Who is Maud Dixon?(12)

“Come on,” said Florence. “Yes you have.”

Agatha shook her head guilelessly.

“You have to have been to McDonald’s. Everyone’s been to McDonald’s.”

“Not me. Do you know how many hormones are in that meat?”

Florence would have bet that every single person in America had eaten at McDonald’s. How could Agatha so easily snub something millions of people did every day without ever having tried it, and at the same time refuse to get an epidural because a handful of African boys were flogging themselves with sticks?

Before the holiday party, it hadn’t occurred to Florence that she might be in a position to judge Agatha. Florence was younger, less experienced, she made less money, she wasn’t married, she had no children. She lacked nearly everything Agatha valued. But the dismissive way Simon had said her name at the bar—Agatha Hale—had pulled back a curtain and revealed something ridiculous about her. This new perspective was disorienting. If Florence didn’t look up to Agatha, what was she doing? Why was she working here? Was this really helping her to become a writer?

“Unhappy the land in need of heroes,” Amanda had said. But unhappy, too, was a land whose only hero was Agatha Hale.

*



Agatha left at five that afternoon, but Florence stayed on to finish a report on a manuscript she’d been given a few days earlier. At seven thirty, as she was emailing off her notes, her desk phone rang. It was Simon, and she could tell he’d been drinking from his ineffectively muffled ebullience.

“Florence! You’re there! What are you doing working so late?”

“Um, working?”

“But that’s absurd. You shouldn’t be slogging away at this hour. Come meet me. Clearly I need to talk some sense into you.”

“Meet you now?”

“Meet me five minutes ago. Meet me yesterday. Come as fast as those gorgeous legs will carry you.”

Florence pinched her lips to squelch a smile. “I thought you respected me too much to put me in this position.”

“That doesn’t sound like me. No, in fact, I haven’t the least bit of respect for you. I hold you in utter, total contempt. You and Idi Amin—that’s my list. Let me show you just how little respect I have for you.”

“Are you serious? Right now?”

“I’m dead serious. I’ll meet you at the Bowery Hotel in thirty minutes. I’ll reserve the room under the name Maud Dixon, how about that? Easy to remember.”

Florence hung up and brought her hand to her face. It felt hot. She gathered her coat and her bag and hurried out of the office, half hoping someone would ask her whether she had any plans tonight. If she’d told Lucy about her first encounter with Simon, she would have relished apprising her of the second, but she’d kept it to herself, knowing the judgment and dismay Lucy would have tried—and failed—to hide from her expression.

Florence splurged for a taxi and beat Simon to the hotel. As promised, there was a reservation under the name Dixon. In the room, she sat on the chair by the window and tried to look casual. Should she undress? No, that was too ridiculous. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. She wished she’d worn nicer underwear.

An hour later, he still hadn’t arrived.

She pulled out the notebook she always carried in her bag and began writing a short story about a young woman waiting for her lover. She tore out the page and tossed it in the trash. At ten, she got into bed. She set the alarm on her phone for six. She’d have to take the train home to change before going back into the office.

Several hours later the room phone woke her.

“Florence, I’m so sorry,” Simon whispered on the other end.

“What happened?” she asked, whispering back for no good reason.

“My wife’s father had a heart attack. I didn’t have your cell number.”

“Is he okay?”

“Who, Bill? No. He’s dead.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you come now?”

“No, I have to stay here. Listen, this was madness. Total madness. I’m so sorry. I should never have pulled you into this.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. But thank you for saying so.”

They hung up, and Florence immediately felt like a fool. Why had she asked if he could come over now? She’d sounded so needy. Like her mother.

She lay back and stared at the ceiling. She prodded herself to feel some pity for Ingrid, but it was hard to muster sympathy for someone who’d lost something that she herself had never had. There’s a crucial difference between a loss and a lack. Florence, after all, had never gotten any sympathy for growing up without a father. On the contrary, she thought she’d seemed tainted somehow, like she didn’t deserve one.

All Florence knew about her father was his first name, which she’d pried out of her mother one Thanksgiving after she’d drunk three-quarters of a bottle of Shiraz. She had hoped it would be something stately, like Jonathan or Robert. But no. It was Derek, which was about as stately as a vinyl-sided condominium. What was that k even doing there, all garish and naked without a c in front of it? Bill was a much better name for a father.

She sat up and fumbled for the remote. There was no way she was getting back to sleep now. Scrolling through movies, she came across Harbinger, a small indie film from a few years ago that Ingrid had starred in. She charged it to the room and pressed Play. When Ingrid appeared, Florence paused the screen on a close-up shot of her face, mouth spread wide in a beatific smile.