Authors: Kate Le Vann
Tessa in Love
Tessa
in
Love
Kate le Vann was born in Doncaster and lives in York. She has written for
CosmoGirl!, Vogue, Company
and
The Big Issue,
and is the author of four highly acclaimed novels for teenagers,
Tessa in Love, Things I Know About Love, Two Friends, One Summer
and
Rain.
Praise for Kate le Vann
“One of the finest evocations of young love that I have ever read - subtle, delicate and utterly moving.” Jan Mark,
Books for Keeps,
on
Tessa in Love
“Written in a modern, easily-accessible style, this novel has literary qualities that are so often missing from the ‘chick-lit’ genre. Compelling and compassionate . . . The endearing and completely credible relationship with her brother is delightful and the moving and gentle awareness of a real relationship developing gives an added layer to the sensitivity of the whole novel.”
Carousel,
on
Things I Know About Love
“Told with a good deal of light humour and a credible voice,
Two Friends, One Summer
charts Sam’s journey to a realization that instant gratification is not all, and that some things are worth waiting for.”
Books for Keeps,
on
Two Friends, One Summer
“Entertaining and accessible . . . heartwarming . . . sensitive, perceptive prose.”
The Telegraph
on
Rain
Many thanks to Brenda Gardner, Yasemin Uçar and everyone
at Piccadilly, and to Miranda Eason, Celia Duncan and
everyone at
CosmoGIRL!
This edition published 2009
First published in Great Britain in 2005
by Piccadilly Press Ltd,
5 Castle Road, London NW1 8PR
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
Text copyright © Kate le Vann, 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the copyright owner.
The right of Kate le Vann to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted
by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978 1 84812 000 6
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD
Text design by Louise Millar
Cover design by Susan Hellard and Fielding Design
Set in StempelGaramond and Carumba
CONTENTS
‘L
ove is the last thing we need right now, Tessa,’ Matty said.
As the credits rolled, we were both in a drippy, hopeless kind of state, having laughed at the cheesiness of the movie for as long as we could, and then fallen for it anyway. As usual.
‘But why?’ I said loudly, sounding a bit like I was going to burst into song. ‘I want it. And you’re in love anyway. Lee is perfect for you and he’s not going to die in a sword fight.’
‘No, but...’
‘He’s seriously cute.’
‘Well, yeah, but. . .’
‘We spend half our time watching soppy old films and wishing our lives were like theirs and yours
is
. Without the tragedy.’
‘Augghh!’ Matty said, rolling over as if I was too much for her to take. We’d moved on to the carpet during the hero’s death scene: the sofa was too far away from the action.
‘Sorry,’ I said, and shoved a handful of Maltesers in my mouth so I wouldn’t be tempted to interrupt for a while.
‘This year,’ she said, ‘Lee finishes his A-levels and we finish our GCSEs, which means serious work for both of us at the time it’s most important to spend time together, and at the end of the year he’ll go to university, and then two years after that maybe I will, and we have to make decisions about whether we’ll have a long distance relationship or ... you know, something else.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘Oh?’ she said, pretending to be annoyed. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’
I was still sucking chewed-up Maltesers out of my teeth, to be honest, but I liked the way my hesitation sounded thoughtful and serious. ‘Well... it is going to be difficult,’ I said. I couldn’t work out whether she was properly sad or just post-movie sad, but I wanted to cheer her up either way. ‘But you’ll make it work. You’ll find ways of being together, and he’ll have long holidays. I know you’ll be OK. And speaking as someone who’s never had any problems with romance apart from
not
having any bloody romance, I’d swap with you in a second. I’m the one who just spent Valentine’s Day last week playing computer games with my little brother, whereas – if I remember correctly – you were out with Lee being given pink roses and a crystal bracelet.’
Matty smiled dreamily and idly played with the bracelet. ‘Loads of boys fancy you,’ she said. ‘You’re just too choosy.’
Matty is so sweet – although if I looked like her I’d probably be nice to everyone and go around loving the world too. She is insanely good-looking, with this glossy reddish-mahogany bob (the colour is, admittedly, helped out a bit by L’Oréal), perfect porcelain skin and Angelina Jolie lips. And a real chest with a real C-cup, while I struggle to fill an A. My dirty-blond hair just seems to go mousy and frazzled when I try to colour it, and my skin is
im
perfect deathbed-white, and at no point in my life has there been a time when loads of boys fancied me.
But Matty always talked as if we were both pretty. When we went to parties, she’d say things like, ‘I think we might just knock them dead tonight; I think jaws will drop when we walk in,’ although what tended to happen with me was, I only made people’s jaws drop when they yawned with boredom.
‘I’m not choosy,’ I said. ‘I’m easy.’
‘Ha ha ha ha ha!’ Matty said. Then she gave me a look, that meant something like, ‘I have made an excellent point and won the argument.’
‘How many people have asked me out?’ I sighed.
‘Well,’ Matty said, ‘you scare them off. They think you’re beautiful and unattainable ...’
‘Oh God, Matt, come
off it. . .’
‘Tessa, you do give boys a hard time!’
I
sometimes
gave boys a hard time because I knew they didn’t fancy me, and by arguing with them, it was as if I was keeping a bit of self-respect. So, they might not have thought I was good-looking or sexy or fun, but I could put them straight on global warming or tell them how their super-cool trainers exploited workers in Vietnam, and kid myself that I was being clever, at least.
Well, maybe I’m being unfair to myself. What
actually
happened was, I panicked a lot. I did really try to care about what was happening in the world, and I did get frustrated that most of the people I knew never seemed to look beyond the latest designer labels and photos of celebrities with cellulite. But if I was talking to a boy I fancied and he was teasing me for not knowing about some hip band, I tried to remember how Matty would do it, the way she made arguing seem adorable and flirty, but I always ended up sounding over-serious (even though I wasn’t), as if my sense of humour had been surgically removed at birth. I think boys never realised I might be joking – Matty said they sometimes told her I was quite intense. But I wasn’t intense! I just. . . couldn’t think of
anything
to say that wasn’t really boring, so I often clammed up.
‘Well, all I know is, being gorgeous never put anyone off,’ I said.
‘But who do you want?’ Matty said. ‘You haven’t mentioned anyone since John Cheeseman.’
I squealed. ‘Don’t!’
‘But you
loved
John Cheeseman!’ Matty said, wickedly.
‘I was in a very different “place” .. .’
‘Ooh, John Cheeseman is sooo sexy,’ Matty said, getting into her impression of me. ‘What can I do to get John Cheeseman?’
One year before, a new boy came to our school called John Cheeseman. He was a blond and I liked blond boys, he wore glasses and I liked boys with glasses, and he seemed shy and quiet. I talked to Matty about him and she sort of got us together at a party with a bit of not very subtle hinting, and he turned out to be a) obsessed with playing Dungeons and Dragons, b) convinced he would be the youngest ever Conservative prime minister, and c) – this is the one that really mattered – the kind of boy who licks not just your tonsils when he snogs you but most of your face, up to and including your nose and down to your neck. John Cheeseman had also – the final insult! – not wanted to ‘see’ me after our incredibly wet snog, and spent the next week hiding behind corners when he spotted me. In a moment of incredibly out of character sassiness, and because he was one of the few people at school who was definitely less cool than me, I finally followed him round a corner and said – loudly -’Stop running, John Cheeseman, no one is coming to get you.’ For a week this was kind of a school catchphrase, which was half funny and half drop-dead embarrassing.
John Cheeseman was also the last boy I had snogged. And sort of the first. I half-heartedly fancied the same people I’d half-heartedly fancied for years, but nothing was ever going to happen with them, and I wasn’t sure I really wanted it to. I wanted someone else. Someone different.
‘It’s too late with all the boys we know,’ I said. ‘They know me now. I can’t pretend I’m sexy and fun.’
‘It’s not pretending!’ Matty said, ‘You are!’
‘Not to
boys!
’ I protested. ‘I’m weird and serious. I need someone a bit geeky like me. Someone who reads newspapers rather than
FHM.’
‘Oh lord,’ Matty said wearily. ‘No boy our age gives a toss about newspapers.’
‘Well, they should.’
‘No, I tell a lie, John
Cheeseman
was
very
political...’