Secrets (3 page)

"Well, well, if it isn't Little Bo-Peep," drawled Bruce as Jessica fell in step beside him. He raked her over with a flick of his heavy-lidded blue eyes. "Lost any sheep lately?"

Jessica laughed as if it were the funniest joke in the world. Bruce Patman could recite the Gettysburg Address in pig Latin and have all the girls in school hanging on his every word.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Bruce," she parried, fluttering her lashes at him. "I'm practically the loneliest girl in the whole school. Would you believe I don't even have a date for the dance yet?"

"I'll bet Egbert would take you. I hear he's really got the hots for you."

Jessica made a disgusted noise. "He's the last

boy on earth I'd want to go with! I mean, honestly, he's like some kind of--of--cartoon!"

Bruce chuckled. "Sure, old Scooby-Doo. Winston's for you, though."

"Oh, he's nice enough, but--well, you
know
what I mean." Jessica rolled her eyes in an expression meant to communicate that Winston was utterly hopeless.

Bruce laughed. "Yeah, I think I do, Jessica."

She felt his gaze travel over her as if sizing her up to see if she was his type. Apparently she met his approval, for his mouth curled up in a slow smile that sent Jessica's pulse pounding out of control.
She
had always known she was Brace's type. Was he finally getting around to figuring it out as well?

She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, wondering what it would be like when Bruce got around to kissing her. When, not if. The word "if" simply wasn't part of Jessica's vocabulary.

They were at the top of the stairs, and Jessica cast about wildly for some excuse to keep him from leaving. And then inspiration struck. She reached up, checking to see if her necklace-- one of a pair of matching gold lavalieres their parents had given the twins on their sixteenth birthday--was under her sweater. It was.

"Oh!" she gasped. "My necklace! It must have fallen off on the stairs just now. Bruce, you've got to help me find it. My parents would

absolutely murder me if I lost it. They practically went into debt for life to get it for me!"

Bruce cast an idle glance down the milling staircase. "I don't see it. But, listen, love, I'm sure it'll turn up. I've got to split. Catch you later." He was gone, leaving Jessica to gape after him in frustrated astonishment.

"Did I hear you say you lost your necklace?"

She turned to the voice behind her. There stood Winston Egbert, grinning foolishly and turning red to the tips of his ears.

She sighed. "Uh, yeah, but it's no big deal. I can look for it later."

"Gosh, Jessica, I don't mind helping you look," he gushed. "I'm good at finding things. My friends call me Sherlock Holmes. Once I even found a stamp my brother thought he'd lost out of his collection. You'd never guess in a million years where I found it. Sticking to the bottom of my shoe, that's where! I'll bet that's the last place in the world anyone else would've looked, huh?"

He advanced toward her just as Jessica was trying to step around him. "Ooops, sorry!" Winston blushed an even deeper shade of red. "I didn't mean to step on your toe. Are you OK?"

Jessica winced. Force of habit made her flash a dimpled smile anyway, in spite of her annoyance. "Thanks, Winston, but like I said, it's no big deal. I'm late for class."

"Sure, Jessica," he said, disappointment scrawled all over his face. "I guess I'll see you later, huh?"

The last sight she had as she rushed off down the corridor was of Winston Egbert down on his hands and knees, scouring the stairway for a nonexistent necklace.

Jessica arrived home from school in a black mood. Just when she'd come close to thinking Bruce might be interested in her, he'd done a complete turnabout, practically kicking her in the teeth. Now she was more hopelessly confused about him than ever. She simply
had
to find a way to get him. She remembered how his eyes had traveled over her--he certainly hadn't taken any shortcuts. Jessica warmed, just thinking about it. Maybe there really
was
a chance after all.

"Where's Liz?" she asked her mother, who was home from work early and was washing a head of lettuce.

"I think she's with Enid. Something about an art project. Posters for the dance, I believe."

Trim, tanned Alice Wakefield could easily have been mistaken for the twins' older sister. They shared the same beautiful ail-American looks, down to the honey-colored hair that now swished softly about Alice Wakefield's shoulders as she bustled about the spacious, Spanish-tiled kitchen.

"Enid!" Jessica spat with exaggerated scorn. "Ugh! How can any sister of mine hang around with such a creepy little nerd?"

Mrs. Wakefield turned to give Jessica a gently reproving look. "I don't know how you can say that, Jess. Enid's a very nice girl. She and Liz seem to have a lot in common."

"Yeah, that's because she's turning herself into some kind of Liz-clone. It's positively revolting! She's always over here. Doesn't she have a home of her own?"

Alice Wakefield smiled as she patted the lettuce leaves dry. "Sounds like a slight case of the green-eyed monster to me."

"Me? Jealous of Enid Rollins?" Jessica made a gagging sound. "How could any mother say such a hideous thing to her own daughter?"

"Maybe because it's true," her mother suggested pleasantly.

"Mom!"

"Well, Liz
has
been spending a lot of time with Enid. You certainly don't see her as much as you used to."

"It's her business if she wants to associate with creeps, not mine. I mean, if
she
doesn't mind ruining her reputation by running around with that twerp, why should I care?"

"Good question. Honey, would you hand me the potato peeler out of the second drawer? That's it. Did I tell you Steve is coming home and bringing Tricia over for dinner tonight?"

Tricia Martin was her brother Steven's girlfriend. Although he lived in a dorm at the state university which was in a nearby town, he came home a lot, mostly because of Tricia. Most of the time Jessica was horrified that her very own brother was dating a girl from one of the worst families in town. But at the moment she was too preoccupied with thoughts of the social suicide Elizabeth was committing to give it half a second's notice.

"Liz can see who she wants," Jessica repeated. She scowled as she reached into the basket of cherry tomatoes on the sink and popped one into her mouth.

"Right."

"She can make friends with a one-eyed hippopotamus for all I care."

"That's very open-minded of you. Don't eat all the tomatoes, Jess. Save a few for the salad."

"She can hang out with
ten
one-eyed hippos if that's what she wants to do. It's positively none of my business."

"I agree completely."

"If she'd rather be with Enid Rollins than me, why should it bother me? I have tons more friends than Liz does anyway. After all, I was the one who brought Enid home in the first place."

Jessica didn't like to admit it, but it was true. Enid had preferred Elizabeth's company to her own. To Jessica that was simply unforgivable.

She burst into tears. Darn Enid Rollins, she

thought. Darn Bruce Patman, too. She didn't need either of them. Everyone knew that she could get practically anyone to follow her simply by lifting her finger. Was it her fault that Enid and Bruce were blind to her charms?

Alice Wakefield laid a comforting hand on Jessica's shoulder. She was used to such tempests from her younger daughter (younger than Elizabeth by four minutes). From the time she was an infant, they had been as frequent, and usually as short-lived, as clouds passing in front of the sun.

"Don't worry, honey," she said. "No one could ever replace you as far as Liz is concerned."

"I should hope not!" Jessica stormed. "I'm the best friend Lizzie's got!"

"Then what are you getting so worked up about?"

"Nothing. Absolutely
nothing!"
She bit into another tomato and ended up squirting a red jet of juice and seeds down the front of her very favorite pink angora sweater.

"Ruined!" Jessica shrieked. "It's ruined for good!"

Mrs. Wakefield sighed as she handed her daughter the sponge. "Well, in that case, I suppose we could always have it for dinner, since that was the last tomato."

In a rage Jessica fled upstairs. She headed straight for Elizabeth's room and flung herself down on the bed. She preferred her sister's

room to her own since it was always much neater. The Hershey Bar was what she called her room, due to its chocolate-colored walls. And it looked, in Elizabeth's immortal words, "like a cross between a mud-wrestling pit and the bargain table at K-Mart."

It wasn't fair, Jessica fumed. Elizabeth was going to the dance with Todd Wilkins. Even Enid had a date--with Ronnie Edwards, who was so blinded by love that as head of the dance committee, he'd probably swing a million votes her way. Ignoring the fact that she could have had her pick from any one of half a dozen boys if she'd wanted, Jessica refused to be consoled.

Then, out of the corner of one wet eye, she glimpsed a piece of paper sticking out from under the bed. It looked like a letter. Being naturally curious--and having absolutely zero scruples when it came to reading other people's mail--she snatched it up.

"Dear Enid," she read with a sudden, voracious interest. "Been so down lately. I can't seem to get my head on straight the way you have. I can't stop thinking about the past and trying to figure out how it all snowballed so quickly. It's like the time we took all those bennies, and before we knew it we were cooking along in the GTO doing eighty or ninety...."

A smile crept slowly across Jessica's features as a plan shaped itself in her mind. She folded

the letter, tucking it carefully into the back pocket of her jeans. She would have to put it back, of course, before Elizabeth discovered it was missing, but that was no problem.

Whistling under her breath, Jessica started back downstairs, heading for her father's den, where he kept a small Xerox machine for copying legal documents.

"What is it with Ronnie and Enid?" Todd asked. "Are they having some kind of a fight?"

Todd and Elizabeth spoke in hushed tones while waiting for Ronnie and Enid to return to their seats with the popcorn. The two couples often double-dated, and the Valley Cinema was a favorite hangout. They'd always had a good time together in the past, but that night Elizabeth, too, noticed that something was off.

"Ronnie does seem to be acting strange," she admitted.

She didn't want him to know how truly worried she was for Enid, worried that somehow Ronnie might have found out her secret. She'd promised Enid she wouldn't tell, and that meant Todd, too, even though he was her boy

friend and she felt closer to him than anyone else.

Elizabeth looked over at Todd, more grateful than ever that he was hers--despite all the devious plots Jessica had cooked up in the beginning to keep them apart. Jessica had wanted him for herself, and Elizabeth could certainly see why. Todd was one of the best-looking boys at Sweet Valley High, besides being its hottest basketball star. He was tall and lean, with brown hair that curled down over his forehead and the kind of deep, coffee-colored eyes you could drown in. But the best thing about him was that he didn't give a darn whether he was popular or not. He was friendly with whomever he wanted to be friendly with, and he avoided people he considered snobs, no matter how popular they might be. In that way he and Elizabeth were alike. And she knew that she could tell him anything that was bothering her and he would have understood.

"Did you notice he didn't hold her hand during the movie?" Todd noted, giving Elizabeth's hand a reassuring squeeze. "Seemed kind of funny, since he's usually all over her."

She nodded. "Poor Enid. She really looked upset."

"I just hope Ronnie's not on one of his jealousy trips again. Remember the time he got mad at her for talking to that guy at Guido's?"

"All she was trying to do was make sure he didn't put anchovies on her pizza."

"It's crazy," Todd said, shaking his head. "If you love someone, you should trust him. Or her. Seems pretty dumb to get all worked up over nothing when you could be having a good time."

"Like us, you mean?" Elizabeth leaned close and brushed the side of his neck with her lips.

Todd kissed her softly in response.

She felt a tightening in her chest as she imagined what it would be like to lose Todd. Her heart went out to Enid, who had a thousand times more reason to worry.

"I hope Enid's all right," she said when she spotted Ronnie making his way down the aisle-- alone. "Maybe I should go up and check."

She found Enid in the bathroom, dabbing at her eyes with a paper towel.

"Enid, what's wrong?" Elizabeth asked.

Enid shook her head. "I--I don't know. Ronnie's been acting like a different person all night. It's like he's a million miles away." Her eyes held a tortured expression. "Oh, Liz, do you think he knows?"

"Maybe it's something else," Elizabeth suggested not too hopefully. "A family problem. You mentioned his parents were divorced...."

"Because his mother was fooling around with another man," Enid supplied bitterly.

"I'm sure it's not easy for him, living alone with just his father. Maybe they're not getting

along. You really should talk to him, Enid. It might be something
he's
afraid to tell you."

"Yeah, like he wants to break up, only he's afraid I won't give him back his frat pin."

"Ronnie wouldn't do that. He loves you." But even as she said it, Elizabeth didn't feel very sure.

"To Ronnie, loving someone means absolute faithfulness," Enid said. "If he suspected for one second that I'd been writing to George, it would be the end. He'd never forgive me."

Anyone that inflexible didn't deserve someone as nice as Enid, Elizabeth thought.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm the only one who knows about the letters. And even if he found out about the other stuff, it all happened way before you met him. He can't hold that against you, can he? It wouldn't be fair."

"Who ever said love was fair?" asked Enid, blowing loudly into a tissue.

She quickly fixed her makeup, then gave her shiny brown hair such a vigorous brushing that it flew up around her head in a crackle of electricity. She squared her shoulders as she gave her reflection a final inspection.

"Maybe I'm just imagining things," she said in a small voice. "Maybe Ronnie's just in a bad mood."

Elizabeth hoped she was right.

***

Riding home after they'd dropped off Elizabeth and Todd, Enid felt as if the gap between the bucket seats of Ronnie's Toyota had suddenly become the Continental Divide. She'd been hoping his silence was due to the fact that he felt uncomfortable about talking in front of Elizabeth and Todd, but he was acting just as distant now that they were gone.

"Where are we going?" she asked him when they passed the turnoff for her street.

"I thought we could park for a while," Ronnie replied in a neutral tone.

Glancing at his profile, silhouetted against the amber glow of a streetlight, Enid felt a surge of hope. He wanted to be with her after all! She longed to reach over and thread her fingers through the curly, reddish-brown hair at the nape of his neck, but she resisted the impulse. Even though it was clear he wanted to be with her, she still sensed something was wrong.

Ronnie found a place up on Miller's Point, a favorite Sweet Valley parking spot that overlooked the town. Already there were four or five other cars parked, and judging from the steaminess of their windows, they'd been there awhile.

Ronnie didn't waste any time. He lunged at Enid immediately after he switched off the engine, kissing her so roughly she was left gasping for breath.

"Hey, what's the big hurry?" She attempted

to make light of it, even though she was trembling when she'd finally managed to untangle herself from his crushing embrace.

Enid felt a growing sense of alarm. Ronnie had never acted like this before! Usually he was gentle, never pushing things beyond the limits she set. Tonight he was acting--uncontrollable. Something was terribly wrong.

"Sorry," he muttered. He sat back and began fiddling with the tape deck.

Loud, throbbing rock music filled the car. Usually, he chose something soft and romantic, but this evening he obviously wasn't in that sort of mood.

"Ronnie--what is it?" she blurted. "What's wrong?"

He drummed his fingers nervously against the steering wheel, unable to meet her eyes. "Uh, well, I didn't want to tell you, but it's about the dance. I, uh--"

Enid felt as
if
her heart were suspended in midair. "What about the dance?"

"I'm not sure I'll be able to make it. You see, I might have to work for my dad that night. He's going out of town, and he really needs someone to look after the store."

"Gee, Ronnie, that's too bad." Enid felt sick.

Ronnie's father owned a small all-night supermarket, but Enid knew he could have called upon any one of half a dozen people to replace him. Ronnie hadn't even bothered to come up

with a halfway decent excuse for dumping her. A hot, pricking sensation behind her eyes warned that tears were dangerously close. She fought them. She was determined to hold her head up, not to let him see how much he was hurting her.

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry about it, Enid, but you know how it goes sometimes. Anyway, I'll let you know for sure one way or another in a couple of days."

He thinks he's letting me down easy,
Enid thought. Easy? This was agony. She'd imagined this scene so many times, but now that it was actually happening, it didn't seem real. Enid shivered, suddenly feeling very cold and alone. She longed for the warmth of Ronnie's arms around her, even if he was acting strangely. She tried once again to make believe it was only her imagination. She wanted to put everything back the way it was, to pretend Ronnie loved her the same as always. In her desperation Enid felt herself begin to weaken as Ronnie's arms tightened around her again, his lips moving against hers with a hard, unrelenting pressure. But something inside her wouldn't let go.
No, this isn't the way!
She stiffened and pulled back.

"Ronnie--please. Can't we just sit here and talk for a while?" she pleaded.

"What about?" He sounded cold and defensive.

"Uh--" It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him right then and there, to blurt out everything

that had been building up since the first time she'd gone out with him. But somehow she just couldn't get the words unstuck from her throat. "I don't know, just talk. Heard anything interesting around school lately?"

"You mean the latest about Ken Matthews and Ms. Dalton?"

"What about them?" she asked.

"I can't believe you haven't heard. It's all over school. They're having an affair."

"I don't believe it!" For a moment Enid forgot her own despair. "Ms. Dalton wouldn't do a thing like that!"

"How do you know?" Ronnie challenged. "People do crummy things all the time."

"I
just can't believe she would--"

"Be interested in Ken?" he supplied, sneering. "I would. A lot of people are two-faced, especially when it comes to love."

Now it was Enid's turn to get angry. "Wait a minute. You don't know anything about it. Who told you all this, anyway? Did anyone actually see them together?"

The image of refined Ms. Dalton in the arms of some high school jock simply refused to come. Of course, Enid was prejudiced. Ms. Dalton happened to be her favorite teacher. Once when Enid had come to school practically in tears over a problem she was having with her mother, Ms. Dal ton had taken her aside after class and comforted her. Ever since then, she'd found it

easy to talk to her and had fallen into the habit of stopping by after school when something was bothering her. Ms. Dalton never seemed to mind, and always made time for her. The truth was, Enid didn't
want
to believe she was capable of anything so awful.

"Who cares?" Ronnie said carelessly. "It's probably true, anyway."

He pulled her against him. Even his face felt rough against her skin as he kissed her. When she tried to pull away, he only held on tighter.

Finally Enid managed to wrench free of his grasp. She twisted away from him, facing the window so he wouldn't see that she was crying. Hot tears dripped onto the hands she held tightly clenched in her lap, so tightly her fingernails dug into her palms.

"What's the matter?" Ronnie growled. "I don't rate up there with old Georgie-boy? You're not going to give me any of the same stuff you're giving him?"

Enid gasped as if she'd been punched in the stomach. "How--how do you know about George?"

"What difference does it make? The fact is, I
know."
His eyes narrowed with scorn. "I know a lot of things about you I didn't know before, Enid. I know, for instance, that you're not as pure as you'd like me to believe."

"Ronnie, don't ..." Enid put her hands over

her face, unable to meet his eyes. He hated her'. He really
hated
her.

He pried them away, forcing her to look at him. His fingers bit into her wrists, cutting off the circulation. "You've been deceiving me," he hissed, "I know all about it!"

"Ronnie, please, you don't understand! Let me explain!"

"Oh, I understand, all right. A lot of things. Like what an idiot I've been. All this time you were pretending to be in love with me, you were carrying on with someone else behind my back, writing him love letters. How could I have been so stupid!"

Enid felt as if her throat were being squeezed in a giant fist. She struggled against her sobs.

"Ronnie, please listen. George and I are only friends. It's true we used to date, but that was a long time ago. You've got to believe me!"

"Why
should
I believe you? You've been lying to me all along. Acting like Miss Goody Two-Shoes when the truth is you were hot and heavy with George and who knows who else."

Finally he'd gone too far. Giving a cry of anger, Enid yanked her wrists from his grasp. "OK, if that's what you want to think! It's obvious you don't even care what my side is! Why can't you
trust
me just a little?"

"Trust?" Ronnie sneered. "Isn't that kind of a funny word for you to use, Enid? Especially when all the time I was trusting you, you were

knifing me in the back. Forget it, baby. I'm taking you home."

Enid couldn't believe she was hearing Ronnie speak to her like this. It was as if he'd turned from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. The nightmare she'd dreaded for so long was coming true, and it was even more awful than anything she could have imagined.

Ronnie drove her home in stony silence while she huddled in the seat beside him, desperately holding in her sobs. One thought scuttered through her mind like a rat in a maze, doubling the blow of betrayal she felt:

The letters. Liz must have told him about the letters.