The Drifter(16)

“Which do you think is scarier?” she often joked. “Riding home with a strange guy, or getting into a car with Ginny behind the wheel?”

They stumbled into the apartment, ears ringing from the noisy bar and thirsty as hell. Betsy went to the fridge for a glass of water. In a messy collage of ticket stubs and party pictures, she spotted one from the sorority hayride last January, the scandalous smoking event that would transform her life into something she’d barely recognize, stuck to the door with a cheeseburger magnet. Betsy looked like a jerk in a cheap straw cowboy hat, with that dumbstruck, desperate look that she was beginning to notice was the watermark of her college photos. She was obviously smitten with her friends, the sinister Caroline, who, at the time, was claiming not to drink but had Betsy sneak Solo cups full of grain alcohol punch to her in the bathroom at parties, and beautiful Ginny, with her head slumped on Betsy’s shoulder. To her left was her ex, a snarky Georgia boy named Mack who had so clearly lost interest in her that he didn’t bother to look at her or the camera. She had always found him to be intermittently petulant, prone to irrational outbursts of anger over botched restaurant orders or people who didn’t understand his jam band obsession, and dull. He was considered desirable, by consensus, though, and Betsy felt desperate to hold his interest. In that sad fraction of a second preserved on film it was clear that she’d lost it a while ago. He broke up with her in the back of the hay-strewn wagon minutes after the shot was taken, while a lone piece of straw dangled from her bangs over her right temple. She knew Caroline was the one to deem the picture worthy of a spot on the fridge, as a souvenir of Betsy’s pain. She’d been tempted to take it down all summer, but she wanted to at least appear too cool to care enough to throw it out. Betsy moved the burger magnet to obscure Mack’s bloated, self-satisfied face.

Betsy gulped down her own water and filled another glass, which she took with her when she climbed the stairs to where the bedrooms were. She put it on Ginny’s nightstand. Then she opened the linen closet in the hall to grab a quilt and an extra pillow for the night. Ginny leaned against the doorframe of her room wearing a boxy, oversized T-shirt from a Sigma Chi party that they decided to tie-dye a deep shade of rusty orange, which, Betsy suddenly realized, looked like bloodstains.

“Why don’t you just crash with me?” Ginny asked. “You don’t have to sleep on the lumpy sofa.”

They got into bed, eyelids heavy with exhaustion and booze.

“Why are you so nice to me?” Betsy asked Ginny, as she drifted off to sleep. “Why haven’t you kicked me out yet?”

Ginny shifted her head on the pillow.

“Bets, I swear you’re the only one who doesn’t understand why people like having you around. How many times do I have to tell you? You’re good enough. You’re smart enough. And people like you.”

They fell asleep with the light on.

Betsy woke with a start to see Caroline hovering at the end of the bed, swaying ominously over her sleeping friends.

“Jesus, Caroline, you scared the shit out of me,” Betsy said, rubbing her eye with her knuckles. “Why are you standing there? Who drove you home? Are you alright?”

“I didn’t know you were awake,” Caroline slurred; the neck of her T-shirt was stretched to expose one of her shoulders. Her eyeliner was smeared and sooty, and the back of her hair was rough with tangles. Betsy could smell the alcohol and sour mix across the room and wondered how anyone could think that vodka was odorless.

“What time is it?” Betsy asked, propping herself up on her elbows.

“I don’t know,” Caroline said, a smile widening across her face. “Time to make the doughnuts?”

“Very funny,” mumbled Ginny, with her head still on the pillow. “This is why you barged into my room to wake us up, hovering over my bed like a total psycho. To make terrible jokes.”

“God, Caroline, what happened to your knees?” Betsy asked. “Do you even know you’re bleeding?” Caroline’s knees were scraped raw and a thin trickle of blood traveled down her left shin. Betsy looked at the red numbers on Ginny’s alarm clock. It was 4:21. There was no point in going back to sleep.

“Great. Rug-burned knees. Keep it classy, Caroline,” said Ginny, her voice muffled from the down.

“Maybe it’s time for you to get your own apartment, Betsy? Maybe that’s what time it is,” said Caroline. She shuffled into the bathroom and sat down hard on the toilet seat. Betsy got up out of Ginny’s bed, went into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, took out some cotton balls and Bactine, and placed them on the side of the sink.

“Do you want me to help you clean those off?” she asked.

“I’ve got it. I can handle it,” Caroline said. With eyes half-closed, she crouched on the edge of the tub and rinsed her knees under the faucet. Still dripping wet, she picked up her noisy, electric Waterpik toothbrush and jabbed it around in her mouth in an almost violent way.

“Hey, Caroline, maybe it’s time to take that picture of fat-face Mack off of the fridge? Maybe that’s what time it is?” Betsy said.

“Yeah, Caroline, that guy put the ‘ick’ in ‘dick,’” said Ginny.

“He put the ‘ew’ in ‘screw,’” said Caroline, through a mouthful of water.

“Hey, I know! We should burn it, like in a voodoo shrine,” added Ginny, who sat up suddenly in bed, inspired.