Tangerine(42)

“We look absolutely frightful,” Alice declared but laughed as she did so.

I looked at her once-white dress, now covered with blotches—dirt from our travels, stains from our meal. I wasn’t much better, I suspected. For although my own capris and blouse stood in stark contrast to Alice’s white dress, they were of a similarly light hue and had also suffered from our hasty meal. “No point in saving these, I suppose.” I grasped the collar of my shirt, pulling so that I could fully inspect the damage.

“Of course we save them!” Alice exclaimed. “They’re souvenirs now. A remembrance of our trip.”

I looked at her: smiling and unencumbered, her face smeared with grease, her dress askew. Part of me wanted to seize her then, to grasp her fragile shoulders and demand to know why—why had she locked herself away with a man who was so obviously unworthy of her love? But that meant mentioning him, and his unfaithfulness, and I couldn’t, not in that moment. It was not a day for John, not a day for Tangier. We had shed our layers at last, and Alice had returned—old, original, ancient Alice whom I had fallen in love with. I was not ready to see her buried once more, weighted down by both the present and the future—not yet.

“Oh, but I can’t wear this back to Tangier,” she said, looking down at herself, taking in the full measure of her clothing and the mess she had made. “I didn’t pack a second dress, Lucy,” she said, looking up at me. “Only nightclothes. I suppose that was rather silly, but I guess I was caught up in it all.”

I could see the frown beginning to form. “Don’t worry,” I said, anxious to dispel the oncoming storm. “I brought an extra blouse and trousers. You can wear those.”

She wrinkled her nose while still managing to look pleased at the same time. “Do you think so, Lucy? Trousers?” She leaned forward, as if to inspect the ones I was currently wearing. “I’ve never worn trousers before.”

“Here,” I said, reaching for my rucksack, a recent purchase from the souks. I could still smell the newness of it, the leather a mixture of something dark and earthy. Manure, perhaps. Most of the tourists wrinkled their noses at the scent, but I found comfort in it. There was something familiar, something real. As if the smell itself assured me of its authenticity, that its material and construction were indeed a product of Tangier, of Morocco, and not some sanitized re-creation that had been shipped overseas and marked up in price, specifically for the tourists who wanted that version of Morocco. I retrieved the two garments, already wrinkled from our journey, I noted with some dismay, and handed them to her. “Try them on.”

“What, now?”

“Yes, now.”

She looked down. “But I’m a mess. I haven’t even had a bath yet.”

“It doesn’t matter, just do it quickly to see how they look.”

I could see the idea pleased her, and so I pressed until she relented, smiling at her retreating figure as she ran to the bathroom to make the change. The door stood slightly ajar and I watched as she removed her dress, letting it fall unceremoniously to the floor, the fabric pooling out around her feet. She kicked it aside. I noticed then that she no longer wore the girdle she had in college, so that though her figure was still slender, it was no longer bound and constricted by that stiff garment she had once insisted on wearing. Instead she stood in only a bra and underwear, a simple garter belt holding up her stockings. Its absence made her look older. Not in a regrettable way that made me long for the past, but one that put our years of living together in perspective. I was suddenly aware of just how much time had passed since that first day I had seen her and all the things that had fallen between us since then.

“Well, what do you think?”

She stood before me, wearing my white linen blouse and tan trousers. I had never before seen her outside of her youthful dresses, her childish frills. I had long come to regard them as an extension of herself, so that when I conjured up an image of Alice, the two were inexorably linked. Stripped of such adornments, even her makeup and hair a pared-down version of the usual, she looked entirely different, so that I felt, oddly, that I did not know her at all. The change left me momentarily speechless.

At my silence, her face collapsed in fear. “Is it that bad?” she asked.

“No,” I said trying to reassure her. “No, you look wonderful. I almost suspect that if I passed you on the streets, I wouldn’t recognize you,” I said, meaning it.

Alice smiled and did a little movement like a curtsy before disappearing back into the bathroom. I heard the start of the bath, the water pounding against the bottom of its enameled surface. She appeared in the doorway, still dressed, though the top button of the blouse was undone. “This was exactly what I needed, Lucy.” She closed the distance between us, swiftly, reaching across and grabbing my hand. “Thank you.”

I smiled. I could still feel her hand’s warmth, even after she removed it.

I DID NOT SLEEP THAT NIGHT. Instead I remained awake, long past the hour when the sun had set and the sky had begun to darken. Without warning, rain started to fall against the sloped roof of our riad. I had first heard it as I lay in bed, watching as Alice frowned and sputtered in her sleep, murmuring words I could not decipher. Minutes had gone by, maybe hours. Eventually I rose, winding my thin dressing gown around me and exiting our room, slowly and quietly, so as not to wake her.