Tangerine

One of the oldest hotels in Tangier, its expansive white facade sat higher than the rest of the buildings it surrounded, as if in recognition of its significance. I had always thought it looked like something out of a fairy tale, only instead of a moat, there was the harbor, instead of pillars, there were dozens of palm trees, and instead of royalty, there were artists and writers—all the names that were famous and meant something out there, beyond Tangier. It was strange, but I found that I could no longer imagine it: a world outside of this place, Morocco. One that existed at the same time, concurrently. It seemed as though everything, each and every strand of my life, was tied to this place, would always be tied to this place, no matter how much distance I were to put between us. I tried to remember if I had felt the same about Bennington before I left, but it seemed so far away, as if that too could no longer exist under the blazing sun of Tangier, as if the hot, dusty city held the power to wipe clean the green forests, the rolling hills, the smell of damp leaves underfoot. I was certain, in that moment, that I would never see it again.

“Are you feeling ill?” My aunt’s voice cut through my thoughts. We sat across from each other, an elaborate tea service between us, on the patio overlooking the harbor. Up until that moment, we had remained silent, our unspoken words a divide I could not figure out how to cross.

“No, I was only thinking,” I began, setting my teacup down with a clatter.

She held up a hand to silence me. “It’s fine, Alice. You needn’t say anything. We will figure out a solution, just as we did before.”

I frowned, realizing she meant Bennington. “Maude,” I started again, the sound of her name causing her to look up, startled. “You have to believe me, about Lucy.”

“Alice—”

“No,” I cut in, refusing to listen. “You have to believe me, you have to trust me when I tell you that she is the one responsible for all of this, just like before. You have to.”

She shook her head, setting down her own teacup with an exasperated sigh. “Enough, Alice,” she commanded, though her voice was not as harsh as I believe she intended it to be. Instead she sounded sad, tired—as if she had been having this same conversation for the entirety of her life. “No more of this Lucy Mason business, I beg of you.”

“But if you would just listen—”

“No, Alice,” she cut in. “I can’t. I can’t go back there, not again.” She shook her head. “After all that wretched business in Vermont, all you would talk about was Lucy. It was like you were obsessed.” She paused. “There were girls who came forward, afterward. Girls who said they heard you fighting, that you said something—that night.”

I tried to remember. “What did I say?”

Aunt Maude looked away. “That you wished she would disappear.” She paused. “And then she did.”

“It was—” I began to protest.

“Alice,” she cut in again, “you must see how it all looks.”

I shook my head, not understanding what she was saying. “Lucy did it, Lucy is the one responsible—just like before.”

“Alice,” she began again, lowering her voice. “There is no evidence of that. There is no evidence that anyone is responsible at all. It was just an accident, something that no one can be held accountable for. It was tragic, yes, and I can see how you’re still struggling with the injustice. It’s entirely understandable. But blaming someone else, a girl who no one has seen since—” She let her voice fade.

I frowned, struggling once more to understand her aversion to the topic, to understand why instead of choosing to listen to her niece, to what she offered as truth, she preferred instead to sweep away all mention of Lucy entirely.

And then I remembered her words, after the accident. I will take care of everything. I inhaled sharply. That was it, then, the truth of the matter. The one that had always been there but that I had refused to see until that moment. I looked up at my aunt, made sure to catch her eye, to hold it. “Maude,” I said, my voice level, even. And then I asked the question that had been floating between us, I now realized, for the past year: “Maude, what do you think I’ve done?”

She paled. I waited for her to deny it, to tell me that I was being absurd, hysterical even, but then she broke my gaze, looking out to the port, to the sea just beyond and whispered, “I don’t know, Alice.” She turned back to look at me. “And what’s more, I don’t know if you do either.”

I could feel them then—the shadows—threatening. I remembered those days, after my parents died, how everything had seemed heightened but also dull and distant at the same time. Time had passed strangely. Hours had felt like days, and days had felt like hours. Most of that I had spent in bed, my mind exhausted and racing, the lack of sleep causing me to blink rapidly, my dry and tired eyes struggling to determine what was real, what was tangible, and what had only been imagined by my fervent mind.

This could not be how it all ended.

I pushed the thought of my parents, of their death, from my mind. I ignored those dark spaces at the edges of my vision, the ones that seemed to grow, minute by minute.

There had to be something left that I could do, something that might help to right the horrible, wretched mess that Lucy had once again created.

I stood, knocking over my teacup as I did so, the light brown liquid running down the sides of the table, onto the ground. “I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “Please excuse me, Auntie.”

As I walked away from the Hotel Continental, leaving behind Maude—who looked stricken and confused at my hasty exit—I thought about what the police officer had said back at the station. Yes, there was a lot that I did not have answers for, that much was true.

But I also knew the one person who did.



Eighteen



Lucy



I PEELED OFF MY DRESS, THE IMPOSING BELTED BLACK ONE I had worn on my first day in Tangier and again, recently, for the sake of Maude. I did not imagine a girl like Sophie Turner wore trousers. The dress clung to my back, slick with sweat, as if reluctant to leave my body. A few minutes passed and I wrestled, furiously, until I heard a slight rip, a slight give of the fabric and then it was off and I was free, the defeated dress lying in a heap on the ground. I sighed. Part of me wanted to leave it there, to toss it out the window and into a trash heap, but I stuffed it into the bottom of my suitcase, hoping, as I did so, that the need for such pretense would soon be over.

It was almost time to leave now.

There was a part of me that had hesitated, earlier that day, that had felt guilty even as I moved inside Youssef’s empty studio. He had waited his entire life to see Tangier free and he was so close to it—it was only a matter of weeks now, until that moment when Tangier would be entirely its own. I was aware of the injustice, even as I had placed John’s bloodstained wallet onto the ground, behind one of Youssef’s paintings, the bracelet already there somewhere, a down payment of my gratitude. It was not fair, I knew. He would spend the rest of his life in prison and simply because he had done what I had always done myself—scratched and clawed, fought as hard as possible, in order to get his own in a world that refused to give it to him. Once again I was struck by how similar we were, Youssef and I. Oppressed by the same forces, by men like John. And while we should have been allies, while this defeat of John should have made us partners, coconspirators, we would be nothing but enemies now.

My hand had paused at the sight of the painting resting on the easel. I had not asked to see it, had not bothered to look at it, the last time I had been in his studio. A part of me, later, had wondered whether he had even been painting at all, whether it had truly been my portrait his brushstrokes had created. But about this, at least, he had been honest.

A strange mix of blues, the shades of which I could not name, the painting displayed my features in startling clarity. It betrayed, I thought, just how closely he had been observing me these past weeks—for surely he had not seen all this in just the few moments that I had sat for him. There was something intimate, something that suggested a relationship existed between the artist and the subject. I knew little about art, but I had the sense that it was something that should make one feel, should make one think.

It was already approaching evening, and I struggled in that moment, watching as the fading light cast its beams across the painting, caught between the desperate need to get away, from the studio, from Tangier, and yet hesitant to leave. It seemed all too sudden, as if I hadn’t had time to prepare, to allow myself to mourn. Part of me wanted to leave it there, as a reminder, proof that I was once there, that I had loved Tangier, had loved Alice, in that moment. That it had all meant something. But then I thought of the painting remaining there for Youssef to look at, believing he had bested me—even if the illusion would last only for a moment or two longer. The idea unsettled me. I thought too of the police, who would find it, who might pause long enough, particularly if Youssef decided to point in my direction, when he realized his Alice was not the Alice. It would not do, I realized.

I had reached out and taken the painting.

I now paused before lowering the blouse over my head, my eyes flickering to the mirror, to what I saw reflected there. A young woman, handsome enough, but nothing that clamored for attention. I thought of Youssef’s painting—of the shrewdness that he had captured. I relaxed my face, watching, working to soften my features, to rearrange myself into a girl called Sophie Turner, though I had already begun to suspect that she would not fit for much longer—her worth, her purpose diminishing with each and every step that I took.

I reached for my suitcase, taking one last look around the apartment.

We could have been happy here, I thought sadly.