SWEET VALLEY HIGH #24: MEMORIES

Memories picks up with a scene that makes much more sense if you read the last one right before this, or at least had some idea of what happened. Steven was at a party and flirting with Cara, but then Betsy Martin showed up and flipped out at him because her sister’s only been gone for ten books! In Sweet Valley time that could be anywhere from a week to six years.

Steve runs home and cries himself to sleep, vowing to always keep Tricia in mind. Jessica tries to make him feel bad by pointing out how much Cara liked him, but he won’t listen. Liz is all heartbroken because Todd is back in Vermont and she can’t do squat without him attached to her hip. There’s also some charity volleyball game with a dance later (of course) and she’s upset that she won’t have a date.

Jessica turns all snoopy (big surprise) and hears Alice on the phone with Winston’s mom. She learns that his uncle is some hotshot movie director (who will never, ever be mentioned again) and decides that she has to get closer to Winston. They have to pair up with someone in school and do a report on a famous author. Lila wants to do Hemingway because he’s related to Murial, but she picks Winston who’s doing F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Steven continues to spend all his free time with Betsy and it makes me want to shake him. He comes back from school for days at a time, mopes around the house and basically does as little as possible. Meanwhile Liz sees a guy who looks exactly like Todd and becomes obsessed with him until she finds out he goes to Big Mesa.

Jessica and Liz also fight over Cara. Jess wants her best friend and brother to start dating and Liz thinks Cara is a huge gossip and basically no damn good. They even fight with Steve sitting between them because they forget he’s there and he has to break up the fight.

Jess starts hanging around Winston’s house all the time and even tries to convince him to take her to the dance, but he thinks she’s talking about Liz. Then she finally meets his uncle Marty and tells him they have similar interests so he tells her he’d love to talk to her about his work sometime.

The day of the game, Liz spends hours getting dressed up because Michael/Todd’s look alike will be at the game. Oddly enough, both girls end up looking exactly the same with some checked shirt and matching shorts. Steven’s friend from high school Artie shows up and convinces him to come to the dance later.

They get to the game and Liz starts fucking up because Michael is on the other team and he keeps looking at her. How can he resist a perfect size 6, California blonde? The rest of the team think she’s a moron, but Jess completely calls her on her shit. Jess then decides that to get the team the win, they need to count on a “special twin” play they used to do as kids where she hit’s the ball to Liz, Liz pretends to hit it back, but really hits it over the net. Um, that’s a regular play, you didn’t invent that and it doesn’t take twins to do it.

Sweet Valley wins of course and Michael comes up to Liz. He uses a few lines like, “I’ll be waiting for you” and she turns into a blathering idiot, drooling on herself. Jess gets Cara to talk to Steven at the dance, but he runs off with Betsy once again. Artie dances with Cara and asks her out on a date, which she agrees to because she can’t think of an excuse.

Liz spends time with Michael and decides he’s a jerk, nothing like Todd. He leaves his paper plate under his chair instead of finding a trash can (you ass, what do you think, that people actually clean up after dance? Lol), ridicules the sandwich setup Winston sat out for dance food and constantly talks about himself. He should realize that Liz only likes it when people talk about her. She eventually ditches him for Winston and later Jess does the same thing, which really pisses him off.

The next day Jess mentions that Cara doesn’t really want to go out with Artie and tells Steven that Car’s alive, unlike Tricia. He also has to sit through Artie getting help on planning his date. Steven finally decides to call and apologize and she confesses that she cancelled her date. Just as she’s about to hang up, he asks her out and they plan a special picnic. The date goes great, but he asks her not to talk about it. Yeah, because teenage girls never talk about their dates with their friends. Liz talks to Cara and tells her that she saw how happy Cara made her brother and realizes that she was wrong.

Steven asks Cara out for her birthday and lets her pick the place. He shows up with a book, how romantic and gets freaked out when she picks Valley Inn because that was where he and Tricia shared their last date, but of course he doesn’t tell her that. They have a great time together (order: prime rib, salad, baked potato…pretty fancy for a high school date) until Steven hears the band play Always, which was Tricia’s favorite song. He flips out and runs off while she’s still on the dance floor. Nice guy…

He apologizes yet again, but confesses that he’s not ready to date anyone else. Jessica sneaks over to Winston’s and meets with his uncle, but then learns that he’s a civil engineer. Turns out that the director got held up in London. Don’t worry though because she tells Liz she already put in all the hard work so she’ll stay close to him.

Liz visits Betsy and tells her that she made Tricia a promise she wishes she had stuck to. Back when Tricia was sick, she asked Liz to not tell Steven so he could move on with his life. She now realizes that if he hadn’t spent that last few weeks with her, he would have got over her a lot faster and wouldn’t have been hurt so much when she died. Sure…Betsy realizes that she made a mistake too, by forcing Steven to live in the past.

Steve gets a message that he has to meet a friend under the clock at Sweet Valley High and runs into Cara who got the same note. Teddy Collins rides up with a package for each one. Each gets a beautifully drawn picture of the other and Steve also gets a note from Betsy. Cara tells him that she’s still there if he wants her. The end.

Things I Learned:

If you act like a complete and total doormat and let a guy treat you like shit, he’ll eventually realize that he’s in love with you.

It only takes a few weeks/books to get over the love of your life.