Slam Book Post Two: Electric Slam-a-loo
Chapter Eight
Cheryl POV. In study hall, Cheryl reflects about watching the girls at lunch and thinks how she and Paige are total opposites: Paige is rich and beautiful and “willowy” and smart; Cheryl is poor and “homely” and fat and. . .not smart. She’s seen them passing the slam book, but she doesn’t know what it is.
Cheryl is heartbreakingly thrilled when a stranger passes her the slam book in study hall, just because she’s never included in anything. But when she realizes what she has, she stops to read it. On Casey’s page, at the comment “needs a bigger bra,” Cheryl blushes because her mother always told her that kind of talk wasn’t nice. I’m honestly not sure if that means gossip in general, or sexualized talk, but either way, Mrs. Sutphin from beyond the grave is a better parent than anyone else we’ve met yet.
Cheryl stumbles on her page and is increasingly hurt by the comments, although the narrator can’t resist a dig at it taking her a moment to interpret “once broke my camera just by posing.” The last comment is “Her mother isn’t dead, she’s in the wacko ward,” and that’s the one the breaks her. “Her mother had been dead for five years. And her dying hadn’t been easy. It had taken a long time, and it had hurt a lot.” And again, I wonder how Ann can apparently inadvertently write actually moving prose about Cheryl’s life while maintaining such general disdain for her. I seriously don’t get it.
Cheryl runs out of the room in tears. Anna, from the corner, has apparently been watching all this and she slowly shakes her head. One might think that Anna’s sadly underdeveloped conscience was twinging, but one would be wrong. Spoiler: She’s getting off on it. No, really. The way she talks about it later is, I think, Ann’s version of eroticized.
Chapter Nine
Anna acts like an airhead about whether Gooz likes her, or l-i-q-u-e-s her, or just sucks at history, and Randy is like, “chill the fuck out.” See why I like her best? Flipping through the slam book, Anna sees a new comment on her page, in Paige’s handwriting. “Gooz’s next conquest? How far will she go?” and in print, “Boy-stealer.” Anna is super-offended and appalled at this injustice. Paige sits down at the opposite end of the table, and Anna thinks “Well, sulking is one thing, but damaging people’s reputations was another. Didn’t Paige know that everyone saw what was written in a slam book?” Excuse me, I have to go bang my head into the wall.
So Anna vows soap operatic revenge. “Some friend she is. Well, Paige Beaulac, two can play your game.” The narrator tells us that Anna “wasn’t very good at certain games,” but the narrator, like Anna, is a sociopath.
At dinner, Gooz calls up and annoyingly asks Anna to the movies. He marvels at how late they eat dinner and Anna says she snacks a lot, so that Gooz can say she looks “too thin to be a snacker.” Well, with suave lines like that, no wonder he’s the BMOC. And yes, Ann, for God’s sake, snacking is adorable and quirky as long as you’re skinny. If you’re heavy, it’s eeeevil. Plus, the narrator will name you Cheryl or Ethel or Norman. Anna whines more about her parents being overprotective, but they let her go, and Mrs. Wallace makes a very weird comment. “You know honey, you look radiant. It’s amazing what a little attention can do. The Pygmalion effect at work.” The hell? First of all, that’s not the “Pygmalion effect.” If Ann has to make crappy, age-inappropriate references, could they at least make sense? I guess she got marginally closer to the point in Dawn and the Older Boy, but I think Ann has really shitty literary analysis and reading comprehension skills. (Yes, I know there’s a specific psychological/sociological principle called, also not very accurately, the Pygmalion effect, but that doesn’t apply either.) And secondly, what an awesome message to give your teenage daughter-getting attention from boys makes you prettier. STFU, Mrs. Wallace.
And Anna somehow misses the point even more, as her mother’s words “inspire” her revenge on Paige. She gleefully notes that everyone in the class recognizes Paige’s handwriting, which makes no sense to me how everyone would even have seen it, or even so, immediately recognize it as Paige’s. Whatever. Anyway, Anna practices forging Paige’s super-distinctive handwriting until she can write on Cheryl’s page “If only Cheryl knew how much Kirk Norris liked her, maybe she’d fix herself up.”
The narrator pompously tells us that this was “a serious move in a dangerous game.” There is no recognition of how absolutely shitty it is of Anna to use not only Cheryl but this Kirk dude in her idiotic revenge plan. Because fat girls aren’t really people.
Chapter Ten
Gooz and Anna go to the library to work on their history project and make annoying first date small talk. There’s a really creepy passage where Anna thinks about the slam book like she’s a serial killer stroking her trophies. “Just the slight of the slam book made her shiver-a little thrill of delight and fright, of pleasure and fear. She felt the shiver when she read flattering comments about herself , or when kids crowded around her, asking for the book. She’d also felt it when she’d watched Cheryl Sutphin discover her page in the book, and when she’s painstakingly written “Paige’s” comment on Cheryl’s page later that night.”
I mean, that’s not normal, right? Even for a self-absorbed, callous teenager? She’s appears to be actually turned on by watching someone like Cheryl flee the room in tears. So gross.
Apparently this history project has no guidelines whatsoever, so the first step is to pick the time period, like what the fuck lazy curricula is this. Anna wants to do World War Two, but not anything about the concentration camps, because that’s, like, so passé. No, seriously, she rejects that because “everybody chooses those topics” and from a less awful character I’d think nothing of it, but I really wonder why Ann throws in a totally unneeded line to make her heroine look like even more of a callous, clueless asshole. Anyway, they decide to do a report on their hometown during the war and Gooz kisses her. On the forehead.
She runs home all excited to call her friends, and when Jessie answers, she’s clearly in shock, because her mother just walked out. Anna orders her to come over and tells her mother Jessie is, “like, hysterical or something.”
Anyway, Jessie got home to find her mother packing, and instead of talking to her, her mother hands her the note she was planning to leave on Jessie’s dresser. And it’s a pretty shitty note: she basically says she has to leave to find a life of her own, and she knows Jessie will understand, like, way to guilt-trip your teenage daughter. And she’s leaving no forwarding address, so if Jessie wants her she has to go through her grandparents.
Also-and this is the really shitty part-she apparently only wrote a note to Jessie, leaving it to Jessie to tell her father. I kind of hate Mrs. Smith. And seriously, all this cloak and dagger stuff seems to be meant to imply abuse, but Mr. Smith never does anything to track her down or harass her or her parents, so really it comes off like Mrs. Smith is kind of a drama queen.
Chapter Eleven
Jessie stays with the Wallaces for two days before her father orders her home. Jessie claims it’s because he wants a cook and a maid, which will neither be proven nor disproven by the text.
Anna, that wonderful friend, is glad Jessie is returning to her old, albeit angry self. “She’d been depressed and melancholy since her mother left. And now, with Jessie back at her own house, Anna could concentrate on other subjects-like Gooz and the history project.” Geez, it’s such a drag, so stale, when your friend takes a whole week to recover from a devastating shake-up of her personal life! Can’t she just get over it so Anna get back to squeeing over Gooz buying her popcorn? Some people are so inconsiderate.
Other kids have seen the comment Anna wrote on Cheryl’s page and think it was a joke, but Paige isn’t speaking to the Anna/Jessie/Randy crew, so they don’t know what she thinks of it. Then there’s another super-icky passage where Anna explains why she picked Kirk Norris, who apparently is the nicest boy in the class. (But not hot or athletic, because kindness is a c-list asset, and no use to the pretty people.) It doesn’t occur to Anna that maybe the kindest, most polite, most helpful boy in the class might object to being used in this way. Also, Kirk Norris literally never appears in person, so I’m inclined to think his niceness and intelligence may have made him ignore the slam book altogether as the asinine shit it is. I kind of hope so, because I’d think he might be kind of devastated by what’s going to happen. I hate Anna, who is busy making sure Cheryl sees the comment.
Anna and Gooz are going to a Marx Brothers film festival, because God forbid a book go by without an awkward retro reference crammed in. Anna is so absorbed in the wonders of the Gooz she barely notices when Jessie says that she spoke to her mother. Luckily Randy is there, and acts like an actual supportive and concerned friend. Also, she kicks Anna under the table when Anna tactlessly says “New York City? God, when she leaves she really leaves.” Is there any doubt Randy is the best? Mrs. Smith is apparently having a super awesome time in NYC. Jessie says she always thought her mother would take her with her when she left. Paige swings by to be randomly nasty, I guess because she thinks Jessie and Randy chose Anna over her. Randy comments that not only is Jessie hanging out with Anna, who is dating the boy Paige likes, but Randy, who has “the audacity to be black-and happy with it.”
“Whew. Big time.” Jessie comments. Indeed.
Chapter Twelve
Cheryl POV. She wakes up all happy (weirdly, she nearly “purrs with pleasure”) because she saw the note, identified it as being written by Paige (why on earth would she know? It’s not like Paige signed her yearbook?) and is determined to fix herself up. Oh, God. Her dad is away for the weekend on a job, so she is able to dig up a box of her mother’s mementos, the “Veronica” box, and finds her mom’s frilly pink prom dress and some old make-up, and heart-rendingly puts it all on. The narrator tells us that her hair is dirty as Cheryl fashions an updo. “I hope I look half as beautiful as you, Ma.” Sob.
As she heads off to school, she prays for her mother to be with her. (From this and a later incident, I kind of wonder if Ann is the kind of atheist who constantly talks about “sky daddies” and so on. She seems really, really dismissive of this kind of thing, if it isn’t a stupid paranormal ghost being tracked by a gorgeous and skinny cornsilk blonde.) Cheryl’s new look definitely does not go unnoticed, and she manages to track down Paige to gushingly thank her and Paige, totally confused, blows her off. Undeterred, Cheryl sits down next to her at lunch and asks if she’s wearing too much lipstick and Paige flees.
Our heroine Anna? Laughs uncontrollably for five minutes. “This was the ultimate in humiliation for Paige.”
You know, I’ve certainly said “God, STFU, Kristy,” or “Dawn, you are an asshole,” or “Will no one rid me of this tiresome Brewer brat?” but as obnoxious as they could all be, none of them were ever as gleefully sadistic as this. I don’t think Cokie Mason was, either. The true Alpha Bitch, IMO, doesn’t need to stoop to such tactics. Can you see Buffy-era Cordelia Chase doing this shit? Or early season Paige Michalchuk? Hells no.
Anyway, Anna joyously ups the stakes with another Paige-comment on Cheryl’s page.
Chapter Thirteen
New slam book comments, in Paige’s handwriting: Anna is “sweet on the outside, evil on the inside. Pretty to look at, but Do Not Touch. A rattlesnake. Boy-stealer.” And except for the last part (about which I do not give a shit anyway), this is 100% true, even if it’s for the wrong reasons. She is evil and poisonous on the inside. Like a cyanide Twinkie.
On Randy’s page: “Black on the outside, white on the inside. A human Oreo. Ha, Ha.”
Which is shitty as hell. That said, based on their relationship, I kind of doubt Randy has confided in Paige her anxiety about this issue-which is no excuse whatsoever to Paige, but relevant to what comes next. For what it’s worth, in whitey-white suburbia, Summer Vacation was the first and only place I ever heard this until I got on the internet, but I was a relatively sheltered and dorky child, so maybe it was a lot more widespread than I thought. Or maybe it was the only “acceptable” slur to put in a children’s book? Or Ann was just obsessed with it? IDK.
Anyway, Anna is furious, and even-at this point-identifies Paige’s comment about Randy as the worse offense, both because Randy has done nothing to warrant Paige’s wrath, and because it is the “cruelest, most hurtful thing about Randy that she could think of.” (Bad syntax-IDK if the she is Paige or Anna.) On some level, Anna wonders if this is a sign that Paige is deeply troubled, but she rejects that passing thought in favor of ANNA ANGRY. ANNA SMASH. So she marches off to the cafeteria for a public confrontation.
When Paige reaches for the book, Anna snatches it out of her hands and declares it off-limits to her, and Paige is all “I can write in it if I want to!”
(Tangent: I seriously do not get why everyone has such awe for the Rules of the Slam Book-why no one just inks a particularly bad comment out or even rips out the page. I’m not saying that would fix it, it might even escalate it, but I kind of wonder why low-impulse control teenagers never just do it.)
Now that Anna haz all the attenshuns, she tells Paige “You go way beyond criticism. You’re cruel and you lie,” like, glass house, stones, much? Oh wait, Cheryl’s not actually a person, so what Anna does doesn’t count. Gotcha.
Randy actually defends Paige’s right to write under Article Three of the Slam Book Code or something, and Anna responds by reading out loud the Oreo comment.
Can we just pause for a second? Anna ABSOLUTELY knows how much Randy is agonizing over this. It’s not subtext, or hinted at; Randy has directly said to Anna that she doesn’t know where or how she fits in their group because she is black. Anna JUST said that this is the most hurtful thing Paige could have written about Randy. So what does “all-around nice girl” Anna do? She uses her supposed best friend as collateral damage to make her point. I really loathe her.
Randy is devastated, but that doesn’t stop Anna, who goes to her page and zeroes in on “Boy-stealer” which she claims is “as funny as human Oreo,” like bullshit it is, you absolute sorry excuse for human being.
Gooz tells her that she’s said enough, as now half the cafeteria is openly listening, but Anna cannot be deterred! Paige has turned ashen, but stays seated. Anna reveals that Paige wrote the comment about Casey (where she allegedly bragged about getting some of Gooz’s sweet, sweet manmeat) and calls on Randy and Jessie to back her up when she denies it. They are clearly uncomfortable, and when Anna pressures Randy, Anna “couldn’t even guess what was going through her mind.” I’m betting it was along the lines of pulling a Carrie on your evil ass, Anna. Paige then jumps in and taunts Randy, calling her an Oreo and Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, and the cafeteria is even more silent, I guess because Calvin High School is the kind of place where it’s okay to make racist comments in private, but not out loud. It’s not classy. Randy quietly confirms Anna’s story and gets up to leave, and Jessie chooses now to chime in, because Randy is “too polite” to say that Paige did it with the hope of breaking them up so she could score some Gooz-y Good Times. Because Randy wouldn’t have appreciated her support on a more salient point. Paige and I both say, “Thanks a lot, Jessie,” for totally different reasons. Jessie leaves, and Gooz asks Anna if it’s all true.
And now Anna is suddenly horrified-not at hurting Randy, or even the extent to which she humiliated Paige, but because it just now occurred to her that it looks really shifty (and shitty) that she knew the comment read round the world was fake. Because who cares if you hurt your BFFs, what matters is what a dumbass boy with a stupid name thinks. Also, Anna is not just a sociopath, she’s a total dumbass, too. She was the one who brought up the Casey comment, just what was her plan there?
Gooz stalks off with a really ham-fisted comment about “I don’t know who you girls think you are, but believe me, you’re not God. God shows a little mercy.” Oh, shut up, Gooz. Without knowing the Cheryl stuff, that barely even makes sense. Take your forehead kissing and stupid name elsewhere.
Paige gloats a bit and Casey shows up to say in a “sickeningly sweet” voice that Paige’s plan backfired, and she’s a “real witch.” Way to get past the censors, Ann. Also, I’m pretty sure the only reason her voice is “sickeningly sweet” is to remind us that we aren’t supposed to have any interest or sympathy for her, the first overt victim of the book, because then we might not root for Anna to get another go at the Gooz. As if I want her to get anything but a lifetime of stepping on Legos and cat puke.
Anna, btw, doesn’t even try calling Randy or Jessie, but does call Gooz all night. The super-suave Gooz is making his mommy screen his calls until after 11:00, when both his and Casey’s lines are busy. When I was a girl, phone-stalking after ten was considered rude. (I kid. Calling anyone on a school night after ten was considered rude, outside of an emergency-like, a really one, not a 90210 one.) Anna, of course, blames the whole thing on Paige and decides that Paige deserves more torture and payback. And what better way to torture her than by callously using poor Cheryl?
So Anna writes a note to Cheryl, in Paige’s handwriting, setting up a double-date for Cheryl and Kirk and Paige and some dude, and they should all meet at Paige’s house on Saturday night, and warns Cheryl not to approach Kirk at school, because it would embarrass him. Part of me really wants to believe that Kirk would actually have been nice enough to have handled this with some approximation of grace, or at least not outright cruelty. Not all teenagers are as horrid as Anna. “She knew Cheryl would fall for it unquestioningly. That’s how desperate Cheryl was.”
