“Yeah, it’s sort of like hanging out except that I put things in the toaster and make coffee and throw away your trash,” she said. Weird Bobby thought Betsy was hysterical and the entire table shook with his approval.
“Well, watch out, Betty Bagelville, this one’s a real heartbreaker,” she said, hooking her finger into one of Gavin’s belt loops. “Aren’t you, Gavvy?” He turned quickly to leave.
“Thanks for the tip,” said Betsy.
“We’ll see y’all later, then?” said Bobby.
“Yeah, later,” said Gavin, scratching the back of his head, which she was starting to notice was something he did when things got tense, a kind of nervous tic.
Betsy didn’t mention Channing during the drive home, and it fit in well with the pervasive silence. Ribbons of pale orange light filtered through the canopy of trees, and it was so beautiful that Betsy thought she might cry. She was tired, desperate to hang on to the moment and trying not to ruin it, any more than it had already been ruined—by Channing, or Caroline, or the murders. When they pulled onto Gavin’s street and saw Mack’s Suburban coming from the opposite direction, Betsy knew that her private idyll was about to be destroyed in a more aggressive way. Through the driver’s window, Betsy saw Mack raise his hand to wave at Gavin. Then, Mack noticed someone next to him and did a cartoonish double take when he recognized Betsy in the passenger seat. She watched his smile shift to fury in dramatically slow motion and her own jaw clenched in panic. Gavin lifted two fingers off of the steering wheel and nodded briefly, but he kept driving. When they noticed Mack’s brake lights burn fast and red in the rearview mirror Betsy held her breath and Gavin slowed to a stop. After a few seconds, in that odd game of backward chicken, Mack broke first, hit the gas, and sped out of sight.
“Cat’s outta the bag, all around,” Gavin said, turning to look at her straight on, a devious smile on his face. He grabbed her hand and they burst into a fit of laughter, letting the icy AC blow away all of that tension. For the second time that day, for very different reasons, Betsy wanted to cry.
“Maybe he left us some fried chicken this time.”
Betsy showered in Gavin’s bathroom, which reeked so heavily of mildew that she shampooed twice and hoped the scent of concentrated Prell would mask the sour-towel stench. She pulled on the 501s she’d been breaking in since the ninth grade, a white tank, and a gray men’s suit vest she’d picked up for a dollar at a thrift shop during her last visit to her mom’s house over a year ago. She’d cinched the silk strap and buckle in the back to make it less boxy around her waist, all the while thinking of Channing and her tawny, angular back. She parted her wet hair down the middle and patted Cherries in the Snow, her one tube of lipstick, worn down to a flat nub, onto her lips with her ring finger. Ginny had talked her into some bronzer once or twice, chided her disinterest in makeup, and even talked her into a visit to the Lanc?me counter, but Betsy resisted. Channing or no Channing, that was the most effort she’d ever made for a guy.
Her friends would be barricaded in the upstairs TV room watching slasher flicks in a kind of distasteful nod to current events. But Betsy didn’t want any surprises, or to run into anyone unexpectedly, least of all Caroline. She had no desire to field their questions about her temporary living arrangement, so she checked her answering machine to be sure. There was one hurried message from Kari, her delinquent roommate, saying that her parents wouldn’t let her come back until classes started again and the murder mayhem subsided. The second one was from Ginny.
“So Kim drove by the Chevron today on a snack run and saw you with Gaaavin,” she sang into the tape. “I need every last detail. Promise me you’ll remember the way to J.D.’s. We have to go once rush is over. Nana Jean told me that we should just come stay with her until this all blows over. She sends her love.”
Ginny and Betsy would often drive to Ocala on a Sunday with trash bags stuffed with laundry filling the backseat under the auspices of “helping” Ginny’s grandmother Nana Jean. They’d take her to Grace church, walk her dog, and make a stop at the market. Then they’d swim in her pool and beg her to make lemon bars. For breakfast, they’d eat Jean’s famous sausage gravy with the fluffiest biscuits imaginable. Ginny and Betsy spent quiet afternoons on the wide screened-in porch of her rambling old house, under the fan, napping or reading and not saying much at all. Betsy felt a deep ache of longing for all of it. She could taste the iced sweet tea and feel the fan cool her skin.
“Anyway, Caroline called Holly’s cousin from Vero fat and the s-h-i-t is hitting the fan. I’ve got a killer headache and I want to go home to sleep it off, but I’m trapped. Also, I’m beginning to think you had the right idea about bailing on this whole thing. My spirit is officially crushed.” She sighed. “It’s just not worth it. That’s all. Call me later.”
The last message was from Caroline.