Betsy sensed that something was off immediately. There was a faint warm glow from the upstairs hallway casting a half circle of dim light on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. It was the light. She was definitely still high, almost certainly still drunk, but she knew that light shouldn’t be on. Caroline would have removed the bulb from the ceiling fixture, her profound hatred for overhead lighting capping the list of her many idiosyncrasies, if she hadn’t been too lazy to borrow a stepladder. You’re high, Bets, she told herself. Don’t freak out on me. Ginny left it on to make it seem like someone was home, and awake, and definitely not into being murdered. Still, her heart thumped against her sternum and she closed the door quietly behind her. She had taken about eight quiet steps down the long hall when she first heard the music, playing faintly, and started to panic in earnest. Standing in the dark, eyes trained on the soft light coming from the top of the stairs, her mind riffled through all of the possible sources of the music: an insomniac next-door neighbor, a party in the adjacent building, a clock radio alarm set for the wrong hour belonging to someone who decided to shack up elsewhere for the night. He’s in the house, the voice in her head told her. She remembered Caroline’s comment in the car. What are the chances? One in fifteen thousand? Then, when she heard what sounded like a footstep on a creaky floorboard, the reliable, slow, crackly groan of wood from the noisy spot at the foot of Ginny’s bed, she was convinced. He’s here. Get out. Get out. Get out. He, whoever he was, the he was in the apartment, waiting for her. Betsy turned so fast to head for the door that she ran into the wooden side chair they kept in the front hall and sent a stack of junk mail scattering to the floor and then fell to the ground on top of it. She scrambled to get to her feet, slipping on mailers and phone bills and delivery menus, and out of the apartment, reaching for the doorknob to help her up. She flung the door open and slammed it behind her, shot down the stairwell, past the parked cars, struggling for breath, too terrified to stop or turn around or find the bike that she’d abandoned just minutes before. She rounded the corner onto 16th Street and nearly lunged headfirst into the hood of an oncoming car, which screeched to a stop. She froze in the headlights, shielding her eyes from the beam, until she heard her name.
“Betsy? What the fuck?” It was Gavin. She hurried to the passenger side, sat hard in the seat, and slammed the door.
“Go! Go, go, Gavin, get out of here, now. I’m serious! We’ve got to go.”
CHAPTER 10
NEW ORLEANS
August 27, 1990
Once Gavin was a couple of blocks away from Williamsburg Village in the parking lot of the Steak ’n Shake, and Betsy calmed down enough to talk, she told him what had happened.
“I don’t know. I can’t know for sure. But I swear to God it felt like someone was in that apartment, Gavin,” she said, sensing his doubt about the details.
“Well, you said that there was a pissed-off cat on the stairs, Betsy. You don’t think that it could have made some of those noises? It’s not unheard of for people to be up listening to music at this hour, either. It could have been coming from a neighbor’s place.”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “It didn’t sound like it was from a neighbor’s place, but maybe you’re right. My brain hurts.”
“I mean, we could go to the cops. But you’re underage, right? When do you turn twenty-one?”
“In November,” Betsy said, feeling as small as a child.
“And you’re high as shit,” he said. “And your blood alcohol level is likely pretty impressive.” He reached over to touch her forehead.
“How did you get mud on your face?” he asked.
She had almost forgotten about Mack.
“I fell in the woods near Weird Bobby’s,” she said. “With Mack.”
“That guy . . .” Gavin trailed off, gritting his teeth.
“I’ve already forgotten about him. I think the adrenaline took care of that,” she said, feeling dumb and paranoid about being so paranoid.
“You’ve had a rough night, Betsy. Who can blame you for thinking the worst?”
“You’re probably right. I don’t know. I’m just scared. I hate it here right now. The place is crawling with news crews. Class is canceled. I saw Phil fucking Donahue on campus today. I just want to go. I’ve got a little cash. Let’s just go.”
Betsy turned her face away from his and looked out the window. He thinks I’m crazy, she thought, and he’s still sleeping with Channing. On the white stucco wall in front of her was a pay phone.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, and jumped out of the car. Betsy picked up the receiver, took a breath. She was going to call 911.
“Gainesville nine-one-one. What’s the location of your emergency?”
“Um, I’m at a pay phone now,” Betsy’s voice started to tremble. She remembered the humiliation she felt on Fraternity Row. The firemen stood in a line, wearing their giant helmets, arms crossed, staring at her with clear condescension.
“What’s going on down there?”
“Well,” she said, reviewing her story in her head, trying to avoid any scenario in which the police found her drunk, high, and underage. She pictured her mom in bed at home in Venice, fumbling for the phone when the police would inevitably call. What am I supposed to say, she thought, I think I heard something suspicious? The floor creaked? A light was on that shouldn’t be on. And music was playing.
Oh shit.
“Ma’am, are you there?”
Betsy’s story, and her confidence, started to crumble. Her eyes were trained on the wall next to the phone. Someone had scratched “slut” into the paint with a car key.
“Hello?” The operator’s tone was short, obviously tired, and completely over stoned college kids flipping out about a tree branch grazing their bedroom window. She imagined how weary a 911 operator in a college town besieged by the media must be at 3:00 a.m., and suspected that she was one of many panicked students making calls about sinister-looking pizza deliverymen and creepy sounds. Betsy could hear herself breathing in the receiver.
“Sorry. False alarm.”
She hung up. Betsy glanced back at Gavin, who was covering his face with his hands. She remembered the party, Channing and Anna, Mack pouncing on her in the driveway. For a second, she could see herself in the parking lot, the bluish glow of the Steak ’n Shake sign on her face, like she was hovering over the building and peering down. From up there, she looked impossibly small.
“How’d that go?” Gavin said, once she was back in the car.
“Not well. I’d say that wasn’t good at all,” she said.