SVU Secret Love Diaries: Jessica
The final Confidiential Love Diary - I mean Secret Love Diary - to be recapped. Yay! Wow, was this ever painful to get through, as it’s full of everyone’s least favorite SVH character, Devon Whitelaw.
Apparently the plot of this book was on the thin side, so the ghostwriter decided to pad out all of Jessica’s diary entries with quiz excerpts from some magazine that Jess is supposedly taking, giving us insight (or not) as to how her mind works in regard to dating. Ho hum.
The quiz that opens the book informs Jess that she’s too forward when it comes to guys. Jess complains in her diary that if she waited around for some loser to ask her out, she’d be dating a lot of losers. So true! She then gives this gem: Why is it that the more heinous a guy is, the more likely he is to think you’re his Ms. Right? So freaking true again. Anyway, Jessica has a major crush on some guy named Duke who isn’t responding to her flirtatious advances and she doesn’t know what to do.
That night, Jessica goes to a Theta party. As soon as she spots Duke, she goes up to him, tries to flirt, but he is pretty unresponsive and actually leaves the party. Jess asks a Theta member if there’s another party going on that night and is told there’s one at Delta Kappa Epsilon. Assuming that Duke must have gone there, Jess hightails it to that party… and finds ten guys drinking beer from a keg while watching basketball on TV. No sign of Duke.
The next morning, Jessica decides to hit the gym, where she’s sure Duke, as a football player, will be lifting weights. She assures herself that she’s still the hottest thing on campus and climbs onto the only free StairMaster. She sets the machine at Level 9, the highest there is, because she wants Duke to see her rockin’ at the machine when he comes in. The machine roars to life and Jess hangs on to the handles, running at top speed, immediately regretting her decision and wondering how she’ll ever be able to get off the machine while it’s going full throttle. Some girl next to her notices Jessica’s terror and presses the buttons to reduce the level. Jessica thanks her and the girl says it helps to start out at a low level. Jessica thinks, I bet all your boyfriends come from a low level too. Hee!
Jessica decides to leave the gym and, after a shower, go to the library because she saw Duke studying there once. But then she sees Duke emerge from the weight room! Not wanting him to see how gross and sweaty she is, quickly ducks into the locker room… which turns out to be the men’s locker room. One of the guys in there asks if Jess sees anything she likes.
At home, Jessica writes in her diary that she’s SO into Duke and that she’s felt like this about a only few guys since arriving at SVU and that, back in high school, she’d felt this way about Devon Whitelaw. No mention of Sam Woodruff, sadly, though I’m not really surprised.
Jessica decides to ask Duke to the Fall Folly dance, so she approaches him after class the next day. Before she can ask him anything, he asks her if Liz has a date to the dance yet. Jessica wonders why he’s attracted to Liz but not to her, since they look the same.
Jess takes another quiz that, in part, asks her to describe the sea. She writes, Hot and lazy, floating. Turns out, this is supposed to be how she thinks about sex. Jessica writes in her diary, This quiz sucks. What does that mean, I think sex is lazy and hot? Eh, sometimes it kinda is. And, for the record, the way sex is written in a Sweet Valley book is definitely lazy and really not very hot.
Jessica complains to Neil (at this point, she and Liz are living with Neil and Sam) that Duke wants her sister. Then Jessica tells Liz that Duke wants to ask her to the dance. Liz gets all excited and actually squeals about how cute he is.
Tuesday morning, Jess heads out to meet friends for mochaccinos. On the way there, Jess sees Devon Whitelaw - or his double - standing in the quad, looking “taller, smoother, and more chiseled.”
For the reader’s benefit, Jess recaps the basics of Devon’s story in SVH: He arrived at SVH, fell in love with Liz, ignored Jessica’s advances, falsely took credit for rescuing Liz after the earthquake, and then cowardly left town as an outcast when the truth came out.
Jess meets up with Lila, Alex, and Denise and tells them she thinks she saw Devon. As a side note, when did Alex/Enid suddenly become “one of Jessica’s closest friends” (as the ghostwriter puts it)? WTF is up with Liz’s best friends becoming Jessica’s best friends? First Amy, now Alex/Enid. Anyway, Lila and Alex are disgusted at the mere thought of Devon having the nerve to return to Sweet Valley.
Later, Jessica helps Liz get ready for her date with Duke and, still bitter about the Duke situation, tells Liz not to get her hopes up. Liz goes out on her date, and Jessica goes dancing with Neil.
At the club, Jess dances and then turns around to discover Devon Whitelaw standing behind her. At first, she wonders if he thinks she’s Liz, but then Devon calls her Jessica and says he wants to talk to her outside, in private. He tells her that he’s thinking about moving back to Sweet Valley and that he’ll call her later because he has something to tell her. He leaves (typical) and Jessica swoons (also typical).
In her diary, Jessica obsesses over Devon and why she’s so crazy about him. She writes that she hopes she’s the reason that he came back and wants to stay. But, since Devon was such as ass to Liz and everyone else, she doesn’t think she can tell anyone that she talked to him or is falling for him all over again. The one exception to this is Neil, since he’s Jessica’s friend and doesn’t know Devon, nor will he tell Liz. Neil says that the situation sounds dangerous, as does Devon.
Jessica wakes up in the middle of the night when Devon throws rocks at her window. She heads outside and asks Devon why he came back to town. Devon kisses Jessica, then drives her to the beach on his motorcycle. He tells Jessica that he never meant to lie about saving Liz after the earthquake, but he was in shock and just couldn’t remember what he’d done (or hadn’t done), so he just went along with what others were saying. Then he kisses Jessica a few more times and tells her that he will tell her the rest of the story another night, when he takes her out to dinner.
In her diary, Jessica writes that Liz will never understand why she’s seeing Devon but that Devon isn’t the monster or coward that everyone thinks he is because he has an excuse! He didn’t really lie! Jessica says that she can’t let Devon go now even if she wanted to because her feelings for him run that deep.
Jess and Liz go shopping for dresses for the Fall Folly dance. Liz gushes about how nice Duke is and how fun their dates have been. Liz doesn’t think their relationship is going to last very long; they’ve been going out really often, but Liz doesn’t think the relationship is moving very fast. As if a relationship with Liz ever moves fast. Liz says that she and Duke have heat, juice, and chemistry. How gross is it that Liz used the word “juice” to describe what she has with a guy? Anyway, Liz tells Jess that she wants her to be happy too.
After Duke picks up Liz for yet another date, Jessica writes in her diary some surprisingly insightful sentences: [I’ve] become infatuated with yet another of Elizabeth’s old rejects - and Sweet Valley’s rejects - Devon Whitelaw… Why aren’t I satisfied by the legions of boys who do want to go out with me? Why do I feel inferior to my sister, Elizabeth, no matter what I do? Whoa. This is some seriously deep stuff for Sweet Valley. Of course, after this, Jess goes on to write the same sort of crap that is found in every other Sweet Valley book about how she never had a choice but to fall head over heels for him.
The doorbell rings. It’s Devon! Jess invites him in. Devon chugs a beer and asks about Liz and if Liz is still majoring in Todd Wilkins. Hee!
Devon and Jess go out to dinner and he kisses her some more. Then Devon tells Jess the rest of his story: he’s been living in New York since leaving Sweet Valley, attending NYU. One day, everything from the earthquake aftermath came rushing back to him. Devon claims he’d left to get help, fearing that he’d electrocute everyone otherwise because live wires surrounded Liz and Enid. He says he went to find the source of the power and cut it off somehow. He left because he was frantic about finding Jessica and that he had to make sure Jess was okay before the earthquake took her away.
Jess swoons and wants to shriek with joy. She asks why he didn’t tell anyone this earlier, and Devon says it’s because he didn’t remember a lot of it until recently and, furthermore, couldn’t admit to Liz that he was leaving to find her sister. Jessica tells him that she’ll explain everything to everyone and that she’ll bring Devon back into the world of Sweet Valley as her boyfriend.
In her diary, common sense seems to catch up with Jess - at least for a short while. She tries to write down Devon’s excuses for lying and leaving and realizes that they don’t make sense. Unfortunately, Jessica quickly decides this is just because she doesn’t remember all the details. Jessica thinks that being with Devon now is a dream come true.
The housemates (Liz, Jess, Sam and Neil) discuss relationships:
Neil: Do I scream ‘taken’? Maybe that’s why I have no dates.
Sam: Try to date girls and it will go a lot easier.
Neil: But you’re always doing that and it doesn’t seem to be working for you.
Sam: I’m on hiatus.
Neil: I prefer to say I’m taking a sabbatical. It sounds more professional.
Sam: What do you call your dry periods, Miss Jessica?
Neil: I could make a really gross joke, but I won’t.
This has got to be the closest any Sweet Valley book comes to sexual innuendo!! For the record, Jess claims she doesn’t have dry spells, just rainy days, and Liz says that’s the same thing. Shut up, Liz.
Liz goes out on another date with Duke and is so happy and excited about it that Jess doesn’t think she can ruin Liz’s mood by telling her about Devon.
While Liz is out, Devon calls and Jessica answers. He says that she should come meet him at a bar because he wants to take her out to a beach. Jess says she wants to wait until she has a chance to talk to Liz but Liz out on a date right now. Devon sounds disappointed that Jess hasn’t talked to Liz and also by the fact that Liz is on a date with someone else. She says she’ll meet him after Liz gets back and the twins have a chance to talk.
Liz finally comes home, and Jess says she needs to talk to her. Liz gushes for a while about how nice Duke is and how great things are going with him, and Jessica can’t bring herself to ruin Liz’s mood by bringing up Devon. Instead, Jess asks if she can borrow some clothes. Liz agrees, and Jessica heads out to meet Devon wearing jeans, hiking boots, plain Carmex on her lips, and even a baseball cap. Basically, she looks just like Liz. Gee, I wonder where this is going…
When Devon sees her, he exclaims, “So you came!” Jessica doesn’t get his meaning and says that of course she came. Devon then gushes that it’s always been her and drives them to some special beach that he only wanted to share with her. At the beach, Devon kisses Jessica and reminisces about the first time they met... only he reminisces about the first time he met Liz. Suddenly Jessica realizes that he thinks she’s Liz because of her clothes. Devon starts murmuring, “Elizabeth, you’ve come back to me…” while kissing her neck. Creeeeepy.
Jessica realizes that if she reveals her true identity to Devon, she’ll never find out what he’s doing there with her, so she plays along and pretends to be Liz. As Liz, she asks Devon what he was doing with Jessica and if he really is in love with Jess like he claimed. Devon says no, that he was just using Jessica to get closer to Liz because he’d known that Jess had always had a crush on him. Furious, Jessica asks, “So you took advantage of my sister?” Devon tells her to look at it from his point of view: he knew he and Liz were meant to be together, and he had to find the best way for that to happen. What a psycho. Jessica tells him to drive her home.
On the ride home, Devon hits a bicyclist with his motorcycle, crumpling the bike frame and throwing the cyclist over the side of the cliff. The cyclist is alive, clinging on to the side of the cliff about four feet down. He looks terrified. Jessica tells him that they’re going to help him, and then she turns around to find Devon getting back on his motorcycle, crying. She tells Devon that they have to save the man. Devon is a complete ass and says, “I’m sorry that this was the way it had to be” before zooming off. What the hell is wrong with Devon?
By herself, Jessica leans over the side of the cliff and pulls the man to safety. His name is Pete and he’s from Scotland. EMTs arrive and take Pete to the ER; Jessica goes with him. Turns out, he has a punctured lung and needs a cast on his arm, but he’ll be okay. The police arrive, and when they ask who was responsible for the hit and run, Jessica gives them Devon’s name.
The next day, Jessica writes in her diary that she can’t believe how stupid she was but obviously she just had some growing up to do. Then the phone rings and, surprisingly (or not), it’s Devon. Once he realizes it’s Jess on the phone, he tells her that he’d waited for her the other night but Liz arrived, so he’d talked to Liz and then Liz ditched him to get a ride home with some other guy. He says he’s dying to see Jessica. Jess cuts him off and informs him that she knows he’s lying because it was her at the beach the night before. She also adds that she gave his information to the police and that she hopes they pick him up soon. Devon hangs up.
Pete the bicyclist shows up at Jessica’s place to properly thank her for saving his life. Turns out, he’s pretty hot and not that much older. Jess tells Liz the story of how she saved Pete and how he was hit in the first place, although Jess doesn’t mention Devon by name and simply says she got a ride from a guy she thought she knew but didn’t. Liz is shocked and says, “You know what this whole thing reminds me of? Devon Whitelaw.” Jessica agrees.
Jessica goes to the Fall Folly dance with Pete and has a good time. In her diary, she writes that she hasn’t told Liz about the whole Devon debacle, nor does she plan to, because that’s what secret diaries are for.