Tangerine

by Christine Mangan

  “I made a friend today,” Lucy said, bringing me back to the present. “A Moroccan man. Rather strange, I suppose, though he was quite kind. I was sitting outside of Cinema Rif. Do you know it?” When I nodded, she continued: “I was having a tea and he happened to notice I was sitting there alone. He offered to show me around Tangier, in fact. He mentioned something about being an artist. A painter, I think.”

  I felt myself flush at her words, felt it spread throughout my body. My dress, despite the pink blush fabric, was severe and unyielding in the evening heat. There was something strangely unsettling about Lucy’s piece of information, about the fact that she had already made an acquaintance, a friend, and suddenly I could feel it, a tinge of envy, of jealousy, growing hot in the pit of my stomach. I could feel a sheen of sweat break across my forehead. “Here,” I said, handing her the drink I still held clutched between my fingers. I moved toward the sofa, hoping she would follow, that she would forget what it was that she had just been discussing. “Try this,” I instructed, worried as she sat down beside me that she would feel it, the heat that now seemed to radiate from my body.

  “What is it?” she asked, shifting closer.

  “Just my own creation.” I let out a nervous laugh, raising the glass to meet my lips. “It helps to pass the time.”

  She took a cautious sip and I knew what she was tasting—a sweetness, like cherries. “That’s the grenadine,” I said. “There’s a brand that I love in France. I make sure John always brings back a bottle or two whenever he travels to the Continent.”

  “And you? Do you go home often?” she asked, peering at me over her drink.

  “To England?” I shook my head, trying not to think of it, of the smell that was London, fragrant and stale, rich and musty. I pushed it aside, and in its absence something else occurred to me, in the silence of the room. “That sounds like Youssef,” I said.

  She frowned. “What does?”

  “The man you were just describing. I was wondering if it might be Youssef.”

  “Joseph, you mean?”

  I shook my head. “No, Youssef. He’s notorious for preying on unsuspecting tourists. Everyone here knows him, if not directly, well, at least about him.”

  “Perhaps this was someone different,” she ventured, her voice sharper than it had been a moment before.

  I could see that the information had unnerved her, that the idea that she might somehow have been taken in sat poorly. It was, after all, something that I would have expected of myself—I trusted too easily, too often, I knew. And then, there it was again—that awful feeling, tinged with green, that stirred in my belly and made me strangely glad to see that it was Lucy who had done something wrong, that it was Lucy who had been taken in by another’s kind word. I found myself unable to stop. “Fedora with a purple ribbon?”

  She frowned and nodded.

  “That’s him, then. John says he lures tourists back to his house, then demands money for all sorts of useless junk. I think he once had a girl involved, pretending to be his daughter.” I shrugged. “The locals never say anything to the tourists. In fact, they find it all rather amusing, I’m afraid.”

  Before I could say anything more, the front door opened, and John’s voice rang throughout the apartment: “I’m not home for good. I just need to grab a few things before heading back out. Ignore me.”

  I placed my palm to my cheek, willing the coldness of my hand to stop the flush that had spread across my face over the last few minutes, emboldened, it seemed, by Lucy’s misstep. “I was just telling Lucy about Youssef,” I said, calling out, recalling the litany of amusing stories that John had on the subject. I thought of the other night, of the spectacle John had made of himself, of us, and I wanted him to show her, then, what it was that I had seen in him, to prove that he was not altogether horrible, that I had not made a complete and utter mess of my life when I had agreed to marry him in the tiny register office that rainy summer day.

  John murmured something, but it was impossible to tell whether it was just an acknowledgment of having heard or an indication of his interest, a prompt for me to continue. I paused briefly, my hands stilled in front of me, a smile frozen across my features. “You know, the man with the purple ribbon on his hat?” I continued.

  At this, John emerged, his face shiny with sweat. He moved to the bar, filling his glass with a generous serving of gin, followed by a small splash of tonic. I noted that he had not bothered to remove his hat.

  “I’ve told her to be careful, that he’s a grafter of sorts,” I continued.

  “A grifter, honey.”

  “Yes, that,” I said, flushing worse. “I’m always mixing up words,” I explained, turning back to Lucy. “John is always having to correct me. I’m afraid I can’t keep anything straight.”

  Lucy smiled, though it seemed tight, her demeanor, I had already noticed, shifting in John’s presence. I turned away quickly. “Tell her,” I implored him—begging, I could not help thinking, the way a child did a parent, or a puppy its master. “About what you heard. From your friends at work.”

  John nodded and turned back to the bar. He poured a second drink, neat, and only then did he commence his story. “It’s typical in Tangier, you’ll find. One of the guys at the office knew a couple, some young Americans on holiday, when they happened to run into Youssef. They got to talking, thought he was harmless enough. In fact, they thought he might even be someone to know, or someone in the know, if you catch my meaning. They thought it might be beneficial to tag along with him, see where the night took them.” He paused, as if for dramatic effect. “Well, Youssef led them back to what he said was his place—some out-of-the-way dive on the wrong side of the Kasbah. The couple now has no idea where they are, only that they’ve been walking for quite some time and have lost all sense of direction. Then, before they know it, they’re standing in front of a garbage heap of sorts. It’s pitch-black and there’s no one around except them and Youssef.

  “He asks for money, of course. Demands they pay him in order to show them the way back to their hotel. Well, the Americans are outraged. They refuse flat out to pay him. They start walking around, trying to figure a way back into the Kasbah, back into the medina, but they can’t. It’s late, the wife is getting worried, so eventually they just give in and pay him. He takes them back, but only far enough so that they recognize their way, not to the hotel itself. The Americans say fine, thank you, leave us alone now. They’re happy to get on their way. They start walking and then—”

  “This is the best bit,” I broke in, smiling.

  John paused. “Alice, do you want to tell the story yourself?” He let out a short laugh and attempting, it seemed, to lighten his tone, though his words were still short and clipped, said, “I don’t know why you even bothered to call me in here, it doesn’t seem as if you need my assistance.”

  “No, no,” I replied, affecting something like a pout, though I did not mean to, and sinking back into the couch. “You tell it. It’s always better when you do.”

  John let out an exaggerated sigh, as if to further demonstrate how unreasonable I was being, his silly little wife. I nearly expected him to turn toward Lucy with a shake of his head and a roll of his eyes, followed by a commiseration on the more irritating points of the Alice they had in common. Instead, he looked at neither of us but began his tale once more, picking up where he had left off and diving into the story as though no interruption had ever occurred. “So, they start walking, and about fifteen minutes later, who should show up again but Youssef. He’s back for more money—and you’ll never guess why.”

  The silence indicated that this was where Lucy and I, the captive audience members, were expected to join in. “Why?” I asked, at Lucy’s silence.

  “He says that they should pay him for agreeing to leave them alone.” John leaned back and laughed, the liquid in his cup moving dangerously from side to side. “Can you believe the nerve of the man? You have to give him credit, I suppose. He certainly i
s inventive.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Lucy replied, though her eyes were narrowed.

  “Why are you so curious about Youssef, anyhow?” John glanced in my direction, a grin breaking across his face. “What? Did she happen to fall for one of his tricks?” he teased.

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” I said, shooting Lucy a nervous glance.

  “I happened to mention that I met him today,” she said, trying, I could see, to dispel the coldness from her voice. “He seemed friendly enough,” she concluded.

  “Friendly?” John laughed.

  “Yes, well, what’s wrong with that?” I demanded, embarrassed by John’s cavalier attitude. I had only wanted a chance to change Lucy’s mind, to show her that John wasn’t entirely awful, that he could be good fun, when he felt like it. Only it had all gone wrong again—John had been cruel, Lucy had been offended. There was nothing, I suspected then, that I would be able to do to convince the other that they were worth knowing. But then, of course, it shouldn’t have surprised me, not really. Lucy and I had always functioned as a twosome, held separate and apart from the rest. Distinct.

  “Honey,” John said, shaking his head. “Friendly is the grift.”

  I realized then, watching Lucy as she glared at John, as he, in turn, eyed her with something like distaste, derision, there was nothing to be done. Nothing at all.

  EVERYTHING HAD CHANGED during our junior year at Bennington College.

  I had been away for the holidays, visiting my aunt on one of her trips to the East Coast—a formal dinner in whatever hotel she had been staying fast becoming our holiday ritual—and though she had offered to hire a driver to take me back to Bennington, I had insisted on catching the bus. I had left later that day, already looking forward to returning to my room, to Lucy, to what had fast become the definition of home. But as the bus pulled up at the station, several hours later, I had felt my stomach drop. We were still in Massachusetts, had not yet crossed the border, and while I knew that my ticket included a connection to Vermont, looking out of the window, my nose pressed against the cold glass, I could see that the bus station was completely dark.

  The bus will be here, the driver assured me when I questioned him. “But the station,” I said, casting a nervous glance toward the darkened structure. “It doesn’t look open.”

  “Closes at six o’clock,” he replied. “You’ll have to wait outside.”

  I looked out of the bus, into the darkness beyond. The temperature was already hovering somewhere in the thirties, with snowfall forecasted for later that evening.

  “But they didn’t say,” I began.

  “There isn’t anything I can do, miss,” he cut in. “I have another pickup scheduled and I can’t wait around.” The other passengers had already disembarked, and he pointed toward the steps, indicating that I should do the same.

  I nodded, dulled by the realization.

  “Be safe,” he called, the doors closing behind me.

  Afterward, I stood in front of the closed station, holding my suitcase between my hands, hesitant to set it down on the damp, snowy ground. A single streetlight illuminated the area in which I stood, so that while my own person was aglow, only a few steps away there was nothing, only blackness. I struggled to remain calm, my breath erupting before me in great, billowy clouds, the dampness clinging to the scarf knotted around my throat.

  “Hey you,” a voice called out.

  I peered into the darkness, uncertain whether the deep voice had been aimed in my direction. I could see nothing except the snow on the streets sparkling, or so it seemed, under the light.

  “Yeah, you,” the voice came again.

  A figure stepped into my small circle of light. He was young—surely no more than a few years older than myself—his tall, athletic build tightly bundled in a military green jacket, with worn leather patches at the elbows. A single suitcase dangled from his hand.

  “Do you need a lift?”

  “I’m waiting for a bus,” I answered. When he looked around, as if to indicate his doubt that such a thing existed, I hastened to explain, “It’s not due for another two hours.”

  He frowned. “I think the station is closed for the day.”

  “But the bus driver said—” I let the words die on my lips. I looked around at my surroundings, looked at the boy in front of me.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “A few of us are splitting a cab back to Williams College.”

  I squinted through the darkness, but if there were any others, I couldn’t see them. “I’m trying to get to Bennington,” I replied. “I go to the college there.”

  “Bennington?” he asked, a grin spreading across his features. “I’ve heard some interesting stories about the girls there.”

  I frowned, wondering whether I should be offended or not.

  “I’m just teasing,” he said hastily, as if he had read my thoughts. “And besides”—he grinned—“I sort of go there myself.”

  “What do you mean?” I frowned. “It’s an all girls’ school.” My voice was sharp, guarded. I wondered whether he was laughing at me or something else.

  “I know.” He laughed. “So as you can see, I don’t really fit in, which is why I do most of my coursework at Williams College. But I’m actually part of the theater project at the school. At Bennington, I mean.”

  “Oh,” I responded, taken aback by the response. I was aware, as were most of the girls at Bennington, of the strange loophole that allowed local boys to attend the college, at least on a part-time basis. The school had made the decision back in the 1930s, after realizing the need for a male population in order to widen the scope of stage productions they were able to produce. It was a source of endless gossip for those girls who took part in the college’s theater department, a chance to fraternize with the enemy, as it were. But the world of theater was one that rarely touched upon my own, and though I was now into my third year at Bennington, this was the first boy I had met who actually took part in the program.

  “You know, I think I’ve seen you before,” he said then, with that same grin.

  I shook my head, embarrassed at the idea that someone might have been watching me. “I don’t think so.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, you and this other girl, you’re always together.”

  I paused. “Lucy.”

  He smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Lucy.”

  I blushed, realizing the mistake—his mistake or mine, I wasn’t sure—and I hastened to explain. “No, sorry, that isn’t my name. What I meant was, that it must have been my roommate, Lucy, that you saw me with.”

  “Oh.” He nodded, sounding disappointed by this piece of information. He shrugged. “Look, why don’t you come along with us? You can’t stay out here on your own. Not in this weather,” he said, though I suspected it was the late hour rather than the temperature that unsettled him. “I have a car, back on campus. I could give you a lift to Bennington.”

  I hesitated a moment, maybe longer, before considering the hour and the darkness and that steady feeling of fear that had slowly begun to encroach upon me before he had appeared, my savior, or so it seemed. And so I followed him, out of my circle of light—of safety, I could not help but think—wondering what it was that I had traded in the process, one unknown for the other. But then, only several feet away, stood the promised group of friends, huddled around a taxi. Packing in together, our bodies pressed tightly against one another, with one of the girls forced to sit on the lap of one of the boys, I listened as they laughed and joked with one another, this group of friends that I had been so hesitant to join at first. There was Sally, an art history major at a college in New York, who was planning to spend the summer in Venice, and Andrew, who wanted to follow his father’s footsteps and become an English professor. There was another girl whose name I couldn’t remember but who was all smiles and laughter, mainly aimed in Andrew’s direction.

  And then there was the boy I had met first, and whose name was Thomas, Tom for short, a
nd who was the most reserved now, in his circle of friends, though he smiled and listened to them as they spoke. I felt a sudden ache as we pulled away from the station, watching the friendship that existed among those in the group, evident in the easy, casual way they had with one another. It was so different from my own strange little twosome that I had formed with Lucy, which all at once seemed odd and lonely in comparison.

  I had found our closeness thrilling at first, but as the years had begun to pass, I had come to feel that for everything I told Lucy, she somehow managed to absorb the information without ever giving back any of her own. Initially I had put it down to shyness, convinced that she, like me, was simply unused to living so closely with another person. Confidences would come eventually, I told myself, in the beginning. I would only have to be patient. But then, it was the holidays, and we were off for home and then back again, and away once more for the summer, and still, I had learned so little about the girl who was closer to me than anyone else I had ever known, who knew all my secrets: each and every little one.

  But then, no, I corrected myself: girl wasn’t the right word. Lucy was a woman—she dressed liked one, acted like one, she even walked like one. Secretly, I had always believed it was down to the loss of one’s virginity, as if the act of copulation would somehow bestow upon one a sudden sense of maturity, as if that one act had the power to dispel the insecurities and worries that plagued most girls from the start of puberty. It was nonsense, of course. I was convinced that Lucy had never so much as kissed another human being, and yet she dressed, acted like, and walked the way I wanted to—with confidence, with control, as if she were entirely certain of who she was.