Beautiful Wild by Anna Godbersen

Author:Anna Godbersen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published: 2020-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

A celebratory mood arrived like a gust of good island weather and, in the heat of the next afternoon, Vida, along with a small band of ladies, set off for the wooded pool to bathe in anticipation of her date with Fitz.

The promise of romance enlivened the rest of the survivors of the Princess, too, during this, the second week of their residence on a desolate rock in a vast ocean, and the work they had become accustomed to was forgotten in the name of new tasks. The children shrieked and jabbered, the women shushed them and glanced at each other with excited eyes. Dame Edna, too, was alert to the general buzz of anticipation. Vida knew that the gossip columnist’s attention to all the minor proceedings signified the true importance of what was now transpiring.

Inside, Vida was all aflutter.

But, she resolved, she must be formidable.

She must not come across too girlish or silly or swoony.

And she must look her best.

Thus she waded into the pool with Eleanor and Miss Flynn, Camilla and the Misses Van Huysen. They pressed cold water to their faces and washed their clothing and let it dry on the rocks. In San Francisco—in any city in the country of her birth—servants would have on such occasions brought her and her female companions painted trays of refreshments, would have perfumed the rooms, would have laid out their jewelry on velvet. Here she gathered with the other young women under the protection of trees, took in the perfume of bark and pollen, and drank from the spray of the little waterfall with cupped hands.

Everyone wanted to hear a happy story, and Vida very much wanted to tell them one.

Perhaps this was the reason that she lost her usual firm hold on her emotions and nearly burst into tears when she felt how Eleanor struggled with her hair.

Vida had braided it in those first hours on the island, and had occasionally retightened the plait, but had not dared to take it all apart for fear of what knots had formed and become permanent. Fitzhugh was “picking her up” at six, however. The whole group of ladies was effervescent with expectation. She wanted to look her best, but some things could not be helped.

“Oh, say something.”

“Shhhh,” Eleanor admonished. “Don’t speak now.”

“It’s awful, isn’t it?”

“It’s not . . . not awful.”

Vida glanced toward her lap and saw how her hands whitened into fists, and she felt all achy in her throat. The ache of a little girl in whom sobbing is imminent. But no: she couldn’t disappoint the others by losing control. She flinched back tears. She breathed in the humid air. “I’ll have to cut it, won’t I?”

“Oh no,” said Miss Flynn, rousing herself from the rock. “No, you can’t do that.”

“But the tangles are too bad, aren’t they?”

Camilla came and rested a hand on Vida’s shoulder. “We’ll pull it back and wrap it in a sort of bunlike thing. It’s only hair. It’s your eyes he’ll be looking at.

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