Vintage tee, brand new phone High heels on cobblestones When you are young, they assume you know nothing Sequin smile, black lipstick Sensual politics When you are young, they assume you know nothing
-Taylor Swift, Cardigan
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Vintage t-shirts, a brand new phone, high heels and cobblestones. Betty Marks was so different to how she had been four years ago. Now she was sitting in a downtown bar in New York, at midnight, alone. Her past self wouldn't have dared to be all by herself so late, but the new Betty was fearless, and anyways, no one would dare to approach her. There was something mysteriously off-putting about her, wearing a fresh coat of black lipstick and a full glass of beer sitting in front of her, untouched for the past half hour.
"Oh. My. God. I don't believe my eyes. Betty, is that you?!" An exuberant voice filled the silent space, and Betty jumped, not daring to look up. No one here knew her, or her name. No one here was supposed to know her. Except the stranger entering the room, looking quite out of place in the dark and dingy bar, with plump, pink lips, shiny black hair and a sparkly designer pink outfit, did.
With a wave of realisation, Betty comprehended who she was seeing in front of her. Someone who knew past Betty very well. This was bad. It wasn't how it was supposed to go. New York was intended to be the place where Betty could blend in, forget what had happened, and be herself. Where she could start again. Now all her progress would be ruined with the arrival of this girl.
"Inez." Betty said weakly, forcing a smile. "How... how lovely to see you. After all this time."
Inez rushed over to Betty and sat down, talking a thousand miles an hour with enthusiastic hand gestures and expressions.
"I know, it's been simply ages, hasn't it? Anyways, I've been looking all over for you! You know, I found something of yours the other day at the local thrift store, you know, Second Chance Fashion, in good old Woodvale, and I thought I must return it to you, in person, no less! Now, it has been four whole years and I didn't know where I'd find you, but apparently, from word around town, you'd moved to New York! Well, it just turned out that I was going to come here for an apprenticeship so I tracked you down and various people said you come to this... lovely bar every Sunday, so here I am!"
Betty raised her eyebrows, trying to take in everything that Inez was saying.
"Wait a second..." she murmured, finally making sense of the long, rambling speech. "Something of mine?"
Inez seemed delighted that Betty had understood her, and nodded eagerly. She scrabbled around in her garishly pink Louis Vuitton purse, finally pulling out a cream item of clothing. A cardigan.
Betty's mouth fell open, and she gasped. Well, she hadn't seen that in... forever...
"I knew you'd appreciate it!" Inez exclaimed, too loudly, too energetically. Betty tuned her out, simply taking the knitted cardigan and spreading it out on the table, examining the frayed edges, the embroidered silver stars and the black lining. It took her back, to a time of growing up, of love, of hate, and of being 17 years old in a small town.
"I'm sorry, I, I have to go." Betty mumbled, knocking over her beer in a rush to get out of the now stuffy room.
It was Inez's turn to gape as the girl she had come all the way to New York to see, abandoned her. "Betty! Don't go!" She yelled, trying desperately to say something that would halt Betty rush to leave. That was when she realised exactly what she could say, that would totally stop Betty in her tracks. "I have to tell you something! Matt's here, in New York!"
Betty stopped in the doorway, not looking back, frozen.
"Matt? Matt Lance?" Betty asked, knowing full well that everybody in the bar was staring at the situation playing out in front of them, open-mouthed.
"Not only Matt." Inez said slowly, walking in her spindly high heels up to Betty. "All of them. Matt, Augustine, James."
It was too much for Betty. Too much to realise how her oh-so-genius plan was slowly failing right in front of her eyes. They were here. In New York.
