College Weekend
Let the stupid-athon rage on with College Weekend! Ironically, the Wakefield twins are off to college - sorta kinda - for a “fling” (according to the back cover) at college life. Which, if you know the Wakefield twins, surely must involve all sorts of romantic “flinging” as well. Those Wakefield gals fling romance just like monkeys fling poo, you know.
Class is now in session. Welcome to Part 2 of the three-part college miniseries!
The title College Weekend is a bit of a misnomer; the twinsies are off for an entire week with Brother Steven at SVU, not just a weekend. And the events of the book take place over a week, not just a weekend. So I guess we’re supposed to think the events of their First College Weekend are what are most important.
This cover is a little more true-to-the-events-of-the-book than the last one. Jessica, dressed like Marcia Brady, is being wooed whilst leaning demurely against an oak tree (no, don’t try to apply deeper symbolism to it. This is Wakefieldland, and an oak tree is just an oak tree) by Zach Marsden, who’s in one of those long-sleeved rugby polo shirts for which she professed deep lurve in the last book. And Elizabeth is being wooed by the offspring of Stephen King and Bill Gates in a Typical College Coffeehouse. Something tells me any academic focus in this college miniseries will be purely superficial yet again!
And Elizabeth confirms it with the opening scene: she’s worried about what to wear! Does she look too young in this yellow flowered t-shirt? Well, having seen some of Elizabeth’s fashion choices in the past, I think we can conclude yes, because she probably has it color-coordinated with matching yellow barrettes, yellow sockies, and some high-waisted, pleated chino walking shorts. (Oh, darn it, no, she’s got on “crisp Levi’s and clean white Top-siders.”) Liz frets that maybe she should “wear something more mature... that would make people take me seriously as a college student.” Yeah, Liz, because for a Saturday on a SoCal college campus, you totally want to pull out the tweed skirt and the wool blazer with elbow patches. Sweetie, pull on a pair of cut-off denim shorts or ratty yoga pants, some flip flops, a cute little t-shirt and a hoodie, and you’ll be a-okay!
Jessica, naturally, has overslept (which means Liz has to nag her to get up), and has switched Liz’s big suitcase with her own little cheerleader duffle so she can cram in all her “prerush” silk and linen outfits (which means Liz has to be all doormatty). Oh, and BTW, Jess is wild and trendy, blah blah blah, Liz is responsible and practical, blah blah blah. So they galumph off for breakkie before hitting the road.
Stupid Quote #1: “You never make bacon on Saturdays, [Jessica] told her mother, helping herself to four pieces” (6). Of course not! Mrs. Wakefield only makes big bacon and egg breakfasts on work- and school-days. But on Saturdays, I guess she’s too busy translating 12th century Chinese poetry and grafting hybrid zucchinis in her garden to mess with merely makin’ bacon like it’s any other day.
So everyone’s acting like it’s the twinsies “first day of college” and they’re “going off to college” and all that sappy crap, when they’re really just going to hang out with Steven and Billie-the-girl for a week to “get a taste of the college experience.” You’d think with all of that, the Wakefields Senior would’ve arranged for their daughters to meet faculty members or administrators, talk to old alumni/former classmates of theirs, or heck, even taken Liz and Jess to SVU themselves! But why bother anything beyond token parenting at this point, when it’s been so effective thus far?
Jessica’s outfit of choice for a casual Saturday at SVU? “Hip-hugging white denim jeans and a boat-neck black-and-white-stripped top” and “a sophisticated upsweep.” I hope she’s at least wearing Uggs with it to make it stylish by local college standards.
Stupid Quote #2: “A few weeks before, Jessica and Elizabeth had been gearing up, in their own individual ways, for their first attempts at the SATs” (8). So yeah, now we’re supposed to believe that THE ENTIRE SAT DEBACLE, including tests, test results, retaking tests, getting new test results, and a whole mock trial supposedly happened in just a few weeks...? Ah, but we’re also supposed to believe in Evil Twins and 2-week cancers and werewolves and never-ending junior years, so okay.
Anyway, the Wakefields caution the girls to be nice to Steven and behave and all that, which Jess mentally pooh-poohs because she knows “what was really important: planning a week of college fun and parties.” Which is why her suitcase is now packed so heavily with the aforementioned “silks and linens” that she can’t get it down the stairs. It’s a good thing that the Wakefield Boyfriends show up in the 2Todd2 Beemer to give their loving, awesome, gorgeous, totally committed and faithful girlfriends some going-away pressies: two blue SVU sweatshirts and two red roses. Liz gets all snurfly and coos “Oh, Todd... I’m going to wear this sweatshirt every day I’m gone. That way I’ll feel like you’re always right there next to me.”
*insert copious eyerolling here*
Stupid Quote #3 “[Todd and I] have been separated before and I know I’ll be fine, but. . .” (14). Which means Liz will be engaged to marry a college professor of Romantic Poetry who is also a secret vampire-prince and in the witness protection program and moonlights as a chart-topping pop star by the time the weekend’s over.
Liz is even considering cutting their week - IT’S JUST ONE FREAKIN’ WEEK! - short so she can rush home to Todd again, but luckily, Jess revs up the Boyfriend Killer Jeep and they peel out of the driveway and off to college. W00ty-w00t!
The Off to College Road Trip involves several pit stops, which also provides Jessica with the opportunity to surreptitiously just start inviting strange (but hottt!!) guys over to her brother’s apartment for a party that night. However, because Jessica is a strong and independent woman, she thinks she’s “calling the shots” with the “guys fighting over her” and has engaged their attention in the first place by pretending that the trunk of the Jeep is stuck but “There! I got it!” because she “didn’t want any guy to think she was helpless, after all.” Yet, even when one of the guys engages in a “too forward, even for Jessica” move by putting his arm around her after a two-sentence exchange, Jessica nevertheless gives them her brother’s address and says “bring friends for a wild party! Whee!” Jessica is a fucking moron. Someone needs to beat her over the head with a hardcover copy of The Gift of Fear.
Liz and Jess finally get to Steven and Billie’s pad, and Liz somehow thinks that having stopped off to get them a ficus tree (because Billie loooooves ficus trees. *sigh* Does Billie also looooove sectional sofas, pink carnations, No. 2 pencils and Hamburger Helper?) makes them awesome houseguests despite the fact that Jess is secretly plotting to just say "Surprise, I'm having a party here tonight with a bunch of strangers!" And in the meantime, just to add to the Pending Tension Build-Up, Steven ‘n Billie are at their apartment reminiscing about the recent spate of Bad Houseguests they’ve had who ran up phone bills, ate all their pickles, smoked, and had to be forcibly kicked out. Oh, and got them in trouble with the landlord.
Gee.
As if that isn’t enough, Billie has already scheduled a romantic weekend getaway for her and Stevie, and they can’t change their plans or uninvite the twinsies or tell Ma and Pa Wakefield that they’re leaving the twinsies unsupervised or anything.
Golly.
So Jess is all thinking “WOO YEAH COLLEGE PARTY WITH RANDOM FRATERNITY GUYS!”
Liz, however, is even more doormatty than usual. You’d think by this time, Dizzy Miss Lizzie would know what will inevitably happen, and say “Over my dead body, Jessica!” or at the very least, beg Steven and Billie to not leave the apartment for at least the next 48 hours. But no. First she tries convincing Jessica that they should find something interesting happening on campus, and suggests a poetry reading, or a silent film festival, or maybe a jazz trio at the local coffeehouse. And as long as the poetry reading wasn’t too angsty and the jazz wasn’t too cool, Liz has just described one of my ideal nights out. But of COURSE Jessie is all “Eyeew, boring, nerdy, no way!” and “I already invited all these random strange guys over to our brother’s house tonight without his knowledge or permission and everything so now I’m honor-bound to actually have a party and invite a bunch of skanky hot girls, too. God, Liz, you are such a total loser for not being totally into the idea. You suck.”
At which point you’d think Liz would punch Jessica in the face and go off to see the Olive Thomas retrospective and have an Aztec-mocha cappuccino by herself. But no.
Stupid Quote #4: “Elizabeth looked at her sister’s plaintive pout and puppy-dog eyes and groaned. The thought of sitting in Steven’s apartment all night, turning away people who showed up for the party, sounded like about as much fun as watching the ficus tree take root in its new home. She could just go to campus by herself, do something she really wanted to do, and let Jessica deal with turning people away. But knowing Jessica, with me out of the house, she’d just go ahead with the party.... She hated it when Jessica backed her into a corner like this. But what choice did she have?”
So, seriously? Because Jess gives her puppy-eyes and whines, and because turning people away for a cancelled party would be “no fun,” Liz thinks “what choice [does] she have”?!?
1. Post several handwritten signs, in the apartment building lobby, foyer, front gate, Steven’s front door, etc., saying “THE PARTY TONIGHT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. SORRY!
2. Tell Jessica she is a spoiled, immature, selfish, pathetic little twat, and to grow the fuck up, because no moron with two brain cells to rub together would throw a party and invite a pack of strangers.
3. Call Steven and Billie, fill them in, and beseech “Tell Jessica ‘NO FUCKING WAY, NOT IN OUR HOME, BITCH!’”
4. Call Ma and Pa Wakefield and innocently ask “Steven and Billie have gone out for the night. I was thinking of going to a jazz show, and Jess wants to have a party. What do you think?” and sweetly let the parentals parent.
5. Slip four Excedrin PM into Jessica’s Diet Coke and wait patiently
And to make matters worse, stupid Lizzie tells Jess it’s okay to have the party if Jess promises to clean up after, too.
And we know how well that’ll go, right?
Stupid Quote #5: “Please tell me this isn’t going to be another one of Jessica’s huge mistakes.” Jeepers, Liz, even the average 10-year-old SVH reader could tell you that, you idjit. Something tells me, Liz, that the results are going to be even less “no fun” than turning away people in the first place.
The B-plot with Steven and Billie’s trip to the Bed & Breakfast is so stupid and lame and predictable and awful that it’s not even worth recapping. I mean, really, what do you THINK would happen with the B&B B-plot? That’s riiiight! And it does.
Run down? Weird landlady? Yucky bed? No decent food? Rain? Leaky roof?
And hilarity and hijinx ensue.
So back on the SVU campus, Liz and Jess have wandered over to explore the place. Jess wants to go straight to the dorms to start inviting more random (but HOTTT!!!!) strangers to her party, and naturally, they head for their future home, Dickenson [sic] Hall. Liz whines that “this is their home, we can’t just barge in!” and Jess goes “Don’t be a pill, no one cares.” Which is a crock of shit, because most college residences have locks and keys and security and you can’t just wander in and out, because of possible theft and stalking and fights and ten million other safety concerns. But like Jessie cares about safety concerns.
And even though it isn’t in the SVU books, here, DickHall is co-ed. Which makes Jessica, who is all awesomely feminist and smart (as we saw by her “calling the shots” with the random [but HOTTT!!!] strange guys), she decides that co-ed dorms are totally way awesome because of “how much fun in would be to parade around in her sexiest nightgowns, making all the guys drool.” Jess is one small but critical step away from thinking about how much fun it would be to French kiss Liz all twincesty because it would “make all the guys drool.”
The next scene is one of my favorites for sheer almost-but-totally-not-quite-edness of College Life. Jess and Liz split up to wander the dorm. Liz starts poking her head into people’s dorm rooms to listen in for an Intellectual Discussion to join. It’s like she’s Trick-or-Treating for “smart.” She hears someone challenging “Mr. History Expert” about “what would you consider to be the most important outcome of the Treaty of Versailles?” but Liz “moved on” because “although she enjoyed studying history, it wasn’t really her favorite subject.” Yeah, so why strain your brain with something that isn’t really your favorite? Then Liz overhears a “pretty African-American girl” discussing black identity for men v. women based on Invisible Man and Their Eyes Were Watching God and the study group starts arguing sexism v. racism and the pretty black girl just all of a sudden asks white, blonde, Anglo-Saxon Aryan Princess, denyin’-the-Jewish, upper-middle-class, snoopy nosy-Parker high schooler Elizabeth “What do YOU think?”
And while, overall, this is a giant WTF AS IF BITCH PLEASE moment, at least Ghostwriter sort of knew what was kind of going on in academia at the time, because that dissecting of various texts into “this is a black/white/Native American/Chinese-American/feminist/GLTG/ voice/representation/story” was pretty much the majority of my undergrad lit classes at the time, since the whole “universal experience” thing fell under sharp criticism in the early to mid 80sish. And now we’re seeing a little bit of a pendulum swing back to less divisive, more “collective” approach again. But I digress. At this point, all I’d expect from Sweet Valley is Lizzie overhearing someone going “OMG, I loooove Shakespeare! Poetry is soooo romantic!” or something, so even having Zora Neale Hurston _mentioned_ in the SVH world is huge.
And Pretty Black Girl asks Elizabeth if she’s ever read The Color Purple because that book will “completely prove her point.” So it’s a good thing Lizzie read that at the beach before her second go-‘round of the SATs in the last book. *eye roll*
This means, though, that Jess is free to go on a tear all over the rest of the dorm spreading the word about her party. And, like a hound to fresh meat, Jessica “was enveloped by the unmistakable aromas of popcorn and nail polish” and she discovers some girls hanging out in a room plastered with Jamie Peters posters and blasting Jamie Peters’s newest CD. Now, I really have no room to talk, because I’ve been known to plaster my dorm rooms at summer sessions with Britney Spears posters, old Duran Duran posters, Spice Girls posters, or oodles of BoyBand posters... not to mention all the free postcards, headlines from Weekly World News, 20-year-old cutouts from Star Hits magazine, and various oddities that I got in Chinatown. To say nothing about my blasting everything from the aforementioned Duran Duran and Spice Girls to Gunther, Peaches, the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack, and oodles of BoyBands. But really, would an actual college freshman, completely unironically, decorate her room in earnest with a teenyboppy boy-bandish artist like Jamie Peters, beloved of screaming high school juniors everywhere?
And instead of saying, “Hey, guess what, that’s my classmate’s dad,” Jess invites herself in to the random girls’ room, which prompts one of the girls to go “Come on in. Do you want to try out my new nail polish, Tangerine Dream?”
To somehow karmically bless Jessie’s pathetic party idea, it turns out the nail polish and Jamie Peters girls are Theta pledges, and promise to bring a whole bunch of sorority girls to the party.
So yeah, the party. Jessica is dancing with some guy named Jeff who, while HOTTT!!!!, can’t dance and has no personality, so she ditches him. Because our sweet Jess has such high standards, you know. And she’s all congratulating herself for her big, awesomely awesome achievement: throwing a totally awesome party! She notes in passing that “each one of the Thetas had at least two guys hanging on to her every word. The Thetas were the best-dressed, the prettiest, the most charming, and the most popular girls at the party.”
I think we need a “strange views of sororities” tag.
Jessica meets a couple Thetas who will show up later in SVU and is invited over to afternoon tea (What college sorority has afternoon tea, really?) at the sorority house on Monday. And really, even if these girls will be juniors and seniors when Jess is a college freshman, would they even care about some high school girl who came to visit them ‘way back when and vote her into the sorority based on that? I mean, Alice Wakefieldian Nepotism aside. And now Jess is gung-ho for SVU...? What happened to your Ivy League = Hottt Guys dreams, Jessica?!
By the way, these “best dressed” girls are wearing some very stylish ensembles. Darcy, the Tangerine Dream girl, has on “a flouncy miniskirt and thigh-highs.” Magda Helperin is wearing “a gold silk blouse” that “made her look even more like royalty.”
Then Jessica, of COURSE, picks up some totally cute guy, decides she could drown in his green eyes (but I don’t think we find out what color hair he has, which is totally weird for a Sweet Valley book, where everyone is distinguished by their hair and eye color). But when she finds out that this gorgeous guy, Zach Marsden, is from the East Coast, she starts up with the insane lying about how she grew up in Boston and went to Princeton but transferred to SVU and Elizabeth is actually her younger sister not her twin and she is a premed student who got a scholarship for discovering some rare disease called Jessadysmorphia-
Okay, so I made up that last bit.
But Jessica is totally all TWU WUV. Again. And all her lies are totally no big deal at all because she’s only gonna be at SVU for a week so she might as well enjoy herself and this is just harmless fun. Tee hee.
Then some guys bring in a keg and shove it in the bathtub and Liz freaks out. Sorry, sweet cheeks, but you should’ve guessed.
The cops show up, and the prototypical Teen Party Scenario takes place: “Turn the music down.” “Whatevs!” “OMG, THE COPS! EVERYONE GET OUT NOW!” “You’re such a killjoy, Liz.”
Note: there is actually a mention of “a chubby guy” at the party, eating chips and hanging with “a beautiful girl with straight black hair and crystal blue eyes.” WHY DIDN’T JESSICA WEED OUT THE UNDESIRABLES?! God, I can’t believe she thinks she’s thrown an awesome college party, but yet there’s a non-hotttt CHUBBY guy there! I’m so offended.
Jessica, natch, is in fine form when the cops show up to bust up the party, posing “so the men could appreciate the full impact of her sexy outfit: a filmy red blouse over a tight black T-shirt and black stretch pants.” Remember, SoCal cops are always impressed when you show off your goodies in an attempt to get out of trouble. Then again, these appear to be the dumbest cops in the precinct, because instead of going “You two underage kids claim to be responsible for this apartment, yet there’s a keg of beer in your bathroom?” or “Hi, we’re checking IDs because there is enough alcohol in this room to make Milwaukee jealous” and then thinking “Say, I hope no one drinks and drives!”, they just say “Everyone clear out. NOW!” and that works like a charm. Heck, they even wave at the twinsies as they drive away!
Elizabeth makes the rounds of the trashed apartment, and discovers a Cute Boy hanging out in Steven and Billie’s bedroom, reading her Edward R. Murrow biography, and they start talking about journalism and his classes and his famous professor and say, how would Liz like to come sit in on a journalism class and all that. The guy, Ian, is describe as having “bright red lips,” which makes me wonder if he has a secret lust for cherry Fun-Dip or if he’s been fellating some drunk Zeta. Anyway, Liz, of course, is all gooney and crushed out but, gosh, “My love for Todd is so strong, I couldn’t possibly be interested in anyone else!” Gee whiz. I guess meeting an interesting person who you could be friends with is out of the question, Lizzie...? Oh, no, it’s SVH, so this must = SOULMATES! TWU WUV! ANGST!
Ian actually offers to help the twinsies clean up, but because, as we’ve seen consistently throughout this College Party Hoo-Ha series, neither Liz nor Jess is terribly bright, they say “Oh, no, don’t worry about it!”
And Jess, in the meantime, is gloating about how she’s just thrown “the best party SVU has ever seen.” How would she know? Drunk sorority and fraternity people puking all over the bathroom and kitchen, loud music and dancing on furniture is just another weekend at San Diego State University, Jessie! But, awesomely awesome party aside, Jess has also scored Zach Marsden!
However, despite the fact that there’s food, drink, cigarettes, and puke everywhere, Jess convinces Elizabeth that they should just go to sleep now and get up early in the morning to clean. Maybe in hopes that the Magykal Cleany-Uppy Gnomes will have the mess taken care of by the time she wakes up...?
And you all know what’ll happen next, right...?
Billie may be even more doormatty than Elizabeth at this point, because not only does she just mutely walk around picking things up, she eventually convinces Steven to help so things’ll get cleaned up quicker. Hi, call a cleaning service like Merry Maids and make the stupid twinsies pay for it on the “emergency” credit card that Pa Wakefield seems to send everywhere with them! But oh, no, Billie, despite the fact that her bathrobe has been used to sop up some drunkard’s speeyack, still says that the twinsies are “just kids having fun.” Oh, okay, yeah, that’s what it was. Fun.
But if Billie is doormatty, Steven is pork stupid, because he actually believes Jessica when she tells him that she just invited a few people from the dorms over because the dorms were being fumigated for mice. And really, Steven’s known Jessica all his life, and he believes this? Well, Elizabeth sucks, too, because she actually corroborates this story, “resigned to the small lie.” You know, so Steven won’t “never trust either of them again.”
You’re missing the point, Lizzie... Steven SHOULDN’T trust either of you again! Jayzus!
Note: whomever it was who brought the keg of beer has just... left it there. And doesn’t that mean they won’t get their deposit back for not returning it...?
Anyway, as if Jessica hasn’t been a big enough hosebeast, she lies about having a headache to get out of going to a (eyeeew, yicky!) philosophy lecture so she can go out on a date with her Hunky College Man Zach. She dresses in a totally gorgeous “golden brown chenille turtleneck sweater over leggings and boots.” Very nice. I hope your sweater sheds and gets fabric pills all over the place, Jessica, you nasty twat.
At the College Coffeehouse, Steven is still brooding and Liz is still apologetic and Billie is still pacifying. Billie shares a touching story about going to visit her sister - never mentioned again, btw - at college, and “feeling intellectual and sophisticated Billie had lit a bunch of candles and sat down at her sister’s computer to write the great American novel.” Billie’s going to grow up to be an SV Ghostwriter if she thought she could write any sort of “great American novel” in one evening. But this makes Steven smile, so problems solved, troubles over, get me another cappuccino!
Zach takes sweet Jess to some juice bar that has a Goth chick, dressed in all black and Docs, waiting tables. Tell me that someone is flipping through a ‘zine and someone else is listening to Bikini Kill and someone else is playing with a Furbie or a giggapet and that Jessica and Liz’s honey-and-sunshine hair is cut in “the Rachel” and I’ll be satisfied.
Stupid Quote #6: “Jessica wished she had worn more black.” Because the boots and leggings aren’t enough...?
Stupid Quote #7: “Guava juice? Soba noodles? Somehow she had the feeling they didn’t serve milk shakes and fries-her snacks of choice at her favorite restaurant hangout, the Dairi Burger.” Yeah, God forbid Jessica should consider eating something that doesn’t contain bleached white flour, refined sugar, grease or red meat. She’s a twat-burger with extra cheese.
Anyway, Hunky College Man Zach orders Jessie a vegetable zinger, and makes disparaging comments about “high school kids.”
This is as predictable as Steven and Billie’s Banal B&B B-plot, isn’t it?
And Jessica makes snotty comments about philosophy and academics being sooooo boring, but relishes that, despite this enlightened attitude, there are all these awful misconceptions about blonde cheerleaders like her and she is still convincing as a deep, thoughtful and intellectual former Princeton student. And she announces she’s “into drama” which may be the biggest meta-statement of Jessica Wakefield’s life.
And Zach consecrates Jessie’s intellectual prowess and ability to lie like a cheap rug by calling her a “thespian” and comparing her favorably to the “ditzy” girls trying to flirt with him. “‘You’re so mature, and you’re not afraid to show how smart you are.... Intelligent women are so sexy.’ He looked at Jessica so appreciatively that she felt as if she would burst with pride.”
So how DARE we judge Jessica Wakefield! How dare we think less of her and doubt her intellect just because she’s a beautiful, blonde cheerleader who disparages anything remotely intellectual and lies all the time and cheats on her boyfriends and takes advantage of her family and-
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that, when an old SVH student shows up and recognizes Jessica, she has to lie a whole bunch more and pretend to spill her juice and all that stuff.
Back at the College Coffeehouse, Ian shows up, pisses Steven off with a reference to the party, flirts with Liz, and she manages to LJBF him nicely. Tra la la. And when Liz, Steven and Billie get back to the apartment, they discover Jess has left the door unlocked and is gone. And Liz rushes to quickly forge a note in Jessie’s handwriting to cover for her. I kind of wish that this was the Twinsie version of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and that the door is unlocked and Jessica is missing because some hospital orderly who Mr. Wakefield put in prison 20 years ago has come back to kidnap her, but alas, no. Jess is just out having fun with her Hunky College May-un, who is taking her on a “nighttime tour of the campus!” Wheeee! C’mon Jess, we know that Sweet Valley isn’t exempt from date rape, baby-doll, so try USING YOUR STUPID BLONDE HEAD FOR ONCE, if you want us to believe you have any kind of smarts at all, please?
And when Jess comes crashing in later that night, Billie even hops on the Doormat Express with Liz because they’re all allies against mean old overprotective Steven. Fucking A! But wait....
Stupid Quote #8: “Two-timing Ken? Is that what I’m doing?” GIVE ME A FUCKIING BREAK, JESSICA WAKEFIELD! What AREN’T you doing?!?!
Stupid Quote #9: “Billie continued... ‘You girls are adults and have a right to lead your own lives.’” NO THEY AREN’T ADULTS, YOU MORON! THEY’RE SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRLS WHO HAVE DONE LITTLE BUT BE IMMATURE IRRESPONSIBLE ASSHOLES IN THE 36 HOURS THEY’VE BEEN THERE!
Stupid Quote #10: “There’s nothing stupid about making a wonderful man fall in love with me. What could possibly go wrong? ...I’ve got everything under control.” Jessica is, like, the female high school version of the guy who says, “Yeah, I fucked her. But I MAKE LOVE to you, baby!”
So the next day, Monday, Elizabeth goes off to check out the campus news station in a post-SVU published pre-pseudo-foreshadowing of her working there with Tom Terrific when she’s a freshman, while Jessica wanders around and bumps into Zach and manages to convince him that she’s on campus without any books at all because today’s her “light load” and she only has one “afternoon seminar.” The stupidity is overwhelming. Anyway, Lizzie runs off to meet Ian - late! - for his journalism class taught by Felicia Newkirk, Famous Journalist. But Professor Newkirk rips Lizzie a new one - correctly, I might add - for busting in to her class late and disrupting everyone, and gives Liz a bit of a tongue-lashing. Liz tries to retaliate by “list[ing] off an abbreviated description of her credits, highlighting her internship with the London Times....” Oh, you guys! IMAGINE the magic of that! “Well, Miz Newkirk, I’ll have you know that I write the gossip column on my school paper, and sometimes write stories about trips to the mall or send out very important and socially conscious questionnaires about sexism and racism and stuff when it’s necessary to take a stab at token issue-discussion! Plus I did this whole thing in London where I dated a werewolf, so NYAH!”
So Liz stammers and blunders and crumples under Newkirk’s judgment, but tries to stand up for herself by snapping “I’m just as good a journalist as any of your so-called advanced students.”
Liz? I’d bet ten dollars that NO YOU AREN’T! So sit down and shut up!
Really, Liz disrupts a college class, acts like a bratty moron, and then throws down a gauntlet like that, and we’re supposed to be... on her side? Why? Oh, and LIZ is “pretty” while Newkirk is “portly” with “a bad wig,” along with being a raging (probably post-menopausal... you know how WOMEN are) bitch to Lizzie, so Liz totally wins in our hearts, doesn’t she?!
At the end of class, Newkirk announces a Big Essay Contest, with articles on college life, due at 9AM, and demands Elizabeth participate as well. *sigh*
Jess shows up - after actually purchasing a notebook to make herself look more like a college student - to meet Zach for his exciting philosophy lecture (lesson: the only reason to ever ever ever go to anything as nerdy as a philosophy class is if a Hotttt College May-un is involved. And p.s. All college kids do is talk about philosophy), but Hilarity and Hijinx ensue when Billie’s in the same class.
THEN Jess flits back to the apartment to change into a two-piece teal linen suit for her tea at Theta House. And seriously, what is up with all these YA serieseses portraying sororities as these tea-sipping, columned-mansion-dwelling, pastel suit-wearing conservative (but GORJUS and FUN and POPULAR) little enclaves of pre-trophy-wifedom? I’ve never seen a sorority like this on any college campus. Have you? But everything from SVU to Freshman Dorm to the Caitlin books (of which I’ll recap something next!) to Beverly Hills 90210 to Sorority House Massacre III would have you believe that there are women who unironically wear pearls and white gloves to class every day and nibble scones and arrange hothouse flowers in antique vases and coordinate their Italian leather pumps to their handbags-
Anyway, even though Jessica is A HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR, the Theta girls are all calling her a “rush” and bitching because Elizabeth isn’t there, and doesn’t she want to be a Theta, and they really need to be aware of the impression they’re making and blah blah blah.
And Jessica, the Lying Liar who Lies, spins a story about how Liz couldn’t come because “she found out that today’s the only day to audition to be an on-air personality for the student TV station....” The girls were impressed, and no one questioned how Elizabeth could work for the college TV station while she was still in high school.”
*facepalm* *headdesk*
HOW EFFING STUPID *ARE* ALL THESE PEOPLE?!?!
Well, pretty dumb, I guess, because all they do is talk about guys and how to meet them and where to go with them and Jessica finds out that although Magda thinks she’s totally not a slut for flirting with a college dude even though she’s got a boyfriend back home, Magda also has a crush on... Zach. OH NO! What if Jessie jeopardizes her entire future as a Theta?! But... but Zach is soooo cute! OMG WHAT TO DOOOOO!?!?!
Elizabeth pulls an all-nighter to write her Big Important College Journalism Article. She rejects a number of ideas as too overdone, like sorority stuff and competitiveness in college athletics. Then Billie peeks in and suggests, in grand Künstlerroman tradition, that Liz “should write about what you know”... namely, the big party. And Liz perks right up because “I have firsthand knowledge of one of the most important issues facing college students today: alcohol.” That’s it, Liz. Pick a nice, broad, general topic for your 1000 word article. You dumbshit.
I would like to point out that my current word count on this recap is 5600 words.
Jessica goes out with Zach again. Because a smart and serious college student would be able to go out EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. And Jessica is “wearing a cropped white sweater over a very short red-and-black-plaid miniskirt, finishing the look with black thigh-highs.” How very Riot Grrl.
Stupid Quote #11: “College life seems like one big party, she thought happily. I love it.” Jess? IT ISN’T! At least, not if you want to manage to pass a class or two, cupcake, yes?
Jessica and Zach, “so sophisticated,” order wine with dinner. Which is retarded, because the legal drinking age in California is twenty one. And neither of them are even close. And maybe Liz ought to mention this problem of waiters serving underage college students in her 1000 word article.
p.s. Zach’s father might be a spy in the CIA. This sounds like a potential Bad Dating Horror Story. I only hope Zach is also a ninja, invented the pretzel, wrote all of Bryan Adams’s songs, and was rejected by NASA for being “too good”! http://www.etiquettehell.com/smf/index.php?topic=28649.msg648911#msg648911
So, Elizabeth is all writing her awesomely awesome article. Which goes like this:
For many students, freshman year is their first time away from home, away from the watchful eyes of their parents. With this new freedom comes both reward and risk: the reward of being able to assert one’s independence is tempered by the risk of making huge mistakes. Unfortunately, too many young people at universities today make the very same mistake. Namely, they think that the best way to enjoy their newfound freedom is to spend every weekend drowning themselves in a bottle beer bong.
Many students have turned the activity of getting drunk into a science. One can only imagine how many wonderful new engineering innovations these young people might discover if they would put their minds to something more constructive than the search for the next buzz.
Hm. Preachy, generalized drivel. How impressive. But Liz is all chuffed with herself because she thinks she’s being all objective and stuff. And I can see drowning yourself WITH a beer bong, but drowning yourself IN one? (Oh, and Liz? BTW? Reflexive pronoun use, peaches. Professor Dwanollah hopes you do a grammar check and read your work out loud at least twice before turning it in.)
Newkirk’s “so-called advanced students” have to be taking Journalism 98 or something if Liz is gonna kick their asses.
Jess comes stumbling in all “buzzed” from the wine at dinner, and Liz is all, “did Zach drive?!” and Jess is all “Psssh, like I’d get into a car with someone who’d been drinking. I’m not YOU, Liz, with your Boyfriend Killing Magic Vodka, so suck it!” Well, or not. But I wish.
Liz has managed to work through the night - making Steven and Billie sleep in sleeping bags in the living room so she can use the computer in the bedroom - to get her “thoughts... organize into a compelling enough argument.” Maybe if your subject was “Supposedly Smart Girls Who Do Super Stupid Things,” you’d have a compelling argument. And hey, brain trusts? Why not unplug the computer and move it out of the bedroom for one night, huh?
Ken calls Jessica, and she lies her ass off to him, and later rationalizes it because Ken was mean and doubted her intelligence with the whole SAT test thingie, but Zach...! Now, ZACH loves and respects her for her brilliant mind! (Note: Todd has not called Liz yet. Nyah.) And Magda calls and invites the twinsies to lunch but Liz has already left for campus, and that makes Magda miffed, and she tells Jess that Liz had better start “acting like a pledge” or “we’ll have serious doubts about whether she’s qualified to be a Theta.” Gawd damn, they’re HIGH SCHOOL JUNIORS! They aren’t even close to being pledges yet!
The Thetas have a cook named Maria. Maria has a greasy boyfriend with chest hair and a missing tooth, and the Thetas make fun of her. The Thetas are soooo wonderful. Jessica spends a token three seconds thinking that the Thetas might be an eensy weensy bit mean, but soon everyone’s talking about shopping and boys, and why waste all that icky time on thinking about racial issues when there are fingernails to polish and hotttt college guys to flirt with?
Liz sits on a bench on campus, thinking about how much she fits in here and is all super-intellectual. Then Ian shows up and tells Liz that one of the guys in journalism class thought she was “cute,” which, thankfully, make Liz react with anger and disbelief that some guy would want to ask her out even though she “came off looking like a ditz” in class and shrieks “I thought guys in college were different. I thought they would be interested in women who actually have brains in their heads.” Liz’s life is going to be a constant series of rude awakenings. Anyway, why not give the guy Jess’s name and number...?
But golly gosh, has Jessie got problems! Zach is taking her to the Zeta formal dance next weekend, and Magda is going too, and if she sees Jess with Zach, Jess will NEVER be a Theta! What WILL she do? And Jessica gets all upset and cwies her wittle eyes out to Billie. *eye roll*
Then Zach shows up to whisk Jess off to dinner. And of course, who should show up at the restaurant but Magda. OH NOOOOO!
And then Professor Newkirk announces in the journalism seminar that she has made an “error in judgment” and blah blah blah “confronted with a discrepancy” and blah blah blah “strive for knowledge, truth and objectivity” and-
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Supposedly ELIZABETH FUCKING WAKEFIELD has “vastly outperform[ed] every student” in Newkirk’s class. What, did only two other people turn in essays?! Anyway, Lizzie wins the Big Wonderful Journalism Prize, which entails getting her article published in a Big Magazine and taking an internship at the SVU Chronicle, which is supposedly “distributed nationally,” which is almost as big a “bullshit!’ as Newkirk telling Lizzie to “take your high-school equivalency test, enroll in SVU, and get on with the business of reporting.” Oh, please. Like it wouldn’t be to Elizabeth’s academic advantage to, oh, have another year and a half of top grades in high school, take AP classes, get more scholarships, rack up more extracurriculars and all that...? What a steaming pile of shit.
Well, include the hi-larious ending where Newkirk takes off her glasses and queries, “Just one question, Ms. Wakefield. What, exactly, is a beer bong?” You’d award a major prize to an article that contains a reference to something that you have no idea what it IS, Professor?!
Every single person in this series who is supposedly smart is SO COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY AND UNBELIEVABLY STUPID!
So Liz rushes back to the apartment and announces to Steven and Billie that, yay, she’s staying at SVU, and gets to be their permanent apartment-mate. Presumptuous much, you asshole? Get your own apartment!
And with that, class is dismissed. And yes, it’ll be on the test.
Class is now in session. Welcome to Part 2 of the three-part college miniseries!
The title College Weekend is a bit of a misnomer; the twinsies are off for an entire week with Brother Steven at SVU, not just a weekend. And the events of the book take place over a week, not just a weekend. So I guess we’re supposed to think the events of their First College Weekend are what are most important.
This cover is a little more true-to-the-events-of-the-book than the last one. Jessica, dressed like Marcia Brady, is being wooed whilst leaning demurely against an oak tree (no, don’t try to apply deeper symbolism to it. This is Wakefieldland, and an oak tree is just an oak tree) by Zach Marsden, who’s in one of those long-sleeved rugby polo shirts for which she professed deep lurve in the last book. And Elizabeth is being wooed by the offspring of Stephen King and Bill Gates in a Typical College Coffeehouse. Something tells me any academic focus in this college miniseries will be purely superficial yet again!
And Elizabeth confirms it with the opening scene: she’s worried about what to wear! Does she look too young in this yellow flowered t-shirt? Well, having seen some of Elizabeth’s fashion choices in the past, I think we can conclude yes, because she probably has it color-coordinated with matching yellow barrettes, yellow sockies, and some high-waisted, pleated chino walking shorts. (Oh, darn it, no, she’s got on “crisp Levi’s and clean white Top-siders.”) Liz frets that maybe she should “wear something more mature... that would make people take me seriously as a college student.” Yeah, Liz, because for a Saturday on a SoCal college campus, you totally want to pull out the tweed skirt and the wool blazer with elbow patches. Sweetie, pull on a pair of cut-off denim shorts or ratty yoga pants, some flip flops, a cute little t-shirt and a hoodie, and you’ll be a-okay!
Jessica, naturally, has overslept (which means Liz has to nag her to get up), and has switched Liz’s big suitcase with her own little cheerleader duffle so she can cram in all her “prerush” silk and linen outfits (which means Liz has to be all doormatty). Oh, and BTW, Jess is wild and trendy, blah blah blah, Liz is responsible and practical, blah blah blah. So they galumph off for breakkie before hitting the road.
Stupid Quote #1: “You never make bacon on Saturdays, [Jessica] told her mother, helping herself to four pieces” (6). Of course not! Mrs. Wakefield only makes big bacon and egg breakfasts on work- and school-days. But on Saturdays, I guess she’s too busy translating 12th century Chinese poetry and grafting hybrid zucchinis in her garden to mess with merely makin’ bacon like it’s any other day.
So everyone’s acting like it’s the twinsies “first day of college” and they’re “going off to college” and all that sappy crap, when they’re really just going to hang out with Steven and Billie-the-girl for a week to “get a taste of the college experience.” You’d think with all of that, the Wakefields Senior would’ve arranged for their daughters to meet faculty members or administrators, talk to old alumni/former classmates of theirs, or heck, even taken Liz and Jess to SVU themselves! But why bother anything beyond token parenting at this point, when it’s been so effective thus far?
Jessica’s outfit of choice for a casual Saturday at SVU? “Hip-hugging white denim jeans and a boat-neck black-and-white-stripped top” and “a sophisticated upsweep.” I hope she’s at least wearing Uggs with it to make it stylish by local college standards.
Stupid Quote #2: “A few weeks before, Jessica and Elizabeth had been gearing up, in their own individual ways, for their first attempts at the SATs” (8). So yeah, now we’re supposed to believe that THE ENTIRE SAT DEBACLE, including tests, test results, retaking tests, getting new test results, and a whole mock trial supposedly happened in just a few weeks...? Ah, but we’re also supposed to believe in Evil Twins and 2-week cancers and werewolves and never-ending junior years, so okay.
Anyway, the Wakefields caution the girls to be nice to Steven and behave and all that, which Jess mentally pooh-poohs because she knows “what was really important: planning a week of college fun and parties.” Which is why her suitcase is now packed so heavily with the aforementioned “silks and linens” that she can’t get it down the stairs. It’s a good thing that the Wakefield Boyfriends show up in the 2Todd2 Beemer to give their loving, awesome, gorgeous, totally committed and faithful girlfriends some going-away pressies: two blue SVU sweatshirts and two red roses. Liz gets all snurfly and coos “Oh, Todd... I’m going to wear this sweatshirt every day I’m gone. That way I’ll feel like you’re always right there next to me.”
*insert copious eyerolling here*
Stupid Quote #3 “[Todd and I] have been separated before and I know I’ll be fine, but. . .” (14). Which means Liz will be engaged to marry a college professor of Romantic Poetry who is also a secret vampire-prince and in the witness protection program and moonlights as a chart-topping pop star by the time the weekend’s over.
Liz is even considering cutting their week - IT’S JUST ONE FREAKIN’ WEEK! - short so she can rush home to Todd again, but luckily, Jess revs up the Boyfriend Killer Jeep and they peel out of the driveway and off to college. W00ty-w00t!
The Off to College Road Trip involves several pit stops, which also provides Jessica with the opportunity to surreptitiously just start inviting strange (but hottt!!) guys over to her brother’s apartment for a party that night. However, because Jessica is a strong and independent woman, she thinks she’s “calling the shots” with the “guys fighting over her” and has engaged their attention in the first place by pretending that the trunk of the Jeep is stuck but “There! I got it!” because she “didn’t want any guy to think she was helpless, after all.” Yet, even when one of the guys engages in a “too forward, even for Jessica” move by putting his arm around her after a two-sentence exchange, Jessica nevertheless gives them her brother’s address and says “bring friends for a wild party! Whee!” Jessica is a fucking moron. Someone needs to beat her over the head with a hardcover copy of The Gift of Fear.
Liz and Jess finally get to Steven and Billie’s pad, and Liz somehow thinks that having stopped off to get them a ficus tree (because Billie loooooves ficus trees. *sigh* Does Billie also looooove sectional sofas, pink carnations, No. 2 pencils and Hamburger Helper?) makes them awesome houseguests despite the fact that Jess is secretly plotting to just say "Surprise, I'm having a party here tonight with a bunch of strangers!" And in the meantime, just to add to the Pending Tension Build-Up, Steven ‘n Billie are at their apartment reminiscing about the recent spate of Bad Houseguests they’ve had who ran up phone bills, ate all their pickles, smoked, and had to be forcibly kicked out. Oh, and got them in trouble with the landlord.
Gee.
As if that isn’t enough, Billie has already scheduled a romantic weekend getaway for her and Stevie, and they can’t change their plans or uninvite the twinsies or tell Ma and Pa Wakefield that they’re leaving the twinsies unsupervised or anything.
Golly.
So Jess is all thinking “WOO YEAH COLLEGE PARTY WITH RANDOM FRATERNITY GUYS!”
Liz, however, is even more doormatty than usual. You’d think by this time, Dizzy Miss Lizzie would know what will inevitably happen, and say “Over my dead body, Jessica!” or at the very least, beg Steven and Billie to not leave the apartment for at least the next 48 hours. But no. First she tries convincing Jessica that they should find something interesting happening on campus, and suggests a poetry reading, or a silent film festival, or maybe a jazz trio at the local coffeehouse. And as long as the poetry reading wasn’t too angsty and the jazz wasn’t too cool, Liz has just described one of my ideal nights out. But of COURSE Jessie is all “Eyeew, boring, nerdy, no way!” and “I already invited all these random strange guys over to our brother’s house tonight without his knowledge or permission and everything so now I’m honor-bound to actually have a party and invite a bunch of skanky hot girls, too. God, Liz, you are such a total loser for not being totally into the idea. You suck.”
At which point you’d think Liz would punch Jessica in the face and go off to see the Olive Thomas retrospective and have an Aztec-mocha cappuccino by herself. But no.
Stupid Quote #4: “Elizabeth looked at her sister’s plaintive pout and puppy-dog eyes and groaned. The thought of sitting in Steven’s apartment all night, turning away people who showed up for the party, sounded like about as much fun as watching the ficus tree take root in its new home. She could just go to campus by herself, do something she really wanted to do, and let Jessica deal with turning people away. But knowing Jessica, with me out of the house, she’d just go ahead with the party.... She hated it when Jessica backed her into a corner like this. But what choice did she have?”
So, seriously? Because Jess gives her puppy-eyes and whines, and because turning people away for a cancelled party would be “no fun,” Liz thinks “what choice [does] she have”?!?
1. Post several handwritten signs, in the apartment building lobby, foyer, front gate, Steven’s front door, etc., saying “THE PARTY TONIGHT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. SORRY!
2. Tell Jessica she is a spoiled, immature, selfish, pathetic little twat, and to grow the fuck up, because no moron with two brain cells to rub together would throw a party and invite a pack of strangers.
3. Call Steven and Billie, fill them in, and beseech “Tell Jessica ‘NO FUCKING WAY, NOT IN OUR HOME, BITCH!’”
4. Call Ma and Pa Wakefield and innocently ask “Steven and Billie have gone out for the night. I was thinking of going to a jazz show, and Jess wants to have a party. What do you think?” and sweetly let the parentals parent.
5. Slip four Excedrin PM into Jessica’s Diet Coke and wait patiently
And to make matters worse, stupid Lizzie tells Jess it’s okay to have the party if Jess promises to clean up after, too.
And we know how well that’ll go, right?
Stupid Quote #5: “Please tell me this isn’t going to be another one of Jessica’s huge mistakes.” Jeepers, Liz, even the average 10-year-old SVH reader could tell you that, you idjit. Something tells me, Liz, that the results are going to be even less “no fun” than turning away people in the first place.
The B-plot with Steven and Billie’s trip to the Bed & Breakfast is so stupid and lame and predictable and awful that it’s not even worth recapping. I mean, really, what do you THINK would happen with the B&B B-plot? That’s riiiight! And it does.
Run down? Weird landlady? Yucky bed? No decent food? Rain? Leaky roof?
And hilarity and hijinx ensue.
So back on the SVU campus, Liz and Jess have wandered over to explore the place. Jess wants to go straight to the dorms to start inviting more random (but HOTTT!!!!) strangers to her party, and naturally, they head for their future home, Dickenson [sic] Hall. Liz whines that “this is their home, we can’t just barge in!” and Jess goes “Don’t be a pill, no one cares.” Which is a crock of shit, because most college residences have locks and keys and security and you can’t just wander in and out, because of possible theft and stalking and fights and ten million other safety concerns. But like Jessie cares about safety concerns.
And even though it isn’t in the SVU books, here, DickHall is co-ed. Which makes Jessica, who is all awesomely feminist and smart (as we saw by her “calling the shots” with the random [but HOTTT!!!] strange guys), she decides that co-ed dorms are totally way awesome because of “how much fun in would be to parade around in her sexiest nightgowns, making all the guys drool.” Jess is one small but critical step away from thinking about how much fun it would be to French kiss Liz all twincesty because it would “make all the guys drool.”
The next scene is one of my favorites for sheer almost-but-totally-not-quite-edness of College Life. Jess and Liz split up to wander the dorm. Liz starts poking her head into people’s dorm rooms to listen in for an Intellectual Discussion to join. It’s like she’s Trick-or-Treating for “smart.” She hears someone challenging “Mr. History Expert” about “what would you consider to be the most important outcome of the Treaty of Versailles?” but Liz “moved on” because “although she enjoyed studying history, it wasn’t really her favorite subject.” Yeah, so why strain your brain with something that isn’t really your favorite? Then Liz overhears a “pretty African-American girl” discussing black identity for men v. women based on Invisible Man and Their Eyes Were Watching God and the study group starts arguing sexism v. racism and the pretty black girl just all of a sudden asks white, blonde, Anglo-Saxon Aryan Princess, denyin’-the-Jewish, upper-middle-class, snoopy nosy-Parker high schooler Elizabeth “What do YOU think?”
And while, overall, this is a giant WTF AS IF BITCH PLEASE moment, at least Ghostwriter sort of knew what was kind of going on in academia at the time, because that dissecting of various texts into “this is a black/white/Native American/Chinese-American/feminist/GLTG/ voice/representation/story” was pretty much the majority of my undergrad lit classes at the time, since the whole “universal experience” thing fell under sharp criticism in the early to mid 80sish. And now we’re seeing a little bit of a pendulum swing back to less divisive, more “collective” approach again. But I digress. At this point, all I’d expect from Sweet Valley is Lizzie overhearing someone going “OMG, I loooove Shakespeare! Poetry is soooo romantic!” or something, so even having Zora Neale Hurston _mentioned_ in the SVH world is huge.
And Pretty Black Girl asks Elizabeth if she’s ever read The Color Purple because that book will “completely prove her point.” So it’s a good thing Lizzie read that at the beach before her second go-‘round of the SATs in the last book. *eye roll*
This means, though, that Jess is free to go on a tear all over the rest of the dorm spreading the word about her party. And, like a hound to fresh meat, Jessica “was enveloped by the unmistakable aromas of popcorn and nail polish” and she discovers some girls hanging out in a room plastered with Jamie Peters posters and blasting Jamie Peters’s newest CD. Now, I really have no room to talk, because I’ve been known to plaster my dorm rooms at summer sessions with Britney Spears posters, old Duran Duran posters, Spice Girls posters, or oodles of BoyBand posters... not to mention all the free postcards, headlines from Weekly World News, 20-year-old cutouts from Star Hits magazine, and various oddities that I got in Chinatown. To say nothing about my blasting everything from the aforementioned Duran Duran and Spice Girls to Gunther, Peaches, the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack, and oodles of BoyBands. But really, would an actual college freshman, completely unironically, decorate her room in earnest with a teenyboppy boy-bandish artist like Jamie Peters, beloved of screaming high school juniors everywhere?
And instead of saying, “Hey, guess what, that’s my classmate’s dad,” Jess invites herself in to the random girls’ room, which prompts one of the girls to go “Come on in. Do you want to try out my new nail polish, Tangerine Dream?”
To somehow karmically bless Jessie’s pathetic party idea, it turns out the nail polish and Jamie Peters girls are Theta pledges, and promise to bring a whole bunch of sorority girls to the party.
So yeah, the party. Jessica is dancing with some guy named Jeff who, while HOTTT!!!!, can’t dance and has no personality, so she ditches him. Because our sweet Jess has such high standards, you know. And she’s all congratulating herself for her big, awesomely awesome achievement: throwing a totally awesome party! She notes in passing that “each one of the Thetas had at least two guys hanging on to her every word. The Thetas were the best-dressed, the prettiest, the most charming, and the most popular girls at the party.”
I think we need a “strange views of sororities” tag.
Jessica meets a couple Thetas who will show up later in SVU and is invited over to afternoon tea (What college sorority has afternoon tea, really?) at the sorority house on Monday. And really, even if these girls will be juniors and seniors when Jess is a college freshman, would they even care about some high school girl who came to visit them ‘way back when and vote her into the sorority based on that? I mean, Alice Wakefieldian Nepotism aside. And now Jess is gung-ho for SVU...? What happened to your Ivy League = Hottt Guys dreams, Jessica?!
By the way, these “best dressed” girls are wearing some very stylish ensembles. Darcy, the Tangerine Dream girl, has on “a flouncy miniskirt and thigh-highs.” Magda Helperin is wearing “a gold silk blouse” that “made her look even more like royalty.”
Then Jessica, of COURSE, picks up some totally cute guy, decides she could drown in his green eyes (but I don’t think we find out what color hair he has, which is totally weird for a Sweet Valley book, where everyone is distinguished by their hair and eye color). But when she finds out that this gorgeous guy, Zach Marsden, is from the East Coast, she starts up with the insane lying about how she grew up in Boston and went to Princeton but transferred to SVU and Elizabeth is actually her younger sister not her twin and she is a premed student who got a scholarship for discovering some rare disease called Jessadysmorphia-
Okay, so I made up that last bit.
But Jessica is totally all TWU WUV. Again. And all her lies are totally no big deal at all because she’s only gonna be at SVU for a week so she might as well enjoy herself and this is just harmless fun. Tee hee.
Then some guys bring in a keg and shove it in the bathtub and Liz freaks out. Sorry, sweet cheeks, but you should’ve guessed.
The cops show up, and the prototypical Teen Party Scenario takes place: “Turn the music down.” “Whatevs!” “OMG, THE COPS! EVERYONE GET OUT NOW!” “You’re such a killjoy, Liz.”
Note: there is actually a mention of “a chubby guy” at the party, eating chips and hanging with “a beautiful girl with straight black hair and crystal blue eyes.” WHY DIDN’T JESSICA WEED OUT THE UNDESIRABLES?! God, I can’t believe she thinks she’s thrown an awesome college party, but yet there’s a non-hotttt CHUBBY guy there! I’m so offended.
Jessica, natch, is in fine form when the cops show up to bust up the party, posing “so the men could appreciate the full impact of her sexy outfit: a filmy red blouse over a tight black T-shirt and black stretch pants.” Remember, SoCal cops are always impressed when you show off your goodies in an attempt to get out of trouble. Then again, these appear to be the dumbest cops in the precinct, because instead of going “You two underage kids claim to be responsible for this apartment, yet there’s a keg of beer in your bathroom?” or “Hi, we’re checking IDs because there is enough alcohol in this room to make Milwaukee jealous” and then thinking “Say, I hope no one drinks and drives!”, they just say “Everyone clear out. NOW!” and that works like a charm. Heck, they even wave at the twinsies as they drive away!
Elizabeth makes the rounds of the trashed apartment, and discovers a Cute Boy hanging out in Steven and Billie’s bedroom, reading her Edward R. Murrow biography, and they start talking about journalism and his classes and his famous professor and say, how would Liz like to come sit in on a journalism class and all that. The guy, Ian, is describe as having “bright red lips,” which makes me wonder if he has a secret lust for cherry Fun-Dip or if he’s been fellating some drunk Zeta. Anyway, Liz, of course, is all gooney and crushed out but, gosh, “My love for Todd is so strong, I couldn’t possibly be interested in anyone else!” Gee whiz. I guess meeting an interesting person who you could be friends with is out of the question, Lizzie...? Oh, no, it’s SVH, so this must = SOULMATES! TWU WUV! ANGST!
Ian actually offers to help the twinsies clean up, but because, as we’ve seen consistently throughout this College Party Hoo-Ha series, neither Liz nor Jess is terribly bright, they say “Oh, no, don’t worry about it!”
And Jess, in the meantime, is gloating about how she’s just thrown “the best party SVU has ever seen.” How would she know? Drunk sorority and fraternity people puking all over the bathroom and kitchen, loud music and dancing on furniture is just another weekend at San Diego State University, Jessie! But, awesomely awesome party aside, Jess has also scored Zach Marsden!
However, despite the fact that there’s food, drink, cigarettes, and puke everywhere, Jess convinces Elizabeth that they should just go to sleep now and get up early in the morning to clean. Maybe in hopes that the Magykal Cleany-Uppy Gnomes will have the mess taken care of by the time she wakes up...?
And you all know what’ll happen next, right...?
Billie may be even more doormatty than Elizabeth at this point, because not only does she just mutely walk around picking things up, she eventually convinces Steven to help so things’ll get cleaned up quicker. Hi, call a cleaning service like Merry Maids and make the stupid twinsies pay for it on the “emergency” credit card that Pa Wakefield seems to send everywhere with them! But oh, no, Billie, despite the fact that her bathrobe has been used to sop up some drunkard’s speeyack, still says that the twinsies are “just kids having fun.” Oh, okay, yeah, that’s what it was. Fun.
But if Billie is doormatty, Steven is pork stupid, because he actually believes Jessica when she tells him that she just invited a few people from the dorms over because the dorms were being fumigated for mice. And really, Steven’s known Jessica all his life, and he believes this? Well, Elizabeth sucks, too, because she actually corroborates this story, “resigned to the small lie.” You know, so Steven won’t “never trust either of them again.”
You’re missing the point, Lizzie... Steven SHOULDN’T trust either of you again! Jayzus!
Note: whomever it was who brought the keg of beer has just... left it there. And doesn’t that mean they won’t get their deposit back for not returning it...?
Anyway, as if Jessica hasn’t been a big enough hosebeast, she lies about having a headache to get out of going to a (eyeeew, yicky!) philosophy lecture so she can go out on a date with her Hunky College Man Zach. She dresses in a totally gorgeous “golden brown chenille turtleneck sweater over leggings and boots.” Very nice. I hope your sweater sheds and gets fabric pills all over the place, Jessica, you nasty twat.
At the College Coffeehouse, Steven is still brooding and Liz is still apologetic and Billie is still pacifying. Billie shares a touching story about going to visit her sister - never mentioned again, btw - at college, and “feeling intellectual and sophisticated Billie had lit a bunch of candles and sat down at her sister’s computer to write the great American novel.” Billie’s going to grow up to be an SV Ghostwriter if she thought she could write any sort of “great American novel” in one evening. But this makes Steven smile, so problems solved, troubles over, get me another cappuccino!
Zach takes sweet Jess to some juice bar that has a Goth chick, dressed in all black and Docs, waiting tables. Tell me that someone is flipping through a ‘zine and someone else is listening to Bikini Kill and someone else is playing with a Furbie or a giggapet and that Jessica and Liz’s honey-and-sunshine hair is cut in “the Rachel” and I’ll be satisfied.
Stupid Quote #6: “Jessica wished she had worn more black.” Because the boots and leggings aren’t enough...?
Stupid Quote #7: “Guava juice? Soba noodles? Somehow she had the feeling they didn’t serve milk shakes and fries-her snacks of choice at her favorite restaurant hangout, the Dairi Burger.” Yeah, God forbid Jessica should consider eating something that doesn’t contain bleached white flour, refined sugar, grease or red meat. She’s a twat-burger with extra cheese.
Anyway, Hunky College Man Zach orders Jessie a vegetable zinger, and makes disparaging comments about “high school kids.”
This is as predictable as Steven and Billie’s Banal B&B B-plot, isn’t it?
And Jessica makes snotty comments about philosophy and academics being sooooo boring, but relishes that, despite this enlightened attitude, there are all these awful misconceptions about blonde cheerleaders like her and she is still convincing as a deep, thoughtful and intellectual former Princeton student. And she announces she’s “into drama” which may be the biggest meta-statement of Jessica Wakefield’s life.
And Zach consecrates Jessie’s intellectual prowess and ability to lie like a cheap rug by calling her a “thespian” and comparing her favorably to the “ditzy” girls trying to flirt with him. “‘You’re so mature, and you’re not afraid to show how smart you are.... Intelligent women are so sexy.’ He looked at Jessica so appreciatively that she felt as if she would burst with pride.”
So how DARE we judge Jessica Wakefield! How dare we think less of her and doubt her intellect just because she’s a beautiful, blonde cheerleader who disparages anything remotely intellectual and lies all the time and cheats on her boyfriends and takes advantage of her family and-
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that, when an old SVH student shows up and recognizes Jessica, she has to lie a whole bunch more and pretend to spill her juice and all that stuff.
Back at the College Coffeehouse, Ian shows up, pisses Steven off with a reference to the party, flirts with Liz, and she manages to LJBF him nicely. Tra la la. And when Liz, Steven and Billie get back to the apartment, they discover Jess has left the door unlocked and is gone. And Liz rushes to quickly forge a note in Jessie’s handwriting to cover for her. I kind of wish that this was the Twinsie version of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and that the door is unlocked and Jessica is missing because some hospital orderly who Mr. Wakefield put in prison 20 years ago has come back to kidnap her, but alas, no. Jess is just out having fun with her Hunky College May-un, who is taking her on a “nighttime tour of the campus!” Wheeee! C’mon Jess, we know that Sweet Valley isn’t exempt from date rape, baby-doll, so try USING YOUR STUPID BLONDE HEAD FOR ONCE, if you want us to believe you have any kind of smarts at all, please?
And when Jess comes crashing in later that night, Billie even hops on the Doormat Express with Liz because they’re all allies against mean old overprotective Steven. Fucking A! But wait....
Stupid Quote #8: “Two-timing Ken? Is that what I’m doing?” GIVE ME A FUCKIING BREAK, JESSICA WAKEFIELD! What AREN’T you doing?!?!
Stupid Quote #9: “Billie continued... ‘You girls are adults and have a right to lead your own lives.’” NO THEY AREN’T ADULTS, YOU MORON! THEY’RE SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRLS WHO HAVE DONE LITTLE BUT BE IMMATURE IRRESPONSIBLE ASSHOLES IN THE 36 HOURS THEY’VE BEEN THERE!
Stupid Quote #10: “There’s nothing stupid about making a wonderful man fall in love with me. What could possibly go wrong? ...I’ve got everything under control.” Jessica is, like, the female high school version of the guy who says, “Yeah, I fucked her. But I MAKE LOVE to you, baby!”
So the next day, Monday, Elizabeth goes off to check out the campus news station in a post-SVU published pre-pseudo-foreshadowing of her working there with Tom Terrific when she’s a freshman, while Jessica wanders around and bumps into Zach and manages to convince him that she’s on campus without any books at all because today’s her “light load” and she only has one “afternoon seminar.” The stupidity is overwhelming. Anyway, Lizzie runs off to meet Ian - late! - for his journalism class taught by Felicia Newkirk, Famous Journalist. But Professor Newkirk rips Lizzie a new one - correctly, I might add - for busting in to her class late and disrupting everyone, and gives Liz a bit of a tongue-lashing. Liz tries to retaliate by “list[ing] off an abbreviated description of her credits, highlighting her internship with the London Times....” Oh, you guys! IMAGINE the magic of that! “Well, Miz Newkirk, I’ll have you know that I write the gossip column on my school paper, and sometimes write stories about trips to the mall or send out very important and socially conscious questionnaires about sexism and racism and stuff when it’s necessary to take a stab at token issue-discussion! Plus I did this whole thing in London where I dated a werewolf, so NYAH!”
So Liz stammers and blunders and crumples under Newkirk’s judgment, but tries to stand up for herself by snapping “I’m just as good a journalist as any of your so-called advanced students.”
Liz? I’d bet ten dollars that NO YOU AREN’T! So sit down and shut up!
Really, Liz disrupts a college class, acts like a bratty moron, and then throws down a gauntlet like that, and we’re supposed to be... on her side? Why? Oh, and LIZ is “pretty” while Newkirk is “portly” with “a bad wig,” along with being a raging (probably post-menopausal... you know how WOMEN are) bitch to Lizzie, so Liz totally wins in our hearts, doesn’t she?!
At the end of class, Newkirk announces a Big Essay Contest, with articles on college life, due at 9AM, and demands Elizabeth participate as well. *sigh*
Jess shows up - after actually purchasing a notebook to make herself look more like a college student - to meet Zach for his exciting philosophy lecture (lesson: the only reason to ever ever ever go to anything as nerdy as a philosophy class is if a Hotttt College May-un is involved. And p.s. All college kids do is talk about philosophy), but Hilarity and Hijinx ensue when Billie’s in the same class.
THEN Jess flits back to the apartment to change into a two-piece teal linen suit for her tea at Theta House. And seriously, what is up with all these YA serieseses portraying sororities as these tea-sipping, columned-mansion-dwelling, pastel suit-wearing conservative (but GORJUS and FUN and POPULAR) little enclaves of pre-trophy-wifedom? I’ve never seen a sorority like this on any college campus. Have you? But everything from SVU to Freshman Dorm to the Caitlin books (of which I’ll recap something next!) to Beverly Hills 90210 to Sorority House Massacre III would have you believe that there are women who unironically wear pearls and white gloves to class every day and nibble scones and arrange hothouse flowers in antique vases and coordinate their Italian leather pumps to their handbags-
Anyway, even though Jessica is A HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR, the Theta girls are all calling her a “rush” and bitching because Elizabeth isn’t there, and doesn’t she want to be a Theta, and they really need to be aware of the impression they’re making and blah blah blah.
And Jessica, the Lying Liar who Lies, spins a story about how Liz couldn’t come because “she found out that today’s the only day to audition to be an on-air personality for the student TV station....” The girls were impressed, and no one questioned how Elizabeth could work for the college TV station while she was still in high school.”
*facepalm* *headdesk*
HOW EFFING STUPID *ARE* ALL THESE PEOPLE?!?!
Well, pretty dumb, I guess, because all they do is talk about guys and how to meet them and where to go with them and Jessica finds out that although Magda thinks she’s totally not a slut for flirting with a college dude even though she’s got a boyfriend back home, Magda also has a crush on... Zach. OH NO! What if Jessie jeopardizes her entire future as a Theta?! But... but Zach is soooo cute! OMG WHAT TO DOOOOO!?!?!
Elizabeth pulls an all-nighter to write her Big Important College Journalism Article. She rejects a number of ideas as too overdone, like sorority stuff and competitiveness in college athletics. Then Billie peeks in and suggests, in grand Künstlerroman tradition, that Liz “should write about what you know”... namely, the big party. And Liz perks right up because “I have firsthand knowledge of one of the most important issues facing college students today: alcohol.” That’s it, Liz. Pick a nice, broad, general topic for your 1000 word article. You dumbshit.
I would like to point out that my current word count on this recap is 5600 words.
Jessica goes out with Zach again. Because a smart and serious college student would be able to go out EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. And Jessica is “wearing a cropped white sweater over a very short red-and-black-plaid miniskirt, finishing the look with black thigh-highs.” How very Riot Grrl.
Stupid Quote #11: “College life seems like one big party, she thought happily. I love it.” Jess? IT ISN’T! At least, not if you want to manage to pass a class or two, cupcake, yes?
Jessica and Zach, “so sophisticated,” order wine with dinner. Which is retarded, because the legal drinking age in California is twenty one. And neither of them are even close. And maybe Liz ought to mention this problem of waiters serving underage college students in her 1000 word article.
p.s. Zach’s father might be a spy in the CIA. This sounds like a potential Bad Dating Horror Story. I only hope Zach is also a ninja, invented the pretzel, wrote all of Bryan Adams’s songs, and was rejected by NASA for being “too good”! http://www.etiquettehell.com/smf/index.php?topic=28649.msg648911#msg648911
So, Elizabeth is all writing her awesomely awesome article. Which goes like this:
For many students, freshman year is their first time away from home, away from the watchful eyes of their parents. With this new freedom comes both reward and risk: the reward of being able to assert one’s independence is tempered by the risk of making huge mistakes. Unfortunately, too many young people at universities today make the very same mistake. Namely, they think that the best way to enjoy their newfound freedom is to spend every weekend drowning themselves in a bottle beer bong.
Many students have turned the activity of getting drunk into a science. One can only imagine how many wonderful new engineering innovations these young people might discover if they would put their minds to something more constructive than the search for the next buzz.
Hm. Preachy, generalized drivel. How impressive. But Liz is all chuffed with herself because she thinks she’s being all objective and stuff. And I can see drowning yourself WITH a beer bong, but drowning yourself IN one? (Oh, and Liz? BTW? Reflexive pronoun use, peaches. Professor Dwanollah hopes you do a grammar check and read your work out loud at least twice before turning it in.)
Newkirk’s “so-called advanced students” have to be taking Journalism 98 or something if Liz is gonna kick their asses.
Jess comes stumbling in all “buzzed” from the wine at dinner, and Liz is all, “did Zach drive?!” and Jess is all “Psssh, like I’d get into a car with someone who’d been drinking. I’m not YOU, Liz, with your Boyfriend Killing Magic Vodka, so suck it!” Well, or not. But I wish.
Liz has managed to work through the night - making Steven and Billie sleep in sleeping bags in the living room so she can use the computer in the bedroom - to get her “thoughts... organize into a compelling enough argument.” Maybe if your subject was “Supposedly Smart Girls Who Do Super Stupid Things,” you’d have a compelling argument. And hey, brain trusts? Why not unplug the computer and move it out of the bedroom for one night, huh?
Ken calls Jessica, and she lies her ass off to him, and later rationalizes it because Ken was mean and doubted her intelligence with the whole SAT test thingie, but Zach...! Now, ZACH loves and respects her for her brilliant mind! (Note: Todd has not called Liz yet. Nyah.) And Magda calls and invites the twinsies to lunch but Liz has already left for campus, and that makes Magda miffed, and she tells Jess that Liz had better start “acting like a pledge” or “we’ll have serious doubts about whether she’s qualified to be a Theta.” Gawd damn, they’re HIGH SCHOOL JUNIORS! They aren’t even close to being pledges yet!
The Thetas have a cook named Maria. Maria has a greasy boyfriend with chest hair and a missing tooth, and the Thetas make fun of her. The Thetas are soooo wonderful. Jessica spends a token three seconds thinking that the Thetas might be an eensy weensy bit mean, but soon everyone’s talking about shopping and boys, and why waste all that icky time on thinking about racial issues when there are fingernails to polish and hotttt college guys to flirt with?
Liz sits on a bench on campus, thinking about how much she fits in here and is all super-intellectual. Then Ian shows up and tells Liz that one of the guys in journalism class thought she was “cute,” which, thankfully, make Liz react with anger and disbelief that some guy would want to ask her out even though she “came off looking like a ditz” in class and shrieks “I thought guys in college were different. I thought they would be interested in women who actually have brains in their heads.” Liz’s life is going to be a constant series of rude awakenings. Anyway, why not give the guy Jess’s name and number...?
But golly gosh, has Jessie got problems! Zach is taking her to the Zeta formal dance next weekend, and Magda is going too, and if she sees Jess with Zach, Jess will NEVER be a Theta! What WILL she do? And Jessica gets all upset and cwies her wittle eyes out to Billie. *eye roll*
Then Zach shows up to whisk Jess off to dinner. And of course, who should show up at the restaurant but Magda. OH NOOOOO!
And then Professor Newkirk announces in the journalism seminar that she has made an “error in judgment” and blah blah blah “confronted with a discrepancy” and blah blah blah “strive for knowledge, truth and objectivity” and-
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Supposedly ELIZABETH FUCKING WAKEFIELD has “vastly outperform[ed] every student” in Newkirk’s class. What, did only two other people turn in essays?! Anyway, Lizzie wins the Big Wonderful Journalism Prize, which entails getting her article published in a Big Magazine and taking an internship at the SVU Chronicle, which is supposedly “distributed nationally,” which is almost as big a “bullshit!’ as Newkirk telling Lizzie to “take your high-school equivalency test, enroll in SVU, and get on with the business of reporting.” Oh, please. Like it wouldn’t be to Elizabeth’s academic advantage to, oh, have another year and a half of top grades in high school, take AP classes, get more scholarships, rack up more extracurriculars and all that...? What a steaming pile of shit.
Well, include the hi-larious ending where Newkirk takes off her glasses and queries, “Just one question, Ms. Wakefield. What, exactly, is a beer bong?” You’d award a major prize to an article that contains a reference to something that you have no idea what it IS, Professor?!
Every single person in this series who is supposedly smart is SO COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY AND UNBELIEVABLY STUPID!
So Liz rushes back to the apartment and announces to Steven and Billie that, yay, she’s staying at SVU, and gets to be their permanent apartment-mate. Presumptuous much, you asshole? Get your own apartment!
And with that, class is dismissed. And yes, it’ll be on the test.