Who is Maud Dixon? Read online

  She remembered then that she didn’t even have her own passport; it had, like Helen, been swept away in the current. In the normal course of events, she would go to the embassy and get a new one, but the normal course of events had done nothing but disappoint her for her entire life. Besides, what did she need Florence Darrow’s passport for anymore?

  Florence couldn’t help letting out a quiet laugh: a small, whispery exhale. This situation was so bizarre, so unlikely, that it seemed to her that it must be a gift from some higher power, maybe even the one her mother had promised her for all those years. This was her chance at greatness. She could simply step into the void Helen had left behind. It all just hinged on not telling anyone that Helen had died.

  Florence flung an arm across her eyes. She lay very still for several minutes.

  She felt light, light in her bones, light in her soul. All those old doubts and insecurities and anxieties, her constant companions—those belonged to Florence Darrow, and she could finally let them go. She didn’t have to try so hard to change anymore. Change? What a hoax! Nobody changes. They spend years tweaking their habits, taking small incremental steps in the hopes of altering the course of their lives, and it never works. No. You just have to know when to cut your losses. And Florence Darrow was, without a doubt, a write-off. She had no one. She’d published nothing. What would even be worth saving? She would purge it all. She would shrug off Florence Darrow in one swift motion and clothe herself in Helen Wilcox. An extraordinary life. The life of an artist; a writer.

  And Maud! She hadn’t even considered Maud Dixon yet! She was getting two identities for the price of one. Helen Wilcox and Maud Dixon.

  She could be Maud Dixon.

  Could she?

  She could never come out publicly as Maud Dixon aka Helen Wilcox—that would invite too much scrutiny—but she could certainly publish her own work under Maud Dixon’s name. The next book was already under contract; all she had to do was finish it. In fact, Greta hadn’t even seen the beginning yet; she could write the whole thing herself. Then she’d finally see her work in print. And it wouldn’t just be a handful of words here and there, like she’d been toying with in Cairo; it would be the whole thing. Hers. She didn’t even care that it wouldn’t be under her real name. “Florence Darrow” already felt like a relic from the past. She had no attachment to it. And she was sure that under Maud Dixon’s name, people would finally see her talent. It’s all about packaging—how often had Agatha told her that?

  Helen was right: Fame didn’t matter; it was about pride. She would know that the words everyone was reading were hers.

  Though maybe, one day, years from now, the world would find out that she was Maud Dixon.…

  She shook her head. Stop. She was getting ahead of herself. She forced herself to take a breath. She needed to make a plan for the immediate future.

  She would stay here in Morocco for the remainder of the trip they’d booked—one more week. She didn’t want to do anything that would raise suspicion for any reason. She would proceed as if everything were normal. And then what? She would go home to Helen’s house. Her house. Move into the master bedroom. Light fires in the big fireplace. Read all of the books that lined the walls of Helen’s study. Learn to cook. Grow tomatoes.

  She’d have enough money to never work again, especially if she lived as frugally as Helen had. She could devote all her time to writing. She could write upstairs in Helen’s beautiful study. She’d play opera and wait for her genius to flow. Surely it just needed a hospitable environment. Of course it hadn’t wanted to poke its head out in her small, dark room in Astoria, surrounded by cheap Ikea furniture and empty yogurt containers.

  She felt a surge of energy. Yes, yes! She was finally getting what was owed her.

  Florence had been so cautious her whole life, working hard and following the rules, because she knew that that offered her the best chance of getting out of Florida—and away from Vera. And it had worked. Her discipline had taken her first to Gainesville, then to Forrester, and finally to Helen.

  It had only been in the last few months—starting with that first encounter with Simon—that she’d begun to push against those self-imposed restraints. The old rules, she’d decided somewhere along the way, no longer applied.

  Helen had told her once—referring to her writing, though it could also be applied to the way she lived her life—that the important thing is always to move the plot forward. Momentum matters. In general, she said, women tended to spend too much time considering consequences; by the time they finally made a decision, the men were already there, forging alliances, crossing battle lines, breaking things.

  Mistakes, Helen said, can always be rewritten.

  Well, fine. Florence would act too. She would break things and, if necessary, fix them later.

  She smiled. Yes, this was a good plan. It was a very good plan.

  Then she stood up and brushed some dried leaves off the back of her dress. She found Amina in the kitchen and asked her to call a taxi. She’d been cooped up too long. Far longer than the two days since the accident. She’d been cooped up for twenty-six years in Florence Darrow’s small, cramped life.

  “Feeling better?” Amina asked.

  Florence smiled. “Much.”

  31.

  The taxi dropped her off at the northern tip of the long, crescent-shaped beach. It lay just south of the harbor where she and Helen had watched the fisherman pound his octopus against the ground only four days before.

  Florence stood at the top of a set of uneven stairs leading down to the sand and stared out at the water. The waves rolled in in low, steady curls like ice cream under a scoop. The wind whipped across the sand, picking up snatches of it here and there before tossing it away. By the base of the stairs, three camels sat in the sun under colorful blankets. A man dozed nearby, their leads in his hand.

  Florence hadn’t been to a beach in years. The last time had been in Florida during college. She’d gone swimming alone and been stung by a jellyfish. She’d staggered up to the shore, and a woman on the beach had poured cold Evian water into a towel and held it against her reddening skin.

  “Jellyfish are actually ninety-five percent water,” Florence had told her confidingly, woozy from the pain.

  “But how can you tell which water belongs to them and which water belongs to the ocean?” the woman had asked. It was a good question.

  Florence took off her sandals and walked down the beach. When she reached a relatively open space, she spread out the threadbare towel she’d taken from the house and buried the corners to hold it down. It rippled and pulled at its moorings but stayed put.

  Even through the thin fabric, she could feel how hot the sand was. There were no clouds in the sky—just a few white contrails left by airplanes that were long gone. She stripped to her bathing suit—a black bikini of Helen’s—and walked down to the water’s edge. It was colder than she’d thought it would be. She waded in up to her waist. She wanted desperately to dive in but the doctor had told her to keep her cast dry. How was she going to get it off? She’d have to go to a doctor in New York. She plunged her head under the surface, holding her broken wrist up in the air. She emerged feeling reinvigorated.

  As she walked back to her towel, a few people turned their heads to look at the purple bruises mottling her stomach and chest. They quickly glanced away in embarrassment, as if it were indecent of her to so brashly expose the frailty of the human body. She had used Helen’s makeup to cover her face as best she could, but there wasn’t much she could do about her body. She pulled The Odyssey out of her bag and lay down on her stomach gingerly. But instead of reading she let her head collapse onto her arms. Her skin had already grown hot again, and it smelled like Helen’s moisturizer. She closed her eyes and breathed in the deep, musky scent.

  She wasn’t sure whether or not she’d been asleep when a shadow fell across her face. She opened her eyes. A girl who looked to be around twenty loomed over her. There was a phone t
ucked into her sagging orange bikini bottom and a dolphin tattoo on her stomach.

  “Hi,” she said. She was chewing on her lower lip, which was chapped and swollen.

  Florence just looked at her.

  “Sorry, I know this is annoying, but would you mind putting some sun lotion on my back?”

  Florence stared at her for another beat. “How did you know I spoke English?”

  “Your book.”

  Florence glanced at the incriminating evidence. “Oh.”

  “Do you mind?” The girl brandished a greasy-looking bottle of sunscreen in front of her.

  Florence pushed herself up a little, wincing. She took in the girl’s dark roots, the loose flesh on her stomach, the pimples mottling her chest. She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  The girl let out a small, unsure laugh. “What?”

  “I don’t want to put lotion on your back.”

  “Oh.” Her smile faltered but prevailed. “Okay.” She started to turn away, but then her roving eyes found the bruises on Florence’s torso.

  “Whoa. What happened?” The girl squatted down and reached out her fingertips toward the purple skin. She held them inches away, fluttering lightly.

  Florence frowned. Her injuries had upended the balance of power. It was like something primordial—she was a wounded animal, therefore no threat at all. For this girl, the injuries were an invitation, a physical weakness that rendered irrelevant social niceties and abstract hierarchies.

  “I was in a car accident,” Florence said curtly.

  The girl widened her eyes. “That was you?”

  “What do you mean? You heard about it?”

  “A car going off Rue Badr? Yeah, everyone heard about it. Was it super scary?”

  Florence couldn’t help but laugh. Super scary? “I don’t even remember it,” she said.

  “I know most of the expats around here—it’s a pretty small town and I’ve been here for a while now—but nobody had ever heard of you. We figured you must have just gotten here. Helen something, right?”

  Florence paused. Well, she had to begin somewhere. “That’s right,” she said. “Helen. Helen Wilcox.”

  “I’m Meg. Did you just get here?”

  Florence nodded.

  “Well, welcome! If you have any questions or anything just let me know because I’m like an honorary local, that’s what everyone says.”

  Meg, who was still squatting, thumped down heavily at the foot of Florence’s small towel.

  “So you’re on vacation?”

  “Sort of. A working vacation.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m doing research. For a novel.”

  “Wait, really? You’re a writer? That is so cool. I love reading. I was obsessed with Harry Potter when I was a kid. Like, obsessed. I had the scarf, the glasses, everything.” She watched Florence, waiting for a reaction. “The wand,” she added significantly.

  “Cool,” Florence finally offered.

  Meg nodded enthusiastically. Then without warning she heaved herself up with great violence and much sand displacement. “Hey, do you smoke?”

  “Yes,” Florence said emphatically. She had put a pack of Helen’s cigarettes in her bag that morning. The thought of actually smoking one in this heat made her sick, but it had seemed like a helpful talisman, the way actors use a cane or a pipe to channel their characters.

  Meg bounded over to her own towel a few paces down the beach and began rustling in a dirty tote bag. She returned holding out a joint triumphantly.

  “Oh,” said Florence. She had never smoked pot before, an embarrassing emblem of her social status in high school and lack of friends in college. Nonetheless, she took the joint from Meg and held it delicately between her thumb and forefinger. Why not? Bonjour l’aventure.

  Meg held out a lighter. Florence put one end of the joint into the flame and sucked long and hard on the other, as she’d seen it done in movies. She was immediately wracked with coughs. She handed the joint back to Meg, eyes streaming.

  “Yeah, the kif here is kinda evil,” Meg said, laughing.

  “Kif?”

  “The hash.”

  “Yeah, I guess this isn’t exactly what I’m used to.”

  “You probably get, like, Harry Potter weed.”

  Florence laughed. “That doesn’t even make any sense.” She lay back on her towel and covered her face with her arm. She felt Meg thud down at her feet again.

  “So where are you from?” Meg asked.

  “New York.” Then she added, “But originally Mississippi.”

  “Really? You don’t have much of an accent.”

  “I left a long time ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Toledo. Ohio.”

  There seemed to be no obvious response to this. The sand was swaying beneath Florence’s body like a hammock. She was lulled into a pleasant state of relaxation. She felt looser than she had in months.

  A bird called out repeatedly from somewhere in the distance.

  “I love those birds that sound like owls,” Meg said dreamily.

  “You mean—owls?”

  Meg started laughing loudly and recklessly. “Is that what they are? They’re actually owls?”

  Florence didn’t answer. She didn’t know what Meg was talking about. Her voice seemed very far away.

  Meg kept repeating the word with slight variations. “Owl. Owl. Owl. What a weird word. Is it one syllable or two? I can’t even tell.”

  “What?” Florence had lost the thread of the conversation.

  “Two, I guess. Ow. Wull. Ow. Wull.”

  Florence’s feeling of wellbeing slid away. She opened her eyes and looked at the girl next to her. When Meg laughed, the dolphin on her stomach looked like he was having a seizure. Dark hair sprouted jaggedly from her toes, like the upturned legs of a mosquito. Florence felt exposed and unclean. She wanted to be home. She wanted to be in Helen’s room, among Helen’s things. This is not the type of friend Helen would make. This was not right at all.

  She stood up abruptly and began gathering her belongings. “I have to go,” she said. She tugged the towel out from under the younger girl’s body roughly. Meg rolled passively onto the sand like a log.

  “Alright,” she said cheerfully. “But hey, you should come to this party tonight.”

  “Party?”

  “I mean, it’s not like a party party. But there are a bunch of expats who gather at this house with a lot of, like, super interesting, creative people. I think you’d like it a lot.”

  It didn’t occur to Florence to wonder how Meg might know what she would or would not like. She simply felt flattered that someone would consider it at all. She envisioned herself surrounded by poets and artists wearing colorful kaftans while candles flickered in brass lanterns.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding. “I would like that.”

  Florence explained that she didn’t have a car, and Meg offered to pick her up at Villa des Grenades at eight.

  Florence trudged across the hot sand back to the road. She had planned to go into town for lunch, but instead she walked into the first restaurant she saw, a dismal tourist trap advertising “American-style hot dogs,” and drank a Coke while they called a taxi to take her home. She watched the hot dogs roll around in their greasy excretions and thought of pickled heads.

  32.

  Florence pulled at her lip. She was sitting at the dining room table, still in her damp, sandy clothes, looking at an email from Greta Frost. She read it several times, but the words never changed.

  Hi M. Checking in again. Give me a call. I want to discuss TPR in further detail. G.

  Florence tried to draw some nuance from the words on the screen. She came up with nothing. She Googled TPR. It was either the stock symbol for a large fashion company or the acronym for a method of teaching foreign languages to children. Neither of those made any sense in this context. She drummed her fingers lightly on the keyboard
for a moment. Then she pressed Reply and wrote:

  I’ve unfortunately come down with a bad case of food poisoning.

  She reread what she’d written and erased it. She sent instead:

  Can’t talk today—I’ve been poisoned by a thoroughly rancid piece of octopus. The upshot: I’m getting more insight into Moroccan toilet bowls than I ever thought I would…

  M.

  An answer immediately pinged back:

  What a shame. Get better soon. Stay in touch.

  Florence wiped a smudge off the screen and shut the laptop gently. There, she’d begun being Helen Wilcox with someone who actually mattered. The charade was on. She knew that a reckoning with Greta was inevitable, but at this point she just hoped to delay it for as long as possible, at least until she had a clearer idea of how to handle her.

  Greta was the major hitch in her plan: She interacted with Helen on a regular basis, she was thoroughly invested in the progress of Helen’s work, and she already wanted to talk to her on the phone.

  Florence supposed she could try to convince her to go along with the plan. Greta certainly did have a professional interest in keeping the Maud Dixon name alive and kicking. But enough to ignore the death of someone she had worked with—very successfully—for three years? To aid and abet identity theft? It was hard to say. How could she even broach the idea without admitting everything? It was a tell-all-or-nothing kind of proposal.

  Well, there were other avenues besides collaboration. Florence had time. She had options. She was certain of one thing: Now that she’d been given this gift, no one—no one—was going to take it from her.

  * * *

  That afternoon Florence slept long and deeply. The sun was setting by the time she got up and showered. She was putting on makeup when Amina knocked gently on the door.