Beach Day

22: Tiff Gets Engaged

Oh, fuck, she messed up. She knows it the same way she knows the animal scratching its way out of her ribcage: she messed all of this up badly enough that she isn't sure she could fix it. She knows how to switch the subject, at least— or she thinks she does.

In reality, her thoughts of covertly and sneakily asking about town history come out a jumbled mess of, "So, do we have any dead chicks around here?"

If he had a drink in his mouth, he might consider spitting out coffee and water all over her. Instead, what she gets is, "Well, there's our Tiff. Always asking odd things. Some things never change."

Because asking how evolution would fit into a Biblical framework is definitely comparable to asking about dead girls in the place where she's from. Tiff doesn't say anything.

"How come you're asking?"

She didn't have an excuse locked and loaded. She stammers, "I— I was just wondering. I don't know. I'm sure I heard about something when I was younger and just need my memory jogged. I hear about it all the time in Lake Wonder."

"You wouldn't have heard about it here. It's not something we would talk about, if it were an issue at all."

He gives her a concerned look— and something pangs in her chest like it did all those times it did when she was a kid and he was asking her about her reasoning on some action she took that he deemed improper. "Why are you asking?"

"I, uh— I was just wondering," she lies. "It's a bit of an issue in Lake Wonder. I was—"

She almost makes the mistake of mentioning how she was on the podcast Sweet Nothings to talk about just that, and about the drowning of Despina Worth (and not of her name twin, though Tiffany Summers certainly came up). That would be a horrible move. Her grandfather for sure wouldn't listen— speaking about demons without reverence invites their participation— but he would ask her to explain, which would be just as bad.

"I was looking into it. For school. And personal reasons. There was— My friend had a friend who drowned right before I, uh— right before I moved, and Tiffany Summers wasn't the only one to go missing or die, because there was Despina Worth, and there was the tunnel massacre, and there was— There was my friend Betty and I? I would say it's very Penelope Scott, but it's not just girls."

"What do you mean by implying your involvement?"

"I didn't imply anything. I said it outright."

"Don't get smart with me."

"I wasn't— I didn't mean—" It's better not to fight him on it. "Sorry. My friends and I got lost in the woods."

Another lie. She has to stick to the official story. She has to insist that she was the one who led Drake, Betty, and Arnold deep into the woods when the town was in the middle of a toxic waste dumping scandal. Another lie. Another lie.

"See? Worldly girls only get in your head and lead you astray." There's a tug at his pole. He lets it buck for a second before he reels it in.

"Betty's far from worldly. Eliza might be closer to what you're talking about, but she, uh... She doesn't talk to me. I yelled at her about happiness. It made things... weird."

"I don't particularly like the sound of these friends you have, Tiffany May."

She doesn't say anything.

He doesn't notice. "Some people aren't ready to hear the truth."

"I don't think that was it. I think she was just angry." And what about Tiff? Isn't she? It isn't as blinding as it was in November, but it's always there. She is exactly the kind of girl her grandfather is warning her to be wary of. "Betty's swell," she stammers, like swell is a word people use in the year of our Lord 2022. "I miss her."