Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later (7 page)

“That’s okay,” Jessica says, dumping the contents on my dresser. “I’ll put it all back later.”

“Yeah, right.” And she’s gone.

Why was she fussing so much over a party she couldn’t have cared less about? I know why: Jessica has to have her triumphs. Even if they were only over short, dumpy people.

Or was she wrong? Had Jessica been fussing over her “date” with Todd?

It was the first time they had ever gone out together without Elizabeth. And afterward, Jessica hadn’t stopped complaining about how she’d hated being with Todd without Elizabeth. And it had never happened again.

To her knowledge.

But after that, she remembered that the relationship between her sister and Todd was even worse. Jessica never seemed to have a good word to say about him.

Or, methinks “The lady doth protest too much.”

Elizabeth tried to think of other times like that, but there were none she knew of. And she and Todd were together for that year and more than four after that. And nothing was really different.

Well, maybe a little. Senior year was strange. The end of one life, the protected school years, and into another, the big world without the safety of parameters; that was more than a little scary. They were both sort of preoccupied with their own plans, but they didn’t argue or anything like that. Additionally, that year was hard for Todd; he and Bruce seemed to grow apart, and he had a falling out with Winston that had nothing to do with her. At least that’s what he had said and there was no reason to doubt him.

Maybe that was her problem: She should have doubted him more. And that took her right back to her pain.

How would it ever go away?

By turning the other cheek?

By offering forgiveness?

In these last eight months Elizabeth hadn’t come close to either of those possibilities. Maybe she was looking on the wrong side.

What about revenge?

That would take away the metal taste and replace it with the sweetness of triumph.

The thought alone made her feel stronger.

But how?

By not going back for the wedding?

So Elizabeth. So lame. Even putting a curse on them would be better.

Except she probably had been doing that all along and obviously, it didn’t work.

How about getting married first?

Unrealistic. She hadn’t found anyone in eight months; four weeks certainly wouldn’t be enough time.

But if she hurried she might be able to go back with a fiancé.

Even in her misery that made her smile. Unfortunately, she’d seen that movie. Besides it was too cute for what had happened to her. What had happened to her was the most horrible, gouging pain in her whole life. And it wasn’t only emotional. Her heart hurt, physically. She could feel it in her chest. It was really so bad for the first month she was in New York she’d considered going to a doctor, but then, after a couple of weeks, and after starting the new job, the physical pain started to go away.

The heartbreak stayed. And it was still there.

Elizabeth felt as if she would never get over it, and she was never going to let anyone else get over it, either. There was just enough hatefulness in that thought to be the start of a true revenge.

Many nights when she couldn’t sleep, whether she wanted to or not, she played scenarios over and over in her head. They were hardly ever complete; there would be a beginning and a middle, but rarely an ending.

And no matter what the story was, it always stopped at the same point, just when she was about to confront Jessica and Todd. Sometimes it happened on the street, or in her childhood home, or even in an anonymous apartment in New York. And sometimes in her dreams. The setting was always different, but the anger and bitterness were the same, burning hot and fierce, strong enough to take them down, but she never stayed long enough to do the deed. Instead, it would jolt her awake and leave her staring at the darkness, consumed with unexpressed rage.

If anyone could peek into her mind they would be shocked. She wasn’t the Elizabeth anyone knew. Her anger was taking her places it would have been inconceivable to imagine for herself.

She’d always thought of herself as moral, ethical and compassionate, and—possibly somewhat immodestly—as one of the better people. No way. When it came right down to it, revenge was all she could think about, and there was nothing very moral or ethical about that. And compassion? Thank goodness no one could look into her head and see the tortures she thought up for Todd.

But even those gave only momentary respite. She needed true revenge, big-time. She needed something so that instead of stupid, whiny tears, she could feel the straight back of strength, hard enough to wipe out the loser feeling she had whenever she thought of the two of them.

Sometimes her personal revenge scenes would go wild. One would take place at her parents’ country club. They would be playing the “Wedding March” and Jessica, ethereal in her white silk taffeta gown and on the arm of their father, would be standing at the top of the aisle waiting to take that first step. Todd would be waiting at the altar.

And to make it real, in true Jessica form, she would stand there until she had everyone’s complete attention. And when she felt she had it, she would take her first step.

That’s when she, Elizabeth, the uninvited guest, would appear out of nowhere and shout at her betrayers, “You vile, miserable, lying cheats!”

That’s all. Then she would turn and walk out.

Yes, it would be horrible, and both of them would be hurt and embarrassed, but it would not be nearly as cruel as what they had done to her.

Yes, the wedding would go on, but it would be blackened and shamed forever, never forgotten. It would always be the talk of Sweet Valley. It would stain their lives as they had stained hers.

Dumb and childish, and far too brutal a scene for Elizabeth to enjoy.

But there were other scenarios.

In one of Elizabeth’s favorites, she would write a letter to Jessica describing her intimate times with Todd while he was cheating with Jessica, which would be like he was cheating on Jessica with Elizabeth.

Maybe that was too much of a reach, but it would certainly hurt. Lots of tears. Even more childish.

Or …

Another letter reporting all the horrible things Todd had said about Jessica through those many years. And there were plenty. They’d have a big fight, and Jessica would be in tears.

Jessica’s tears. Was that the best she could hope for? Not nearly enough to avenge what they had done to her life.

By the time Elizabeth got through all these scenarios, she would have drifted off, somewhat satisfied until the morning, when she would wake up miserable again. She still hadn’t found the perfect revenge.

But she would.

4

Sweet Valley

That night, as on so many agonizing nights in these past months, there was no way Jessica could find sleep. Elizabeth was waiting in every corner of her mind.

Was it worth it?

A question answered with one look at Todd’s sleeping face and an involuntary rush of love. His face was relaxed and untroubled, softened by the safety of sleep—a rare sight these last several months.

There was a sweetness on his face, just like the look she remembered from that night, five years earlier, when she first saw him.

She was taking a little liberty there. Yes, she had known him since kindergarten, but she’d never really seen him until that night. The night of Jim Regis’s party; that terrible night in their senior year at SVU when Elizabeth was sick and Jessica did her another of her fabulous favors.

Since then, Jessica had rearranged the real events of that evening a thousand ways, but it always came out the same. Truth was too powerful to lie to. And that something so precious as their love, hers and Todd’s, should have had such an ugly nascence was an unalterable truth, and no matter how far and how gloriously it had transformed, there was no escaping its beginning.

She remembered every minute of that beginning, starting from her standing in front of Mrs. Schriker’s house, their college rental, that night, waiting for Todd to pick her up. She was dressed almost entirely in borrowed clothes. Everything belonged to Elizabeth, including Todd.

Right from the first, when he pulls up in his black Audi convertible, it feels slightly strange. And when I open the door and slide in, it’s more than strange; it’s weird. I’ve been in his car hundreds of times but always in the backseat. The front seat is Elizabeth’s place, but now here I am.

“Hey,” I say, pulling the door shut.

“Hey.”

Straining to make normal chitchat proves so too much for both of us, and after two blocks the little wisps of attempted conversation drift down like snowflakes into a blanketing silence. The discomfort is like excruciating, forcing me to make another effort. This time I aim for the smallest talk: weather. Except that in Southern California, unless you have storms or earthquakes or mudslides, none of which are expected, there is no weather. It’s all like sun. And more sun.

More silence. We are two very uncomfortable people. The evening that could have been like a fun idea isn’t turning out to be as easy as it sounded. Or, maybe, it’s just me. Todd probably doesn’t even notice.

When we arrive at the frat house the party is already going full blast. I excuse myself and take my jacket to the bedroom. Lianne Kane, the host, Jim Regis’s girlfriend, is there.

“Hey,” she says. “Jim was worried that you two wouldn’t make it. Todd is with you, right?”

“Absolutely. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

And Lianne and I go out to the living room and over to where Jim, who wasn’t all that dumpy, though maybe a little short, is digging into the cooler to get a beer for Todd.

“Todd,” I say, “this is Lianne.”

“Great to meet you,” says Lianne. “I’ve watched you play every game this season. You’re fabulous.”

Of course, Todd is flattered, and Lianne, at almost six feet, is not just a fan; she’s a player, too, and has to hear all about the fabulous last game.

Meanwhile, I talk to Jim. Naturally, I expect that Todd will have explained about Elizabeth being sick. It doesn’t occur to me that he hasn’t and that Jim probably can’t tell the difference. Even though I know it happens more often than not, I still can never understand how people aren’t able to see the enormous difference between Elizabeth and me.

Mostly Jim is talking about how hooked his girlfriend is on basketball; she was captain of the girls’ team at Sweet Valley High. She was there after us, he explains.

Jim excuses himself to greet some people who have just come in, and since Todd is still deep in conversation with Lianne, I wander around looking for cute guys.

After a few minutes I decide that even though the short and dumpy accusation wasn’t exactly fair, Todd is probably the cutest one there, so I stop looking and drift over to the cooler to get myself a beer. The bartender, a frat pledge, is too young but totally hot, so I stay and talk to him.

At some point Todd breaks away from Lianne and finds me. We’re standing together when Jim comes over and introduces us to some of his frat brothers.