“The person who lived here before me was an arborist,” Helen said. “He crossbred a lot of these trees. So I have some odd specimens out here—half one thing, half another.”
Florence looked at one of the trees that Helen was gesturing toward. It didn’t look like a mixed breed but rather like two trees grafted violently together.
Helen continued the tour. “Over there is a pretty modest vegetable garden, which I do my best not to destroy, and behind those pines is my deep, dark secret”—she turned to Florence with a mock grimace—“the compost pile. And before you say anything, yes, I realize I’ve become the full-on cliché of the Hudson Valley hippie.”
Florence smiled, as she knew she was supposed to.
They reached the carriage house, which lay about a hundred yards from the main structure. Behind it, a dark line of trees marked the beginning of the woods. The front door stuck when Helen tried to open it but she popped it loose with a swift kick to the bottom corner. “I’ll do something about that,” she said. And then a moment later: “Actually, I probably won’t, but there are worse things in life than a sticky door, right?”
Florence nodded and followed Helen inside to a bright, open space with a sitting area and a small kitchenette tucked away in one corner. A pink rotary phone was mounted on the wall next to the fridge. A peek into the bathroom revealed a deep, old-fashioned tub. Wooden steps, closer to ladder than stairway, led up to a lofted bedroom. She loved it. She’d never had her own space before—her own building—and this one felt right in a way no place she’d lived before ever had.
Helen left her to get settled and told her to come over for a drink before dinner around seven. Florence immediately started unpacking. She had always been orderly. She couldn’t go to sleep unless her shoes were lined up properly in the closet.
It took only twenty minutes to put away all of her belongings and stow the duffel bag under the bed. She sat on the couch and opened up the brand-new notebook she’d bought that morning at Grand Central. It was for the novel she planned to write while she lived up here. She needed a bigger canvas than short stories, she’d decided. She stared at the blank page for a few minutes. She wrote the date and “Cairo, NY” at the top. After a few more minutes, she shut the notebook with an exasperated sigh.
Oh well, she’d have more to say soon. Having met Helen Wilcox, she doubted that life would be dull.
She opened a book instead—she’d been slogging her way through Proust for a month, pretending to enjoy it more than she actually did—but soon she shut that too. She felt restless and at loose ends. She thought about calling Lucy, but she hadn’t returned any of Lucy’s messages since she’d been fired. Florence hadn’t wanted her sympathy; she preferred the balance of power to stay as it had been, firmly weighted in her own favor. Besides, she wouldn’t even have been able to brag about her new job.
If she’d been back in the city, she might have gone for a walk or settled for chatting with Brianna and Sarah in the living room. Now she realized how truly isolated she was. She closed her eyes and listened. There was only silence. She was utterly alone.
14.
At five to seven, Florence knocked tentatively on the front door of the main house. Hearing no response, she opened it and went in. Music was playing from the kitchen, so she followed the sound.
Helen was wearing an apron over her clothes, drinking a glass of wine, smoking a cigarette, chopping tomatoes, and stopping every now and then to conduct the orchestra with her knife.
“Hi,” said Florence.
Helen turned around and sang “La tua sorte è già compitaaaaaaa” in a husky alto, drawing out the last syllable. She finished with a swig of wine. “Do you like opera?”
“Um, I’m not sure.” Pretty much the only time Florence listened to classical music was during car commercials.
“Oh, it’s divine. Divine! I saw Il Trovatore at the Met last year. I’ll take you the next time I go. Here, have some wine.”
“Thank you.” Florence took the proffered glass and tried to hide her delight at the thought of attending an opera with Maud Dixon. “Can I help with dinner?”
“No, I’m a total control freak in the kitchen.” She held up a small cherry tomato between her thumb and index finger. “Do you know what they call these in France? Pigeon hearts. Isn’t that fabulous? Isn’t that just what they are? You’ll never be able to look at a pigeon again without thinking of his little tomato-shaped heart beating away inside his puffed-up chest.”
“My mother sometimes calls people pigeon-hearted,” said Florence. “People she thinks are weak.”
“Pigeon-hearted,” Helen repeated, gesturing at her with the tip of the knife. “That’s good. I may have to steal that. Remind me, are you a Southerner? All the best sayings come from the South.”
“Florida. We’re neither here nor there.”
“That’s alright. Here and there are overrated.”
“I suppose.”
Helen stopped chopping to say, “It’s true. There’s real power in being an outsider. You see things more clearly.” Something in the oven snapped loudly enough to make Florence jump. “Chicken. You’re not a vegetarian, are you?” Florence shook her head. “Thank the lord,” Helen pronounced and resumed her quick thrusts of the knife.
“So you’re settling in all right?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Good. We’ll get started on work tomorrow.”
“How is the new book coming?”
A shadow crossed Helen’s face. “It’s coming,” she said vaguely.
“Is it a sequel to Mississippi Foxtrot?”
“No. Maud and Ruby’s story is officially finis.” She made a slicing motion at her neck.
“Oh.” Florence felt her excitement deflate a little. Like most fans of Mississippi Foxtrot, she wanted to know what happened next. “People are going to be disappointed.”
“Yes, my agent reminds me of that daily. Apparently I owe my readers an ending.” Helen rolled her eyes.
“You don’t agree?”
Helen laughed. “Owe them! Of course not. I don’t owe anyone squat. She just wants me to write a sequel because it would make more money.”
She pulled the chicken out of the oven and carved it expertly, placing a breast and a leg on each plate. These she set on the kitchen table with the bottle of wine and a bowl of salad. She gestured at Florence to sit.
Florence asked when she’d get to read the new work.
“Soon. Maybe tomorrow. If you can manage to decipher my godawful Mississippi-public-school chicken scratch.” She wrote her first drafts longhand on yellow legal pads, she said. It would be one of Florence’s jobs to type them up.
“I’m about a quarter of the way into my first draft. As soon as I started writing I realized that it was going to require a lot more research than the first one. That’s where you’ll come in. It takes place in Morocco. Have you been?”
Florence shook her head.
“There are a few authors who’ve written about it very well. Tahar Ben Jelloun and Paul Bowles come to mind.”