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#44 – Pretenses

* Photo credit to The Closet *

Yeah, so that’s supposed to be Steven Wakefield and his lady love Cara Walker, who appears to be pretty cute at first glance, but when I examine closely, it’s up for debate. Steven—don’t get me started on him. He looks like a ROBOT. He’s got department-store-mannequin hair and NO SOUL behind his eyes. What is that in his hand? Are they fighting over the dinner bill?

Jessica—who’d insisted on her brother and her friend dating in the first place—decides “that Cara and Steven were no longer the ideal couple” that she suddenly wants them to break up. Why, you ask? Get a load of these sociopathic antics: “For one thing, she preferred having her friend all to herself, and for another, she was sick of so many of her good friends being involved in such serious relationships.” HATE! Why, Jess, why? I was just beginning to not want to push you down a flight of stairs!

Cara’s throwing herself a belated birthday party, even though her birthday was months earlier. Um, okay. She’s regretting mentioning the birthday gathering at the Marine House to Abbie Richardson, some rando with a “well modulated” voice, because she’s invited too many people already, but Jess assures her that Abbie won’t care because she hasn’t hung out with them for years (but now she’s back in the picture because she just got dumped by a dude from Palisades High—yeah, she’s THAT friend). Abbie desperately wants for everyone to like her so she’s sickeningly agreeable about everything, like carrying people’s lunch trays for them and volunteering to clean up after everyone in art class. I hate her already, especially since all she aspires now post-breakup is to impress Liz Wakefield and be her friend.

Liz and The Oracle geeks (eek! Great new band name) all depressed because the school paper isn’t as popular as it used to be, based on a POLL they sent out. They take this so seriously! Winston Egbert tells them that what the paper is missing is humor—comics, puzzles, the like. They decide to have a “humor competition” (oh, what a thrill that sounds like), and Abbie goes to work on submitting her really unfunny comic “Jenny,” which is about the ups and downs of a teen girl, and all she can think is, “She just hoped Elizabeth liked it. As far as Abbie was concerned these days, Elizabeth Wakefield could do no wrong.” GROAN!!!1 Why is the ghostwriter doing this to me?

Steven has to come home from school for almost two weeks to take a bunch of vigorous allergy tests and sinus X-rays, and Jess warns Cara that familiarity breeds contempt, so she suggests injecting a little “mystery” in the relationship. Who wants to take relationship advice from Jessica Wakefield? Basically all she’s good for are BJ tips. But Steven comes home and acts distant and unromantic (and sick), and Cara begins to think Jess is right.

Doubly unfortunate for Cara, Abbie is all excited about Cara’s birthday party and her mom even wants to buy her a new dress for the event. My stomach kind of plummets here; I actually feel bad for her. She even goes to the mall to buy Cara a birthday present—a silver ring. Awk-ward! Cara does nothing to try to explain the whole I-invited-too-many-people thing, which would’ve cleared up everything, including the need for this story, I suppose. She asks Liz why Cara didn’t invite her, invoking Liz’s smothering need to fix the world.

Steven acts all weird at Cara’s party, and she catches him outside, reading a note written on pink stationary. They get in a fight about it, and nothing’s really resolved. Abbie gives Cara the ring, and Cara feels like a Turd Ferguson.

Abbie goes over the Wakefields’ to get Liz’s help with the “Jenny” cartoon (which is clearly “Cathy” for teens), and meets Steven, who said he already met Abbie at Liz’s “video party.” Please let that mean what I think it means. Steven admires Abbie’s sketches, and before you know it, he’s spilling his guts to her and she’s giving him such wise, mature advice, and Abbie can’t help but think “how great the Wakefield family was.” GROSS! I’m sick of these people. Abbie starts “becoming a permanent fixture around the house,” and everyone’s in love with her because she’s so nice. That’s her only trait, really. Jess tricks her into doing stuff for her and Liz gets pissed, blah blah.

Anyway, Steven finds a letter typed in italic typeface on pink stationary sticking out of his history book that goes on and on about how the person pines for his sexy Wakefield ass, and he has no idea who it’s from. Meanwhile, he’s hanging out with Abbie (not like he has a choice, she’s always at his house) and saying things like, “You’re so understanding. I wish Cara were a little more like you.” Ugh. He confides in Abbie about the letters he’s getting and how they’re on the stationary his dead ex Tricia Martin used to write him and now he’s all haunted by her. Cara, by the way, is sobbing around town that Steven no longer loves her, but instead of talking to him about it, she decides to “back off and act as disinterested as he is.” Oh, geez. Even Jessica thinks this is stupid.

Now Steven’s comparing Abbie and Cara constantly, and Abbie is seeing him as more than a friend. Liz suspects something shady is going on between the two of them because she saw Steven touch Abbie’s arm, so she and Jess snoop around at the stationary store and find out that a brunette their age is buying the pink stationary—it must be Abbie! Especially since Steven would rather take her to a Lakers game instead of Cara! Dude, I’m be piiiiiiissssssed if I were C.Walk right now. Jessica vows to get back at Abbie for being a boyfriend-stealer, and Lila Fowler breaks down and tells Cara about Steve taking Abbie to the game, to which Cara literally mutters, “I’m going to kill them all.” LOL—Cara’s inner Margo. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Steven’s shows Abbie the fourth letter he’s written and hands it to her when he goes upstairs for nothing but the convenience of Jessica walking in the room to see her holding the letter. Abbie guiltily stuffs the letter in her bag, and out pop the Wakefield police, demanding to know how she could be so deceitful and rotten. Abbie feels so awful, she’s about to rush to the nearest nunnery; after all, “not only was she being accused, but she was being accused by Elizabeth and Jessica and Steven, the three people she had come to like and respect more than anyone else.” I feel ill after reading that. But then she flips out: “All my life I’ve tried to be nice and do things for other people… I see now what really comes of being nice to people.” Burn! And Abbie leaves—yes, she walks out on the Wakefield kids!—feeling good about herself. Yes, I’d feel good if I told them all off too.

Then Cara shows up and tells Steven that she’s been writing the letters all along, and was only using that paper because she’d asked the saleslady for “something romantic.” They make up after agreeing to never let miscommunication get in the way and going on for pages and pages, rehashing why they were fighting. Then Cara and the Wakefields all go over to Abbie’s to kiss her ass and drink lemonade. And Ned gets another ticket so EVERYONE goes to the game. And “Jenny” gets to be a weekly feature in The Oracle! HAPPY ENDINGS!

Other Notes:

  • In this book, we find out what became of Bruce and Amy post-Regina’s doom! They apparently “date occasionally,” and Jess chalks his relationship with Regina up to being “a fluke”—“now he was back to his old antics.” How annoying! How can he be completely over Regina and continue to date Amy with a good conscience? This is only four books later! Steven’s STILL mourning Tricia, and she bit it about five years ago! I do not support this. Then again, I think I’m expecting too much of rich high school boys.
  • Lila feels so bad about telling Cara about Steven and Abbie that she actually feels compassion toward her friend, something the book acknowledges is a Lila first. Haha.
  • “Jenny” suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccksss!

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