Florence supposed she could try to convince her to go along with the plan. Greta certainly did have a professional interest in keeping the Maud Dixon name alive and kicking. But enough to ignore the death of someone she had worked with—very successfully—for three years? To aid and abet identity theft? It was hard to say. How could she even broach the idea without admitting everything? It was a tell-all-or-nothing kind of proposal.
Well, there were other avenues besides collaboration. Florence had time. She had options. She was certain of one thing: Now that she’d been given this gift, no one—no one—was going to take it from her.
*
That afternoon Florence slept long and deeply. The sun was setting by the time she got up and showered. She was putting on makeup when Amina knocked gently on the door.
“Come in!” Florence called from the bathroom.
Amina hovered in the doorway. Folded in her hands was Helen’s blue-and-white-striped scarf. Florence froze, mascara wand in hand.
“Where did you get that?”
“Le gendarme,” Amina said. The policeman.
“Idrissi? He’s here?”
“He left. You were sleeping.” She added, looking uncomfortable, “He asked about your friend. When she came home, when she left.”
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth. I don’t stay nights here.”
“Good,” Florence said quietly. “Thank you.”
Amina made no indication that she’d heard. She placed the scarf on the bed and smoothed out a wrinkle. Just then, the doorbell rang, and Florence jumped. She looked at her watch. It was a few minutes before eight. It must be Meg.
Amina went downstairs to answer it. Florence followed a few minutes later and found Meg in the courtyard, looking at her phone. When she saw Florence she exclaimed, “Wait, you look so nice!” Florence was wearing a silk dress and a pair of espadrilles. She had also put on the red lipstick that Helen always wore. Seeing herself in the mirror, she’d felt like she was wearing a mask. She looked utterly unfamiliar to herself. She’d raised her hand to see if the reflection waved back.
“Thanks,” she responded. “You too.” Meg was wearing short jean cut-offs and a blousy embroidered peasant top.
Outside, Florence climbed on the back of Meg’s rickety-looking Honda motorbike and tentatively put her arms around Meg’s soft middle. She gripped the cast on her left wrist gently with her right hand.
“You okay back there?” Meg asked.
“I’m great. Bonjour, l’aventure!”
Villa des Grenades lay on a narrow, twisting road. From above, it must have looked like a piece of hair strewn on the ground. The whine of the scooter’s motor rose and fell as it tore around the curves. Florence found herself enjoying the ride, the dangerous tip of the bike as it took the turns. She recalled the sensation of revving the engine on the drive to Semat, when she had imagined Helen’s head bouncing off the dashboard like a soccer ball. She shook her head to dislodge the memory.
After about fifteen minutes, Meg pulled into the parking lot of a charmless modern apartment building just outside the medina walls. She told Florence that four Australian guys had rented an apartment here, and various expats moved in and out every few weeks. Mostly kiteboarders, here for the wind. She pressed the buzzer on the intercom, which produced a jaunty little tune.
“Yeah?” crackled the speaker.
“It’s me,” Meg sang out, leaving a smear of lip gloss on the intercom.
There was a pause, then another crackle: “Who?”
Meg laughed and said, “Meg!” She rolled her eyes at Florence good-naturedly. She seemed like a woman used to being forgotten. At length the intercom buzzed and the door unlocked with a thud. As they climbed up to the third floor, Florence asked Meg how old she was.
“I’ll be twenty-two in September. Why, how old are you?”
She decided to split the difference between Helen’s age and her own. “Twenty-nine.”
Upstairs, a blond guy in board shorts and nothing else opened the door. He turned around and walked back into the room without saying a word. Following Meg inside, Florence took in the scene with mounting dismay. There were eight, maybe nine people draped around the room, which was dominated by an enormous black leather sectional couch patched with masking tape. A scummy table was scattered with full ashtrays and empty beer cans. Nobody was wearing a colorful kaftan. There were no lanterns.
“Hey, guys,” Meg said cheerfully. She walked around the room and introduced Florence to everyone with a formality that the setting didn’t warrant. “Helen is a writer,” she said every time. “A novelist.”
Most of the crowd wore the same bored, impassive expression as the guy who’d opened the door for them, but Florence noted with satisfaction that their masks seemed to slip a little when Meg introduced her as a writer. Something—if not respect, at least curiosity—flickered in their eyes.
“I’m a writer too,” confided an emaciated girl in a bikini top as she sucked on a vape pen. “I mean, it’s just like a travel blog right now, but I’m hoping to turn it into a book.”
“That’s great,” Florence said.
“Yeah, so if you have any tips on like getting an agent or anything…”
Florence smiled magnanimously. “Of course.”
“What about you? Have I read anything you’ve written?”
“Well, I don’t know what you’ve read.”
The girl smiled and shook her head. “Sorry, that was such a dumb question. What have you written?”
Florence wondered what Helen said when she was asked this question. She had so rarely seen Helen interact with people. Maybe she didn’t tell people she was a writer at all. But it was too late for that now. “To be honest,” she said, “I write under a pseudonym. And I don’t really share it.”
The guy who had opened the door for them looked up from rolling a cigarette and said, “Christ, don’t tell us you’re Maud Dixon.”
Florence laughed forcefully. “I wish.”
“Oh my god, I looove Maud Dixon,” said a sunburned American girl on the couch. She turned to the guy whose lap her legs were draped over. “Jay, aren’t I always talking about her?” He gave no indication that he’d heard her. She jiggled her legs. “Babe—aren’t I always talking about that, like, killer redneck?”
“Mmm,” Jay said. He was scrolling through his phone.
“I’m gonna stab you!” she said merrily, pretending to plunge a knife into his stomach.
“Stop,” he said dully.
Meg reappeared from the kitchen holding two bottles of Casablanca, and they settled on a pair of white plastic chairs on a balcony overlooking the parking lot.
“So!” said Meg cheerfully.
“So,” said Florence less cheerfully.
“This is fun.”
“Mm.”
“Tell me about how you became a writer.”
“I don’t know. I always wrote. And then one day I guess I just got lucky.”
“That’s so cool. I’d love to be a writer.”
“Do you write?”
“Not really. I’m super left-brained. Like, really logical and stuff?”