Shannon's Sweet Valley High Blog

The Moral of the Story: Any excuse for a dance, right?

The Big Deal: President’s Day dance

Synopsis:

Melissa is a manipulative bitch: Melissa is totally pissed that Will kissed another girl, but she figures he can make it up to her and then things will be back to normal. So she goes to school all ready to listen to his groveling, and she’s thoroughly confused when Will never shows up at her locker. She finally sees him near the end of the day and he tells her he thinks they should break up. The cheerleaders have to organize a President’s Day dance (don’t ask), and Melissa is determined that she and Will are back together before the dance can happen, and that way she won’t have to go dateless and nobody will ever know about the breakup.

Melissa and Jessica are both assigned to work on music for the dance, and neither one of them is happy about it. Melissa is so depressed about Will that she just tells Jessica to do all the work herself. Jessica makes some crappy flyers to let everyone know she’s looking for a band (aw, I guess the Droids broke up or are no longer the go-to band for dances), and then gets pissed when Melissa says she sent a mass email to the students telling them when their bands could audition. Jessica thinks the best way to get back at Melissa (for what, actually helping?) is to overwhelm her with work. So she gets Jeremy to put up flyers at Big Mesa and Steven to put up flyers at the university.

Audition time rolls around and Jessica the genius has a headache from listening to so many terrible bands. She really didn’t think this one through. A couple of girls are gossiping outside the auditorium, and Jessica hears them say Will dumped Melissa after he made out with Erika Brooks. Melissa freaks out and leaves, and Jessica actually feels bad for her. Why? Some guy named Ronald comes up to Jessica and gives her a CD. Ronald and Jessica apparently shared a locker back in eighth grade and now he’s a DJ. He offers to work at the dance for a sweetly discounted price. Jessica hires him.

After a weird pep talk from her mother (“remind Will of what he’s missing”), Melissa decides to go snag a college boy toy. She puts on a black leather miniskirt, heads out to the SVU campus and crashes the first party she can find. She starts flirting with a good looking guy, but backs off when he introduces himself as Steve Wakefield. She finds what seems to be the most lecherous guy in the room, Kel, and makes vaguely sexy promises to show him a good time if he’ll go with her to the SVH dance. Kel, apparently willing to go to considerable lengths for jailbait, agrees.

Andy and Dave are gay: Dave’s father has been avoiding him since Dave announced he’s gay, but his mom is really cool. Dave tells her about Andy, and Ms. Niles insists on taking the two of them to dinner so she can meet him. Andy sweeps her off her feet and the three of them have a lovely time together, so Andy thinks everything is awesome now. He can’t believe it when Dave doesn’t want to go to the dance with him.

At the dance: Andy is overjoyed when Dave shows up after all. Alanna kind of freaks out a little when she realizes someone has spiked the punch, but she manages not to drink any. Melissa, on the other hand, gets totally sloshed and Will is sickened because she’s letting Kel put his hands all over her. Will is having a bad time anyway because Erika is pretty much ignoring him, and the night just gets worse when he and Melissa are voted as President and First Lady (because it’s a President’s Day dance, of course). Melissa gets angry about this for some reason and makes a huge scene. She tells Will that she and Kel are leaving to have some “real fun.”

After they leave, Ronald the DJ tells Jessica that Kel is a total perv whose dad has a lot of money so “charges against him tend to get dropped.” Kel apparently did something to one of Ronald’s friends, and he’s worried something bad is going to happen to Melissa. Jessica finds them in the parking lot. She can tell Melissa doesn’t really want to be anywhere near Kel, so she makes something up about Melissa needing to come back inside. Kel starts to get fresh, but Jeremy and Trent come out as backup. Kel leaves and Jeremy and Jessica take Melissa home. Jessica thinks Melissa is asleep in the backseat and she tells Jeremy she was really looking forward to the dance because it would have been their first dance together. Melissa hears this and leaves a CD in the car for Jessica and Jeremy to listen to. They pop it in and dance around in Melissa’s driveway. I think. I kind of stopped paying attention toward the end there.

Quotes:

Mrs. Fox: It’s very simple, Melissa. All you have to do is remind Will of what he’s missing.

Melissa: You think I should just prance around in some hot outfit and flirt with other guys until Will starts paying attention again?

Mrs. Fox: That is precisely what I think.

Well, at least we know Melissa comes by her crazy honestly. It clearly runs in the family.

The Cover: I think I’d look pretty bitchy too if I had a Wakefield giving me pitying looks all the time.