Who is Maud Dixon? Read online

Florence said nothing.

  “Brecht?” Amanda prodded, raising her eyebrows.

  Florence felt heat rushing to her face, and she turned her body instinctively away from the group to hide it. She downed the rest of her drink in a single gulp and walked back to the bar, where she raised her empty glass in the bartender’s direction with a tight smile.

  She leaned against the wood and lifted her sore feet out of her heels one by one. She had never liked girls with Amanda’s easy confidence. They were the same girls in high school who had taken Florence under their wing for a week and paraded her around like a rescue dog before losing interest in the game. Florence knew that to them she was nothing more than a prop to be used in their performances. And if she didn’t cooperate by playing the grateful protégée, they had no use for her. It was such a fatuous routine, too—that was what annoyed Florence the most. Amanda, who had grown up on the Upper West Side, wore her feminism the same way she’d probably once worn her private school uniform—casually, without thinking too much about it, but committedly.

  Florence had never been able to reach the pitch of outrage the times seemed to require, and this immunity to communal indignation often left her on the outside of, well, everything. This outrage seemed to be the glue that held everyone else together: couples, friends, the target audience of most media conglomerates. Even the young petition hawkers on the street ignored Florence, as if they could sense her innate solipsism.

  She wasn’t placid, certainly not, but she reserved her anger for more personal uses. Though what these were she couldn’t say precisely. She could be as surprised as anyone by her flights of rage. They were rare, disorienting experiences that left her feeling weak and confused, almost jet-lagged, as if her body had raced ahead without her and she was just catching up.

  Once in a creative writing seminar in college, Florence’s professor had ripped into one of her stories in front of everyone, calling it dull and derivative. After class, Florence had mounted an increasingly hysterical defense of her work and then moved into a personal attack on him, a second-rate author who’d only ever published a single, overlooked book of short stories. When she finally lost steam, the teacher was staring at her with what could only be described as horror. Florence could barely remember what she’d said.

  After the bartender finally took notice of Florence’s empty glass, a voice behind her startled her: “I’m with you.”

  She turned around. It was Simon Reed, Forrester’s editorial director, a tall, thin man with floppy hair, delicate features, and a smattering of freckles across his face. He was considered handsome in this milieu, but Florence could only imagine what they would say about him back in Port Orange, where delicate features weren’t exactly an asset on a man.

  Florence turned to face him. “In what sense?”

  “In the sense of who fucking cares who Maud Dixon is.” The words dribbled from his mouth like soup. He was drunk, she realized. “It wouldn’t change the words on the page,” he went on. “Or rather, for some people it would, but it shouldn’t. Ezra Pound was a fascist, but he still wrote some beautiful fucking sentences.”

  “The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world,” Florence said.

  “Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down,” said Simon, nodding. They shared a silent smile of complicity. She caught sight of Amanda watching them, but Amanda’s eyes darted away when she saw Florence notice. The bartender set Florence’s fresh glass of wine on the counter. When she picked it up, Simon tapped his own glass against it and leaned in close.

  “To anonymity,” he said quietly.

  2.

  For the rest of the evening, Florence felt Simon’s attention follow her around the room. Being appraised by an older man was not an entirely unfamiliar feeling for her, but back home she had found their leers repellent, as if their gaze implicated her in something she wanted no part of. Tonight she enjoyed Simon’s scrutiny. He was in a different class of men from the ones she’d known growing up; instead of crossbows and a tank-top tan he had first editions and a sense of irony. And then, of course, it was no secret that he was married to Ingrid Thorne, the actress. To be appreciated by a man like that made Florence feel like she had earned a spot on a higher plane of existence, as if his attention had called forth, with magnetic force, something in her she hadn’t known she possessed.

  Two hours later, the crowd began to thin, and Lucy asked Florence if she was ready to leave. They both lived in Astoria and often took the train home together.

  “You go ahead,” said Florence, “I think I want another drink.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll wait.”

  “No really, go ahead.”

  “Okay,” she said, wavering. “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure,” Florence said pointedly.

  At times she found Lucy’s friendship stifling, though if pressed, she would have to admit that the extremity of Lucy’s devotion gave her a sense of comfort that far outweighed the claustrophobia, perhaps because Florence’s mother had trained her early on to recognize only the most acute forms of emotion. Anything tempered felt cold and false to her.

  Lucy left with a limp wave. Florence ordered another glass of wine and drank it slowly, surveying the room. There were only about two dozen people left, and she knew none of them well enough to approach. Simon was entrenched in a conversation in the corner with the head of publicity. He showed no signs of ending it.

  Florence felt like a fool. What had she thought was going to happen?

  She set down her glass on the bar with more force than she’d intended and went to find her coat in the messy tangle by the door. She yanked it free and left.

  Outside, the wind whipped at her bare legs. She turned uptown and started walking quickly toward the subway. She was just rounding the corner onto Eighth Street when she heard someone call her name. She turned around. Simon was jogging after her, his navy overcoat draped neatly over his arm.

  “Care for one more drink?” he asked with the casualness of a man who has not just chased a woman down the street.

  3.

  They went to Tom & Jerry’s on Elizabeth Street, where Simon insisted they order Guinness. “I must have drunk swimming pools of this stuff when I was at Oxford,” he said. “So now it makes me feel young.” He spoke with the cadence, if not quite the accent, of an Englishman. Now she understood why.

  They found an empty spot in the back and sat facing each other across a sticky table. Florence took a sip of her drink and grimaced.

  Simon laughed. “It’s an acquired taste.”

  “You shouldn’t have to try to like things,” Florence insisted. “It’s like people who force themselves to finish a book they’re not enjoying. Just close it! Go find another story!”

  “I hate to tell you this, but you might be in the wrong business. Do you know how many books I don’t like that I have to read every week? Sorting the good from the bad is the job.”

  “Oh, I’m not interested in becoming an editor,” Florence said with a wave of her hand.

  “Just to be clear,” Simon replied with a bemused smile, “you realize that I’m your boss’s boss, right? You might want to fake a modicum of enthusiasm for the work we’re paying you to do.”

  Florence smiled back. “Something tells me you’re not going to be telling anyone about this encounter, least of all Agatha.”

  “Christ, I forgot you work for Agatha Hale. No, she would not be amused by this encounter. That woman’s moral compass is in dire need of some WD-40.”

  A guilty laugh erupted from the side of Florence’s mouth. To hear someone casually mock a woman who ranked above her on every measure of power—both personal and professional—gave her a giddy feeling of vertigo.

  “Alright, settled,” said Simon, bringing his palm down lightly on the table. “Tonight will stay between us. Since you insist.”

  “To anonymity,” said Florence, raising her glass.

  Under the table, Simon answered by putting his hand on her thigh. Fl
orence did not react. He started moving his fingers upward very, very slowly. They sat looking into each other’s eyes without speaking as Simon stroked her with his thumb. No one noticed. Most of the crowd was huddled around a wall-mounted television, watching football.

  “Let’s go somewhere,” Simon said hoarsely. Florence nodded. They left their still-full glasses on the table, and he led her out of the bar by her hand. Outside, she yelped as a cold gust swept past them. Simon took off his scarf and wrapped it around her neck twice, finishing it with a tight knot.

  “Better?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  They half-walked, half-ran, heads bent into the wind, a few blocks north to the Bowery Hotel, where a doorman was sprinkling salt from a large plastic jug onto the sidewalk. A homeless man leaned against the building, rattling coins in a cup. It sounded like a child’s cough. Florence tried to make out what he was mumbling. “They say men don’t cry; men cry, men cry.”

  Inside, the desk attendant casually swiped Simon’s credit card as if it were two in the afternoon. So this is how it’s done, Florence thought. She’d always assumed that getting a hotel room for just a few hours would involve dark glasses and false names, a bed that shook when you added quarters to it. But it seemed that four hundred dollars a night was an effective bulwark against such seediness.

  They rode the elevator with another guest, a middle-aged man swaying lightly. Simon smiled at Florence in conspiracy. He reached for her. She smiled back but shook her head.

  Their room was dark, lit only by a pair of brass sconces next to the bed. Florence walked across it to look out of the large windows that dominated two of the walls. “Casement windows,” she said, running her fingertips across the cold surface. They left four beaded wakes in the condensation.

  “Come here,” Simon said, and she did.

  4.

  Florence woke the next morning animated by a sense of anticipation, as if the night were ahead of her rather than behind. She was alone. Simon had left the hotel at 4 a.m. She had watched from the bed as he’d gathered his belongings from around the room. His charcoal-gray suit, which he’d hung up in the armoire. His wallet, phone, and keys from an orderly stack on the bedside table.

  While buttoning his shirt, Simon had drawn his hand sharply to his neck and said, “Shit. I’ve lost a collar stay.”

  She’d asked him what a collar stay was, and he’d cocked his head with almost paternal bemusement. “You’re adorable,” he said, without explaining anything.

  Florence had expected some awkwardness, but there was none. He chatted amiably as he dressed, then kissed her lightly on the forehead and went home to his wife. Florence didn’t think of herself as someone who would sleep with a married man, and she prodded herself to feel some guilt. But, like the awkwardness, it was curiously absent.

  She stretched expansively in the large bed. It was Saturday, checkout was at noon, and she had nowhere to be. The room was flooded with bright, yellow sunlight—light that belonged to a different season or a different city. Rome, maybe.

  She got up and went into the bathroom. Her makeup was smeared around her eyes, and her curls sprang from her head as if electrified. After showering, she dried off the miniature bottles of shampoo and conditioner to take home with her.

  Simon had told her to order breakfast, but when she called downstairs, she was informed that the room bill had already been settled and she’d have to pay by credit card. “Never mind,” she said and hung up roughly. She dressed and sat on the bed. There was nothing else for her to do. She didn’t even have a book. She walked to the door and put her hand on the knob. Then she quickly stepped back into the bathroom and pocketed the sewing kit.

  * * *

  Back in Astoria, Florence shut the apartment door and stood still, listening for her roommates. She hoped they were out. She’d found Brianna and Sarah on Craigslist a few months earlier and knew them hardly better now than she had when she’d moved in.

  She opened the fridge and took out a nonfat yogurt marked “BRIANNA!!!” in Sharpie. In her room, she settled onto the bed and pulled her laptop toward her. She Googled “collar stay.”

  A collar stay is a smooth, rigid strip of metal, horn, baleen, mother of pearl, or plastic that one inserts into a specially made pocket on the underside of a shirt collar to stabilize the collar’s point.

  Florence thought about tiny pockets on the undersides of shirt collars. She thought about men like Simon who worried about the stability of their collar’s point. The men Florence usually slept with—bartenders and low-level office drones she met on Tinder—were all transplants to New York who seemed as lost as she was. The only guy she’d gone on more than two dates with since she’d arrived had asked to borrow fifty dollars on their third and last. She doubted he knew what a collar stay was either.

  There was a world beyond her world, Florence knew, that was entirely foreign to her. Every once in a while, someone took this other world in their hands and rattled it, dislodging a small piece that fell at her feet with a plink. She gathered up these fragments like an entomologist gathers rare bugs to pin to a board. They were clues that would one day cohere into something larger, she didn’t know yet what. A disguise; an answer; a life.

  She looked up Simon’s wife next. Ingrid Thorne starred mainly in independent films with the occasional foray onto Broadway. She wasn’t the type of actress whose picture appeared in People or InTouch—most of their readers wouldn’t know who she was—but she had been on the cover of Paper magazine, as Florence discovered. The grande dame of avant-garde cinema, the interviewer had called her.

  Ingrid’s background was an unlikely incubator for avant-garde anything. She’d grown up in a small, wealthy town in Connecticut, the child of a successful lawyer and a homemaker. “Connecticult,” she called it in the Paper interview: “They worship at the twin altars of gin and chintz.” She and Simon now lived on the Upper East Side and sent their children to a prestigious private school, but somehow she managed to make those choices seem radical.

  Ingrid was no longer young, and she wasn’t classically beautiful, but her features had a fascinating complexity to them. She had a face you wanted to look at for a long time, which is precisely what Florence was doing when her phone buzzed beside her. She glanced at the screen and watched the phone shimmy on the quilt for a moment before picking it up.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Listen,” her mother started in with a confidential air. “Keith told me last night that hedge funds is what you want to be in.” Keith was the bartender at the P.F. Chang’s where her mother worked. For reasons Florence couldn’t quite glean, the entire waitstaff credited him with almost supernatural powers of intelligence.

  “I don’t really have the qualifications for that,” Florence said.

  “You graduated summa cum laude! I know you think I’m some simple-minded hick, but I do know that summa means best. I’m not sure what other qualification you could need.”

  “Mom, I don’t think you’re a hick, but—”

  “Oh, I see, I’m just simple-minded.”

  “No, that’s not what I said. But I’m not good with numbers, you know that.”

  “I do not know that, Florence. I do not know that at all. In fact, now that you mention it, I remember you being very strong with numbers. Very strong.” Her mother spoke with the cartoonish cadence of a preacher or newscaster, an affectation absorbed perhaps by the hours she spent tuned in to both every week.

  Florence said nothing for a moment. “I guess I just don’t really want to work in finance. I like my job.” This wasn’t entirely true, but she had learned that it was best to communicate with her mother in stark black-and-white terms. Shades of gray offered her a foothold.

  “You like being at someone’s beck and call all day long? I’ve been at someone’s beck and call for the past twenty-six years for one reason and one reason only: so that my only child could tell anyone who tried to beck and call her where to put it.”

 
; Florence sighed. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “Don’t apologize to me, honey. God’s the one who gave you your gifts. He doesn’t like to see you squander them any more than I do.”

  “Alright, I’m sorry, God.”

  “Oh, no. Don’t get smart with Him, Florence. Not with Him.”

  Florence said nothing.

  After a beat, her mother asked, “Who loves you?”

  “You do.”

  “Who’s the best girl in the whole world?”

  Florence glanced toward her door as if to ensure that no one would overhear her. “I am,” she said quickly.

  “That’s right.” Florence knew her mother was nodding forcefully on the other end. “You’re not small fry, baby. Don’t act like it. That’s disrespecting me, and it’s disrespecting your Maker.”

  “Okay.”

  “Love you, baby.”

  “You too.”

  Florence hung up the phone and closed her eyes. Her mother’s bloated and wildly imprecise flattery had the unintended effect of making Florence feel utterly insignificant. All through high school, her mother had kept up the fiction that Florence was the most beautiful and popular girl in her class when in reality she was a lost soul clinging to a small group of friends held together more by mutual desperation than any particular affinity. The only thing she’d really had in common with her closest friend, Whitney, was a 4.0 GPA. “Don’t you see me?” Florence had wanted to shout.

  She sometimes wished her mother were outright cruel; then at least Florence could cut ties without feeling guilty. Instead, they were locked in this endless masquerade: her mother supplying encouragement undercut by disappointment and Florence responding with affection and contrition she didn’t feel.

  Vera Darrow had been twenty-two when she got pregnant—not young enough to garner stares but certainly not old enough to know what she was getting into, as she’d told Florence often enough. The man responsible, a regular guest at the hotel where she’d been working at the time, had wanted nothing to do with the baby, but Vera had gone ahead with it anyway. It was, she told anyone who would listen, the best decision she’d ever made: Her life began when Florence’s did. Though she’d also found God when she was pregnant, so perhaps some credit was due to Him too.