Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later (36 page)

Annie Whitman,
aka Easy Annie, so called because of her promiscuity in high school, married Charlie Markus, the boy who saved her. She is still beautiful, with dark curly hair, green eyes, and a flawless complexion that looked even more lovely against the cream and beige satin of her gown. Jessica thought it edged a little too close to white but let it pass.

Annie and Charlie, who live in San Diego, are the parents of a two-year-old boy they brought to the wedding. That Jessica didn’t let pass.

Annie is a lawyer and, by way of compensating for all the high school years lost in shyness and insecurity, has become an unstoppable talker. Still one of Elizabeth’s good friends, she spent most of the wedding giving Elizabeth and Bruce a condensed law 101 course. But they barely noticed.

Robin Wilson
was once very overweight, but she lost the excess pounds to join the PBA sorority. Once she was slim and beautiful and therefore acceptable, she saw how shallow the sorority sisters were and turned them down. Since then she has put on a bit of the weight because of her work as a senior editor of the West Coast
Bon Appétit
and owner of The Smart Cookie catering company. In fact, she catered Jessica’s wedding. Everyone said the food was great.

Robin had a wonderful time dancing with her new husband, Dan Kane, a lawyer from Steven Wakefield’s office. She was delighted to see her old high school boyfriend,
George Warren,
who came in from England, where he represents a Silicon Valley company.

Todd Wilkins,
the groom. Who would have guessed? The high school basketball star, now a sports columnist for the
Sweet Valley News,
was elegantly dressed in a Hugo Boss tuxedo, and as adorable and charming as ever. He looked happy and nervous. And for good reason. Marriage to Jessica Wakefield is not likely to be a walk in the park. But from the joy and love on his face, he looks ready.

*   *   *

Of course, there were those people who weren’t there for the obvious reason.

Winston Egbert
had died earlier that year.

Regina Morrow
was the wonderful girl loved by everyone, who overcame a hearing disability only to die at sixteen from a bad combination of a heart murmur and a party drug.

Tricia Martin
was Steven’s first love, a lovely girl from a terrible family who died bravely of leukemia.

Suzanne Devlin,
who had stayed in Sweet Valley for a nightmare month as a guest of the Wakefields, is also dead. Years ago she had caused a terrible scandal involving a sexual molestation charge that almost cost Roger Collins his career. In the nick of time, Elizabeth revealed Suzanne’s mendacity and saved the school’s favorite teacher.

Suzanne was forced to leave Sweet Valley but returned six years later a changed person; unfortunately, she was ill with multiple sclerosis. She apologized to everyone, then crashed her specially equipped car after taking medication with champagne.

*   *   *

And, of course, there were our stars, the Wakefields.

Ned and Alice Wakefield
are the proud parents of Jessica, the bride, of Elizabeth, the maid of honor, and Steven, Todd’s usher.

Ned walked his beautiful daughter down the aisle for the third time, but this time, everyone agreed, it felt right.

Ned’s position as a senior partner in the biggest and most successful law firm in Sweet Valley meant most of the important people from Sweet Valley, the mayor included, came to the wedding. It was the social event of the season, just the way Jessica liked things.

And lucky, too, that both Wakefields were so successful because, from Jessica and Todd’s initial impulse, “Let’s just run off and get married,” the wedding turned into a many-thousand-dollar country-club extravaganza.

Alice still looked like an older version of the twins with her blond hair, blue eyes, and a figure trim enough to wear a body-hugging cream silk Mandarin-style gown. Three years ago she opened her own interior design office in the new mall in Sweet Valley, and it’s been successful enough that she was able to kick in for part of the bill.

These last few years haven’t been easy for Alice. Just before she opened the new office, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent a lumpectomy and a year of radiation, which slowed her down but didn’t stop her; she’s been very successful designing lobbies for new office buildings. And there are lots of them. Sweet Valley has burgeoned from a small town to a thriving city.

Both she and Ned are very happy with their new son-in-law, Todd, but are holding their breath about their much-married daughter, Jessica.

They have been holding their breath about Jessica for twenty-seven years now.

Steven Wakefield
was slim, dark, and handsome in his tuxedo. He served as an usher, as did his lover, Aaron Dallas. Steven was happy for his baby sister, for the moment. But he has no illusions. Maybe being truly in love will make a difference for Jessica. It certainly did with him. Since he found Aaron, Steven has never been happier. With any luck, and some good California politics, the Wakefields will end up with three sons-in-law.

Elizabeth Wakefield
was the maid of honor for her little sister (four minutes younger), Jessica. She’s glowing. The eternal “good girl” had a wild night with her new lover, Bruce Patman, and from the glorious happiness beaming on her face, a face that has been without joy for too long, she might really be in love.

In fact, she is.

All through the ceremony, she and her lover looked at each other with such passion that it was hard to know who was getting married.

Jessica Wakefield,
even in her sequined cream strapless wedding gown, still looks exactly like her twin, especially today, with her matching glow. Jessica, like her sister, Elizabeth, is truly in love.

Actually, being the bride, with that ethereal quality that only brides have, she’s a hair more exquisite than her sister.

She, too, without being blameless, has suffered these last months, and now she is shining with happiness.

Happily, still Jessica, the one without the watch who always says that nothing starts until she gets there, is absolutely right today. The entire wedding party waited an extra fifteen minutes for the bride to appear.

She was well worth the wait.

ALSO BY FRANCINE PASCAL

SERIES

Sweet Valley High

Sweet Valley Twins

Sweet Valley Kids

Sweet Valley University

Fearless

ADULT NOVELS

Save Johanna!

If Wishes Were Horses
 …
(La Villa)

YOUNG ADULT NOVELS

Hangin’ Out with Cici
(My Mother Was Never a Kid)

My First Love and Other Disasters

Love and Betrayal

Hand-Me-Down Kid

The Ruling Class

NONFICTION

The Strange Case of Patty Hearst
(with John Pascal)

THEATER

George M!
(with Michael Stewart and John Pascal)

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL.
Copyright © 2011 by Francine Pascal. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Sweet Valley
^®
is a registered trademark of Francine Pascal.

www.stmartins.com

ISBN 978-0-312-66757-3

First Edition: April 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-6520-0

First St. Martin’s Press eBook Edition: March 2011