Elizabeth #6: I Need You
Elizabeth #6: I Need You
Well, here it is. The final chapter (chronologically) of the Sweet Valley story, in all its mediocre glory. In the last book, Vanessa confronted the earl--after over 200 pages of thinking about confronting the earl--about his affair with her mother, Lavinia displayed serious self-esteem issues by actually blackmailing Max into marrying her, and Elizabeth polished more than just the silverware in Max's bed.
What an ugly cover. Is Elizabeth wearing a snakeskin shirt? When did Max get a perm? What's up with all the ass-groping? Who the hell thought this artwork was in any way attractive?
Christmas is approaching, and Elizabeth is outside Pennington Manor, watching a delivery truck make its way up the driveway while she drinks scalding coffee and daydreams about Max. "Leave it to me to protect my virginity and save it for that really special someone, then finally give it away to a guy who's getting married in a matter of weeks," thinks Liz. See, this is why she should have just done it with Todd. Would have been less anticlimactic and also would have saved us all kinds of will-she-won't-she angst throughout the SVU series.
Elizabeth tosses her "now cold" coffee on the ground as the truck pulls to a stop. The coffee went from scalding to cold while the truck was still coming up the driveway? How long is this damn driveway, anyway?
The delivery man interrupts Elizabeth's daydreaming, and when she speaks he says, "You're American! I guess that explains it well enough." I'm curious about what, exactly, that explains. I'm guessing he means that only those silly Americans daydream. British people are too busy, I don't know, eating crumpets or something to daydream.
As she walks back into the house, Max drives up and joins her in the doorway. Elizabeth is afraid that she'll "either burst into tears, punch Max on the arm, or knock him flat against the door with a passionate kiss." Punch him, Liz. What Would Todd Do?
While they stare awkwardly at each other, Vanessa stops waxing the floor nearby to ask them to close the door "if you can stand to tear yourself away from the mistletoe." I think a peck on the cheek is traditional, but there must be bucketloads of mistletoe up there, because Max and Liz practically dry hump each other in the doorway. This leads Vanessa, who is smarter than the average Sweet Valley book character, to suspect that something's going on between them.
When Max abruptly leaves and Elizabeth bursts into tears, Vanessa drags her to their room and insists on hearing the whole story. As soon as Liz tells her about sleeping with Max, Vanessa immediately begins telling Liz what she should do. Meddling, Vanessa? Really? Man, you used to be cool.
Meanwhile, Max is berating himself in his room. "He had taken Elizabeth's virginity in his own bedroom--Like the worst guy there ever was." So, would it have been better if he had taken her virginity in someone else's bedroom? And come on, Max. The worst? Lure Elizabeth down to your secret lair with a decomposing shrink and maybe we'll talk about "worst."
Max thinks that he wants to give Elizabeth an engagement ring and run off to Switzerland with her. Not Switzerland, dude. Trust me on this one. Instead, he decides to write her a letter to explain why it's better they remain apart. Dumping her in a letter? Okay, maybe Max is a close second behind William. Fortunately, Max realizes what a crappy idea this is...and comes up with an even crappier one. He's going to act really cold to Elizabeth so that she'll hate him. That way, she won't feel as hurt over him and can move on. Yeah, that plan can't possibly go wrong. Why has it not occurred to him to just discuss the whole blackmail thing with his father?
Vanessa is thinking back to her conversation with Max's father, who is only ever referred to as "the earl." Does anyone know if this guy has a first name? Because if he does, I must have missed it in this book and the last one. Anyway, seeing the photo of himself and her mother "devastated" him. The earl told her he wasn't her father, but needed time to resolve some things before he could explain. I already don't like the sound of this. I smell a barely-plausible, needlessly convoluted story here. Unless the earl is just stalling so he can bump her off and make it look like an accident.
Max goes to see Lavinia, thinking about how much he doesn't want to marry her and how much of a spineless worm he is for failing to actually look for a way out of it. Okay, I added the last part, but it's still true. They have some tedious back and forth where Max whines that he doesn't want to marry her and Lavinia responds with, basically, "La la la, I can't hear you." Honestly, Max just isn't trying very hard. Considering how image-conscious everyone in this book is, why doesn't he just publicly humiliate himself somehow so that Lavinia will refuse to marry him to avoid sharing the shame? I bet if Jessica and Lila were here, they could come up with an awesome scheme to get him out of this.
Elsewhere, Max's sister Sarah and her friend Victoria are discussing whether or not Bones McCall (the pop star Sarah spent all of the last book trying to get her hands on) might be gay. Because he hasn't made a move on Sarah. Sarah, have you considered that you might simply be totally repulsive to him? Because that would explain it, too.
While Elizabeth dusts, she mutters, "A term paper. A term paper. My kingdom for a term paper." She considers that she'd rather be back at SVU writing a twenty-page paper on King Lear. It wouldn't be much of a paper, considering she's mixing the play up with Richard III. Suddenly, Elizabeth realizes that seducing another woman's fiancé is exactly the same as Jessica kissing her boyfriend, Sam. Oh, Liz, it's not exactly the same. What you did was much worse.
That night, Sarah puts on her sexiest clothes and goes to Bones' house to watch movies. He's got "every manner of junk food: crisps, Cadbury bars, Hit biscuits." Is that really the extent of British junk food? Three things? If I ever go to England, I'm packing my own food.
Just before she leaves, Sarah pulls out some mistletoe and holds it above her head. Alas, we don't get a repeat of the Max/Liz performance, as Bones just kisses her cheek. Sarah nearly bursts with sexual frustration. Here's a thought, Sarah: you could kiss him. That's legal now.
The next morning, Lavinia shows up for breakfast at Max's house. She and the earl, whom I'm going to call "Earl" from now on, flirt with each other. This is played for humor, but it's really just as creepy as it sounds. Elizabeth comes in to take everyone's egg orders, but she and Max end up staring at each other until Lavinia screeches at them. Then she announces that she wants Elizabeth to serve at her table at the wedding. Lavinia's got some serious mood swings.
Afterwards, Vanessa toys with the idea of selling her story to a tabloid, but doesn't because she's afraid Earl would sue her for libel. Now, I'm no Ned Wakefield, but wouldn't he sue the tabloid, not her? Meh.
Later, Elizabeth and Vanessa meet with Niles Neesly, Lavinia's wedding planner, to discuss training the wait staff. Niles had maybe two scenes in the last book, and that was more than enough. In this one, the flamboyant obsessive-compulsive cliché is everywhere. The first time I read this book, I swear I wanted him dead.
So, we're over a third of the way through the book and it's only just occurred to Max to confront his father about Lavinia's blackmail--that he had an affair resulting in an illegitimate child. (Yay!) Just as he's about to knock, though, Elizabeth runs by in tears. For some reason, training the wait staff drove her over the edge. That wait staff must really be incompetent. Max forgets all about confronting his father. (Dammit.)
Instead, he runs after her, and we have yet another scene of Liz crying into his shirt and babbling about her sister kissing Sam. In case we missed the summary the last thirty-seven times it's been repeated over the past five books.
As she tells the story, Max asks if Jessica had ever done anything like that to her before. "No," Elizabeth replies. "Of course not." Bullshit. I was going to go through past recaps looking for examples of the many times Jessica has tried to steal her sister's boyfriends ( sometimes while framing Elizabeth for manslaughter; there, that's one), but I think I'll just open up the floor. Fill in your own instances here.
Soon, Max is asking more questions, trying to draw out more information. He's kind of insensitive here, being so nosy when his, um, mistress, I guess, is feeling absolutely miserable.
It's obvious what Max is getting at: Jessica and Sam hated each other, and Jessica was constantly trying to convince Elizabeth to dump him. All of this continues to fly over Liz's head, though, as she still believes that Sam and Jess had simply fallen for each other. "You could have just asked me for him, Jessica!" she thinks. Liz, Sam is not a piece of clothing you can lend. And even if he was, Jess doesn't ask permission to borrow clothes, either. So that logic fails on every level. When Max asks if she tried to talk things out with Jessica, she wonders, "Why, why, why was she always supposed to make everything better? It was like she had a three-foot-high sign on her forehead, blinking Sucker." No, Liz, it says Doormat. Learn to read.
Max finally points out what we, the readers, have pretty much known all along: Jessica kissed Sam in front of Elizabeth so that she would dump him. Elizabeth thinks that's a really stupid way to break people up. Well, your sister can be really stupid, Liz. Unfortunately, you tend to be even more stupid, so you've never noticed.
Max says Elizabeth ought to find out for sure, Elizabeth says she'll think about it, and they start making out. Yup, nothing gets these two hornier than nosy questions about other people's personal lives.
When she's alone, Elizabeth wonders if Max might be right. She decides it's unlikely that Jessica would really have tried to steal her boyfriend because "You know she would never do anything like that--not about something this important." Liz, have you actually met Jessica? She would always do something like that--especially when it was important.
While she's thinking about it, she mixes up Max's name with Sam's in her thoughts. She corrects herself, but I'm thinking maybe it's not true love if she can't tell the difference between Max and her ex.
Meanwhile, James arrives at Pennington Manor (and am I the only one hearing the Batman voiceover guy going, "Stately Wayne Manor!" every time I see that?) in time to share an awkward moment. Then Elizabeth wanders in and comments that they're under the mistletoe. More dry humping soon follows, this time on the part of Vanessa and James. What the hell is in this mistletoe, anyway? As soon as they come back up for air, Vanessa pushes James away and runs off before he can speak. 'Cause it's Vanessa. And Vanessa always has to run wildly hot and cold with James. Otherwise he might think she's sane or something.
James finds Max, who tells him about Lavinia's blackmail. James says what is probably the only intelligent statement in the entire book when he tells Max that his father should deal with the problem. Of course, Max doesn't take his advice, because we've still got a hundred pages and plenty of inane plot contrivances to go.
Sarah has decided that Bones is not gay. On what grounds, I'm not sure. Maybe she finally fixed her gaydar or something. She and Victoria look through her closet, which Sarah compares to Cher's from Clueless. I call foul here. If you're going to steal ideas from a movie, the least you can do is not explicitly reference the movie elsewhere in the book. It's, like, the first rule of ripping stuff off. That night, she and Bones watch movies together again. Doesn't Bones have music tours or studio recording sessions or whatever else internationally famous pop stars do?
Sarah toys with the idea of making the first move, but limits herself to giving him a kiss on the cheek. Maybe Sarah needs to take makeout lessons from Liz, Max, Vanessa, and James. Um, wait. That didn't sound right. Anyway, by the time Sarah is ready to make a move, Bones is asleep. Ooh, burn.
Elizabeth is still moping about Jessica and Max, although she takes time out to spend most of a paragraph thinking about cottage cheese. Girlfriend has a short attention span. Finally, she decides she has to break things off with Max. So what does she do? She writes a letter. Okay, so maybe these two really are soul mates. Unlike Max, though, Elizabeth not only finishes the letter but also leaves it for Max. Well, at least the plot is finally moving forward. It's only been stalled for the past hundred and forty pages.
Max finds the letter in his room and immediately searches for Elizabeth. When he finds her, he drags her off to a pub to talk about something important. While they're driving there in his car, he refuses to discuss it because he wants to wait until they're alone. Yes, best not to talk in a car, where anyone could overhear you. Better to sit in a crowded pub and chat about it in privacy.
Once there, Max tells her all about his father's affair and illegitimate child. I sure hope the half a dozen other customers in the pub are taking careful notes so they have all the facts straight when they sell the story to the tabloids. Vanessa, you missed your chance.
Elizabeth manages to get over her surprise quickly, and shifts directly into full-on Meddle Mode. She convinces Max that if he marries Lavinia, she'll just keep blackmailing him to get whatever she wants. Max is shocked--shocked!--to learn that a woman who will use blackmail once might use it twice or more, as well.
Vanessa stands outside her mother's old apartment and thinks about how much their lives used to suck. Again. She considers whether or not she should ask James for help. Again. Then she decides not to. Again. I didn't think it was possible for an author to pad out an entire series, but there it is.
Once Sarah wakes up Bones, they go to a pub to have dinner. Because there's only one pub in England, they walk into the very same one Max and Elizabeth are in. Sarah is horrified to see that they're--gasp!--holding hands. Good thing there's no mistletoe in the bar, or Sarah may have needed CPR. All the same, she calls her brother a pig and runs out. Max calls after her that it's not what she thinks. Yeah, it's not like he's been boinking her behind his fiancee's back. Now, that would be bad. Bones catches up with her outside and she starts crying into his shirt. Wow. Drama much, Sarah?
Max and Elizabeth leave the pub soon after, with Max wondering what were the chances of Sarah coming into that same pub, the chances of his soul mate coming from America to work as a maid in his house, and the chances of his fiancée blackmailing him into marrying her. In real life? Slim to none. In a Sweet Valley book? Pretty much guaranteed to happen.
The next day, James comes to Stately Pennington Manor pretending to be visiting Max, but actually starts poking around the house in search of Vanessa. Dude is about five minutes from a restraining order if he doesn't back off a little. He finds her and almost immediately grabs her and kisses her. So now we have a restraining order and a sexual harassment lawsuit. "This was the Vanessa he had always dreamed of: pliant, responsive, her lips warm and eager on his own." That's right, young girls reading this book: to get a boyfriend, all you need to do is stop being so damn assertive. James just went from a nonentity character to a chauvinistic bastard in about one page. That's gotta be some kind of record.
James pledges his undying love. Vanessa cries. I reach my limit for life on scenes of lovesick guys and sobbing girls.
Meanwhile, Sarah is sitting in her English class. Apparently her teacher is "a dead ringer for Vanessa Williams." Excuse me, but are there any high school English teachers who don't resemble celebrities? Anyway, Max pulls her out of class to take her out to lunch and talk about what happened the previous day. Well, mostly to take her out to lunch, because all he tells her is that he shouldn't have asked Lavinia to marry him and that the situation is "complicated." Sarah is pretty much, "Yeah? I knew that already?" but knows Max isn't going to tell her anything else. She begins plotting to find out the truth by some mysterious alternate means. Bwa ha ha ha.
Elizabeth gets the morning off, so she does some Christmas shopping. As she wonders what to get Max, she thinks, "The only thing I've ever given him is free advice on how to use the editing function on his computer. And my virginity." She taught him how to use the editing function on her virginity? Huh. So that's what the kids are calling it these days.
She stops at a café and sees computers, so she decides to email Nina again. Nina replies almost immediately (even in her absence, all of Sweet Valley waits in eager anticipation of even the slightest attention from Elizabeth Wakefield), letting her know that her family misses her. Apparently Jessica got almost straight-As (one B) for the semester, which leads me to believe that Liz has been the one holding Jess back academically all these years.
Sarah finally reveals her ingenious plan to uncover what's going on: hiding in Elizabeth's closet and hoping someone mentions the situation in her hearing. Weak, Sarah. Weak.
That evening, James arrives at the servant's quarters to take Vanessa out on a date. She decides to tell him everything, but as soon she she begins, James accuses her of selling Lavinia her story as blackmail material. Vanessa goes, "Who did what with who now?" and James dumps her and storms out. Vanessa starts crying and, because this is exactly the kind of light-hearted scene that needs a punchline, Sarah falls out of the closet.
James fumes outside, convinced that Vanessa is a money-grubbing bitch. Then it occurs to him that Vanessa being Earl's illegitimate child doesn't automatically mean she's Lavinia's evil henchwoman. It took him that long to realize it? Don't they take basic logic classes at Oxford?
Vanessa, still crying, chases Sarah, who is also crying, until they burst into Earl's office. The earl finally realizes that shit is raining down all over his house and calls Max into the room so they can all discuss the matter. We have just progressed further in two pages than we have in all six books combined. Can I get a "hallelujah"?
Max arrives and wonders what Earl could possibly have to say, why Vanessa is there, and what everyone's crying about. Suddenly, he takes a closer look at Vanessa's profile compared with the earl's and...
...And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that Max's small brain grew three sizes that day. (What? It's almost Christmas both in real life and in the book, and every time I see Max's name I think of that poor dog from the cartoon. Besides, the fact that Max finally--finally--put two and two together without getting a hundred and thirty seven is a miracle worthy of the Grinch himself.)
Earl explains that he would have told everyone the secret sooner, but he didn't want to "overshadow the ceremony." What?! That's got to be the worst excuse ever. "Sorry for putting you all through hell over this mysterious scandal, but I just couldn't spoil Max and Lavinia's special day!"
And then Earl gets to the point at last. Brace yourself for this one, okay? The earl is not Vanessa's father. Vanessa's father is the earl's identical twin brother, Giles, who everyone thought was dead but is, in fact, living in California. Because twins can only ever live in California.
The twin brother was older by two minutes (I bet it seems more like two years), so at the time of his affair with Vanessa's mother, he held the title of earl. Apparently, in Vanessa's mother's love letters, she always referred to Giles as "earl." Rather than by, say his actual name. How oddly formal. Earl's and Giles' father was apparently a stuffy old asshole patriarch of the Sweet Valley Saga variety, and he forbade Giles to have any contact with Vanessa's mother. Giles ran away to California without even knowing Vanessa's mother was pregnant.
So, yeah, that's not contrived and ridiculously complicated at all. Incidentally, anyone want to place bets on which Sweet Valley character is actually Giles under an assumed name? I'm going to go with Chrome Dome Cooper.
Vanessa demands to know why he'd never told her all of this before. The earl replies that he is "a stupid old man." Finally, something I can get on board with. Then he strokes her knee. I don't know if his being her uncle makes that more or less creepy, but it's still really freaking creepy either way.
Max reveals Lavinia's blackmail, and the earl gives Max permission to break off the engagement. Well, I sure hope so! Max immediately hurries to Elizabeth's room to tell her, but she's not there. He next pulls out his cell phone, which apparently has six thousand messages from Lavinia. As far as I can tell, it's been less than three days since he last saw her. So that's two thousand messages a day. Assuming that Lavinia sleeps for only four hours a day, that's a hundred messages an hour, which is one and two-thirds messages per minute. Bitch must talk fast.
Back to the story. Max has an idea, which starts with getting an operator to connect him with Jessica Wakefield. Wow, Max is meddling at Liz-like levels. Maybe those two are meant to be, after all!
Elsewhere, Vanessa and James find each other and exchange apologies and kisses. Seriously, Vanessa. You are supposed to be so much cooler than this.
The next day, Sarah tells Bones that the wedding's off and they consider the idea of having a house party rather than telling the guest that the wedding has been cancelled. Oh, that is classy with a capital "K." Then, Sarah outright asks Bones why he hasn't kissed her. He swallows her lips, then says he was enjoying taking things slow. See? See what happens when you just ask someone what's going on instead of manufacturing wacky hijinks?
Meanwhile, Max is still searching for Elizabeth when he realizes he still hasn't broken things off with Lavinia. Seems like kind of a significant step to overlook, there. He heads straight to Lavinia's house, looks her in the eye, and says, "Lavinia, you're not going to like what I have to say. But you're going to listen anyway." End scene.
Excuse me?! Scene after scene of Max being desperate to wriggle out of this engagement and scene after scene of Lavinia being the bitchiest bitch who ever bitched, and that's it? I mean, denying us the sex scene I can understand--do any of us really want to read Sweet Valley erotica?--but I think the readers have more than earned the satisfaction of seeing Lavinia get dumped. There, rant over.
Elizabeth is in the kitchen when the doorbell rings. She opens the door to find Jessica waiting for her. This book just got 200% more awesome. Too bad there are only six pages left of it.
Max drives up in time to say, "Surprise!" and Jessica gives her sister a big hug as she apologizes. Wait, Jessica apologizing for something? Are we sure this is really Jessica Wakefield?
Elizabeth tells Max she doesn't know how she can ever thank him. "'I know how you could thank me,' he said softly." I'd like to think he's waggling his eyebrows and nodding toward his bedroom while he says it. Instead, he pulls out a ring and proposes. Except that he's proposing with the same ring he just took back from Lavinia. Max, you're a freaking viscount for crying out loud. Surely you can afford to get the girl a new ring instead of pawning her off with a hand-me-down from your ex?
Elizabeth tells Max that she can't marry him because she needs to go back to California to find herself. No, really, that's what she tells him. Liz, you've tried that already. All it led to was a perm and a surfboard.
Before you know it, everyone (Liz, Jessica, Max, Sarah, Bones, Vanessa, James, the earl with no name, Mary, Alice--everyone but Lavinia, really) is hugging and laughing and generally acting like the end of a cheesy afterschool special. And that's how the book ends. We don't even get to find out what happens to Niles Neesly. So I'm going to say that the despair of cancelling the wedding he'd worked so hard on leads him to throw himself off of Big Ben or London Bridge or some other random English landmark that the ghostwriter read about in a book somewhere and decided to cram into the book.
And the most important question, which never gets answered, is this: Is Elizabeth knocked up now or what? I mean, just think of the possibilities. She has an affair with a (son of an) earl and is separated from him before either knows she's pregnant. Years later, her child can come back, get hired at Pennington Manor, and swear revenge on the (now) earl for abandoning her mother! Meanwhile, the earl's (legitimate) son is engaged to a bitchy ice queen but keeps sneaking looks at some new, blond maid who recently arrived from California...
God, I hope Francine Pascal doesn't read this community. I'd hate to think I was giving her ideas.
Well, here it is. The final chapter (chronologically) of the Sweet Valley story, in all its mediocre glory. In the last book, Vanessa confronted the earl--after over 200 pages of thinking about confronting the earl--about his affair with her mother, Lavinia displayed serious self-esteem issues by actually blackmailing Max into marrying her, and Elizabeth polished more than just the silverware in Max's bed.
What an ugly cover. Is Elizabeth wearing a snakeskin shirt? When did Max get a perm? What's up with all the ass-groping? Who the hell thought this artwork was in any way attractive?
Christmas is approaching, and Elizabeth is outside Pennington Manor, watching a delivery truck make its way up the driveway while she drinks scalding coffee and daydreams about Max. "Leave it to me to protect my virginity and save it for that really special someone, then finally give it away to a guy who's getting married in a matter of weeks," thinks Liz. See, this is why she should have just done it with Todd. Would have been less anticlimactic and also would have saved us all kinds of will-she-won't-she angst throughout the SVU series.
Elizabeth tosses her "now cold" coffee on the ground as the truck pulls to a stop. The coffee went from scalding to cold while the truck was still coming up the driveway? How long is this damn driveway, anyway?
The delivery man interrupts Elizabeth's daydreaming, and when she speaks he says, "You're American! I guess that explains it well enough." I'm curious about what, exactly, that explains. I'm guessing he means that only those silly Americans daydream. British people are too busy, I don't know, eating crumpets or something to daydream.
As she walks back into the house, Max drives up and joins her in the doorway. Elizabeth is afraid that she'll "either burst into tears, punch Max on the arm, or knock him flat against the door with a passionate kiss." Punch him, Liz. What Would Todd Do?
While they stare awkwardly at each other, Vanessa stops waxing the floor nearby to ask them to close the door "if you can stand to tear yourself away from the mistletoe." I think a peck on the cheek is traditional, but there must be bucketloads of mistletoe up there, because Max and Liz practically dry hump each other in the doorway. This leads Vanessa, who is smarter than the average Sweet Valley book character, to suspect that something's going on between them.
When Max abruptly leaves and Elizabeth bursts into tears, Vanessa drags her to their room and insists on hearing the whole story. As soon as Liz tells her about sleeping with Max, Vanessa immediately begins telling Liz what she should do. Meddling, Vanessa? Really? Man, you used to be cool.
Meanwhile, Max is berating himself in his room. "He had taken Elizabeth's virginity in his own bedroom--Like the worst guy there ever was." So, would it have been better if he had taken her virginity in someone else's bedroom? And come on, Max. The worst? Lure Elizabeth down to your secret lair with a decomposing shrink and maybe we'll talk about "worst."
Max thinks that he wants to give Elizabeth an engagement ring and run off to Switzerland with her. Not Switzerland, dude. Trust me on this one. Instead, he decides to write her a letter to explain why it's better they remain apart. Dumping her in a letter? Okay, maybe Max is a close second behind William. Fortunately, Max realizes what a crappy idea this is...and comes up with an even crappier one. He's going to act really cold to Elizabeth so that she'll hate him. That way, she won't feel as hurt over him and can move on. Yeah, that plan can't possibly go wrong. Why has it not occurred to him to just discuss the whole blackmail thing with his father?
Vanessa is thinking back to her conversation with Max's father, who is only ever referred to as "the earl." Does anyone know if this guy has a first name? Because if he does, I must have missed it in this book and the last one. Anyway, seeing the photo of himself and her mother "devastated" him. The earl told her he wasn't her father, but needed time to resolve some things before he could explain. I already don't like the sound of this. I smell a barely-plausible, needlessly convoluted story here. Unless the earl is just stalling so he can bump her off and make it look like an accident.
Max goes to see Lavinia, thinking about how much he doesn't want to marry her and how much of a spineless worm he is for failing to actually look for a way out of it. Okay, I added the last part, but it's still true. They have some tedious back and forth where Max whines that he doesn't want to marry her and Lavinia responds with, basically, "La la la, I can't hear you." Honestly, Max just isn't trying very hard. Considering how image-conscious everyone in this book is, why doesn't he just publicly humiliate himself somehow so that Lavinia will refuse to marry him to avoid sharing the shame? I bet if Jessica and Lila were here, they could come up with an awesome scheme to get him out of this.
Elsewhere, Max's sister Sarah and her friend Victoria are discussing whether or not Bones McCall (the pop star Sarah spent all of the last book trying to get her hands on) might be gay. Because he hasn't made a move on Sarah. Sarah, have you considered that you might simply be totally repulsive to him? Because that would explain it, too.
While Elizabeth dusts, she mutters, "A term paper. A term paper. My kingdom for a term paper." She considers that she'd rather be back at SVU writing a twenty-page paper on King Lear. It wouldn't be much of a paper, considering she's mixing the play up with Richard III. Suddenly, Elizabeth realizes that seducing another woman's fiancé is exactly the same as Jessica kissing her boyfriend, Sam. Oh, Liz, it's not exactly the same. What you did was much worse.
That night, Sarah puts on her sexiest clothes and goes to Bones' house to watch movies. He's got "every manner of junk food: crisps, Cadbury bars, Hit biscuits." Is that really the extent of British junk food? Three things? If I ever go to England, I'm packing my own food.
Just before she leaves, Sarah pulls out some mistletoe and holds it above her head. Alas, we don't get a repeat of the Max/Liz performance, as Bones just kisses her cheek. Sarah nearly bursts with sexual frustration. Here's a thought, Sarah: you could kiss him. That's legal now.
The next morning, Lavinia shows up for breakfast at Max's house. She and the earl, whom I'm going to call "Earl" from now on, flirt with each other. This is played for humor, but it's really just as creepy as it sounds. Elizabeth comes in to take everyone's egg orders, but she and Max end up staring at each other until Lavinia screeches at them. Then she announces that she wants Elizabeth to serve at her table at the wedding. Lavinia's got some serious mood swings.
Afterwards, Vanessa toys with the idea of selling her story to a tabloid, but doesn't because she's afraid Earl would sue her for libel. Now, I'm no Ned Wakefield, but wouldn't he sue the tabloid, not her? Meh.
Later, Elizabeth and Vanessa meet with Niles Neesly, Lavinia's wedding planner, to discuss training the wait staff. Niles had maybe two scenes in the last book, and that was more than enough. In this one, the flamboyant obsessive-compulsive cliché is everywhere. The first time I read this book, I swear I wanted him dead.
So, we're over a third of the way through the book and it's only just occurred to Max to confront his father about Lavinia's blackmail--that he had an affair resulting in an illegitimate child. (Yay!) Just as he's about to knock, though, Elizabeth runs by in tears. For some reason, training the wait staff drove her over the edge. That wait staff must really be incompetent. Max forgets all about confronting his father. (Dammit.)
Instead, he runs after her, and we have yet another scene of Liz crying into his shirt and babbling about her sister kissing Sam. In case we missed the summary the last thirty-seven times it's been repeated over the past five books.
As she tells the story, Max asks if Jessica had ever done anything like that to her before. "No," Elizabeth replies. "Of course not." Bullshit. I was going to go through past recaps looking for examples of the many times Jessica has tried to steal her sister's boyfriends ( sometimes while framing Elizabeth for manslaughter; there, that's one), but I think I'll just open up the floor. Fill in your own instances here.
Soon, Max is asking more questions, trying to draw out more information. He's kind of insensitive here, being so nosy when his, um, mistress, I guess, is feeling absolutely miserable.
It's obvious what Max is getting at: Jessica and Sam hated each other, and Jessica was constantly trying to convince Elizabeth to dump him. All of this continues to fly over Liz's head, though, as she still believes that Sam and Jess had simply fallen for each other. "You could have just asked me for him, Jessica!" she thinks. Liz, Sam is not a piece of clothing you can lend. And even if he was, Jess doesn't ask permission to borrow clothes, either. So that logic fails on every level. When Max asks if she tried to talk things out with Jessica, she wonders, "Why, why, why was she always supposed to make everything better? It was like she had a three-foot-high sign on her forehead, blinking Sucker." No, Liz, it says Doormat. Learn to read.
Max finally points out what we, the readers, have pretty much known all along: Jessica kissed Sam in front of Elizabeth so that she would dump him. Elizabeth thinks that's a really stupid way to break people up. Well, your sister can be really stupid, Liz. Unfortunately, you tend to be even more stupid, so you've never noticed.
Max says Elizabeth ought to find out for sure, Elizabeth says she'll think about it, and they start making out. Yup, nothing gets these two hornier than nosy questions about other people's personal lives.
When she's alone, Elizabeth wonders if Max might be right. She decides it's unlikely that Jessica would really have tried to steal her boyfriend because "You know she would never do anything like that--not about something this important." Liz, have you actually met Jessica? She would always do something like that--especially when it was important.
While she's thinking about it, she mixes up Max's name with Sam's in her thoughts. She corrects herself, but I'm thinking maybe it's not true love if she can't tell the difference between Max and her ex.
Meanwhile, James arrives at Pennington Manor (and am I the only one hearing the Batman voiceover guy going, "Stately Wayne Manor!" every time I see that?) in time to share an awkward moment. Then Elizabeth wanders in and comments that they're under the mistletoe. More dry humping soon follows, this time on the part of Vanessa and James. What the hell is in this mistletoe, anyway? As soon as they come back up for air, Vanessa pushes James away and runs off before he can speak. 'Cause it's Vanessa. And Vanessa always has to run wildly hot and cold with James. Otherwise he might think she's sane or something.
James finds Max, who tells him about Lavinia's blackmail. James says what is probably the only intelligent statement in the entire book when he tells Max that his father should deal with the problem. Of course, Max doesn't take his advice, because we've still got a hundred pages and plenty of inane plot contrivances to go.
Sarah has decided that Bones is not gay. On what grounds, I'm not sure. Maybe she finally fixed her gaydar or something. She and Victoria look through her closet, which Sarah compares to Cher's from Clueless. I call foul here. If you're going to steal ideas from a movie, the least you can do is not explicitly reference the movie elsewhere in the book. It's, like, the first rule of ripping stuff off. That night, she and Bones watch movies together again. Doesn't Bones have music tours or studio recording sessions or whatever else internationally famous pop stars do?
Sarah toys with the idea of making the first move, but limits herself to giving him a kiss on the cheek. Maybe Sarah needs to take makeout lessons from Liz, Max, Vanessa, and James. Um, wait. That didn't sound right. Anyway, by the time Sarah is ready to make a move, Bones is asleep. Ooh, burn.
Elizabeth is still moping about Jessica and Max, although she takes time out to spend most of a paragraph thinking about cottage cheese. Girlfriend has a short attention span. Finally, she decides she has to break things off with Max. So what does she do? She writes a letter. Okay, so maybe these two really are soul mates. Unlike Max, though, Elizabeth not only finishes the letter but also leaves it for Max. Well, at least the plot is finally moving forward. It's only been stalled for the past hundred and forty pages.
Max finds the letter in his room and immediately searches for Elizabeth. When he finds her, he drags her off to a pub to talk about something important. While they're driving there in his car, he refuses to discuss it because he wants to wait until they're alone. Yes, best not to talk in a car, where anyone could overhear you. Better to sit in a crowded pub and chat about it in privacy.
Once there, Max tells her all about his father's affair and illegitimate child. I sure hope the half a dozen other customers in the pub are taking careful notes so they have all the facts straight when they sell the story to the tabloids. Vanessa, you missed your chance.
Elizabeth manages to get over her surprise quickly, and shifts directly into full-on Meddle Mode. She convinces Max that if he marries Lavinia, she'll just keep blackmailing him to get whatever she wants. Max is shocked--shocked!--to learn that a woman who will use blackmail once might use it twice or more, as well.
Vanessa stands outside her mother's old apartment and thinks about how much their lives used to suck. Again. She considers whether or not she should ask James for help. Again. Then she decides not to. Again. I didn't think it was possible for an author to pad out an entire series, but there it is.
Once Sarah wakes up Bones, they go to a pub to have dinner. Because there's only one pub in England, they walk into the very same one Max and Elizabeth are in. Sarah is horrified to see that they're--gasp!--holding hands. Good thing there's no mistletoe in the bar, or Sarah may have needed CPR. All the same, she calls her brother a pig and runs out. Max calls after her that it's not what she thinks. Yeah, it's not like he's been boinking her behind his fiancee's back. Now, that would be bad. Bones catches up with her outside and she starts crying into his shirt. Wow. Drama much, Sarah?
Max and Elizabeth leave the pub soon after, with Max wondering what were the chances of Sarah coming into that same pub, the chances of his soul mate coming from America to work as a maid in his house, and the chances of his fiancée blackmailing him into marrying her. In real life? Slim to none. In a Sweet Valley book? Pretty much guaranteed to happen.
The next day, James comes to Stately Pennington Manor pretending to be visiting Max, but actually starts poking around the house in search of Vanessa. Dude is about five minutes from a restraining order if he doesn't back off a little. He finds her and almost immediately grabs her and kisses her. So now we have a restraining order and a sexual harassment lawsuit. "This was the Vanessa he had always dreamed of: pliant, responsive, her lips warm and eager on his own." That's right, young girls reading this book: to get a boyfriend, all you need to do is stop being so damn assertive. James just went from a nonentity character to a chauvinistic bastard in about one page. That's gotta be some kind of record.
James pledges his undying love. Vanessa cries. I reach my limit for life on scenes of lovesick guys and sobbing girls.
Meanwhile, Sarah is sitting in her English class. Apparently her teacher is "a dead ringer for Vanessa Williams." Excuse me, but are there any high school English teachers who don't resemble celebrities? Anyway, Max pulls her out of class to take her out to lunch and talk about what happened the previous day. Well, mostly to take her out to lunch, because all he tells her is that he shouldn't have asked Lavinia to marry him and that the situation is "complicated." Sarah is pretty much, "Yeah? I knew that already?" but knows Max isn't going to tell her anything else. She begins plotting to find out the truth by some mysterious alternate means. Bwa ha ha ha.
Elizabeth gets the morning off, so she does some Christmas shopping. As she wonders what to get Max, she thinks, "The only thing I've ever given him is free advice on how to use the editing function on his computer. And my virginity." She taught him how to use the editing function on her virginity? Huh. So that's what the kids are calling it these days.
She stops at a café and sees computers, so she decides to email Nina again. Nina replies almost immediately (even in her absence, all of Sweet Valley waits in eager anticipation of even the slightest attention from Elizabeth Wakefield), letting her know that her family misses her. Apparently Jessica got almost straight-As (one B) for the semester, which leads me to believe that Liz has been the one holding Jess back academically all these years.
Sarah finally reveals her ingenious plan to uncover what's going on: hiding in Elizabeth's closet and hoping someone mentions the situation in her hearing. Weak, Sarah. Weak.
That evening, James arrives at the servant's quarters to take Vanessa out on a date. She decides to tell him everything, but as soon she she begins, James accuses her of selling Lavinia her story as blackmail material. Vanessa goes, "Who did what with who now?" and James dumps her and storms out. Vanessa starts crying and, because this is exactly the kind of light-hearted scene that needs a punchline, Sarah falls out of the closet.
James fumes outside, convinced that Vanessa is a money-grubbing bitch. Then it occurs to him that Vanessa being Earl's illegitimate child doesn't automatically mean she's Lavinia's evil henchwoman. It took him that long to realize it? Don't they take basic logic classes at Oxford?
Vanessa, still crying, chases Sarah, who is also crying, until they burst into Earl's office. The earl finally realizes that shit is raining down all over his house and calls Max into the room so they can all discuss the matter. We have just progressed further in two pages than we have in all six books combined. Can I get a "hallelujah"?
Max arrives and wonders what Earl could possibly have to say, why Vanessa is there, and what everyone's crying about. Suddenly, he takes a closer look at Vanessa's profile compared with the earl's and...
...And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that Max's small brain grew three sizes that day. (What? It's almost Christmas both in real life and in the book, and every time I see Max's name I think of that poor dog from the cartoon. Besides, the fact that Max finally--finally--put two and two together without getting a hundred and thirty seven is a miracle worthy of the Grinch himself.)
Earl explains that he would have told everyone the secret sooner, but he didn't want to "overshadow the ceremony." What?! That's got to be the worst excuse ever. "Sorry for putting you all through hell over this mysterious scandal, but I just couldn't spoil Max and Lavinia's special day!"
And then Earl gets to the point at last. Brace yourself for this one, okay? The earl is not Vanessa's father. Vanessa's father is the earl's identical twin brother, Giles, who everyone thought was dead but is, in fact, living in California. Because twins can only ever live in California.
The twin brother was older by two minutes (I bet it seems more like two years), so at the time of his affair with Vanessa's mother, he held the title of earl. Apparently, in Vanessa's mother's love letters, she always referred to Giles as "earl." Rather than by, say his actual name. How oddly formal. Earl's and Giles' father was apparently a stuffy old asshole patriarch of the Sweet Valley Saga variety, and he forbade Giles to have any contact with Vanessa's mother. Giles ran away to California without even knowing Vanessa's mother was pregnant.
So, yeah, that's not contrived and ridiculously complicated at all. Incidentally, anyone want to place bets on which Sweet Valley character is actually Giles under an assumed name? I'm going to go with Chrome Dome Cooper.
Vanessa demands to know why he'd never told her all of this before. The earl replies that he is "a stupid old man." Finally, something I can get on board with. Then he strokes her knee. I don't know if his being her uncle makes that more or less creepy, but it's still really freaking creepy either way.
Max reveals Lavinia's blackmail, and the earl gives Max permission to break off the engagement. Well, I sure hope so! Max immediately hurries to Elizabeth's room to tell her, but she's not there. He next pulls out his cell phone, which apparently has six thousand messages from Lavinia. As far as I can tell, it's been less than three days since he last saw her. So that's two thousand messages a day. Assuming that Lavinia sleeps for only four hours a day, that's a hundred messages an hour, which is one and two-thirds messages per minute. Bitch must talk fast.
Back to the story. Max has an idea, which starts with getting an operator to connect him with Jessica Wakefield. Wow, Max is meddling at Liz-like levels. Maybe those two are meant to be, after all!
Elsewhere, Vanessa and James find each other and exchange apologies and kisses. Seriously, Vanessa. You are supposed to be so much cooler than this.
The next day, Sarah tells Bones that the wedding's off and they consider the idea of having a house party rather than telling the guest that the wedding has been cancelled. Oh, that is classy with a capital "K." Then, Sarah outright asks Bones why he hasn't kissed her. He swallows her lips, then says he was enjoying taking things slow. See? See what happens when you just ask someone what's going on instead of manufacturing wacky hijinks?
Meanwhile, Max is still searching for Elizabeth when he realizes he still hasn't broken things off with Lavinia. Seems like kind of a significant step to overlook, there. He heads straight to Lavinia's house, looks her in the eye, and says, "Lavinia, you're not going to like what I have to say. But you're going to listen anyway." End scene.
Excuse me?! Scene after scene of Max being desperate to wriggle out of this engagement and scene after scene of Lavinia being the bitchiest bitch who ever bitched, and that's it? I mean, denying us the sex scene I can understand--do any of us really want to read Sweet Valley erotica?--but I think the readers have more than earned the satisfaction of seeing Lavinia get dumped. There, rant over.
Elizabeth is in the kitchen when the doorbell rings. She opens the door to find Jessica waiting for her. This book just got 200% more awesome. Too bad there are only six pages left of it.
Max drives up in time to say, "Surprise!" and Jessica gives her sister a big hug as she apologizes. Wait, Jessica apologizing for something? Are we sure this is really Jessica Wakefield?
Elizabeth tells Max she doesn't know how she can ever thank him. "'I know how you could thank me,' he said softly." I'd like to think he's waggling his eyebrows and nodding toward his bedroom while he says it. Instead, he pulls out a ring and proposes. Except that he's proposing with the same ring he just took back from Lavinia. Max, you're a freaking viscount for crying out loud. Surely you can afford to get the girl a new ring instead of pawning her off with a hand-me-down from your ex?
Elizabeth tells Max that she can't marry him because she needs to go back to California to find herself. No, really, that's what she tells him. Liz, you've tried that already. All it led to was a perm and a surfboard.
Before you know it, everyone (Liz, Jessica, Max, Sarah, Bones, Vanessa, James, the earl with no name, Mary, Alice--everyone but Lavinia, really) is hugging and laughing and generally acting like the end of a cheesy afterschool special. And that's how the book ends. We don't even get to find out what happens to Niles Neesly. So I'm going to say that the despair of cancelling the wedding he'd worked so hard on leads him to throw himself off of Big Ben or London Bridge or some other random English landmark that the ghostwriter read about in a book somewhere and decided to cram into the book.
And the most important question, which never gets answered, is this: Is Elizabeth knocked up now or what? I mean, just think of the possibilities. She has an affair with a (son of an) earl and is separated from him before either knows she's pregnant. Years later, her child can come back, get hired at Pennington Manor, and swear revenge on the (now) earl for abandoning her mother! Meanwhile, the earl's (legitimate) son is engaged to a bitchy ice queen but keeps sneaking looks at some new, blond maid who recently arrived from California...
God, I hope Francine Pascal doesn't read this community. I'd hate to think I was giving her ideas.