He got up from the bed, he seemed shocked by my presence. ‘I’ve got to go out,’ he said, and pulled his clothes on, went for the door. ‘I’m so sorry—I just, I’ll be back.’
I took the Valium and my clothes and three hundred-dollar bills. I left his ring in an envelope with his name written on it: ‘Mr. Wayne Carter.’
I didn’t take enough for an air ticket, which I knew would bother him. But maybe that’s why I did it. I shouldn’t have made him suffer, maybe. But it was just a small suffering. For the first few blocks, I still imagined he might find me, might see me in the shirt and skirt he himself had bought me.
After an hour, I found a public phone booth with a Yellow Pages inside. I called up Drive-Away Services, which Henry had told me about. I took a cab to their office, about fifteen minutes north on a great rundown boulevard. They checked my license and I gave them $150 in cash, which I would get back when I delivered a new Lincoln SUV to Kansas City—a massive car, similar to the car Frank had—eighty-two miles on the gauge and four days to deliver it to Kansas City. After that, I was on my own.
Highway 95 was the easiest, air-conditioning at high, radio on. For some hours, I put the car on cruise control. I stopped for soda and cigarettes. I parked at night outside a Holiday Inn. I wanted to go in, but I didn’t want to be in a room alone. The walls would be so white. The sheets would be so cold. In the Panhandle, I bought a boiled egg and an apple, which the counter man halved and wrapped in cellophane. At night, I turned off into a rest area and took two Valium.
By then, if he had flown, Wayne could already be home. I put the radio on and took another Valium and it was cold in the car. I was afraid to run the heat; I was afraid to drain the battery. I woke at three-thirty a.m. thinking someone was trying to steal my hubcaps. Then it was five-thirty a.m. and then six-thirty.
In Biloxi, Mississippi I bought coffee and cubes of caramel in clear plastic wrapping. I bought postcards of rundown hotels by the careless sea.
Dear Eric,
Here I am in Biloxi. I have been in the sun and have a small tan. Hope you are having fun.
Betsy
Again that night I slept in the car in a rest area. I woke at seven-thirty a.m. to a truck driver warming his engine, combing his hair in his side-view mirror. I turned on the ignition to heat the car, and the man knocked at my window, wanted to know the time, he said. I shouldn’t have let down my window. He asked where I was from and where I was going. He looked into the car and said it was new; it must have cost a lot; and how much was it?
I looked at him; I looked down and then away. I said yes, it was cold and so was I so I’d wind up my window and heat the car.
In Winona, Mississippi, at the Hitching Post restaurant, blue paint peeling from the shingles, a pink neon wagon wheel flickering on the wall, I ordered cereal and orange juice, eggs and white toast and grits. I didn’t know whether to use salt or butter on the grits. I couldn’t eat, so I left them plain.
In Arkansas, steam rose from the thermal pools. In Missouri, I slept on the side of the road, yellow fields in all directions. Then I was in Kansas. The Lincoln owner lived in a great new house in a great white suburb. He was balding, and looked like an engineer. His wife watched us from the kitchen window, and I would have liked a coffee, but they didn’t offer me one.
‘We asked for no smoking,’ the man said.
’I’m sorry.’
A young man from Drive-Away Services picked me up. He was my age and eating a chocolate-covered ice cream. Back at the office, he gave me my $150. He dropped me at the Mission Inn where the light switch turned on both light and evangelical television station. I took a shower. I wrote a postcard to Henry, telling him this. I ordered room service but was too tired to eat. At midnight, Ray answered his phone.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Betsy?’
I couldn’t talk to him. ‘Sorry,’ I said and hung up.
It was hard to sleep. My room was on the street and I heard cars stopping. I heard people getting out of them and talking and then walking away. My bedspread was polyester and rough. It could burn me up, I thought, lighting a cigarette and then putting it out. Then I wept. I wept for a long time, not the way Wayne had exactly, not so a neighbor could hear me, but badly enough, badly enough.
In the morning, I had coffee and a donut in the lobby. I watched the local television. ‘For thou are not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness; neither shall evil dwell with Thee’ (Psalm 5:4). I called a cab to take me to the Greyhound bus station. It was eighteen hours to New York City with a forty-minute layover in St. Louis.
The waiting area in St. Louis had a turnstile and security guard and chairs with built-in televisions. A kid across from me was smoking cigarettes and drinking root beer. He was about sixteen, I thought, and pretty. He had soft blond hair and ripped jeans and a diamond stud in one ear. He brought me a match for my cigarette. His name was Nick Johnson, he said, and he wasn’t sixteen but nineteen. He was going home to Tennessee for his brother’s wedding. Personally, he told me, he didn’t believe in love. He had been in love once, but he had done something wrong and the girl wouldn’t speak to him anymore; she told his friend he was an asshole. Since then, he had just been waiting.
I told him that waiting was good and not needing was best. It was when you needed someone that you were in trouble—because no one could give you what you needed if you truly needed something. Hearing myself say this, I started to cry.
‘Wow,’ Nick said. ‘You are depressed.’
I felt the corners of my mouth turn down when he said this.
‘It’s all right.’ Nick patted my back as I wiped my eyes. ‘Why don’t you come with me? We can stay at my parents?’
I thought about it. I really did. We smoked a cigarette and I almost missed the bus for thinking about it.
At three a.m., Port Authority was lit like daytime. I walked home in the cold. My telephone had six messages, but I didn’t listen to them. I took the last of my Valium and slept for sixteen hours.
When I woke, I called Raymond.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘People are looking for you.’
He arrived in his ratty white sweater. He made us tea with milk and said, ‘Well, you look good.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You have a tan.’
‘A little bit.’
‘Do you have any money?’
‘Maybe.’
I called the bank. I had $454. Raymond and I went to a cash machine and took out $400. We went west and it was the same as always: Jesus with his blue shirt, Raymond with his nervous eyes.
It had been awhile, so I got sicker than usual. I had to sit by the toilet, throwing up. Then I started weeping—not knowing where Wayne was.
Ray went out for cigarettes and to the dealer’s and to the store. We shot up in the dark, in the light, in the bed. “Easy” he said when my body shook.
In the bathtub, the water was gray our bodies white and flushed hot. Our mother called but I didn’t pick up.
‘Why Wayne?’ Ray asked, his back against the wall, a beer bottle swinging from his fingers. His eyes were sunken. So were mine. I could feel it, tracing my eyelids with my fingers.
‘Do I look like you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Your pupils are so small. It looks evil.’
I went to the mirror. My eyes were milky my pupils as small as Ray’s. ‘I do,’ I said. ‘I do look like you. Do you know what Beck said once?’
‘What?’
‘That he didn’t want to fuck me up.’
‘What did that mean?’
‘Exactly.’
I sat back on the bed.
‘He couldn’t really fuck me up.’
Ray curled up on the pillows against the wall.
‘Why not?’
‘I think I was probably already fucked up.’
‘Were you?’
‘I think so.’
&n
bsp; Ray’s eyes went flat. ‘By me?’ he asked. He handed me his cigarette. He took out his syringe. ‘Probably by me.’
He started looking for a vein.
‘You didn’t tell anyone, did you?’ he asked.
‘Sure.’
‘Why?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Who did you tell?
‘Friends. Wayne. Dad.’
‘Dad?’
‘Last year.’
‘Jesus,’ Raymond said. ‘Jesus.’ He closed his eyes.
‘Raymond.’
He just made it to the kitchen sink before he started to retch.
‘I should call someone,’ I said.
‘No.’
‘An ambulance.’
‘It’ll pass.’
It did—or at least the retching did. Then he lay on the floor, sweating and trembling. His eyes were like Wayne’s on Miami Beach—full of fear. I went for a washcloth, washed down his face, his arms and chest. The color came back into his face. ‘What did he say?’ Raymond asked.
‘Who?’
‘Dad.’
He looked like a child—a child I had never seen. I could have hurt him. It would have been easy.
‘He said things like that happen a lot.’
He reached for his syringe.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Do you want some?’
I did.
By the third day the air was dense with smoke. It was five a.m. and we were being poisoned, Raymond claimed; we had to get out. He wore his sunglasses. We stood on the street and it was almost raining, the air misty with yellow smoke from some pipe. My knees gave way so Raymond had to prop me up. He took my arm and we crossed the street. ‘Jesus,’ Ray said. ‘Breathe.’
My hair felt dirty. I combed it back with my fingers. Ray took my hand as we crossed the streets, one after another, all the way up to the park. We sat by the lake where a wind blew up. Raymond gave me his ratty sweater.
It was so early hardly anyone was around. Wind scuffed up the lake water. Leaves swirled in the tree above us, the color of plums. I watched a wisp of a spider crawl from the grass to my forearm.
Ray took out his needle. It was just like with Beck, on the bench in Central Park, the sound of rushing leaves feeling like they were rushing in my chest: leaves and the tops of trees and the heads of flowers.
‘Ready?’
‘We have to stop this.’
‘We have a little left.’
‘No, I mean permanently.’
I lay on my back, the sky becoming yellow like a jaundiced eye.
‘Do you want to?’ Ray asked.
‘Yes. Do you?’
‘Not really.’
The spider was a tiny whorl, legs like dandelion. It was strange, not hating Ray. I was empty. I was clean.
PART V
Dad rolls his eyes at Dr. Keats. 'Let me tell you about Wayne,' he says, my mother sitting beside him in an off-white dress. 'Wayne is an infant. Wayne has always done exactly what Wayne wants. Wayne is like a charming child, although I must say his charm has started to wear thin.'
'At least he listens,' I say.
'From what I understand, that's not all he does.'
'Edward…' my mother says.
'He sleeps with my wife, and he sleeps with my daughter. I hardly think I need to say more.'
'But what is really underneath all this?' Dr. Keats asks. 'For Betsy?'
'You'd have to ask Betsy that,' Dad says.
'I think what is important is that Betsy felt that Wayne listened to her. Is that right, Betsy?'
'It's easy to listen when you can just walk away,' my mother says.
'Exactly,' my father says.
It's not right for me to make out like my parents didn't try to help me. Maybe it feels that way, but they did try. My mother started calling me about two months after Ray came home. She wanted to know why I hadn't been by the house in a while. She asked what Raymond and I had been doing together. It seemed to me, though, that she had no right to ask—not when she never had before. So I wasn't very nice to her. To be honest, I think I was probably pretty cold.
One Sunday, my father called me from the street. Ray and I had been up all night. We went to a cafe and my father smelled of the inside of a store, fresh and new, and I hadn't even showered; my hands shook, I couldn't even touch my lemon cake.
'What is wrong with you?' my father asked.
My arms ached. My hair felt greasy. 'You should know.'
He turned his palms up.
'You were there,' I said.
It was interesting, because I felt my mouth turn, the way Raymond's does sometimes, both sullen and threatening, at the same time.
'On the boat.' I knotted my hair behind my head. 'You saw.'
'Saw what, Betsy?'
'Me and Raymond.'
'Things happen, Betsy. Things happen all the time, to all of us.'
The icing on my lemon cake glistened in the sunlight. The corner of my mouth trembled.
'You're not the one we worry about, Betsy.'
'Why not?'
'You're a strong girl.'
He dropped me off at my building. I turned and watched him as he left. He had no clue what was going on with me.
Late in the summer, my mother invited me to dinner. Wayne was in Belgium and Raymond had disappeared. I had no cocaine and was exhausted, irritable, and weepy. I didn't have money for a token, so I walked through the park. It was late when I arrived and Mum and Dad were in the garden with a lawyer from Dad's office. His name was Bobby Wynn. He was twenty-six and from Greenwich, Connecticut. He had a certain kind of handsome yet nondescript face: small perfect features and short thick hair. His suit was expensive, his tie loosened, and his jacket on the back of his chair.
'This is Betsy,' Mum said, 'our lovely daughter.'
Bobby Wynn wiped his hand on his napkin. He stood up and shook my hand. He had a nice smile.
'Betsy works at World Sight and Hearing,' Dad said.
Bobby had never heard of World Sight, so Dad educated him, my mother pouring me a glass of white wine, filling a bowl of pasta.
'She's supposed to be going to medical school,' my father said. 'But we can't get her to stop working.'
Bobby smiled like a young man who understands the enjoyment of working too much.
'You should come out to Greenwich some time,' he said to me, 'have a swim at the club.'
I missed Wayne so much right then, I felt sick.
'Thank you. That would be nice.'
He smiled at me, an encouraging smile, and I felt sorry for him, that he thought he might like me.
My parents were pleased because Bobby was a nice guy a lawyer, and smart. I felt bad for them, imagining we could ever like each other. Still, when Bobby Wynn called the next week, when my mother and father both called to see if Bobby had called, I took a cab to Grand Central Station. I took my sunglasses and my bathing suit and a vial of cocaine. Bobby met me at the Greenwich train station. He was wearing khaki shorts and topsiders.
'Are you all right?' he asked.
I put on my sunglasses.
'It's just bright.'
He took my arm and laughed—a strange, awkward laugh.
He had a VW convertible, tan leather seats and a glossy black exterior. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and we drove between the dull trees and the flat, luminous sound. He showed me his parents' house, a sprawling white complex with a swimming pool. He told me who lived in which mansion and who had before them.
He lit a cigarette with the car's lighter.
'You know,' he said, your dad is a popular guy.' I felt better, seeing him smoke. 'He's got that sarcastic sense of humor.'
'I know.'
'My dad is a little less verbal. But then, my dad is a banker—not a trial lawyer.'
'Do you want to be a trial lawyer?'
Bobby laughed. 'No. I just want to be comfortable.'
He put on a pair of neon blue—tinted sunglasses.
His arms were tan. The sun was warm on my skin and I rolled my head to the side and watched the sides of the roads, the shadows in the shaded lawns and thick trees.
The club grounds were lush with sprinkler water. The horizon was all golf course. Bobby's parents were on the first tee. Mr. Wynn was slim and wiry and wearing a red baseball cap. Mrs. Wynn had that recently peeled look: her skin moist and too pale. I slipped through the shuttered swinging doors of the ladies' changing room and did a little cocaine. When I came back, Bobby and I went to the pool. He had a burger and fries while I had an iced tea and melon balls.
'No wonder you're so thin,' Bobby said, as we lay on club towels on wooden deck chairs. 'You're not one of those girls who starves yourself, are you?'
'I don't think so.'
"Cause I know a lot of girls like that. I mean, most of them are born here, but I got the impression at your dad's that you were kind of normal, you know, that yours was this nice normal kind of family from the British colonies.'
'We're normal.'
'People get so screwed up in New York, don't you think? I mean, it's so crowded and dirty and hostile. People are rude. And the homeless.'
I finished my last melon ball.
'The homeless are bad.'
Bobby stretched out in the sun. His bathing suit was blue with a paisley print. He took a lip balm from his pocket: cherry vanilla. I picked up a Newsweek from a stand, pushed back my sunglasses, and looked at the sky.
'You'll hurt your eyes doing that,' Bobby said.
He was very abrupt. I asked if he had liked law school and he said, 'It was all right.' I asked if he liked the law firm and he said, 'Pretty much.'
We didn't have a single thing to talk about. He didn't interest me at all—or maybe I was just tired. He told me that last spring he and some friends had gone bare boating out of St. Thomas. They blew a sail and lost the grill over the transom and did everything but run the boat onto a reef.
'Can't you sail?' I asked.
'Yeah, I mean we could. But, you know, the boat was some fiberglass bleach bottle, not a catboat.' Bobby turned his face to the sun. 'Of course, now that I'm at Tripp Stanton, I don't have so much time for that.'
Since You Ask Page 15