The Drifter

by Christine Lennon

  “He was sitting on a stool, nursing a whiskey or something, just brooding and you know, dark. He had a guitar case. He said he was a musician and that he was playing for tips. And I believed him. He was a little dirty, kind of scruffy, but interesting. You know, his face was almost handsome, if you didn’t stare too deeply into his eyes. The eyes were what gave him away.”

  “Jesus, Caroline.” Betsy’s mind was reeling.

  “I know. It gets worse,” she said, putting her head in her hands. “And I would do literally anything for something to drink right now. My throat is dry as hell. Let’s go look for a vending machine.”

  They walked into the lobby of the hotel, past the front desk and down a long corridor of hotel rooms. The fluorescent lights in the hallway made Caroline’s cheeks look hollow, and her skin glowed nearly green.

  “So we were talking. I don’t remember everything he said, but he told me his name was Michael something. He had a thick accent and he said he was from Louisiana. He said he was making his way down to the Keys to play at a bar where his friend worked. He said he was just passing through.”

  Caroline scavenged through her pockets for change but came up short. Betsy dug through her bag to find a dollar bill crisp enough to feed into the slot. Everything about her felt limp and soggy—her dress, her hair, her brain. A can of Coke tumbled through the machine and landed with a thump at the bottom.

  “I bought us some drinks and we were just bullshitting, you know how it goes. Ginny came in to try to make me leave and she looked at him funny, like maybe she recognized him or something? But I was thinking that couldn’t be possible. Ginny doesn’t remember anybody, and this guy was just on his way through town. So I stayed. He said he would drive me home later. We had a few more drinks and then he walked me out to his car. I say it was his car, but it was stolen. He stole it from a Piggly Wiggly in Lutz, or something. I think it was like a Caprice Classic, a total beater. We were talking some more in the car, had a cigarette or two. He got out his guitar and starting playing. I mean, he wasn’t terrible. Well, he was obviously terrible. But he was a decent guitar player.”

  She took a long swig from the ice-cold can and passed it to Betsy.

  “We should get back out front or Teddy’s going to leave me here,” said Caroline, and they walked toward the front drive.

  “So, by then it’s late, at least three, and he drove me back home. I remember he was swerving a little bit, but I wasn’t too worried. Then we got to the parking lot and we started making out, and he got right to it. I mean, I was sloppy and drunk and just kind of fumbling, but he just had his hand up my skirt right away. He wasn’t a big guy, so I was surprised by how strong he was. He had one hand on my shoulder, pulling at the neck of my T-shirt and pressing me against the seat of the car. And the other one, I mean, this dirty rough hand was all over me, he fingers were inside me, and he started saying stuff.”

  “Saying stuff? What do you mean saying stuff?” Betsy couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “At first I just thought it was drunk guy stuff, like asking me if I liked it, calling me a slut, telling me not to fight it, just to let it happen. And then he reached over and opened the passenger door and he kind of jumped over me and was trying to lift me out of the car. It was creepy, and I started to catch on, like, wait, this guy isn’t just a stupid frat boy. I have no idea who he is. So I just said, ‘You know, I can get it from here. I’m tired. I just want to go to bed. Alone.’ And he had both of my wrists in his hands.”

  “How did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me before?” asked Betsy.

  “I tried! You wouldn’t even talk to me. I came in the apartment that night and tried to wake you up, but I was so drunk, and all you could say was how creepy I was. I just wanted to forget about it.”

  “But how are you still alive?”

  “I mean, exactly at that moment, I was twisting my wrists free from his grip and a truck full of these idiot guys pulls up. Do you remember those neighbors, the KAs who used to blast Garth Brooks at their parties? I mean, they pulled up in a giant pickup. There must have been four or five of them in back. It was crazy. What the hell were they doing out at that hour? Cow-tipping? Then they did that whole ‘Miss, is this gentleman causing you any trouble?’ thing, even though I am sure they were just coming home from a gang rape or something. They were real charmers, right? Anyway, he must have been spooked, because he let me go. Then he watched me walk right up those steps to our front door.”

  “So what does all of this mean?”

  “I guess it means that I’m just as guilty as you are, maybe more. You know, in all of the interviews McRae did, he talked about Ginny and the women he killed, but he followed others, too. He was trying to portray himself as a criminal mastermind possessed by a split personality. He didn’t want people to think it was random, that he got the wrong girl. So there was always a part of me that wondered . . .”

  “That it should have been you. Or it could have been you,” said Betsy. “I know. I feel the same way.”

  She stared at Caroline, trying to process everything she had told her. They had both been struggling all of those years, alone.

  “Of course, I hadn’t known it was him until years later when I saw his photo in the paper. It took me a while to connect the dots, but when I did, that’s when I really started going off of the rails.”

  Betsy remembered that night with the grocery bags, when the perfectly formed memory of Scottie McRae on a bike at Taco Bell fluttered gracelessly into her brain like a moth.

  “But Betsy, here is my point: I led that guy straight to our front door, but I didn’t kill her. Scottie McRae killed her. I couldn’t have saved her. You couldn’t have saved her. If you’d walked in five minutes before you did, he would have killed both of you. If you’d walked in two hours before, you’d be the dead one. If Ginny had stayed at the sorority house that night, like she said she was going to, like she promised me she would, maybe she would have lived for another day. Maybe he would have come back again and again until he got her? Maybe I would have been there that time and I would be gone, too? The unlikely scenario is that he would have just given up and walked away. And I’ll say it again. The only thing you maybe should have done differently is to tell the truth after it happened. And the only thing you can do now, going forward, is to keep telling the truth, to yourself, to Gavin, to me, to everybody. And one thing that’s true is that you were a really good friend to Ginny.”

  “Wow, Car,” Betsy said, shaking her head in disbelief. She reached out and pulled Caroline toward her, hard. Caroline resisted at first, but she softened in her friend’s arms. Teddy’s car pulled up in front of them and he rolled down the passenger window.

  “I’m glad you two are hugging it out,” he said, “but I feel I need to remind you it’s been a long-ass day.”

  Betsy was dazed and drained, and certain she would hurl again. Betsy let go, reluctantly, since she loved the way Caroline’s long arms felt wrapped around her neck, after all these years.

  “Caroline, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I made you lie for me. I’m sorry I disappeared. I was a mess. You were always stronger than me.”

  “I think we both know that’s not true,” she said, taking Betsy’s face in her hands, the way Betsy did with Remi when she wanted to stop time for a minute, remember the little golden flecks in her green eyes. “He’d been watching her for days, after we ran into him when we were out buying poster boards. I didn’t recognize him right away when I first saw his picture, but then I put it all together.”

  Betsy felt a painful jag of what must have been relief deep in her chest. She’d imagined so many scenarios of how this might happen, how she would be absolved, unburdened, and none of them felt anything like this.

  “I can’t believe you knew all of this. I can’t believe you picked up Scottie McRae at a bar,” said Betsy in a low whisper, out of Teddy’s earshot. “And you never said anything.”

  “You’ve got to remember. I hate
d your fucking guts for years,” said Caroline. “The last thing I wanted to do was make you feel better.”

  Caroline opened the passenger door and slid in. Betsy blew Teddy a kiss.

  “See you, T,” she said. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Tell that deadbeat dad back in NYC to give me a call.”

  “Will do.”

  “So how about I come for a visit?” asked Caroline. “I want to meet Remi Virginia. Do I get to call her R.V. for short?”

  “We’ll set a place for you at Thanksgiving,” she said. “Gavin makes a mean fried turkey.”

  “Thanksgiving, huh? I’ll consider it, but only if I get to hold down the Snoopy balloon in the parade.”

  Betsy realized that she hadn’t made a plan more than a month in advance for as long as she could remember, like she’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Tonight, she felt different.

  “Sure,” she said. “We can arrange for that.”

  UPSTAIRS, THE COOL, dark room with the crisply made bed felt like the Le Meurice hotel. She lay down on top of the sheet and called Gavin.

  “Oh, thank God, you’re still up.”

  “It’s not even midnight, B. I was waiting for your call. How was the ride home? How’s crazy Caroline?”

  “I have so much to tell you. I would bet you a thousand bucks that Caroline and Teddy hook up tonight. Plus, I threw up in the bushes.”

  “You must be in Florida.”

  SHE SLEPT ON top of the cool, clean sheets, lulled by the steady hum of the overworked air conditioner straining against that muggy night air. Her skin felt sticky from dried sweat and spilled drinks, but she was too tired for a shower. She’d get up early tomorrow and put Florida behind her again for a while. But right then she wanted to let her heavy eyes close, to visit her friend in her dreams, to tell her she was sorry one more time.

  CHAPTER 26

  COMING HOME

  September 27, 2010

  Hi, Mommy.”

  Betsy opened her eyes to find Remi, blurry at first, then in sharp, beautiful focus, standing beside her bed.

  “Good morning, sweet girl,” she said, lifting the bedcover with her left hand and pulling her daughter close with her right.

  “I missed you,” said Remi.

  “Oh, I know, I missed you, too. You were asleep when I got home and I didn’t want to wake you,” said Betsy. “But I tiptoed into your room and gave you a kiss anyway.”

  Every time Betsy flew home to New York, she felt like she was reentering the earth’s atmosphere with a bang and a jolt. Even two days away, two stressful, humid, sweat-soaked days, interrupted her rhythm. The problem with being a transplanted New Yorker was that you no longer felt entirely at home anywhere, not in your adopted city, despite two decades spent trying to perfect it, and not in the place from which you emerged, whether it was a bloodless suburb, a slow beach town, or a dense but less kinetic American city. Each time the plane descended over the water and found, miraculously, the edge of the runway at LaGuardia, Betsy was amazed. She was proud of the life she’d built there, stunned that she had made it that far, and more than a little perplexed by how she would raise her child there.

  Remi’s childhood was already so unlike her own. They were both only children, but that was the extent of their shared experiences. In Betsy’s case, it was due to a faulty marriage and an uncommitted father. Remi wouldn’t have a sibling because of Betsy and Gavin’s collective indecision. Then there was the trauma of Remi’s birth, which was enough to scare both Gavin and Betsy away from baby-making for good. They were so grateful for one, for their sweet and happy little girl, that neither of them had any regrets. Gavin and his brother would ignore each other for most of the year and then happily reunite for Christmas like nothing happened, so the importance of siblings escaped him. It was Betsy who worried.

  Would Remi find someone to trust? And then would someone else, someone lurking in the shadows, take her away? Betsy pulled her daughter closer.

  “Daddy said that we can have pancakes today,” said Remi, wiggling out of her grip and slipping back onto the floor.

  “Oh, he did, did he? Well, I for one cannot wait to taste the pancakes Daddy is making this morning, in the next forty minutes, before we have to leave for school.”

  Gavin was waiting at the door when she came home Sunday night, and Betsy, embarrassed, worn out, unable to keep it together a minute longer, wept as soon as she spotted him at the end of the hall. Graying at the temples, so much older than the man she first met, still not as lumpy around the middle as Betsy had predicted on their first trip to the lake. Gavin was the one she needed to see. They had arrived in New York with hopes that the constant thrum of life there would drown out their shared sadness, erase the blight on their past. She was slowly starting to understand that the blight was what made them. Without that premature reminder that life was often tragically short, would they have squandered even more precious time? Would they have made it as a couple for a few months and then drifted away after graduation, not feeling the urgency, neither one allowing the other to look at their weaknesses, the ugly parts, head-on?

  Post-pancakes (which, to appease Betsy, were made with spelt flour but still drenched with syrup), Remi excused herself and announced that she would be getting dressed on her own. Minutes later, Remi emerged in her favorite purple striped dress, topped with a turquoise cardigan and accented with a fringed vest that was part of last year’s failed “cowpoke” costume and gold high-tops.

  “Perfect,” said Betsy. She dug out a pair of rhinestone earrings, shaped like clusters of leaf-shaped stones, from her jewelry box and slid on her patent leather pumps with hopes that Remi would notice.

  “You’re so shiny today!” she said, with a clear stamp of approval.

  By the time Betsy and Remi rounded the block closest to school, Remi had counted to ten in Mandarin a dozen times. Betsy drew a deep breath, crossed the threshold to school, and greeted Elodie with a smile.

  “Betsy! I’m delighted to see you!” Elodie said. “And Remi. Don’t you look happy today?”

  Betsy knelt down to give her daughter a hug.

  “OK, Rem. Go get ’em.”

  Remi pecked her mother’s cheek before she darted into the classroom.

  Before Elodie could speak, Betsy waved goodbye, with the briefest “See you tomorrow,” and turned to leave.

  Outside on the sidewalk, the air felt crisp on her flushed cheeks. She looked up at the cloudless sky, infinite blue over the tops of the low buildings that lined the street. The clear morning light filtered through the tiny trees and reflected off of the windshields of cars parked along the curb. She wiped away the first tear, then the second. And then she started to laugh. She realized how ridiculous she looked in her sparkly earrings and heels, frozen in front of a preschool, her face wet and red with tears, and hunched over with laughter. People walked past her on the sidewalk, unfazed, expertly dodging the potentially insane woman on the sidewalk with barely a raised brow. Her phone buzzed in her bag. Gavin, she thought. She dug for it, but the call had gone to voice mail. For a few seconds, she debated calling him back, but decided it could wait until she got to the office. She texted Caroline instead.

  I have a story you are going to love, Betsy tapped with her thumbs.

  She looked down the sidewalk in the direction of the subway station. Maybe she’d take the M20 instead? If she needed to, she could hop off of the bus at any time. Once she got to work, she could hail a cab from the office and get back to the school in minutes, if she needed to, she thought. She just had to move her legs, put one foot in front of the other. Betsy took a few deep breaths, relieved she finally knew, instinctively, which way was north, summoning all of the forward momentum she could to move that way.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For her excellent guidance, patience, positivity, and for believing in me and in this story, I’m indebted to Brettne Bloom. For her editorial insight, generosity, and overwhelming kindness, thanks go to Em
ily Krump. For being early and enthusiastic readers, I am forever grateful to Jen Wang, Heather Fogarty, Anamaria Wilson, Ira Ungerleider, Catherine Elsworth, Suzanne Lennon Portner, Melissa Thomas, Sarah Rafferty, Anna Roth Milner, Deanna Kizis, Eve Epstein, and Whitney Langdon. This wouldn’t exist without you. For nearly three decades of friendship, sharing their memories, and their mutual stamp of approval, thank you Liz Bowyer and Kari Olivier. For their unconditional support and overall badassness, I am grateful, again, to Jen Wang, Sara Lamm, Mary Wigmore, and Tuesday night margaritas. For their insight on matters of the mind and the spirit, I am grateful to Deb Stern and Sylvia Hirsch Jones. For some critical intelligence and showing me the ropes all of those years ago, thanks go to Doris Athineos and Dana Wood. For getting me over that last hurdle toward the finish line with some heartfelt high-fives, many, many thanks to Andrew and Catherine Stellin Waller. For being awesome, I send love and thanks to Crystal Meers. For a lifetime of love, I am grateful to my family. For enriching my life and filling my heart in infinite ways, thank you Millie and Louis. For literally everything else, including the best thirteen years of my life, thank you Andrew Reich.

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  Meet Christine Lennon

  CHRISTINE LENNON is a Los Angeles based writer. Before she moved to the West Coast and started her freelance career, she was an editor at W, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar. Since then she has written for publications including T, the New York Times style magazine; the Wall Street Journal; Town & Country; W; Vogue; Harper’s Bazaar; Martha Stewart Living; Sunset; C California Style; Marie Claire; Self; Net-a-Porter’s Porter and The Edit online magazine, among others. Christine lives in California with her husband, Andrew Reich, and their twins. The Drifter is her first book.