“I’m not giving her a hard time,” said Caroline. “But I’ll be honest, I would have bet you five dollars that she forgot about Melanie’s wedding, too.”
Betsy could see the landscape turn back to that familiar rural desolation, vast green fields punctuated by the occasional wandering cow, a few gray-tinged clouds that hung absurdly low in the sky.
“They’re divorced now anyway, so who cares,” Betsy mumbled, willing herself back into the moment. “I do. I block stuff out. I’m sorry. It’s how I survive.”
Betsy’s eyes locked on Caroline’s for the briefest second, searching for some connection.
“So how’s New York? How’s Gavin?” asked Holly, who was now sitting beside her. “You two still together?”
“Yeah, we’re hanging in,” said Betsy, surprised that Holly knew anything about her life. “We’ve been there almost twenty years now, if you can believe it.”
“You know Cammie?” asked Holly, who, in her pale early forties was almost unrecognizable. Back in school, she was perpetually tan, but in a lifeguard kind of way with wide strap marks on her shoulders and faint, pale lines that extended from the outer corners of her eyes to the tops of her ears. “I heard she’s out in L.A. Someone saw her on an episode of Law & Order once.”
“Oh, great. Good for her,” said Betsy, nodding her head, searching for the segue.
“What is it that you do again?”
“I’m a specialist in Prints and Multiples at an auction house in New York,” said Betsy.
“Oh, cool. Is it like The Devil Wears Prada?” she asked.
“Um, no, not really. That takes place at a magazine, I think, right? Isn’t it Vogue or something?”
Betsy had long wondered what people from here had thought of her, of her life in New York, of her disappearance after Ginny’s funeral. If she’d been wondering what Holly, or anyone else on that party bus, had thought of her in the meantime, she got her answer that day: Not much.
“So what do you do, Holly?” Betsy asked. She struggled to stay focused in the present.
“I work in the state attorney’s office,” she said. “Thirteenth circuit, back in Tampa.”
“Oh, yeah, I think I remember hearing that,” she said and hoped the lie wasn’t too transparent.
“Alright well, I’ve got to pee. I’ve been holding it since Plant City because I’m terrified of that bathroom,” Holly said while she made her way through the crowd, swaying with every tip of the bus, in the midstages of a buzz. A small group in the back had started singing loudly and off-key to George Michael’s “Freedom ’90.” One of the Kims checked her reflection in the mirrored surface of the tinted window when she thought no one would notice.
“Well, that one’s a firecracker, right?” Caroline said. “She’s a regular dynamo. To be honest, I didn’t think Holly knew that many words.”
“She’s smart as hell, Caroline. She’s a state attorney,” said Betsy. “And come to find out, I’m an asshat.”
Caroline tapped the side of her plastic cup to Betsy’s.
“Seems like old times, right?” Caroline laughed, and it sent a jolt of joy through Betsy’s brain to see her happy.
“Tell me you didn’t vanish for twenty years and come back expecting to bond over the glory days,” she added in a way that wasn’t exactly unkind, but more familiar. Then, like quicksilver, she softened again. “Do I really have to remind you that you never had much in common with them? Unless you were serious about liking soap operas.”
“They were on during my lunch break,” said Betsy with a smile, swirling the remains of her warm beer. “Jack and Jennifer? What, you didn’t watch?”
“It’s just a day, just a two-hour ride to a football game,” Caroline said, and Betsy noticed she was echoing Gavin’s words almost exactly. “The only thing that’s wrong about any of this reunion bullshit is that we’re forced to stay in touch with, like, everyone we’ve ever known and look at pictures of their fat husbands on social media. It ruins the element of surprise.”
“What about you?” Betsy asked, relieved to be listening to someone say exactly what she thought before she had to think it for herself. “Didn’t you ever want a fat husband?”
“I was engaged once,” she said. “But that was a long time ago.”
Betsy didn’t press for details. There was time for that.
They sat listening to the hum of the tires on the highway, which was now clogged with game day traffic, wondering what to say next. One of the Kims was talking to a Dana (had she been there the whole time?) about her divorce, which was clearly not amicable and left two damaged tweens in its wake. The bad beer and the bumpy ride had conspired to make Betsy queasy, and the fact that she was speeding down the highway to a place she had tried so hard to forget wasn’t helping matters. There she was sitting next to Caroline, who had hurt her so deeply a lifetime ago, but was the only person she needed in that moment.
“So tell me about Remi Virginia,” Caroline said, grinning. “I bet she’s just like her mom. For better or worse, right?”
CHAPTER 24
GAME TIME