“It was more of a physical connection,” I said.
With a shake of his head, he said, “Jeff and I met on Reddit. I was looking for someone with land to grow a crop of Santa’s Choice in the Northeast. We talked, and I shipped him a bunch of saplings.”
I nodded like what he was saying was interesting.
“When I showed up in town a few months later to check things out, I found the saplings half dead.”
Now that sounded like the Jeff I was coming to know.
Someone opened the tavern door and I got an earful of some Kacey Musgraves Christmas song.
Tyrone didn’t even look up. “I was trying to get my own branch of the family business up and running, take things in a new direction, build on the work my grandparents had done, not to mention convince them that expanding was a good idea. And here goes Jeff—taking money and killing trees.”
“What?”
“The idiot—sorry to disparage your fiancé—thought I was setting him up with a weed-growing operation or something.” He shook his head. “Don’t ask me.”
“What the fuck?”
“Maybe you don’t know, buttreeis slang for weed. Between the dumb ad I wrote, the tree thing, and the fact that my profile photo was me, a Black man, Jeff’s brain went straight to ‘Imma be a drug kingpin.’ ” With a shrug Tyrone said, “In his defense, who expects a twentysomething Black guy to be looking for a farm lease operation in Vermont?”
I took another drag off my cigarette. “What was he going to do, plant marijuana between the Christmas trees?” Tiffany with a -yhad worse taste in men than I did.
“I should have known something was up when he kept calling them ‘Cripmas Trees,’ I thought he had a speech impediment.” I didn’t laugh with Tyrone on this one. It’s not like I could say the word.
“At least you just went into business with him,” I said. “Me, I was going to marry him. I was just a few years out of high school.” Tiffany with a -yhad really been rushing that one.
“Everyone loved Jeff,” he said. “You weren’t the only one. Dude was the life of every party.”
We took a moment of silence for Jeff whose idiocy seemed as obvious as Tyrone’s goodness. Why Tyrone was angsty about him still made no sense.
“I don’t want Jeff to come between—” I started to say, but Tyrone reached for my cigarette, cutting me off.
“I didn’t know you smoke,” I said, watching him take a puff.
“I don’t.” He coughed. “It’s a nasty habit. But you make it look so good.”
For a moment we sat in companionable silence, both of us fraying at the edges, too damaged for real commitment to trivia. We were alone together.
Alone together was better than alone. Maybe this could work.
He was about to resume his story when Jessica burst through the doors.
“There you are! Come on, I need a ride home,” she said to me.
At the sight of Tyrone with a cigarette, Jessica gasped. “Tiffany! Stop corrupting that angel.” She took the cigarette and ground it into the sidewalk with her boot.
I looked helplessly at Tyrone, who seemed amused.
He waved as Jessica dragged me down the sidewalk.
When she saw the Happily Ever After hearse on the street, she started laughing—like doubled-over laughing. “Tiffany, I always knew there was something a little off with you.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Absolutely perfect, but I saw you in the park vaping back in the day, and who could forget your balance beam tricks on the railing with the big drop behind the school? It’s like you were taunting death.” She shuddered at the thought. “I couldn’t even watch.” With a smile, she said, “You seem good now.”
You could have knocked me down with a feather.
