SVH #81 - Rosa's Lie
First off, the cover for this is just amazing. Rosa’s left boob is at least three cups larger than her right. Not to mention the high-waisted jeans the twins are wearing and the purple wannabe trenchcoat that Jessica is rocking. And she DOES rock it! At any rate, it’s the perfect way to show the difference between two American girls and one “chicana” (as Rosa continually calls herself). And, as the book tells us, real chicana women have curves. The book is not at all un-PC, as you can tell…..
The A plot featuring Rosa and her family (who are, oddly enough, never mentioned again that I’m aware of) is amazing - that is, amazingly lame. The real genius is the B plot: Bruce vs. Todd is a battle of wills for their Phi Epsilon fraternity!!
You can tell the book’s going to be fantastic when it opens with Liz feeding Todd orange slices and talking about the reason for lunch period. Todd agrees with Liz that its purpose is to eat. Or, at his so eloquently phrases it, “The need to refuel the body.” Oh, Todd. I’m swooning over here.
At this lunch hour, Jessica “pushed the straps of her orange tank top aside to bare her sun-bronzed shoulders” (actual quote). Enter description of Liz and Jessica’s perfect features and differences. It is decided at this lunch period that Phi Beta Alpha (henceforth referred to as PBA - SVH’s elite sorority!) and Phi Epsilon (henceforth referred to as PE - SVH’s elite fraternity of which Todd and Bruce are both members…. For the record, who the crap has heard of this fraternity in any other book?) are in need of new blood.
New student Rose/Rosa is introduced walking by. The girls admire her perfect pale skin (WTF? I thought everyone in Sweet Valley wanted to be sun-bronzed) and dark hair (WTF again? I thought everyone is Sweet Valley was blonde or had red hair - the girls, anyway). Then again, Rose /Rosa (Rosa is her Mexican name - and past! - she’s trying to shed) is an ethnic, much like Jade Wu or whatever other stock character a book introduces for the sole purpose to exploit their differences, and so of COURSE her ethnic features are to be admired!
Turns out, people like Rose, even though she’s new and they don’t know her well. She seems nice and is asked out by at least ten guys (!!! Seriously, this is mentioned in the book!!!) so Liz nominates her for PBA membership, along with some other random people we’ll never hear about again. When she’s mentioned for membership, Amy decides a good thing about Rose/Rosa is “She’s never dated Bruce Patman!”
I would date Bruce Patman. Just to cruise around in 1Bruce1.
Incidentally, when the guys (meaning Winston and Todd) talk about why they lost interest in PE, we get this gem: ““I still can’t help seeing one big obnoxious obstacle to progress: good ol’ ‘One Bruce One,’” said Winston, referring to the license plate on Bruce’s black Porsche.”
It is so awesome how he refers to Bruce by his license plate!
Moving on. We get backstory about Rose/Rosa. She complains that she wants to be American and not Mexican. Because obviously, in Southern California, it is so hard to be both. I thought we were having a problem with illegal immigrants?
But I digress.
Rose/Rosa thinks all Mexicans must hang out with each other and that if it’s revealed that she’s a “chicana” (and yes, she calls herself a chicana multiple times), she’ll be shunned. And who would want to miss out on PBA? So when they ask her about her background, she makes up a TOTALLY realistic sounding story about how she moved here from Boston, her ancestors came over on the Mayflower, she and her family went to England the previous summer, where she met Princess Di and Fergie and found out she is distantly related to Queen Elizabeth and about five hundredth in line for the throne!! All the PBAs are impressed. In reality, Rose/Rosa lived in Texas before this. How cliché, no?
When the PBA meeting disbands, Sandy’s boyfriend Manuel Lopez (what a clever name!) comes to pick Sandy up, and Lila wrinkles her nose and says, “I don’t know how she can date him. He’s so ethnic and working-class.” Oh, Lila! Rose/Rosa internalizes this and thinks, “The Pi Betas must never find out the truth about her.” Dum dum DUMMMMMMMMMMM.
PBA comes up with lame rush dares, like breaking into the boy’s locker room, giving Chrome Dome Cooper a toupee, and writing a love letter to a nerd. They give the easiest tasks to Rose/Rosa because, you know, she’s related to royalty, after all.
More exciting are the tasks that PE comes up with! They have 4 pledges - 2 nominated by Bruce and 2 nominated by Todd. It is decided that Todd and Bruce should come up with tasks for each other’s pledges. And this is where the true awesomeness begins.
Bruce ingeniously tasks Todd’s pledges with climbing the front wall of school and move the clock’s hands ahead one hour - WITHOUT using a ladder! Todd responds by challenging Bruce’s pledges to borrow a bus and return to school with a dozen pizzas in half an hour. He’ll be timing them. Todd is, after all, the type to wear a watch.
Enter ever-concerned, ever-meddling Liz Wakefield, who involves herself in fraternity affairs and declares both Todd and Bruce “elitists.” They blow her off. As they should. Both sets of pledges successfully complete their tasks. Here’s hoping they’ll come up with better dares for the second tasks.
We go to PBA’s pledges, who have been tasked with starting a food fight in the cafeteria. BADASS.
Thankfully, no time is wasted going back to PE’s pledges. For the second set, uber-nerd Todd Wilkins decides that Bruce’s pledges have until the end of the school day (without cutting class!) to check out 100 books from the SVH library that contain the word “challenge” or “pressure” in the title. Wow. If that was my task, I would not want to join this fraternity.
Bruce, in only slightly better pledgemaster form, instructs Todd’s pledges to take the office furniture out of the guidance counselor’s office and put it on the grass (again, without cutting class and before the end of the school day!).
Some PBAs come over to Rose/Rosa’s house, where she lies and says she hasn’t unpacked photos of her and Princess Di yet. Things are okay over there, and she starts to feel like she could actually pass as an American girl, since apparently living in America does not automatically make her feel this way. She NEEDS to be in PBA. Nothing else will do. But oh no! Just as she feels like she can actually have friends over and it’ll be okay, her parents drop a horrible bombshell on her: Nana’s coming to visit from rural Mexico! CRAP! Rose/Rosa hasn’t seen her in three years! And she doesn’t speak English!
Nana arrives. She’s described as “a tiny, plump, white-haired woman in a shapeless flowered dress.” Because, as we all know, that’s what every Nana in Mexico wears. Nana disapproves of Rose/Rosa’s short skirt (I wonder what she’d think of Jessica pushing her straps down…?) but is thrilled to see her granddaughter. Rose/Rosa is only kind of happy to see her and is counting down the days till she leaves, since until then, she’s stuck “babysitting” Nana and avoiding her new PBA friends so they won’t find out the truth.
Back to the awesomeness that is Todd vs. Bruce.
Meddling Liz shows up at Todd’s house and sits by while a PE meeting goes on. Todd and Bruce complain about the way the other’s pledges completed the last dare. The other PE members start leaving because of the increasing tension between the two! Just when it seems like things have heated up enough for a Todd punch to be thrown - Winston “literally thrust himself between them.” Damn you, Winston.
Nana and Rose/Rosa continue to spend time together, with Nana teaching Rose/Rosa about her Mexican heritage and taking her shopping. Nana also gives her a cooking lesson and Rose/Rosa has this realization: “She was a chicana and if someone looked down on her because of that, it was their prejudice, their problem, not hers.” Whoa. Deep.
The PBA girls realize Rose/Rosa’s avoiding them and make her, as her last dare, throw a party for them at her house. Rose/Rosa gets her parents and Nana out of the house. The PBAs catch sight of Nana leaving and Rose/Rosa lies and says it’s just “the cleaning lady.” Lila commiserates when Rose/Rosa says she “just babbles away in Spanish. I never have the vaguest idea what she’s talking about!” Because again, as we all know, every cleaning lady is Mexican and does not speak English? Rose/Rosa also decides to dump out a perfectly good cake that Nana made with love for her and her friends to enjoy because it had a Mexican design and scripted Spanish words. Rose/Rosa is clearly part of the problem, not the solution, when it comes to prejudice…
The last Todd vs. Bruce challenge! Both sets of pledges have received warnings from their respective sports teams about not getting involved in any more shenanigans. However, Bruce decides Todd’s pledges have to take the pompoms of the opposite team’s cheerleaders at the next basketball game. Todd retaliates by saying Bruce’s pledges need to take the opposing team’s tennis racket’s covers at the next match. Oooohh. This is way harsh.
Jess and Liz don’t see either set of PE pledges accomplishing this task. But! As it is later shown, the two sets of pledges helped each other out in the spirit of brotherhood. Take a lesson, Todd and Bruce. This is what a fraternity should be.
Back to Rose/Rosa’s identity crisis. At a picnic where the pledges wait on the PBAs hand and foot and wave palm fans for them, a little girl falls into a well. And, oh no, she only speaks Spanish! Only Rose/Rosa can talk to her and save her! But does she have the courage to embrace her heritage?!?
Yes!!! She talks to this little girl, which apparently saves her life. The PBAs are SHOCKED to find out the truth about Rosa. (You mean her ancestors didn’t arrive on the Mayflower?) Rose/Rosa’s confession: “I’m not that girl. I’m… Mexican.”
The PBAs are silent. She leaves.
The PBAs follow Rose/Rosa home and all except for Lila appear to be accepting of her heritage. (“Don’t worry, Rose,” Lila assured her. “We understand why you did what you id. And you can bet your secret is safe with us. No one else has to know you’re Mexican!”)
So Rose/Rosa and all the other pledges are inducted into PBA. But wait! When it’s Rose/Rosa’s turn, she declines! She gives this gem of a speech: “I can’t join Pi Beta Alpha because I’m ROSA Jameson, not Rose Jameson.” (Identity crisis over!) Rosa tries to leave, but the other girls clustered around her and want to hug her and “make her swear she would still socialize with them even though she had decided not to join the sorority.” Rosa invites them over and says she’ll make them Mexican food.
And that’s the end of Rose/Rosa Jameson in Sweet Valley High.
Oh, there’s also some lame C plot about Jessica feeling ignored by Sam and her family and doing poorly in math. All leading up to #82 - Kidnapped by the Cult! (“How far will Jessica go to get the attention she needs?”)