Sweet Valley High #65: Trouble at Home

Ned and Alice are constantly fighting and things at home are always tense. Ned makes a few comments, indicating that he’s bored with his career and wants a change. Alice works on a presentation for the new addition to the Valley Mall. Her firm gets the job and they put her in charge, which means that she is always working late and never home.

Mr. Santelli throws a huge fundraising dinner for his mayoral campaign. The next day, the newspaper runs a story that he was taking bribes. They discovered a $10,000 deposit made into his account, but he claims he doesn’t know how it got there. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that I would notice a deposit of that size in my bank account! He literally claims that he didn’t know it was there.

The police press charges on him and he has a trial set. Ned agrees to work as his lawyer and Steven comes back, covering the trial for one of his law classes. Alice and Ned fight about that too because she thinks he is taking on too much responsibility and that there is no way of winning the trial. The trial ends with the judge deciding that there isn’t enough evidence in either direction. Since he wasn’t found innocent, everyone figures his campaign is over and Ned feels responsible.

Ned comes home in a bad mood and Alice comes home on top of the world. She even brings home a bottle of champagne to celebrate her new job. Ned explodes at her, saying that at least she can be happy now and that no one in the family will ever see her now. I love how he can work as late as he wants, but he expects Alice home for dinner every night. I also love that he wines about not getting to do protest marches or anything in college. So, did Alice just go to all those without him? Or, did she give it all up when they started dating?

The whole family conveniently takes a trip to Lake Tahoe together every year, even though it was never mentioned before and never mentioned again. Liz worries that her mom will back out on the trip because of work, especially when she starts talking about all the work left to do. She tells her mom’s assistant Julia that her mom really needs the weekend break. She agrees to give her the number at the main lodge, but only if they only call for emergencies. Julia promises to convince her mom to go on the trip.

Jessica sees Hank Patman and another guy stop by the house. Apparently Hank and Ned are buddies when the storyline calls for it! She overhears them asking her dad to take Mr. Santelli’s spot and run for mayor himself. He promises to think about, but she immediately starts imagining all the parties and special attention she will get as the daughter of the mayor.

The family takes off and everything goes fine for the first day. Alice skips out on the family game of charades to do more work, which pisses Ned off. Someone from the lodge comes down the next day because Alice has a phone call from work. Ned flips out and she promises that she didn’t give out the number, but takes the phone call anyway. She takes a few more phone calls, even though it obviously bothers Ned.

The family decides to take a family horseback riding trip on the last day. Jessica lets it slip that she knows her dad is considering running for mayor. Alice is shocked that he didn’t tell her himself, but he says he wanted to have a serious conversation and they never have enough time. She gets another phone call and comes back, saying that she needs to go back to Sweet Valley and do work.

Ned tells her that if she is never going to be home, then he needs to make some changes. He announces that he will run for mayor and then neither one will ever be there. He tells Alice not to leave, but she doesn’t see the big deal because she’s only leaving a few hours before them. Ned warns her that if she walks out, she is walking out on the family and walking out on the marriage. Alice says they can talk later, he tells her that if she leaves the marriage is over and she rides off by herself.

The B-plot involves Jessica finding a chatline for teens advertised on television. She calls and starts talking to this guy Charlie. Briefly she thinks about the 99 cent per minute rate and the fact that she talks 30 minutes every day ,but blows it off. She decides that she is in love with Charlie and Amy warns her that she should at least meet the guy. They start talking to each other on their home lines, but every time she suggests a date, he has an excuse. At the end of the book, she still hasn’t met him, but thinks she likes him anyway.