Tangerine(44)

“We need to leave, Alice.” The words came out hoarsely, as if they had caught in my throat.

A slow, sleepy grin settled on her face. “I know. Although part of me wishes that we could stay longer. Forever, even.”

She thought we were speaking of Chefchaouen. “No, Alice,” I said, with a slight shake of my head. “I mean we need to leave Tangier.”

Suddenly awake, her body tensed. She took a step backward, away from me.

“You can’t stay here anymore. It’s not safe,” I continued.

“No?”

“No.” I cleared my throat. “John knows that I know—about Sabine.”

She looked at me then, confusion crowding her features. But something else was there as well, a peculiar expression that pinched her face and told me what I had already begun to suspect: Alice knew. Perhaps not her name, and perhaps not even with any real certainty, but she knew that John was involved with another woman. Somewhere, however deeply she may have buried it, she knew.

Alice blinked and asked, “Who?”

I shook my head, ignoring her feigned expression. There could be no more hiding, I told myself, no more pretending. My voice was stronger, sharper as I told her, “You know who she is, Alice.”

She looked taken aback, but whether at my tone or my words, I was uncertain.

“I don’t know,” she protested.

I leaned forward. “You do.”

“No,” she said, continuing to back away. “I don’t know. I don’t want to know.” She looked up at me, her expression pleading. “I don’t want to know, Lucy.”

“Alice.” She began to shake her head then, with such force that I moved toward her, worried. “Alice,” I murmured, trying to keep my voice low and steady.

Her face was red, her cheeks streaked with tears. “I know,” she said, the words, sounding like a gasp, hanging in the air between us. “I know, Lucy. It’s all so horribly embarrassing, but of course, I do.”

I exhaled—certain in the knowledge that I had been right, that I could still read her, that I still knew her, just as I once had. “What do you think he’ll do, Alice?” I continued. “When he finds out that you know. When he realizes that the money will stop.” She remained silent, her eyes wide. “You know what we have to do, then?” I pressed. “We have to leave, before he realizes.”

“Realizes what?” she whispered.

“That you know as well.” She was silent, and so I whispered: “There isn’t any other way.”

I was no longer certain if she was listening. She was shivering violently, though it was still warm, the humidity evident in the trail of mist on the glass windows. She wrapped her arms around her body, as if to protect herself against the cold, and I felt myself shiver, as if in response.

“We’ll go back to Tangier tomorrow. We’ll tell him together. And then we’ll leave,” I whispered, my voice steady, calm.

“Yes,” she whispered, turning toward the window.

“Isn’t that what you wanted, Alice?” I asked her. “To leave Tangier? To go back home?”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” she replied.

I felt my heart flutter, felt the realization that now was the time to move, to declare. I leaned forward so that I was only inches from her, my face hovering above her tear-stained skin. And then I kissed her.

BEFORE HIM, WE HAD BEEN INSEPARABLE.

But that year, our fourth at Bennington, something changed. Alice began to spend less time in our room, always making her way to and from the photography lab, or into town, arranging to see Tom whenever she had the opportunity. I would often catch sight of her as she bounded across the open lawn and toward the parking lot, headed to the warm interior of Tom’s waiting Skylark. It was easy to spot. A deep red that gleamed in the sun, its outline shimmering against the pale, more conservative cars of the faculty. It was a wonder that anyone as young as Tom could afford such an indulgent vehicle, since most auto shops were still clinging to wartime rules, requiring several months’ down payment before anything could be driven off the lot. I felt the resentment begin to prickle, hot and sharp.

Tom Stowell. He was, I soon learned, from an old family in Maine—not the side filled with fishermen and carpenters, but the one full of Colonial houses and lobster bakes every summer Sunday evening. One built on old money, which meant that what little of it still existed was tied up in the house, or whatever they could borrow based on their last name. As a legacy, he had received a full scholarship at Williams College—without it, there was no hope of the Stowell name being represented within the walls of any respected educational system in New England.

Some of this information I had gleaned from Alice herself—though she was surprisingly secretive when it came to Tom—and I’d gathered the rest in various ways, including from other students at Bennington. It turned out that the girls knew everything about the boys at the next college over—had made it their business to know their future husbands. For although the girls majored in literature and mathematics, a few even claiming premed, the vast majority of them, it seemed, had already realized their only profession was destined to be wife and mother.

It became my business to know everything there was about Tom Stowell—what classes he took, the other boys he counted as friends. I received such information eagerly, as if I were dying of thirst, as if their whispers and rumors were the only water in the world that would quench it. The car, I soon learned, had been a sixteenth birthday present from his grandfather, the stoic patriarch. My studies began to suffer, but I didn’t mind. Tom was my major now—and my life, my happiness, depended on knowing everything about him.