Chapter 4 Tiffany
Tiffany
Nearly getting run over by Freddy’s van wasn’t the first time that evening Tiffany Podemski regretted not turning the Jeep around and hightailing it back to her parents’ house.
No, the first time was when she’d seen Jason standing in front of the cabin, his normally open face shut down, like he was a totally different person.
In the months after their breakup, their paths had crossed only at their college’s football games.
From a distance, he’d seemed like his usual self.
The popular athlete everyone had crushed on in high school, who’d leveraged those skills to win a college football scholarship.
Naturally, Tiffany had enrolled in the same school and joined the cheer squad to keep an eye on him.
On the field, he was a good-natured team player who blushed and aw-shucked under praise. Since their split she’d ached with regret every time he scored a touchdown, because that wonderful guy had been hers. Her perfect match. She was a queen and he was a king.
So the contrast with sullen present-day Jason was a shock.
But it was a good reminder he actually had become a totally different person in the past year.
Since Christmas, Tiffany had sensed him withdrawing from what made him reliable, easygoing Jason Ackerman, shriveling away from that outer shell like an overcooked mussel.
Getting him to open up about what was bothering him had only triggered a white-hot rage she’d never witnessed in all their years of dating.
Except in his father. When she’d pointed that out, Jason had practically gone nuclear.
That was when she’d told him to take his toothbrush and spare boxers from her apartment and go back to his dorm room.
And when that cute TA had leaned in closer than he should have while discussing her last psych paper, she’d closed the distance.
Dating someone as smart and mature as Clive should make Jason come to his senses.
She needed to keep Jason well-trained, after all, if they were eventually going to get married.
The second time Tiffany regretted not turning around was when Carrie Zhao had climbed out of that hatchback.
She couldn’t believe Jen had reached out to the Virgin Carrie.
Jen’s impulsive streak was a hoot and a half, but this was mind-blowingly irresponsible.
It had been irresponsible—and disrespectful!
—for Jen to have encouraged Carrie to pose in that photo in the first place, the photo that had sent a wrecking ball through Cedar Lake High.
And to think Tiffany had actually liked Carrie once and thought she was a nice girl.
And now Tiffany was regretting this reunion weekend a third time, as Freddy gawked at them with bloodshot eyes. She liked a good drama, but she’d reached her limit, thank you very much. She didn’t need a freaking stoner making things worse with his paranoia.
“I saw the Slasher,” he gasped again.
Mikey spoke first. “Are they showing the reboot at the Rialto now?”
Freddy straightened, smoothing down his rumpled hoodie.
“I’m not talking about the movie, man! I mean the actual Slasher!
Just when I started down the side road—boom!
There he was, standing in front of me in his mask and plaid jacket!
He came out of nowhere! And then he disappeared just as quickly! ”
Each statement spilled out faster and more high-pitched than the last, as if someone had pressed a fast-forward button on his voice. Everyone’s faces melted from concerned to neutral, and in Mikey’s case, outright amusement.
“Seriously, Freddy?” Tiffany said. She wished Patrick hadn’t invited him.
She knew he wouldn’t have changed. Freddy had been fun to party with in high school, but they weren’t teenagers anymore.
His family was smart—his parents were accountants and his brother was at med school—and it drove her nuts that he refused to stop smoking pot and just apply himself.
Finish writing that screenplay he’d been talking about for as long as she’d known him.
But since he was the only one of them who still lived in Cedar Lake—if scrubbing toilets at the Rialto could be called living—it would’ve been rude to not include him.
Jen cackled. “That’s a lot of exclamation marks, Slick. What have you been smoking?”
“Wolf Creek,” Freddy mumbled.
Patrick let out a long-suffering sigh. Tiffany was glad to see she wasn’t the only one carrying regrets.
“Come on, buddy,” he said, throwing an arm around Freddy and guiding him to the veranda steps like a lost puppy.
“You’re safe with us. Let’s get you inside.
I brought those veggie chips you like so much. ”
“I am kinda hungry,” Freddy said.
Patrick patted him on the back as they went inside. “We’ll get you a snack and then you can help me fire up the barbecue.”
“I brought brownies,” Freddy said in a small voice.
“Of course you did,” Patrick said.
Jen eyed the darkening woods. “I guess I better go find Carrie while Patrick calms Freddy down.”
Tiffany made a face. “Ugh, just leave her out there.”
Mikey cleared his throat. “I’d come with you, but I gotta go take a shower. I’m sweaty after chopping all that firewood.”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it. You’re so butch now, Squeaks.” Jen turned on her phone’s flashlight and marched into the brush as Mikey’s face mottled red.
“Don’t pay any attention to Jen,” Jason said to Mikey, and Tiffany’s treacherous heart softened a little.
Jason had always been protective of his cousin, whose circumstances had been less fortunate than theirs.
Jason’s parents had raised them together like brothers since Mikey was eleven.
“We’re all impressed by how you’ve changed. ”
It was true. Little Mikey was no longer that wimpy geek who’d tagged along with them in high school.
Their third wheel, Tiffany used to half jokingly complain, until a stern glance from Jason had put an end to that.
But she’d been right that Mikey needed space to blossom without Jason hovering over him.
Three years in Boston on his own and look at him now, all grown up.
He could’ve interned at a flashy tech start-up for the summer, but instead he’d chosen to work in the Cedar Lake mayor’s office doing IT support.
To give back to the community, he’d told them.
“I’ll talk to her later. She can’t keep treating you like a kid,” Tiffany said.
Mikey nodded curtly and slipped into the cabin.
He was probably in a hurry to clean up for Carrie, still blind to the fact that she was a two-faced bitch.
Most people had seen only Carrie’s angelic side, and like Tiffany, had been shocked and betrayed to find out she was actually the devil.
Jen had given them all silly nicknames, but Care Bear was the only one the others had adopted, because on the surface Carrie was as noxiously sweet and simpering as the cartoon characters.
Only on the surface, however.
Jason turned off the van’s ignition and closed the driver’s-side door.
Tiffany jumped at the sound of it slamming shut, and realized she was alone with him.
He returned her haughty scrutiny with an unreadable gaze.
The tendons in his neck stood out, as if he were straining to hold something back.
It was a reminder that she didn’t know this version of him, even though they’d been more or less joined at the hip since they were sixteen.
Tense silence stretched between them like an elastic band. Tiffany held her breath, suddenly afraid it was going to snap.
“I’m going to help Patrick with the barbecue,” he said quietly and went inside.
Tiffany let out her breath and gulped a few more, waiting for her heart to stop pounding. She’d never been afraid of Jason. But she was a little afraid of the dead-eyed stranger he’d become.
Night had fallen, deep and velvety. A bird uttered a faraway cry. A twig cracked. Tiffany jumped, her heart leaping again. A female voice laughed in the distance, and Tiffany relaxed. It was only Jen, returning with Carrie. Nope, she didn’t want to stick around for that reunion.
Tiffany strode around to the back of the cabin and down to the lake.
A swim would calm her fizzing blood. Capping off the night at Cedar Lake after their Rialto performances had always been a great way to wind down.
Being onstage had been a rush, knowing all eyes were on her and her exposed lacy bra as she and Jason fake-groped each other in imitation of the ill-fated couple Derek and Cindy.
Slut! the audience had always yelled at her.
She hadn’t minded. Better a slut than Virgin, which they would shout at Carrie, or Bitch, for Jen’s bad girl Heather.
Tiffany smelled grilling hamburgers over the fresh scent of lake water.
Patrick was manning the barbecue on the back deck, which was a surprise.
She didn’t think he’d ever even touched a microwave when they were in high school, since his parents had employed a housekeeper.
He twirled a metal spatula, wearing a frilly orange floral-print apron.
God knows where he’d scrounged that up. It had probably come with the cabin.
Some cheesy eighties pop album crackled from inside, turned up as loud as the ancient speakers could handle.
Freddy was supervising the operation with a giant Costco-sized bag of chips under his arm.
Tiffany winced as he shoved the chips in his face with twitching hands, showering the front of his hoodie with crumbs.
Trust Freddy to jump at an imaginary bogeyman when the real threat to this weekend was Carrie.