*
It was past eleven by the time they finished their drinks. Helen waved off Florence’s offer to do the dishes. “Go get some sleep,” she said, stubbing out a lipstick-smeared cigarette.
“Likewise,” Florence responded, pleased she’d found an opportunity to use the word. She’d admired its air of sophistication when Helen had used it at the train station.
Florence walked to the carriage house slightly drunk. Halfway there, in the still darkness, she looked back. Every window was lit up, and Helen stood at the sink in the kitchen. She had turned the music back on and was conducting again.
Florence smiled. Helen was everything she wanted to be, and she’d been handed the opportunity to study her at close range. She would not, she swore to herself gravely, waste it.
15.
Florence woke up at six. She showered and took a short walk in the woods behind the house as the sun rose. When she got back to the cottage, she discovered a new voicemail from her mother, which she ignored. At nine, she went over to the main house and found Helen reading the paper at the dining room table.
“There’s coffee in the pot,” Helen said without looking up.
When Florence returned with a mug, Helen pushed out the chair opposite her with her foot.
“Alright,” she said. “Baptism by fire: I have over a hundred unread emails to respond to, and what that actually means is that you have over a hundred unread emails to respond to.”
Most of them, she explained, were from Frost/Bollen—either from Greta or her assistant, Lauren. They were requests for interviews and appearances, responses to readers’ letters, and so on. Helen opened the laptop on the table and signed into the account [email protected]. Then she swiveled the keyboard toward Florence. “Here, we’ll do the first one together.”
Florence opened the most recent email. It was from Greta:
Hi M.
How’s it working out with Florence?
Florence laughed uncomfortably. “Maybe a different one?” she suggested.
“You handle my correspondence now,” Helen said. “All of it.”
“Okay…” Florence lifted her fingers to the keyboard, then stopped and said, “Wait. She called you M. Is that for Maud?”
“Yes. We didn’t want anything hackable linking my real name to Maud Dixon’s agent. You can never be too careful. Anyway, it’s second nature by now.”
“But I should sign my emails from me, right?”
“Actually, I hadn’t thought about it. Yes, I suppose that’s fine. The important thing is just make sure to never use my real name. Now write.”
Florence typed a reply in the same dispassionately professional tone Agatha had taught her to use:
Hi Greta,
Things are working out well. Thank you for your concern.
Best,
Florence
She turned questioningly to Helen, who read it and rolled her eyes. She pulled the computer back toward herself and replaced what Florence had written with:
We’re getting along like a house on fire.
She hit Send and turned back to Florence. “Something you should know: I deplore moderation.”
Beyond Helen’s correspondence, Florence’s duties would include assisting with research and typing up Helen’s rough drafts. Helen handed her a stack of pages covered in large, loopy scrawl. “I’ve been saving it up for you,” she said. “I find typing painfully tedious.”
“No problem,” Florence said. She put the pages next to the laptop and tried not to look at them while Helen continued to talk.
There was a woman who came in once a week to clean and buy the groceries, but the rest of the day-to-day management of her life would fall to Florence. That included paying Helen’s bills—credit cards, phone, Internet, mortgage, everything, as far as Florence could tell. Helen handed over her passwords and bank accounts with a nonchalance that suggested either profound naivete or profound trust. Florence chose to assume the latter.
“I dislike entangling myself with the wider world,” Helen explained. “I’d be a true hermit if it weren’t so damn inconvenient. Besides, I’m hopeless with logistics. I once booked a flight not only on the wrong day but in the wrong year. I’ll leave the small print to small minds.”
Florence glanced at her to see if she realized the insult she’d just volleyed at her new assistant, but Helen went on with the lesson.
She had another Gmail account in her real name, which she showed Florence how to access in order to manage all her various online accounts. Florence took a quick glance through the inbox and saw mostly Amazon order confirmations, notifications from her bank, and daily digests from the New York Times.
At ten, Helen took her coffee upstairs to her office and told Florence to start on the emails for Maud Dixon. Florence opened the most recent unread message. It had been sent by Greta the morning before.
Hi M.
Deborah is on my case again about book #2. What can I tell her? We really should give them a show of good faith. A first chapter. A more detailed outline. A timeline. Something. Let’s discuss. Call me.
G.
Florence glanced around guiltily. She had a feeling this was not an email Helen wanted her to see. She closed it quickly and marked it as unread. The next one was from Greta too, but it was more in line with what Helen had told her to expect.
M—
NPR wants you on Fresh Air. You can do it from up there. We can try that voice modulator they use. What do you think? It would be great to keep Maud Dixon’s name fresh in people’s minds—especially since the second book is going to come out such a long time after the first. Let me know. G.
Florence thought Greta made a good point, but Helen had been clear: The answer was always no. She tried to channel Helen’s voice and forget everything she’d ever learned about professional courtesy. She wrote:
Greta,
The no-interview rule stands, no exceptions.
She hovered the mouse over the Send button but didn’t click it. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t send that email to Greta Frost. She erased what she’d written and typed instead:
Hi Greta,
Unfortunately, Helen won’t do the interview with NPR. I hope you understand.
Best,
Florence
She pressed Send. By the time she was redirected back to the inbox, Greta’s previous email—about Helen’s second book—was gone. Florence glanced up at the ceiling. Helen must have just erased it. Did she have another laptop up there?
For the next several hours, Florence waded through the backlogged Maud Dixon emails. She allowed herself just one diversion: logging in to Helen’s Morgan Stanley account. Her eyes widened when she saw the balance: just over three million dollars. She’d known that Mississippi Foxtrot must have made somewhere in that range, particularly after the TV rights were sold, but it was different seeing the actual number, made so concrete by the insignificant tally of cents tacked on the end. Florence tried to think about what she would do with that much money, but her imagination failed her. All she could think was that she’d do just what Helen had done: buy a house, retreat from the world, grow tomatoes.
By two in the afternoon, Helen had still not come back downstairs. Florence made herself a sandwich with some bread and turkey she found in the fridge, finished the coffee, and cleaned the pot. When she returned to her makeshift desk at the dining table, she finally allowed herself to pick up Helen’s handwritten pages.