Tangerine(15)

“So why bother with a place like Bennington?” John asked, turning back to Lucy, his voice light, deceptively casual. “Surely you didn’t need to in order to write a few snippets for a rag? That’s an expensive school, from what I understand.”

“I was on scholarship,” Lucy replied.

As she said the words, I realized that was what he had wanted to know all along, what he had been digging for in the first place, with his questions about her profession, about her love life—the origins of this American girl that he had never heard of before. He had been wondering, I realized, whether Lucy Mason was worth knowing.

And now, it seemed, he had his answer.

He shrugged. “Still, even with the money.”

Lucy fixed him with a smile. “Actually,” she said, “I have always loved literature. That’s why I decided to go to Bennington.” She finished her gin in one final gulp and leaned close to him. “Have you ever read the Bront?s, John?”

I stopped, glancing up from my drink, hearing the shift before I saw it, written just there, on her face. A quick look at John told me that he had not noticed it—but then, he did not know her as I did. Did not know that this was her, the Lucy that I remembered. Not the polite, perfect houseguest who had sat on our sofa trading banter over cocktails. This was the Lucy who spoke her mind, who knew what she wanted and took it.

John, still unaware, shook his head—though he was, I could see, unsettled by the question, the unexpected turn in the conversation. “No, I haven’t.”

She affected surprise. “What, never?”

He gave her a tense smile. “Never.”

I became aware, in that moment, of my silence, of the fact that the conversation between them seemed to exclude me entirely. And yet I did not stir. Instead I only sat, watching them both: the narrowing of the eyes, the tilting of the head, the mistrust, no, distrust, that was already growing between them. I thought I could hear it. In my mind I saw them circling each other, slowly, testing out the boundaries that separated them.

“Not even a little of Jane?” Lucy was laughing, though the sound was sharp, jagged. “Heathcliff and Cathy, I can understand. They can be difficult even for the most ardent of admirers. Perhaps that’s why Emily only ever published one novel?” She swallowed her gin. “Do you know, I once had a teacher in secondary school who absolutely hated Wuthering Heights. Called it the worst book in British literature, in fact. So I can understand the aversion, the hesitation. But Jane? Sweet, orphaned Jane? You really haven’t read it at all? Not even a sentence?”

His smile grew wider, the expression stretched tightly against his face, so that it fitted as though some sort of grotesque mask. “Not even one goddamn word.”

She knew about the books, I realized then. Somehow, in the way that she always did, she knew that they were only for show, that they were only part of the carefully curated image John worked to display—nothing more. I supposed that I should be mad, that I should feel resentment for her then, for baiting the man that I had promised to stand by for all the rest of my days, for the way she had so carelessly stepped back into my life, as if Vermont and what had happened there were of no real consequence. I could feel it—the anger that should have been mine, hovering in the air around us, snapping questions and demanding answers, and yet, I could not reach for it, could not manage to claim it as my own. Instead I focused only on the bend that they, John and Lucy, were driving toward, dangerously, recklessly. I knew that were they to take the curve, there would be no turning back. I leaned in and said anxiously, longing for the comfort of the apartment and the safety it promised: “John has never been much of a reader.”

It was, I quickly realized, the wrong thing to say.

“You both make it sound as though I’m illiterate.” John frowned. “Just because I don’t fawn over these Bront?s,” he said, pronouncing it Bron-tay.

“Bront?,” I corrected him, without thinking.

John was silent, quickly finishing the rest of his drink and setting his glass onto the table with more force than necessary. I gave a little jump, though Lucy, I noticed, managed to remain still. “I’ve just seen Charlie at the bar,” he said, abruptly. “I’ll be back in a moment.” Before I could respond, he had grabbed his empty glass and disappeared.

A few minutes of silence passed. “He struggled in school,” I finally offered.

Lucy nodded, her face closed. “I’m just off to the toilets.” She slid from her seat. “I won’t be long.”

She smiled, moving, for one moment, as if to touch me. But then she stopped and, turning, her eyes averted from mine, disappeared into the swelling crowd that surrounded us.

In their absence, I felt unmoored, untethered, so that my hands grasped the wooden table beneath me in a desperate attempt to find an anchor. I felt something brush against my leg then and I jumped, though looking down I could see that it was only one of the city’s many stray dogs, wandered in off the streets. During my first days in Tangier, John had cautioned me that I could not be afraid, that I could not display my fear to the poor beasts, that it would only incite them further. I remembered walking with him along the port early one morning, passing by one dog after another as they lay, stretched out on the hot, unforgiving pavement beneath them. At the sound of our footsteps, they had raised their heads, their bodies braced, and I had retreated farther into John, despite his rebuke, fearing that one of the dogs would lunge, would bite, and I’d be stricken with rabies. In that moment, I had been petrified, but John had only pushed me away, whispering that it was for my own good.