“Remember the time,” Betsy said, the words lazy, drawn out, “when we climbed that kumquat tree? It was spring break, right? What year was that?”
Key West. The two of them had rented bikes and circled that tiny, overstuffed island at least five times. They’d made it to the southernmost point. Ninety Miles to Cuba, read the sign, but all they could see in the distance was a couple of catamarans and a few drifting cotton ball clouds. They’d found a tiny hammock shop and climbed into the display, strung between two banana palms, listening to the sound of the birds and loving that they’d managed to sneak away from the crowd of drunks they’d arrived with. Later, they pedaled down to Duval Street for the sunset and a guy who Ginny recognized from her Statistics class offered them a pot brownie, which they split without much hesitation. He wandered off to buy a beer and when he returned to the spot where the three of them had been standing, Betsy and Ginny had slipped away. A few blocks down the road, the two friends met some old queens on Harleys who said they liked their smiles, and then invited them to join in a round of Rum Runners at a sidewalk bar, which they did. And just before the light disappeared completely, they found the biggest kumquat tree either of them had ever seen. Not that they’d seen many kumquat trees. And they climbed to the highest branches that would support their weight. Why the kumquat tree was so hilarious was hard to say. But they stayed up there until Betsy had to pee. It was always Betsy who broke first.
The wind blew Ginny’s hair into her mouth and she brushed it away. “I miss you,” Betsy said. Ginny looked her in the eye, holding her gaze longer than Betsy could bear. She looked away and thought, “Just say it. Say you’re sorry. Say that it should have been you. Say that you should have spoken up before it was too late.”
The boys ran back inside the house until their laughter grew faint and Ginny followed them.
“Wait,” Betsy thought. “It isn’t over yet.” In the background, she heard a man’s voice, the sound of a radio coming from inside.
“It’s been over for a while now,” said Ginny, standing in the doorframe, letting the screen slam loudly behind her.
She shot awake and her knee slammed against the tray, knocking her plastic cup and a single round ice cube onto the royal blue carpet of the plane. She could feel her heart thumping through her shirt, electricity shooting from her spine to the beds of her fingernails. Her mind raced to remember where she was.
“We’ve begun our descent into the Tampa airport,” continued the pilot’s voice over the intercom. “Flight attendants, prepare for arrival.”
The air was heavy with clouds, of course, since it was September and the Florida fall was still at least a month away, which made for a rough landing. Off the plane, in the pastel-drenched Tampa airport, she stared at the manatee mosaic on the wall as she descended on the escalator to ground transportation. She felt an odd connection to the gentle but doomed creatures, floating along the stream in all of their passive awkwardness, defenseless to the speedboats that sliced their flesh with their angry props.
CHAPTER 23
REUNION
September 25, 2010
In a cracked and weedy parking lot next to a Starbucks, attached to a church or a school or some other unremarkable single-story brick structure identical to hundreds of others that dotted the Tampa landscape, Betsy stood with her coffee in hand. It was 9:15, fifteen minutes before the scheduled meeting time to board the bus and make the two-hour trek to Gainesville, and she stood alone near the center of the lot. She’d forgotten how small the city was and left the hotel with too much time to spare. The taxi driver dropped her in the empty lot, but not before he asked her to check the address twice.
“This is it,” she said. “I think. I’m starting to believe this is all a bad dream. I’ll call you if it turns out I’m right.”
Convinced the others were hiding in their cars, sizing her up through deeply tinted windows, Betsy was feeling self-conscious, which always led to second thoughts about her outfit. She wore a cotton summer dress in a too-cheery plaid and simple leather sandals that later, when her feet were swollen from standing for hours in the heat, she’d regret. Her hair, which had a memory for the humidity and sprang into odd angles when it topped 80 percent, was smoothed back into a stubby ponytail, wrested into order for the moment. Her hair wasn’t the only thing that had its recall triggered by the familiar surroundings. She suddenly realized that she might be the only person she’d see that day who didn’t have writing on her clothing. Her dress and shoes bore no swoosh or logo, and neither item was made of fiber that employed the word “micro” to describe it. She missed Gavin.
“Gooooo Gators,” he said, answering after the first ring.
“Yeah right, go Gators,” she said. “I’m standing in some sad parking lot waiting to be ripped limb from limb.”