Tangerine(40)

“But, Alice,” Lucy began, “it doesn’t have to be like that.”

A laugh escaped me, one that sounded more akin to a sob than anything else. I rushed to cover it. “Don’t mind me, Lucy. It’s the heat, I think. I never was very good with it. There’s something about a hot, sunny day that puts my teeth on edge. I always feel as though I’m teetering on the precipice of something.” I paused. “It will pass.”

But in that moment I knew that I didn’t want it to pass. I wanted—oh, I didn’t know what. For her to take my hand, like she had in the old days, to tell me that if I wanted to get away from Tangier, she would be that for me—my way out. The words swelled on my lips—everything, the whole mess: how distant John had grown over the months, how I had become convinced that I had made the wrong decision when I had agreed to marry him, to come to this wretched place. I longed to speak then, to confide, to tell Lucy everything. But the words would not come.

I stood, fumbling in my purse for francs, looking around for the boy who had served us our tea, anxious to leave, though to go where, I didn’t know. I felt stuck, trapped, and the realization that there was no way out, no place that I could escape to, threatened to overwhelm me. In response, Lucy stood, placing a few coins on the table, her movements anticipating my own once more, I noted.

We were halfway up the aisle of the terraced settings when I felt Lucy’s body press against my own, when I heard a crash sound, directly below. I jumped, startled by the noise but certain, in that moment, that it had been one of the waiters, perhaps the boy who had served us our tea, having dropped one of those swinging contraptions from his hands. But then I glanced backward and saw her—a woman, vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t quite manage to place her—lying at the bottom of the stairs, the broken glass surrounding her an intricate mosaic that shimmered underneath the afternoon sun.

My hand flew to my mouth, aghast. “Lucy?” I heard myself whisper.

The café erupted in pandemonium then. The waiters rushed down to assist the woman, who was, I saw with a relieved sigh, sitting up, slowly. Customers rose from their seats, a few even leaving their belongings unattended as they rushed to offer aid. I could see that the woman’s arms and legs had been badly scraped up—by the fall, by the glass, I didn’t know. She stood, testing her ankle, as though hesitant to place any weight on it.

And then she looked up, to where Lucy and I stood, her eyes dark and shining.

I felt my stomach turn, felt the taste of the mint from the tea go sour in my mouth. Something like fear ran through me then, so that I reached out my hand, clamping onto Lucy’s wrist. “Can we go?” I asked, my voice broken, shattered. My fingers, I knew, were digging into her skin, but I could not stop, could not pause the strange rising tide of panic. For in that moment, despite everything, despite all my uneasiness and suspicions, and everything that had occurred between us over the years, I was certain of the one thing I had always known about Lucy: that she loved me, that she would do anything to help me. And so I turned to her now, my voice pleading, and said, “Oh, please, Lucy, can’t we go?”

I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant by those words. I knew only that I had to get away—from the café, from the woman’s insistent gaze, from the truth of my relationship with John. I could not look at it, could not take it out into the sun and examine it—not just yet. In that moment, I only wanted to be away from it, from him.

From Tangier.





II





Eight


Lucy


WE SHOULD GO TO CHEFCHAOUEN.”

I made the pronouncement over breakfast as Alice and I sat silently over our tea and bread, voicing the words before thinking them through, before worrying about whether her answer would be yes or no. I knew only that after the incident at Café Hafa, I was desperate for more traces of Alice—of the original, ancient Alice who had once spent late nights with me in the local diner, laughing over coffee and maple syrup pancakes, the one I had sat next to during winter, watching as the fire rose and fell before us. I realized now that Morocco threatened to burn those memories away—burn the both of us to ash. We needed a break—from the heat, from the city, from Tangier.

“We could hire a grand taxi to drive us,” I explained. “It’s not that expensive and it’s fairly easy. I could go now and find one and be back in no time at all. You wouldn’t have to do a thing but pack a bag. And it’s supposed to be beautiful, Alice.” I spoke hastily, as if a torrent of words would be enough to protect me from her protestations, her probable refusal.

Alice nodded, her teacup held tightly between her two hands, her knuckles white. “All right, then.” The words slipped out quickly, as if she needed to expunge them from her body before she had time to consider—to reconsider. “All right, Lucy. Let’s go.”

She smiled, and in it I could see a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of her.

I knew that it was time then. To tell her what I had seen, first at the bar and later in the streets of Tangier. That now was the time to relay all my hopes and dreams for the future, for us, so that the two of us could move forward together, just like we had always planned. But first we needed to get away—from John, from Tangier, where the past would remain steadfastly behind and the present could no longer touch us.