CHAPTER 16: THE ALMOST DATE
"Mom, Eddie wants to take me to
the circus. It's in town at Bradley Field this week. Can we go?"
"Eddie who?"
"Eddie Gomez, the boy who
walked me home when those guys in the convertible were bothering me."
"Sounds like a date. I doubt
your father will agree to it. You're awfully young to be dating."
"But there'll be lots of other
kids there our age. It's not exactly a date. Nothing bad will happen. If Dad
agrees, is it okay?"
"I'll have to think about
it."
When Tess asked her father, he said
he'd have to talk it over with her mother. After the kids went to bed, Mr. and
Mrs. W. discussed it. Tess was changing from a tomboy to a young woman, in mind
and body. An interest in boys was natural, as long as things didn't go
"too far"—words that worried any parent of a young girl.
"I hate to say 'no,' and I hate
to say 'yes,'" Mr. W. stated.
"We have to decide."
"We need some rules, maybe a
curfew. It's been so long since we were her age. I can hardly remember what it
was like."
Mrs. Williams suggested they invite
Eddie to join them at the circus, making it a family affair rather than a date.
When they told Tess, she was briefly
disappointed, but then cheered up, seeing she'd gotten some of what she wanted.
When she told Eddie, he thought it was fine. They went and had a good time.
That night, Tess wrote in her diary:
"It had been fun." Not exactly romantic, but pleasant—an "almost
date."
Moral: Love starts with friendship.
