Nothing But Bones

4: The Big Beaver

It's all going great (it's not) until she drops her laptop on her foot.

It's a Frankensteinian thing. She fixed it herself after she dropped it a year ago and cracked the plastic casing and the screen. While the screen is fine now, she made the exterior look broken and cobbled-together on purpose, like a cage on a broken bone. That, of course, means it's also heavy and a pain to drag out to campus. It's also a pain to drop on her foot, which is something she does unfortunately often.

Wincing, she picks it up, plugs it into the wall outlet, and looks over at Kepler, announcing her plan as she comes up with it. "Today has been long as hell."

He squeaks in agreement, as if he wasn't the cause of half of it.

"We're going to—" She takes a breath. "We're going to look for somewhere to get dinner, try to get information on the house and Boris Covington, and then we'll find the house and tackle everything in the morning."

He takes her spare shirt out of the bag and throws it at her.

She throws it back. "Come on. Be normal."

He throws the shirt at her again. The unfolded neon paint hits her square in the face.

"I'm being serious! Today has been long as hell!"

And it certainly has. After her morning shift at the bookstore, she forgot to eat lunch, cooked lunch for herself and Andy, cooked a second lunch for Jeb. Jr., since he can't have flour, then went out with Kepler, got arrested, and drove for three and a half goddamn hours to get here and immediately make a fool of herself.

Her blood goes cold. She forgot to tell Mr. Beck and Dr. Deseret what she was doing. They're going to be so mad at her. She'll have to take care of that before she goes to bed.

Tiff shakes her head, trying to get back on track. "Come on. Let's just go find somewhere to eat. Or a grocery store. Or something."

Beaverdell, while a Canadian town, has quite the small town America feel to it— a population of a hundred and fifty people, blink-and-you-miss-it streets, the kind of immutable feeling of being in the woods. It has one grocery store and one daughter, both in the same building.

Fuck yeah. She feels the shift in her luck and decides she'll buy bread later.

She opens the door into "The Big Beaver: Groceries and Eatery - Fresh bread baked daily." The diner counter is packed with some of the town's more elderly citizens. Unsurprisingly, everyone looks up from their various meals and gives Tiff a wary glance.

She knows how this thing is supposed to go: a stranger walks into a new town, starts asking weird questions, and gets something iconic to eat, like a slice of cherry pie or a quirky toast-and-eggs order. She supposes it isn't the time for toast and eggs with parmesan, though.

The only thing is setting it in motion. If only she knew what the hell she was supposed to do here in order to order something. Does she just go up to the counter? Is there someone there that she's supposed to talk to? Is it better just to ask?

She has no clue. It strikes her that she has never been to a diner on her own before. She just blinks for a moment.

A woman who looks almost identical to the clerk at the Beaverdell Hotel walks in front of Tiff and eyes her and Kepler up. Tiff tries not to squirm under the scrutiny.

The eyes persist. "Figured you'd come this way; Nancy phoned earlier and said she had a guest. One with a dog. Well, welcome to the Big Beaver. The only food in town. You hungry?"

Tiff blinks again. "Yes?"

Twins. That's the explanation she comes up with. Twins or doppelgangers. One is more interesting than the other, certainly, but she isn't sure how realistic it is.