Sweet Valley High #11: Too Good to be True
Sweet Valley High #11: Too Good to be True
Because it just wouldn’t be a Sweet Valley High novel without plenty of underage drinking and an attempted rape or two. This time with psychotic New Yorkers!
In a nutshell: beautiful Suzanne Devlin, the daughter of one of Mr. Wakefield’s college roommates, comes to visit Sweet Valley from New York City. She’s totally unhinged, but she pretends to be sweet and kind and everyone loves her. So, naturally, nobody suspects that she could be making up her accusations of attempted rape. Oh, and she steals Elizabeth’s lavaliere. What a bitch. Meanwhile, Jessica goes to New York City and gets drunk and almost date raped for real. This is a little long, because the plot was actually sort of complicated to describe.
The A Plot
The book opens with Mr. Wakefield announcing that his old college roommate, Tom Devlin, who is a diplomat with houses in Paris, London, and New York, has called him up. Tom has a kid named Suzanne who has always wanted to visit California, so he proposes a daughter exchange: Suzanne can come to Sweet Valley during Spring Break, and the twins can come to New York. Jessica is desperate to visit the big city, and Liz thinks it would be fun too. The problem, of course, is which twin will go, since Mr. Wakefield suddenly plays the poor card, saying, “I wish I could afford to send both of you girls, but with college coming up in another year, I think the sensible thing to do is put the money aside.” Nice, jerk. You can’t afford to send both of them, so you’ll send one, leaving the other behind? Wouldn’t it be more fair if you suggested Suzanne come without sending one of your kids in her place, if money is so tight? Or couldn’t you save money by cutting off Jessica’s clothing allowance instead? She only buys ugly, trashy, oddly middle-aged things anyway, as has been established in past writeups, and she’s not buying that stuff with money she’s earned herself, because you people haven’t made her get a job, since that might teach her discipline and responsibility. So.
Ned doesn’t take my advice, I’m sorry to say. He ignores Jessica’s offers to skip college to be a gypsy fortune teller, and her threats to stay home from college and waste away if he doesn’t let her go. Instead, he takes Liz’s advice: a nice, old fashioned, super fair coin flip. While he gets out his quarter, Jessica daydreams about the big city:
She imagined herself whirling breathlessly beneath the flashing lights of some impossibly chic Manhattan disco. Suddenly a hand touches her arm. She turns. “Pardon me,” Mick Jagger says, “I believe this next dance is mine.”
I do not pretend to understand why a sixteen year old girl is fantasizing about Mick Jagger or what the random italics are all about.
There’s an obligatory mention of how Mrs. Wakefield is often mistaken for the twins’ sister, and then Liz wins the coin toss.
But - and you all know how this goes by now, don’t you? - as soon as Liz gets upstairs, Jess follows her and starts with the whining and the guilt trips. Liz tries to pacify her by offering to let Jess wear her new culottes while she’s gone, but, oddly, Jess doesn’t seem to think that’s a fair trade. Liz is such a dork. During their conversation, it’s foreshadowed that the class picnic is coming up that week, as is Lila’s birthday bash at the country club. Jess finally hits her mark, though, when she heavily implies that Lila has a crush on Todd, like Lila would ever be interested in such a dim bulb. She’s too awesome for that. But Liz is blind to Todd’s faults in the brain department, and believes Jess when Jess said that, as soon as Liz leaves the state, Todd will probably cheat with Lila.
Well, Liz could always chase him down in her Fiat and punch Lila out. Todd might appreciate the symmetry of it. But, instead, Liz is an insecure sap and, rather than seeing right through her sister’s transparent ploy, declares then and there that there’s no way she can possibly leave Trusty Boyfriend Todd, because he’s obviously just waiting for a chance to get with a snotty bitch like Lila. Oh, wait. I mean a girl who’s rich and beautiful, unlike Liz, who’s middle class and shares a face with the Junior Class Sociopath. Since that completely makes sense and fits Todd’s character so far. He’s a stalky kidnapper, but he’s never shown even a remote interest in any girl but Elizabeth. (Lucky her?) Still, Liz gives in, and Jess whirls off to pack.
It turns out this Spring Break is two weeks long. What a school! It’s a miracle they ever learn anything, what with all the vacations and parties and dances and carjackings and fake attempted rapes going on.
Jess leaves on her plane, and while they wait for Suzanne to arrive, Mrs. Wakefield engages in some recreational judging:
“Ned, didn’t you say she’s gone to boarding schools most of her life?” She sighed. “I suppose there’s nothing wrong with it, but I don’t see how I ever could have sent you kids away like that. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I think children belong at home until they’re ready for college.”
Steven points out, “Look at me-I’m going to college and you’re still stuck with feeding me practically every weekend. Not to mention my dirty laundry.” Steven is kind of a loser mooch, I’m realizing, and what’s this about his mom still doing his laundry? Cut the cord, Alice.
Suzanne gets off the plane, and she is gorgeous. Liz thinks that her features “couldn’t have been more perfect if they’d been sculpted by Michelangelo,” which means poor Suzy looks like a really buff man, but are we surprised that the SVH ghostwriters didn’t bother to look it up? Anyway, let’s just take their word for it that she’s a knockout. And she immediately endears herself to the Wakefield family by gushing about how beautiful Liz is, the view, the Wakefields’ house, the town, the pool, and everything else she sees. And then Suzy puts on her bathing suit and Liz feels fat in comparison. Hee. They play in the pool, and Suzy’s an awesome swimmer, which is important later. While swimming, Suzy mentions offhandedly that her parents sent her to boarding school at age nine and now want her to marry Pete, her boyfriend (even though she’s only sixteen?) because they can’t wait to get rid of her. Ooookay.
Suzy helps cook and wash the dishes, to further demonstrate how awesome she is. The Wakefields fawn.
The next day, at the Junior Class Picnic, all the boys are in love with Suzy, but none more than Winston Egbert, of course. Bruce the foiled rapist is there:
Handsome Bruce Patman - who, along with a few other seniors had been invited to the picnic - turned his reflector sunglasses in Suzanne’s direction. “I don’t see what’s so crazy about a guy falling for a foxy lady like Suzanne here.”
I can’t improve on that, so I’m not even going to try. And everyone seems pretty okay with him now, since he hasn’t attempted to rape anybody in at least four books. Liz, for one, seems to have forgotten the incident entirely. But why would Sweet Valley High’s Senior Class King of Cool come to the Junior Class picnic, even if he was invited especially? Wouldn’t he think it was lame?
Enid notes that it’s a good thing Jess is in New York, because she would hate how much male attention Suzy is getting. A perceptive observation from the girl with the silly name! Suzy goes into the water, gets a cramp, and starts to drown. (Or does she?) Mr. Collins, English teacher, Oracle advisor, and Robert Redford lookalike, is acting as the lifeguard for the class, so he swims in after her and pulls her to safety. Suzy cries and cries, and asks Mr. Collins to hold her. He’s kind of like, “Whatever,” and gets away from her as fast as possible. Aaron Dallas gives her his towel, Winston sings her a song, Tom McKay holds her hand, and Bruce brings her a paper cup of iced tea. What is with Bruce and paper cups? Liz thinks it’s weird that Suzy almost drowned when she was such a good swimmer in the pool the other day, but Todd makes out with her and she forgets her suspicions. Liz is an easily distracted girl.
Lila invites Suzy over for a tennis game, and while she’s there, Lila tells her she should be a model, and sucks up by saying, “The next Brooke Shields! Think how famous you’d be!” Ah, the eighties, when Brooke Shields was the epitome of feminine beauty. Suzy’s not interested; she’s determined to go to law school.
Later in Suzy’s visit, Liz comes downstairs and tells her family that she can’t find her lavaliere. She put it on her dresser! It’s vanished! She’s devastated! Suzy is all sympathy, offering to help Liz look for it later, as soon as she gets a break from doing all the Wakefields’ cooking and chores for them. She’s made them waffles from scratch for breakfast, helped Steven varnish his canoe (?), run errands for them, washed their dishes, and cleaned the house from top to bottom with rubber gloves. As she and Liz head out for a picnic on the beach with Todd, Suzy sticks her hand in her pocket and fondles the missing lavaliere, thinking, “A pretty little trinket.” Thief! She was just pretending to be nice and helpful this whole time so she could...steal Elizabeth’s necklace! Yeah! What a cunning plot! I wonder if she’d been planning this ever since before she left New York.
On their way to the beach, Liz has to drop some stuff for the Oracle off at Mr. Collins’s house. That’s one dedicated teacher, to have kids stopping by to drop work off during Spring Break. But don’t parents find it a little weird? When I was in high school, the only time I went to a teacher’s house was if I was friends with their kid. I never would have gone to just…like…spend time with the teacher. But, then, what do I know? I never had a Robert Redford lookalike teaching me English and mentoring me in life’s ways. My English teacher looked more like Dustin Hoffman in Hook. Anyway, on the ride over we learn that Mr. Collins is divorced and has custody of his six year old son, Teddy. Suzy gushes about how much she loves kids.
When they get there, Suzy offers to run the stuff inside for Liz, but Mr. Collins doesn’t answer the door. She hears water running and goes around the back to find Mr. Collins watering the grass, wearing shorts and a bandanna in his hair. We are treated to a few loving sentences about the awesomeness of Mr. Collins’s chest, which isn’t gross at all. I so don’t want to think about Robert Redford without a shirt on, but whatever. Suzy flirts with him, but he’s not affected, which makes her angry. She drinks out of the hose and gets her shirt all wet on purpose. She catches Mr. Collins sneaking a peek at her boobs, which makes her happy, and she thinks to herself that teachers always put themselves up on pedestals like they think they’re better than everyone else, but she’d love to “bring this teacher to his knees!” Where does Suzy go to high school, that the teachers think they’re better than everyone else? If it’s ego she hates so much, she couldn’t hate lawyers or something and focus her weirdness on Mr. Wakefield? It seems like there’s probably a lot more humility among high school teachers/school newspaper advisors than among partners at law firms.
Then, she thinks to herself, and I have to reproduce this in its entirety so you can get the full effect:
It gave her such a feeling of power to control people without their even knowing they were being controlled.
Take that dopey Elizabeth, for instance. How could anyone be so naïve? She’d probably spend the next hundred years crawling around on her hands and knees looking for that necklace without even suspecting that her dear, sweet friend Suzy had taken it. They were all so gullible, the whole bunch of them. None of the Wakefields knew how she was really sneering at them behind their backs. Them and just about everybody else in this little hick town.
Okay, first, didn’t Suzy ask to come to California? Wasn’t that the point of this entire thing, that she’d always wanted to visit? WTF, Suzy! Make up your mind! Second, let me get this straight. She’s doing all the Wakefields’ cooking and cleaning, being all sweetness and light, but inside, she hates them? Why is she doing all their housework then? Suzy, if you hate the Wakefields, but you’re super nice to them and clean their house with rubber gloves and cook their food and varnish their canoes all the while never giving any indication of your true feelings, then they are not the stupid ones in this equation. Why are you doing chores for people you hate? Stupid Suzy.
Mr. Collins’s kid comes out and Suzy charms his socks off. Mr. Collins thanks her for delivering the newspaper stuff and sends her on her way. He sees right through her flirting and obviously thinks it’s completely inappropriate, which makes her pretty mad. But he does blush when she brings up his saving her from fake drowning, so she’s pretty smug as she leaves, noting that he’s not as invincible as he thinks he is.
They go to the beach, and Enid points out again how furious Jessica would be around Suzy, since all the boys of Sweet Valley are in lurve with her. Enid, it was a good observation the first time you said it, but now you’re coasting. Think of something new to talk about. We learn that Winston spelled I LOVE YOU SUZY on the Wakefields’ lawn in toilet paper one night, which I’m sure Ned and Alice loved. (Though, come to think of it, Suzy probably cleaned it up herself, since she loves doing gross chores for people she hates. Way to show them, Suzy!) Actually, Enid’s observation does raise an interesting point, I think. Jessica would’ve seen through Suzy in a heartbeat. Things never would’ve gotten as out of control as they wind up if Jessica had been the twin to stay in Sweet Valley. She’d have suspected Suzy of fake-drowning and stealing the necklace right away, confronted her about it, told everyone she knew, and it never would’ve gotten as far as fake attempted rape. Jessica can be pretty awesome sometimes, when she wants to be.
Jess calls Liz and lies about what a great time she’s having in the City. Liz tells Jess what a fantastic time they’re having without Jess, but then feels bad and says, “But of course we all really miss you! Honest!” They so don’t miss her.
Todd shows up with two last-minute Lakers tickets, but Liz can’t go because she promised to babysit Teddy Collins. Now that’s something I don’t think my parents ever would’ve gone for: me being at a young, single, male teacher’s house late at night? No way. There’s something vaguely icky about it. Suzy offers to babysit instead, and we know that she has a nefarious purpose in mind, but Liz doesn’t, so she happily bounces off to the game with Todd. Suzy promises to call and let Mr. Collins know about the change of plans, but of course she doesn’t.
Suzy rubs her breasts all over Mr. Collins when he answers the door, and he gets all freaked out like, “I’mhavingdinnerwithfriendsbye.” If she unnerves you that much, dude, why are you leaving your child with her? Great parenting there. Suzy acts friendly and charming with Teddy, but as soon as Mr. Collins is out the door it’s obvious she couldn’t care less. He wants her to read stories, but she flips through a magazine and ignores him. She sits him in front of the TV and thinks, “Let Teddy take care of himself. Hadn’t she taken care of herself during all those years of being shipped off to boarding schools?” Then she ruminates a bit about how much she despises her parents, and how she’d show them, she’d show them all one day! Muahahahahaha!
Then she goes through Mr. Collins’s bedroom looking for porn. Hee.
Needless to say, she doesn’t find any, but she does find that he likes wearing cords and sports jackets, and that there are tons of pictures of Teddy on the walls, which must not be at all awkward if/when he brings a date home. But maybe he’s too wholesome for that. Then she takes a bath. What a weird girl.
Anyway, once her bath is done she finds that Teddy cried himself to sleep in front of the TV, but doesn’t care. It’s kind of surprising, which is to say unrealistic, that a six year old boy with no adult supervision sat quietly in front of the TV crying instead of tearing the house apart, eating sugar and breaking everything he could get his hands on, but okay. When it’s getting time for Mr. Collins to come home, Suzy turns off all the lights but one low table lamp, switches on the radio to a romantic music station, unbuttons another button on her shirt, and then fakes sleeping.
He comes home and shakes her awake, and she’s all, “You scared me! Feel how my heart is beating!” grabs his hand, and sticks it on her boob. Subtle. He’s grossed out. She asks if she can have a glass of wine, and he primly tells her that she’s too young, but she laughs merrily and says nonsense! Her parents let her drink all the time! She’s not going to turn into an alcoholic! And she’s not the type to kiss and tell either! Then, she tips her head back and, I am not even making this up, says, “Oh, Roger!”
Mr. Collins shoots her right down, telling her, “You’re playing a very foolish game. I’m doing you a favor. Otherwise, you’d be very sorry later on,” and she gets all enraged. Nobody rejects Suzanne Devlin! NOBODY! She wants to scratch his eyes out! She storms out of the house hissing, “You’re the one who’s going to be sorry, Roger Collins!”
As she walks back to the Wakefields’, she tears her shirt and starts up the fake tears, thinking that her revenge is going to be pretty fun. She goes into Liz’s room, sobbing, and when Liz asks what’s wrong, Suzy is all, “You’ll never believe me! Promise you’ll believe me!” Liz earnestly promises, and:
In a ragged whisper, Suzanne confessed. “Mr. Collins tried to-I mean, he…. Oh, I can’t say it!”
Liz is like, “There must be some mistake!” but Suzy insists it’s true. Liz doesn’t want to believe it, but asks Suzy to tell her everything. Suzy tells her that Mr. Collins came home kind of drunk, and offered her wine, which she virtuously refused, as she’s not old enough to drink. Mr. Collins said, “You seem pretty grown up to me!” and tried to kiss her and unbutton her blouse and she ran for it. Liz the brain trust replies, “Couldn’t you have been mistaken?” After all, Mr. Collins is like a “favorite uncle” to her! How could he be capable of such a “hideous thing?” But Suzy insists, so Liz wakes her parents up and tells them, thinking that it’s going to get Mr. Collins fired and probably ruin his life, but she has to tell. A tiny voice inside her head asks, “What if it isn’t true?” but she silences it, thinking, “How could she doubt that dear, sweet Suzanne was telling the truth?” Oh, Liz. You ate it up just like you did when Jessica faked Todd’s attempted date rape in the first book. Jess never would’ve fallen for Suzy’s crap.
Speaking of Todd, he’s in disbelief too. “Mr. Collins just doesn’t seem like the type to go around attacking innocent girls,” he protests. Todd is so stupid. It turns out Liz’s father went straight to the school principal, who told the school board. Everyone in town knows about it, and things are not looking good for Roger Collins. Liz is sick that a lot of people seem happy about it, because even though Mr. Collins was really popular with the students, a lot of parents thought his teaching methods were too liberal, whatever that means. They’re glad to get rid of him, anyway. Mr. Wakefield tried to talk to Mr. Collins, but he refused to publicly defend himself, saying that people were going to believe whatever they wanted, even though it wasn’t true. How stupid and self-destructive. I mean, if he’s going to lose his job and maybe even his teaching license, and he has a kid to support, why wouldn’t he defend himself?
Todd is like, “What if he’s telling the truth and Suzy imagined the whole thing?” So, let me get this straight. Todd can not conceive of Mr. Collins being an attempted rapist, but in Todd’s mind, it’s more likely that Suzy hallucinated the attempted rape than that she’s just making it up? Even though Todd himself has been the victim of a girl fake crying rape too, when Jessica did it to him in book one? His mind doesn’t even go there? God, Todd is stupid.
Liz is like, “But why would anyone make up an awful thing like that?” Well, let’s see. When Jessica did it, it was to get revenge on Todd for rejecting her. Just throwing that out there as a possible motive again. They sure do have short memories in Sweet Valley.
A bunch of kids get together at Cara Walker’s house before Lila Fowler’s birthday party that night (also Suzy’s last night in Sweet Valley). They’re pooling their money to buy Lila a present. They’re split about 50-50 in the get-Mr.-Collins-fired faction and the Mr.-Collins-is-innocent faction. Artsy Oliva Davidson doesn’t believe it because she shares Mr. Collins’s liberal views (that’s a good reason?). Ken Matthews, Quarterback with a heart of gold, is also on Mr. Collins’s side, as is John Pfeifer (future real attempted date rapist; he attacks Lila later in the series and the fallout messes her up for about twenty books), tennis star Tom McKay, and, of course, Enid. Cara thinks he’s guilty because he gave her a C on her last essay (again, that’s a good reason?), and so does school gossip Caroline Pearce and Winston Egbert, who is madly in love with Suzanne. Liz feels guilty because, if she’d been babysitting like she was supposed to, this never would’ve happened. That’s right, Liz. It’s all your fault. The kids decide to use some of the money they’d brought for Lila’s present to get a going away gift for Suzy, and Liz decides to buy Suzy a scarf to go with the blouse they’ve planned to buy her.
Suzy and Liz get ready for Lila’s party, and Suzy’s dress is a white Halston that her boyfriend bought her last Christmas. Wow. What a boyfriend! Liz puts on a velvet skirt and a high-necked, lacy Victorian blouse. Liz is such a dork. Suzy tells Liz she loves her like a sister, and when Liz tears up with the emotion of the moment, Suzy thinks, What a fool. It’s funny because it’s true. Then Suzy thinks about how happy she is that Mr. Collins is in trouble, because No one can ignore Suzanne Devlin and get away with it! So we’re meant to think that she cried fake rape because she’s damaged from boarding school. She feels like her parents sent her there to get rid of her, and it made her psychotic. Obviously. The doorbell rings, and Suzy goes down to get it. On the way out, she kisses Liz on the cheek and thanks her:
“For being my friend. For helping me make sure that creep Mr. Collins got what he deserved.”
Suzanne frowned, and for an instant she no longer seemed beautiful to Elizabeth. Her lovely eyes narrowed into mean slits. Hatred twisted her mouth into an ugly grimace. Then the moment passed, and Suzanne looked her old sweet, smiling self again. Elizabeth blinked. She must have imagined it. Suzanne could never be ugly.
Because, you see, in Sweet Valley land, ugly=evil.
Once Suzy’s gone, Liz goes to hide the scarf she bought in Suzy’s suitcase. What do you think she finds there? Her lavaliere! Why would Suzy steal her necklace? It doesn’t make any sense! Her stomach does slow cartwheels of disbelief! (I am not making that phrase up.) When Todd shows up, Liz is like, “We need to go to Mr. Collins’s house.” Todd tells her, “I thought you’d never ask.” If he wanted to go there so badly, why didn’t he suggest it, or just go himself? I guess we’ll never know.
During the drive, Todd compares Suzy to Cathy in East of Eden, because she was beautiful and sweet on the outside but rotten inside. Liz is like, “But people are only like that in books! If someone were really like that, you’d know, wouldn’t you?” Todd scores about ten points with his reply:
“Maybe not. Some people can be pretty good fakers. What about the time before Bill Chase and DeeDee Gordon got together, when your sister pretended to be you so that Bill would fall in love with her? And she was so convincing that Bill actually bought her act?”
Elizabeth bit her lip. “But that was just Jessica. She’s never done anything really bad.”
“No comment,” said Todd.
After all, Jess did the same thing to him as Suzy is doing to Mr. Collins, except that Todd wasn’t a teacher with a job to lose. Liz reminds herself that, if Suzy lied about the lavaliere, she could lie about anything.
At Mr. Collins’s house, Liz asks if Suzy’s story is true. Mr. Collins asks, “What do you think?” and Liz knows “in her heart that Mr. Collins hadn’t tried to seduce Suzanne.” She starts to cry like the sap she is, and confesses that she never really believed it deep down, but Suzy was her friend. Mr. Collins says that Suzy is a really messed up girl, but in a twisted way, he thinks she kind of did want to be Liz’s friend. I have no idea what his basis for saying that could be, but okay. Mr. Collins says he’s not angry; he just feels sorry for Suzanne, and figures she must have wanted attention very badly to do what she did. He sermonizes to Liz and Todd, telling them to never stop trusting people, even if they do disappoint you sometimes. Liz kisses Mr. Collins’s stubbled cheek, which is so inappropriate it isn’t even funny, and she and Todd take off for Lila’s party at the country club.
Liz and Todd arrive at the party just as Suzy is plotting to exchange with Liz next year and steal Todd. Like Jess would ever let that happen. She’d snatch Suzy bald before she let her get anywhere near Liz’s boyfriend. Suzy sees that Liz is wearing the lavaliere, thinks that Liz is a nosy little sneak for going through her suitcase, and thinks fast. Liz pulls her into the coatroom or something, and Suzy tells Liz that the necklace must have become snagged on her sweater and she didn’t notice when she put it back in her suitcase, but Liz is like, “Couldn’t you come up with something better than that?” Suzy starts to cry, and Liz calls her a loser! Awesome! Suzy gets really angry, and is all, “He wanted it just as much as I did. He would’ve done something about it too, if he weren’t such a saint.” Liz is all, “Thanks, I’m off to tell everyone,” and Suzy is like, “They’d never believe you over me.” Liz is like, “I don’t think you understand that I am Saint Elizabeth of Sweet Valley,” and Suzy promises to ruin Liz the way she ruined Mr. Collins. She's going to tell everyone Liz tried to rape her?
Suzy leaves the coatroom and tells Cara that Liz cracked her head on the side of the pool when they were swimming yesterday and has been acting weird ever since. Cara’s mind immediately goes to that time when Liz was in the motorcycle accident and started acting like Jessica, and she’s off and running, imagining Liz being committed to a mental institution. Hee. Nice insight on what people really think about Jess, there. Cara tells Lila right away, and within fifteen minutes, everyone at the party thinks Liz is insane. The Sweet Valley junior class is a gullible bunch. It sure doesn’t take much to get them all believing the most outrageous things about people they’ve known for years.
Enid runs right to Liz and bursts into tears, all, “Everyone at the party thinks your parents are having you committed! Who could have started such a terrible rumor?” Get a grip, Enid. Liz marches right up to Suzy in the middle of the party and goes, “I want you to stop telling lies about me.” That’ll show her, Liz. Suzy pretends innocence, and Liz goes into a towering rage. We’re informed that, unlike Jess, Liz doesn’t get angry very often, but when she does lose her temper for real even Jess backs down. Liz spells it out for everyone, saying that Suzy is telling lies so that no one will believe Liz when she announces that Suzy confessed to lying about Mr. Collins’s attempted rape. Suzanne is like, “Ooooh, poor Liz! You’re my dearest friend! I know you don’t mean what you’re saying! How could I have stolen your necklace? Look, you’re wearing it! Why don’t you go home and lie down for a while?” Liz is like, “You’re a monster!” Hee.
Just then, Winston comes with some fruit punch for Suzanne, trips over his clown feet, and spills it all down the front of her white Halston. She absolutely melts down, screaming at him for being an idiot, and dumb, and following her around like a big, stupid dog ever since she met him. Everyone is astonished and starts backing away slowly but I have to say, I’m on Suzy’s side here. That dress was probably thousands of dollars. She tries to recover, but everyone walks away from her. She’s all, My admirers are leaving! This can’t happen! Not to meeeeee! and then she starts to cry. We are informed that they’re the first real tears she’s shed in a long, long time.
So, even though nobody saw Liz acting insane, they all believed she was just because Suzy said so. Then, just as fast, they believed Liz was sane because Suzy yelled at Winston for wrecking her Halston dress. Right on. I think Liz might need some new friends.
Winston tells Liz he’d overheard her and Suzy in the coatroom, so he spilled the punch on purpose to get Suzy to show her true colors in front of the whole room. Liz is satisfied when she tells Todd and Winston that now Mr. Collins won’t lose his job because the whole class just saw Suzy’s meltdown and will testify to the school board about what she’s really like. As far as the class knows, she’s a girl who got really angry when her Halston was destroyed. I don’t see what that has to do with Mr. Collins, but if it makes you feel better, Liz. Nothing else is said about this for the rest of the book, so we have to assume that the school board is swayed by these persuasive arguments: “She took Elizabeth’s necklace! She yelled at someone who ruined her very expensive dress! So obviously she couldn’t have been almost raped by Mr. Collins!” Presumably, Mr. Collins’s name is cleared. Way to resolve your storylines, ghostwriter.
The B Plot
The B plot is the story of Jessica’s trip to New York, which does not go anywhere near as well as she’d thought it would. Mr. Devlin is really nice. Mrs. Devlin is elegant, but the first thing she says to Jessica is that she takes a limousine whenever possible because taxis are driven by “dreadful little men.” Ooookay. Mrs. Devlin takes Jessica shopping at Saks but Jess can’t afford to buy anything, so she pockets the little free samples of perfume to give to Liz as souvenirs. Hee. How thoughtful. They eat at the Russian Tea Room, but Mrs. Devlin doesn’t even touch her food. She just smokes a lot.
After that first day, the Devlins pretty much left Jess to fend for herself (anyway, Mr. Devlin is at work all the time and Mrs. Devlin makes Jessica feel really uncomfortable) and Jess is starting to get bored hanging around the apartment when Pete McCafferty, Suzanne’s boyfriend, stops by. He’s really hot in his Lacoste shirt and white slacks. He’s at least twenty, and super mature and sophisticated, so Jessica feels kind of unsure of herself. She offers him something to drink, hoping he wants coke instead of alcohol, but he’s just there to drop off some concert tickets for Mr. and Mrs. Devlin, except he calls them Tom and Felicia. Calling your girlfriend’s parents by their first names is so unbelievably sophisticated! Jessica almost swoons! The Devlins are going out that night, but Jess is a resourceful girl and asks Pete if he’d take her along to the concert. He agrees, and she’s happy, but kind of embarrassed that he made her ask instead of asking her himself.
Jess puts on one of Suzy’s dresses for the occasion, and in the close-fitting black crepe cocktail dress with a plunging back, she thinks she looks at least nineteen! She also uses Suzy’s makeup and bath stuff. That is rude, and kind of unhygienic, but are we surprised? Pete is half an hour late, and Jess is pissed off. Plus, he doesn’t seem to think she’s anywhere near as hot as she thinks she is. He does recognize the dress, though, but Jess lies and says Suzy told her she could borrow anything she wanted. Oh, and he has a Ferrari. He takes her to Windows on the World for dinner, and the waiter brings them wine with dinner without even asking for ID, which makes Jess feel very cool. Over dinner, Jess can’t understand why Pete doesn’t seem remotely affected by her flirting. Then she’s really bored at the piano concert because it’s not music she could dance to and Pete won’t hold her hand. He drops her off, refusing to come up or kiss her goodnight, and she’s even more embarrassed and pissed off and determined to get him. This will obviously end well.
A few nights later Evelyn, Suzanne’s best friend, gives a dinner party in Jessica’s honor. What sixteen year olds give dinner parties? When Jess shows up, the kids are all drinking champagne. Evelyn is wearing silk pajamas. Everyone is talking about real estate. I guess that’s what the ghostwriter thought rich teenagers do? Except Bruce and Lila don’t talk that way. Maybe it’s just New Yorkers.
“Daddy says real estate makes more sense,” said a nasal-voiced blonde with pinched good looks. “If I put Grandmother’s inheritance into the stock market, I could lose everything.”
“Diamonds,” piped a petite red-haired girl. “when I come into my money, I’m putting it all into diamonds.”
“With the family you come from, you might need a whole room for those rocks,” said a boy standing next to her.
“Oh, Simon,” the redhead retorted with annoyance. “Don’t be so crass.
I can’t improve on that.
Jess downs her champagne and they refill it just as fast. Evelyn tells Jess that her parents are in the Caribbean this time of year, so she usually stays with her 25-year-old boyfriend at his apartment in the Village. Sure. A boy flirts with Jess, and Evelyn whispers to her, “Malcom’s okay. His family owns a big estate in Connecticut, and he drives a Maserati.” HAHAHAHA!
They sit down to the dinner the cook made for them, and Evelyn brings out a few more bottles of wine too. By the end of dinner, Jess is drunk drunk drunk. The room is spinning and she’s slurring her words and feeling sick. She tries to go find the bathroom and knocks over an urn by the fireplace. Someone is like, “She can’t hold her liquor,” and someone else says, “What did you expect? She is from California, after all.” What?
Jess is so embarrassed that she wants to die, but instead she passes out on the bathroom floor. She wakes up sprawled in the backseat of a cab driving to the Devlins’. How absolutely humiliating. This rich kid party is probably one of the best chapters this series has ever had.
The Devlins make Pete take Jessica out for a day of sightseeing, and she throws herself at him with no subtlety and rather embarrassing tenacity when it’s obvious he’s just not into her. By the end of the day, Jess is so frustrated and mortified that she’s ready to cry. He comes up to the Devlins’ empty apartment with her at the end of the day and offers her a drink, saying he knows where Mrs. Devlin keeps the key to the liquor cabinet. He pours her a brandy (what 20 year old guy likes brandy?) and she starts to drink it when he turns off the lights and starts to make out with her. Jess is all about it at first, but all of a sudden he gets totally out of control, trying to slide his hands under her skirt and her shirt. She yells “No!” and he pins her on the couch. He’s like, “You’re getting what you asked for, Jessica. Grow up. This is the real world.”
Jessica curses Elizabeth, thinking, “Elizabeth had been so quick to want to switch places with her. She probably knew how it was going to turn out and had only pretended to want to go in the first place in order to make it sound like fun.” There is something very wrong with Jessica Wakefield.
Anyway, she pushes Pete off and tells him she’s going to call the police if he doesn’t leave. He’s like, “Whatever. Nobody will believe you.” He lunges at her, and the brandy snifter shatters on the floor. He tackles Jess and they’re wrestling when the lights come on and Mr. and Mrs. Devlin stand there, frozen in the doorway. That was a close call for Jessica! Pete jumps to his feet, red faced and apologizing, and Jess bursts into tears. Mr. and Mrs. Devlin tell Pete they never want to see him again and neither would Suzanne once she hears this story. Except, probably they’re wrong about that last part.
Jess goes home and thinks about how much she missed Sweet Valley and her twin.
Meanwhile, Tricia Martin is breaking dates with Steven, and he has no idea why. He’s pretty distraught over it, and Jess thinks Tricia’s cheating on him. Steven tells Jess, “Not every girl is like you!” - SNAP! - but once Jess has left the room, he confides to Liz that he’s actually kind of afraid Jess might be right.
What is Tricia’s problem? (Hint: She’s dying of leukemia.) Find out in Sweet Valley High #12, subtly titled When Love Dies.