Who is Maud Dixon?(18)

“Well, yes, that is rather the point of anonymity, isn’t it?” said the voice on the other end.

“Oh.” Florence blushed. “Right.”

“What’s that light behind you? I can barely see your face.”

Florence looked behind her. Her desk lamp was on. She switched it off.

“That’s better,” said Maud. “What pretty hair you have.”

Florence reached a hand up to her head as if to check that she still had the same mop of curls. “Oh, thanks.”

“So, tell me a bit about yourself.”

Florence gave her spiel about where she was from, the writers she’d studied in college, how she’d ended up in New York.

“But you don’t work at Forrester anymore?” Maud asked.

“No. I decided I’d learned everything I could there.”

“Okay, what else?”

“Um. I’m a writer. Or rather, I want to be a writer.”

“That’s all well and good but I don’t need a writer. I need an assistant. Can you type? Are you willing to run tedious errands? Can you conduct research?”

“Of course. Yes. To all of it.”

“Okay. What else should I know about you?”

Florence struggled to think of anything that would make her stand out. “Um. I was raised by a single parent, like you.” Florence realized her mistake. “Or rather like the character in your book, sorry. Like the Maud character in your book.”

“Alright. What else?”

“I’m not sure. I loved your book. I love your voice. It would be a real honor to learn from you. And to help in whatever way I can, obviously.”

There was a pause.

“And you wouldn’t mind moving out to the sticks?”

“Not at all. To be honest, I’m kind of over New York.”

“You know, I once heard a psychologist remark that whenever a patient used a phrase like ‘to be honest,’ it was a sign that he was lying.”

Florence gave an awkward laugh. “I’m not lying.”

“No, of course not. Although now that I think about it, a liar would be perfect for this role, considering that they can’t tell anyone who they work for.”

Florence didn’t know what game Maud was playing, but she knew she wasn’t keeping up. “I assure you, I can keep a secret,” she said.

“Well, you’ve given me a lot to think about. Greta will be in touch.”

That was it?

“Thank you so much for this opportunity,” she said, but Maud had already signed off.

Florence shut her laptop and buried her head in her hands.

*



She was still in bed at eleven the next morning when her phone rang. It was Greta, calling to tell Florence that the job was hers if she wanted it.

“Seriously?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“Yes. Why would I not be serious?”

“No, of course. Thank you so much. I accept.”

“You don’t want to think about it?”

“No thanks.”

“Fine. Maud has proposed a start date of March eighteenth. Are you able to make that work? I realize it’s quite soon.”

Florence opened the calendar on her laptop. “Wait, next Monday?”

“You will come to learn that patience is not Maud’s strong suit.”

She shut the computer. “That’s okay. I can make the eighteenth work.”

They set up an appointment to sign the paperwork later in the week.

After she hung up, Florence looked around her room in amazement. Had that actually just happened?

She remembered something from Mississippi Foxtrot that Maud says to Ruby after the murder: “Everyone’s born with different amounts of living in them, and you can tell when someone’s run out. That man had none left. If I hadn’t of done it, he’d of died anyway.”

Florence wondered if that’s what Maud Dixon had seen in her: life. The will to really live, at any cost. That, ultimately, is what her stint at Forrester had left her with: a deep fear of insignificance and the understanding that one could slip into a flimsy, aimless life without even realizing it.

Just then her phone buzzed with a text from her mother: “I gave your number to Keith today. He has a gr8 idea for a book!!!”

A moment later it buzzed again: “Two words: Dragon. Catheter.”

Florence frowned.

A third message came in: “Catcher!!! Not catheter.”

Florence turned off her phone.





PART II





13.



Florence stood on the platform at the Hudson train station and watched her train tear away with more force and violence than she’d given it credit for. A scattering of leaves and food wrappers surged up in its wake then settled back down with a sigh. Florence tucked her chin into her scarf. It was colder here than it had been in the city.

Shielding her eyes from the bright, early-spring sun, she saw a wall of dark clouds mounting in the distance. Rain. She hoisted her duffel bag onto her shoulder and staggered briefly under its weight. It contained everything she owned, minus the furniture. She’d tried to sell her mattress and desk on Craigslist, but she’d only managed to offload them after reducing the price to zero.