8. Tiffin Talks Day in the Life #3
There’s no reason the ’Bred Bulletin can’t have a Page Six , Ravenna thinks.
Maybe they’ll call it Page 114 for the number of years Tiffin has been in existence.
Corny? Ravenna loves the idea of publishing a gossip page.
It will have to be scandalous, even salacious, for people to read it.
There might be some blowback on her as editor in chief— but, Ravenna thinks with a sigh, that’s the life of a journalist.
She pulls out the chair next to her and invites Charley to sit. “Welcome to the Bulletin, ” she says.
Dinner at Tiffin starts at six, but attendance isn’t mandatory.
(Rumor has it other schools hold something called Seated Dinner once a week with the faculty.
Oh hell no, we think.) In years past, we would DoorDash from either Antonio’s or Moon Palace—but since Chef arrived, we not only go to meals, we get there early.
There’s always a line, and not just on Burger Night and Pizza Friday.
A typical midweek dinner might be braised short ribs over cheddar mashed potatoes or caprese paninis made with the last of the heirloom tomatoes that Chef planted out behind the Paddock.
The Paddock is (practically) egalitarian—we can sit anywhere regardless of class, except for the sixth-form table, which is closest to the food.
(Though the sixth-formers are so weird and annoying this year that no one wants to sit with them anyway.) There’s one other table of distinction: the Booth.
It has leather banquette seats and is tucked into one of the salvaged horse stalls from the original Tiffin farm.
Tonight it’s where Taylor Wilson sits with her boyfriend, Hakeem.
When Taylor leaves the Booth to toast some of Chef’s homemade focaccia, which she’ll spread with peanut butter and hot pepper jelly (she’s trying to become a vegetarian, which is challenging because she doesn’t like vegetables except for celery, and she also loves red meat), Hakeem notices that she’s left her phone on the table, unlocked and unguarded.
This is highly unusual: Taylor treats her phone like it contains state secrets.
The other unusual circumstance is that Dub isn’t with them; he stayed late after practice to talk to Coach Bosworth about the upcoming game against Northmeadow.
Hakeem peers around the walls of the Booth.
All the other kids are eating, talking, laughing, and Taylor is on the other side of the room, dropping focaccia into the toaster.
He edges Taylor’s phone closer and peers at the screen.
It’s open to Snapchat, and Hakeem can’t help himself. He checks her best friends list.
What the hell? he thinks. He snatches up her phone and scoots to the inside of the Booth so that he’s out of her line of vision.
He stares at the screen, willing it to make sense.
He and Taylor snap all the time, probably 114 times a day.
But… Dub is her number one? Hakeem obviously knows they snap, he expects them to, they’re friends, but for Dub to be her number one means they’re snapping nonstop.
What makes this even more fucked up is that Taylor and Dub have three out of five classes together.
They’re together all damn day; why do they need to be sending each other snaps?
Maybe they’re bored in class, Hakeem can see that, but even so, this is not okay.
Taylor approaches with a plate in each hand. She sets one plate down in front of Hakeem and one in front of her place. She seems to have ditched her peanut butter toast in favor of lasagna, Caesar salad, and garlic bread.
“I got the veggie lasagna, but yours is meat, and I want to taste it.”
It’s sweet that she brought him dinner, and she knows he doesn’t like it when his food is touching so she left respectful alleys between his lasagna, salad, and bread. The lasagna is melty and fragrant, and Hakeem loves Chef’s frosted garlic bread.
But instead of digging in, Hakeem scoots out of the Booth.
“Where are you going?” Taylor asks. “There’s no more bread; I got the last of it.”
Hakeem shakes his head at her.
“Okay, fine, I won’t have a bite of yours,” Taylor says.
Hakeem is always busting her for being a “fake” vegetarian.
She knows he’s right. She’s not boycotting meat for moral reasons—well, maybe she is, a little bit—it’s mostly because she wants to eat healthier.
Although who is she kidding, she eats so much focaccia that after only three weeks back at school, her jeans are tight.
“I’m going to the gym,” Hakeem says.
“What?” Taylor says. “Why? Did Coach text you?” She’s happy that Hakeem and Dub won some games, but she isn’t going to like it if they get all football-is-life on her.
Hakeem stares at her. He wants to ask about Snapchat, but who is he kidding?
She isn’t going to tell him the truth. Besides, he doesn’t feel like making a scene here in the Paddock with the whole school watching.
He’ll go to the gym and bench-press his anger away.
But he can’t risk running into Dub because what he wants to do right now is wrench Dub’s throwing arm behind his back until it snaps off.
Hakeem exhales. This kind of anger is foreign to him.
“Actually, I’m going to my room. Good night.”
“Good night ?” Taylor says. “It’s a quarter after six! Are we not going to the Sink? Are we not studying together?” With the new school year, Taylor, Hakeem, and Dub have vowed to be more studious—fifth-form grades are the most important for college.
“Study with Dub,” Hakeem says. He slings his backpack over his shoulder and leaves the Paddock.
Taylor is tempted to go after him. What is wrong ? Then she sees her phone on the table. Did Hakeem…? She taps the dark screen and her Snapchat appears.
Shit, she thinks. She’s busted. Hakeem has every right to be angry. After all, if she found out that Hakeem’s number one was some little freshman hottie, she would never, ever forgive him.
But this is Dub. Dub is their friend, their friend who is grieving. Surely Hakeem can understand?
The problem, Taylor thinks, is that Hakeem most likely does understand.
Ugh. Taylor watches the doors of the Paddock close behind Hakeem. She sighs and takes a bite of her lasagna, then takes a bite of Hakeem’s lasagna. It’s so good that Taylor groans. She’ll go to Hakeem’s room during Intervis and work things out—but she isn’t skipping dinner for him.
As usual, Davi Banerjee is surrounded by her peeps at dinner.
The seat across from her is occupied by Olivia H-T.
It’s just weeks into the school year and Davi is already growing weary of Olivia H-T.
She’s just so… obsequious (“obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree”).
Olivia H-T is also sort of a… cipher (“a person who does the bidding of others and seems to have no will of her own”).
She isn’t particularly bright or talented; she doesn’t seem to have any interests other than Davi; she’s obsessed with Davi’s TikTok and Instagram; she has memorized every scrap of content, which is pathetic.
Was she like this last year? Davi doesn’t remember Olivia H-T last year…
except for the glorious sunny afternoon of Tiffinpalooza.
The lead singer of the first band to take the outdoor stage was so hot that Davi wanted to be introduced—and it turned out he was Olivia H-T’s cousin.
That was how Olivia H-T had infiltrated Davi’s circle—though Davi forgot all about her over the summer.
Then, when Davi returned to Tiffin, she was so…
bereft (“sad and lonely, especially through someone’s death or departure”) because of Cinnamon that she wanted as many people around her as possible—and this somehow included Olivia H-T.
The weirdest thing is that this past Sunday, Olivia H-T Ubered all the way into Springfield, saying she was bringing back a “big surprise” for Davi.
Davi had hoped she’d have her cousin in tow—but instead, Olivia H-T came back with all her long, mousy brown hair chopped off. She’d gotten a bob just like Davi’s.
Now, Olivia H-T studies Davi’s plate, which is loaded up with lasagna—Davi patiently waited for Chef to unveil the third variety, a white truffled lasagna. (He’d given her the inside scoop about it earlier in the day.)
“I just don’t get how you can eat all that and stay so thin,” Olivia H-T says.
Across the table, Tilly Benbow snorts. According to Tilly, the most pathetic thing about Olivia H-T isn’t that she copied Davi’s hairstyle but how fixated she is on what Davi eats.
Olivia H-T herself eats only salad, usually the baby lettuces, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers (which, Olivia H-T frequently mentions, burn more calories while being digested than they contain) dressed with balsamic vinegar.
For breakfast, she drinks herbal tea. To the casual observer, it would appear Olivia H-T consumes almost no calories over the course of a day.
And yet, Olivia H-T is… zaftig (“having a full, rounded figure”).
Davi has heard that only a few years ago, sixth-form girls would have hazed someone like Olivia H-T, using a black Sharpie to circle the areas on her body where she needed to lose weight.
Davi suspects that poor Olivia H-T has heard the stories, which led to her ascetic (“characterized by severe self-discipline and abstention from indulgence”) diet.
She probably stashes bags of chips and tubs of cake icing in her room and stuffs her face after lights-out.
This actually endears Olivia H-T to Davi. After all, everyone has secrets.