Tangerine

I took a deep breath and said, “In fact, she’s here now.”

“What, in Tangier?” my aunt questioned. I could hear the surprise, the confusion, evident in her voice. “I hadn’t known she was planning a visit. She didn’t mention anything of the sort.”

“Yes,” I replied. “It was all very sudden. I was quite surprised as well.”

There was a pause. “Well, I suppose at least that means you’re not entirely alone there. Sophie must be a great source of comfort to you at the moment.”

I squeezed my eyes together. “Yes, Auntie, of course.” I hated to lie, to make her believe something that wasn’t true. But it was necessary, I told myself.

“Don’t worry, Alice,” my aunt said, her voice once more slow and measured. “I’ll be there soon enough and I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”

I thought of the words she had once spoken to me at Bennington, how eerily similar they were to the ones she had said just now.

When I placed the telephone back onto the receiver, my hand hovered for a few moments in the empty space above, shaking.



Twelve



Lucy



SHE WAS AN IMPOSTOR. THE THOUGHT CAME AS I LAY ON THE bed, a cigarette held between my fingers, the hot ash threatening to spill onto the sheet below me. It was a strange idea, a ridiculous one, I knew, and yet my mind lingered over the possibility, thinking once more of the look she had given me only moments before—as if I were a stranger, someone she didn’t know, someone she was frightened of. Before, I had attributed her words, her behavior, to John’s presence, to his influence, but now that he was gone, there were no more excuses.

I sat up, ash scattering onto my blouse. I brushed it away, impatient.

Perhaps that was it—the reason for her curious behavior. She did not yet know that he was gone, not for sure. Perhaps I had only to tell her—what I had done, for her—and everything would go back to how it had been before. But then something pulled, something tugged, and I wondered what that word before actually meant and just how far back we would have to go—before John, before Tom, before all of the madness that had encircled us.

The sound of voices interrupted my thoughts.

Creeping to the door, I placed my ear against the wooden frame, curious. It was Alice, her voice unmistakable, but she was not singing, like she had that first night, was not simply muttering aloud to herself in the empty space of her room. No, it sounded as though her words, a steady stream of them, were directed toward someone else, as if there were another person in the apartment with us.

The telephone, I realized.

Opening the door—hesitantly, at first, so that the turn of the brass knob was all that I could hear, my ears ringing with the violence of it—I made my way carefully out into the hallway. My feet bare, I stepped over the damaged floorboard just outside my bedroom door, its texture stained and weathered. Her voice was clearer now, though still muffled. I frowned and moved toward her bedroom door. She was quiet again and I waited, my breath held, before—yes. I could hear her, though the shape of her words were still hidden. A second passed and then another, my frustration mounting before I remembered the telephone that I had seen in the sitting room, tucked away just behind the sofa. I did not hesitate, fearful that even a fraction of a second lost would be enough to lose the conversation.

Lifting the telephone from the receiver, I placed one hand firmly across my mouth, determined they would not hear my intrusion. There was a pause and for a second I worried that I had been caught out. But, no—there was Maude, I realized—speaking to her niece in a plaintive tone, demanding to know what was wrong, what had happened.

I listened, eager to hear how Alice would respond.

John was missing. Those were the words she spoke next, so that I was lost, momentarily unable to follow their narrative thread, puzzling over the fact that Alice knew, that somehow already she had known. She mentioned, then, a man at the door, someone looking for John. I cast a hurried glance toward the hallway, as if he might still be there. What man? I wondered silently. For while it was true that I had spent most of the morning in bed, I had always slept lightly, had always woken at the slightest of sounds, and there had been nothing, nothing at all that had alerted me, that had warned me of another’s presence in the flat. I thought of Alice when I had found her earlier that morning—eyes wide, hair matted and tangled—digging through John’s desk drawers, obviously looking for something, though I hadn’t dared ask what.

And then I heard her whisper the words: I know who did it. I heard her mention Sophie Turner, and I knew all at once what it was that she had realized, knew what it was that she was intending to do—for I knew her, Alice, better than she knew herself, could anticipate every action and reaction before they had ever occurred to her.

I sunk to the floor, my fingers grasping the Berber carpet beneath me, my nails turning white against the pressure as I clutched at its frayed edges. I remained there, unable to move, though I became aware, at some point, of the closing of the front door, of Alice’s absence from the flat, of the telephone operator, still in my ear.

“Miss? Are you still there on the line? Miss?”

I remained kneeling, feeling, savoring the burn of the carpet against my knees.

“Yes. Yes, I’m still here,” I replied, my mouth dry.

“This is Information again. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

I hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second.

“Yes, can you please reconnect me with the last number requested?”

“The same number, miss?”

“Yes, please.”

I waited, listening to the clicks, imagining the wires being plugged and unplugged as the operator worked to connect the telephone in Alice’s sitting room to one miles and miles away. I focused on this image, working hard to keep it in my mind, to not think of anything else, if only for one moment longer.

It rang once, twice, and then—“Alice?”

I knew already that it would be Maude who answered, had heard her voice only seconds before, and yet there was something different, a finality in the act that made me shiver, my body chilled despite the blazing heat of the afternoon.

I moved to replace the telephone onto the receiver but stopped, and bringing it back to my ear began, tentatively, “Miss Shipley?”

There was a pause. “Yes?”

“It’s Sophie Turner here.”

“Sophie?” I could hear the surprise register in her voice.

“Yes. I’m awfully sorry about reaching you this way, but I needed to speak with you, urgently.” I stopped, held my breath, counted in my head. “It’s about Alice.”

She did not hesitate to respond this time. “Is everything all right, Sophie?”

I willed my voice to shake, to sound unsteady as I whispered into the telephone: “No. No, I’m afraid, it isn’t.”

I HAD TO BE QUICK. There was still one more thing to be done, one more telephone call to be completed before Alice returned—and one that couldn’t be made from inside the flat, just in case they ever tried to trace it. I wasn’t sure how it all worked, but I knew that there were records, little cards that the telephone operators were responsible for and that logged who had placed what call and where and for how long. There could be no evidence of this next one, not if my plan was to work.

As I walked, my steps steady and sure, I hoped that it would.

That the plan I had conjured up out of despair and desperation only moments earlier would be enough. I had not anticipated this, after all, had not foreseen this turn—and it stung, this change in the narrative that I had not consented to. I had already worked it out so perfectly, and she had gone and erased it all.

The public telephone box sat at the end of the street, just as I remembered. Once inside, I waited to hear the click, waited for the greeting of the operator before I began to speak, my accent molded in some proximity after Alice’s own. “I’d like to be connected to the local police, please.” I paused. “Yes, yes, I’ll wait. My name? Alice Shipley.”

IT WAS DONE. There was no turning back.

I hung up the telephone, my thoughts distorted. Everything had shifted in the course of an hour. It seemed impossible, ridiculous even, that an entire life could be altered by a few brief words. My mind tried and failed to keep up with it, to understand the consequences of what I had just set in motion. But then, no, I reminded myself, it had not been me—it had been Alice. She had been the one.

I turned to exit the telephone booth, but a figure stood there, blocking me. Youssef.

“Oh, please, just leave me alone,” I murmured, suddenly aware of the sweltering temperature of the little glass booth. My blouse clung to my back. “We have nothing to say to each other.”