She poured another splash of whiskey in her teacup.
* * *
Florence’s eyes shot open. Someone was pounding on the door. She sat up and looked around. It was dark. She’d fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, the nearly empty whiskey bottle on the table next to her. She looked at her watch. Almost ten o’clock.
“Amina?” she called out. “Amira?”
There was no answer. She must have gone home.
Florence walked on shaky legs to the door and called out, “Who is it?”
“Me!”
Florence frowned. “Who?”
“Meg!”
It came back to her now. That morning, before breakfast, Florence had invited everyone over after dinner. That seemed like ages ago. She opened the door a few inches. Meg’s moon-like face filled the crack, first one eye, then the other.
“Did you forget?” Meg asked cheerfully.
Florence nodded, rubbing her eyes.
“Do you want us to go?”
“No, that’s okay. Come in.” She opened the door all the way. Nick was standing behind Meg, smiling. He came in and draped an arm around her shoulders. The others trundled in after.
Florence led them out to the back terrace. Now that the storm had passed, the stars gleamed as if freshly washed. Meg was carrying a six-pack and held out a beer in Florence’s direction. She nodded and took it.
They settled around the table on the terrace. Someday soon, Florence realized, this group might hear about a murder suspect named Helen Wilcox who’d fled to Morocco. What would they think? Would Nick be horrified by the thought that he’d slept with a murderer? Or would he know by then that the woman he’d been sleeping with had lied about who she was?
Nick caught her staring at him and smiled. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Just tired.”
Meg wanted to play a game called “Never Have I Ever.” Everyone took turns saying something they had never done before; if anyone else in the group had done it, they had to take a drink. Florence hadn’t done any of the things that elicited jeers and feigned embarrassment among the others. She’d never had a threesome. She’d never done mushrooms. She’d never joined the mile-high club.
For the first time, she felt keenly the age difference between herself and this ragtag group. She was only two years older than Nick, but somewhere along the way she had started to feel closer to Helen’s age than her own. Who cared about threesomes and plane sex? Those were their thrills? That was glory?
Even if she had to go back to being Florence Darrow, she would never allow herself to sink to such triviality. She would refuse an average life. She would send it back like undercooked chicken. She would—
“Babe, your turn.” Nick nudged her elbow gently.
“Oh, sorry. Um. Never have I ever…” The group looked at her expectantly. “Never have I ever…” Thrown bananas on a corpse? Drugged a friend? Stolen my boss’s identity?
She abruptly stood up. “Just skip me. I’m going to get another drink.”
The group fell silent. She had ruined their fun.
39.
Florence was hungover. She rolled over in bed. Nick had left hours before to go kiteboarding. She looked around the empty room. All her belongings—and Helen’s—were still in suitcases in the front hallway. She stood up and trudged downstairs to drag up Helen’s so she could get dressed.
She peeked into the living room. It was immaculate. Amira had already cleaned up the mess they’d left last night.
As she passed through the front hall, she suddenly froze, certain she’d just seen Helen. She turned her head. It had been her own reflection in a mirror on the wall. She peered closely at it. Her hair had gotten blonder in the sun, and the storm had broken the humidity so that her curls now hung in loose waves. If she squinted, she might really have been looking at Helen.
She could have easily used Helen’s passport at the airport, she realized. If her new life hadn’t been snatched away from her.
“Florence,” she said into the mirror in a loud, dull voice.
Just then she noticed another presence in the room. It was Amira, watching her from the kitchen doorway. She forced herself to smile.
“Good morning,” she said as brightly as she could.
“Good morning, Madame. Coffee?”
“That would be great. Thank you.”
Once she was dressed, she tried to regain some of the momentum she’d felt yesterday. Helen’s body could still wash up, she reminded herself. But that thought no longer inspired the same sense of urgency. Once she’d decided to stop being Helen, she’d felt absolved of all her sins—as if without the reward there could be no misdeed. Besides, if Helen’s body washed up, at least they’d know Florence hadn’t murdered Jenny.
No, she reminded herself. No. If Helen’s body washed up they’d ask how she ended up in the ocean and why Florence had never reported her missing. If they could prove that Florence had been drinking—maybe even if they couldn’t—she’d go to prison for manslaughter.
She was fucked. That was the long and short of it. Florence Darrow was fucked and Helen Wilcox was fucked. At least Helen was lucky enough to be dead.
She toppled over on the couch, planted her face into a pile of pillows, and screamed as loudly as she could. She wished she’d never come to Morocco. No, farther back. She wished she’d never met Helen Wilcox.
When she sat up, her hair in disarray, Amira was setting a cup and saucer gently on the table in front of her.
“Thank you,” she said, as if all were normal, as if this woman were not witnessing the disintegration of her self.
“Je vous en prie.”
Florence sipped the strong, hot coffee and felt her wits begin to sharpen.
The first step was getting out of Morocco. If she had to explain what had happened to Helen, it would be better to do that in America. After all, extradition treaties go both ways. Morocco couldn’t compel the United States to send her back to stand trial for manslaughter.
She Googled how to replace a lost passport in a foreign country. It appeared that she would need to go either to the embassy in Rabat or to the consulate in Casablanca. She’d also need a new passport photo, a photocopy of her old passport, and her driver’s license.
Well, fantastic. She didn’t have any of those. She noticed she was gnawing on her knuckle again. She removed it from her mouth, and picked up Dan Massey’s card from where it still sat on the table. She tapped it against the glass a few times.
Finally she stood up.
It was time to embark on the long, unpleasant process of becoming Florence Darrow again.
She went into the kitchen and dialed the number.
“Massey here.”
“Hi, Mr. Massey. This is Florence Darrow.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“The woman from yesterday?” she prodded. “You were at my house?”
“I certainly remember visiting Helen Wilcox’s house. What can I do for you, Ms. Wilcox?”
“It’s Ms. Darrow,” Florence said emphatically. “I want to go back to the United States. But I don’t have a passport. Or any photo ID.”
“I have your passport.”
“No, you have Helen Wilcox’s passport.”
Another silence. When he spoke again, it was in a tone eager to show off how very reasonable he was being. “Alright, we’ll do this your way. Remind me of your name again.”
“Florence. Florence Margaret Darrow. I was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, on October ninth, 1993.”
“And you have nothing with your name on it? Nothing at all?”
“No. But I can give you my mother’s phone number—she’ll tell you. Or wait, actually, there’s someone here in Semat right now—an old friend, she’s known me since I was six—she can tell you who I am.”
“Uh-huh. But you see how I can’t issue a legal government document using the assurance from a friend as proof of identity, right? You understand
that?”
“I know, but…”
“Do you have access to your birth certificate or your social security card?”
“No.” Both of them were in a shoebox in her closet in Helen’s house. “But I can tell you where to find them.”
He sighed. “Alright. Listen. I’m going to talk to a few people in the office and see what our options are. Maybe your friend could sign an affidavit. I’m not sure. To be honest, I’ve never encountered a situation quite like this before. What’s the best number to reach you at?”
Florence rattled off the phone number from the yellowed piece of paper taped to the wall next to the phone.
“Okay, sit tight. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
“When?”
“Hopefully later today. Goodbye, Ms.—” he stopped himself. “Goodbye.”
Florence hung up and immediately retrieved the laptop from the living room. She had no plans to sit tight.
She Googled the number for Riad Lotus—that was where Amy had said she and Whitney were staying—and asked to speak to Whitney Carlson. It was nine thirty in the morning; she hoped they were still in the room. She hoped they were still in Semat.
“Hello?”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Whitney? It’s Florence.”
“Florence, I’m so glad you called! I feel absolutely horrible about the other night. I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s fine—don’t worry about it. Listen, we didn’t really get a chance to catch up, so I was wondering how long you were staying in Semat.”
“Just until tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving tomorrow?”
“Yeah, we’re taking the bus to Marrakesh in the morning then flying back to the States around eight.”
“Okay. Listen, I’m going to call you in a little bit, okay? I might need your help with something.”
“Of course. Anything.”
“Great, thanks, Whitney.”
“Is everything okay, Florence?”
“It’s fine. Or at least it will be fine.” She paused. “I’m really glad I ran into you.” She considered how unlikely she’d have been to say that just forty-eight hours earlier.
“Me too.”
“One more thing—I’m sorry I never responded to any of your calls or emails after I moved to New York. I should have, and I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. People drift apart. I understand.”
They hung up, but Florence stayed by the phone and leaned her head against the wall. She was dreading her next call. Finally, she picked up the handset and dialed the only number she knew by heart.
Vera sounded bleary when she picked up. Florence looked at her watch. It was the middle of the night in Florida.
“Sorry to wake you, Mom.”
“Florence? What’s going on? Where are you?”
“I’m traveling.”
“Hang on.”
Florence heard the bed covers rustle then the click of her mother’s bedside lamp turning on. She could picture the room perfectly: the pink bedspread, the faded Monet posters on the wall. When Vera spoke again, she sounded more like herself.
“Florence? Is everything alright? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“Then why are you calling me in the middle of the night?” Florence heard the chill settle into her mother’s voice from all the way across the Atlantic. It took her off guard. She had assumed Vera would fall on her knees in gratitude when Florence finally got in touch.
“What?”
“First you tell me you never want to see me again, now you’re waking me up at three in the morning. Make up your mind, honey.”
“I didn’t say I never wanted to see you again; I said I’d be out of the country for a few weeks. You always exaggerate.”
“You absolutely did say never. I have the text message to prove it.”
Florence felt a wave of rage surge up from her gut. She’d never asked her mother for anything, then the one time she needed help, Vera couldn’t set aside her petty recriminations for even one minute. Florence slammed the phone down.
She went to the sink and held both hands under scalding-hot water. It seeped under the bottom of her cast, and the damp gauze began to itch. She clawed at it savagely, stopping only when the burning pain kicked in.
Afterward, Florence sat at the kitchen table and stared at the phone. What was there to do but wait for Massey to call back? Until then, she was caught in a bizarre limbo. She wasn’t Florence and she wasn’t Helen. She was no one.
There was a certain freedom in it, actually. Without a self, she couldn’t be held accountable.
She picked up the phone again and called Nick. He answered almost immediately.
“What’s up?”
“Are you still at the beach?”
“Yeah, but I could be done.”
“Come over.”
Oblivion beckoned.
40.
Florence lay on the couch with her head in Nick’s lap. Her frame of vision was occupied by a corner of the coffee table with a baggie of weed and a dented can of pizza-flavored Pringles on it. It was ten o’clock. Amira had laid out a dinner of roasted vegetables and grilled lamb a few hours ago, and they had attacked it like animals. They were now draped around the living room, stuffed and listless. Nick hummed tunelessly. A girl she’d never met was straddling Liam on the couch opposite them. Meg tapped at her phone.
Florence forced herself to sit up. Nick used the opportunity to lean forward and start rolling a cigarette on the table. Florence walked outside to the back terrace. She shivered. The air had been cooler ever since the storm. She lay down on one of the lounge chairs and looked up at the sky.
Massey hadn’t called back that afternoon, but Greta had, more than once. Florence had asked Amira to say she was out. She didn’t know what to tell Greta. Even if she had been sober enough to make sense, she wasn’t prepared to explain Helen’s death or her own thwarted attempt to steal Helen’s identity or the dead body that had just been found at the house on Crestbill Road. She hoped Greta would never find out about her week as Maud Dixon; it seemed horribly embarrassing now, and she still wanted Greta to help her get published one day.
She went into the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge. She drank half of it in a single gulp. The effects of everything she’d drunk and smoked were finally wearing off.
She walked back through the foyer, where Meg was holding open the front door.
“Hey, Helen, let me introduce you to someone,” Meg said when she noticed Florence. “This is Florence. She just got here.”
Meg pulled the door open another few inches. From behind it, a blond woman stepped into the light. She was wearing a cherry-red dress and smiling broadly. She stuck out her hand in Florence’s direction. “Hello,” she said. “You must be Helen.”
Florence stood stock-still. There are some emotions, like rage and lust, that seem to speed up time. But shock creates a moment of stasis, a pocket of time outside the passing seconds, during which the mind has to veer off the neural pathway it has just been traveling down in order to start hacking away at a new one. She said nothing. She could only stare.
Standing in front of her was Helen Wilcox, who had died in a car crash a week ago.
41.
Florence and I just met this afternoon,” Meg said to Florence. Then she went into her familiar routine, saying to Helen, while gesturing toward Florence, “Helen is a writer.”
“Oh, are you?” said Helen, raising her eyebrows. “How fascinating!”
Florence found herself nodding dumbly.
“I always wanted to be a writer but I don’t have the imagination. You just make up characters from nothing? A whole life? It seems impossible!” Helen laughed lightly.
Florence finally found her voice. “What are you doing here?”
Helen wrinkled her forehead in concern. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Meg said it would be okay if I came by, but the last thing I’d wan
t to do is impose.”
Meg gave Florence a bewildered look. “Of course you can stay,” she said emphatically to Helen. “The more the merrier.”
“Come with me to the kitchen,” Florence said. “I’ll make you a drink.”
“That’s alright. I don’t drink.”
“Then I’ll get you a water.” She put her hand on Helen’s upper arm as if to pull her.
Helen shot Meg a questioning look. Meg, in turn, asked Florence, “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
Helen was enjoying this, she realized.
“Let’s all just go into the living room, okay?” Meg said, leading Helen by the arm. Florence trailed behind them like a dog on a leash.
Meg introduced Helen—as Florence—to the group grandly. It was the same way she’d introduced Florence just days before. Florence looked over at Nick to see if he’d notice the name and remember that it was the same one Amy had called her by, but he just nodded and said, “Sup.”
Florence sat down stiffly on the couch. Helen ensconced herself in an armchair and lit a cigarette. She looked entirely at ease. She was tanner than she had been the last time Florence saw her, but other than that she looked just the same. No bruises, no cuts, no broken bones.
Florence felt herself reluctantly pulled back into her old role, that of the supplicant, being careful, trying to accommodate Helen’s sharp angles. If Helen wanted to play this game, she thought, fine, she’d play.
“So where are you from?” she asked Helen.
“Florida,” Helen said with a smile.
“Whereabouts?”
“Port Orange.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s neither here nor there.”
“That’s okay. Here and there are overrated.”
Helen smiled with something like delight. Florence thought she saw something else in her eyes—surprise, maybe. She reluctantly felt herself flush with pleasure.
“Have you been traveling for long?” Florence went on.
“Oh, a week or so.”
Who is Maud Dixon? Page 22
