Page 20 of The Summer We Kept Secrets (The Destin Diaries #4)
Summer House – Living Room
Rainy and loud, like God is mad about something
It’s official: the men have left the premises—estrogen is taking over.
Dad’s in Atlanta for architecture business meetings (read: avoiding Florida in July), and Uncle Artie took Peter and Eli for a “men only” (puh-lease) fishing trip with his friend Seamus.
Which meant last night was just the girls. And what did the moms decide to do with this sacred, testosterone-free window of opportunity?
They threw a Tri-Delt Melt, the official name of their sorority party night.
And, honestly, I might be ready to pledge. It was SO MUCH FUN.
So, it was me, Tessa, Kate, and Crista sitting on beach towels in the living room while Aunt Jo Ellen and Mom acted like they were college girls again.
That was until Mom discovered her first gray hair!
She freaked out and Aunt Jo Ellen plucked it right out of her head with her bare hands and announced “it shall be banned herewith!” and singed that sucker on the stove!
They broke into “Delta Tunes” which is apparently the destruction of songs from their era. My favorite was “These Boots are Made for Rushing” because I’ve heard the real (ridiculous) song. I know new words now:
You keep sayin’ you don’t want to pledge now
But baby that’s not how it’s done
One of these days these Delts are gonna rush all over you…
Something like that. Runner up: “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Tri-Delt Co-ed.” Mom sang every note like a hyena.
Anyway, then we had pizza and Coke (pretty sure that’s not what Mom and Aunt JE were drinking) and it was time for Tri-Delt Awards Night!
With great fanfare, Tessa was voted “Most Likely to Be a Pageant Queen” and Kate was “Most Likely to Stage a Coup.” They named Crista “Most Likely to Win an Oscar” and I was—I love this—“Most Likely to Bring About World Peace”!
It went a little downhill then, with a Delta Dare Game, Secret Sister Nicknames (when we learned that Jo Ellen was “Boom Boom” for reasons NO ONE will tell us, and Mom was Macrame Mags because—get this—she ran a bootleg plant hanger business from her college dorm room). Who knew?
Anyway, we ended the night with Tessa’s boombox out and somehow she found a song called “I’m a Believer” that brought the moms to their feet screaming about “Micky” and “Davy” and how Michael was the sleeper of this jungle of monkeys.
After that, they let us stay up late, play our own music (minus Jo Ellen’s “no Nirvana after 9 p.m.” rule), and turned the entire living room into spa night.
There was a lineup of Wet n Wild nail polish on the coffee table (the color names were borderline criminal so I went with Electric Grape #47), and we all did each other’s nails.
Mom and Jo told us secrets about all their sorority sisters, including the fact that someone named Ruth Ann Bingham dropped out of school and ran off with a guy on a motorcycle but ended up married to a multi-millionaire who invented the snap-top ketchup lid!
I’ll never look at a bottle of Heinz 57 the same!
Best part: when Mom laughs. The kind that starts in her stomach and tumbles out when she forgets to be “a proper Southern lady.” She’s usually so tightly wound that if you pulled her ponytail, she’d snap.
But tonight, it was like she became someone else for a few hours—someone who remembered how to have fun and didn’t care what anyone thought when she danced and sang.
And Jo Ellen? She’s so much fun! She just kind of brings out the best in Mom.
She even let us paint her toenails Bubblegum Blitz and didn’t flinch when Kate smeared some on the carpet.
She said it gives the house character and without that, a house isn’t a home!
So cool but of course Mom went into full clean mode, whipping out the polish remover and scissors to snip out the pink threads.
You can put Maggie in a party, but you can’t stop her from cleaning.
By the end of the night, all four of us girls crashed in sleeping bags in the living room. The moms went out on the porch to “watch the rain,” which is code for whispering secrets that can’t be shared with teenagers.
I like this version of the moms. It makes me wish I’d known my mother when she was young and made macramé.
I wish I could bottle nights like this. I’d call that color Delta Love and add glitter because tonight, everyone sparkled.
~Viv (Secret Tri-Delt sister nickname is Snickerdoodle. Don’t ask.)