Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later (17 page)

“Have you told Mom and Dad?”

Elizabeth takes my hand. “Of course not. No one could know before you.”

There is nothing left for us to do but cry. Which we do. Hers the happy tears, and mine? Who knows? All tears look the same.

With no luggage beyond my overstuffed purse, I have nothing to delay my entrance, so arm in arm we walk to the front door. It’s not locked, and Elizabeth throws it open wide with a proud
“Ta-da!”

And there it is, the big
WELCOME HOME, JESSICA
sign. It actually gives me the first true smile of the day.

“I love it! But your art talent is definitely failing. Actually, it sucks.”

“I didn’t do it. Todd did.”

Before I can comment on that surprising news, Todd himself appears.

I just stand there, hot, flushed, and empty of words, stunned at the intensity of my own response.

Then, pushing my Jessica the Adorable button, I smile and shriek, “I love it!” and rush in to hug my soon to be brother-in-law.

I can feel his slight withdrawal, but it doesn’t stop me from squeezing my arms around him. Within an instant, he responds and returns the embrace. For a moment, the feel of our bodies touching hits both of us. Like an electric shock, it spins us back so we’re almost jumping away from each other.

I’m sure no one watching would know anything unusual happened. Certainly no one who didn’t want to see anything unusual happening. Like Elizabeth. So the welcoming goes well.

That night and the next day, Elizabeth is like clucking around the two of us, making sure her chicks are comfortable, encouraging us to talk and working hard to squeeze some smiles out of us with old-time high school stories. The awfulness of Winston is her best subject and one that Todd is most likely to join her in. She’s so busy arranging things that she doesn’t notice the thinly disguised wariness and unease with which we treat each other. Nor does she notice—not consciously, anyway—the fact that he and I are rarely in the same room together. And when we are, we barely look at each other.

That’s the way it had continued for that entire week: Jessica Wakefield, living in the same house as Todd Wilkins, who just happened to be writing at home, all day, every day, for the next ten days. They had given him an extension on his deadline for the second and third piece. Of course, Jessica wasn’t working, so she was right there, too. Elizabeth kept talking about what a perfect trio they would make, what fun they could have, the three of them together, if only she could have been there, but she wasn’t. She had to work. All day, every day.

That’s how Jessica destroyed her sister’s life.

*   *   *

Perhaps, if Elizabeth had looked more closely or been less Elizabeth … But of course, that was impossible. Though she was always very observant, when it came to her sister, her acute observation was blinded by an unconditional love that no one should have after the age of five.

Besides, on the surface the Jessica-Todd relationship didn’t look any different than it had for years.

It’s not that I don’t know that there’s tension between Todd and Jessica, but they’ve always had their little problems, even in high school. Though on the surface this last week, they seem like old friends. Sometimes, anyway. And, after a couple of glasses of wine and a nice dinner, pretty comfortable with each other. But there’s an undercurrent that keeps me a little uneasy.

Neither of them thinks I know what it’s about, but I do. Though it makes me unhappy, there’s nothing I can do about it.

It’s possessiveness. On both sides. They each feel they own a piece of the same person—me.

No matter how they feel about each other, there’s no choice. Jessica needs me, and that’s it. Todd will have to accept that he’s involved in an unusual situation. We’re twins and always will be, with all the unique baggage that carries.

If only I could talk to a friend about it. But there’s no way. It would be a betrayal. I have never betrayed my sister and, no matter what her faults, she would never betray me.

I wish I could be home with Jessica, that all three of us could be together. Maybe then they would get over whatever animosity they have for each other. After all, they’re going to be related soon enough. Very soon. Probably this fall.

9

Sweet Valley

Todd was awake and out of bed before seven the next morning. Even though the sky was overcast and the report was for rain, he grabbed his sneakers, shorts, and a T-shirt, dressed in the hallway outside the bedroom, and slipped quietly out of the house, careful not to wake Jessica. Not that she would have wanted to run on this kind of a morning—it was hard enough to get her out on a sunny day—but he didn’t want to take the chance. He needed to be by himself.

As it turned out, though, he wasn’t going to be. Just as he got to the end of the driveway, he saw Ken Matthews turning the corner onto his street and waving. There was no way Todd could pretend he hadn’t seen him.

There was nothing to do but wait up for him.

Todd had kept up a fairly good friendship with Ken; they had the sports stuff in common—Todd the writer and Ken the player. But Todd and Jessica hadn’t seen much of the Matthews in these last eight months, not only because of their impending divorce, but because neither he nor Jessica was feeling very social in these last months. But Todd still maintained a separate relationship with Ken. Not close enough for him to talk about his elephant in the room, but better than just bullshit guy talk. Besides, Ken had his own elephant.

Ken caught up with Todd, and they started running. Silently, through the soft, early-morning haze, past the neat lawns and newly planted trees that would need another forty years before they looked as if they belonged.

After about half a mile they left their development and hit empty space, vacant farmland that would probably be more houses in another year or so. Ken started talking.

“What’s happening, man?” he asked, not even breathing hard.

Todd was. “Not much,” he huffed. “How about you?”

They were moving at a medium-fast jog, and Todd felt it. He hadn’t been doing much running lately since much of his time was spent with Jessica, who wasn’t terribly interested in sports, either watching or playing. And he certainly wasn’t playing basketball. The team from Napkin, the local restaurant, hadn’t asked him, so he was a little out of shape. It was better when he let Ken do the talking.

“Status quo,” Ken said. “Not too exciting. A little weird, I guess, you saw the other night. Not your usual separation, but I’m doing what I want until Lila tells me different.”

“You two look pretty good together. Are you going to work it out?”

Thanks to Caroline Pearce, everyone knew they were seeing lawyers and working on a divorce, but also that Ken was still hanging around the house more than often. That was also a Caroline tidbit.

Obviously, Ken was conflicted, and Lila must have had some of the same hesitancies because she let him stay. And Lila wasn’t one to do favors, so maybe it wasn’t quite over.

“I don’t know,” Ken said. “Even though she’s been my wife for almost two years, Lila’s unpredictable.”

“What about you?”

“Who knows? Sometimes I think I’m still in high school, chasing the cheerleader. Sick, huh? I’m almost thirty, so why am I still playing that game? On the other hand, it’s like I’m still on the varsity team. Okay, it’s NFL, but the life is not a hell of a lot different. Everything is still about winning and losing.”

Todd didn’t say anything. It was too close; Lila and Jessica had been best friends since grade school. He always thought they were too much alike. Now he hoped he was wrong, but there were undeniable similarities, enough of them to make him a little nervous.

Was this just high school for him, too? That whirlwind of sexual obsession and heart-ripping passion that charged in and knocked you out of reality? Sometimes it was worse, ripping up everything around you leaving nothing but destruction and broken lives.

Just because you admit it doesn’t absolve you, he told himself, then gave himself a little leeway. It helped to know he was aware.

“Of course, if you want a better scoop,” Ken was saying, “you could always ask Caroline. By the way, Jessica was beautiful the other night, the way she chewed her out. Of course, it doesn’t really make any difference. Nothing stops Caroline. Jessica gave it to Lila, too. And she wasn’t all wrong.”

He had to admit Jessica was good that night. She surprised him with her strength. It was almost like what Elizabeth would have done. Bad job, comparing them.

Stay light.

“Jessica asked me if I thought Caroline would come to the wedding.”

“Are you kidding?” Ken laughed. “She wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Todd stopped and, leaning over, he put his hands on his knees and took some deep breaths. Ken waited on the side and watched him. Between breaths, Todd said, “Desk job. Went from a player to a watcher.”

“Miss it?”

“Yeah, but I miss a lot of things.”

“Can’t tell by looking at you.”

That came in handy, Todd’s laidback demeanor. He was always hard to read. He’d never needed that talent more than he did when Jessica first came back from France and was staying with Elizabeth and him.

My head is pounding from Jessica’s endless
why-I’m-leaving-Regan stories
.
Turns out he’s a monster, or she thinks he is, anyway. Of course Elizabeth, the big, protective sister, goes with anything she says.