The Drifter(84)

“Phil, honey, that ice is toast if you don’t get it in the cooler, pronto,” said the woman with the beads, who Betsy was now realizing was Leslie Richmond, a woman about whom she remembered two facts: she was in the room the night she walked out of the sorority house for the last time; and she kept six bags of peas in the community freezer, which she would eat, almost exclusively, for dinner.

“Stacy was supposed to bring some food, but I told her, what’s the point?” she said to no one in particular, chuckling to herself. “Oh hey, Betsy Young! Or I guess it’s Davis now, right? Someone told me you go by Elizabeth now, too? Who are you anyway?” She laughed, though Betsy didn’t think she was trying to be funny.

“Hey, Leslie. Nice to see you,” she said. “You can call me Betsy, or Elizabeth if you want. Just not ‘gal’ or ‘sport.’”

Leslie squinted slightly, no trace of a smile.

“What about you? So you’re Leslie Portner now? You and Phil have been together since school?”

“Oh, please. We’ve been married since 1996,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And he’s still filling the cooler for me. Who says romance is dead?”

“I do,” said a voice from behind her that sent a chill down her spine. Betsy turned to see Caroline, with chin-length hair, almost brown now, grinning slyly behind oversized black oval sunglasses.

“Look who’s here to save the day,” said Caroline.

“Thank God,” said Betsy, louder than she intended.

“Yes, the Lord is certainly to thank for this pleasure,” said Leslie. “What a surprise! I didn’t see your name on the list.” If she was trying to conceal her disappointment it wasn’t working.

“It’s not on the list,” she said. “But I’m here now.”

Betsy couldn’t stop staring at her old friend, startled by her sudden fondness for someone she thought she hated.

“But it’s full. The bus is at capacity.”

“It’s a forty-foot bus, Richmond,” she said. “There’s room for one more. When is the last time everybody showed up who said they were coming to something like this? You’re telling me that nobody has a kid puking on them somewhere? You think there isn’t a single sitter who canceled in this whole pathetic crew?”

Leslie shot Betsy a rueful look and turned to leave without another word.

“That’s my motto,” said Caroline, flatly. “Not taking shit for forty years.”

“What are we doing?” said Betsy, grabbing Caroline’s forearm, shaking her head. “I have no idea why I’m here.”

“Because this,” said Caroline, making a loop in the air with her index finger, indicating the madness around them, “is going to be fucking hilarious.”

By 10:15 a.m., a full forty-five minutes behind schedule, they boarded the party bus, which was already filled with the stench of a urinal cake and Gatorade. In back, the “bar” consisted of two cases of Bud Light, three liters of vodka, two of Jack Daniel’s, a single, warm carton of orange juice, a jug of Ocean Spray cranberry juice cocktail, and infinite cans of Red Bull.

Caroline and Betsy opened two more beers.

“I’m sober with more frequency now, especially during the day. Today I will make an exception,” said Caroline. “It’s like smoking. If I say I’m never having one again, it’s all I think about.”

They examined their surroundings briefly, taking stock of who was there and who was mysteriously absent. Instead of rows of seats, the bus was lined with two long, velour upholstered benches, so they all sat facing each other. AC/DC was barely audible in the background.

“I was kinda hoping to see Kendra,” said Betsy. “You know, the quiet one who was secretly so wild? With the crazy hair?” She shook her free hand around her face to indicate a big, wild mess. Kendra was famous for her studying habits, which were borderline obsessive. Every couple of months, she’d explode like a powder keg and go on wild drinking binges. Once, they found her on a Sunday morning passed out on the front lawn of the house. She was eager to see how that mess organized itself twenty years on.

“Holy shit, Betsy, she died,” said one of the Hollys. “Like, in 1994 or 1995. She was an au pair for a family in Europe one summer when she was in graduate school. She died there, in her sleep.”

“I heard she choked on her own vomit,” said Stacy, sitting hard next to them, taking a swig of her JDC.

“Oh God, I had no idea,” said Betsy. “I’m sorry! Jesus, that’s really awful.”

“You did. You knew. You just forgot,” said Caroline. “People were talking about it at Melanie and Teddy’s wedding.”

Betsy flashed back to the wedding at the Everglades Club. She’d missed her plane. Caroline was mean as a snake.

“All I remember about that wedding,” Betsy said, “is what a bitch you were to me in the bathroom.”

“Hmm,” said Caroline, shaking her head. “Those were dark times for me. I guess you’re not the only one who forgets terrible things.”

Betsy looked out the window, hoped no one would notice the sudden shift in her mood, and wondered how long it would take her to walk back to Tampa if she got out right there on the side of the road.

“How many funerals were we supposed to attend before we turned twenty-five?” said Jen, in a clumsy defense. “Give her a break.”