The Drifter(72)
“Well I, for one, am surprised that you didn’t pull one of your mom’s furs out of storage for the occasion,” said Betsy, surprised by how angry her voice sounded. “I know how you love the scent of mothballs and Shalimar.”
Betsy noted the tiniest wince in Caroline’s face as she pretended to wipe a stray ash from her eye.
Back inside, Caroline waved Betsy into the ladies’ room, and again into a shared stall to chat about her bar crawl with Simon while she scooped bumps out of a brown vial with the tip of his hotel key. That explained the $600 worth of uneaten food on the table. She offered some to Betsy, which she declined just to prove a point of some kind. She was mad at Caroline for not calling sooner, even though the two were practically strangers now, and drugs weren’t going to change anything. Caroline shrugged off the snub and then rattled on about Miami, how South Beach was still totally happening, no matter what people were saying about it being over, about how Hurricane Andrew was, like, ages ago. They went back to the table, where the men were settling the check. All of them tossed their credit cards in a pile and asked the long-suffering waiter to choose one at random onto which he’d charge the entire bill. This was the favorite game of a certain young, moneyed population in town, and it made Betsy squirm with discomfort, recognizing that her own card would be swiftly declined under the burden of that one uneaten dinner. Betsy offered to pay for her wine, but the men batted her hand away. As if, their eyes said. They piled into cabs to ride the twelve blocks to a forgettable bar in the West Village and she agreed to one more drink with the fancy accent dickheads before calling it a night. Inside, after a single round, she got up to leave.
“Afraid you’ll miss something good on TV?” said Caroline as Betsy shoved her arms into the sleeves of her stiff coat. “Don’t worry. I’m sure Gavin’s keeping your spot on the couch warm.”
“Oh, Caroline, it’s been a pleasure,” said Betsy, tossing down a twenty-dollar bill for her watery vodka tonic, the rage creeping into her shaking hand. “It’s nice to see that some things, including your hostility, never change.”
“I don’t want your money,” Caroline said, throwing the twenty back at her.
“No, Caroline, really, you keep it. Buy a scarf. Maybe some blizzard appropriate footwear? You don’t want frostbite. You’ll need your toes back home in the land of eternal sandal season.”
Betsy bolted for the door, blood burning in her cheeks. Caroline came barreling after her.
“Betsy . . .” Caroline shouted. Betsy spun around to confront her.
“So that’s it, right? We haven’t had a real conversation since Ginny . . . since Ginny . . .” She couldn’t get the words out. She stopped and started again. “I haven’t spoken to you for more than thirty seconds since Ginny died, and this is how it’s going to be,” said Betsy, refusing to stop until they were outside the door and she could enjoy watching Caroline freeze some more. She’d thought of Caroline so many times when she was back at home in Venice with her mom, and in the early months, even years, in New York, when she felt so alone and nearly ached for Ginny.
“Oh, are you talking about Ginny’s funeral? When you hid in the back like a big, fat baby? Please spare me your sanctimonious bullshit, Betsy. Our best friend died and you stood in the back of Nana Jean’s dining room propped against the wall like you were the corpse. And then you took off,” Caroline said. “You just left town! Totally bailed. You couldn’t be bothered with the sun-dried idiots back home anymore, right?” said Caroline, eyes flashing, more the Caroline she knew in that moment than at any other during the night. Betsy searched those eyes for recognition, for softness, but they were hard and glassy and cold and filled with years of spite.
“I had to! I had to get out of Gainesville, Caroline. I couldn’t deal,” she said, fighting her tears. Caroline was not going to see her cry. “Ginny was gone and I didn’t know how I was going to go on.”
For a split second, Caroline’s body looked like it was starting to relax with forgiveness, with understanding. Then her shoulders crept closer to her ears and she steeled herself against the wind.
“It’s all about you, right? Ginny’s fucking murder didn’t affect me at all, did it? I was the one who found her body. You didn’t stop to think that you weren’t the only one in pain, did you? You don’t even realize what a joke you are. You and Gavin playing house, and now you’re married? You married the guy I bought pot from in college. Well played, Elizabeth. Even your name is a joke.”
“Oh, I’m the joke? It’s twenty degrees. You’re wearing a fourteen-inch dress, coked out of your head with a fat, old, beet-faced man you don’t even know,” said Betsy, tears falling despite her efforts. “And the saddest part is that in the morning I’m the only one who will remember the shit you’re spewing. Why don’t you go back to Miami and get fired a few more times? Prove that you’re the one who isn’t the joke. Or I guess Mommy can’t shit-can her only child, right? How’s that for job security?”
“We’re done, Betsy,” began the last words Caroline shouted while Betsy scrambled across the ice for a cab. “And if it weren’t for Ginny defending you and your self-righteous bullshit, we’d have been done a long time ago.” Betsy watched through the back window of the cab as Caroline stood there, shaking in the cold, defiant, her hair suddenly wild in a gust of wind as the driver pulled away.