhumed me from the voices of the dead and thrust me into the world of the living. Pulling the blanket tighter, I would shift closer to the warmth of her body, willing those moments to last forever, knowing that they could not.

  I ran my finger over the pages of a few books, noting, curiously, that the pages were still uncut. A portrait of the man Alice had married began to form in my mind.

  “Were you surprised to see me standing outside your doorstep this morning?” I called out, settling onto the leather sofa, where almost immediately my skin began to sweat.

  There was only silence from the kitchen.

  “Alice?” I called again, frowning. I squirmed from side to side, trying to alternatively air out the parts of my skin in contact with the leather, hoping the sweat wouldn’t stain my new dress. The air in Tangier, I had already begun to notice, moved slowly and without any real insistence. It seemed to hang: thick and humid. Languid. That would be the right word to describe it, I decided.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, her voice muffled, sounding as if she were somewhere far away, and not simply in the next room. “Yes, quite.”

  Before I could ask anything more, I heard the turning of the doorknob from the foyer. “Alice?” a voice called out, deeper, somehow, than what I had imagined. “Are you home?” And then, somewhat more quietly, “I don’t suppose you made it to the market today?”

  Looking back, I’m quite certain that, in that exact moment, my heart stopped.

  It often did, of course. A slight murmur, nothing to worry about—at least, according to the doctors. It didn’t really affect anything, they assured me, except that there were moments, only once in a great while, when my heart refused to beat in rhythm. When it acted up—or out, I supposed—stopping for the smallest second, perhaps less than that, but long enough so that the next beat felt like a resounding thud inside my chest. Like something trying to trample me or push me underfoot. I could have reimagined it over the years, of course—my memories altered and changed by what eventually transpired—but I’m almost certain my heart skipped then. Perhaps in warning, perhaps sensing danger. There is no way to ever really know, but I believe my heart was trying to tell me something: to warn me of the man slowly making his way through the hallway and into the room where I sat.

  I sometimes wondered what would have happened if I had listened.

  A MAN STEPPED INTO VIEW.

  I took in the tanned face, splattered with freckles, the golden hair that was styled into a sweeping wave. He looked, I thought, like most men our age: vivacious, eager, not yet dulled by the monotony of everyday life. He was handsome, that much I could ascertain. And yet, while I suspected that his features would have been classically pleasing to some, I found them overbearing and difficult to look at for any great length of time. There was something else there too I could already see—something harder, more concrete. But then, I brushed the thought aside, reasoning that perhaps it was just the imposing line of his suit. Though I knew little about men’s fashion, I could tell that his clothes were expensive. He wore a three-piece suit cut from a textured pattern that looked entirely out of place in Tangier and a tan fedora with a narrow brim resting atop his head. He seemed, I noticed with a touch of envy, unfazed wearing the heavy material in the unforgiving heat of Morocco.

  “We have a visitor,” Alice called out, in a strange tone. “It’s Lucy.” Falsetto—was that the right word? I wondered.

  “Lucy?” he repeated, standing at the threshold of the room, a frown crossing his face.

  “Lucy, darling. My friend from college.” Alice let out a hollow laugh. “I’ve told you loads about her.”

  She hadn’t, of course. I could tell from the start of confusion that clouded John’s face when Alice first said my name. From the look of it, John had never heard of me at all.

  “Any chance you made dinner tonight, Alice? I’m starving,” John said, starting to remove his tie, a note of exhaustion evident in his voice. It was at that moment he noticed me: the stranger sitting on his couch. A flicker of annoyance flashed, but then he seemed to take in my figure—well dressed, reasonably attractive—and his features relaxed, growing into one of surprise, pleasure. “You must be the infamous Lucy, then.” He smiled, smoothing out the tie in his hand and extending his other one. “It’s so wonderful to meet you at last.”

  I offered my own hand, instantly regretting that it was so moist. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  He cocked his head to the side, his smile turning into something that resembled a smirk, though I suspected he imagined it to be charming. I could feel him reading the situation, trying to figure out if he knew me or, worse yet, was supposed to. He was waiting for my indication. I remained silent. A few seconds passed before he asked, “Thirsty at all?”

  At that moment, Alice emerged from the kitchen. She was balancing a silver platter between her two hands, which I half rose to take from her, but then she was already setting it on the top of a wooden bar, tucked back into the corner of the room.

  She had changed out of her housecoat from earlier and was wearing a daytime dress, despite the encroaching evening hour, of silk crepe, its full-hipped skirt suggesting that it was an older piece, though I didn’t recognize it from our college days. But it was more than just her outfit that had changed, as she seemed strangely altered from the girl who had greeted me earlier. There was a giddiness about her; gone was the morose countenance of hours before, apparently shrugged off in the company of her husband—that word still catching somewhere in my throat. I watched as she moved to fill the glasses, her movements sharp, surreal, so that she seemed all at once incredibly fragile, and I found myself wondering whether she wouldn’t shatter into a million pieces in front of us both.

  “A visit from an old college friend, did you say?” John asked, addressing Alice. “This is quite the surprise.” He reached out to take a drink from her proffered hand, the con
densation from the chilled glass already beginning to drip down the sides. “I didn’t know my Alice in Wonderland had any friends,” he joked.

  “Of course I have friends.” Alice laughed, but I could see his comment had wounded her.

  “Ice,” he declared, raising his eyebrows. “Now I know this is a special occasion. We never have chilled martinis, Lucy,” he said, the latter sounding like an accusation. I accepted my own drink from Alice. “I’ve been endeared to the idea of your presence already.” He laughed, taking a greedy sip. “And speaking of your presence here, are you actually in Tangier, traveling on your own?” When I nodded, he smiled and asked, “Where from?”

  “New York,” I said, watching Alice’s face.

  He frowned. “And doesn’t your fellow mind? Your traveling alone, I mean?”

  My smile stretched tightly across my face. “I’m afraid I haven’t one to mind.”

  Alice looked away at my easy admission, while John leaned forward, ready, or so it seemed, to seize upon the idea. “No fellow? None at all?”

  I sighed. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Aren’t there any left? Surely the war didn’t do away with them all—or perhaps they’re too frightened of you?” he asked with another laugh.

  I saw Alice flinch. “Don’t be awful, John,” she murmured.

  “I’m only trying to get to the bottom of this, that’s all,” he said, making a great show of scratching his chin. “To be single in the city of New York—the pictures would make you think it’s impossible. And, well, look at her,” he said, indicating in my direction. “I simply don’t buy it.” He leaned forward. “Perhaps you’re too picky. Is that it? Or perhaps there’s something else,” he continued, a jeering tone entering his voice. “I’ve heard stories about you Bennington girls.”