Sweet Valley High #2: Secrets

Sweet Valley High #2: Secrets

We pick up where we left off in Double Love, maybe a day or two later. Jess gets dressed, complains, and we rehash the end, where Jess is thrown in the pool and Enid shows up crying. Jess has a grand plan to make Bruce Patman fall in love with her. She just has to win Prom Princess or some crap like that. And he has to be King, and THEN he’ll realize they’re meant to be. Of course. When I win Miss Fredericksburg, then the boys will come a’runnin’. Ew.

And Enid has a secret! Oh, like the title! Creative! She’s crying and flipping her proverbial shit and Liz is all, Enid, let’s make cookies! Oh, good idea Liz, let’s teach emotional eating. Liz finally pries Enid’s secret past out of her. Apparently, about 2 years ago, she fell in with the wrong crowd and was a drunk junkie, all strung out on heroin on the outskirts of town. Or something like that. Anyway, she met George Wallace (and ha, I think George is an all around silly name) and they got wasted one night (and she was…14 then? OK.) and he was driving (so many lessons in one book!) and they hit a kid. The kid was fine, and so were they, but Enid sure did learn her lesson and immediately cleaned up her act. George was sent off to some boarding school for troubled kids or something like that, but had a harder time picking up the pieces of his broken life, shattered like the bones of so many children that are HIT BY CARS, GEORGE. So Enid’s been writing him letters back and forth, encouraging him to pull it together, which is so cute, because I bet postage still cost, like, 26 cents. And she wrote the letters on her typewriter! Ha! I love the 80’s. Speaking of which, did VH1 include Sweet Valley High in any of the I Love the 80’s shows? If not, I feel like that was a major oversight.

So Enid is scared her boyfriend, Ronnie, is going to get mad at her and dump her for writing letters to George and she loves Ronnie just too much for that to happen. OK, w-t-f these books and love? Liz loved Todd before they even had a date, and Enid’s in love with Ronnie, and Jessica loves everyone. Now I hear a lot of people say that people throw the word “love” around too carelessly, so I’m take a leap and blame Sweet Valley High for that, I think. Seriously.

Elizabeth assures her that’s ridiculous until we find out what a controlling, abusive ass Ronnie is. Like, he flipped out at Enid when she told her waiter at a restaurant not to put anchovies on her pizza, because the waiter was a GUY. No one cares that Ronnie sucks, but he totally won’t dump Enid because of George, Liz assures Enid. RIGHT. But then, the horrid news – George is coming back to Sweet Valley – and he wants to see Enid! Wait, so, they already lived in Sweet Valley when all this happened, and yet no one heard about the wasted teenagers that hit a small child with a car? Maybe she lived in Big Mesa.


Meanwhile, Jess is busy scheming to get Patman to fall in love with her. So after some whining to Mama Wakefield, who is actually home for once, about Liz’s spending too much time with Enid she rushes upstairs and throws herself on Liz’s bed, because hers is too messy…where she finds the letter from George that Enid dropped! This is too good to pass up, and can totally help her get Bruce, so she rushes to make a copy of the letter on her dad’s copy machine. Also, yeah, right, because you know he just had a mimeograph. Copy machine, my backside, Wakefields. And, scene.

So Liz, Todd, Enid, and Ronnie are at the movies, but Ronnie’s acting strange. Enid thinks something is up but can’t tell. Ronnie’s quiet. Liz waxes poetic about her perfect relationship with Todd. Ronnie and Enid leave the movie together and go “park somewhere,” and ok, this kind of place is in every book ever. Every town has a “point” but if my hometown did? I did not know. Must have been too busy reading this crap to be in the know. Ronnie attacks Enid and they make out for probably 1 second before she’s all dude, cool down. And then he starts flipping out about George. The letters! He knows! He dumps Enid. She can’t comprehend how life can go on without a douchebag like this, and is certain Elizabeth is to blame. OK, it’s only book 2 and I KNOW Elizabeth isn’t too blame. Remember, she has the ponytail. You can ALWAYS trust a ponytail. Always.

Well, I guess Enid doesn’t know the hard and fast ponytail rule as well as I do, ‘cause she blames Liz and tells her how much she sucks. Liz is shocked seeing as she HAS A PONYTAIL and didn’t do anything wrong. Jess feigns shock when Liz tells her what happens and totes wants to help. So she goes to a party at Lila’s to talk to Bruce. After some wine (martinis in the re-release…really? Wine isn’t timeless?) and hearing Bruce won’t be attending the upcoming dance – there are dances every week in Sweet Valley, obvs, why do you think it’s so TOTALLY SWEET- she decides to talk to Ronnie instead.

Ronnie is grumping around the party over Enid so Jess decides to “help” and asks him about his bad mood. He bitches about Enid and George, and Jess is sooo sympathetic. So sympathetic that she suggests they go to the dance together – as friends, of course. Ronnie reluctantly agrees, but in the re-release, he is sleazy and asks Jessica. Which, honestly, is very strange, because isn’t that kind of a step BACK? Whatever, I can’t start expecting logic at this point, can I?

So we’re back to school and the Mrs. Dalton/Ken Matthews rumor at school. This subplot is dumb. Mrs. Dalton is late, so it must be because she’s totes doing Ken. No other good explanation! There’s a bunch of gossip about whether or not they’re doing it, and finally Mrs. D shows up looking tired…from all the sexing, of course. They enter the classroom and someone has written “IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A FRENCH KISS IS, ASK KEN MATTHEWS” Mortified, Mrs. D runs out. In the re-release, someone has photoshopped Mrs. D’s and Ken’s heads on a picture of a naked couple in bed. Ah, technology. After Mrs. D’s departure, Liz runs into Enid and tries to start a conversation, but Enid won’t have any of it, so Jess tries to comfort her at lunch. Liz is eating corn chips and isn’t even hungry…better watch out or she might end up size 7. THE HORROR. Jess says she’ll talk to Enid. That Jessica Wakefield, always helping!

So Jess bolts off to talk to Enid and starts out with this gem: “I know how you feel…Well, actually, I’ve never been dumped by anyone, but I can imagine what it’s like! You must feel awful!” Whatever, Jess, I seem to remember you got dumped LAST BOOK (so…last week? Month?) by one TODD WILKINS. Enid swears to never forgive Liz, even if they live to be ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE. But if they hit 200, all bets are off. High school betrayals are forgiven on the 200th birthday. Like America. We forgave the British on the bicentennial. Right? ISN’T THIS HOW HISTORY WORKS?

Anyway, soon enough Liz finds out Jess is going to the dance with Ronnie and is surprised. Really? Why? Totally a Jessica move. It even says on the cover of the book “What Jessica wants, Jessica gets – even if someone gets hurt!” So…yeah. Jess swears she is going with Ronnie FOR Enid, so she can get them back together. Oh Jess, such a martyr. Oh, this will help Liz, too, because if Enid and Ronnie get back together, she’ll forgive Liz. That Jessica, always helping others. What a Girl Scout. Someone give this girl a merit badge. Well, maybe a try-it. That Girl Scout joke only makes sense to former Girl Scouts. My bad.

Finally, Liz gives in and confesses to Mr. Collins, the Robert Redford of the high school faculty (re-release – “an actor”). He listens and tells Liz to be aware of Enid’s pain but know that Enid will forgive her – “Because the people we love, who love us, are the ones who will forgive us later when it all blows over.” Right. So he advises Liz that she probs has not thought through all the possible scenarios. Just maybe someone else told Ronnie about the letters. Elizabeth reverts back to her Christine Davenport fangirl days and plays detective…Winston! Must have been Winston. Sigh. Oh, Liz.

Oh, more Mrs. D. This plot is so unnecessary. Apparently Mr. Collins also likes her, so he defends her. Does this chick have beer-flavored nipples? Jesus. Mr. Fowler, Ken Matthews, and Mr. Collins? Woman, have a nap.

So Liz goes to talk to Winston and solve the case! But Winston, of course, didn’t have anything to do with it. Meanwhile, Todd is practicing his basketball skills and, “even with his shirt stuck to his chest in sweaty patches, Todd looked beautiful to Elizabeth.” And, EW. So Liz and sweaty Todd go to Dairi Burger. She looks sad and Todd asks why, since, after all, the most fantastic guy is taking her to the dance! “Burt Reynolds is taking me to the dance?” She asks. HA. HA HA HA HA. (Re-release: Jake Gyllenhall). Burt Reynolds is funnier though. They talk MORE about her and Enid and their fight and she talks about how she loves his firm and gentle kisses. I bet that’s not the only thing that’s firm and gentle with Todd. Ok, too far. Sorry.

Crisis! The twins can’t go to the dance if they don’t clean their rooms! Mom said. Wait, when the hell did Alice Wakefield get back? She breezed through the house once this week to give them this order? Nice. Well, Liz’s room is already neat but Jess’s is a mess so Jess finally goes to her own room to clean, and Liz starts straightening up a bit (What, Alice comes through with a white glove? She’s not Danny Tanner) when she sees it – George’s letter! In her room! And it all comes together…It was Jessica! There it is. Finally. Clarity.

Ah, the plots converge. Enid shows up at Mrs. D’s apartment. Okay, creepy. Look, I was close to my teachers in high school, but I never thought I should just waltz on over and knock on their door. Mrs. D is a replacement for Enid’s own mother so Enid is going to pour out her heart. Jesus CHRIST, you had a fight with a friend, nobody DIED, Enid. Mrs. D advises Enid to actually listen to Liz, since it makes ZERO sense that Liz would do such a thing to Enid and suddenly Enid relents and is going to do so. But then Mrs. D reveals she may resign due to gossip, and Enid flies into another rage and storms out. Is she back on drugs? Settle.

Enid’s decided to go to the dance alone, and while she’s getting ready the doorbell rings. Enid’s mom comes to tell Enid it’s for her. Must be Ronnie! Or not. It’s George! And he’s hot and sexy now, of course, and he’s wearing a suit, so they head to the dance. And he kisses her. Things move fast – and stop suddenly - in good old Sweet Valley…’cause we all know George is not getting to second base…probably ever.

And, Jess’s outfit: “a slinky red silk formal with a wide embroidered belt and black sandal heels” Cute… Liz is busy ironing the ruffled hem of her dress. Oh. Sad. And Liz has a sneaky plan to get even with Jess that is yet to be revealed. Dana is belting out a “Steamy Linda Ronstadt song.” Okay. And Mrs. D shows up! With her head held high. Like she told Enid to do. Ah. Full circle. And Enid shows up w/ George. Liz is dying for the scoop but scared Enid will snub her, but, of course, Enid walks up first to fix their friendship. Aaaand, fixed. And it’s time to vote! What could Liz’s plan be?

And Jess wins! So OBVS Bruce will too, as everyone knows he is the cutest boy in school! Then her evil plan will be complete. But Liz’s plan works perfectly, and Winston wins. Love it. This, of course, means she is stuck with Winston at all school events for the rest of the semester. OH NO. Liz reveals she knows the truth and Jess threatens to resign as queen – and Liz counter-threatens to tell the whole school what Jess did to Enid. Jess knows that would be bad news, and she relents. Liz wins again. As always. Doesn’t good always triumph over evil? I’m telling you, it’s the ponytail. Read more...

Cross my heart

I swear, Secrets will be up tonight or tomorrow. I swear on Elizabeth's virginity.

In the meantime, check out these original scripts for the SVH tv shows.
http://www.thoughtprod.com/sweet.html
Here's my favorite stage direction:

"Bronzed hunk RUSS FRANKLIN, with hair cut just long enough to be dangerous, stacks video gear onto an AV cart"

How long is long enough to be dangerous? Can he make nooses out of his hair? Can he tie it in a knot, can he tie it in a bow? Read more...

Look, I'm sorry, okay? I've totally started the recap for book number two, SECRETS. But then I got busy with my real job and then I got busy drinking and then I got my heart broken and then I just kind of became a shell of a person. I am Liz without Todd! But really kids. I am about to go on vacation and read about 15 of these freaking books. So buck up little campers, don't be sad. Read more...

The Wakefields of Sweet Valley (part two)

Things they didn’t teach me in grad school “Anyone who sneaks downstairs in the middle of the night to put her feelings into a poem is a writer, Amanda. A real one.” (Another Simpsons reference: “That’s the stupidest story I’ve ever heard, and I read the entire Sweet Valley High series.”)

Meanest thing ever Ted, amazingly, chooses Amanda to be his girlfriend. They share a secret letter-writing romance, while Samantha continues to lust after him. Samantha, ever the smart one, finds the letters, burns them, and keeps Ted’s pending visit a secret. When she tricks Ted into going for a drive with her, Ted breaks the news that Amanda is the twin for him. Samantha decides to frame him for bootlegging and watches nonchalantly as he’s dragged off to prison while Amanda sleeps unknowingly at home. When detective Amanda puts the pieces together the next day, she confronts Samantha. And here’s the one place I get really, absolutely angry. She gets mad not that Samantha did something horrible to another human being, but because “All Ted and I wanted was to be happy together.” This is the continuing argument for why she won’t talk to Samantha. And her parents don’t seem to notice or care? Samantha goes off to Hollywood, becomes a huge starlit, gets married and pregnant. Her parents – we see through the clips Amanda has cut from the paper – appear to act as if their daughter didn’t do something completely horrendous. (One might note that Samantha is a “perfect size-six.” What that means in 1920s standards does not mesh with our modern day beauties.) At the tender age of nineteen, Samantha dies in childbirth, as Amanda swoops to her side.

We found Sweet Valley! Guess where Amanda’s teaching English? Sweet Valley High! I’m so excited for her. She’s helping care for her niece Marjorie, who is about to be swept away to France. I guess Sweet Valley isn’t sweet enough. Damn Depression.

Most boring thing ever I have vague memories from Marjorie’s Anne-Frank-alike existence. For some reason, I’ve always associated her helping the Resistance with the creek by my parents’ house. Marjorie, too, loses the man she loves and is forced to marry someone else. “She was going home, but her heart would stay here. Buried with Jacques. Forever.” The book seems to get really weird on pacing around this part. Marjorie slows way the hell down, then speeds up into some marriage, and then BAM! she’s got Alice, and we’re landing on the moon.

Last week in Sweet Valley Another brief history lesson on the family, just in case we’ve forgotten over the course of three hundred pages (and the other quick recaps along the way). Young Alice draws a family tree, and, with fifty pages remaining, we see that “One day, she would be able to fill in the spot where her own family would go.” As far as I can tell, Amanda is the only one to not get married. But she still has a family in her dead twin’s daughter, so I guess that counts.

Feelin’ groovy Here is where time becomes vague for our brooding hippie child. The other sections of the book have definitive years attached to them. Now we just have the late 1960s, but we do know Woodstock has already taken place. Idealistic Alice protests on her college campus and, surprisingly, falls in love with Hank Patman. (I believe this relationship resurfaces in a later Sweet Valley High book. The twins maybe find a picture or something?) (Oh, that reminds me, they’ve been passing down the wooden rose all along. That used to make me happy when I was little, but now I find it rather forgettable.)

The more you know…(shooting star) “Hank, my painting is not just a hobby. Women have professions, too, you know.”

Things that are unbelievable I know Sweet Valley is never supposed to be believable, but I draw the line at college students in the 1960s drinking sparkling cider. If high-class Hank is giving Alice caviar, shouldn’t there be wine or something involved? Maybe they’ve smoked a joint? Something? Anything? No? Okay.

Hey, I think I’ve read this before “And then she could resist no longer. Alice inhaled the salty, furious ocean. It was the last memory she had.” Girls named Alice should stay out of the ocean, I think.

Another Wakefield? You know what Alice notices about this one? His “high cheekbones, the strong, straight line of his nose, the cleft of his chin.” She, too, is fairly certain she’s seen him before. And felt the pain of him walking away. We know that Ned, though, gets to win eventually. I thought that, in this book, we learned of Ned’s ring that matches the wooden rose, but that must be in the boy half of the Saga (the one with the blue cover. This one’s pink, in case you were curious). I am wrong, though.

Here, we learn that Amanda is still alive. Jessamyn, we learned a little earlier, died right around when Alice’s older sister was born. No mention of when the original Alice died, though. And I don’t recall ever learning of Amanda or Marjorie’s existence in other Sweet Valley books. Maybe we do.

At the last minute, Alice realizes she could never marry Hank (just as we learn that Jessica will never date Bruce) and runs to find Ned, who is listening to “their song” on repeat.

A number of years later A little Steven Wakefield pokes at his baby twin sisters. Alice contemplates the girls’ heritage. If this were a movie, we could have a montage with sappy music. If it were my movie, I’d pick “We Are Family” just because it would make me laugh. We pan away with this: “The weathered old wood of the delicate flower, full of secret memories, held the past in its petals. Alice smiled at the infant in her arms, then leaned over and kissed the one in Ned’s. In their perfect, identical faces, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield held the secrets of the future.”

Read more...

The Wakefields of Sweet Valley (part one)

or an epic tale of sloppy seconds.

Come sail away We begin our Sweet Valley Saga (a magna edition, for those keeping track) in the stormy Atlantic Ocean in 1866. Alice Larson battles the sea, only to be saved by Theodore Wakefield and his “high cheekbones, the strong, straight line of his nose, the cleft of his chin.” Dreamy. Good thing an ugly guy didn’t save her. Ugly people don’t deserve to be heroes.

The pair becomes a regular steerage-class couple. Alice – as we will learn about all women in this family line – is a quick learner, so her Swedish soon dissipates. No language barriers for this fine couple. They plan to marry once they reach America. But no! Theodore is swept away into quarantine as he is believed to be carrying “the dreaded typhoid.”

Oh, dear.

Go west Alice, too distraught to think to ask around as to where he might be, joins her extended family in the ride to Minnesota (where I immediately give them all the appropriate accent). But we all get over our greatest loves, don’tcha know? Alice marries my favorite male character, George Johnson. I feel kind of bad for him, as he will never compare to our hunky stud, Theodore. The couple gives birth to the first set of twins, Elisabeth and Jessamyn, after their eldest son, Steven, dies of scarlet fever.

You’ll never guess which is the quiet twin and which is the adventurous.

The circus comes to town many years later, where Jessamyn runs off to see the horses and comes back to tell her mother of the Magnificent Theo W. It can’t be! But it is! Alice runs through the muck to find him, clutching the wooden rose he once carved for her before their first date on the ship, only to arrive at an empty field. The circus, it seems, has left.

And we are sad.

A glimpse into the future? Elisabeth shucks corn and receives a kiss from Tom Wilkens. Baseball is just a fad. And those radical feminists are getting young ladies to wear “those ridiculous bloomers.” (I’m torn every time I read a Sweet Valley book. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the women’s movement groove, and then sometimes I feel like I should be by my man’s side – or making him a sandwich.)

The more you know…(shooting star) “Blue cloud nodded. ‘The history of my people is often sad.’ He was quiet for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice wavered. ‘Once there were many of us in this land, hunting and finishing, dancing, and teaching our songs and daughters our ways for generations and generations.’”

I feel more enlightened already. Which reminds me. Part of the appeal of the Sagas for me when I was in elementary school was the history in them. I’m a sucker for a good historical setting, especially as we edge closer to, say, the turn of the Twentieth Century and the Roaring Twenties. Some things, like the San Francisco earthquake, first came into my life through this book. (We didn’t get to that era in history until seventh grade, when it was no longer cool to read Sweet Valley.) So, I mean, it wasn’t totally worthless.

Jessamyn dresses like a boy to sneak off into the circus. Why she does this is never exactly explained. After many years of going, the circus people know who she is, know she is a girl. But whatever. She joins up to be a bareback rider (which she has been learning how to do from Peter Blue Cloud).

The more you know…(shooting star) “‘Did I ever tell you about how it felt the day I got my freedom, Miss Elisabeth?’

“Elisabeth had shaken her head.

“‘It was scary. About the most scary thing that ever happened to me, suddenly not knowing what the next day was going to be like. But then I got to thinking about how it used to be. When I was a slave, my day was either bad or worse. That’s it. Always the same. Bad or worse. Then I thought how it didn’t have to be that way anymore. I didn’t know how the next day was going to be, but I just knew it could be better than bad or worse. You see what I’m saying, Miss Elisabeth? Getting my freedom was like getting a future. For the first time in my life, the next day could be different from the one before it.’”

Affirmative Action friends Elisabeth takes this opportunity to become friends with Peter Blue Cloud and learn to ride just like Jessamyn. But, alas, P.B.C. suddenly falls ill and Elisabeth jumps a train (she’s channeling her sister, you see) and follows the circus route until she finds Jessamyn. Elisabeth, in a moment of daring (which always seems to end badly for the good girl twin, regardless of the generation), takes Jess’s horse around the ring, going faster and faster until she is thrown. “Elisabeth did not move. The life was gone from her body.” Maybe she would have been okay if Jessamyn hadn’t “flung herself on top of her twin” as her “anguished cries filled the tent.”

I feel the earth move In the year 1900 in San Francisco, twenty-two-year-old Jessamyn has somehow been managing a premier hotel for the last several years. See my feminism issues? But we are taken away from that into a torrid choice between Taylor Watson and his friend – but someday mortal enemy – Bruce Farber. Whom will wild-child Jessamyn choose? The years pass and Bruce and Jessamyn picnic upon a hill overlooking the city. They fall asleep in the grass and are woken by the great earthquake. The city burns below them, and all Jess can think of is Taylor Watson. As we learn in various Sweet Valley High books, people named Bruce are pussies, so Jess’s affections ultimately go to Taylor. “Out of the ashes of sorrow, she could feel the flames of love burning.”

And they, too, have twins! Only they’re in Detroit. For a brief moment, we break away from family names with Samantha and Amanda. We do not, however, get away from family characteristics. Samantha is a daring, darling little actress, and Amanda is a quiet, thoughtful writer. She’s even on the school paper. And wears old lady clothes.

The more you know…(shooting star) “Taylor, darling, that’s how the girls dress these days. Samantha looks very fashionable. Don’t forget that things are different now. Women can even vote.”

Return of a Wakefield Amanda and Samantha have an older brother, Harry, who brings home his roommate, none other than Ted Wakefield. I know, shut up! The twins feel there’s something familiar about him. Could it be that he “was definitely handsome with high cheekbones, a strong, straight nose, and a slight cleft in his chin”? Why is no one ever ugly? Why can’t Ted be a genetic mutant with a soft press of a beer belly, a gimp leg, and a wandering eye? Maybe even a stray nose hair? Alas, none of my dates will ever show up in a Sweet Valley book. Then we get a scene that I’m pretty sure comes out of the Beer Baron episode of The Simpsons. And more witty, foreseeing comments about people like Louis Armstrong, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Hemmingway. Read more...