\\#3 So Cool;

Conner, Tia, and Conner's Gig

Conner has a gig at H.O.J. and waits till five days before to tell Tia. She decides to be his publicity agent to get lots of people to come see him. Conner doesn't like the idea. The next day Tia pressures Andy into being a part of her diabolical scheme to make Conner's gig a success.

Tia calls Conner before cheerleading practice the next day asking if he has a playlist and to discuss his image. Conner doesn't like this and makes her promise there will be no publicity. Tia agrees to this all-too quickly.

Conner starts to practice and Megan bangs on the door. He has some lyrics about a certain blond living in the next room he doesn't want her to see so he opens the door and stands in the doorway so she can't come in. Megan fights her way into the room and grabs the lyrics he doesn't want her to see. They're not very Connery lyrics and she points that out as only a sister can. After Conner takes them away from her she sees the paper that he has written his gig info on and wants to know what's up. He tells her about the gig and she gets all exited about it.

At cheerleading practice the next day Tia hands out flyers for his gig for the girls to pass around. The printers screwed up the order so Conner is green. The girls talk about it for moment.

The day before the gig Tia and Andy convince Liz to go.

The day of the gig Conner psyches himself up. He's horrified to see that Tia was an all too good publicist and it seems like everyone from school showed up. He starts playing and singing and doing great and then he gets to the song about you-know-who. He and Liz stare at each other through the whole song. Afterwards people come up to him and tell him he was good. Even guys do, so he knows he must've been good. Andy, Angel, and Tia want to go out and celebrate, but he just wants to go home. [Or rather, be alone with Liz]. Liz wants to go home, too. Conner offers to drive her.

The Liz and Conner Saga with a Splash of Maria

Liz and Jessica have dinner with their parents at First and Ten. Jess is quiet. The parents ask about Conner and Maria comes over to say hi. Conner arrives a moment later to pick Maria up and Maria rushes away to punch out. Liz is left to introduce him and she messes up his name. Everyone agrees he's good looking.

The next morning Liz yells for Megan asking her where her mascara is. Conner walks in and is in an un-Conner-like good mood. Liz and Megan miss the bus and Conner offers to give them a ride. In the car, Megan (who is sitting in the front seat) asks Conner how is date went. Apparently, it went well. Then she asks him when he's breaking up with her. He says he's not breaking up with her anytime soon. [Knock on wood, Conner!] Megan obviously doesn't believe him.

Liz gets to class as soon as the bell rings and when she sits down Maria starts to tell her all about last night on the beach even though Liz really doesn't want to hear it.

Liz tries to get over Conner by reading Todd's old notes to her and her old diary entries. [The writer makes a point of how stupid she and Todd acted the year before. And also, we learn here that Liz and Maria have been friend's "forever."] Liz then peeks in Conner's room to convince her he's not the man for her. It almost works, but then she glimpses his book collection and a pic of him and his daddy. She then picks up one of his shirts and smells it and likes it. She hears the door open downstairs and throws the shirt down, disgusted with herself.

Conner goes to the Riot Tuesday night [By the way, whatever happened to the Beach Disco? Did it fall into the ocean during the quake or something?] and Maria is clingy and annoying. Conner wants to make out, Maria wants to dance and shows a bit of backbone. Thankfully, before this can go too much further Tia comes over and drags them to the table with her and Andy. They discuss possible reasons for Liz not coming. Conner pretends he's not interested. Tia and Andy go dance, and after and awkward moment Conner and Maria follow. Later on at Crescent Beach Conner gets a little physical with Maria and she wants to have "the conversation," but Conner excuses himself.

Meanwhile, Liz takes a stupid quiz to see if she's obsessed. The quiz says she is and she thinks about its advice. Then Conner comes home. He says goodnight and it warms her heart. She thinks she should take another look at the quiz.

Megan invites Conner to go get burgers with her and Liz but Conner turns her down. Conner then sits down to practice. He gets to the song about you-know-who and decides he needs a break. Conner checks him messages and Maria called him a few times, getting more and more annoying each time. Conner decides to break up with her and invites her to meet him at First and Ten. He shows up late. Then he acts like an ass hole and breaks up with her in a very harsh way, scarring her for life. Maria rushes out of there.

Maria then calls Liz and asks to meet her at H.O.J. At H.O.J. she explains what Conner did and all Liz can think about is that she was right and that Conner's free. Liz then goes home to tell Conner exactly what she thinks of him, but when she gets there she catches him reading her obsession quiz. Unbeknownst to them, Megan had left the magazine on the kitchen table, but Liz thinks he went into her room and took it. They have a big ole fight which turns Conner on. [I smell the makings of a future sadomasochist. ^_^]

Tia and Andy get Liz to come with them to Conner's gig, even, though Liz doesn't want to act like she supports him in any way because of what he did to Maria.

After the gig, Liz waits for Conner to get his guitar so they can leave. Rather than have to watch him she goes and waits outside. His lyrics have made her realize without a doubt the evil callous person he appeared was just a front. They leave and drive in silence until he asks her what she thought. She replies with their little "Moving. Surprisingly moving," from the first book where they did that disgusting scene where they smiled at each other in creative writing. Liz wants him to kiss her, badly, and he almost does. Almost. He drops her off and then goes to hang out with his friends. [I thought he wanted to go home? Oh, well. Guess he changed his mind.]

His friends drag him to the riot and the beach and then drove around for a while. He lays down and all he can think about is Liz and how he almost kissed her in the car and how she's only a few feet away.

The Ever-Dramatic Jessica, Melissa, and the Cheerleaders

One the way home from First and Ten on Sunday the ever-observant Mrs. Wakefield notices that Jess's been kind of quiet. Jess says she's sick. She decides to talk to Lila and find out what's going on. She and Lila fight about Lila being on Melissa's side. Lila points out that Jessica's always doing mean stuff like stealing other girls' boyfriends and then rubbing their faces in it and it finally backfired on her. [Good point, Lila!] But Jess just gets upset and Lila asks her why she has to be so dramatic about everything. [Why does she?]

Jess stays home the next day. Mrs. Wakefield goes to her room to bring her darling daughter juice and Lila comes in with her and fakes politeness with Jessica. After Lila leaves Alice asks Jess if she wants to talk and Jess says no, she's just sick. [I guess "When you have a problem, talk to your parents" is not the message they want to get across in these books, since no one ever does.]

That day at lunch Melissa, The Posse, and Will's friends are talking trash about Jessica. [Don't these people have anything better to talk about?] Cherie and Gina discuss theories of how Jessica became captain the year before. Will is uncomfortable with the subject and changes it to the awful cafeteria food. The crew all give their input and then return to the subject of Jessica. Will gets up to get salad.

Liz comes over to see Jess after school to see how she's been feeling. She's dismayed to see that dear ole Jess has been faking the flu. Jess feels sorry for herself and tells Liz she doesn't know what it's like and that she has no friends. Liz tells her she's her friend. Jess asks for advice from the wise Liz and Liz tells her she has to get off her butt and go back to school to show the Posse that they haven't gotten to her. Jess admits she's been thinking about dropping the squad and Liz tells her not to quit. To go to the pep rally and cheer like nothing's bothering her. She tells her that the only reason the Posse won't let up is because they know they're getting to her. That she has to think positive and give it all she's got and all that garbage. They hug and have a sister thing.

At cheerleading practice the next day, Melissa is going on about how she hopes that no one else will have to go through what she's gone through. They then discuss how bad Jess looked that day and how no guy will want her with the way she looks, speaking very loudly just so Jess will overhear when she comes in.

Across the gym Tia talks to Jade Wu and Annie Whitman about Liss and the Posse. Tia notes that Liss is as fragile as a butterfly until you piss her off. Tia asks if they think she did the things they're saying and Annie says Jess's dated a lot of guys, but she's not a slut.

Jess finally comes strolling in all flushed and Cherie gives her a nice little line about her extracurricular activities. To get the spotlight off Jess Tia hands out the flyers for Conner's gig. [Note: Cherie has a crush on Conner. Who doesn't?] Melissa doesn't want to pass out the flyers but Laufeld steps in and says that since he goes to that school they should support him. Jess's grateful.

That night Jess stays home and watches a tape of her becoming captain the year before and feels sorry for herself. Jess calls Liz to see if she can come over but Liz has an article to write, leaving Jess feeling lonely and depressed.

The next day in French Jess finds a cheesy picture on her desk. She crumples it up and puts in her book bag and gets a nasty little remark from Josh. [I still don't understand why she put it in her book bag. Why not just crumple it up and throw it on the floor?] Ms. Dalton wants them all to split up into groups and Liz and Maria hurry over to be her partners. They talk about things like not everyone's against her, Conner's gig and, the pep rally.

All the rah-rah girls line up in formation and Laufeld tells Jess, Lila, Amy, and Jade to do a stunt for the El Carro girls. Jess goes limp and Lila and Amy drop her. She goes to see the trainer (but not before Liss and Cherie get to throw a few lines in her face) and Tia yells at them once Laufeld's gone. While Tia's yelling at them she makes a really mean comment about Will to Melissa.

The next day Jess finds Tia and makes an excuse for not going to practice she asks Tia to relay to Laufeld. As Jess is leaving, she runs into Will. He tries to tell her he didn't mean for everything to happen and she tells him to go away.

Meanwhile, all the cheerleaders plan to make banners for the pep rally and decide to have a caravan leaving from Melissa's house to go to the rally. Tia volunteers to tell Jessica.

On Friday Will overhears Melissa and Cherie plotting to make Jessica miss the pep rally (by meeting at the gym instead of Melissa's). He knows she won't talk to him, but maybe she might heed the warning of an anonymous note, so he leaves a note in her locker. Cherie calls Tia to let her know. Tia makes a point of asking if they told Jessica. Cherie says Lila will tell her.

At the pep rally Tia notices Jess isn't there. She asks Cherie about it and Cherie says she should ask Lila. She pulls Lila out of the gym and asks her if Cherie ever asked her to tell Jessica they were meeting in the gym and Lila says no. Laufeld comes and says they have to get into formation. The Posse's diabolical plan is a success. Laufeld asks where Jess is and Tia says she's sick and that she spent half the day at the doctor.

Meanwhile Jess goes to Melissa like Tia told her to. She meets Liss's mom who informs her that Melissa left for the school a half an hour earlier. Jess feels sick knowing they've done this to her on purpose. She gets lost on the way back to Sweet Valley and gets to the pep rally just as the announcer person reads, "And last but not least--Tia Ramirez." She starts crying.

Will had been standing near the back of the gym waiting for Jessica to show up and kicks himself for not warning her in person. [Not literally, mind you, though that would be funny.] He runs after her to apologize and tell her that he doesn't want her to hate him, and she tells him to go back to his girlfriend and to leave her alone.

After the pep rally Liz goes over Lila's to talk to Jess and see what happened. Liz convinces her to come hang out with her friends. They then have ice cream and watch a movie. The next night Jess goes to the Riot to hang out with Liz and her friends only to discover that Liz's new best friend is Tia, the person who fed her the wrong info for the pep rally. Jess blows up and leaves.