“You came all the way out here to see how I was doing?” she said.
Betsy came farther into the room. “Not all the way out to the hospital, no. I came out to the hospital to check on my mother. She’s right down the hall.”
“I’m on the geriatric ward?”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s more of a general ward, really. Are you all right? They told me you’d been found in the same room as Emma, all banged up. I haven’t been able to see Emma. She’s still unconscious.”
“Is she on this floor, too?”
“No,” Betsy said. “She’s in some special care unit. I asked the nurse.”
By now, Betsy was all the way into the room. Peggy could see her up close. Betsy was Betsy, but she wasn’t Betsy at the same time. She still wore almost no makeup, and funny clothes, but even Peggy could see that these funny clothes were expensive, at least for Hollman. Maybe they were cheap for wherever it was Betsy lived now. Maybe Betsy hadn’t really changed. Maybe.
“You look different,” Peggy said.
“Well, I suppose I should. It’s been over thirty years.”
“I don’t mean you look older. I mean you look different. I look older.”
“I look older, too. Believe me. If I don’t, it must be the light.”
“You look different,” Peggy said again. She didn’t bother to explain. She shouldn’t have to explain. It should be clear. And explaining was too much work. “If you’d looked like that in school, we’d probably have loved you. You’d have been the queen of everything. Except maybe Belinda. Belinda always hated you.”
“Yes. Well. I rather thought that emotion was general.”
Peggy flicked this away. “I have no idea what that means. I’m very tired.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll let you be. I only wanted—”
“They say Emma is going to be fine. You say she’s in the intensive care unit—”
“No, I didn’t say that. I said she’s in a special care unit. Those were the words the nurse used when I talked to her.”
“Whatever. They said downtown that she was going to be fine. Her fat saved her. That Mr. Demarkian said that. I heard him. Her fat saved her. It was so thick, the razor thing couldn’t go all the way through her in one stroke, the way that it did with Chris. Do they all think you killed Chris?”
“No,” Betsy said. “Not as far as I can tell.”
“You’d think they would,” Peggy said, “with the body in your yard and everything. But then, you were never somebody who got in trouble. I remember that. You weren’t popular but you didn’t get in trouble. Not like some people. Do you think it isn’t fair, the way schools are? That some people get in trouble all the time and others don’t for doing the same things and it’s all a lot of personalities and luck?”
“I think it’s more a matter of reputation,” Betsy said. “People get reputations, and it’s like those tags the characters had in Greek epics. Heraclitus the Wise. Andromachus the Malevolent. Once you have the tag, it never changes and it never disappears, and people think that’s all you are.”
“Some people deserve it, though, the treatment they get. Some people really do do things that are wrong and harmful and bad.”
“Absolutely.”
“Nancy always thought you deserved it,” Peggy said. “She still does. Not that you deserve it now but that you deserved it then. She’s a terrible person, really. She hates weakness of any kind, except half the things she calls weak aren’t, they’re just human. She hates Stu. She thinks she knows what it’s like in my marriage. Do you hate Stu?”
“I don’t know him. I never did know him, not even when we were all growing up. Maris told me you’d married him.”
Peggy looked away. It was hard to look at Betsy. The clothes were nerve-wracking. Leather. Coach. Something expensive.
“Nobody knows what it’s like in somebody else’s marriage. Nobody can know. Everybody thinks Emma and George are all lovey-dovey and well suited to each other, but nobody knows. All kinds of things could be going on between them when they get themselves alone. He could be drinking up all the money they make. She could be having affairs on the side. I know you think it isn’t possible because of her weight, but things like that have happened. The woman who ran the key booth at the mall had an affair with one of the janitors and she was married and he was black. Black. Do you remember when we used to call them Negroes? And nobody went to Kennanburg because there were too many of them there, and now there are twice as many and Hispanics, too, and everybody goes there anyway because you can’t help it if you want to go to the hospital or get a copy of your birth certificate. I was always going to marry Stu. Everybody knew that. I knew that by the time I was five years old.”