Christine Mangan - Tangerine

We stood together in the front hall, and I remembered, in the space of our silence, the last words I had spoken to her that night. I had told her . . . no, I had shouted—the first time I could ever remember raising my voice to her—something awful, something wretched, something about wishing she would disappear, wishing I would never see her again. And then I remembered what had happened afterward, what I had thought, what I had said—though not to her, not to Lucy, who had disappeared long before I regained consciousness.

I felt my cheeks go warm, felt her eyes watching me—certain, in that moment, that she knew precisely what I was thinking about.

She was different from what I remembered—although at first I was not sure how, my eyes searching her for any clue. Anything that would tell me why she was here, after all that had transpired between us. She was thinner, her features sharper, more defined. She was, I realized, more beautiful than I remembered—but there was still that strange quality, that penetrating gaze that made me blush and look away and that made me love her and hate her all at once.

I cleared my throat. “Lucy.” Her name escaped me like a declaration, a single word that held so much meaning, and yet nothing at all. I had never, not once in the many moments that had occurred between the Green Mountains of Vermont and the dusty alleyways of Morocco, expected to see her again. Not after what had happened. Not after what I had said and all the questions I still had—about what she had done, about what I had only imagined. My heart began to pound.

I had stared into her face and wondered—for one mad moment—if, somehow, I had summoned her, if somehow, from across the Atlantic, despite my lingering mistrust, my anger, she had managed to feel my unhappiness, my desperation, and materialized in front of me, a genie I had unwillingly conjured up. I had looked at her, the early morning heat of Tangier beginning to pulse around us—a safety and a danger all at once, just like her. My knight in shining armor, always. I felt the truth of it, heavy against my chest.

I PUSHED THROUGH THE DOOR, into Dean’s. It was Tangier. That was my first thought upon entering, the bar a strange mix of anyone and everyone. Locals, foreigners—French, Moroccan, and beyond—suits and ties, their more casual counterparts. It seemed that everyone flocked to this small, dingy bar, no matter who they were or where they were from. The noise was overwhelming. A loud sonic boom of voices shouting over one another, a cacophony of raucous laughter, the kind that grated and thrilled. I watched a man fall onto the ground, his face red with laughter and drink. His companion, a woman in a sleek black dress and large, glittering diamond earrings, threw back her head and let out what I could only think of as a barking noise, though I realized soon enough that it was meant to be a laugh. We moved farther into the belly of the place, and I felt the stickiness of one too many spilled drinks underneath my feet.

“I’ll get us some drinks,” John shouted, heading to the bar without bothering to ask what we wanted first.

There were few stools left at that late hour, at least placed together, though after several minutes of searching we managed to find a space toward the back, hidden away in the corner. When John appeared moments later, drinks in hand, he stared down, frowning. “Did you want to sit somewhere else?” I asked, suspecting—no, knowing —that John would want to be more in the center of it all. It was one of many things I had learned about him during our time together in Tangier: his enduring need to be in the spotlight, to be noticed by those around him. Or no, perhaps not need, perhaps that was too cruel, too calculating a word. It was simply what happened. Wherever John went, heads seemed to turn, gazes seemed to linger. It was the natural order of things, so that he began to expect it, so that even I considered it to be part of everyday life. And I had felt it too once, that strange pull toward him, the one that had led me to Tangier, to Dean’s, to this particular moment in time, my past and present flanking me on either side as I sipped on a lukewarm gin.

In that moment, I wanted to rebel. To punish him for the way he was so obviously trying to punish me. John had resented my decision to come out—for the simple reason that it had not been his own, I suspected—grumbling about the long hours he had worked that day. “But who is she, even?” he had pressed, his eyes searching mine in the reflection of the bathroom mirror. “I’m quite sure I’ve never even heard you mention her name before today.” By the time he had done a quick toilette, layering his hair carefully with cream—the powerful scent causing my stomach to turn—and we had left the apartment at last, his mood had shifted, the alcohol turning him sullen and petulant, though he attempted to hide it behind a large grin.

And throughout it all, I could feel her. Lucy. Sitting beside me, eyes peering through the darkness, watching John, watching everything, just as she always did. She had only been in Tangier for the space of a few hours, but I could already feel that same effect she always had over me: strengthening and emboldening me, her presence serving as an armor I could somehow never manage to affix on my own.

John grabbed one of the stools. “This is fine,” he said, his voice a bit harder than before. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, its scent like smoke and dust and something ancient. “Well, what do you think?” he asked, turning to Lucy, sweeping his hand around him. “It’s not much, but it attracts quite the crowd.”

Lucy nodded but made no response. I did my best to smile, a sour taste on the edge of my tongue. There was silence, and I could feel the tension—thick, like the Moroccan air—huddling around us.

“So, Lucy Mason from America.” John smiled. “What is it that you do exactly, out there in the real world, I mean?”

“I type manuscripts,” she answered. “For a publishing company.”

He nodded, though his expression was dull, as though he wasn’t listening, not really, so that I suspected the real reason he had asked was only so that she would do the same. For while John had never been entirely forthcoming about his work to others, not even to me, he seemed to take pleasure in throwing around vague allusions, referencing the government, the insinuation that being in Tangier, at this particular moment, was affording him the chance to prove himself to his superiors. The opportunity, he had said to me, and various others, on more than one occasion, though he never actually bothered to explain what it was actually an opportunity for, and I, in turn, had never bothered to inquire.

I could see him now, waiting for Lucy to ask, for the chance to begin his monologue, but she only smiled and hastened to continue: “Yes, though it isn’t the only job that I have.” She took a gulp of her drink. “I’m also a writer.”

His eyebrows raised in surprise, and I could see him casting aside his feigned interest. “Really?”

“Of sorts,” she replied.

John looked at her with curiosity. “‘A writer, of sorts,’” he repeated. “And what does that mean exactly?”

She hesitated, and I wondered then whether her initial declaration was as grand as she had made it seem, both hoping and dreading that it was. I knew it was wrong, that it only made me small and petty, but I felt sad, slightly resentful even, at the idea that she might have fulfilled the promises we had once made to each other, while I had—what?—become the opposite of the idea I had envisioned.

“I write obituaries for a local newspaper,” she replied. I saw a flicker in John’s eyes, a note of disappointment, and I saw Lucy stiffen in response. Her voice was tight as she continued: “There’s a good deal of research involved, actually. A number of interviews have to be conducted, for background information, for quotes. It’s no different from any other story that’s printed in the newspaper.” I could hear the defensiveness in her tone, could see that John had noted it as well. Lucy turned to me and smiled. “But what about you, Alice?” she asked. “Are you still working on your photographs?”