Crescendo: Chapter 12 (Part 2)
May. 23rd, 2013 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zelda_queenZeldaQueen: And we continue on, watching Nora become incredibly disturbing
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
Chapter 12 (Part 2)
Nora decides to slash it up and pulls Vee “flush” against her (is “flush” to Fitzpatrick what “chagrin” was to Meyer?) and tells her she’s not bailing now. Which makes no sense, since Vee was just talking about rooting through Marcie’s old pictures, indicating that she was still on board for the plan.
This all is interrupted as Marcie “sashayed” out, holding a punch bowl. She promptly gets pissed that Vee showed up uninvited. We’re apparently supposed to think badly of her for that, but I’d be pretty annoyed myself, if people brought uninvited guests. I know some people are more relaxed about that sort of thing, but it irks me that people are being so generous with bringing other people into your house. Add in the fact that it’s frigging Vee being brought over, and I think Marcie is well within her rights to be annoyed.
Fitzpatrick makes sure that we completely hate Marcie by having her first insult the color diet and how Vee cheated on it. This has no effect on me, partially because I forgot about that stupid thing already, and partially because Fitzpatrick herself played it for laughs! Kind of hard to take it seriously after that! Marcie then goes on to mock Nora’s black eye, and Vee makes a “witty” retort, in which she pretends to mistake Marcie’s talking for a dog farting. Stay classy, Vee. It’s not like she doesn’t already like you and, in a sane world, would kick both of you out.
Vee continues to drag the dog fart joke out for far too long (incidentally, do dogs even make noises when they do that? The ones I’ve known have only ever done SBDs…), to the point where she suggests feeding the dog a Tums. Yes, that line really happened. Yes, this is so stupid my brains are trying to escape out my ears.
For whatever reason, Marcie doesn’t just send them away. Instead, she’s oh-so-floored by this “joke”. Or rather, I suspect that’s what we’re supposed to think. I’m just going with the idea that she knows it’s not worth her time arguing with those idiots. Instead, she shoves the punch bowl at them and demands that they put donations in it. We’re told for the first time that the bowl is filled with money, as Marcie explains to us “You didn’t really think I invited you here without an agenda, did you? I need your cash. Pure and simple”.
… Jesus Christ. Did Marcie recently shave off a mustache? Because she apparently is very good at the art of twirling one.
I can only presume that she’s seriously strapped for cash, because we’re continuously told how Nora is obviously poor, and Vee hardly seems like the wealthiest pigeon to go after. But no, near as we see, Marcie’s sole motive for inviting Nora to the party is to get twenty bucks out of her, for a fundraiser she’s holding. And what’s she fundraising, incidentally?
“New cheerleading uniforms. The squad wants ones with bare midriffs, but the school’s too cheap to spring for new ones, so I’m fund-raising”
ZeldaQueen: Are you even surprised, at this point?
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 67
Incidentally, the school’s only not allowing those things for budget reasons? So, does this particular high school have no dress code? I can buy some things being fundraised, because I know student-run organizations and the like aren’t the responsibility of the school, but cheerleaders aren’t an extracurricular group. I’d think the school would have the power to veto outfits they don’t approve of. And one thing that I’ve heard almost all high schools agree on, at least when I was in high school myself, was that exposed midriffs were not allowed. I could possibly buy the approved skirt lengths or necklines differing from school to school, but there are still limits.
Not to mention the obvious, “Dur hur, Marcie’s slutty!” And it’s a double-whammy here, because she’s a cheerleader! Which makes her doubly slutty! Because that’s how cheerleaders are, amiright? And to hammer that point home, Vee response to Marcie’s announcement with “The term Slut Squad will take on a whole new meaning”.
Pray tell, what “whole new meaning” is that? “Slut Squad” isn’t exactly something that can be a double entendre, unless you were originally using it to suggest that the cheerleading girls were all terrible housekeepers.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 68
Marcie, quite understandably, loses her patience at this point and demands that they pay up. Vee, being the wonderful friend that she is, shifts the entire bill on Nora. You know, the girl with the massive speeding ticket to pay off and very little spare income anyway. Lovely, that.
Nora begins trying to haggle a lower price from Marcie. Here’s an idea, Nora! Why don’t you go home? You’re going in there because of your creepy desire to stalk Patch’s movements! You don’t need to go there! Yet again, Nora is being taken advantage of just because she’s a dumbass who refuses to take the higher ground and just walk away!
Oh, and for some reason, Marcie Informs us that “I have to do five hundred crunches every night so I can trim my waist from twenty-five to twenty-four inches before school starts. I can’t have an inch of fat if I’m going to wear a bare midriff”. That’s…good to know?
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 69
Is this supposed to be a parody? Because this is running headlong into parody territory here.
Oh God, speaking of, we get more komedy! While Nora tries to avoid thinking of Marcie in a “promiscuous cheerleading uniform”…
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 70
Vee decides that she’ll foot the bill anyway, and drops a wad of…something into the bowl. Marcie bitches because Vee threw it in without giving her a chance to count it, and Vee promptly makes a lame joke about how she didn’t think Marcie could count to twenty. Yes, because hot cheerleaders aren’t just sluts, they’re stupid! I see Fitzpatrick’s rounding out this disgusting stereotype nicely.
Anyway, even though Marcie’s supposed to be so big and bad and mean, she just lets them in after all that. She goes off, trying to fish out the amount Vee donated. When she’s out of earshot, Vee explains that she just tossed in a condom (because apparently the lawn is littered with them, yeah) and “Who knows, maybe Marcie’ll use it. Then I’ll have done my part to keep her genetic material out of the gene pool”.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 73
That’s one point for making yet another jab at Marcie’s sex life, one for joking about her use of birth control (and considering how much she’s supposed to put out, I certainly hope she uses it, or else we just got more than a few unfortunate implications!), and one for yet again having the entire party be a bunch of sex-obsessed nuts. Granted, I didn’t go to a lot of parties in high school, but do you really find condoms dropped on the lawn, especially when the party has just started?
Incidentally, how the flying flip did Vee pass off a condom as a wad of bills? If it was used, it would be a wad of rubber. If it was still in the package, IT WAS IN THE FRIGGING PACKAGE! And no, I’m not accepting “Marcie’s just that stupid” as an explanation. Not only would a condom look different, it would also feel different. She was pawing around in there, remember? Does Fitzpatrick think that a dollar bill feels like rubber? And unless tossing condoms in there was a running joke amongst the partygoers, I think she’ll catch on to Vee’s little joke immediately.
Naturally, she doesn’t. Reality has no part in this series, folks.
So Vee and Nora go inside, and we’re told how people are tangled up on chairs, dancing, or talking and laughing. It all sounds like folk are having fun, but Nora instantly starts bitching about how no one is paying attention to them. Well hon, why don’t you try talking to someone? You can’t complain about how unpopular you are, because we never actually see you even try to interact with other students!
Nora shows no inclination to join in the party. She considers how easy it will be to slip off unnoticed to steal the diary, then informs us that “Trouble was, I was beginning to think I hadn’t come here tonight to snoop through Marcie’s bedroom and find evidence that she was with Patch. In fact, I was dangerously close to thinking I’d come because I knew Patch would be here. And I wanted to see him”.
And no, ladies and gentlemen, she doesn’t want to see him to find out if he drugged her. Or to again demand her ring back. Nothing like that. She’s forgotten all about that, remember? She’s forgotten that the last time she saw Patch, she said he had a “black soul” and she never wanted to see him again. And hey, this all totally negates what she’d said previously, right? No wonder Patch doesn’t leave her alone! He knows she’ll change her mind if he bugs her enough, so isn’t it a good thing he does just that?
Anywho, who should appear at this moment but Patch! But of course! And it’s because he’s with Marcie, naturally. He’s not stalking Nora anywhere, or anything like that. Nora proceeds to creepily stare at him and wank over his hotness
“His eyes were the color of night and his hair curling under his ears looked like it was six weeks past needing a cut. He had a body that instantly attracted the opposite sex, but his stance said I’m not open to conversation”
ZeldaQueen: I’m sorry, I just laughed at that. His eyes are dark, you say? No shit! And here I thought they’d changed color since we last heard Nora rhapsodize about them! And that last sentence, just…what? Yes, apparently everyone is into Tall Dark and Creepy (well, all girls. Gay men don’t seem to exist here anymore than in Meyer’s world), but he is gloweringlike the sky so they ignore him. That sounds real appealing, there. It also yet again makes me wonder why we’re supposed to like Nora and Patch. They’re a couple of stuck-up snobs who can’t be bothered with common people.
Oh, and we get some bitching about how Patch doesn’t have his baseball hat on, which means Marcie has it. But Nora totally doesn’t care about that, nope! She’ll just go on about it for a paragraph, because it totally isn’t significant! I have to wonder, incidentally, why Patch the Bad Boy is obsessed with wearing a baseball hat of all things. It hardly seems like something that shouts “Bad Boy Angel” to me, but what do I know?
Anyway, Nora ceases her bitching just long enough to inform us that someone named Jenn Martin, who Nora apparently had math with once, is chatting him up. We have never before heard of Jenn and we never will again, so I fail to see why Fitzpatrick even bothered with that set-up. It’s even worse than Meyer throwing out random students, because she at least throws their names out more than once! In any case, Nora yammers on and on and on about how Patch is not really paying Jenn any attentionbecause he’s a douche because he’s just so attentive to what all’s going on. Nora refuses to shut up about his posture and stance and what it means, which is probably supposed to show us how she’s oh-so-attentive and knows him so well, but it fails. Nora is not attentive, since she can’t remember for two chapters that she wanted Patch out of her life! Her making random deductions about how he’s holding himself isn’t going to convince me otherwise!
Nora starts looking elsewhere, before he can see her staring with “regret and longing”. So yes, apparently already over the dream mindrape. That’s so good to know. She notices a dude by the name of Anthony Amowitz, who she apparently had PE with. Again, never heard of him before and never going to hear about him after this scene’s over. This is going to make the next bit rather baffling.
Basically, Anthony smiles and waves at Nora, which is what you’d think a regular nice person would do if they noticed someone looking at them. Nora promptly gets ridiculously happy that someone is “excited” to see her and Vee. First of all, I doubt anyone would be happy to see Vee. Second of all, how does smiling and waving at someone indicate you’re “excited” to see them?
In any case, Vee notices who Nora’s staring at. Her immediate question? “Why is Anthony Amowitz using his pimp smile on you?”
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 74
That was just uncalled for. It’s not like he was leering at her or staring at her boobs or pretending to wank while looking at her! He was being nice and smiling! What is up with Vee?
Nora, in a rare fit of sanity, calls Vee out on this. Of course, she says the only reason Vee thinks he’s a pimp is because he’s at this party. Because of course all friends and associates of Marcie must be just as whorish as she is. Except for Nora and Vee, of course, because they're the Protagonists and thus are Different
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 75
Like I said, I can tell now why Nora and Vee don’t have any friends. I doubt many people would want to hang out with such judgmental twits.
Anyway, Vee makes it clear that she sees nothing that contradicts her line of reasoning. Meaning that yes, in her head, being at Marcie’s party automatically makes one a sexbot.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 76
Nora tells her that Anthony’s just being nice, and to smile back. Vee response with “Being nice? He‘s being horny.”
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 77
You know, I have to wonder why Vee is hating on this poor guy for his perceived horniness. She spent the entire last book lamenting being a virgin. She’s spent the entirety of this book being physically affectionate with her own boyfriend. And she doesn’t exactly show an aversion to Nora and Patch getting hot and heavy with each other. What, is it only wrong for a guy to be horny if he’s not suitably attractive?
*sighs* Don’t answer that, guys.
At this point, Anthony shouts over to Nora that she looks good. He has a “goofy” smile on his face, so Vee concludes that he’s “Not just a pimp, but a smashed pimp”.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 78
Because it’s not like different people have different smiles. Or that what constitutes a “goofy” smile is probably different from person to person. Or that there’s more to drunken behavior than smiling funnily. Nope! He smiled goofily, so he must be drunk!
And yeah, Nora never contests that. So Vee gets in one final jab at how Anthony is “Drunk and hoping to corner you alone in a bedroom upstairs”.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 79
Yeah, you’ve got to watch out for those evil horny guys! Why, they might even pretend all the phones aren’t working and their truck broke down, just to trick you into going into a motel room with them so they can throw you on a bed and talk about killing you! It’s a good thing Patch doesn’t do anything like that! He’s just the paragon of masculine virtue!
We time skip ahead to a whole…um, five minutes, in which time someone has spilt beer on Nora’s shoes (of course), but no one has yet thrown up on her. Pity, that. We’re cheerfully informed that there’s apparently been a steady stream of guests running outside to vomit already, which makes me wonder if the party snacks went bad. Either that or the drinks were drugged, because the party just started. How fast and how much do you have to drink to have everyone streaming out to vomit that early?
Anyway, someone named Brenna Dubois, who might have falling into this place from a UFO, for all we hear about her, brings a plastic party cup to Nora. She informs her that it’s “compliments of the guy across the room”. Erm, this isn’t a bar, y’know. I don’t believe most teenage parties have random guests act as runners so guys can anonymously send girls drinks. In fact, I believe most parties have guys directly bring drinks to girls they want to chat up, because you have to talk to someone to chat them up.
Ah well, reality doesn’t matter! This sets up for more komedy in which Nora and Vee both think Anthony sent her the drink. Vee says something along the lines of “I told you so”, because I guess guys can’t offer drinks without wanting in your pants. Nora refuses the drink on the grounds that she isn’t comfortable accepting an open container of beverage that came from an unknown source. If she’d actually remembered the card from before, I’d think she was learning (though I’m not sure how many teenagers say something could be “tainted with GHB” instead of “spiked with a date rape drug”). But no, this is just more set-up. Nora tells Brenna to take the drink back to Anthony, and Vee charmingly and openly refers to the poor boy as “Anthony Pimp-o-witz”.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 80
Brenna, who apparently isn’t bothered that she’s been asked to be someone’s busboy or that someone is being incredibly bitchy for no reason, tells them that the drink wasn’t from Anthony, oh my no! It was from the dude on the other side of the room, who Brenna helpfully describes as “hot and wearing a black shirt”. It was, of course, Patch, who has run off somewhere. And naturally, because it’s Patch, that just makes this scenario so much better! I mean, we aren’t hearing Vee go on about how Patch is such a pimp! Nor do we hear Nora still worried that the drink has been spiked, which you’d think she would be concerned about, SINCE SHE ALREADY THINKS HE DRUGGED HER YESTERDAY! No, she just takes the drink, tellingly thinking how she sees “no choice but to take the cup”. Nora, I assure you, there is a choice. You can tell Brenna to keep it for herself. You could throw it out the window. You can do any number of things with it. Once again, you just fold like a house of cards, because your Suethor is determined to force you back with Patch, lobotomizing you if necessary.
Nora notices that the drink is a Cherry Coke, and instantly starts wangsting over how this was the drink Marcie spilled over her. She starts wondering this is some way Patch is trying to remind her of getting in a fight at the Devil’s Handbag. Doesn’t it speak well of this relationship, how highly she thinks of him?
At this point, Vee shoves a walkie-talkie into Nora’s hand (yes, really) and starts trying to get her to go upstairs and steal the diary. Nora says she doesn’t want to steal the thing, pointing out in a massive understatement that it’s wrong. Vee tries to prod her into it with “It won’t feel wrong if you steal it so fast that the guilt doesn’t have time to soak in” and “Tell yourself this isn’t wrong enough times, and you’ll start to believe it”. Have I mentioned that I hate Vee?
When this line of *cough* reasoning doesn’t work, Vee outright tries to bribe Nora into doing it, offering her the school magazine’s entire annual budget. And lo, we find out why Vee wants Nora to steal the diary - because publishing it in the school magazine could “make [her] career”.
… Yes, Vee. I’m sure an outrageous article that reads like it belongs in supermarket tabloids would really help with a real-life career! At least, it would until you get suspended or expelled for printing things that Marcie assuredly did not consent to let you print. Or get the school have their ass sued by the Miller family for what you did. Or the libel charges, which are a possibility. All it would take is you publishing one untrue thing, and I doubt you would check your sources, Vee.
But no, never mind journalistic integrity! Vee wants to get a juicy story and humiliate Marcie! Okay, I know that stories can be printed about celebrities and the like that are blatantly false. Like I said, it’s the sort of thing you find in rags in the check-out line of the supermarket. Here’s the thing - the people who print those are going off of the hope that either the celebrities they write about can’t be bothered suing them, or that they make enough money from the sales to deal with lawsuits. Vee is printing this story in a fucking high school, and it is not being paid for. She will get no money to counter if she was sued, and I think it’s safe to say Marcie and her family would take action against the accusations. I also doubt any of the students would be interested enough in the article that it would have any hope of launching Vee's journalism career.
And there’s no way that Vee would get away with it. Her name would be on the article. Not to mention, I think the other folks running the magazine would wonder where all their money went off to. Add in the fact that Nora and Vee are joined at the hip, that Marcie and Nora have an obvious rivalry going on, and that Marcie would probably realize that the diary went missing just after both of them were in her house, and it’s very likely that Nora would also be getting in trouble for stealing it. So Nora would likely also be getting suspended or expelled (which would put a lovely dent in her alleged plans to go to Harvard, wouldn’t it?) and sued (which would work fantastically with the fact that she’s dirt poor).
Really, there’s quite a lot of fail in there, isn’t there? And the saddest part is, neither girl seems aware of that. In fact, the whole issue is treated comically, with Nora telling her idiot of a friend “bad Vee”. But hey, isn’t it all so funny? Vee wanted to totally ruin a girl’s life by publishing her entire sex life for the entire high school to see, and would almost certainly ruin her own life and the life of her best friend in the process! Hilarious!
Right. Moving on. Nora asks why they have walkie-talkies, and Vee insists that it’s because they’re spies. Oh Christ, this is stupid. Nora points out that they could text. Given that it would be much quieter, that makes it the more logical option and thus Vee refuses to accept it. Instead of arguing, Nora asks if Vee is sure Marcie’s bedroom’s on the second floor. Um, most people have their bedrooms on the second floor, you know. It makes for better privacy. But no, this is just an opportunity to slut-shame Marcie more, as Vee cites her…um, source...
“One of her ex-boyfriends sits behind me in Spanish. He told me every night at ten sharp Marcie undresses with the lights on. Sometimes when he and his friends are bored, they drive over to watch the show. He said Marcie never rushes, and by the time she finishes, he has a cramp in his neck from staring up”
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 81
ZeldaQueen: *tiredly* Can we get on with the breaking in and entering?
Some stupid “banter” later, Nora finally starts trying to steel her nerves enough to go upstairs
“My stomach seemed to weigh twice as much as it had three minutes ago. I hadn’t done anything, and I was already sick with guilt. When had I become low enough to snoop in Marcie’s bedroom? When had I let Patch twist and tangle me up this way?”
ZeldaQueen: You know, I’ve ranted about how Patch is a horrible influence on people. I’ve ranted about how Nora has become a far worse person since she’s hung around him. But this?
THIS IS ENTIRELY ON NORA.
Patch is not making her go through Marcie’s room. No one is making her do this. She decided she “has” to do it, and is the one who believes it can’t be otherwise. We all know her excuses are bullshit, and that nothing will make her stop mooning over Patch because Fitzpatrick wants them to stay together. There is no excuse. She can’t shift this onto another character. Nora is a spineless pile of shit. There is nothing - NOTHING - keeping her from turning around and leaving, except - le gasp - Vee might accuse her of chickening out.
But okay, let’s humor the text. Nora things this is Patch’s fault? Fine.
So what does that say about their relationship?
Nora has just admitted here that Patch has twisted her up and made her a worse person. She knows what she’s doing is wrong, yet (somehow) she believes that Patch has put her in this position. She believes her boyfriend is forcing her into a morally wrong situation.
So why, WHY, should we like him? Leaving aside the stalking and the abuse and the sexual assault, we are told RIGHT THERE that he is making Nora worse AND YET HER GETTING TOGETHER WITH HIM LATER IS TREATED AS THE GREATEST THING EVER.
So we can really only take two things from this. The first is that Patch is ruining Nora, and yet we’re still supposed to like him for it. The second is that Patch isn’t making Nora worse, and the idea that breaking into someone’s bedroom isn’t something she should feel guilty over.
You decide which it is. Neither option reflects very well on this book.
So. Nora goes upstairs, and we get a lot of unnecessary description of what it looks like. We finally find Marcie’s room, which is described as being full of pink things - pink curtains, pink bed sheets, pink walls, etc. I have no idea why Marcie’s room looks like someone barfed Peptobismol all over it, considering that she’s never acted like a stereotypical pink-loving girly-girl, but whatever! She’s a cheerleader, and all cheerleaders love pink, right? It just comes with the territory, like being blonde!
Oh, and apparently Marcie has huge posters of herself, in which she’s posing “seductively” in her cheerleading outfit. You…just talk amongst yourselves on the implications of someone having a sexy picture of themselves in their bedroom.
Nora notices Patch’s hat, and promptly steals it. She also sees a spare set of keys to his Jeep, and steals those too. Then, she decides to go rooting through Marcie’s room, to see if Patch gave anything else for Nora to steal
“I opened and closed a few dresser drawers. I looked under the bed, in the hope chest, and on the top shelf of Marcie’s closet”
ZeldaQueen: And now, I feel the urge to hide under the bed. This is just chilling, how she’s so emotionlessly describing rummaging through Marcie’s stuff. This isn’t some silly teenage prank! This is just horrifying! This is the stereotype of the insane ex who refuses to accept that the guy she broke up with has a new girlfriend, and decides to get revenge by leaving dead squirrels on said new girlfriend’s front porch. I honestly believe Marcie should take out a restraining order on Nora now, and am thanking any and all deities that there isn’t a pet bunny in this house because, at the rate Nora’s going at, it’d surely end up in a cooking pot.
And on a different note, a hope chest? Seriously? Why does Marcie have one of those? For everyone who, like me, never heard of those things outside of Back to the Future: Part II, they apparently are chests that girls fill with things that will be useful for married life. I have never kept one, no one in my family has kept one (at least not to the extent of my knowledge), and I have not known as single woman who has bothered with one. I have no clue why Fitzpatrick thinks someone like Marcie - a teenage girl who we’re told is greatly interested in brief relationships and no interest in marriage - would have one. Fail. Again.
So anyway, while Alex Forrest here is rummaging under Marcie’s mattress, she finds the diary. Just as she’s about to poke through it, Vee gets on over the walkie-talkie. She informs Nora that Marcie owns a huge dog, and it’s headed towards her. Given how we were told the Millers are all about appearances, I’m not sure why they’d own a huge dog that would surely slobber over guests and shed on the furniture and chew stuff up, but whatever. We get a cheap jab as to how much Marcie looks like the dog, and then Vee starts whining about how it’s coming towards her. Well Vee, dogs do have senses of hearing, you know. Maybe if you were quietly texting, it wouldn’t hear you and come over.
And of course, the dog decides to go upstairs. And then Marcie shows up. Of course. Nora goes to shove the diary back under the mattress, but drops it and instead thinks it’s a great idea to shove it in the waistband of her pants and take it with her. Because that’s faster than just cramming it under the mattress, and surely won’t lead to problems later.
Nora goes to climb out the bedroom window, and there’s some pointlessness about how the screen’s already out, because Marcie must routinely sneak out that way. Are screens that slide up and down like normal windows rare? All the windows in my house have them, and they’re pretty convenient. Ah well, never mind that (though it’s more interesting than the “tense” scene going on here). Nora slips onto the part of the roof that slopes near the window, and hangs on while Marcie tries to get the dog out of her room. Nora also starts panicking because of her fear of heights, which technically didn’t come out of nowhere since it was very briefly established in the first book, but still comes across as kind of out of left field.
I honestly have a difficult time figuring out exactly what’s going on here, because it’s written so clumsily. From what I can gather though, Marcie starts trying to look out the window, to see what her dog’s trying to get after. Nora uses the walkie-talkie to call Vee, and for the life of me I can’t understand how Marcie can’t hear that. Yes there’s a party going on, but Nora’s right there. For that matter, I also can’t figure out why no one’s noticed Vee standing at the foot of the steps, using a walkie-talkie. In my experience, those things are used by children, for amusement. Now, if Vee were texting, I could buy her blending in. Good going on your logic, Vee.
Anywho, Nora calls Vee and asks her to get Marcie to leave. Vee does this by calmly informing Marcie that the police are at the door, and that she “noticed illegal substances in the hands of a few guests”. Marcie snappishly asks why this matters to her, and again I don’t care how stupid we’re supposed to buy she is, this is just braindead. Vee tells her that alcohol’s illegal for minors and Marcie acts like the police busting her orgy/party is just exasperating. How the hell has she kept her oh-so-scandalous life a secret from her parents, thus far?
Oh, and she accuses Vee of calling the cops, to which Vee says “And lose the free food? No way”. It’s funny because Vee’s fat, you see. But it’s only funny if it’s anyone but Marcie making those jokes. And I’d think that Vee should have said something along the lines of “And get arrested for being at a party distributing alcohol to minors? No way!” but that’s just me.
Whatever. Marcie leaves, dragging the dog with her. Nora goes to climb back in the room and, ha ha, surprise surprise, the window is now locked.
ZeldaQueen: *tiredly* Who didn’t see that one coming?
And because this has rambled for far too long, we shall conclude this in Part 3. Good night!
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 81
Onward to: Chapter 12 (Part 3)
Return to: Chapter 12 (Part 1)
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Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
Chapter 12 (Part 2)
Nora decides to slash it up and pulls Vee “flush” against her (is “flush” to Fitzpatrick what “chagrin” was to Meyer?) and tells her she’s not bailing now. Which makes no sense, since Vee was just talking about rooting through Marcie’s old pictures, indicating that she was still on board for the plan.
This all is interrupted as Marcie “sashayed” out, holding a punch bowl. She promptly gets pissed that Vee showed up uninvited. We’re apparently supposed to think badly of her for that, but I’d be pretty annoyed myself, if people brought uninvited guests. I know some people are more relaxed about that sort of thing, but it irks me that people are being so generous with bringing other people into your house. Add in the fact that it’s frigging Vee being brought over, and I think Marcie is well within her rights to be annoyed.
Fitzpatrick makes sure that we completely hate Marcie by having her first insult the color diet and how Vee cheated on it. This has no effect on me, partially because I forgot about that stupid thing already, and partially because Fitzpatrick herself played it for laughs! Kind of hard to take it seriously after that! Marcie then goes on to mock Nora’s black eye, and Vee makes a “witty” retort, in which she pretends to mistake Marcie’s talking for a dog farting. Stay classy, Vee. It’s not like she doesn’t already like you and, in a sane world, would kick both of you out.
Vee continues to drag the dog fart joke out for far too long (incidentally, do dogs even make noises when they do that? The ones I’ve known have only ever done SBDs…), to the point where she suggests feeding the dog a Tums. Yes, that line really happened. Yes, this is so stupid my brains are trying to escape out my ears.
For whatever reason, Marcie doesn’t just send them away. Instead, she’s oh-so-floored by this “joke”. Or rather, I suspect that’s what we’re supposed to think. I’m just going with the idea that she knows it’s not worth her time arguing with those idiots. Instead, she shoves the punch bowl at them and demands that they put donations in it. We’re told for the first time that the bowl is filled with money, as Marcie explains to us “You didn’t really think I invited you here without an agenda, did you? I need your cash. Pure and simple”.
… Jesus Christ. Did Marcie recently shave off a mustache? Because she apparently is very good at the art of twirling one.
I can only presume that she’s seriously strapped for cash, because we’re continuously told how Nora is obviously poor, and Vee hardly seems like the wealthiest pigeon to go after. But no, near as we see, Marcie’s sole motive for inviting Nora to the party is to get twenty bucks out of her, for a fundraiser she’s holding. And what’s she fundraising, incidentally?
“New cheerleading uniforms. The squad wants ones with bare midriffs, but the school’s too cheap to spring for new ones, so I’m fund-raising”
ZeldaQueen: Are you even surprised, at this point?
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 67
Incidentally, the school’s only not allowing those things for budget reasons? So, does this particular high school have no dress code? I can buy some things being fundraised, because I know student-run organizations and the like aren’t the responsibility of the school, but cheerleaders aren’t an extracurricular group. I’d think the school would have the power to veto outfits they don’t approve of. And one thing that I’ve heard almost all high schools agree on, at least when I was in high school myself, was that exposed midriffs were not allowed. I could possibly buy the approved skirt lengths or necklines differing from school to school, but there are still limits.
Not to mention the obvious, “Dur hur, Marcie’s slutty!” And it’s a double-whammy here, because she’s a cheerleader! Which makes her doubly slutty! Because that’s how cheerleaders are, amiright? And to hammer that point home, Vee response to Marcie’s announcement with “The term Slut Squad will take on a whole new meaning”.
Pray tell, what “whole new meaning” is that? “Slut Squad” isn’t exactly something that can be a double entendre, unless you were originally using it to suggest that the cheerleading girls were all terrible housekeepers.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 68
Marcie, quite understandably, loses her patience at this point and demands that they pay up. Vee, being the wonderful friend that she is, shifts the entire bill on Nora. You know, the girl with the massive speeding ticket to pay off and very little spare income anyway. Lovely, that.
Nora begins trying to haggle a lower price from Marcie. Here’s an idea, Nora! Why don’t you go home? You’re going in there because of your creepy desire to stalk Patch’s movements! You don’t need to go there! Yet again, Nora is being taken advantage of just because she’s a dumbass who refuses to take the higher ground and just walk away!
Oh, and for some reason, Marcie Informs us that “I have to do five hundred crunches every night so I can trim my waist from twenty-five to twenty-four inches before school starts. I can’t have an inch of fat if I’m going to wear a bare midriff”. That’s…good to know?
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 69
Is this supposed to be a parody? Because this is running headlong into parody territory here.
Oh God, speaking of, we get more komedy! While Nora tries to avoid thinking of Marcie in a “promiscuous cheerleading uniform”…
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 70
Vee decides that she’ll foot the bill anyway, and drops a wad of…something into the bowl. Marcie bitches because Vee threw it in without giving her a chance to count it, and Vee promptly makes a lame joke about how she didn’t think Marcie could count to twenty. Yes, because hot cheerleaders aren’t just sluts, they’re stupid! I see Fitzpatrick’s rounding out this disgusting stereotype nicely.
Anyway, even though Marcie’s supposed to be so big and bad and mean, she just lets them in after all that. She goes off, trying to fish out the amount Vee donated. When she’s out of earshot, Vee explains that she just tossed in a condom (because apparently the lawn is littered with them, yeah) and “Who knows, maybe Marcie’ll use it. Then I’ll have done my part to keep her genetic material out of the gene pool”.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 73
That’s one point for making yet another jab at Marcie’s sex life, one for joking about her use of birth control (and considering how much she’s supposed to put out, I certainly hope she uses it, or else we just got more than a few unfortunate implications!), and one for yet again having the entire party be a bunch of sex-obsessed nuts. Granted, I didn’t go to a lot of parties in high school, but do you really find condoms dropped on the lawn, especially when the party has just started?
Incidentally, how the flying flip did Vee pass off a condom as a wad of bills? If it was used, it would be a wad of rubber. If it was still in the package, IT WAS IN THE FRIGGING PACKAGE! And no, I’m not accepting “Marcie’s just that stupid” as an explanation. Not only would a condom look different, it would also feel different. She was pawing around in there, remember? Does Fitzpatrick think that a dollar bill feels like rubber? And unless tossing condoms in there was a running joke amongst the partygoers, I think she’ll catch on to Vee’s little joke immediately.
Naturally, she doesn’t. Reality has no part in this series, folks.
So Vee and Nora go inside, and we’re told how people are tangled up on chairs, dancing, or talking and laughing. It all sounds like folk are having fun, but Nora instantly starts bitching about how no one is paying attention to them. Well hon, why don’t you try talking to someone? You can’t complain about how unpopular you are, because we never actually see you even try to interact with other students!
Nora shows no inclination to join in the party. She considers how easy it will be to slip off unnoticed to steal the diary, then informs us that “Trouble was, I was beginning to think I hadn’t come here tonight to snoop through Marcie’s bedroom and find evidence that she was with Patch. In fact, I was dangerously close to thinking I’d come because I knew Patch would be here. And I wanted to see him”.
And no, ladies and gentlemen, she doesn’t want to see him to find out if he drugged her. Or to again demand her ring back. Nothing like that. She’s forgotten all about that, remember? She’s forgotten that the last time she saw Patch, she said he had a “black soul” and she never wanted to see him again. And hey, this all totally negates what she’d said previously, right? No wonder Patch doesn’t leave her alone! He knows she’ll change her mind if he bugs her enough, so isn’t it a good thing he does just that?
Anywho, who should appear at this moment but Patch! But of course! And it’s because he’s with Marcie, naturally. He’s not stalking Nora anywhere, or anything like that. Nora proceeds to creepily stare at him and wank over his hotness
“His eyes were the color of night and his hair curling under his ears looked like it was six weeks past needing a cut. He had a body that instantly attracted the opposite sex, but his stance said I’m not open to conversation”
ZeldaQueen: I’m sorry, I just laughed at that. His eyes are dark, you say? No shit! And here I thought they’d changed color since we last heard Nora rhapsodize about them! And that last sentence, just…what? Yes, apparently everyone is into Tall Dark and Creepy (well, all girls. Gay men don’t seem to exist here anymore than in Meyer’s world), but he is glowering
Oh, and we get some bitching about how Patch doesn’t have his baseball hat on, which means Marcie has it. But Nora totally doesn’t care about that, nope! She’ll just go on about it for a paragraph, because it totally isn’t significant! I have to wonder, incidentally, why Patch the Bad Boy is obsessed with wearing a baseball hat of all things. It hardly seems like something that shouts “Bad Boy Angel” to me, but what do I know?
Anyway, Nora ceases her bitching just long enough to inform us that someone named Jenn Martin, who Nora apparently had math with once, is chatting him up. We have never before heard of Jenn and we never will again, so I fail to see why Fitzpatrick even bothered with that set-up. It’s even worse than Meyer throwing out random students, because she at least throws their names out more than once! In any case, Nora yammers on and on and on about how Patch is not really paying Jenn any attention
Nora starts looking elsewhere, before he can see her staring with “regret and longing”. So yes, apparently already over the dream mindrape. That’s so good to know. She notices a dude by the name of Anthony Amowitz, who she apparently had PE with. Again, never heard of him before and never going to hear about him after this scene’s over. This is going to make the next bit rather baffling.
Basically, Anthony smiles and waves at Nora, which is what you’d think a regular nice person would do if they noticed someone looking at them. Nora promptly gets ridiculously happy that someone is “excited” to see her and Vee. First of all, I doubt anyone would be happy to see Vee. Second of all, how does smiling and waving at someone indicate you’re “excited” to see them?
In any case, Vee notices who Nora’s staring at. Her immediate question? “Why is Anthony Amowitz using his pimp smile on you?”
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 74
That was just uncalled for. It’s not like he was leering at her or staring at her boobs or pretending to wank while looking at her! He was being nice and smiling! What is up with Vee?
Nora, in a rare fit of sanity, calls Vee out on this. Of course, she says the only reason Vee thinks he’s a pimp is because he’s at this party. Because of course all friends and associates of Marcie must be just as whorish as she is. Except for Nora and Vee, of course, because they're the Protagonists and thus are Different
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 75
Like I said, I can tell now why Nora and Vee don’t have any friends. I doubt many people would want to hang out with such judgmental twits.
Anyway, Vee makes it clear that she sees nothing that contradicts her line of reasoning. Meaning that yes, in her head, being at Marcie’s party automatically makes one a sexbot.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 76
Nora tells her that Anthony’s just being nice, and to smile back. Vee response with “Being nice? He‘s being horny.”
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 77
You know, I have to wonder why Vee is hating on this poor guy for his perceived horniness. She spent the entire last book lamenting being a virgin. She’s spent the entirety of this book being physically affectionate with her own boyfriend. And she doesn’t exactly show an aversion to Nora and Patch getting hot and heavy with each other. What, is it only wrong for a guy to be horny if he’s not suitably attractive?
*sighs* Don’t answer that, guys.
At this point, Anthony shouts over to Nora that she looks good. He has a “goofy” smile on his face, so Vee concludes that he’s “Not just a pimp, but a smashed pimp”.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 78
Because it’s not like different people have different smiles. Or that what constitutes a “goofy” smile is probably different from person to person. Or that there’s more to drunken behavior than smiling funnily. Nope! He smiled goofily, so he must be drunk!
And yeah, Nora never contests that. So Vee gets in one final jab at how Anthony is “Drunk and hoping to corner you alone in a bedroom upstairs”.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 79
Yeah, you’ve got to watch out for those evil horny guys! Why, they might even pretend all the phones aren’t working and their truck broke down, just to trick you into going into a motel room with them so they can throw you on a bed and talk about killing you! It’s a good thing Patch doesn’t do anything like that! He’s just the paragon of masculine virtue!
We time skip ahead to a whole…um, five minutes, in which time someone has spilt beer on Nora’s shoes (of course), but no one has yet thrown up on her. Pity, that. We’re cheerfully informed that there’s apparently been a steady stream of guests running outside to vomit already, which makes me wonder if the party snacks went bad. Either that or the drinks were drugged, because the party just started. How fast and how much do you have to drink to have everyone streaming out to vomit that early?
Anyway, someone named Brenna Dubois, who might have falling into this place from a UFO, for all we hear about her, brings a plastic party cup to Nora. She informs her that it’s “compliments of the guy across the room”. Erm, this isn’t a bar, y’know. I don’t believe most teenage parties have random guests act as runners so guys can anonymously send girls drinks. In fact, I believe most parties have guys directly bring drinks to girls they want to chat up, because you have to talk to someone to chat them up.
Ah well, reality doesn’t matter! This sets up for more komedy in which Nora and Vee both think Anthony sent her the drink. Vee says something along the lines of “I told you so”, because I guess guys can’t offer drinks without wanting in your pants. Nora refuses the drink on the grounds that she isn’t comfortable accepting an open container of beverage that came from an unknown source. If she’d actually remembered the card from before, I’d think she was learning (though I’m not sure how many teenagers say something could be “tainted with GHB” instead of “spiked with a date rape drug”). But no, this is just more set-up. Nora tells Brenna to take the drink back to Anthony, and Vee charmingly and openly refers to the poor boy as “Anthony Pimp-o-witz”.
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 80
Brenna, who apparently isn’t bothered that she’s been asked to be someone’s busboy or that someone is being incredibly bitchy for no reason, tells them that the drink wasn’t from Anthony, oh my no! It was from the dude on the other side of the room, who Brenna helpfully describes as “hot and wearing a black shirt”. It was, of course, Patch, who has run off somewhere. And naturally, because it’s Patch, that just makes this scenario so much better! I mean, we aren’t hearing Vee go on about how Patch is such a pimp! Nor do we hear Nora still worried that the drink has been spiked, which you’d think she would be concerned about, SINCE SHE ALREADY THINKS HE DRUGGED HER YESTERDAY! No, she just takes the drink, tellingly thinking how she sees “no choice but to take the cup”. Nora, I assure you, there is a choice. You can tell Brenna to keep it for herself. You could throw it out the window. You can do any number of things with it. Once again, you just fold like a house of cards, because your Suethor is determined to force you back with Patch, lobotomizing you if necessary.
Nora notices that the drink is a Cherry Coke, and instantly starts wangsting over how this was the drink Marcie spilled over her. She starts wondering this is some way Patch is trying to remind her of getting in a fight at the Devil’s Handbag. Doesn’t it speak well of this relationship, how highly she thinks of him?
At this point, Vee shoves a walkie-talkie into Nora’s hand (yes, really) and starts trying to get her to go upstairs and steal the diary. Nora says she doesn’t want to steal the thing, pointing out in a massive understatement that it’s wrong. Vee tries to prod her into it with “It won’t feel wrong if you steal it so fast that the guilt doesn’t have time to soak in” and “Tell yourself this isn’t wrong enough times, and you’ll start to believe it”. Have I mentioned that I hate Vee?
When this line of *cough* reasoning doesn’t work, Vee outright tries to bribe Nora into doing it, offering her the school magazine’s entire annual budget. And lo, we find out why Vee wants Nora to steal the diary - because publishing it in the school magazine could “make [her] career”.
… Yes, Vee. I’m sure an outrageous article that reads like it belongs in supermarket tabloids would really help with a real-life career! At least, it would until you get suspended or expelled for printing things that Marcie assuredly did not consent to let you print. Or get the school have their ass sued by the Miller family for what you did. Or the libel charges, which are a possibility. All it would take is you publishing one untrue thing, and I doubt you would check your sources, Vee.
But no, never mind journalistic integrity! Vee wants to get a juicy story and humiliate Marcie! Okay, I know that stories can be printed about celebrities and the like that are blatantly false. Like I said, it’s the sort of thing you find in rags in the check-out line of the supermarket. Here’s the thing - the people who print those are going off of the hope that either the celebrities they write about can’t be bothered suing them, or that they make enough money from the sales to deal with lawsuits. Vee is printing this story in a fucking high school, and it is not being paid for. She will get no money to counter if she was sued, and I think it’s safe to say Marcie and her family would take action against the accusations. I also doubt any of the students would be interested enough in the article that it would have any hope of launching Vee's journalism career.
And there’s no way that Vee would get away with it. Her name would be on the article. Not to mention, I think the other folks running the magazine would wonder where all their money went off to. Add in the fact that Nora and Vee are joined at the hip, that Marcie and Nora have an obvious rivalry going on, and that Marcie would probably realize that the diary went missing just after both of them were in her house, and it’s very likely that Nora would also be getting in trouble for stealing it. So Nora would likely also be getting suspended or expelled (which would put a lovely dent in her alleged plans to go to Harvard, wouldn’t it?) and sued (which would work fantastically with the fact that she’s dirt poor).
Really, there’s quite a lot of fail in there, isn’t there? And the saddest part is, neither girl seems aware of that. In fact, the whole issue is treated comically, with Nora telling her idiot of a friend “bad Vee”. But hey, isn’t it all so funny? Vee wanted to totally ruin a girl’s life by publishing her entire sex life for the entire high school to see, and would almost certainly ruin her own life and the life of her best friend in the process! Hilarious!
Right. Moving on. Nora asks why they have walkie-talkies, and Vee insists that it’s because they’re spies. Oh Christ, this is stupid. Nora points out that they could text. Given that it would be much quieter, that makes it the more logical option and thus Vee refuses to accept it. Instead of arguing, Nora asks if Vee is sure Marcie’s bedroom’s on the second floor. Um, most people have their bedrooms on the second floor, you know. It makes for better privacy. But no, this is just an opportunity to slut-shame Marcie more, as Vee cites her…um, source...
“One of her ex-boyfriends sits behind me in Spanish. He told me every night at ten sharp Marcie undresses with the lights on. Sometimes when he and his friends are bored, they drive over to watch the show. He said Marcie never rushes, and by the time she finishes, he has a cramp in his neck from staring up”
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 81
ZeldaQueen: *tiredly* Can we get on with the breaking in and entering?
Some stupid “banter” later, Nora finally starts trying to steel her nerves enough to go upstairs
“My stomach seemed to weigh twice as much as it had three minutes ago. I hadn’t done anything, and I was already sick with guilt. When had I become low enough to snoop in Marcie’s bedroom? When had I let Patch twist and tangle me up this way?”
ZeldaQueen: You know, I’ve ranted about how Patch is a horrible influence on people. I’ve ranted about how Nora has become a far worse person since she’s hung around him. But this?
THIS IS ENTIRELY ON NORA.
Patch is not making her go through Marcie’s room. No one is making her do this. She decided she “has” to do it, and is the one who believes it can’t be otherwise. We all know her excuses are bullshit, and that nothing will make her stop mooning over Patch because Fitzpatrick wants them to stay together. There is no excuse. She can’t shift this onto another character. Nora is a spineless pile of shit. There is nothing - NOTHING - keeping her from turning around and leaving, except - le gasp - Vee might accuse her of chickening out.
But okay, let’s humor the text. Nora things this is Patch’s fault? Fine.
So what does that say about their relationship?
Nora has just admitted here that Patch has twisted her up and made her a worse person. She knows what she’s doing is wrong, yet (somehow) she believes that Patch has put her in this position. She believes her boyfriend is forcing her into a morally wrong situation.
So why, WHY, should we like him? Leaving aside the stalking and the abuse and the sexual assault, we are told RIGHT THERE that he is making Nora worse AND YET HER GETTING TOGETHER WITH HIM LATER IS TREATED AS THE GREATEST THING EVER.
So we can really only take two things from this. The first is that Patch is ruining Nora, and yet we’re still supposed to like him for it. The second is that Patch isn’t making Nora worse, and the idea that breaking into someone’s bedroom isn’t something she should feel guilty over.
You decide which it is. Neither option reflects very well on this book.
So. Nora goes upstairs, and we get a lot of unnecessary description of what it looks like. We finally find Marcie’s room, which is described as being full of pink things - pink curtains, pink bed sheets, pink walls, etc. I have no idea why Marcie’s room looks like someone barfed Peptobismol all over it, considering that she’s never acted like a stereotypical pink-loving girly-girl, but whatever! She’s a cheerleader, and all cheerleaders love pink, right? It just comes with the territory, like being blonde!
Oh, and apparently Marcie has huge posters of herself, in which she’s posing “seductively” in her cheerleading outfit. You…just talk amongst yourselves on the implications of someone having a sexy picture of themselves in their bedroom.
Nora notices Patch’s hat, and promptly steals it. She also sees a spare set of keys to his Jeep, and steals those too. Then, she decides to go rooting through Marcie’s room, to see if Patch gave anything else for Nora to steal
“I opened and closed a few dresser drawers. I looked under the bed, in the hope chest, and on the top shelf of Marcie’s closet”
ZeldaQueen: And now, I feel the urge to hide under the bed. This is just chilling, how she’s so emotionlessly describing rummaging through Marcie’s stuff. This isn’t some silly teenage prank! This is just horrifying! This is the stereotype of the insane ex who refuses to accept that the guy she broke up with has a new girlfriend, and decides to get revenge by leaving dead squirrels on said new girlfriend’s front porch. I honestly believe Marcie should take out a restraining order on Nora now, and am thanking any and all deities that there isn’t a pet bunny in this house because, at the rate Nora’s going at, it’d surely end up in a cooking pot.
And on a different note, a hope chest? Seriously? Why does Marcie have one of those? For everyone who, like me, never heard of those things outside of Back to the Future: Part II, they apparently are chests that girls fill with things that will be useful for married life. I have never kept one, no one in my family has kept one (at least not to the extent of my knowledge), and I have not known as single woman who has bothered with one. I have no clue why Fitzpatrick thinks someone like Marcie - a teenage girl who we’re told is greatly interested in brief relationships and no interest in marriage - would have one. Fail. Again.
So anyway, while Alex Forrest here is rummaging under Marcie’s mattress, she finds the diary. Just as she’s about to poke through it, Vee gets on over the walkie-talkie. She informs Nora that Marcie owns a huge dog, and it’s headed towards her. Given how we were told the Millers are all about appearances, I’m not sure why they’d own a huge dog that would surely slobber over guests and shed on the furniture and chew stuff up, but whatever. We get a cheap jab as to how much Marcie looks like the dog, and then Vee starts whining about how it’s coming towards her. Well Vee, dogs do have senses of hearing, you know. Maybe if you were quietly texting, it wouldn’t hear you and come over.
And of course, the dog decides to go upstairs. And then Marcie shows up. Of course. Nora goes to shove the diary back under the mattress, but drops it and instead thinks it’s a great idea to shove it in the waistband of her pants and take it with her. Because that’s faster than just cramming it under the mattress, and surely won’t lead to problems later.
Nora goes to climb out the bedroom window, and there’s some pointlessness about how the screen’s already out, because Marcie must routinely sneak out that way. Are screens that slide up and down like normal windows rare? All the windows in my house have them, and they’re pretty convenient. Ah well, never mind that (though it’s more interesting than the “tense” scene going on here). Nora slips onto the part of the roof that slopes near the window, and hangs on while Marcie tries to get the dog out of her room. Nora also starts panicking because of her fear of heights, which technically didn’t come out of nowhere since it was very briefly established in the first book, but still comes across as kind of out of left field.
I honestly have a difficult time figuring out exactly what’s going on here, because it’s written so clumsily. From what I can gather though, Marcie starts trying to look out the window, to see what her dog’s trying to get after. Nora uses the walkie-talkie to call Vee, and for the life of me I can’t understand how Marcie can’t hear that. Yes there’s a party going on, but Nora’s right there. For that matter, I also can’t figure out why no one’s noticed Vee standing at the foot of the steps, using a walkie-talkie. In my experience, those things are used by children, for amusement. Now, if Vee were texting, I could buy her blending in. Good going on your logic, Vee.
Anywho, Nora calls Vee and asks her to get Marcie to leave. Vee does this by calmly informing Marcie that the police are at the door, and that she “noticed illegal substances in the hands of a few guests”. Marcie snappishly asks why this matters to her, and again I don’t care how stupid we’re supposed to buy she is, this is just braindead. Vee tells her that alcohol’s illegal for minors and Marcie acts like the police busting her orgy/party is just exasperating. How the hell has she kept her oh-so-scandalous life a secret from her parents, thus far?
Oh, and she accuses Vee of calling the cops, to which Vee says “And lose the free food? No way”. It’s funny because Vee’s fat, you see. But it’s only funny if it’s anyone but Marcie making those jokes. And I’d think that Vee should have said something along the lines of “And get arrested for being at a party distributing alcohol to minors? No way!” but that’s just me.
Whatever. Marcie leaves, dragging the dog with her. Nora goes to climb back in the room and, ha ha, surprise surprise, the window is now locked.
ZeldaQueen: *tiredly* Who didn’t see that one coming?
And because this has rambled for far too long, we shall conclude this in Part 3. Good night!
YOU FUCKING WHORE: 81
Onward to: Chapter 12 (Part 3)
Return to: Chapter 12 (Part 1)
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