Tangerine(9)

I ran my finger over the pages of a few books, noting, curiously, that the pages were still uncut. A portrait of the man Alice had married began to form in my mind.

“Were you surprised to see me standing outside your doorstep this morning?” I called out, settling onto the leather sofa, where almost immediately my skin began to sweat.

There was only silence from the kitchen.

“Alice?” I called again, frowning. I squirmed from side to side, trying to alternatively air out the parts of my skin in contact with the leather, hoping the sweat wouldn’t stain my new dress. The air in Tangier, I had already begun to notice, moved slowly and without any real insistence. It seemed to hang: thick and humid. Languid. That would be the right word to describe it, I decided.

“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice muffled, sounding as if she were somewhere far away, and not simply in the next room. “Yes, quite.”

Before I could ask anything more, I heard the turning of the doorknob from the foyer. “Alice?” a voice called out, deeper, somehow, than what I had imagined. “Are you home?” And then, somewhat more quietly, “I don’t suppose you made it to the market today?”

Looking back, I’m quite certain that, in that exact moment, my heart stopped.

It often did, of course. A slight murmur, nothing to worry about—at least, according to the doctors. It didn’t really affect anything, they assured me, except that there were moments, only once in a great while, when my heart refused to beat in rhythm. When it acted up—or out, I supposed—stopping for the smallest second, perhaps less than that, but long enough so that the next beat felt like a resounding thud inside my chest. Like something trying to trample me or push me underfoot. I could have reimagined it over the years, of course—my memories altered and changed by what eventually transpired—but I’m almost certain my heart skipped then. Perhaps in warning, perhaps sensing danger. There is no way to ever really know, but I believe my heart was trying to tell me something: to warn me of the man slowly making his way through the hallway and into the room where I sat.

I sometimes wondered what would have happened if I had listened.

A MAN STEPPED INTO VIEW.

I took in the tanned face, splattered with freckles, the golden hair that was styled into a sweeping wave. He looked, I thought, like most men our age: vivacious, eager, not yet dulled by the monotony of everyday life. He was handsome, that much I could ascertain. And yet, while I suspected that his features would have been classically pleasing to some, I found them overbearing and difficult to look at for any great length of time. There was something else there too I could already see—something harder, more concrete. But then, I brushed the thought aside, reasoning that perhaps it was just the imposing line of his suit. Though I knew little about men’s fashion, I could tell that his clothes were expensive. He wore a three-piece suit cut from a textured pattern that looked entirely out of place in Tangier and a tan fedora with a narrow brim resting atop his head. He seemed, I noticed with a touch of envy, unfazed wearing the heavy material in the unforgiving heat of Morocco.

“We have a visitor,” Alice called out, in a strange tone. “It’s Lucy.” Falsetto—was that the right word? I wondered.

“Lucy?” he repeated, standing at the threshold of the room, a frown crossing his face.

“Lucy, darling. My friend from college.” Alice let out a hollow laugh. “I’ve told you loads about her.”

She hadn’t, of course. I could tell from the start of confusion that clouded John’s face when Alice first said my name. From the look of it, John had never heard of me at all.

“Any chance you made dinner tonight, Alice? I’m starving,” John said, starting to remove his tie, a note of exhaustion evident in his voice. It was at that moment he noticed me: the stranger sitting on his couch. A flicker of annoyance flashed, but then he seemed to take in my figure—well dressed, reasonably attractive—and his features relaxed, growing into one of surprise, pleasure. “You must be the infamous Lucy, then.” He smiled, smoothing out the tie in his hand and extending his other one. “It’s so wonderful to meet you at last.”

I offered my own hand, instantly regretting that it was so moist. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He cocked his head to the side, his smile turning into something that resembled a smirk, though I suspected he imagined it to be charming. I could feel him reading the situation, trying to figure out if he knew me or, worse yet, was supposed to. He was waiting for my indication. I remained silent. A few seconds passed before he asked, “Thirsty at all?”

At that moment, Alice emerged from the kitchen. She was balancing a silver platter between her two hands, which I half rose to take from her, but then she was already setting it on the top of a wooden bar, tucked back into the corner of the room.

She had changed out of her housecoat from earlier and was wearing a daytime dress, despite the encroaching evening hour, of silk crepe, its full-hipped skirt suggesting that it was an older piece, though I didn’t recognize it from our college days. But it was more than just her outfit that had changed, as she seemed strangely altered from the girl who had greeted me earlier. There was a giddiness about her; gone was the morose countenance of hours before, apparently shrugged off in the company of her husband—that word still catching somewhere in my throat. I watched as she moved to fill the glasses, her movements sharp, surreal, so that she seemed all at once incredibly fragile, and I found myself wondering whether she wouldn’t shatter into a million pieces in front of us both.