Sweet Valley High #95: The Morning After
When we last left our heroes, Lila was having her therapist arrested for fake attempted rape (par for the course in Sweet Valley, you know). Bruce was coping with his rage over Heroically Deaf Dead From Coke Regina by getting himself kicked in the head during the riot between Sweet Valley High and Big Mesa, but not before he spots a girl in the crowd who’s even better than Regina. To sabotage Elizabeth’s chances of becoming Queen of the Jungle Prom, Jessica spiked Liz’s drink with magical vodka that, when mixed into a cup of punch that’s then split between two people, was strong enough to get them both falling-down drunk. This was a bad move on her part because Liz shared the drink with Sam, Jess’s boyfriend. Liz and Sam drove off drunkenly, and even though Jess and Todd chased right after them, they were too late to prevent the inevitable accident. Jess thinks Liz and Sam are both dead. She’s half right.
I have to tell you upfront, and
nanamik622 will back me up here: this book sucks. It’s horrible. Even by Sweet Valley standards. But I have to get through it so I can move on to the rest of the miniseries, which rules. So, here we go.
In a nutshell: Sam is dead. Poor Sam. Jess is too devastated to function. Liz is trying to be brave, but she’s consumed by guilt, terrified of the possible legal consequences of what happened, and convinced that Jessica will never love her again. Todd is Not So Trusty: he’s a terrible person who has never once spoken to Liz after the accident. Bruce tracks down Pamela, the girl from the riot, but is distraught when he learns that she (GASP!) had sex with her ex boyfriend. He stalks off in self-righteous indignation, since his sexual double standards mean Pamela is a whore he can’t bring home to mom. Lila confesses that her rape accusation was a mistake, and then stops washing her hair, which leads her father to realize that his daughter is really, really messed up. Instead of trying to deal with it himself, he sends for the mother Lila never knew. Olivia Davidson is suddenly best friends with Nicholas Morrow, and they make a pact to each help the other find love. Olivia doesn’t need Nicholas’s help because she’s kind of awesome (although her new boyfriend is CREEEEEEEPY), but Nicholas is hopeless. And I’ve saved the best for last: everyone’s favorite psychopathic doppelganger, Margo the sixteen year old schizophrenic serial killer, starts her trip west.
There wasn’t an A or B plot as such; each character had his or her own storyline. I’m going to try to organize the recap that way too, to keep things clear.
Sweet Valley High #95: The Morning After
The Wakefields
We’re cheated out of the scene where Jess learns that Sam is dead and Liz was thrown clear of the car. Apparently Jess had to be sedated, which would’ve been kind of awesome to read about. Instead, the book starts a few days later, with Liz safe at home and having a dream that she’s at Secca Lake. She sees Jessica from far away and starts running toward her sister, but then Jessica takes off her hat and Liz sees that the girl has dark hair. The dark haired girl pulls out a knife and tries to stab Liz, and Liz wakes up screaming. Since when are the twins psychic?
Liz cries over how she killed Sam. She went to his funeral with her parents, even though Jess was too upset to go. That? Takes balls. I can’t believe she had the nerve. I’m just saying. Maybe it would’ve been kinder to Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff to have the girl who’d been drunk driving the car when their son was killed stay home from his funeral, hm? It figures that the Wakefields didn’t even bother to consider their feelings. After the service, Enid tried to talk to Liz but Liz just looked at the ground. Then, she came face-to-face with Toolish Boyfriend Todd, who hasn’t spoken to her since the accident. She’s been too scared to call him, and he hasn’t called her either. He just looks at her, and then walks away. What an ass.
The next morning, both twins come face to face in the bathroom. Liz tries to talk to Jess, but Jess just turns around and slams the door. Jess thinks for a moment about how much Liz must be suffering, and briefly thinks that they should maybe support each other during this horrible time, but quickly nixes that idea: Liz doesn’t deserve her help. She killed Jess’s boyfriend. Oh, what a selective memory Jessica needs to help her get through the day!
On Liz’s first day back at school, Jess leaves without her and takes the car, so Alice has to drive her to school. Alice gives her a pep talk about how much her family loves her and that Jessica will eventually realize Liz isn’t to blame for what happened, but Liz doesn’t believe it. Of course, objectively speaking, Jess and her prom queen mania are to blame, but nobody knows about that. So, based on the facts they have at hand, Liz is absolutely to blame for what happened. Her parents aren’t doing her any favors telling Liz it’s not her fault, and it’s no wonder Jessica is enraged.
At school, Enid is glad to see Liz, and it’s plain that Enid will stick by her no matter what. When Liz says that everyone is staring at her, Enid says, “If they are, it’s because they’re concerned about you and want to make sure you’re all right.” What a lie. But it was nice of her to tell it. Enid is a lot more loyal than Todd, who walks right by. Enid tells Liz that Todd doesn’t hate her, but that definitely doesn’t seem true. Liz cries.
At lunch, Amy tells everyone about Bruce and his recent personality change: she heard it’s because he’s chasing a girl who doesn’t know he’s alive, and “it sure is making him weird-even weirder than usual, I mean.” Hee. She says Bruce is his usual mean self most of the time but now has occasional flashes of niceness. Amy isn’t sure if Lila is telling the truth or not about Nathan; she remembers that a lot of people hadn’t believed Lila about John’s attempted rape but that had turned out to be true. On the other hand, it was hard to imagine Nathan doing something like that since he’s so nice. On the third hand, what would Lila have to gain by falsely accusing Nathan of rape?
Liz was supposed to proofread Amy’s English paper, and Amy asks Jess to tell Liz she’ll come over at 7:30. Jess refuses to speak to Liz. Since when is Liz doing favors for Amy? I thought she couldn’t stand Amy, especially after the whole Dead Regina debacle.
Winston tells Liz that she has a lot of people pulling for her, and she’s loved by the whole student body. He is instantly proven wrong when some catty sophomores walk by, see Liz, and run away like she’s got some magical vodka in her lunch box and is about to manslaughter them in the cafeteria or something. Mr. Collins tries to butt in too, but Liz only wants to talk to Jess.
At home, Mr. Wakefield and Steve gamely try to talk to the twins and make fake-normal conversation about a show called Hunks that sounds like The Dating Game. Steve claims it’s a “cult thing at college.” Jessica runs away. Liz asks Enid about Todd, but apparently Todd won’t speak to Enid either. Liz has no idea what she’s done wrong (besides kill her sister’s boyfriend, but why would Todd mind that?) and she’s convinced it was something from the dance (though obviously nothing to do with drunk driving). Too bad she was in a total alcoholic blackout and can’t remember a thing. Enid’s like, “Eh. Carolyn Pearce said you and Sam were hugging each other in a more-than-friends way.” Unless Sam was grabbing her ass, I’m not sure what that would look like, but okay. So Todd isn’t bothered because Sam is dead, but because he thinks Liz was hugging Sam, right in the middle of the dance, in front of Jessica and Todd and the rest of the school. Well, I at least hope they were responsible about it. Unprotected hugging could give you a social disease. Remember, you're not just hugging your sister's boyfriend, but every single person he's ever hugged before. Man, Todd's dumb. Liz insists that she killed Sam, and Enid insists right back that it was an accident. Liz tells Enid that there are legal repercussions when someone drives drunk and kills a kid. And thank God there are, or we wouldn’t have a miniseries!
Jess tries to go to the dirt bike race Sam was training for before the Jungle Prom, but she chickens out at the last second. She’s too distraught. Instead, she goes to the cemetery and sobs over his grave. Liz took Sam away from her! And then she remembers about a time Sam saved her from being kidnapped by a cult, and I crack up. Only in Sweet Valley. She admits to herself that his death is actually her fault, because of the magical vodka. Jess cries and cries.
At dinner, Steve desperately tries to make conversation, but everyone else just looks at their plates. He finally gives up and says, “This family is a mess.” His father is like, “Yeah, I know. But whatever. There’s nothing we can do about it.” Charming. The twins run away. Once they’re out of earshot, Alice agrees with Ned that giving up on her traumatized children is the most reasonable course of action: “We’ve run out of things to say. I don’t know what else to try.” How about a psychiatrist, Alice? Jeez.
Steve insists to Liz that she’s not to blame, but she totally is. Except for how she’s not, but nobody knows about Jess’s starring role in the circumstances that led to Sam’s death. Steve leaves for school, and shortly after, the doorbell rings. It’s the Sweet Valley police, who have held off on arresting Liz thus far because of Mr. Wakefield’s standing in the legal community. Lovely. Jess thinks that they’re there for her, and knows that her parents’ disappointment in her will be almost as bad as having to go to jail.
But! The cops yell at Liz a bunch about where she got the booze, and Jess realizes that they have no idea that she was the one who spiked Liz’s drink. Panicked, she thinks that she should tell them the truth. She’s the only one who can get Liz out of trouble. Ned and Alice are like, “Elizabeth has never been in trouble or lied before!” and Jess realizes that they would never be able to defend her the same way, because she’s a lying liar who gets in trouble all the time. Then she remembers that Liz left the dance with Sam: how could Liz steal her boyfriend like that?
And then Liz is arrested for involuntary manslaughter. She’s calm, but Jess can tell she’s terrified. Jess opens her mouth to confess to her part in it, but Ned and Alice stand and hug Liz lovingly. Jess thinks: “What would they think of a girl who would get her own twin sister drunk-and then allow her to go through the last three, horrible weeks, without stepping forward and taking the blame for her own boyfriend’s death? They wouldn’t stand there like that with their arms around me if they knew the truth, and I wouldn’t deserve it.”
Well, she’s half right. She wouldn’t deserve it, but I think they’d be just as supportive of either daughter. The cop asks Liz if she really wants to go on trial for the death of her boyfriend, and Jess sobs that Sam was her boyfriend! NOT LIZ’S! HERS! Liz tells Jess, “I’m sorry,” as she’s led from the house.
Bruce Patman
Bruce drives happily along in the 1BRUCE1 Porsche, daydreaming about taking the Riot Grrl to Secca Lake for a picnic. In his dream, they eat crackers (Crackers? I’d hope the Patman servants can do a little better than that!) and make out, and he opens a bottle of sparkling cider. No warm wine and paper cups for his Cinderella! Bruce does feel a little sad about Sam: apparently, he’d always thought Sam was a pretty nice guy. He also thinks that Lila made up her rape accusation against Nathan, because she’s “always been a tease.”
But back to the thing most important to Bruce: the Riot Grrl. He has no idea how to find her, because he’s never had to chase a girl in his life. You know, since he’s so awesome and all, and definitely not a real attempted rapist like John Pfeifer. He’s lucky Liz is more resilient (or has a poorer memory) than Lila, or Bruce would be the one ostracized by the town. He eventually gets the brilliant idea to sit in the Big Mesa parking lot every single day after school until he sees her coming out. This might not be the safest plan, since he got kicked in the head the last time he interacted with someone from Big Mesa. He doesn’t seem to think of that, though.
Bruce dutifully waits outside Big Mesa every day for two weeks, but he doesn’t see the Riot Grrl. Finally, he gets fed up and hops out of his car, thinking…I don’t know…that he’ll just start asking people if they know a hot girl who was at the SVH riot, I guess, and this scene is hilarious. First Bruce zeroes in on two ugly girls, thinking they’ll be so honored that someone as awesome as he is would speak to them that they’ll tell him everything he wants to know. Sure enough, they tell him he’s thinking of Pamela Robertson. Bruce says he’s looking for her and the girl asks, “Isn’t everyone?” Bruce doesn’t get it, and figures that they’re rude because they go to Big Mesa. As opposed to SVH, where kids have to take etiquette classes, right? While Bruce ruminates on how admirable he is, he wanders up to another kid and asks him about Pamela. The kid says, “If you find her, buddy, let me know!” Now Bruce is confused, because everyone seems negative about Pamela, but he rationalizes it away, deciding that the Big Mesa kids must all hate her for saving Bruce’s life at the riot, since Bruce is a symbol of the superiority of SVH or something. Did I mention how hilarious this is? He nearly floats back to his car on the romance of it all, a gorgeous girl sacrificing her social standing to save his life.
A nerdy boy named Edwin who’s new at Big Mesa is admiring 1BRUCE1 when Bruce gets back, and the kid geeks out over the car. Bruce realizes that, if Edwin is new, he won’t realize that Bruce isn’t a Big Mesa student, and because Edwin is a dork, he’ll probably know all about Pamela because dorks always idolize the hot girls they can never have. Sure enough, Edwin says that Pamela is out of school with the rest of the tennis team at an exhibition tournament. Bruce is over the moon that his dream girl is not only gorgeous and brave, but also a tennis player. Lest he act completely out of character, he’s mean to Edwin before he jumps into 1BRUCE1 and peels out. On his way up the street, he daydreams about how perfect his serve is (he has a romantic daydream about HIMSELF!), and how excited he is to play tennis with Pamela. Bruce is such a freak.
Bruce watches Pamela play tennis all stalky from 1BRUCE1, and after her game, he goes up and introduces himself as the boy who was kicked in the head. She remembers, and agrees to have dinner with him the next night. He’s so happy he jumps up and clicks his heels together. Smooth.
The date is awesome. Bruce can’t imagine ever wanting to be with anyone else, and is like, “Regina who?” He’s already picking out names for his and Pamela’s babies. When he asks her to tell him all about herself, she says she’s just a typical high schooler and changes the subject back to him. Lucky thing Bruce is his own favorite topic of conversation, and he doesn’t notice that Pamela never said anything about herself until well after the date is over. He’s in love.
Roger, Bruce’s CousinBrother, reminds Bruce that he doesn’t actually know anything about Pamela, but Bruce doesn’t care. He leaves for a second date as Roger tells him that appearances can be deceiving. Bruce thinks Roger is jus’ jellus.
The next day at lunch, Bruce sits with Todd and Jess. He thinks it’s pretty decent of Todd to spend time with Jess during such a rough time, even though Todd is “kind of a wimp” and Jess is “an overbearing pest.” Hee. That wimp laid you out with one punch when you tried to mack on Liz, dude. Bruce nicely asks how Jess is doing, though, and Jess says she’s okay. Then he tells everyone that he’s going out with Pamela from Big Mesa, and Amy tells him Pamela is a slut. Bruce gets angry, and wonders if he’s made a mistake. God forbid he fall for a girl who’s had the audacity to not save herself just for him. I mean, since he’s pure as the driven snow and definitely not a failed rapist or anything.
Because Bruce is now obsessing about the fact that Pamela might just be a whore in sheep’s clothing, their next date goes poorly. He feels bad about it, though, and makes up his mind that Pamela is a good girl would never do anything so dirty as let a boy get past second base, despite what Amy and the people in the Big Mesa parking lot said. He decides that, like Roger, Amy was jus’ jellus because Bruce is so awesome that her own boyfriend could never measure up, so she wanted to make him unhappy with Pamela. Bruce’s self involvement is rather pathological. He decides to go to Pam’s house the next morning with a picnic of pastries and imported cheese to apologize. Nothing says “I’m sorry” like gorgonzola for breakfast.
Bruce learns, however, that it’s always a good idea to call first, because he gets to Pam’s house just as another car is pulling up. Pam stumbles out with messed up clothes and tangled hair, and the driver - some older guy - gets out, grabs her, and kisses her. She cries. She tries to explain to Bruce that there’s a lot he doesn’t understand about what he just saw, but he won't listen. She has the lack of spine to apologize for things she did before she even knew he existed, says that she was telling that guy she couldn’t see him anymore because she’s on Team Patman now but the guy wouldn’t let her go, and that Bruce makes her feel loved for the very first time. Pamela is screwed (figuratively, of course, since Bruce seems to be on a virginity kick at the moment) if all the validation she has in her life comes from the affections of Bruce Patman. Bruce peels away in 1BRUCE1, because the fact that Pamela was in a car with another guy tells him everything he needs to know about her. Only whores ride in cars with boys first thing in the morning.
Lila Fowler
Lila is nervous to go back to school after accusing her counselor of attempted rape. She’s worried everyone will hate her, but when she sits down in homeroom, Amy Sutton gives her concerned look, which helps her feel better. Amy is no Jessica, though, and Lila misses her best friend. She hasn’t talked to Jess, though, because she doesn’t want to add to Jess’s problems, which she recognizes are worse than her own. Jess is your best friend, and her boyfriend has just been killed in a car accident, and you haven’t even called her? Jeez, Lila.
Lila starts writing in her notebook, acknowledging at the same time that it’s usually the type of thing that losers like Elizabeth Wakefield would do, but she needs to get her feelings out. She figures most people think she’s making up her accusation against Nathan, since she already accused John Pfeiffer of attempted rape, and I guess each girl only gets one rape pass per year. They must issue them on the first day of school, along with locker assignments. She doesn’t know if Nathan was trying to hurt her or not; she’s all confused about what really happened. Lila writes that Jessica at least has her mom to talk to, but Lila doesn’t have anyone. Her dad doesn’t even know what happened to her; she hasn’t told him about John or Nathan. She wonders why she can’t have a mom who lives with her, instead of a mom who left when she was a baby and has never called or anything, and Lila starts to cry, right there in class.
Principal Cooper tells Lila that he’s going to need to have her dad come in for a meeting, so Mr. Cooper can ask her some questions about what happened between Nathan her with her father present. Wouldn’t that be the police’s job? He’s scheduled the meeting with her dad already, for the following week, since Mr. Fowler is off to Amsterdam today. Lila didn’t know he was leaving the country, but pretends she did. I don’t think Mr. Cooper buys it, though. He tells her that Mr. Fowler offered to cancel the trip, but Lila says it’s no big deal. Then, he tells her that Nathan will be at the meeting too.
Okay, PAUSE. Here we have a teenaged victim accusing a school official of attempted rape. And the school principal is going to be the one questioning her, and he’s going to do it in the presence of the man she’s claiming attacked her? Excellent policy, Sweet Valley. And not at all traumatic for the girl in question.
Mr. Fowler doesn’t find out what this bullshit meeting is about until about twenty minutes after it started, and then he tries to choke Nathan, which is a pretty understandable reaction. He doesn’t know anything about Lila’s real rape escape, her fake rape escape, the riot at the prom…nothing. He's an unapologetically neglectful parent. It's a miracle Lila isn’t in foster care. George Fowler is an ass. Mr. Cooper plays defense lawyer and gets Lila all upset and turned around by nitpicking her story to death. She freaks out, starts to cry, and finally admits that she might have been mixed up. Well, if she wasn’t before she certainly is now. She’s going to be in therapy for a whole lot longer than originally planned after this stunt, I think. Nathan is caring and sympathetic, and Lila realizes that she’d been confused. She admits that he never tried to hurt her; she was just frightened, and she begs Nathan’s forgiveness. He’s like, “You are one screwed up little girl,” but he says it a lot nicer than that. The charges are dropped, I guess, even though there were no lawyers or police at this stupid meeting.
Lila spends the next week sitting in her room looking out the window. She won’t sleep, eat, answer her phone, or wash her hair. The insomnia, starvation, and not coming out of her room part doesn’t worry George Fowler as much as the hair, because it means that Lila is no longer taking pride in the fact that she’s the most beautiful and popular girl in Sweet Valley. George’s priorities are crazytown. When he offers her some onion soup and she tells him to leave her alone, he actually leaves. Because God forbid he have to do some parenting. So, he calls Lila’s mom whom poor Lila has never met. He thinks, “Well, she pushed me away that one time I kind of half-heartedly tried to find out what her problem is, so obviously this whole thing is an issue a total stranger mother would be better at solving.” I think I hate George Fowler. If Lila is awesome, he is antiawesome.
He tells her that her mom, Grace, is coming, though, and Lila is so happy that she cries and hugs him. He cries too, probably with relief that he won’t have to do anything lame like care about his kid or anything.
Olivia Davidson and Nicholas Morrow
Olivia is taking a painting class at the local art school, and one of her works is chosen for the student show, which is a big deal because she’s the only high schooler in her class. She’s happy for the recognition, but sad because of Jessica and Elizabeth. Oh, like they would give a shit about your problems if the tables were turned, Liv. Get a life.
She has lunch with Nicholas Morrow (and I don’t know if you know this, but his Heroically Deaf Sister, Regina? She’s dead.), who’s complaining about his lack of love life. He’s pathetic and lonely and ugly, he claims, but Liv insists it isn’t true. (It might be true. Except for the ugly part. But seriously, didn’t he try this exact same scam on Elizabeth when he first met her? He needs a new line.) Liv is lonesome too, because her boyfriend (the one she had after Roger Barrett Patman) has moved to Paris to work on his painting. I’m constantly amazed at how little the parents of Sweet Valley seem to give a shit about their children’s whereabouts. My parents would’ve laughed themselves stupid and then told me to go clean my room if I’d ever come home from eleventh grade and announced I was moving to Paris to be a starving artist. Nicholas and Liv vow to find each other love.
Liv gets an offer for her art show painting: some organization wants to buy it for a whole mess of money, which is pretty cool, but they want her to come give a speech too. She agrees, of course. Her parents are thrilled for her, even though they’re bankers or something. I don’t know why bankers should hate art (especially art that their kid has just sold for a thousand dollars) but Liv seems to think it’s unusual for people in their line of work to support their kids’ creativity. Whatever. She wears a crazy blouse and bright purple tights to her speech. So, not so much with the good visual taste? Even though she’s supposedly the best painter in the history of the Sweet Valley Art College.
The speech is at some mansion, but when she shows up there’s only one guy there: a 19-year-old from her art class. And you know how this goes by now, right? He’s super rich and bought her painting, but was too shy to just ask her out so he invented this insane idea of making her think she had to make a speech to lure her to his house under false pretenses. Liv doesn’t mace him for it. But I would. He tells her he was too scared to talk to her in class because he doesn’t want to distract her. “It would be like being personally responsible for the deterioration of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.” Liv still doesn’t leave, and if I didn’t know that there’s only one serial killer in this series, I’d be screaming for her to get out while she still has all her fingers. I think she thinks the whole thing is kind of charming, though. The next time she sees Nicholas, she tells him she’s in love, and she decides he should go on that Hunks show.
Psychotic Margo
Margo is sixteen and lives on Long Island with her foster parents and Nina, her five year old foster sister. Margo sleeps in the basement and has constant headaches. The voice in her head tells her to be patient, because she’ll be leaving soon. Too bad Nina saw the money Margo had saved for her bus ticket to Cleveland. Nina’s going to have to die now, so she won’t be able to tell anyone where Margo’s gone. It’s sad that this is the case, but I doubt very much that people would expend much energy tracking down a sixteen year old foster home runaway, though Margo seems to think that the entire New York State Police would have a manhunt to bring her back to Long Island. Cleveland isn’t Margo’s final destination anyway; she’s headed somewhere warm. Cleveland is as far as she can afford to go right now, though.
Margo hates everything, and sometimes her foster parents have slapped her around and her foster father’s friends have hit on her and stuff. They sound sleazy and squalid, and this girl’s life is completely depressing, but she’s also extremely mentally ill. The voice in her head tells her that what happens to Nina is the girl’s own fault, since she shouldn’t have spied on Margo. It doesn’t sound like poor little Nina was being sneaky or anything, though; she just had the bad luck to walk into the room while Margo was counting her money.
The toaster is broken, and when Margo tries to jimmy her toast out with a knife, a little flame licks out. The voice tells her that fire would be a terrific way to make her escape. The next night, she briefly considers taking Nina with her, but the voice reminds her how weak Nina is and so Margo changes her mind. Margo dresses up in her foster father’s clothes, pours kerosene all over the counter, puts some bread in the toaster, and tells the little kid to fish it out with the knife. She leaves and locks the door behind her as the girl is climbing onto the counter to fish her dinner out of the toaster. And we all know what happens next! Bye, Nina. As she watches the fireball from across the neighborhood, Margo decides her new name will be Michelle. She gets a bus ticket to Cleveland and takes off.
In Cleveland, Margo interviews to be a nanny for a kid named Georgie Rossi, who has a hot older brother named Josh. She claims that her mother died and she’s moved to Ohio to live with her older sister and enroll in community college. Really, she’s staying at the YWCA. She lays it on pretty thick with Mrs. Rossi, but gets the job. She’ll stay just long enough to earn money and steal enough stuff to buy another bus ticket, and then keep moving west. The voice tells her to go to California, and she agrees that that’s a pretty good idea.
The End
To be continued in my next recap, #96: The Arrest. Except Liz was already arrested in this book. How lazy were these ghostwriters?