Florence hurried home. She stayed up until three in the morning making minor edits to the stories she’d written in Gainesville. Reading them for the first time since Amanda had convinced her of her own ignorance, she could still see their flaws, but now she saw something else that she’d missed before: the sheer joy she’d felt while writing them. Hours had passed like mere seconds.
She had originally wanted to be a writer so that everyone would know that Florence Darrow was a genius. But during those years in Gainesville, what she’d loved most was the rush of not being Florence Darrow. For brief periods of time, in front of her computer, she’d left that self behind and become anyone she wanted.
It was an amazing thought: If she did this one thing well enough—inhabiting someone else’s life—her own life would finally be worth something.
*
The next day was cold and sunny. At nine thirty, when she knew Simon would be in his office, but before his morning meetings started, Florence took the elevator upstairs. His assistant Emily was displeased when Florence asked to see him. She was sweet—she’d been the one who’d tried to include Florence and Lucy in the conversation that first night at the Red Lark—but like many assistants, she had pinned her worth to her boss’s prestige. Still, she dutifully stuck her head inside his office, and when she reemerged told Florence she could go in.
“Well, Florence, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked, holding out his hands like a magician with nothing to hide.
Florence told him about her stories and handed him the pages she’d printed out that morning. “Since you’re taking submissions from the bullpen…” she said. He set them carefully on the desk and patted them gently. He looked relieved that this was the reason for her visit.
“Splendid,” he said. “I’ll try to start them this weekend. I’m looking forward to it.”
Florence stood in front of his desk for a moment, unsure what to do next. They smiled at each other in silence.
“Okay, then,” she said, and walked out.
*
That night Florence couldn’t sleep. She was going to be a published author!
All weekend, she was visited by visions of herself in a beautiful apartment with casement windows, antique rugs, and gourd-shaped vases. She was at a party and everyone wanted to talk to her. She wore black and her cheeks were flushed in the candlelight. There was jazz playing. It was winter. Florence loved winter; it was as far from Florida as you could get. She liked going out with three or four layers between her skin and the sharp air, seeing her breath hover in front of her. Your soul made manifest, Pastor Doug from her mother’s church used to say, even though the temperature in Port Orange rarely dropped below fifty.
On Monday she went back up to Simon’s office, but Emily told her he was in a meeting. She returned to her desk but couldn’t concentrate. Finally, at 5 p.m., an email from Simon pinged in her inbox. Florence scanned it quickly.
Some good stuff here.
You’ve got talent, but your writing needs more life experience behind it.
Find your story.
Florence read it again, certain she’d missed something. But that was it. He’d said no.
10.
Florence sat on the windowsill in her bedroom with her bare feet dangling outside. It was past 2 a.m., and the streets below were quiet except for a dashed line of cars running across Thirty-First Avenue. She tapped her heels against the gritty bricks and scrolled through photos on her phone. There were dozens of Chloe and Tabitha in their school uniforms and a handful of Ingrid from the day she’d picked up the girls herself. Florence zoomed in on Ingrid’s face. The wrinkles around her eyes were smile lines, she realized.
By what algorithmic glitch had she ever come out ahead of Ingrid Thorne, even for just a night? What could Florence Darrow give Simon that Ingrid could not? She was weak and talentless and pathetic. She was the polar opposite of Ingrid Thorne.
Well, maybe that was the point. Maybe Simon had wanted a break. He’d wanted oatmeal instead of steak, just for a night. His jaw was tired.
What a glutton, she thought.
She could just imagine Simon’s life. Sleeping in ironed sheets. Collecting first editions. Counting out tips for his doormen at Christmas. Fucking Ingrid. Fucking Florence. Fucking whoever the fuck he wanted. Simon’s life was just how Simon wanted it. So comfortable. So well-curated. So safe.
He’d never really thought that that night—or Florence herself—would change his life one bit. And they hadn’t. He still woke up in ironed sheets next to his lovely wife. So…unthreatened. Unblemished.
She took a sip of the glass of bourbon balanced next to her. As it went down, she felt it warm her insides organ by organ, like someone walking through an old house, turning on the lights.
If I could just mark him a little bit, she thought. Nothing drastic. Just a scratch on the lens of his glasses, an annoying little reminder that wouldn’t let him look at life as something unmarred and pristine and safe anymore. A reminder to be grateful for what he has.
And without another thought, she emailed him all the photos of his family. She smiled as she typed the subject line: Some good stuff here.
11.
Florence woke the next morning with the sense that the person she had been until the night before had simply toppled off, like a dead toenail forced to cede its position to a new one growing underneath. In its place was something foreign and denuded, something that had been building for months without her even realizing it, until the pressure was simply too great to contain it.
She felt energetic and hopeful, though she wasn’t deluded. She knew that Simon wasn’t just going to change his mind about publishing her stories. It was just as likely that he’d forward her email to HR. But, for the moment, the thought of his face while he read it was enough for her.
As soon as she got into the office, she learned which choice he’d made. A blinking light on her phone indicated a new voicemail. It was the head of HR, asking her to meet him in his office immediately. Three days later, a courier arrived at her apartment at seven in the morning to serve her papers. Not only had she been fired, Simon and Ingrid had taken out a restraining order against her.
She should have been embarrassed, or frightened—she had practically no savings and had cultivated no other job prospects—but all she felt was relief and exhilaration. In a moment of rashness, she had kicked open an escape hatch from the life she’d been leading. Now that she stood outside of it, she could see how small it had gotten.
In college, she’d read The Immoralist and felt a rush of sympathy with Michel’s disdain for “fireside happiness”—comfort instead of glory. But a small, cozy life was exactly where she’d been heading. Agatha’s life, basically. She wanted something much, much more than that. With one outsized action, she had regained the conviction that it was out there, waiting for her. She just had to reach for it.
She sent out her newly edited stories to dozens of literary agencies. She was sure that with an agent on her side, publishers would finally see her talent. Her faith in her own potential had been restored. What type of cruel God would give her the deep, unwavering drive to become a writer without the ability?
She saw a lawyer about suing for sexual harassment, but he didn’t think a jury would find her sympathetic. “Probably not,” she’d agreed, chuckling lightly, to his obvious discomfort.