Lauren: Discouraging phone call with her mom. She wants to quit Tri Beta; mom will stop paying her tuition if she does. Her mood changes when she gets a letter from Dash. Her article will be published, and she’s invited to a Journal staff potluck. Woohoo! Back at Tri Beta, Marielle wants to take her to get her colors done. In the last book, she gave Lauren a makeup job that looked like Homer Simpson had set his cosmetics gun on Honey Boo Boo, so Lauren declines, choosing to go instead to the theater department’s costume sale. (Marielle advises her to avoid the clown outfits.) Winnie talks her into trying a vintage dress; Lauren is pleasantly surprised by the results. Winnie also suggests that Lauren get herself kicked out of Tri Beta, instead of quitting.
At the potluck, Dash doesn’t recognize Lauren at first, since she’s wearing another vintage outfit, then says she looks normal and nice. We meet Richard and Alison, members of the Progressive Student Coalition. They’re about to engage in civil disobedience! Old houses, that old people live in, are going to be torn down for a parking lot. Students will stage a protest at a black-tie event in President’s Hall. If everyone votes yes, that is. Lauren votes yes, and hears her own voice for the first time. (Also, I love that more than one person said “Right on!” when a vote was called for.)
Dash is not sure Lauren can be trusted, her being a sorority pledge and all. In keeping with wanting to get kicked out of Tri Beta, Lauren asks him to come with her to an open house. He’s dressed appropriately, but when Marielle tries to put him on the spot, he doesn’t back down. He and Lauren agree that bringing him to the Tri Beta house is a big step towards getting herself kicked out. I’unno, though. This could be seen as her using him.
Afterwards, they’re at the housing protest, the purpose of which is to get on TV. See, the regents and donors won’t care about the housing issue in and of itself, but they will if it hurts their public image. Dash takes Lauren’s hand, not romantically, but supportively, as a friend. But, thanks to KC (see below), they get barred from the mansion by campus police, and when they’re trying to come up with a plan B, someone accuses Lauren of being an informer. Dash stands up for her, and she’s determined to find a way around security.
She finds Hammond, who is bored to the teeth doing coverage of the uneventful regent’s banquet. His supervisor loves the idea of filming a protest, so Lauren is off the hook, and Hammond has eased his conscience about the dogfight, er, Trash Your Roommate prank. They get on the news, they’re campus heroes for a bit, and the regents back down. Oh, and instead of Courtney expelling Lauren from Tri Beta, she congratulates her, for going above and beyond in service to the community. This is why I like Courtney; stay tuned.
KC: Her new job, to earn back what she stole from Soccer, Inc., is delivering campus mail. “This is not exactly my ideal first step up the corporate ladder,” she snarls. O RLY?* She’s still mad at Lauren, still has a love/hate thing with Steven Garth, who wants her to meet his father when he visits campus. She tells Faith to be upfront with Hammond about his engagement, but can’t confess about her embezzlement.
At the Stop the World opening night, she introduces Steven to Winnie, Faith and, inadvertently, Lauren. He and Lauren don’t see eye to eye on the housing crisis. “They’ll do what everyone else does. They’ll get a loan.” Oh really, Mr. Gotbux? Lauren makes a comment that skewers KC (“Borrowing money isn’t always so easy, especially when you really need it.”) KC is choking on her guilt!
And then, this is unbelievable: while KC is delivering the mail, she opens a note that was already in Faith and Lauren’s mailbox. She’s snooping because she thinks it’s from Hammond to Faith, and it’s supposedly KC’s duty to “protect” Faith, which is bad enough. But when she figures out it’s for Lauren, telling her where to meet for the protest, she freaking calls campus security. Okay, ostensibly it’s because she thinks it might be a violent protest, and Steven’s father will be there, but she wouldn’t have had to make that decision if she hadn’t opened someone else’s mail. (She does ask herself if maybe she’s doing this just to get back at Lauren for not getting her out of debt. Duh, ya think?)
But her karma catches up with her almost immediately. It takes forever to get the call made in privacy, which causes her to get to the bank right when they close. So she can’t cash her check until Monday, which will be too late, and two weeks of (what to her is) horrible, demeaning work wearing an unflattering uniform is for naught. (I wonder if the bank would have had Saturday hours? Probably depositing through the ATM was not yet an option.)
Next night, she has dinner with Steven and his father, who is a cowboy-hat-wearing brash Texan. He approves of KC, and it appears he does not approve of his son’s work ethic. KC mistakenly thinks Steven was slumming with her, trying to prove something to his father. She blows up at Steven (again!) and finally tells him she stole from the business account. He’s not upset about that, at least not as much as about her yelling at him as usual. When they go to collect the shirts, at first they’re barely on speaking terms. Then they start talking it out, but the conclusion is that they’re too different to be together. Or too much alike. Or, IMO, KC doesn’t like herself, and has to deal with her issues before she can have a healthy relationship.
*It’s not the job, it’s what you do with it, babe. A job that looks ideal might be a dead end. A job that seems unglamorous and unexciting might lead to a great opportunity or connection. And I despise the mindset that minimum wage deserves only minimum effort.
Winnie: Passes by the Bradley Computer Center, a new(!) building, and feels compelled to go in, looking for Josh. He’s there, he’s friendly, he wants to hang out, she pleads studying again. Does she purposely create barriers to happiness? In Intro to Film, she meets Matthew Kallender, future Spielberg, who asks her for a Real Date, a week in advance. She’s so impressed, she says yes. He’s very schedule-oriented, and very opinionated. Everything with him relates to pop culture, especially movies.
And of course Josh sees them together. (He’d left a note earlier, saying he hoped to see her at the homecoming game. Oops!) Winnie wonders about people “acting from the heart” (title of a movie shown in class) and thinks Lauren is the only one of them who is doing that. On that note, she tells Matthew she’s not interested, but refrains from telling him he’s a boring pain in the ass.
Faith: Getting in deeper with Hammond. They make out backstage, she knows it’s wrong, but she can’t resist. And when she overhears another girl flirting with him, it’s heartbreaking. After opening night, she tells him she knows he’s engaged, and that she wants to be with him openly. He waffles, so she turns and walks away. On closing night, he asks her to be his date for a party at his frat. Suzanna, the fiancée, will be bound to hear about this…except Hammond never shows. He calls and pleads work — he’s interning at the local TV station — which Faith doesn’t believe.
In fact, Suzanna had shown up unannounced. But the following night, he is at work (luckily for Lauren). He’s conflicted about choosing between Suzanna and Faith. Sounds to me like Faith is the kind of girl guys like him fool around with, and Suzanna is the kind they marry. But we’ll see.
So that’s where we are. Faith, I don’t have much to say about; she’s mostly running in place. Winnie keeps telling herself to get her act together, instead of actually doing anything about it. I think the author(s?) don’t know if she’s supposed to be a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, or a true borderline personality. We’re told that KC is a good student because she works at it. Winnie has more native intelligence, but her work ethic is…scattershot, that’s a tactful way of putting it.
KC is grouchy while doing her mail-delivery job (someone calls her “O, unfriendly mail lady”). It’s a good thing we’re told over and over how drop-dead gorgeous she is, because there’s no other reason why anyone would want to get to know her. Interestingly, she admits to Garth Sr. that her parents own/manage a vegetarian restaurant, when she’s usually ashamed (argh!) to tell anyone that.
And Lauren is slowly transforming. She confronts KC about dropping a dime on the protest. No retribution, just letting her know it was not cool, and, without stating it, that she’s no longer intimidated. Vintage clothing suits her better than Ivy League woolens, and although her contribution to the potluck is expensive truffles, she puts them on a plate and ditches the box. Baby steps! And at the end, she and Dash have a hug that’s not entirely just-friends.
We Were Series Once, and Young (Adult) 