SVU Thriller Edition #15: Loving The Enemy
SVU Thriller Edition #15: Loving The Enemy
Firstly, I should start off by saying that I’m the 1bruce1 equivalent of “long-time listener, first-time caller.” This was my absolute favourite SVU book when I was a younger, and I couldn’t believe nobody had recapped it yet. So, considering I love snarking and I love Sweet Valley (match made in heaven, I know), I thought I’d pop my recapping cherry on this beauty.
I’ll only say one thing about the image on the cover. ( Even though it's pretty much screaming, "Mock me! Mock me!") Where the hell did they get that Ben Affleck look-alike from? Seriously. He looks more like an Affleck than Casey does. And please note that Ben-Again thought it’d be a good idea to rob a diner in a lilac shirt that looks like pyjamas. Mmm, no wonder Jessica’s in love with the enemy when he takes his fashion cues from Joe Pesci in Home Alone crossed with Bedtime Ken.
Our story begins in the parking lot of the ever-popular Red Lion diner. Maybe I missed something (it has been a while since I read most of the SVU books), but has the Red Lion diner been mentioned, like, ever? Once? Twice? Apparently the girls dine there so frequently they know all the employees by name, and yet I remember hearing very little of it up until this point. But I digress.
It’s a week before classes start, and Jessica, Lila, Denise and Alexandra are at the Red Lion, ready to eat very little. Jessica, it’s worth noting, is dressed in “cute little sleeveless minidress.” Um, okay, ‘cause that’s what I’d wear to a scummy old diner when there’s no one else on campus. Jessica and Lila are discussing Jess’s new lease on life -- she wants to forget about boys and become more studious. (Snort.) This idea goes out the window literally three seconds later, when she sees a boy called Trevor Paley from her bio class, talking some another guy. (Who will become important later but for now is just unnecessary.). Apparently, Jessica once dropped her pen in bio class and he picked it up for her. She stared into his ice blue eyes and saw his soul. She fell in love. Yawn.
So as she walks into the diner, she says hello to him. He, in turn, looks at her and completely ignores her. I like this Trevor fellow already. “Maybe she was sending off an ‘I’m not interested in anything serious’ vibe to guys now that she was turning over a new leaf.” Yuh-huh, Jessica. Or maybe, just maybe, he’s just not that into you. But wait, how can that be? With her perfect size-six figure and sun-kissed blonde hair? DON’T YOU KNOW SHE’S A WAKEFIELD, BUDDY? Show some respect.
The girls head into the diner and start gabbing with their waitress, a caricature named Stella who apparently puts on a “New Yawk deli waitress act” that pretty much attracts the customers. Seriously? What a fine dining institution this Red Lion must be if Stella and her bitch-ass attitude is the biggest drawcard. Lila is her usual ice-queen-awesomeness self, telling Stella, “Is Willie [the chef] going to burn my salad again?” Gee, Lila, I hope not…since making a salad pretty much involves whacking a whole bunch of lettuce and shit into a bowl and not putting it anywhere near an open flame. Something new and different to note…it’s Lila who has the “size-six figure”.
Stella and the girls partake in some witty banter that isn’t quite witty enough to warrant being specifically mentioned here, then the girls talk about how there’s hardly anyone at the diner tonight because school hasn’t started yet. (That’ll be important later, but for now it’s just unnecessary.) Oh wait -- the ghostwriter has just informed us that it’s a stormy night. “Lightning and thunder struck simultaneously, a jagged sound that made them all jump.” Because all girls are scared of thunder, don’t you know? And obviously something terrible’s about to happen, because in sunny Sweet Valley, storms only occur on nights when terrible things happen.
Just then, the front door opens, and in come two men with ski masks and guns, demanding money and shooting randomly into the ceiling. Everyone gets down on the floor. “Silverware clattered. A glass broke. Across the diner a whole table tipped over with a loud crash.” Because this is a cartoon hostage situation. How hard is it to get on the floor without knocking over tables? It’s pandemonium in the diner with only six patrons!
Apparently, Jessica is unhappy with the situation. Not because she’s being held at gunpoint in a diner, but because she “could see the wads of gum stuck to the underside of the tables.” God help her. One could become unstuck and fall into her pretty blonde hair. She might have to -- gasp! -- cut it out! Sometimes it’s just no fun being Jessica Wakefield.
The bigger gunman is getting Stella to make with the moolah from the register, when Willie, the three hundred pound short-order cook, comes out to play. (He will never not look like Fat Bastard in my mind.) He apparently thinks he’s bulletproof, and tells the bigger thief to “put your popgun on the table, turn tail, and head back to the clubhouse, kiddo.” What the? Who talks like that? And who has time to turn cute phrases when they’re staring down the barrel of a gun? If I’d had balls the size of Texas and wanted to say something with similar sentiment, I think “Fuck off, asshole” would’ve done nicely.
The robber calls Big Fat Willie’s bluff, and eventually Willie tells Stella to just give them the money. But uh-oh, the big guy ain’t done. He grabs a baseball bat and tries to smack the guy in the head. The robber shoots Willie down, proving once and for all that baseball bat and sheer manliness do not trump loaded gun. I wonder if anybody will bother to learn from this…
Stella, who doesn’t just save her obnoxiousness for her repartee with size-six sorority girls, starts paying him out, but it’s nothing compared to what the other gunman (remember him?) does. There’s yelling and screaming and talk of “It’s already taken about five minutes and one bullet longer than you promised!” Fair point with the bullet thing, Forgotten Robber, but do you really want to argue over five minutes? Are we keeping you from something? Do you have somewhere else to be?
Jessica (yeah, she’s still there) is suddenly hit with one of her bad Wakefield feelings. “I know that voice! From bio class. From outside in the rain. Trevor Paley!” (Of bio pen fame.) Clap, clap, Jessica. Those of us who worked that out the second the goddamn robbers came in applaud the fact that you put two and two together, and for once it didn’t make five.
Jessica’s confused. “He’s in college. He’s no criminal. At least, he never seemed like one.” Hard to believe that in the entire time Jessica was peering into his soulful blue eyes, she missed his criminal tendencies. Obviously she wasn’t paying attention. Did those two seconds mean nothing to you, Jessica?
Willie’s shot in the shoulder, but the gunman who’s not Trevor still wants his money. Stella asks if there’s anyone indahouse with any medical experience. This being Sweet Valley, there is -- a geeky med student named Clark. (We know he’s a geek because he wears glasses, and everyone knows all the popular kids have 20/20 vision.) Not-Trevor lets him help Willie, but first he lays down the law. “The casual observer would have thought they were best buds…except that the thief jerked the barrel of his gun under the med student’s chin.” Yeah, except for that tiny detail. Kinda like how murder is really just a friendly pat on the back…with a butcher’s knife.
Stella hands over the money in the register to Not-Trevor. Neither robber is happy when all she hands over is $175 and change. Willie thinks it’s pretty funny, and tells them, “You’re robbing a dead diner, you morons! There won’t be any serious money in here for weeks!” So Willie knew there was shit-all in the register, and was prepared to get SHOT to save himself 175 bucks? Priorities, William, please. And he calls the robbers morons? He also says to them, “You’d probably flunk out of stickup school.” A little harsh, big guy. I’d say they’re not doing a bad job. Their timing was a little off, maybe. Willie, however, would probably flunk out of baseball school.
Not-Trevor, who seems to think he has mad diner-robbing skillz, does not appreciate his tone. Jessica is frightened. “Willie’s a dead man. I’m about to witness a murder.” Right, because she’s never done that before. This’ll be one of the few she hasn’t actually caused, so I suppose it’s something new and different for her. But Not-Trevor apparently has an ounce of kindness, and lets Willie live.
Trevor and Not-Trevor (mention his name, already!) argue some more. Trevor seems to be the Sensitive One. Not-Trevor seems to be the Evil One. Oh, and they’re brothers. We know this because they call each other ‘bro’ all the time, like all brothers do. I bet the Afflecks do. They’re so busy arguing with one another (the robbers, not the Afflecks), they don’t even see three patrons creeping towards the door. I guessed they missed the Don’t Turn Your Back On The Hostages class in stickup school.
Oh hey -- Denise, Alex and Lila are back. They just kind-of disappeared for a while there, until now when they add really important things to the conversation like, “They’re gonna get themselves killed,” and “What should we do?” Suddenly, the random hostage trio bolt for the door, and while one manages to escape, Not-Trevor shoots another. But is that it? Of course not. Trevor, being the Sensitive One, tries to save the would-be escapees by SHOOTING AT HIS BROTHER. Because apparently when he screamed, “No, Jason!” and that didn’t really do anything, Plan B was to shoot his bro in the arm. On a side note, we now have a name for Trevor’s brother, which is pleasing.
Jessica sees “several red specks on the floor in front of her. Blood. She didn’t have to dab a finger in them to know.” I’m sorry, but if Jessica’s default method of identifying mystery liquid substances is to go ahead and ‘dab a finger’ in them, I predict it won’t always end happily. Speaking of happy, Jason is mighty pissed that Trevor shot him. (I guess he’s fickle that way.) He even goes so far as to threaten to shoot Trevor to even the score. But he doesn’t. So just to recap -- the Sensitive One shoots his brother, and the Evil One shows some compassion. Well now, that doesn’t add up. The Evil One should be blowing everyone’s heads off and then going to a pet store, killing some kittens and wiping their blood on a church door. We want our obvious personality traits, dammit!
The guy who escaped has called the police, and Jason and Trevor decide to stay inside, blocking the back door with a soda machine. Never mind that Jason is bleeding from a gunshot wound to the arm caused by his oh-so-loyal brother. Nah, it’s much more believable to have them barricade themselves in the diner and let the geeky med student work his magical healing powers on Jason’s arm.
Denise is back, and we get to see things through her eyes, which is actually kind-of boring. Jessica tells her that she knows Trevor from bio (but for once doesn’t mention the intense pen incident) and Denise says the first -- and, indeed, last -- smart thing of the night and tells Jessica to pretend like she doesn’t know who he is. Jason goes over to Denise, and she laments that “she had never been so close to a gun before. Especially a gun that had hurt people.” Now come on, Denise. The gun may have hurt people, but before you judge, maybe you should look into its soulful blue eyes. Drop a pen, see if it picks it up for you. That’s how you can tell the psycho guns from the well-intentioned guns.
Jason tells her to close the blinds, and after trying (and failing) to negotiate the release of the injured hostages in exchange for her blind-closing services (Jason tells her quite accurately, “You’re not a cop, girlfriend.”), she does the job but gets super-angwy when Jason calls her ‘chickie’. She pretty much Helen Reddys his ass, and while the feminist readers are thinking, “You go, girl!” the sane ones are slapping their foreheads, going, “You fucking idiot.”
When she gets back to her table, even Lila knows the score. “You want to stand up and tell those guys what’s what. The world of armed robbery according to Denise Waters. But this isn’t a situation you can control.” Thank you, common sense! In lieu of Elizabeth, LiFo’s stepping up as tonight’s appointed Voice of Reason. But Denise pays little attention to our favourite win-made Theta, because she then decides that maybe Jason picked her to shut the blinds because he’s “a sucker for brunettes.” What the? Is she for real? Does she really believe for a minute that the Evil One, who’s losing a shitload of blood by the second, is concerned about the colour of her hair? Alex thinks this is probably true, because apparently everyone’s upped their dosage of crazy pill today. Everyone except awesome Lila, who tells her that’s the dumbest thing she’s ever heard. Yuh-huh, pretty much my sentiments exactly.
Denise decides she’s not done with being a complete dumb shit just yet, so she talks to Jason some more, trying to get him to release the hostages. Jason does not like this. He tells the girls that they have no idea what he’s been through, singling out Jessica and asking her if the worst day of her life involved breaking a nail. Denise thinks this is a little rough. “Jessica had seen some pretty bad days in her life.” Yeah, pretty bad days involving pretty bad events, most of which she CAUSED. Don’t cry for her, Argentina.
Denise keeps on taunting him, and eventually Jason points the gun at her head, apparently being able to hear the readers screaming, “For God’s sakes, just shoot the bitch!” Don’t get excited, though. He doesn’t. He gets distracted by a loud noise from outside (apparently, the cavalry has arrived) and pretty much forgets about her. For a while, at least.
Meanwhile, Jessica is sitting at her booth doing a whole lot of nothing, and since the world revolves around Jessica, our friendly ghostwriter needs to give her something to do pronto. Clark the geeky med student needs help administering first aid to the guy who got shot before, so Jason tells Jessica to get her cute size-six butt over there and help him out. The reason? “Just so you think I don’t only like brunettes.” Perfect. The most ridiculous topic of conversation in the world is getting a second mention from a completely separate party who was thinking the same absurd thing as Denise at exactly the same time. In Elizabeth’s world, that means they’re soulmates.
**By the way, in case anyone is disappointed that Elizabeth hasn’t been mentioned yet (do these people actually exist?), hang in there. St. Liz is on her way, I promise.
Back to reality. (Or as close to reality as you can get in a SV book.) Jessica goes over and introduces herself to Clark. “He didn’t shake her hand -- his were covered in blood.” Even if they hadn’t been covered in blood, I doubt he would have shaken your hand, Jessica, because A) in a tense hostage situation, niceties like hand-shaking aren’t everybody’s top priority, and B) because you have cooties. And you know it.
Clark, who is now being referred to by Jason and Trevor as Junior Doc (aww, cute, they gave him a nickname, he must feel like he really belongs), has decided to perform first aid on the injured man by packing towels and aprons on the wound and then taping them to his body. He’s also added ice because “it might stop the bleeding. Or it might not.” Glad someone knows what they’re doing. Plus, if the ice doesn’t work, they can always use it to make daiquiris.
While Jessica is getting the chance to show off her mad duct-taping skillz, Trevor tries to get his brother to give up the two injured men to police. Denise, not at all perturbed by the result of her last effort (you know, when she almost had her fucking head blown off?) voices her agreement. This time Alex decides to chime in as well in an Elizabeth-like display of condescending preachiness. (Well, they were best friends in high school, some unwanted Elizabethness was bound to rub off on her.) Apparently only Lila is awesome enough to think of sitting quietly and not drawing attention to herself in the extremely dangerous hostage crisis.
Eventually they annoy Jason into doing what they want, but instead of only letting out the injured, he kicks Alex and Denise out as well. I tell you, I love this Jason. He even says to Lila, “How do you stand these two?” even though he should really be thanking his lucky stars Elizabeth’s not there, or he’d know all about it.
Now it’s Trevor’s turn to reveal his innermost thoughts to us. And so begins the explanation as to why they’re robbing the diner -- and it starts waaaay back to when he was seven years old. Literally, seven years old. Apparently Jason set fire to his father’s workbench once in a tremendous display of who-gives-a-shit. To cut an extremely long-winded and thoroughly boring story short, Jason has gambling debts. Trevor loves his brother (because he’s the Sensitive One, you see) and decided to help him rob a diner so the loan sharks wouldn’t break his knees. Uh-huh. And here I thought normal people didn’t usually express brotherly love by firing guns at each other. Just sayin’.
Trevor decides now would be a good time to barricade the front door with a cigarette machine, and he gets a crewcut-sporting muscle-bound hostage named Steve, who -- say it with me, folks -- will be important later, but for now is just unnecessary. He also goes over to Jessica, apparently intrigued by her constantly staring at him (I’d have been creeped out, but each to their own.) Jessica promptly ignores Denise’s sole word of wisdom for the night and tells him that she knows exactly who he is. Trevor remembers Jessica and how beautiful she is (ugh) and then notices Lila, whom he describes as “Jessica’s remaining friend, with the long, dark hair and snooty rich-girl attitude.” Excusez-moi, Trevor? To quote Stephanie Tanner, “How rude!” In your description, you forgot ‘made of win’ and ‘totally and completely awesome’. But no, seriously. Go with the pretty blonde sociopath. See how far that gets you. Trevor, ever the realist, then thinks, “You pulled a gun on her, dude. She’s not going to date you.” Well, we are talking about Jessica Wakefield here. She just might.
Jason decides to put all the hostages into two booths, instead of having them spread out all over the place. We finally meet the rest of the hostages -- Clark, the aforementioned Junior Doc; Stella, the aforementioned bitchfaced waitress; Steve, the aforementioned crewcut guy; Darla, Steve’s never-before-mentioned skank-ho girlfriend; and three long-haired hippie types wearing tie-dyed shirts, who in my mind at least are pretty much three Shaggys from Scooby Doo in funky T-shirts. Continuity error -- where did the girl who tried to escape before go? It wasn’t Darla, because Steve would’ve come with her. Evidently up until this point all the other hostages have been interchangeable.
Jessica is lamenting Trevor’s sudden turnaround from intense pen picker-upperer to hostage-taker. She doesn’t believe he’s just another psycho with a gun. She knows “because of that stare we had…you can see into someone’s heart by looking into their eyes.” I can only imagine that if you look into Jessica’s eyes, all you can see is a lone monkey scratching his head in confusion.
Steve the crewcut guy butts into her extremely relevant thought process by asserting his authority over the group. He’s some sort of macho man who thinks he can take out Jason and Trevor. Not if they passed the Handling Hostages With Death Wishes class in stickup school, they won’t! The Tie-Dyes take this opportunity to make a whole bunch of jokes about how Steve reminds them of Steven Seagal, because even smack-bang in the middle a hostage crisis, Steven Seagal jokes are always funny. Steve (our Steve, the one who did not star in Over The Top) is not amused. “He sat glowering, arms crossed, while Darla stroked his cheek.” Okay. Evidently our Steve enjoys being shown affection like a cat. I’m surprised he didn’t start purring.
More lame-o Trevor (in)action. He’s deep in thought. He wants Jessica, he wants it all to end, he’s so remorseful, he hates his brother. So he tells his brother that. He tells crazy Jason that he did mean to shoot him before, that it wasn’t an accident, and pretty much that he’s done with all this diner-robbing shit. Jason tells ‘baby bro’ that it’s probably best if he just kills him, so he points his gun at Trevor and the chapter ends on another pointless mini-cliffhanger. When is the madness going to end?
Unfortunately, Jason doesn’t kill Trevor, even though maybe he should’ve because it would save me a whole lot of time reading about lame-o Trevor and all his upcoming boring lame-o thoughts. But no, Jason’s getting weak from all the being-shot-by-his-own-brother business. Steve sees his chance, and he and Darla run to the door, throw the cigarette machine to the side (because it seems to have diminished in weight since its last appearance in the book) and get ready to head out the door. Trevor’s all, “Whoa, don’t think so, pal,” getting out his gun and threatening to shoot them if they don’t back the fuck up. Finally, Trevor’s stopped being a lame-o! Steve is forced to turn tail and head back to the clubhouse (hee hee, Willie quote!) and Trevor laments, “That must’ve hurt him more than any bullet would have.” Well if that was the case, then why didn’t he’d take his chances getting shot? Huh? Stupid lame-o Trevor thinks he’s so smart just ‘cause he’s pre-med and instists on telling us every chance he gets.
Denise and Alex, everyone’s favourite irritating dumb shits, have decided to take it upon themselves to go find Elizabeth (she’s ba-ack!) and tell her what’s been going down. Lizzie panics muchly, and the three irritating dumb shits climb into Denise’s car (nay, the IrritatingDumbShitMobile) and head down to the diner. “The wipers swished across the glass mechanically, their rhythm strangely comforting to Alexandra.” What the? Is Alexandra really that dull that she gets jazzed about windscreen wipers? Ah, so that’s why whenever something bad happens, you always find Alexandra in her car with a pint of ice-cream, with the wipers on full-blast. What a freak.
Trevor realises he needs to get Jason out of the diner ASAP, ‘cause the guy’s losing quite a bit of blood. He decides to check out the back rooms to see if there’s any means of escape, and he takes Jessica with him under the guise of needing a personal hostage in case anyone tries anything with half-dead Jason. The truth? He wuvs her, and no matter how bitter she pretends to be about it, she wuvs him too.
In the back, Trevor takes off his ski mask, which turns Jessica on no end. “This was the guy she knew -- if just for ten seconds -- from bio class. This was the guy who looked right into her soul.” That’s progress. At least the ghostwriter is admitting that Jessica and Trevor’s love affair was literally a ten-second thing. But you can see where Jess is coming from. I mean, come on, he picked up her pen. Killers don’t pick up other people’s pens. They ignore pens. They go out of their way to stomp on pens. I bet if you’d let Charles Manson loose in a stationery store, it would’ve been a ballpoint massacre.
Lo and behold, they find a basement filled with condiments and they make stupid jokes about paining the walls with mayo, and Lysol sandwiches. Right, okay, good work. Now’s definitely the time do be doing that. Jessica gets over the Lysol-sandwich hilarity and starts bugging Trevor about what he thinks is going to happen, his future and blah blah blah. Everything we’ve already heard Trevor think silently in his lame-o mind about, but now verbalised. Eventually he gets pissy and points his gun at her, which rattles poor old Jess’s nerves a tad. “I can’t believe I was beginning to trust this maniac…that I thought he was a decent person deep down. Actually, I still believe that.” Well, boo-yah to Trevor! This dude can do no wrong.
Incredibly, they find a drain gate which is big enough for a human (or two) to fit through. Trevor decides that it must go to the sewer, and this is the big chance he’s been waiting for to escape, never thinking for a second that the police might have been given some blueprints with this information on it. Oh don’t worry, they haven’t. Apparently the cops outside are the ones from Superbad.
Speaking of the goings-on in the outside world. Denise, Alex and Elizabeth -- AKA the Irritating Dumb Shit Squad -- are out the front of the diner doing a whole lot of nothing. Which is surprising, really, because this is Elizabeth Wakefield we’re talking about. Why haven’t the police turned over control of the situation to her already? Where’s the respect?
But then Denise comes up with what she describes as a “brilliant and potentially stupid” plan -- to call Lila on her cell phone to see what’s the haps. (Because in 1999 only rich people could possibly have cell phones.) Forgive me, but I don’t see the brilliance in it at all. I definitely see the potential stupidity. I definitely see the biggest dumb-shit move any dumb shit could make, but brilliance? Not so much. Alex tells us Lila’s cell phone is always on vibrate, and she always keeps her phone in her pocket. To convince Elizabeth (who it seems is tonight’s smartest dumb shit), Alex reminds her that “Lila’s an expert at guerrilla phone warfare. She once carried on a fifteen-minute conversation in a crowded classroom during philosophy without anyone knowing it.” More proof that Lila is a freakin’ legend. She’s like a superhero. I’m convinced that if she and Chuck Norris ever did battle, Lila would beat that mother down.
And so, they put their plan into motion and call Lila, who thankfully does have her phone on vibrate. She looks to Jason before daring to answer it, but “he seemed to be more interested in making the Taj Mahal out of sugar packets than in what was going on in the booths.” You mean in the booths where all the hostages are? Really? I hope that shitty stickup school wasn’t too expensive.
So Lila takes the call to hear all about Elizabeth and Co’s stupid-ass plan to escape through the bathroom window. And while all the bright minds in freshman philosophy didn’t notice LiFo on the phone that day, there’s no fooling stupid robber-slash-sugar packet architect Jason, who catches her. Uh-oh spaghetti-os! Lila’s scared. “Panic unfurled her like a flag in a windstorm, desperate to tear loose and escape.” Aw, jeez. You can almost imagine the ghostwriter’s thought process on that one. “Hmm, which random object should we compare a character’s complex human emotions to this time? I know, a flag. ‘Lila felt like a flag.’ Perfect.” Ugh. I want the ghostwriter to be in pain right now. Actually, they probably are, assuming their many years of snorting coke while writing has caught up to them.
It needs to be said that Jason’s face “looked like a nightmarish clown’s under the ski mask.” Wow, what a great time to whack in some details about Jason’s appearance. Just one thing -- how exactly does Lila know what Jason’s face looks like under the ski mask WHEN HE’S WEARING THE FUCKING SKI MASK? Not being able to see your face is kind-of the point of donning ski masks during an armed hold-up. And ‘nightmarish clown’, really? Why a clown? When I see someone who has bloodshot eyes and peeling lips, I don’t immediately think, “Whoa, there goes Steven King’s It.”
Jason’s actually pretty nice to Lila, considering. Scary nice. Some would say nightmarish-clown-nice, but I would not be one of those people. Turns out he’s being fake nice, trying to get her to tell him who was on the phone because he thinks it’s a cop. Come on, Jason. Does Lila look like the kind of non-awesome girl who knows people as low down on the social ladder as the bumbling idiot cops outside? Get a clue. The other people in the booths try to get him to leave her alone, but he’s pretty committed. He does let her up, however, when Steve says, “You’re pretty good at pointing guns at girls. Now why don’t you try it with me?” Ohh, boy. That’s edge-of-your-seat tension right there.
Jason’s done being mean to Lila (atta boy, walk away) and ready to be mean to Steve. He drives his point about being the macho-est of them all home when he shoots at the booth’s personal jukebox inches away from their faces, but get this -- Steve doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t even blink. Damn, them’s good peepers. Jason gets cocky, and Steve bolts out, tackling him to the ground, disarming him and doing this: “Steve dug his fingers into Jason’s gunshot wound, tearing through the sticky duct tape until he reached flesh.” What. The. Fuck. Turns out Steve’s not all talk -- he’s a raging psychopath. He’s literally doing what I can only describe as grabbing chunks of flesh from a man’s arm wound. That’s not normal, not even for a guy with a crewcut! Stop it! Stop the madness!
Trevor and Jessica rush out to save the day, but Steve’s got Jason’s gun now. It’s even stevens, except for the fact that one’s bat-shit nuts and the other’s a sensitive lame-o. So Trevor does something totally un-Trevor and uses Jessica as a human shield, threatening to put a bullet in her head if Steve doesn’t drop the gun. Good idea, Trevvie, tempt the madman. That’ll only end well.
Jessica is all furious, hissing at Trevor about how she trusted him. “You want trust, buy a dog,” is his response, and I can only assume Trevor is confusing ‘trust’ with ‘loyalty’, which is the virtue dogs are more commonly famous for. This guy’s pre-med, really?
So the next paragraph is actually kind-of confusing and written so strangely that I’m just going to do what the ghostwriter should’ve done and break it down -- Steve shoots at Trevor, Jason leaps up and takes the bullet for him, and Jessica remains unharmed. Or you could make sense of this: “The gun went off, but just before the deafening roar that they were all becoming accustomed to, a dark form rose up between Steve and Trevor. A bloody mess screaming, “No!” at the top of his lungs. A spent force trying one desperate, last-ditch stunt. A tortured soul who throughout his life always seemed to mess up at the worst possible moment. Until now.” Uh-huh, okay. So we’ve narrowed the ghostwriter’s identity down to someone who’s not Tolstoy.
Steve thinks he’s king of the castle now, but he doesn’t know what Trevor knows -- the exact amount of bullets Jason had in his gun. Five. And by his calculations, which we know are correct because he’s pre-med, Steve’s out of bullets. Whoops. Even though Steve just tried to kill him and inadvertently shot his beloved big bro, Trevor doesn’t shoot him. Trevor only shoots the people he likes, apparently. (Watch out, Jessica!) He sadly realises that “my big bro’s dying”, a fate which might have been prevented had Trevor not SHOT HIM, but let’s not nitpick. Trevor takes charge and decides that enough’s enough. He reaches into Jason’s pocket and pulls out Lila’s cell phone to give back to her. Wait, what? How does he know about the cell phone? He was in the basement doing Lord-only-knows-what with Jessica when that whole exchange happened. You know what? Forget it. It’s too late for continuity now.
Trevor instructs Lila to call the police and tell them that it’s all over. That way Jason will be taken to hospital and all will be hunky-dory. Oh, but Trevvie’s not up for going to jail (much too sensitive, I suppose), so he takes Jessica, and the two go down the drain gate and end up roaming the sewers. Sexy. Oh, and a rat randomly attacks Jessica, and this frightens her. She’s down in a sewer with a disturbed gun-toting classmate, but that rat really freaks her out. She might not ever get over the trauma of being, and I quote, “a life raft for rodents.” Not only that, but the water is totally cold. It’s, like, the worst day ever. She thinks that this must’ve been “how Kate and Leo felt while filming ‘Titanic’.” Hey, bonus points for the extremely hip pop-culture reference, ghostwriter! I like it, I like it a lot.
Then it gets a little too Titanic. Suddenly, the ghostwriter remembers that it’s been storming pretty much all night, so the sewers might actually have a bit more water in them than the pathetic knee-deep puddles the two have been splashing around in until then. The water knocks them both off their feet, and they almost drown. Worst of all, “she felt her jeans tear at the knee.” Hold it -- wasn’t she wearing a dress at the start of the night? Ugh, whatever. We’re so beyond continuity and basic logic at this point.
They don’t drown, though -- Trevor musters up some superhuman strength and lifts up a manhole cover, allowing them to escape. Well now, Trevor is just the escape-master, isn’t he? He tells Jessica to hide him somewhere, and she takes him to the Theta house, thinking no one’ll be there because school hasn’t started…forgetting all about her BFFs Denise and Alex, who were freed hours ago and, if they weren’t so blindingly stupid and do-goody, would probably be there right now. Way to look out for your friends, Jess.
They get to the Theta house (after stopping off along the way to carve their initials into a tree, no doubt) and not two seconds later, a police officer comes a-knockin’. Trevor gets Jessica to lie to the cop, but he recognises her from the missing-person picture he happens to have. Jessica pretends to be Elizabeth, even pulling out a fake drivers’ license she’s made up for all those pretending-to-be-Elizabeth emergencies that seem to inevitably present themselves. It appears that she thought to take her purse with her when they left the diner, and it miraculously didn’t float away while they were Poseidon-ing away down in the stormwater drain. The cop is satisfied, and so is Trevor. He even trusts her enough now to let her go to the bathroom by herself. Now that’s what I call relationship progress. Some people spends weeks in couples’ counseling to achieve that kind of trust. I suppose she doesn’t have to buy that dog now, either.
Back at the diner, Lila’s recounting the awful story to Liz, Denise, Alex and the cops when the door-knocking police officer happens to come by and tell his commanding officer how he didn’t find Jessica, but found her twin sister. They all rush over to the Theta house, where Liz’s twinstinct rears its head and she thinks Jess must’ve left a clue behind. Okay, let’s all assume that Jess is Nancy Drew, or even that she has the IQ of anything smarter than a broomstick. Amazingly, Liz is right -- that devious little liar wasn’t in that bathroom peeing, she was writing the word ‘train’ on the back of the door in lipstick. She didn’t think to give out any more details, but it seems enough for the suddenly not-so-bumbling police force. Poor Trevor, that’s what I say. If he finds out about this, he’ll never pick up her pen again. He’ll just leave it, laughing maniacally as it gathers icky floor-dirt.
At the famous train station, Trevor orders Jessica to go buy him a ticket on the next train out of Sweet Valley. (Look who’s being a Mr. Bossy Boots all of a sudden.) Jessica does so, plagued with those thoughts about Trevor’s soulful blue eyes we haven’t heard in about three whole pages. She buys the ticket -- to Portland, Oregon, for those of you playing at home -- and Trevor is content. So content that the “old stare from bio class” comes back. WHY IS SHE STILL THINKING ABOUT THAT? Those ten seconds of chivalry and blue eyes are actually trumping an entire night with him shooting his brother and pointing a gun at her? If guys love Jessica so much, how come she’s so freakin’ desperate?
Then the cavalry arrives again, much more cavalrous (I don’t care if it’s not a word) than last time. So what does panicky Trevor do? He “reeled her [Jessica] in and wrapped his arms around her, feeling her closeness, her warmth, her protection.” The skinny-ass bitch is literally the only thing between him and a shitload of gunfire, and he’s thinking about her closeness and warmth? The lame-o sensitive thing really is getting too much. Jessica can sense this as well, and she manages to break free from his bear hug, because it seems his super manly strength only works on manhole covers. She starts to walk away, and Trevor contemplates his options, even going so far as to convince himself to shoot her. “You shoot her, they shoot you, bang bang, you’re dead, pull the trigger, eat some lead.” Cute. It’s like a creepy little poem. Jessica reminds him that no, he doesn’t have the balls to shoot her because “I’ve seen it in your eyes.” Give me a fucking break. I sincerely hope one of the cops just shoots out Trevor’s soulful blue eyes and we can be done with this shit. Trevor, in a moment of epic lame-o-ness we’ve now come to expect from him, lowers his gun and gets shot in the belly. Nightmare over. (For this week.)
Cut to the cute little wrap-up. Jessica’s in a hospital bed because even if they have no injuries at all, when the Wakefields are brought into a hospital they get a bed. They don’t wait like commoners. Have we mentioned they’re blonde, tanned and size-six? Liz, Lila, Denise and Alex are there with her, as well as the commanding police officer, who pretty much tells us that both brothers are going to be fine and living in a cell for the rest of their lives. (Or whatever the going rate for armed rob is these days.) It seems that Jessica’s over her little crush, by the way. Didn’t take her too long. The cop chastises the graduates from Irritating Dumb Shit Academy about their phone call to Lila, because somebody has to tell them that sort of absurd recklessness is just not on. Then he jokingly chastises Jessica about that fake Elizabeth ID she used at the Theta house. Bahahaha, everybody has a big laugh about it, cue music, roll credits. And look at that -- Trevor was played by Ben Affleck.
Wow, that was big fun. I didn’t realise how unbelievably time-consuming these recaps can be to write. I have an all-new appreciation for your dedication. Hope y’all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.