Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later (23 page)

Or I could tell her in a way that leaves room for forgiveness. It did happen a long time ago when we were all different people. I certainly was, and I could use that defense for Jessica and Todd as well.

Whichever I choose, silence is no longer a possibility.

“Maybe this isn’t the place,” I say. Maybe I’m losing some of my courage.

“Yes, it is.” That line of steel inside Elizabeth always surprises me.

“Okay, then,” I start, still not knowing which choice I’m making. But I don’t get beyond those first two words before Ken Matthews bursts into the restaurant with enough force to send the door flying open and slamming behind him. It’s such an urgent, noisy entrance that everyone turns. Ken looks around, sees us, and comes over in a half run.

“What happened?” Elizabeth jumps up from the table, instantly panicked. “Jessica!”

“No,” Ken says. “No, it’s Winston.”

“Oh, no!” says Elizabeth, grabbing my arm for support. “An accident?”

“Is he okay?” I ask, covering Elizabeth’s hand with mine and pulling her closer.

“No,” says Ken.

“Oh, my God. He’s in the hospital?”

“Winston is dead.”

11

Sweet Valley

“I think your grandmother’s marvelous.” Aaron Dallas was making a mixed chopped salad, Steven’s favorite, with iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, Vidalia onions, red peppers, and cucumber. “Turn around so I can put the anchovies in.”

They were in temporary quarters, Aaron’s one-bedroom apartment in downtown Sweet Valley. Steven had given Cara the house in the divorce.

Steven Wakefield was contentedly watching his partner of six months make dinner. It was crazy how much he loved him. Jessica was right, he wasn’t the best-looking and he did have one blue eye and one brown one, but he had everything else—he was smart, funny, and he had a heart. And he wasn’t a pushover. En plus about the sexiest man he’d ever seen. But, of course, Steven hadn’t really been looking at men in any kind of sexual way, or if he had been, he didn’t know it. Not until he met Aaron. Actually, remet him. They’d been in school together, but they were both very different people then. Neither of them understood how different they were.

“Light on the anchovies. You know I hate them. They have hair,” Steven said. “So, go on. What about my marvelous grandmother?”

“You wouldn’t even know they were there unless you saw me put them in. I make them into paste. It’s just to flavor the dressing. How could you be married to Cara and still be so unadventurous about food? Worse than straight.”

“Yeah, right. So back to my grandmother?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, beautiful. Is this going to be a Jessica thing?”

“Okay, I’m not saying I’m not going to the birthday dinner. I just want to make sure I’m not sitting next to my faux sister-in-law.”

“Done.”

“And I’m not crazy about him, either.”

“Hey, I’ll do my best, but it’s a small dinner party. What are we? Counting Elizabeth—and I can’t imagine she’s really coming—eight or nine at the most. Even if you don’t sit next to Todd or Jessica, they’re not going to be very far away.”

“He’s hard to look at.”

“Not really.” Steven smiled.

“You think he’s good-looking?”

“Right. Hey, I’m in love, not dead.” Steven gave Aaron an affectionate guy tap on the shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“For that I’m throwing in another anchovy. A real hairy one.”

Sometimes Steven was struck by how heterosexual his homosexuality was. He could have done this little riff with Cara easily. If he had loved her. But he didn’t. Maybe hadn’t ever. He had been doing what he was supposed to be doing. It was getting-married time.

Steven had been thinking about that day at the beach for the last eight months. What if Jessica hadn’t found them? Would he have had the courage to declare himself?

Sometimes, way in the back of his mind, where he could almost hide it from himself, the other thought crept in. What would have happened if Jessica hadn’t forced his hand?

In the better part of his mind, he believed he would have told Cara. It was just a matter of time.

“Maybe I’m not a whole lot different from Todd,” Steven said.

“Yes, you are.”

“How’s that?”

“He’s much better-looking.”

But Steven knew he had betrayed Cara just as Todd had betrayed Elizabeth. The things you do for love. As if just admitting it could be an excuse. He remembered that horrendous day on the beach when Jessica found Aaron and him together. His first thought was Let it be Elizabeth. He knew he was never really fair with Jessica. She loved him, and in his brotherly fashion he loved her, but she was hard to take. If she weren’t his sister, they would never be friends. Maybe it was the comparison with Elizabeth, who was so extraordinary. He guessed that was unfair. Still, what possessed her to tell Cara? He had exploded. As soon as he found out he went directly to Elizabeth’s. He was raging.

I’m too furious to ring the bell, and I know they never lock the door, so I just throw it open and shout,

“Jessica! Where the hell are you! Get out here!”

I don’t even wait for a response. I head right down the hall to her bedroom and shove the door open so hard it bounces off the wall. At the top of my lungs I shout, “How could you fuckin’ do that to me!”

I think I would have leaped at her except I feel Todd holding me back. I didn’t even see him come in the room. Now I’m straining to break his hold.

“Please Steven, I…” Jessica moves as far back as she can against the wall.

“Don’t ‘Please Steven’ me. You’re just a bitch. You know what you’ve done to Cara?”

“Me?” Jessica says, pulling up enough courage to defend herself. “How about you?”

“You promised you wouldn’t say anything. I told you I was going to deal with it.”

“Yeah, right. How long have you been waiting to ‘deal with it’?”

“None of your goddamn business.” I shake out of Todd’s grip.

Todd, the extra person, just stands there, silently. I can see he doesn’t know whether to stay or leave. Not trusting my restraint enough to leave, he settles for a compromise and moves into the doorway, technically out of the room.

Our shouts and accusations continue, and Jessica finds strength in her own righteousness, snapping at me, “Years?”

“Two months, if it means anything to you. And why it should I don’t know. You have no right to destroy someone’s life like you did this afternoon.”

“You may not believe this, but I wanted to help you. Both of you.”

“Yeah, like you’ve ever wanted to help anyone in your life but yourself. I always knew you were selfish, but I didn’t know you were vicious.” I push past Todd, on my way out of the room.

Then I stop and turn back.

“You’re not my sister anymore. You’re out of my life.”

And I’m gone.

It’s quiet behind me until Jessica lets out a terrible moan that goes right through my body. Then I hear the sobbing. But it’s too late. I’m out and never coming back.

“Don’t worry,” Aaron said, pulling Steven back to the present. “It’s your grandmother’s birthday and I’m not going to make it difficult. I really do like her.”

“Thanks.”

The happy couple sat down to dinner. Steven made a quick search for the errant anchovy and, finding none, smiled, picked up his fork, and dug in.

Incredible how quickly they had metamorphosed to be like any good marriage.

*   *   *

Meanwhile, at Jessica and Todd’s house, only minutes away, a similar situation was taking place.

Dinner.

Only instead of salad, it was Chinese takeout.

Jessica was not quite up to cooking. Alice had bought her a couple of basic cookbooks, but she hadn’t yet gotten around to opening them. And Todd would never be up to cooking. The little bit of bartending and kitchen work he did when he briefly dropped out of school was enough for him. Lots of guys were into cooking, but as graceful as he had been on the basketball court, he was clumsy in the kitchen. On the rare times he did cook he left behind a festival of crumbs and drips and cabinets hanging wide open, waiting to whack the next person who walked in. The fact that he really did like takeout made Jessica’s life home cooking–free.

It should have been a nice night at home, but Todd couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling left over from his run with Ken this morning. How were they ever going to move on when everything around them stayed the same? That was the conundrum. The very beauty of small-town life was that you could count on things not changing—good things like security, warmth and friendliness and happy memories that would always be there every place you looked, and there were no unfamiliar roads to get lost on.

Maybe you sacrificed adventure and the excitement of the new, but even in familiar territory, there would be new. He and Jessica would be new; they’d be newly married then new parents, lots of new things in their lives.

Of course, nothing is perfect, but the good of Sweet Valley life far outweighed the bad, and Freud said the mind represses bad memories. Todd was counting on that.

All this was going on in Todd’s mind, and Jessica could almost read it. It was easy, because it was always the same.

Maybe she was wrong to insist they stay. It had cost them so much already. Elizabeth was the greatest loss for both of them, and Jessica’s relationship with Steven had been badly damaged.

She’d tried to help, to do what she thought Elizabeth would have done, but she could see now that telling Cara had been a mistake. Jessica would never be Elizabeth. And Steven was out-of-his-mind furious with her. He didn’t understand that she was only trying to help him. She loved him. She wanted to free him.

She remembered how he shouted at her, calling her a selfish bitch, telling her she was out of his life forever, and storming out of the house.