Sweet Valley High #136: Too Hot to Handle

Even though the last book ended with Jessica feeling all disgusted at her best friend for making out with her brother, she's now furious. She's so furious that Elizabeth drags her upstairs before she can explode. Jessica promptly goes off on Lila for being a terrible friend after everything she did for her. Liz points out that (a) all the clothes they bought are currently in Jessica's room and (b) Lila doesn't even know about the photo album yet. Jess agrees to calm down and wait before saying anything.

Once they finish kissing, Lila goes back to being afraid of what might happen to her. She asks Steven if he really believes that she's innocent. He says he does and believes that up until going to work the next day. The DA, who I'm guessing George picked on when they were kids, refuses to believe that anyone else could have started the fire except for Lila. He basically tells Steven that she's guilty and accuses him of being turned by a pretty face.

Jessica simmers for a whole day before finally exploding on Lila after class. Lila, to her credit, tries to just walk away and escape the situation, but Jess won't let her go. She starts bringing up all these stuff about Steven to turn Lila off like how he wears jeans, doesn't go to fancy restaurants, and once had a burping contest with his friends. Lila actually thinks it would be nice to date someone normal for once. They have a huge fight, and Jessica tells her that they cannot be friends until she's done with Steven.

Meanwhile, new guy Devon leaves Ohio for Las Vegas to track down his uncle. He has an altercation with a woman who owns a hotel for not letting him check in early but calms down and feels bad when she treats him nicely. He starts thinking about Nan, his appropriately named nanny, from when he was a kid. She was the only one who ever really loved him but left him all alone with his parents. I'm crying for you.

Once in Vegas, he starts looking around for his uncle and can't find him. He goes to all these bars where people warn him that his uncle is bad news, and his uncle doesn't have a listed phone number. Devon winds up hitting all the casinos and just randomly asking for the man. Security grabs him, takes him to an office to get the whole story, and then take him to a secret high stakes poker game, where he finally meets his wayward uncle.

Since Devon is my least favorite person, I want to get his story out of the way. Pete, his uncle, bonds with him and takes him out for a steak dinner but sees a gorgeous woman on the way out. He says that it's his ex, Linda, and that he's still in love with her but she won't talk to him anymore. Devon decides to help them find their way back together to show his uncle that he needs him. He also tries to clean up around the place, but Pete tells him he has hired help to do that.

When Devon tells his uncle that he's broke, Pete says it's no problem and that he'll teach him how to earn his keep, which seems to mean sneaking an under aged kid into the casinos until you get him a fake ID. Pete shows up with an expensive piece of jewelry and has him deliver it to Linda. Linda doesn't seem that thrilled but does like Devon. Devon keeps bringing her expensive jewelry and starts bringing other stuff like candy, music, and flowers, all of which Linda likes more than the jewelry.

One night, Devon and Pete play with an older woman named Mrs. R and her daughter. The older woman keeps flirting with him. Her daughter later thanks him for being so nice to her mom and explains that they just wanted to have some fun together after her dad passed away. When he sees them later, Mrs. R is crying because she lost a very expensive lighter that her dead husband gave her. In fact, she lost it at the table they played at together.

Devon tries to convince his uncle to write Linda a love poem and then just writes it himself. He checks the box his uncle gave him and finds the missing lighter inside, so he just gives Linda the letter. She keeps pressing him about whether he brought anything else and then kind of breaks down. It turns out that his uncle stole jewelry from the hotel and used Linda as a fence. Linda fell in love with him and quit being his fence because he didn't feel the same way, but he used Devon to help him get back in her good graces. He heads back, tells his uncle he knows the truth, and then just takes off again as his uncle worries about Linda.

As for Steven, every time he asks if there is someone who might want to get Lila, the twins and Lila herself start to mention John and then drop it. He finally presses Lila for a list of names. She tells him about former employees she fired and Joan, that woman her dad almost married. He keeps pushing her until she finally breaks down and explains what happened with John. Steven is shocked that anyone would want to hurt her.

When he gives his list of names to the DA, the DA could care less. He basically tells him that they know who is behind the fire and that Steven's job is to prove that Lila is guilty. Why would the DA ever care about that pesky old innocent until proven guilty thing? The DA has no interest in going after John or considering his as a suspect either.

Lila decides that since Steven is still rough around the edges that she'll show him the finer things in life. She buys all new linens for the table and new plates and glasses before picking up dinner from the gourmet store. Steven just shovels in his food before going back to talk about the case.

He finally goes to Liz to talk about John. Liz tells him what she knows, which is mainly that John is still the sports editor but is now a loner with no friends. He spends all of his time at one specific computer in the Oracle office. Steven goes with her to the office on a day when John is covering a story. He finds out that the website print out he got at his desk came from the same printer that John usually uses. John then shows up, they get into a huge fight over Lila, and John tells Steven that Lila always ruins everything.

Since Liz is a real C U Next Tuesday, she starts wondering if maybe Lila made up the whole thing. You suck, you are officially my least favorite Wakefield twin, which is really saying something. She reminds Jessica of how Lila once had that shoplifting problem and how she lied about her counselor attacking her. Lila could lie about something like this too, and if she did, it would really explain why John is so mad. I guess she totally forgot about his ex-girlfriend being afraid of him and the other girl he almost raped?

Jessica briefly wonders if maybe Lila going after Steven is another way of her acting out and trying to get attention before quickly changing her mind. She has a hard time believing that Lila would ever burn down her house, if only because she loved her things so much. The twins finally decide to just come together and help each out. They'll show Steven and Lila why they don't work. Liz will beg Steven for help with an article and make him miss big date night with Lila, which Jess knows will just piss her off.

That it does. Lila gets all dressed up and sits home alone while watching the minutes tick by until they miss their reservation. Steven calls and asks her to come and pick him up because he called and changed their reservation. Someone (Jessica) stole his keys and hid them from him, and someone else (Elizabeth) took his spare set from his dresser. Steven acts really distracted during dinner and finally tells her that the DA thinks seeing her is interfering with him being objective.

It hits Lila that he wants to break up, but he points out that they just can't see each other in public after tonight. She kind of has a break down that any woman who was ever dumped will understand with her saying that everyone abandons her. Steven tries to calm her down, but she just wants to go to the restroom and be alone for a bit.

While sitting at the table, something crashes through the large glass window and lands on the restaurant floor. It's a homemade bomb that promptly explodes and sets the restaurant on fire. Steven rushes around to find Lila but gets swept outside with the crowd. Lila finds him outside, where they have a small moment before the cops show up. They announce that they found bomb making supplies in her car and that they have to arrest her. She freaks out and begs Steven for help as they lead her off. He thinks about how he needs to call Ned and vows to find out who is trying to frame Lila...

*So, Lila gets to meet with the insurance company and give the approval to start work on the house, though she doesn't want to replace anything without her parents being there. What kind of insurance company just starts paying out without talking to the actual policy holders?

*Lila says that her parents called their trip a second honeymoon but that it's actually like the fourth trip they took together without her. What the fuck is wrong with those two? George brought Grace back to help Lila and now hogs up all of her time. Does he want his daughter to wind up back in therapy?

*Devon and his whole nanny thing irritates me. He whines and complains about how the woman who worked for his parents left him after his parents let her go. What did he expect her to do, just stick around and take care of him without their permission and without any money?

*Two problems with the whole bomb supplies found in her car. First is that she has a convertible, so anyone could throw that stuff in there. Second is that Steven rode to the restaurant in that car with her. Would he seriously not see a massive bag of fertilizer in the backseat?

*Also, I find it hard to believe that they would find a single person who saw Lila walk to the bathroom, then head in the opposite direction to throw a bomb through the window. Would she even have enough time? It seems like the bomb happened seconds after she left the table.

*Now it's time to call Ned, now? Where the hell has Mr. I'm a Lawyer With No Specialty Who Can Help Anyone When They Need it been all this time?

*Her parents are seriously still out of town and still unreachable. I get that they trust Lila to be alone, but it's now been days with absolutely no contact.

*Lila does bring up the fact that Steven dated Cara. Even though Jessica tried to force them together multiple times before they actually started dating with absolutely no help from her, she claims that it's different.

*Liz really ticks me off in this book. If she's so sure that Lila made up the story about John, why doesn't she go back to being his best friend ever and see how the world treats her?

*Lila names Enid and Bruce as two people who hate her. I only point this out because she actually named them before even considering John.