The Truth

Somehow, the idea of Tiffany bouncing a granola nugget off her cheek makes me smile. “What else?”

“She’s got a memory like a fucking data stick,” Ricky says in admiration. “Like, she meets someone once, and bam, she knows everything. Remember Reice, the barista?”

“Oh, yeah,” Billy says. “A barista at this coffee shop she and Elle used to go to. Anyway, one time, we go in, and Tiff doesn’t just stick a buck in the tip jar. Oh, no, she pulls this envelope out of her purse and hands it directly to Reice. She’d put two hundred dollars in there because a month earlier, she’d overheard Reice saying something to another coworker about taking an extra shift so she could buy something nice for her little brother’s high school graduation. Tiffany had remembered, knew what school the kid went to, all of it, and just . . . damn.”

“Her heart’s about this damn big,” Ricky says, spreading his arms wide. “I mean, she knows Mac’s granddaughter’s name and pretty much everything about everyone on her team. But she’s also like the fuckin’ CIA around here. She can quote department deadlines for projects that she’s not even resourced on. She’ll just be like, ‘Yeah, the Jacobs team is going to be working late on that report tonight. Make sure they’ve got coffee,’ to her team. And ten to one odds, they will be.”

“Don’t forget her brother,” Billy says. “Ace. Guy was a fuckup, and she damn near saved his life a while back when he was in a bad way after a breakup. Her and Ace are tight. Tiffany fixed him, and he’s got a girl now. A business too.”

“Dog daycare,” I murmur, and Ricky nods.

“Yup. And if you’re on Team Tiff, you’re a hundred percent on,” Ricky says. “Not just her brother. Like Elle. She loves that girl like they’re blood. You remember when she threatened to chop Colton into little pieces and feed him to sharks so no one would ever be able to find him?”

Billy laughs. “I swear to God, the man pissed Earl Grey when she said it.”

They keep going, and with every word, I’m more intrigued, more enamored. Some of it’s repetitive, some of it I already know. But I don’t care, it’s all things I want to know and am filing away for future use, but I swallow my pride and ask what I really need to know.

“Who does she date?”

Billy and Ricky both stop, and Billy gives me a shake of his head. “No one that I’ve seen. She works, sees her family, talks to Elle, and goes home. Kinda boring, honestly. Reminds me of someone else I know.”

“Well, there’s that one guy she likes,” Ricky points out, “but she never talks about him. At least not to us.”

I hate him already because he has Tiffany’s interest. I wonder if I could take a cue from her rulebook and cut him to bits the way she threatened Colton, literally cutting out the competition?

“Who is he?”

Ricky leans back, crossing his arms over his massive chest and giving me a triumphant look. “You.”

“What?”

Billy sighs and leans forward. “Pull your head from your ass, Uncle Daniel. I know Ricky and I might not have went to some fancy school, but on this you’re dumb as fuck.”

“He ain’t lying.”

I blink, not accustomed to being called stupid, or being told to pull my head from my ass, for that matter. In fact, I can’t remember the last time someone said that to me. It might’ve never happened. “Really?”

“You’re the gold fuckin’ standard in her eyes and have been for about as long as I’ve known her,” Ricky says. “And that girl, she don’t settle. You rise to her occasion or she walks on by.”

They pause, letting that sink in through my apparently thicker than I’d realized skull. And people say Ricky and Billy are thick? They just made me look like I’m about half a step below a Neanderthal.

I eye them carefully, trying to decide whether they’re fucking with me, but all I see is honesty on their faces. Maybe a little exasperation that it’s taken me this long to be asking these questions, but there’s no deception there.

I mull over the fact that maybe this isn’t some recently developed crush resulting from my swooping in to save her, but rather something she’s been wanting for a long time.

Could it be?

Could I have been that oblivious?

Absolutely.

I’ve been so wrapped up in . . . roles, in images, in presuppositions. I mean, how long did it take for me to recognize that Tiffany, my daughter’s college friend, had grown into such an intelligent, beautiful, sexy woman?

I relegated her to a role in my mind long ago and never reconsidered her placement there, even after Elle moved away.

Actually, maybe Elle’s moving away and my lack of connection with Tiffany over the last year are what made me see her in a new light now, giving way to a possibility where there was none previously.