#86 – Jessica Against Bruce

* Photo credit to The Closet *

Always a fan of the 1970s, I appreciate Jess’ hairstyle — even though this book came out in mid 1992. No, Jess and Bruce Patman haven’t turned greasers, even though Bruce looks one thumb away from pulling a Fonzie. I wish one of them were turned around so we could see the giant honking “X” embroidered on the leather. Why an “X,” you ask? Well, it’s not for target practice.

Bruce has been running around whining about how boring Sweet Valley is — he’s just realized this? He keeps insisting that he needs more danger in his life, because apparently he can’t buy any with his father’s kabillions. Jess is all, “Bruce wants danger… Maybe he’ll get lucky and someone will try to run him down with a car” and hopes that he finds something to entertain himself soon so “then maybe that irritating whining sound [she] always hear[s] when he’s around will go away.” Sure enough, Bruce does stumble across something — he invents Club X, a new, top-secret club just for dudes who look good in the requisite leather jacket … and his first member is Ronnie Edwards. HUH? That guy is a total loserfest. Where are all of Bruce’s actual friends? I thought he was supposed to be cool. Anyway, Bruce and Jess go head to head in the battle of the sexes that’s rife with sexual tension when Bruce says girls can’t join Club X, and Jess goads him into letting her join, but Liz notices a “nasty gleam” in Bruce’s eyes. Is Jess heading for trouble? (See, I can write captions for the covers too.)

Club X is initially all about pulling fire drills, jumping into community pools after hours, and driving down Bruce’s driveway at night with no headlights — you know, real hardcore shit. Other dudes join Club X — Tad Johnson, Michael Harris, Charlie Cashman, and Jim Sturbridge — and they spin a roulette wheel every night to see who’ll partake in a dare, and Jess’ name mysteriously keeps popping up, forcing her to smoke in Cooper’s office (a scene which is sort of hot — a good girl gone wrong while Bruce looks on, making sure she gets the job done!), stealing cars (she steals Bruce’s beloved Porsche and drives to the Dairi Burger), and having a total Stand By Me moment on a train bridge. Jess has had enough of Club X at this point and knows that she only became involved to match wits with Bruce, her foxy archnemesis, but won’t quit until she bests the boy. During one Club X meeting, she peeks under her name on the roulette wheel and sees that Bruce had rigged it with a magnet. That wily Bruce! She slides the magnet under Bruce’s name and he is then forced to blast some rock ‘n’ roll station during an all-important assembly.

Meanwhile, Best Student in the Universe Elizabeth Wakefield was appointed — along with her sidekicks Todd Wilkins and Enid Rollins — to show a bunch of visiting foreign teachers around the school, and Liz is peeing her pants over the whole deal for reasons unknown other than that she’s an uber dork. She’s all upset at how SVH is coming across to all the teachers, what with all the pranks flying around. Calm yourself, girl. Anyway, Liz is scheduled to speak at the aforementioned all-important assembly, which has to do with the teachers, and so when the rock station starts blasting mid-speech, she spazzes out and takes it all personally. But she forgives Jess a few pages later, and the Club X gang gets busted (after Bruce rats everybody out!) and everyone gets detention and Jess learns the valuable lesson of not playing on train tracks. Fin!

Other Notes:

· Bruce deems everyone boring, like “middle-aged bankers.” Only Bruce.
· Amy Sutton is much less annoying now that she’s dating Barry Rork, and this isn’t the first instance such an occurrence has taken place. What does this mean to us? That in order to get a boyfriend, we have to be less annoying? Or that once we have boyfriends, we’ll be more likable?
· Why have we gone from calling Sandra Bacon “Sandra” to “Sandy”? Purpose plz?
· Jess thinks, “You have to create the danger, then control it, and your fear of it.” That might be wise if I knew what it meant.
· Jess toys with the thought of her boyfriend Sam Woodruff, who initially knows nothing of Club X (but considers her to be on crack when he finds out what she’s been up to), joining their vicious gang. She fantasizes about him in the black leather jacket, “and thought he would look like a young James Dean.” SIGNS!