Tess’s house

From Candypedia
Tess's house
First appearanceLeft Behind, page 1
October 20, 2006
Related charactersTess, Mike, Lucy, Paulo, Daisy, Abbey, Sue, Amaya, Stacy, Katie, Rachel, Jessica, Jasmine

Tess’s house is a mansion in Roseville where Tess lives, within walking distance of Mike and Lucy’s neighborhood.[1][2] It is the friend group’s usual venue for holiday parties, and the site of a fair number of their more private conversations besides.

Description

The house sits in the mid-180s of a street reached by “a left on Luther Road”, according to the directions Mike reads off on his first party visit.[1] The front is grand and symmetrical, with massive pillars flanking the door, decorative scrollwork above the entrance, and a chandelier visible through one of the large front windows.[3] When the comic shows it at night, the tall pale columns stand out against distant city lights, and in winter it tends to be snowed in with the windows glowing warmly.[4][5]

Inside, a columned foyer opens onto a party room big enough to swallow a whole crowd. The room has tall multi-pane windows, arched doorways, and a refreshment table with a punch bowl and a round wall clock beside it, plus a karaoke setup on Christmas Eve.[6][7] Mike and Lucy reconcile on the balcony during the Christmas Eve party, while Paulo and Jasmine break up in a quiet hallway during a later New Year’s Eve party.[8][9] The decorations change with every party — a huge Christmas tree by the entrance one year, holly garlands the next, and red drapes with falling confetti for New Year’s.[3][5][10]

Away from the party rooms, the comic has shown a cozy sitting spot with a bean bag chair[11] and Tess’s bedroom, which holds her desk and her bed.[12][13]

Tess is the only person ever seen living there. Her parents get mentioned as the ones paying for things, but they never appear at the house. An unnamed pet of hers naps on her desk, and no staff turn up anywhere despite the size of the place.[12]

History

Tess pens her big invitation at her desk, PSAT stacks piled beside her and her pet curled up snoozing on the tabletop.[14]

The house’s first appearance is a quiet one. In Left Behind, Tess brings a freezing Mike home for homemade cocoa, and he tells her the whole story of Lucy’s childhood from the comfort of a bean bag chair.[11] On his way out, Tess gives him the orange-and-yellow striped scarf he goes on to wear for years, telling him “Keep it. It’s cold out, you need it more than I do!”[2]

The mansion itself gets its reveal in Feline Festivities, when Mike, Lucy and the pets arrive for Tess’s Christmas Eve party and see the outside for the first time. Lucy speaks for everyone: “Y-you live here?”[3] Paulo spends the party working the mistletoe without success,[15] while Mike spends most of the night by the punch bowl hoping Sandy will somehow turn up.[6] Out on the balcony, Mike and Lucy patch things up over Chirpy,[8] and later in the evening Lucy sings a Spanish lullaby to her pets from the ledge.[16] Mike’s lonely wait by the punch bowl comes back around years later in Just Beautiful, as a flashback among his missed chances to see Sandy.[17]

Between parties, the house belongs to Tess alone. In Invitation, she sits at her bedroom desk beside a stack of PSAT papers and writes the letter inviting the whole group to the Silvershore Islands, a trip her parents are covering in full.[12]

Tess throws another Christmas party at the house in At Loose Ends. Paulo and Jasmine ambush Abbey with snowballs on the street outside,[5] and inside, Mike’s announcement that he will be seeing Sandy at her fashion show lands badly with Daisy.[7] Abbey confides in Daisy about the gifts his sister Molly makes for their absent mother, while Tess gets steadily drunker as the night wears on.[18] Then Janet arrives mid-party to tell Abbey she has “found out” about his mother, and he leaves with her without explaining anything to his confused friends.[19]

Just days later, the same rooms host a New Year’s Eve party in Ten Seconds to Midnight. Mike wonders aloud whether a party just days after the last one is a bit much, and Tess assures him her guests simply can’t get enough of her.[20] By the big window, she coaxes Paulo into admitting he loves someone other than Jasmine, reminding him of the night the two of them went to prom together.[21] Jasmine has been thinking along the same lines. She and Paulo break up in the quiet hallway, laughing together about it, and once he walks away she cries alone against the wall.[9] After the midnight countdown and a goodbye kiss, Paulo closes out the night staring at the snow through the window: “Maybe another day.”[22]

The comic’s last visit comes in Scenic Route, where Tess lies in her bedroom holding a university acceptance letter and looking anything but happy about it.[13] Once she graduates, the house drops out of the comic along with her.

Trivia

Grand pillars flank the entrance to Tess’s mansion, with an ornate arch overhead.[23]
  • The house was designed for Veronica by Lily, the fan who created Tess (not the hedgehog), who drew up a plan for it in Microsoft Paint. By Veronica’s own admission, she’s no good at designing buildings.[3]
  • Readers saw the inside of the house fourteen chapters before the outside. Mike’s cocoa visit in Left Behind never steps beyond the sitting room, which keeps the mansion a surprise for the cast and the audience alike in Feline Festivities.[11][3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 4
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 26: Left Behind, page 6
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 5
  4. ↑ Chapter 73: Ten Seconds to Midnight, page 7
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 14
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 7
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 15
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 13
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 73: Ten Seconds to Midnight, page 21
  10. ↑ Chapter 73: Ten Seconds to Midnight, page 19
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Chapter 26: Left Behind, page 1
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Chapter 41: Invitation, page 1
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 84: Scenic Route, page 24
  14. ↑ Chapter 41: Invitation, page 1
  15. ↑ Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 6
  16. ↑ Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 15
  17. ↑ Chapter 71: Just Beautiful, page 10
  18. ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 19
  19. ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 21
  20. ↑ Chapter 73: Ten Seconds to Midnight, page 6
  21. ↑ Chapter 73: Ten Seconds to Midnight, page 11
  22. ↑ Chapter 73: Ten Seconds to Midnight, page 29
  23. ↑ Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 5
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