Who is Maud Dixon?(57)

It dawned on Florence: TPR was The Paris Review, the quarterly literary journal known for its in-depth interviews with famous authors.

In her earlier email Greta had said she wanted to discuss TPR “in further detail.” Did that mean Helen had agreed to do an interview? Florence frowned. That didn’t make any sense. Helen had no need to justify herself or her work. She wasn’t that type of person. Was she going to use her real name, reveal her identity? The Paris Review had published an anonymous interview before—using just the writer’s pen name—but only once.

She did a quick search of Helen’s inbox; there were no other emails that mentioned The Paris Review. She went upstairs and rooted around Helen’s room for her personal laptop; she’d caught a glimpse of it in Helen’s carry-on at the airport. She found it fairly quickly, in the drawer of the bedside table, but when she opened it, she was thwarted by the same password request that had stopped her when she’d been snooping in Cairo. Florence typed in a few feeble attempts: MississippiFoxtrot, Jenny, Ruby. None of them worked.

Back at the computer downstairs, Florence wrote to Greta:

Maud’s still sick, unfortunately. But she did say that she’s having second thoughts about the interview.



There was no way she could do the interview.

A few seconds later, an email pinged back. She looked at her watch. It was five in the morning in New York. On a Sunday.

Florence, can you give me a call?



Florence clenched her jaw. She hated talking on the phone. There was no time to plan and refine what you were going to say. Maybe that’s what other people liked about it; Greta didn’t seem like a person who self-edited. Florence trudged reluctantly into the kitchen where the house phone was and dialed the number Greta had included in her email.

“Hi, Florence,” said the familiar husky voice.

“Hi, Greta. It’s early there.”

“Oh, I never sleep past five. One of the hazards of getting older. So what’s going on with Helen?”

“She ate some bad octopus.”

“And she can’t even come to the phone?”

“She basically hasn’t moved from the bathroom floor in twenty-four hours.”

“That doesn’t sound good. Have you called a doctor?”

“Yes, of course. He just said to keep her hydrated.”

“Twenty-four hours is a long time to be that ill. I think you should consider going back to Marrakesh. I can call the hospital there and tell them to expect you. I can’t imagine the one where you are is much better than a Civil War tent.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You’ve been?”

“Oh. Yeah. I took Helen yesterday.”

“And?”

“That was when they told us to keep her hydrated.”

“Hm.” There was a long pause. “You said something about Helen having second thoughts about the Paris Review interview.”

“Yes. She said she changed her mind. She doesn’t want to do it anymore.”

“Interesting.” She paused again. “You know, she hadn’t even agreed to it yet. I was still trying to convince her that it was a good idea. So her mind, it seems, is unchanged. If I have my facts straight.”

Fuck. “Oh, really?”

“Really.”

“That’s weird. Maybe she misspoke. She’s really out of it. Kind of delirious.”

“Hmm.”

Another pause.

“Florence, I’ll admit it, you have me worried. You say that Helen is delirious, she can’t come to the phone, she hasn’t moved from the bathroom floor. None of this sounds good. I really urge you to go back to Marrakesh to get some treatment. Lauren would be happy to make arrangements for you. I could have a car come pick you up today.”

“No… She’ll be okay, I think. I’ll ask her, but she’s been pretty adamant about staying here and finishing the research.”

“From the way you’ve described it, it sounds like perhaps Helen is not in the right frame of mind to be making these decisions for herself. Listen, Florence, you’re young, and Helen can be intimidating, I know that. But making sure Helen is taken care of and gets healthy is more important than being on her bad side for a few hours.”

“No, I know. I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll call back this afternoon to see how the situation is progressing. Oh, that reminds me—I’ve tried both of your cells and I can’t get through.”

“Yeah, the service is really bad here.”

“So this is the number I should use?”

“Yes, this is the house line.”

“Great. Talk soon.”

Florence slammed the phone into the cradle. Shit. What was she going to say to Greta in a few hours, or days, when she still couldn’t produce Helen?

“Hi, Greta, actually I killed Helen—whoops!—so can I be Maud Dixon now or what?”

Perfect.





34.



Florence sat on the beach and buried her toes in the sand. The wind that had pounded everything ceaselessly since her arrival had disappeared without explanation. The air sat still and heavy around her. There was no relief from the sun’s relentless onslaught.