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  Someone at work had told Vera about a church that had helped out her cousin, another single mother, so Vera had gone with some vague notion that she would leave with a free pack of diapers. Instead she’d left with a community.

  Ever since childhood, Vera had been told to quiet down; calm down; simmer down. Here, her enthusiasm had found a purpose. That’s what Pastor Doug said. He also assured her that the baby she was carrying wasn’t a sin, but rather a precious gift from God.

  Florence knew that there were some in the church who thought her mother wasn’t quite as devout as she made herself out to be: Vera never hid the fact that she found certain parts of the Bible dubious (like the idea that the meek would inherit anything), and she managed to introduce discord into any committee she joined. But her detractors would have been surprised to learn how strong her faith really was, even if she didn’t bother much with the details. Above all, Vera believed with unwavering fervor that God had something special in store for her child.

  Growing up, Florence had been told about this divine plan with the regularity of a bedtime story. She accepted it as she used to accept everything from her mother—passively and without question. Skepticism is a risky venture for children of single parents.

  Florence had stopped believing in God in high school, but she still assumed that she was destined for greatness. It had been ingrained in her for too long. Giving it up at this point would be like asking her to stop having blond hair or to stop hating mustard.

  The problem was that Florence and Vera had vastly different ideas of what greatness looked like. To Vera, it was simply the best version of a life that she could recognize, so that in effect, her expectations were hemmed in by the limits of her own imagination. God would grant Florence a good job and a good marriage. And in turn, maybe Florence would grant her mother a condo.

  But the word great had stirred up something much wilder and more foreign in her daughter—something out of Vera’s control. Florence’s horizons, it turned out, could expand in ways that her mother’s could not.

  It was through books that Florence first felt the edges of her mother’s world chafing at her. She’d always been a voracious reader, and it dawned on her that a corporate job in Tampa or Jacksonville was not, in fact, the be-all and end-all. Something lay beyond that point.

  Florence had haunted the library, desperate for glimpses of lives unlike her own. She had a penchant for stories about glamorous, doomed women like Anna Karenina and Isabel Archer. Soon, however, her fascination shifted from the women in the stories to the women who wrote them. She devoured the diaries of Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf, who were far more glamorous and doomed than any of their characters.

  But without a doubt, Florence’s Bible was Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Admittedly, she spent more time scrolling through photos of Joan Didion in her sunglasses and Corvette Stingray than actually reading her, but the lesson stuck. All she had to do was become a writer, and her alienation would magically transform into evidence of brilliance rather than a source of shame.

  When she looked into the future, she saw herself at a beautiful desk next to a window, typing her next great book. She could never quite see the words on the screen, but she knew they were brilliant and would prove once and for all that she was special. Everyone would know the name Florence Darrow.

  And who’d trade that for a condo?

  5.

  Forrester Books occupied two floors of an office building on Hudson Street in downtown Manhattan. It was not one of New York’s biggest publishing houses, but it did have a sort of niche cachet in which its employees took solace. When Florence interviewed there, a senior editor had told her, “We don’t do commercial fiction,” as if it were a euphemism for child pornography. (There was a rumor that that same editor had turned down Mississippi Foxtrot when the manuscript came in, but that had never been substantiated.)

  On the Monday after the holiday party, Florence walked through the lobby with a heightened sense of alertness. Her familiar routine—swiping her ID card, nodding to the security guard—took on an element of performance. She looked for Simon in the throng waiting for the elevators but didn’t see him.

  Her desk was on the thirteenth floor, clustered with the printers, file cabinets, and other assistants in the bullpen. The editors’ offices lined the perimeter, blockading daylight. As she waited for her computer to wake up, it finally hit her: Nobody was watching. Her life would continue as if Friday night had never happened.

  At eleven, Agatha hurried in and struggled violently out of her coat. She was a short, tightly wound woman in her early forties with prematurely graying hair and endless amounts of energy. She was also six months pregnant. Florence stood up to help.

  “My god! I hate my doctor, I really do,” Agatha declared. “If it weren’t too late I’d switch.” She threw her tote bag on the floor by her door. It had a pin on it that said, “Be a nice person.”

  “Oh, no. What did she do this time?”

  Florence had quickly learned that what Agatha mostly wanted from an assistant was someone to commiserate with her struggles and validate her beliefs. In fact, Florence was oddly fascinated with Agatha, who seemed to have been built according to the exact specifications of what people back home suspected a New York liberal to be. She lived with her husband, an immigration lawyer, in Park Slope. She marched. She resisted. She called movies films.

  “I mean, she literally can’t wrap her head around the fact that I don’t want an epidural!” Agatha stomped into her cramped office and Florence followed, wheeling her desk chair into the doorway.

  “You don’t want an epidural? Why not?”

  Agatha settled down at her desk and regarded her assistant seriously. She often referred to herself as Florence’s mentor but less frequently behaved as such. “Florence, pain has been a prerequisite to motherhood for millennia. It’s a rite of passage. It’s like, you know, the boys in those African tribes who have to scar themselves before they’re considered men.”

  “Which tribes?”

  “I mean, all of them, basically.”

  “Right,” Florence said uncertainly.

  “By taking away that sacred pain, the medical-industrial complex is effectively eroding the mother-child relationship. That pain bonds you. It’s an honor and a privilege to become a mother. You have to earn it.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” said Florence. “You know, I read online somewhere that sea lice eat their way out of the womb when they’re ready to be born. They chew their way out of the uterus, through their mother’s organs and flesh and stuff and come right out of her mouth. She’s totally ripped apart. Dead.”

  Agatha nodded approvingly. “Exactly, Florence. Exactly.”

  Florence scooted back to her desk and decided to chalk that conversation up as a victory.

  * * *

  At a little past four, she went out to get a coffee at the Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner. As she stepped off the elevator, she finally caught sight of Simon. He was on the phone walking into the building. When he saw her he smiled and held up a finger for her to wait.

  “Mm-hmm. Sure. I couldn’t agree more,” he said into the phone. He rolled his eyes at Florence. “Alright, Tim, I’ve got to cut out here. Talk soon.” He tucked his phone into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and gave Florence an aggrieved smile. “Sorry about that.” He looked around. “Here, let’s pop around the corner a sec.” He led her outside, halfway down a side street.

  “Well. That was quite a night,” he said, forcing a laugh. “Listen, I just wanted to check in and make sure everything was alright here. That you felt fine about it. It’s not something I make a habit of, obviously, but I don’t know”—he let out a long breath and shook his head—“there’s something about you, Florence. I broke all my rules.”

  Florence opened her mouth to respond but Simon charged ahead. “That said—.” He stopped and tried a different tone: “That said, it was a mistake. On my part. A hundred percent on my part. I t
ake full responsibility. But it can’t happen again. I respect you too much to put you in that position.”

  “Simon,” Florence said, “I’m not going to ‘MeToo’ you.”

  Simon laughed a little too loudly. “Ha. Ha. Well, thank you, thank you for that. Ha. No, I don’t think it’s quite a ‘MeToo’ situation.”

  He caught the eye of someone behind Florence and tossed off a nod and smile. “Right,” he said, turning his attention back to her. “Okay. Great. Thank you.”

  Florence said nothing.

  “So, we’re all good here then?”

  “Everything’s fine, Simon.”

  He gave her a pat on her shoulder. “Good, good. And everything’s fine upstairs? You’re enjoying working for Agatha?”

  Florence said she was.

  “Good, good,” he said again.

  They parted ways at the corner. Simon went back into the building and Florence walked to the coffee shop. While waiting in line she replayed the conversation in her mind. She had told him the truth. She was fine. She had known Simon had a wife when she slept with him. She had known it would probably be a one-time thing. The sex hadn’t even been that great. He had touched her tenderly, accommodatingly, in a way she found slightly revolting. (How sad, she thought, that even in his infidelities he fucked like a married man.) But she had to admit that part of her felt a tug of regret. It wasn’t that she wanted his company, exactly. But she had liked the feeling of being in his orbit, even if for only a few hours. She’d liked the Bowery Hotel. She’d liked his collar stays. She’d liked attracting the attention of Ingrid Thorne’s husband.

  6.

  Florence did not go home for Christmas. She told her mother the flights were too expensive, though there were fares on JetBlue from seventy-nine dollars.

  On Christmas day, she took the subway to the Bowery Hotel. The lobby—a large, open room that stretched back to a glassed-in terrace—doubled as the bar, but most of the tables were empty. She sat in an armchair upholstered in worn yellow velvet and ran her hands up and down the fabric. When the waitress arrived, she ordered a fourteen-dollar glass of Glenlivet.

  She placed her book—Renata Adler’s Speedboat—and her notebook on the table in front of her but didn’t open either. Instead she studied her surroundings. The hotel had the air of an abandoned British outpost in some exotic colony: sooty paintings, terra-cotta floors, antique carpets. There were wreaths and garlands strung up for the season.

  Her eyes fell on an older man in a gray three-piece suit sprouting a purple handkerchief from its pocket. He was watching her. When their eyes met, he pushed himself up from his chair with effort and shambled over.

  He leaned in close. He smelled of liquor and cologne. “Jew or misanthrope?” he asked in a crumbly growl.

  She looked at him with distaste but said nothing. They maintained eye contact in silence. He broke first.

  “Aw, don’t be like that, honey. I meant no offense. I’m both, you know. I’m double the fun.” He let out a hacking laugh that turned into a cough. He pulled out his handkerchief and held it to his mouth. Something wet settled in its folds.

  Florence’s waitress walked over and put a hand on his lower back. “Alright, let’s let this nice lady enjoy her drink in peace, shall we?” She led him gently back to his seat by the fireplace while he mumbled, “She’s no lady. Not that one.”

  Florence downed the rest of her drink and went to the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror. There were two spigots, one for hot water and one for cold. She held her hand under the hot one until she couldn’t bear it anymore. She’d discovered in college that this particular ritual was the best remedy for anger and despair. Then she went back to her table, left a twenty, and started back to the subway.

  * * *

  Vera spent Christmas with her best friend, Gloria, and Gloria’s two children. She told Florence about it that night:

  “I’m sure they weren’t thrilled about little old me hanging around all day but of course Gloria wasn’t going to let me spend the day alone. Not that I blame you for not coming home. But, you know, Gloria doesn’t want to see anyone suffer. And Grace, her oldest! You wouldn’t believe it. She’s the manager of the entire Tampa office at Gold Coast Realty. I mean, think about that: They’re a national conglomerate. Plus four kids.”

  “I’m pretty sure Gold Coast Realty isn’t a national conglomerate,” Florence replied. “If it’s called Gold Coast.”

  Vera exhaled loudly. “Alright. I guess that isn’t impressive enough for you. Four kids and a six-figure job. Meanwhile she still found time to buy me a Christmas present.”

  “I got you a Christmas present,” Florence cut in, sounding defensive. She’d sent her mother the collected stories of Lydia Davis. She knew her mother would probably never crack the spine, but there was still a part of Florence that desperately hoped Vera would change. It wasn’t like Florence liked being ashamed of her.

  “Well, honey, you’re family, of course you did. Anyway, you’ll never guess what she got me.”

  “What?”

  “A zoodler!”

  “I don’t know what that is,” Florence said in a flat voice.

  “You do. You know. Zoodles.”

  “I promise you, I do not know what that word is.”

  Vera sighed again. “Alright honey, I’ll let you go back to your fabulous New York lifestyle.”

  Florence rubbed her face roughly. She didn’t want to act this way with her mother, but she had trouble controlling herself. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sure it’s a great gift.”

  Her mother was appeased. It didn’t take much. “It really is. The next time you come home I’ll make you zoodles. They taste just like real pasta. It’s incredible.”

  “Neat.”

  “Oh! And do you know who I ran into the other day? Trevor. What a nice boy. He came right up and said hello to me at the mall.”

  Florence’s sense of contrition evaporated. “Mom, you literally despised him.” Trevor was the high school boyfriend Vera had repeatedly encouraged Florence to break up with. Half the reason she’d stayed with him for over two years was to deny her mother the satisfaction. The only thing she and Trevor had really had in common was a deeply felt, if rarely voiced, conviction that they were smarter than everyone else. Not surprisingly, that bond had ended up being too weak to sustain them once they left home.

  “Oh hush, I did no such thing,” Vera said. “Anyway, he’s some big deal engineer at Verizon, and he was asking all about you. He couldn’t believe you were in New York.”

  “Yet here I am,” Florence said dryly.

  “You should give him a call.”

  “Why?”

  “It’d be nice, that’s all.”

  Florence knew that wasn’t all, but she let it go. Not taking the bait would be her real Christmas gift to Vera. “Alright, Mom, maybe I will. I love you. Merry Christmas.”

  “Love you more, baby.”

  * * *

  The Forrester office was closed between Christmas and New Year’s, and Florence had planned to use the time to work on her own fiction. But for the entire week, she found herself beset by the same problem she’d had since moving to New York nearly two years ago: She couldn’t write. Not a single word.

  It was her first experience with writer’s block. After college, she’d stayed in Gainesville and worked at a bookstore to devote herself fully to writing. Every minute she wasn’t at the shop, she was typing feverishly at her computer. She often wrote through the night, sipping cup after cup of microwaved ramen. In college she had discovered Robert Coover and Donald Barthelme and Julio Cortázar. Reading them made her feel like she could step into another world where the strictures of normal life were loosened; the bonds between cause and effect were snipped; and all that lay ahead was freedom. She found the idea thrilling—a reality where she wrote the rules.

  She finished several strange, unsettling stories during this period. Her favorite was about a woman who ate her husband bi
t by bit over many years until she’d consumed him entirely. When Vera read it, she pointed out what was, to her, a fatal lapse in logic: “Wouldn’t the husband realize his wife was eating him and call 911?”

  During this post-college stint, her mother had urged her nearly every day to get a real job. After almost two years and countless rejection slips from various literary magazines, Florence had complied. She sent in applications to every publishing opening she could find and accepted the first offer that came her way: editorial assistant at Forrester Books.

  Soon after this, her productivity came to an abrupt end. She could trace the origins of her condition to a single night during her first week in New York. Most of the younger staff members at Forrester gathered for drinks every Friday at the Red Lark, a bar near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. It was a grimy place whose sticky counters assured the wealthy financiers who lived in Tribeca that, despite their suits and their nutritionists and the playrooms in their high-rise luxury condos, they were still cool. The junior staffers went because they had five-dollar pitchers from five to eight.

  On Florence’s first Friday, a group heading to the Red Lark had gathered at the elevators at six, and she and Lucy had silently appended themselves to its perimeter. As much as Florence hated to admit it, she was as intimidated as Lucy was. Their new coworkers were confident and well-read. They felt at ease at literary parties with brand-name writers. They wore sheath dresses and vintage jewelry. Among them, Florence felt like an imposter.

  Amanda Lincoln was their self-appointed leader. She’d grown up in New York, the daughter of a New York Times columnist and a successful literary agent who sat on the board of the New York Public Library. After Dalton, she’d gone to Yale, followed by an internship at The Paris Review. Her pedigree, in other words, was immaculate. She’d probably never stepped foot in a place like Port Orange in her life.