Todd raised an eyebrow. “Bruce is coming to pick you up?”

Elizabeth nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, I’m working at Patman Canning now,” she said. “And I’m sleeping with him.”

“You’re doing what?” Todd exclaimed, a look of surprise crossing his face before it was replaced with a look of anger.

“I’m sleeping with him,” Elizabeth said. “You know, fucking.”

“But — but I thought you hated sex,” Todd sputtered. “You cried after every orgasm.”

“Well, I did hate sex with you,” Elizabeth said. She stared off into space dreamily. “And I still do cry after every orgasm. But with Bruce, it’s different; he doesn’t make me use a strap-on.”

“The strap-on was a loving act between two consenting adults,” Todd snapped. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Oh, no, I agree,” Elizabeth said. “It just wasn’t my thing.”

“Elizabeth Wakefield, I was going to ask you to marry me,” Todd said, his voice taking on a low, angry growl.

“Well, you didn’t, did you?” Elizabeth said, tears springing to her eyes.

“Oh my god, are you getting off on this?” Todd asked incredulously.

“No, Todd! These are tears of sadness,” Elizabeth said as they spilled down her cheeks. “I thought we were going to be together forever. But you couldn’t commit to me. Something was obviously holding you back.”

Todd laughed. “You want commitment? I can tell you one thing for sure; you’re certainly not going to get it from Bruce Patman.”

Elizabeth just stared at him, the tears continuing to roll down her cheeks as Todd resumed his angry rant.

“You know what’s going to hold him back from committing to you?” Todd asked. “The fact that he’s a complete douchebag. And that he’s the Sweet Valley date rapist.”

“He is not the Sweet Valley date rapist!” Elizabeth shot back. “And I’m going to prove it to you and to everyone else in Sweet Valley.”

“Fine, then,” Todd said, pushing the chart toward Elizabeth and taking a few heavy steps away from her. “I hope you’re very happy with Bruce. Maybe you’ll get married and live in a huge mansion and have a million little kids that you’ll have to take care of while he’s out running around town, date raping everything in sight.”

“Don’t be stupid, Todd,” Elizabeth said angrily. “We’d have servants to do that.”

Todd whirled around, pointing an accusing finger at Elizabeth. “So you have thought about marrying Bruce! I knew it! Everyone says Jessica’s the gold digger, but you’re just as bad. I guess that’s one thing you share in common with your sister.”

“We have other things in common,” Elizabeth said. “We both have eyes the color of the Pacific Ocean; beautiful, heart-shaped faces; and we both wear matching gold lavalieres, a gift from our parents for our 16th birthday.” She marked off each attribute on her fingers as she listed all of them.

“Well, add ‘gold-digging whore’ to your list,” Todd yelled. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see curtains moving as the other residents of Sweet Valley Heights peeked out of their windows to watch their verbal altercation.

Elizabeth bit her lip and stared straight ahead at the road in front of her, refusing to look Todd in the eye.

“Oh, look, here comes your man now,” Todd said sarcastically. He turned back around and headed toward his condo, ignoring the curious stares of his neighbors.

* * *

Enid gripped the bars of her jail cell and stared out between them at the Sweet Valley cops, all sitting lazily behind desks and chit-chatting over take-out from the Dairi Burger.

“Let me out!” she screamed. “I didn’t do nothing!”

One of the cops, a butch-looking woman with short dark hair, slowly took her feet off the desk on which they had been propped up and pushed back her chair. She sauntered over to the cell and stood in front of Enid with her hands on her hips.

“You better be quiet,” she said in a warning tone. “Or else I’ll get out the taser.”

“Police brutality!” Enid yelled. “Police brutality!”

“You asked for it,” the officer said grimly, reaching into the holster on her belt and pulling out the taser. Enid backed away quickly, her hands in the air.

“Don’t tase me, bro,” she said quickly. “I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll stop yelling.”

The police officer rolled her eyes and tucked the taser back into her holster. She placed her face threateningly close to the bars. “You scream one more time, I’ll have you on the floor so fast you won’t know what hit you,” she warned.

“That’s actually kind of hot,” Enid said, raising her eyebrows at the police officer.

“Shut up, crackie,” the officer snarled.

Enid sat down on the hard metal bench that lined the far wall of the holding cell. Why am I in here, when the Sweet Valley date rapist is out roaming the streets? she thought angrily. And my kids are in foster care? I bet they’ll be shuffled around from place to place, having to shop for rags from thrift stores, which they do now, but it will be much worse since some snotty-ass foster mother will be doing it for them! It should be me! I should be buying them 50-cent t-shirts and burning them with cigarette butts and teaching them the fine art of stalking! I’m their mother!

Enid could hear the faint sounds of the police officers talking and joking over their thick Dairi Burger milkshakes and french fries. She crept up to the bars again, not screaming hysterically this time, and listened.

Maybe I can figure out where they’ve taken Brandi and Nevaeh, she thought. And then I’ll escape from this motherfucking cell and go take back my kids!

But they weren’t talking about Brandi and Nevaeh. In fact, they weren’t talking about Enid Rollins at all. The police officers were talking about the biggest case they’d had in years, that of the Sweet Valley date rapist.

“If only those damn kids didn’t have a dance this week,” one of them was grumbling. “I’m pretty sure some precocious high schoolers could get to the bottom of this mystery.”

“What’s the mystery?” another snorted. “Amy Sutton — Slutton, I mean — is reporting that it’s Bruce Patman.”

The female officer reached over and gave him a high five. “Slutton’s breasts are the only reason I watch Sweet Valley Action News,” she said, chuckling.

Enid felt a cold chill go down her spine. While she wholeheartedly agreed that Amy had nice — if fake — boobs, she couldn’t believe what else she was hearing.

Bruce is the Sweet Valley date rapist? she asked herself incredulously. But he and I — we didn’t — we had such a nice time together the other night. How can Bruce be the Sweet Valley date rapist?

“Well, we can’t arrest Patman,” one of the officers countered. “He’s the most powerful man in town.”

“It’s true,” another one said, sighing and taking a hearty sip of his chocolate milkshake. “He’ll just hire some high-powered attorney and get off anyway.”

“Heh, ‘get off,’” the female cop said. “I bet he will!”

“You guys, date rape isn’t funny,” one of the officers, who had previously been quiet, spoke up. The others looked at him for a moment and then burst into raucous laughter.

“Good one, Frank,” the female officer said, leaning over and offering him her hand for a high five, which he didn’t return, “but everyone knows date rape is hilarious. It’s the other kind of rape that’s not funny.”

Disturbed by what she was hearing, Enid slunk back to the bench and lowered herself onto it numbly. She rested her head against the wall behind her and closed her eyes.

* * *