Chapter 4: For Regret

Bette had a very no-nonsense attitude about her the next morning, although she was nice enough to bring me some aspirin when she woke me up around eight. She said she’d managed to call Kit’s son before he’d left for school (considering the time difference between LA and Philadelphia, I don’t even want to know how early she woke up for that one) and that he’d given her the address.

“It’s not too far from the club last night,” she explained as we walked out of Parkland with three coffees-one for me, one for Bette, and one for Kit. “So I can drop you off to get your car afterward.”

“Okay,” I said. “If your sister doesn’t, you know, kill us first.”

Bette gave me a look. We got in the car. “She’s not going to kill us.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“If she’ll kill anyone, she’ll kill me.”

“Oh, that’s great,” I muttered, sipping my coffee. “Then I’ll need to call a cab.”

Bette laughed. The ride to Kit’s took about twenty minutes, what with traffic being so ***** and I told Bette a couple stories about my mom, which seemed to amuse her enough.

“I used to watch Empire Falls when I was a kid,” she told me and then shot me a deathly look when I snickered. “I was a kid; I didn’t know what good television was. Anyway, Blair was my favorite character.”

“She was everyone’s,” I told her. It’s the truth. Fifty-billion people, I swear, have told me. And they always follow it up with-

“She was such a *****,” Bette said. “I loved her.”

Yep. Fifty-billion people can’t be wrong.

“Has she done anything since then?” Bette wanted to know, which is so the question my mom hates most in the world. Like, I think she’s done something close to twenty movies and a dozen television guest appearances since then, but all people ever do is recognize her as Blair from Empire Falls. And then they (secretly, in their heads) call her a has-been. She is such a prime candidate for like, a Where Are They Now? special.

“Yeah, here and there.”

“Oh. I don’t really see a lot of movies.”