The Drifter(49)
“What do you want me to say?” said Betsy. “I can barely breathe. You can stand up in front of a church full of people and talk about her, and I can’t get through a single sentence without sobbing.”
“Do you think that makes me miss her less? Do you think I’m some kind of awful, insensitive person because I’m not a mess like you?” Caroline said.
Viv walked over and placed a hand on Betsy’s shoulder.
“Caroline, that’s enough,” she said. “It’s clear that you and Betsy are grieving. Ginny was important to both of you. You can help each other through this, you know. You need to help each other.”
“I . . . I can’t,” said Betsy, and she rushed back to Gavin’s car to make the short drive to Nana Jean’s house. The wide porch that Betsy remembered so fondly was filled with people huddled in small groups, talking in low whispers. They found a corner of the dining room, ignoring a table full of Jell-O salads, casseroles, and a spiral cut ham. The day was far from over. Betsy’s mom, Kathy, was driving up to Ocala for the day to offer her condolences to Ginny’s family, and Betsy would have to introduce her to Gavin, which she was dreading. Betsy’s face was wet again with tears which, like the rain, had started to come down in big, round drops that rolled heavily down her face, dripped off of her chin, and fell to the floor.
CHAPTER 12
THRIFT STORE CHRONICLES
November 17, 1990
Betsy stood in front of the bakery case at Publix, surveying the brightly lit confections constructed from perfect, squat circles of bleached flour, spackled smooth with whipped powdered sugar and shortening, and edged in puffy, colorful trim. In five days, she would be twenty-one. That seemed like a good enough reason to buy a slice of cake, which she planned to eat in the grocery store parking lot before she returned to work as the sole employee of Timeless Treasures, a vintage store, or junk shop, depending on whom you asked, down the street from her mom’s house in Venice.
Outside of the freezing store, Betsy popped open the plastic clamshell package and scooped off a swipe of frosting with a weak plastic fork. She placed the airy sweetness—with just the right dash of salt—on her tongue, and all of the bleakness of that place disappeared. She walked slowly through the parking lot, dodging cars driven by ancient drivers barely tall enough to peer over the steering wheels of their white sedans, savoring every crumb. While she waited for the light to turn at the crosswalk, she looked around her and realized that she was the only person on the sidewalk who was actually on foot. Everyone else had wheels: rollators, walkers, electric Amigos. Betsy knew that selling the possessions of long-dead people, surrounded by the practically dying, was no way to be almost-twenty-one. For the moment, at least she had cake.
When she arrived at the door there was a woman outside waiting, impatiently, for Betsy to return from her lunch break, five minutes late. Betsy forced a smile. The woman glanced at her watch, then at the sign Betsy had taped to the window, which said Back at 1:00. Betsy opened the door and flicked on the light switch.
“It’s just me today. Sally’s picking up some new inventory from an estate in Sarasota,” said Betsy, feeling that an explanation was more necessary than an apology. She resumed her spot on a tall stool behind the giant, 1960s cash register and pulled out a spiral notebook to continue the letter to Gavin she’d started writing that morning. Her schoolwork, which she was submitting by correspondence, was almost finished for the semester. She had two more papers to write before she was a college graduate, but the long letters she wrote to Gavin, sometimes as many as three a week, were her last ties to Gainesville. She read a few lines on the page to remember where she left off.
If you thought I was already a high-achieving pen pal, just wait. I’m going to be the correspondent to shame all other correspondents. I’m going to own that mailman, or mailperson (mail supervisor?) now that Ole Sally, my boss, has declared my Walkman headphones unprofessional. She has also claimed that my reading habit is distracting me from my work, and the customers get the wrong impression about my dedication to selling a bunch of secondhand shit. Or I should say customer, singular, because exactly one person has walked through the door so far today. So One Hundred Years of Solitude will have to wait until I’m home, in solitude, which I suppose is for the best. And the good people of Venice, Florida, who want to come sort through the belongings of the recently deceased, a pastime sometimes referred to as “thrifting,” will now see me scribbling in this spiral notebook and think that I am an industrious employee making some kind of inventory list. When in reality I will be scribbling total bullshit, which I will then put in an envelope with your address on it.
Betsy searched the desk and her pockets for the black felt pen she had been using, but when she couldn’t find it, she relented and used a blue one, even though the sight of gummy, blue ballpoint ink on lined paper made her a little queasy.
Hey, sorry for the pen change. I can already tell that you’re blown away by my fancy stationery. It’s going to be Mead spiral notebooks for me from now on because I am saving my scheckels (sp? shechles? shekels?) for something amazing. A M A Z I N G! Like, bubble-letter poster amazing. More on that later.
The good news is that today is Saturday and so I have the day off tomorrow. The bad news is that tomorrow is Sunday so my mom will probably read the classifieds, aloud, again. Kathy continues to scour the St. Petersburg Times in search of my life’s purpose. You’d think she would just be happy that the dark days are over. I finally got out of bed. I’m wearing something other than pajamas and I’m out the door by ten. But no. Last week she announced that First Union was hiring tellers, but she was hiding behind the paper like it was some kind of shield when she said it. When I laughed at the prospect, she launched into another one of her lectures about goals. She reminded me that I wanted to be an art teacher when I was in third grade. Who doesn’t want to be an art teacher when they’re nine? Except you? And look how those dreams of being the Incredible Hulk turned out for you? At least she vowed never to mention the flight attendant thing again. She said, “Oh, clearly that’s beneath you.” And when I pointed out that, technically, it was above me (pointing to the sky for emphasis), she chucked her toast at my head. Doesn’t she know how terribly unpopular a sky waitress with crippling depression is?