Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later (5 page)

“Jess! I’ve missed you. I call, but you’re never home.”

Jessica manufactured enough enthusiasm to return a limp hug. “Miss you, too.” And, pulling away, went on to greet the others, starting with the easier ones like Jeffrey French, who had moved back to Sweet Valley after leaving for the East Coast with his family in the middle of high school, and who now had a thriving dental practice; his wife, whose name Jessica never remembered; and A. J. Morgan, who was her competitor for status as the hottest gossip item.

Enid Rollins had known A. J. Morgan since high school, when he was Jessica’s boyfriend. She was secretly crazy about him then, but, of course, she didn’t stand a chance against Jessica.

A.J. had made some changes since high school—unfortunately none for the better—but happily, he now seemed to be as wild about Enid as she was about him. If she had actually been his girlfriend in school, she probably would have dumped him by now, and if she met him today she wouldn’t look twice, but those unrequited desires of school years tend to hang on well after maturity should have used them up. Unfortunately, A.J. wasn’t the best thing for Enid’s image as a serious doctor, hard enough with being a recovered alcoholic, so she kept their relationship very private. Thanks to Caroline, though, not that private. In fact, Enid and A.J. had made gossip headlines for months, though everyone pretended for Enid’s sake not to know about their affair.

Enid wasn’t really Jessica’s competitor anymore, since her best friend relationship with Elizabeth had ended long ago when the “Wuss of the World” turned into Doctor Arrogant.

Jessica felt she had been right about Enid all along. Underneath that humble, self-effacing, best-friend disguise, there was a pretentious, egotistical shit who wanted only to steal Elizabeth from her. Well, they didn’t have to compete anymore. They’d both lost her.

“Hey, how’re you doing?” Jessica took the initiative since they were equal gossipees and she knew she was on safe ground. Enid was not likely to ask her any personal questions.

Jessica looked around for Bruce Patman, but fortunately, he wasn’t there. She dreaded seeing Bruce. Not only did he know too much, but he was still Elizabeth’s best friend.

She was surprised and actually happy to see Robin Wilson there. She looked terrific, having gained back only a tiny bit of that lost weight from her high school years, which was amazing since now she was a successful food caterer and restaurant critic, chin-deep in delicious food every day. She was with her new husband, Dan Kane, a lawyer from Jessica’s brother Steven’s office. It was a wedding Jessica and Todd, armed with some elaborate excuse, had managed to miss.

“Congratulations,” Jessica said. “You look great.”

“Thanks,” Robin said. “I feel great. How are you—” She cut herself off. “You look terrific, too.”

“How about a drink? A Bellini?” Ken offered.

Jessica said, yes, and Todd asked for a beer.

The group seemed to settle down into a normal gathering, nibbling on guacamole and little sausage bites, drinking this and that and chatting among themselves. When the subject moved on to some boring thing about a planned pocket park downtown, Jessica began to relax.

She took a sip of her Bellini and thought maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad. And it was nice being with old friends. But she didn’t count on Caroline.

“So,” said Caroline, “any word yet?”

Jessica looked at Caroline, a person she had known since kindergarten and never liked. Always matronly, even as a little girl, she was consistently taller than most of the other girls, and for a while, most of the boys. Plus, she was squarish. Even after puberty, when she had breasts and she wasn’t fat, she had no real waistline. No curves, just straight up and down, up to about five-ten. And she always looked hungry, leading with her nose, smelling out gossip fodder to chew on. And she usually found it. So people were a little afraid of Caroline, who was not always fair. Or as a lot of people said, never fair, certainly not if it interfered with a good story.

“Oh, yeah, lots of words,” Jessica said.

Incredibly enough, Todd, who was on the other side of the room, heard his beloved, heard her tone, and spun around and crossed the fifteen-foot room in about three steps.

Meanwhile, Caroline’s face lit up like neon. Was she really going to hear it right from the villain’s mouth? Wow!

Over the years there had been lots of scandals and gossip in Sweet Valley, but this one, the Todd and Jessica story, was far and away the winner. And it was going to be hers. Of course, all the other people listening would cut down on the embellishments. If only she could pull Jessica over into a corner. But, still, when word spread, she would be the go-to for inside information. Her head was spinning with anticipation.

“Jess!” Todd called out, waving his hand. “I have to show you something.”

Jessica didn’t even look at him. Her eyes were boring into Caroline’s eager face. She took a step closer and now she was but inches from Caroline. Close enough to bite her nose.

“Yeah, lots of words.” Jessica looked around. “For everyone…”

She slowly turned back to Caroline. “… but especially for you.”

Todd wondered how Caroline could not see the bloody sledgehammer coming. But she seemed not to.

“I’ve known you for over twenty years,” Jessica said in a very soft voice that belied the words, “and like most people in Sweet Valley, I don’t like you. You’re malicious and you never mean any good. Most people are too afraid of your vicious tongue to tell you, but I’m not. Not anymore.”

Caroline just stood there, nailed to the spot. It was rare anyone ever attacked her, and she was too stunned to move.

Then Jessica turned on Lila. “Why did you invite me when you knew this pig was going to be here? For entertainment? Thanks, best friend. Let’s go, Todd.”

Todd, grateful that it was no worse, took Jessica’s arm, and together they walked out of the living room, down the hall, and out the front door. No one followed.

Once out in the car, Jessica said, “What?”

“You did good.”

“Do you think any of them will still come to the wedding?”

“Every one of them.”

“Caroline, too?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Right.”

Jessica looked at Todd, the anger gone. “Will it ever not be painful?”

3

New York

The theater was on Forty-fourth Street on the west side of Manhattan, in a converted loft building between Ninth and Tenth avenues. Elizabeth had Googled the theater and found out the building had been converted to a hat factory in the thirties and stayed that way until hats bombed out in the late sixties. For a time, it became a storage space. For the last five years it had been an Off-Broadway house that still felt like a storage space storing, instead of hats, rows of tacky, incongruous plush red velvet theater seats probably picked up cheap when some old movie palace was torn down. The seats were inconsiderately placed one directly behind the other, and with no incline in the floor, it was almost impossible to see comfortably from anywhere but the first few rows. However, for a first-time playwright like Will Connolly, the idea of having a play anywhere in New York City, especially a theater with this kind of proximity to Broadway, made it almost magnificent.

Green-and-yellow-striped banners hanging from a flagpole outside announced
The Follies of 1763,
a new play with music that revealed the love triangle of the venerable lexicographer, essayist, and poet Samuel Johnson; his biographer, James Boswell; and the object of their affections, Mrs. Hester Thrale, written by the same Will Connolly. Posters bordered the entrance with photos of actors in eighteenth-century costumes in the midst of what had to be a serious argument: angry faces with heads jutting turtlelike at each other in attack mode. Somehow, it had a comic feel.

Not an autobiographical first play in the kitchen-sink style, Elizabeth guessed. Since getting the job at the magazine eight months ago, she’d been enjoying the hubris of being something of a theater insider, the result of endless catch-up play reading and watching hours of American Theatre Wing interviews and other theater panel shows. No, not autobiographical at all; in fact, an unusual and risky choice for a debut play. Not a musical, but a play with music. She had asked to read the script but was told the author had refused. It made her even more curious.

Elizabeth tried each side of the double front doors, but they were both locked. And there was no one around to ask how to get inside. A tiny wisp of panic at the thought of screwing up her first interview by not finding something as stupidly simple as the stage door entrance hit the theater insider, adding more discomfort to the heat of the late July day. And then she saw the blessed smoker, an older man, his face creased from years of cigarettes, looking very theatrical in his jeans and wifebeater worn under a suede vest. He was sitting on the stoop in front of the brownstone next door, smoking away.

“Excuse me,” she asked. “Are you from the show?”

“I am.” Just those two words gave away his Irish accent. “What can I do for you?”

“I have an appointment with the playwright and I’m not sure how to get inside.”

Elizabeth was hot enough to move the man into action. He pushed himself up from the step, crushed his cigarette with his shoe, and walked over to Elizabeth.

“Follow me,” he said, leading her to another door a few feet down from the front entrance. “You’re here for the auditions, right?”

“Sort of.”

The man hesitated and turned to Elizabeth, now suspicious. Was this one of those nutty fans or an actor without an appointment? Actors would try anything. “What do you mean, ‘Sort of’?”

“Well, it’s more like a magazine. Do you know
Show Survey
?”

“No.”

“You’re an actor, aren’t you?”

“Stagehand’s union.”

“Well, it’s like a Zagat for Off Broadway, and I write for it.” She hated that description, felt it denigrated the magazine, but it led to instant understanding. Despite her own disapproval, she found herself using it more often than she wanted.

“Ah, so you’re a writer.”

Immediately, her credit rose from lowly, needy actor, one step below everyone, to intellect. Elizabeth loved that fringe benefit, though she still didn’t think she deserved it. She had been writing professionally for close to five years but still felt like she was in on a pass.

“Follow me,” he said, pulling open the heavy metal door. “See that door at the end? That’s the theater part. They’re all in there.”

He watched as she walked down the hall to the doorway, turned, waved him a thank-you, then pushed open the door and disappeared inside.

Elizabeth stepped into the theater and was blinded momentarily by the darkness, which was cut only by the dot of light way down front on stage. With the exception of a piano, the stage was empty. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out the outline of four people sitting in the first few rows of the audience. Three were sitting together and one was sitting a couple of rows behind on the aisle.

The light from the briefly opened door made the lone sitter turn.

“Who’s there?” he shouted.

“Elizabeth?” It was so tentative it sounded more like a question than an answer.

“Elizabeth?”

“Yes.”

“Get out!”

Her first instinct was to flee, but before she could, one of the other three, a large square figure, jumped up. From the back of the theater Elizabeth could see from the outline what was kindly referred to as an ample woman.

“Easy, Will,” the woman said gently to the man who had shouted, her voice softened by a pleasant Texas accent. She called out to Elizabeth, “Are you from
New York
magazine?”

“
Show Survey
?” Another question, not answer.

“Not
New York
magazine?”

“No.
Show Survey…”

“
Show Survey
?”

“You know the Zagats…”

“The giveaway,” the man next to her said.

“Well, actually we don’t give it—”

“That’s okay, honey. You come on down here.” The woman took a few steps over to the shouter, leaned over, and whispered something in his ear. Elizabeth could see him put his feet up on the seat in front of him. He was the only one who didn’t turn when she got closer.

“I’m Bala Trent,” said the big woman, putting out her hand. “I’m one of the producers, and the man with the big welcome is your subject, Will Connolly, the writer. You’re Elizabeth, right?”

Elizabeth shook the producer’s outstretched hand and smiled at the others, who stopped talking and turned to greet her. No one else got up.

Pointing to the two seated men, the producer said, “That’s Bob Ross, our director, and Neil Quest, our music director.”

Both mumbled a pleasant How do you do, and turned back to their conversation.

“Elizabeth Wakefield,” Elizabeth said to their backs.