“Uh-oh,” Betsy whispered. “Somebody is pissed.”
Of course, they had to reach the second window in order for Ginny to work her magic. After some profuse apologies and deft negotiation, they left with two orders of Nachos BellGrande, which they paid for, and three crispy beef tacos and two large Cokes, on the house.
“Oh see how handsome he is when he smiles?” Ginny said as she collected her change. “I could tell you had a generous heart.”
“Works every time,” said Betsy, digging into the bag. “Like a charm.”
“My days of taco swindling are over,” said Ginny with a laugh. “From now on, you’re on your own.”
As she pulled away from the drive-thru window, Ginny waved goodbye and grabbed a messy handful of tortilla chips. Then, when she dropped a glob of hot fake cheese on her bare thigh, she was squealing and laughing in pain when her car inched forward toward the sidewalk. Betsy was searching through the bag for a napkin and didn’t notice that the car was rolling slowly forward. Ginny looked up just in time to see the bike pulling in front of the car, from out of nowhere, and she slammed on the brakes with a quick chirp of rubber tires on hot asphalt. The nachos slid off Betsy’s lap onto the dirty floorboards.
“Holy shit!” Betsy shouted without looking up to see who or what was in front of them. “Don’t mind this big metal thing on wheels, jackass. It’s just a car. That could kill you.”
“Jesus, Betsy, it was my fault,” Ginny said, as she put the car in Park and jumped out. A man on a bicycle scrambled to his feet and stood silently, staring at them. “I’m so sorry, sir. Oh my God, are you OK?”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” added Betsy with a salute, still in the passenger seat. “It won’t happen again, sir.”
Betsy looked up to find him staring at her and returned his gaze, which was oddly unsettling. He wasn’t outraged, shouting at them, or threatening to call the cops.
He was eerily calm and studied both of their faces. It was hard to guess his age. Could he be a graduate student? He was a little over six feet, shabbily dressed in dirty jeans and work boots, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe he was just poor, like Betsy, scraping to pay tuition and stay afloat, but didn’t try to hide it. He had shaggy sandy-brown hair, glasses with cheap wire frames, a blue duffel bag, and a beat-up guitar case slung over his back. His clothes were too warm for the weather. And whether he was intimidated or resentful, or both, he didn’t treat them like peers. He was tense, and you could see it in the small, animal-like movements he made, like an actual, twitching deer in the headlights. Betsy sensed in her gut that there was no way this guy was a student.
“Don’t you have to get going? Aren’t you late for class?” Betsy said.
“Rude!” said Ginny, glaring at her, head cocked to the side in disbelief, knowing exactly what Betsy was implying. He didn’t belong there. He was a drifter, a hanger-on. “That is so unlike you, Betsy. Sir, I’m sorry about my friend’s bad manners. Rum makes her mean. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
His eyes darted between hers and Ginny’s. He had a strong jaw and a delicate nose, but his pale eyes were sunken.
“I’m fine,” he said, shaking his head, pushing his hair off of his forehead and shoving his cap back on. He pushed the bike for a few feet, hopped back on, and rode away. He was the kind of man who vanished almost as soon as he appeared.
“That was odd,” said Ginny, getting back into the car. “Don’t you think that was odd?”
“At least he’s not dead,” said Betsy, tossing the chips tainted with dirt from the floorboards onto the sidewalk. “I mean, you didn’t kill him, which is a good thing.”
“God, Betsy. Please promise me that a return trip to Diggers is not in your future.”
They pulled out of the parking lot and drove toward home. Betsy took a huge bite of her taco, which she could already tell wasn’t working the magic she had anticipated. Ginny turned down the music.
“You know Caroline will be back in a few days, right?”
“Right.” Betsy nodded, mouth still full.
“I’m sure she won’t mind if you stay at our place until Kari is back in town and gets her furniture out of storage. You can just sleep on the couch.”
“Right, right.” They drove for a few blocks in silence, considering what their lives might be like once Caroline came home. Things had been rocky between Betsy and Caroline for a while and then took a dramatic dive last May.
“I mean, you can’t let one dumb guy ruin everything,” said Ginny, sounding unconvinced that what she was saying was true.
“It wasn’t just about a guy,” Betsy insisted. “John was as lame as they come. It was the rest of it. The three-way calling? The lying? She tormented me. Tell me you remember that part. You didn’t conveniently forget.”
“Betsy, it’s your last semester here. I just want things to be fun again, like they used to be. Will you promise that you’ll try?”
Betsy wrapped up her half-eaten taco and put it back in the bag. Her stomach seized.