Who is Maud Dixon?(42)

Florence didn’t know how to respond.

“Tell me this—when you were growing up, did you really think the people around you were your equals?”

Florence shrugged noncommittally.

“You didn’t, Florence. I know you. You thought you were better than them.” She paused. “And my guess is you were right.”

“Maybe,” Florence mumbled. She took another sip of her whiskey and turned away to hide her smile.

“Take my word for it,” Helen went on. “If you spend your life looking for fairness you’ll be disappointed. Fairness doesn’t exist. And if it did, it would be boring. It would leave no room for the unexpected. But if you search for greatness—for beauty, for art, for transcendence—those are where the rewards are. That is what makes life worth living.” Helen set her glass of whiskey down roughly, splashing some on the table. “I’m sure there are people in my past who don’t think it’s fair that my life turned out like it did. And who knows, maybe it isn’t. But I want you to understand this: I wouldn’t change a single thing I’ve done. Not a single thing.”

Florence loved when Helen spoke to her like this, like a worthy disciple. She was flattered that she’d brought her along on this trip. True, she was just here as her assistant, but there wasn’t actually that much for her to do. Helen was spending a lot of money to have her here to type for an hour a day. It was possible, she thought, that Helen had just wanted her company. That she liked her.

“Helen,” she said, before she could stop herself. She was feeling reckless.

Helen was humming and tapping her fingers lightly on the tabletop. She glanced up. “Hm?”

“How much of it is true?”

“How much of what?”

“Mississippi Foxtrot.”

Helen shook her head. “What does it matter? I’ve never understood people’s obsession with ‘the facts.’”

“I don’t know.” Florence shrugged. “It won’t change anything, I guess. I just want to know.”

Helen stared at her for a moment without saying anything. Florence was worried she’d overstepped. Then Helen said, “Oh, fuck it. It’s not like you’re going to tell anyone.”

“Of course not.”

Helen looked at her with a brief, amused smile. “Ruby,” she finally said.

Florence waited for her to elaborate. She didn’t.

“Ruby what? Ruby’s real?”

Helen nodded slowly. “Ruby is real. Except her name.” She grimaced. “God, I hate the name Ruby. I don’t know what I was thinking. It doesn’t suit her at all.”

“What’s her real name?”

Helen smiled in a far-off, dreamy way. “Jenny. She was my best friend.” She paused to light a cigarette. “My father, as you might have gathered from the book, was a worthless bastard and my mother was just, I don’t know, barely there. She was beaten down. She was just waiting to die, I think. Which she did, when I was eight. So it was just Jenny. Me and Jenny.” Helen sighed. “And then she killed that man, and it all ended.” She snapped her fingers. “Our friendship. Childhood. Everything. My whole world ended.”

“The murder was real?” Florence asked, eyes wide.

“Well, not all the details. He wasn’t some guy just traveling through town; he had lived there for longer than we had. Then when Jenny turned fifteen, he developed this sick fascination with her. He used to follow her around, ask her on dates, wait outside her house. Finally she’d had enough. She shot him with her daddy’s shotgun.”

“That’s horrifying.”

Helen looked up in surprise. “Is it? To tell the truth, I’ve never been horrified. Far from it. I was—what? I was proud. Jealous, too, maybe. She’d gone somewhere no one we knew had ever been before. She told me that after she decided to shoot him but before she actually pulled the trigger, everything was heightened—all her senses, her emotions, everything. She could hear his lungs expanding, she could hear the blood pumping in his veins. And she felt this phenomenal power coursing through her body, like electricity. And I knew nothing about it; I couldn’t relate at all. It was like she had been initiated into a club that wouldn’t have me. I felt like an imposter. I had been pretending at being an adult, being knowing, being cold, being cynical. But she was something else. She was the real thing. And it cowed me. I couldn’t tag along after her anymore. She had gone somewhere I couldn’t. She’d left me behind.”

Helen patted the table absently for her pack of cigarettes. She took one out and lit it with the stub of the one in her hand. Florence stayed silent, willing her to go on, but she didn’t. She just smoked and stared.

“What happened to her?”

“She got twenty-five years.”

“But in the book—”

“The novel.”

“Right, the novel. In the novel, it was you. You made the Maud character the murderer.”

Helen waved her hand. “Oh, it just makes a better story. Well, maybe it was the jealousy a little bit. I wanted to try and experience a faint shadow of what she had.”

“So is Jenny still there?”

“Where?”

“Prison.”

Helen’s eyes refocused. Florence had broken the spell. “Yes, of course.”