It made Betsy think that she and Ginny needed to go back to the Copper Monkey, a relatively quiet pub on the second floor of a shopping center off of University that was Ginny’s favorite spot. It had rust-colored carpet, spindly wooden stools, and old-timey bar mirrors and reminded them of the Regal Beagle on Three’s Company. On a slow night, when nothing else was happening in town and they had a little extra cash, Ginny and Caroline would hide out in a booth, order stuffed mushrooms, and vow that they would grow old together, get bad perms, and wear caftans like Mrs. Roper. Despite the depressing staleness of the bar, Betsy felt a warmth bloom inside of her, a feeling of contentment verging on happiness. She was happy to be there and, after a long, lazy summer with Ginny, swimming in the pool at her apartment complex and lying on the lounge chairs, feeling the sun braise their skin in the humid heat, she was happy in general.
Over the last year, Betsy found herself composing a sort of Dear John letter to the campus, the entire city of Gainesville, really, citing all of the reasons they weren’t right for each other. Their time together was nearly over, and she felt like she had to explain why she had to leave a semester early. It’s not you, Gainesville, it’s me, she thought. The school was too big, with all of those auditorium-sized classrooms full of faceless students, and the city was too small, without much of the charm she expected from a sleepy town. The novelty of their first months together, when Betsy was giddy with her hard-earned freedom and breathless about her new friends and the alien excitement of a keg party attended by no-longer-teenaged boys, was over. It had taken three full years, but she had finally decided who and what she wanted to be, and that was on her own, for the most part, without anyone tallying up her many social faux pas with hash marks, adding up her demerits, and scolding her with fines and sideways glances over chicken Cordon Bleu in the sorority dining room. She wanted to work hard and go to school and see and hear music as much as possible. She wanted to spend a half hour in the university museum at night before it closed, wandering its halls, alone in the clean, white, open space, and to drive out to Cedar Key on Sundays to listen to reggae at Frog’s Landing. She would be happy to scrape together spare change and eat fried okra at Grandy’s for dinner for a few more months. And she wanted to spend more days like that one, biking around the Duckpond and having spontaneous drinks with people she only sort of knew. Her relationship with Gainesville wasn’t perfect, but it had its perks. Gainesville was where she found Ginny, Tom, and Melissa at Bagelville, and the handful of people she looked forward to seeing at parties. It’s where she’d met Caroline. However complex their friendship was, they had their fun together. Betsy made a silent vow to make their remaining months together—with her friends, the town, even the school—count.
No amount of optimism could make Diggers appealing for more than two hours, so she grabbed her backpack, pulled nine dollars out of her pocket, suspecting that it wouldn’t cover her share of the bill, excavated a dime encrusted with lint from another pocket, and set off into the lobby to find a pay phone.
“I’ll be right back . . . you guys,” she said, knowing it was a lie.
GINNY PICKED UP the call off of the answering machine, which played the chorus of the Smiths’s “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” before it beeped.
“Gin, pick up. Pick up pick up pick up pick up pick up,” she shouted. “Giinnnny. I know you’re there. It’s Oprah time. Half-past O’prahclock!”
“Betsy? What’s going on? Where are you?” Ginny fumbled with the phone.
“I’m at Diggers. You know, at the Holiday Inn.”
“Uh, no, actually. I do not know Diggers at the Holiday Inn.”
“It’s the sad place. On University. I’m here with Louise and Not-Louise.”
“Of course you are.”
“I got here on the pink bike, but now I’m unfit to ride.”
“Of course you are.”
“Oh, Gin, please. Come get me. Don’t make me beg.”
Betsy’s eternal carelessness made her feel like one of the stragglers she rode past on the way to work that morning. Most of the time, Ginny was a surprisingly tolerant chauffeur.
“Fine,” she said, “I’m leaving now.”
Betsy slipped past the vending machines and out through the depressing lobby without saying goodbye. When she caught her reflection in the mirror behind the front desk, for the third time that day, it shocked her. This time, she was surprised to see that she was still wearing the hat from the vintage shop, which looked roguish and charming in the store, but now made her look insane. To her relief, the Schwinn was still locked to the pole. When Ginny finally pulled into the parking lot, Betsy was sitting near the curb in front of the hotel, curled up around her duct-taped backpack like a pillow.
“Nice hat,” said Ginny as she pulled over to the curb. “You are such a pretty girl, Betsy Young, despite all of your efforts not to be.”
“Oh thank God for you,” said Betsy. She hoisted the bike into the back of the Rabbit convertible, flung the passenger door open, and jumped inside. “We need to get to Taco Bell fast before I hurl frozen peaches with a Schnapps floater.”