Hush, Hush: Chapter 12

Jul 05, 2011 19:15

ZeldaQueen: In which there is bland exposition and Vee is annoying

Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
Chapter 12

ZeldaQueen: Nora's cell phone goes off and, after making sure that the librarians won't get pissed at her for having a phone call in the library (what bastards!), she answers and finds out that it's her mother. Apparently her mother is on the way home right now, and will be home a bit sooner than expected. Nora asks how upstate New York was, and her mother says it's very long, that. I bet the Taj Mahal also looks like a biscuit box and women should be struck regularly, like gongs.

Nora tells her mom that she'll be home soon, but that she wants to visit Vee before doing so. Nora's mother is audibly upset at this, but says it's cool. She asks about how Vee's doing, because apparently Nora told her earlier about the surgery. There's a brief moment where Nora's mother sounds like she's going to break down at the thought that it could have been her daughter who was attacked

"'Nora.' I heard the swell of emotion in her voice. 'I'm so glad it wasn't you. I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to you. Especially since your dad-' She broke off. 'I'm just glad we're both safe. Say hi to Vee for me. See you soon. Hugs and kisses.'"

ZeldaQueen: Probably goes without saying that Nora continues to traipse around, stumbling into unsafe places, even though her mother is clearly worried about her and still recovering from the death of her father. Much like Bella Swan, Nora continues to hand wave this behavior by claiming that she doesn't want to tell her mother about her various stalkers and people threatening her life, because she doesn't want to worry her. Yeah, I'm sure her mother would much rather wake up in the middle of the night to get a phone call about how her daughter got landed in the hospital or probably the morgue. That certainly wouldn't worry her. Lovely.

So yeah, by now Nora is at the hospital and makes it to Vee's room. Incidentally, we're never told that Vee's parents visit her while she's in the hospital. You'd think they'd be in there as soon as they could visit their daughter, but I guess they're that increasingly common breed of absent parents in these books. Vee is whacked out of her head on painkillers, making her even more incoherent and annoying than usual. A nurse comes in and fiddles with the IV, before telling Nora that the dose of painkillers she just gave her will kick in in about ten minutes. I have to hand it to Fitzpatrick for not actually name-dropping things like Morphine, like Meyer did. Nora asks Vee what the verdict is, and Vee gives this

"The verdict? My doctor is a lard-arse. Closely resembles an Oompa-Loompa. Don't give me your severe look. Last time he came in, he broke into the Funky Chicken. And he's forever eating chocolate. Mostly chocolate animals. You know the solid chocolate bunnies they're selling for Easter? That's what the Oompa-Loompa ate for dinner. Had a chocolate duck at lunch with a side of yellow Peeps"

ZeldaQueen: See what I mean about how whacked Vee is?

Nora specifies about the injuries, and we're told that it's "One busted arm, a concussion, and assorted cuts, scrapes, and bruises". Nora apologizes and says that she should have been the one hurt. Wait, what? Why? Vee was the one who came up with that stupid idea! There were plenty of ways you could have gotten help without endangering either of yourselves! Anyway Vee protests this, on the grounds that she wants the painkillers and not Nora.

Vee goes on to specify exactly what happened, mysteriously getting perfectly coherent for this important bit. Apparently she made it as far as the graveyard when this mysterious person caught up to her. She continues on to explain that "That's when I looked back, and everything came together really fast. There was the flash of a gun, and him lunging for me. Like I told the cops, my brain wasn't exactly transmitting, 'Get a visual ID.' It was more like, 'Holy freak show, I'm about to go splat!' He growled, whacked me three or four times with the gun, grabbed my handbag, and ran".

Nora goes all "Bluh, what?" at this, because Vee is using masculine pronouns to describe the attacker, when she'd figured before that that it was a woman, what with that stupid "feminine walk" and all that. Vee says that she remembers that the attacker had "charcoal eyes" and wore a ski mask. Nora freaks out at this, remembering crashing into that guy before and wondering if her mind or memories were being tampered with somehow. As a spoiler, yes they are. By an alarming number of people, but that's all I'll say for now.

And...wait a second...nope, Nora still thinks the person stalking her outside of the lingerie shop was a woman and the person who attacked Vee was someone else entirely. Look, I'm not going to pretend that I know or care by this point.

Nora asks Vee who she told about their shopping trip, and aside from Vee's mother, the only person was Elliot. Nora goes all cold at this and tells Vee what really happened the night she hit that "deer". Vee swallows it all pretty quickly, although she is freaked out. Spoilers for the future though - even though she knows someone dangerous is stalking her best friend, she isn't all too concerned with Nora's general security.

Upon further reflection, Vee is convinced that Patch was the guy in the ski mask who attacked her. She insists that they both had the same build - "Tallish. Leanish. Strongish. Sexyish, aside from the attacking part". *head desk* Moving on. No, I did not miss the implication that even while being beaten half to death, Vee had time to appraise how sexy the guy was. Leave me alone.

Nora did tell Patch where they were going, but tries to handwave the blame off of him by arguing that his eyes are black and not charcoal. Yessss, because that's a big difference, isn't it?

So Nora spins the hypothetical scenario that Patch stalked her, found out he was following Vee instead, and hit her with the gun out of anger. She doesn't buy this though, because "The only problem was, I couldn't imagine Patch brutalizing Vee. It felt off. Besides, he was supposedly at a party on the coast all night".

Yeah. I can picture him brutalizing a helpless person alright. Are we reading the same book, Fitzpatrick?

Nora then asks if it was possibly Elliot who attacked her under the ski mask. Vee takes a minute to cut through her drug-induced haze to reply that the attacker was "about twenty pounds too light and four inches too tall". Mighty specific measurements there, for someone in a drug stupor.

Vee continues to insist that she's sure that Patch did it, which leads to her suggesting that they figure out where Patch lives, go through his neighborhood, and find some gullible old neighbor to mount a web camera into her window so they can spy on him. See what I mean about her showing no concern for Nora's health or wellbeing?

Oh, and as much sense as Vee's arguments make here, please keep in mind that Patch is the Designated Love Interest and that Nora keeps bleating about how it just is so odd to think of him attacking someone. So yeah, no bets as to which one is right about Patch, Vee or Nora.

Just as Vee starts to go under for her next drug dosage, Nora reminds her that they do know where Patch works. Oh Christ, this is not heading anywhere nice. Sure enough, Vee immediately starts yammering about how they ought to go there in to sleuth around for information. Considering how Vee's last grand plan resulted in her being in the hospital, I think it's safe to say that she's too dumb to live.

Vee goes all giggly as her drug rush kicks in, while Nora is reminded by a nurse that visiting hours are over. Nora drops off Vee's homework (with Vee telling her that it'd be just fine to leave it in the garbage can), and then heads off for home.

As soon as Nora gets in the house, her mother runs downstairs and throws her arms around her. We get a random description

"My mom has dark wavy hair and green eyes. She's an inch shorter than I am, but we share the same bone structure. She always smells like Loveby Ralph Lauren"

ZeldaQueen: It's not a bad description but pretty pointless, especially given how little time Nora's mother is actually in this book. Anyway, Nora's mother hugs her and tells her that she's glad she's safe. And thus, we end our chapter.

Onward to: Chapter 13

Back to: Chapter 11

Return to to:  Table of Contents

chapter 12, suethor: becca fitzpatrick, fic: hush hush, series: hush hush

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