The Drifter(68)

“Well if it isn’t the blushing bride,” he said, as she approached their door.

“Yeah, yeah, very funny.”

Upstairs, he gave her the pills and they smoked the tiny joint he would roll just for her. By then, Ian had heard most of the things Betsy vowed to tell no one. She felt an odd mix of vulnerability and safety around this virtual stranger who knew all of her secrets, but whom she saw only once a month, or every other week, and only very occasionally, when work or life were particularly rough, on a weekly basis. As far as she knew, he still didn’t even know her real name, or didn’t care to know. That veil of anonymity, and the utter improbability of their social and professional circles intersecting, kept him at a comfortable distance. But his knowing also gave him power.

That night, instead of moping around the apartment alone, she let her curiosity get the best of her and went out with Ian on his “errands.” They cut a strange, zigzag path through the East Village as he responded to pages. She’d wait for him out in front of a building after he’d been buzzed in through the intercom and disappeared down a dimly lit hallway with his backpack of wonderment in tow. Once he was out of sight, the minutes she spent waiting for him were oddly endless, and what felt like an hour would pass before he’d return. She was left out on the sidewalk, steadying herself against a bike rack, suddenly paranoid about running into someone she knew, though most of the people walking by barely seemed to notice her. New York was being New York. Dogs on leashes sniffed at anemic little trees. Angular women in dark lipstick and wide sunglasses strode by with haughty grace. Old women in housedresses shuffled along the same sidewalks they’d been treading for five decades. The smell of burned hot pretzels and falafel and exhaust and garbage wafted by in small gusts blown by the breeze. She wondered about the people Ian met inside, all of the people that occupied the warren of boxy rooms stacked in neat Tetris columns in building after building, block after block. How many secrets were contained in those rooms? How many had Ian heard? How many people took confession with him, behind that veil of anonymity?

“So I bet you hear it all,” she said, after the door finally opened again and he was back with her on the sidewalk. Betsy felt herself slur and struggled to get her shit together. “Does everyone confide in you? Is it like a thing people do, pill-head confessions, like an HBO show or something?”

“Nah, not everyone. But I hear enough,” he said. They meandered down the sidewalk a bit and Betsy could see, for the first time since she met him, that he was thinking, choosing his words carefully.

“You know, this thing? With the McRae guy you keep talking about? And your dead friend? It’s nothing,” he said. “I mean, it’s something. But everybody’s got something. You didn’t kill her. Technically, you didn’t even let her die. You were just kind of a kid and you were scared and your timing was off. Forgive me for offering some advice. As they say, you’ve got to consider the source. But you’ve got to let that shit go.”

Betsy wandered ahead a bit, too self-conscious to turn around and look this kid, this punk nickel-and-dime dealer, in the eye. And then he spoke up again.

“Also, you’re getting married. I hope I get married someday, and if I caught my wife hanging out with somebody like me when she was supposed to be excited about getting married and all of that? I would not be happy. So I’ve got to work. And you should go home. I’ll walk you back.”

GAVIN WAITED PATIENTLY for her to continue, in the darkness. And then he spoke first.

“Is this about the pills? About Ian?” he asked. “Because I know that you don’t think I know, but I do.”

Betsy put her face in her hands.

“I’m so embarrassed.”

“Come on, now. I’ve been paying attention. I didn’t know what to say. But I promised myself that if I thought it was getting really out of hand, I would speak up.”

He didn’t know about the blackouts.

“I should have bridesmaids! I should have had some terrible bachelorette party with dick-shaped lollipops, or something. But instead, I trailed after a skateboarding drug dealer all night. It’s pathetic.”

“Maybe a little.” Gavin rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I’m not going to lie to you. But as long as that’s where it ends, we can deal with it. You can kick the pills. It hasn’t affected your work. At least not much, right? I think you’re OK, and I’m OK. We’re OK, right? There’s nothing more is there?”

Betsy considered fessing up to her sleepovers with strangers, but then thought the better of it. Instead, she went on to the question.

“No, there’s nothing more,” she said, “but I need to know, the stuff Jay said tonight . . .”

“Oh God, screw Jay. He was wasted, and he’s always been spoiled, and he knows that you’re smarter than he is and he can’t take it. My parents felt so bad about what he said. They know what you’ve been through.”

“But is that how people think of me? As dark and uncaring? You’re this sweet, affable guy and I’m the moody one you’re saddled to? Because I feel like if I care even a tiny bit more, I’m going to break. I feel like I care so much about not hurting people that I can’t even move sometimes. And I end up hurting them anyway. And the worst part is that Ginny’s the reason I think I’m afraid to get close to people, and why I think I need to dull this pain, but I’m starting to forget,” she said. “I’m trying to remember her face, her features, the exact shade of her hair, and I can’t. All I have are these ancient pictures, which are starting to fade, too. And it makes me so sad.”