Beach Day

30: Jiggity Jig

It's the same, then. It's different. She holds out the poorly-wrapped, bulbous gift to Andy. "Here, bud. For you."

He shakes his head. "You should take it to Meemaw and Peepaw's."

Tiff narrows her eyes. "How come?"

"I got in trouble at school a few weeks ago, so Mom decided we're not doing a tree or presents this year. And then she said I talked back, so no stockings or casserole either." He shrugs; he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Something in her heart breaks, though she should have known to expect that. "I'll take it to Meemaw's, then. I don't mind. I can stop by later, drop it off."

That's not true. She's going to forget. Drew is going to have to remind her, like he does with the laundry.

"I'm sorry," Drew interrupts, "but that's pretty messed up. And I'm sorry, Andy."

The kid shrugs, like he's used to it. "It's alright."

"It's kinda not."

Tiff nods in agreement, but doesn't say anything. She knows how it goes. She knows how this place is.

"Well," she decides, out loud, "if we're going in, then we should go in."

She tucks the present under one arm and takes off her boots by the door. There's no point in dragging all sorts of mud across the carpet. One of the shoelaces catches on her foot; she accidentally kicks it into the room. Like the fool she is, she deigns to carry it with her instead of leaving it by the door. She may look like an idiot, but she has always looked like an idiot in this house.

Drew looks around, changing the subject as expertly as he normally does. "So... Tiff, you grew up here?"

"Not really." She puts the present in her boot so she has one more free hand. "I only lived here for two years."

"I don't know why I thought you grew up in Orlando."

"I mean— I was born here, at Arnold Palmer, and I lived here— but I grew up in Fort Reverence. It's just easier to say Orlando because it's more recent and nobody has ever heard of Fort Reverence."

"I have," Drew points out.

"Your mom is from Fort Reverence! You're an exception to the already-spurious rule!" She giggles a little in the faux-outrage. "But, yes— I did live here. For a while. for the last two years of being in Florida. Yeah."

"Give us the tour, then!" Drew laughs. "Andy, give us the tour."

"Do you want to see my room?" Andy asks, eyes bright, voice on the verge of chuckling. "You too, Tiff?"

"Yeah, I'd love to." She doesn't say it in the way she does when Darren from next door tries to show her a cartwheel and then smacks his leg on the fence. She really does mean it. "I'm sure it's changed since I moved."

"Not a lot," Andy admits.

He leads the way past the couch to the small hallway where their rooms were— or are, in Andy's case. She knows the way, but she lets him take her hand like he's a little kid again, she's the dutiful older sister, and everything is okay.

She has missed so much, she realizes, as the door opens to a scene of early-teenage interest. His bookshelves are neat; his bed is made; there are portraits of Biblical figures on the walls alongside literary ones; and, across the top of the dresser, there is a string of cheap, pink string lights plugged into the wall. They're shaped like flamingos.

Her heart twists in her chest and falls into her stomach. They used to be hers. She got them for her birthday when she was eleven and added them to her room immediately, between neatly-arranged porcelain figurines and collected bits of rocks and wood. Like everything else that used to be hers, she left it behind.