Chapter 8
Eight
John and Vivian cut through the thinning crowds. The tangerine fingers of Casablanca’s late afternoon sun reached through the marketplace and picked out the reddish undertone of Vivian’s curls. The color matched the spicier personality that had surfaced since she’d revealed her true identity.
Was that just yesterday?
It felt like a lifetime ago, but minus six hours for the time zone difference and…yup. It had been only a day.
Vendors busied themselves with closing up shop, trying their best to finish the day with a sale. His stomach grumbled, but Mariam had said she’d lay dinner out for them. Probably safer to eat what she prepared than street meat from a tourist area, anyway.
“This is my favorite time of day in the market.” Vivian stretched out her arms, the same way she did when a soft breeze blew through Burleith as they walked Ruckus together. “After the stalls close, the plaza turns into a carnival. Storytellers, dancers, musicians…”
As if on cue, a guitar riff pealed through the air. A European musician with silver hair that carried the light yellow of his former blondness played “La Grange” by ZZ Top. The thick bluesy beat competed with the shrill, reedy wind instruments played elsewhere.
Tension ballooned in John’s chest.
From day one, conversation had flowed between them.
He wanted to say he would’ve expected romantic songs in Casablanca, not a rock song about a Texas brothel.
But they weren’t in a jokey, comfortable place.
He was stoppered. All he wanted to ask were questions about her, her job, their safety, and what he was supposed to do with the bigness of all of this.
“Is Omar any good at soccer?” she asked.
Her simple question had stopped his mental tailspin.
“He’s good but needs practice. Learn anything from Amina?”
She paused to admire a flower stall’s offerings. “Can’t say.”
Roadblocked again. “Can’t, or won’t?”
“Sea lilies are my favorite.” She handed fifteen dirham to the hijab-veiled woman running the stall, then lifted a bundle of white flowers into her arms. Away from the gathered crowd, Vivian murmured, “Can’t.
I swore a secrecy oath, remember? I can’t divulge anything without written consent from the director. ”
“I doubt US government officials are here.” John gestured to the tourists and locals circulating among them. “But I respect your adherence to the rules. I guess I’ll save the juicy tidbit I learned from Omar and Mehdi for written consent from the director.”
She elbowed him gently. “You, sir, took no such oath. Spill.”
“Can’t.” He was being an asshole, but this was what happened when he didn’t eat on his normal schedule. “Shouldn’t talk shop on the streets.”
To their left, a seated man played an ululating tune on a clarinet-like instrument. Cobras wavered, trance-like, in the air.
“Holy shit.” He paused in his tracks. “Snake charmers are real?”
She tugged on his biceps. “Yes, but keep moving or—”
A man wearing a striped fez stepped in front of him and raised his arms. Something heavy, cool and smooth wriggled around John’s neck.
He froze. “Is there a snake around my neck?”
Snakes didn’t bother him in theory. But he wasn’t a fan of fanged reptiles suddenly cuddling his jugular.
Vivian sighed. “Yes.”
The man in the fez mimed taking a picture. “Camera?”
As Vivian waved the guy off, John calmly plucked the snake from his neck and handed it back to the man in the fez. Several more men surrounded them in a circle.
“Pay,” the man said. “Four hundred dirham.”
“For what?” John asked.
“It’s a scam.” Vivian sighed. “For the nonconsensual privilege of wearing a python for a hot second, they expect to be paid.” She reached into her jumpsuit’s zippered pocket, then shoved bills at the man. In French, she said, “That’s all I have. Forty dirham.”
The man gestured for more money.
Vivian shook her head. “No more.”
They pointed at John, and he turned his pockets inside out. After snatching the dirham from Vivian and yelling at them, the men jostled him as they disappeared into the crowd. He reached for Vivian’s hand.
“I’m impressed,” she said as they headed toward the street.
“Yeah, getting scammed is impressive.”
“No, the snake. Most people would freak out.”
“The men yelling at us worried me more than the snake.” He glanced over his shoulder. No one followed them. “Thomas had a python growing up. That thing was a garter snake compared to Mike Tython.”
Laughter pealed out of Vivian. “Excellent name. I didn’t figure Thomas for a snake guy.”
“We wanted pets, but my parents were allergic to pet dander. So Thomas, always the lawyer, looked for the loophole. But I had to wait ’til I had my own place to get a dog.”
“Doesn’t that mean your parents can’t visit you?”
“If they actually are allergic, yes. But I’m not convinced they are. My high school girlfriend had a dog and a cat, and they never sneezed when she came over. I suspect they didn’t want pets but didn’t want to argue about it either.”
“I’m sorry.” She squeezed his hand.
Much as he liked the comfort, they weren’t on hand-squeezing terms. He let go and stopped at a baseball cap stall. The logo for Raja Casablanca, which Omar had declared to be the best football team in the world, was embroidered on several of them.
“I want a hat,” he said.
What he actually wanted was a few feet of distance between them to process this new reality before they glossed over it.
The tug toward this woman, toward forgiveness, was undeniable.
They were already slipping into their familiar, comfortable patterns.
And as much as he loved who he was with her, he needed breathing room.
Could he just…be okay with all the lies?
Vivian Flint was a stranger. A stranger whose hip fit the curve of his hand like she was made for him.
Confusing, which was why he needed space.
And the hat was a good excuse.
“You’re wearing a hat,” she said.
“With a DC logo. These blend better.” He turned to the person running the stall and gestured toward a simple black cap with the green eagle logo. “How much?”
“Five hundred dirham.”
No way was a baseball cap worth the equivalent of fifty bucks.
“Two hundred,” John said.
The vendor laughed and shook his head. “Four-fifty.”
“While you haggle, I’ll buy spice for Mariam,” Vivian said. “Back in a second.”
Goddammit, he only wanted a few feet of space, not to lose her in the crowd. He twisted toward her, but she’d already disappeared. Where had she—wait, there. Her blue scarf flashed amidst the shoppers.
“Four hundred!” the hat seller called after him.
No sooner had he caught up with Vivian than a curly-haired small man wearing a gold crucifix necklace blocked her path.
The man’s gaze roamed from her feet to her face. “Very nice.”
“Hey.” John grabbed her hand again. “Back off.”
The guy raised his hands in apology, then melted into the crowd.
She slipped her hand from his grip. “Unnecessary. Our goal is to gather info and blend. Not fight with locals.”
“So we accept shabby treatment?”
“Sometimes.” She fiddled with her necklace. “Often, actually. But I can handle myself.”
His protective instinct unfurled in his chest. If she wouldn’t take his hand, he’d boost his shoulders and do his best to project a menacing vibe.
“I believe you,” he said. “I saw it yesterday. And the resulting bruises.”
“Bonjour!” she said to the man who had finished with his previous customer. Her hand hovered over one of the dozens of powders mounded into wooden bowls. “May I have fifty milligrams of ras el hanout?”
The vendor shoveled spice into a plastic bag and knotted its top. Vivian exchanged the dirham for the spice bundle, then dropped it into her bag. As they distanced themselves from the market, the noise dimmed.
“I should bring some home,” she said. “I make a mean chicken tagine with it.”
“But you don’t cook.” Over the past year, if they weren’t dining or carrying out, he’d been the one in the kitchen.
“I don’t have time. Two jobs, remember? Speaking of which, what’d Omar say?”
He laughed. She was relentless.
“Fine, I’ll tell you. Omar asked his dad if Amina found out he’d sold her painting to the mean lady. Mehdi hushed him. That’s all.”
Vivian worried her necklace. “That might be important. It’s hard to tell without all the pieces. Sometimes you only know what matters in hindsight.”
She could say that again.
By the time they’d landed in Morocco, his anger had burned off. She’d lied to him, yes. But he understood her logic, even if he didn’t agree with it. The thing that troubled him was that he’d missed every clue she was leading two lives.
Either she was excellent at spy craft, or he was thick.
Both things could be true, too.
“Mariam’s gone,” Vivian said as she punched in the code. “We have the place to ourselves. Dinner should be in the courtyard. Feel free to start eating, but I need to freshen up—it was hot as balls out there.”
Before he could agree, she was gone.
* * *
Vivian pressed her forehead to her closed door. She hadn’t lost him yet. He’d held her hand and defended her honor against smarmy men in the street. And done it in perfect French with an accent that sounded like singing and sunshine.
A shuddery breath escaped her.
Get it together, Flint.
She woke her tablet, then flipped to the keyboard and reverse-searched the number from Lola’s business card, and…nothing. Next move…call Anjali? No. Unless she was life-or-death desperate, she wouldn’t involve her friend more than she had.
Vivian blew out her lips. She’d take a break, then come back fresh.
From her suitcase, she extracted her emerald one-piece bathing suit.
The splash pool in the courtyard provided guests a means to rinse the street dust from their bodies.
A quick dip and she’d feel more human. She tied a blue sarong at her waist, then padded down the cool tiled hall and wooden stairs.
When she reached the courtyard, John broke the pool’s surface.