August 2nd 1990
August 2, 1990
Tessa Wylie is the most magical person I have ever known!!! I don’t care if that sounds dramatic, it’s TRUE. Tonight, she danced at sunset on the beach like she was the coolest person alive. And for the first time in my entire life, I was part of it. For like two whole minutes before my mother RUINED EVERYTHING.
We were all down on the sand after the ’rents took us to a nice dinner at AJ’s. Eli brought his BoomBox and of course the absolute best song in the world starts playing—“Vogue.” And Tessa was wearing this adorable pink skirt with a white tank top—so cute—and she starts dancing on the sand like she’s Madonna herself.
Everybody was clapping and she grabs my hand and says, “Come on, let’s Vogue!” right with the song.
I wanted to say no. I DID. Because I know better. I know what my mother thinks about acting silly, about being too loud, too much. But the thing is… I didn’t want to stop. Tessa made it look so easy, so fun, like the happiest thing in the whole world. And for those two minutes, I felt like someone else—someone wild and free, someone who didn’t hear my mom’s voice in her head all the time, warning her to be careful, to be good, to be a perfect Southern lady.
But then it happened. Tessa, being Tessa, got a little too playful. She grabbed a handful of watermelon from the snacks on our blanket and smushed a piece onto my nose. It was funny! It was nothing! But before I could even wipe it away, I felt her presence clouding the happy mood.
And then I heard the dreaded three words:“Vivien Leigh Lawson!”
I FROZE.
Mom was standing right in front of me—how does she do that? How does she just appear when you least expect her? And, whoa, she was mad.
I dropped Tessa’s hands so fast it was like they burned me. My heart was THUMPING.
Mom looked right at my white dress, which had a big, sticky, pink stain on the eyelet lace top.
She didn’t care that everyone was there. She just spat the words at me. “That is a brand-new dress, Vivien. I just bought that for you. And you let her?—”
And then Tessa just jumped right between us and said, “She didn’t LET me! I did it!”
Oh my gosh, I thought I would faint right on the sand. WHO INTERRUPTS MAGGIE LAWSON?!
But Tessa keeps going because Mom, of course, was speechless. “It was a joke, Mrs. Lawson. It’s just a little watermelon. It’ll wash out.” She even rolled her eyes (ROLLED THEM AT MY MOTHER!!!). And then, I swear to God, she said, “It’s a dress, not the Declaration of Independence.”
I almost choked. My whole body turned to ice. I could feel every single person on that beach holding their breath. No one talks to my mother like that. NO ONE. Not even Dad.
And would Tessa back down in the face of my mother’s most terrifying look? (And, whoa, she has a few of those up her sleeve.)
Nope. Not Tessa. She tossed her hair and smiled like she wasn’t even a little afraid. “Vivien was having fun,” she said. “She looked happy. What’s so wrong with that?”
I have never seen my mom so mad. She just breathed in like a dragon about to let out fire and I knew she was holding back the granddaddy of all lectures. The kind that would keep me up crying into my pillow later. But she wouldn’t do it in front of everyone. Instead, she just told me to go inside and change.
My stomach dropped. I ran into the house and didn’t even dare to stop.
But I heard it. As I reached the door, Tessa’s voice, light and fearless as ever: “You should try dancing sometime, Mrs. Lawson. It’s fun.”
Tessa Wylie has a death wish.
And I kind of love her for it.
Someday, I’m going to pay her back for defending me.
Viv