Thursday, March 7, 2019

Four is a Crowd (Book 7) by "Emily Chase"

**This blog contains adult language.**

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!!  This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself.  Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know which girl acted like a total bitch in this book because you know at least one of them did.

Tag Line: Is this the end of a beautiful friendship?

From the Back of the Book: Pamela thinks she can buy her friends the way she picks her clothes...And Shelley almost falls for it.  The movie star's daughter is new to Canby Hall, and Shelley can't believe the glamorous life Pamela has led.  Despite Faith and Dana's warnings, Shelley has to find out for herself that Pamela is up to no good.  But Shelley can't possibly know that Pamela spends more time on her enemies than she'd ever spend on her friends, and her current targets are...the girls of Canby Hall!

This book was published in 1984 and I'm pretty sure I've never read it. I remember Pamela from later books, of course, but this one doesn't seem familiar. The ghostie for this book is a familiar face: Carol White. She wrote Something Old, Something New in the new girl series and Roommates and Summer Blues from this series. She's not my favorite but she's better than Aks, so I'll take it.

I don't even know who those girls are on the cover. Is it really that hard to pick a set of models and stick with them? Shelley and Dana both look super old here and there's no way our resident fashionista would be wearing that awful plaid shirt and blazer. Also, the weird shadow they've put on Pamela's face (I assume the girl in pink is Pamela) makes her look like she has a mustache and goatee.

Canby Hall Catch-Up: So you know the drill. We have three protagonists: Dana (sophisticated fashionista), Faith (urban photographer) and Shelley (small-town farm girl). For now, Dana is dating the magically delicious Randy, Faith is seeing wannabe-cop Johnny and Shelley is dating Tom from Greenleaf High while on a break from her one-true-love Paul.  In the last book, Faith and Dana went to visit Shelley in the wilderness of Iowa for a couple of weeks. Faith and Dana felt very superior about city life and looked down on small-town life so frequently that I ended up using Dave (👺) to save my poor fingers from wearing down to nubs typing it all out. Dana managed to forget all about Randy while she flirted with Shelley's brother Jeff and Faith contracted some kind of life-threatening disease that just disappeared in the last few pages of the book because Aks ran out of time to identify it and actually treat it.

Missing, Presumed Dead:  I think everyone was accounted for this book.  All the major players anyway.

Risen From the Tulip Bed: Maggie.  Dana remembered she has a sister in this book.  Score one for continuity.  

It's early September and school is about to start once again. Dana arrives at campus and heads straight up to room 407. Over the summer it's been repainted a bright, peacock blue which sounds pretty to me but Dana hates it. When Faith arrives, she hates it too. She says they'll need to figure something out because the color is much too distracting. Dana jokes that she's glad that Faith survived her mystery illness or they might have had to room with Agatha.

Who the fuck is Agatha?

White heard my question and helpfully tells me that Agatha is a girl so awful that she went through seven roommates last year before being transferred to a private room. Weird it never came up before.

We get a massive review here of their family life (brothers, sisters, parental jobs, etc) and their early days as roommates when they all hated each other. Then they review the last book for us and tell us about the great (likely temporary) loves of their lives. I'm just going to assume you guys all know that already since this isn't our first trip to Greenleaf.

#readtheblog!

Shelley finally arrives and also expresses dismay at the paint color. She suggests they paint it black and the other two aren't so sure about the idea. I've seen the future, though, and I know they do it. She's brought along a spice cake with cream cheese frosting that's just on a plate covered with foil. How the hell did she make it from Iowa to Massachusetts with that cake? I'm calling #bullshit early on in this book.

They talk about how much more prepared they are for their junior year than they were for their sophomore year. Now they know where everything is and which teachers to avoid and how awful the cafeteria food is. Shelley moans that it's going to be hard going back to that when she's enjoyed her mom's cooking for two months and Dana gives her an eye up and down and says she can tell how much Shelley's been enjoying it. #fuckyouDana Also......... #hiGale

A limo pulls up outside and they go to the window to watch a bunch of expensive luggage and stereo equipment being unloaded. They all wonder who it is and, for some reason, none of them even theorize that it might be their resident rich girl Casey. Does she still exist?? A blonde girl pulls up in Jag and gets out.  So, wait.  The limo was just for the luggage?  Sigh.   They hear the girl start issuing orders (from the FOURTH floor – how loud is she???) to the servants she's brought with her. She says she's going to town to get dinner and she expects them to have her completely moved in before she gets back. Also, she's been assigned two roommates and she wants that taken care of immediately. They hear the maid call her Pamela.

Casey rocks up with the latest info on the new arrival. #convenienttiming Pamela is the daughter of a famous actress named Yvonne Young (YY). Shelley is super excited at this bit of news. Pamela's already been thrown out of several private schools in California and apparently YY thinks Canby might be a good place to cure some of her daughter's bad habits. #Canbyismagic

If Pamela is our A-Plot, our B-Plot reveals itself very quickly afterwards. On the way back from the Tuttit Frutti, the 407 gang and Casey pass by PA's (head bitch in charge) house. They can see her drinking tea through the window and pause to openly stare inside like a bunch of creepers. Suddenly PA jumps to her feet dropping her tea cup. She paces around a bit, clearly agitated and talking to someone they can't see with a lot of animation. Then a man with longish blonde hair appears and he takes PA into his arms. She's clearly upset and the girls are mystified that she's showing any emotion and that she has a man in her house.

The next morning, Shelley gets up before her roommates, as is her custom, and heads for the dining hall. She normally sits by the windows and reads as she eats but today she spots Pamela at one of the tables. She decides to go introduce herself. Pamela deigns to let her sit and they strike up an awkward conversation. Shelley is trying to pretend she doesn't know who Pamela is but she's really fucking terrible at it. Eventually Pamela puts her out of her misery and admits that her mom is famous.

Shelley asks her dippy questions about her life and Pamela tells her that it's not as cool as people think. She can't even go out in public with her mother without getting mobbed by people. She can never tell who her friends really are because people constantly use her. Plus, her mom would rather send her away to school than deal with her. Some of this a very boring retelling of Casey's story. I mean, it's good to recycle and all, White, but not from books in the same series.

Faith appears at the end of breakfast to collect Shelley for a bike ride. She comes up to the table and says “Ready?” and Pamela assumes she's a servant and tells her it's okay to clear the table. Faith takes immediate offense to this and stomps away. Pamela huffs that good help is so hard to find and Shelley tells her that Faith isn't help. Pamela comments that Faith must be used to being mistaken for a servant by now and Shelley hastily makes her exit.

She catches up with Faith outside the cafeteria and tries to smooth her roommate's feathers a bit. Faith asked her what she said to Pamela after Faith left the room and Shelley realizes that she really should have defended Faith a little. Instead of telling her the truth, Shelley lies and says that she really told Pamela off and threatened to punch her if she ever insulted Faith again. #yourpantsareonfire

Some time passes. White doesn't let us know how much. The girls have just finished painting their room black. Alison (housemother extraordinaire) passes by and is shocked. She doesn't reprimand them, however. In fact, she offers them some blacklights and posters that she thinks will look groovy in there. Dana takes this opportunity to pull her aside and ask about PA and the younger man. She's confident that their friendship will have Alison confiding in her but Alison refuses to comment. She says there are thing she can't even tell Dana. Dana is super offended.

It's another day I think. Shelley is walking home from class with Tom and comparing him yet again to Paul who she spent the whole summer with. Despite all this talk about them seeing other people, Shelley and Paul were very much together while she was home but now she's seeing Tom again. Shelley is a very “love the one you're with” kind of girl. They make plans to go for a drive later and then part ways.

Pamela is in 407 when Shelley gets there. She wants to go swimming in the creek but doesn't know how to get there and Shelley is the only one she can ask because everyone else pretty much hates her. Shelley knows that if anyone sees her with Pamela it's going to be considered a betrayal but she can't help being fascinated with Pamela and her life. They get changed and head for the creek.

Pamela is full of stories about her privileged lifestyle which Shelley snorts up her nose like lines of coke. She can't get enough of this ish and Pamela can't get enough of providing it. At one point she asks Shelley if she knows of anyone who would be willing to do Pamela's course work for pay and Shelley is quaintly shocked by this idea. Pamela whines that she'll just be too busy what with tennis and sneaking off to New York to shop and the new boy she's met. Shelley asks her who the boy is and Pamela reveals that she's now dating Bret-the-two-timer. Shelley tries to warn her away but Pamela is confident that she can change him. #sowasDanaonce

We wake up one morning in Dana's head. She's having a dream about dancing with Randy and wakes up to the alarm. At first she can't figure out why the room is so dark and then we get this: “She and Faith and Dana were finding that the black paint job made it seem like night a lot in room 407.”

Seriously, White? We're in DANA'S head right now.

White remembers that a sentence later and tells us that Dana is up at 6 on a Saturday to watch the sun rise with Randy. She hurries to get ready and then stops to look at herself in the mirror. And we get this: “Dana knew she was considered one of the best looking girls around Canby Hall....” #Dana💖sDana

Dana goes downstairs to find Randy waiting for her, reading a book in his truck. Before sunrise. In the dark.  I mean, I know he's 💫magical💫, White, but this is ridiculous.  She thinks about how he has no direction and how he's limiting himself to wanting to run his father's horse ranch. Because that's not an acceptable career goal, yo. She vows to talk to him about it at some point and set him straight about his life's goal. Randy drives her up to this place called “Lover's Leap” because it's the best place to watch the sun come up and there's never anyone else there in the morning. To his surprise, today there are two cars parked there already.

Dana recognizes one of the cars as belonging to PA and she tells Randy they should back the fuck out of there because she doesn't want to know what the head bitch in charge is doing up at Lover's Leap. It's too late to get out gracefully, however, because a casually dressed PA suddenly comes running out of the woods looking disheveled and frantic. The mystery man is chasing after her, yelling at her to stop. She freezes when she sees Dana and tries to compose herself.

Neither Dana or Randy asks her if she needs any help. I'm sorry but if I see a woman being chased by a man out of the woods I'm going to ask if she's okay. But they just excuse themselves and head off to view the sunrise. While sitting up there, Dana suddenly becomes distraught and wonders if PA and the mystery man had come up there to leap off the cliff.

Since when did this fucking town have cliffs?

Maybe it's where that fucking waterfall came from.

A few days later, Dana awkwardly runs into PA. PA asks her about the sunrise and Dana says it was fine. PA then mentions she was out there bird-watching with one of her bird club members.  #lyingiscontagiousatCanby

Now it's another day. White isn't bothering to inform us of how much time is passing between chapters or chapter breaks. The girls are dressed up and waiting to go to the French restaurant with Pamela. Faith and Dana are reluctant. Neither of them like Pamela and wouldn't bother going but Shelley is very gung ho for everyone to get along. She lies and says that Pamela is ashamed of her behavior but too shy to say so. It's not remotely true. When Shelley told Pamela that Faith was still pretty upset at being treated like help, Pamela said “too bad”. #she'sapeach

Shelley is sure that when Dana and Faith hear Pamela's star-studded stories about her life in California that they'll realize what a privilege it is to be acknowledged by Pamela. Shelley has a pretty detailed fantasy including YY sending a private jet to pick all the girls up at Thanksgiving and setting them all up with famous dates like Michael Jackson and Matt Dillon.

For the record, this was Matt Dillon in the 80's and I kind of get it.


But seriously?  Michael Jackson?

Pamela shows up an hour late with a story about being on the phone with her mother who is dating Burt Reynolds. She makes some comments about marriage and divorce which offend Dana whose parents recently got divorced and whose dad just got remarried. Then she lights up a cigarette which makes Faith start coughing. Dana tells Pamela about Faith's summer illness but Pamela doesn't put out the cigarette right away. When she finally does, it's with extreme reluctance.

They get to the restaurant and Pamela makes a big deal about how it isn't much but they do okay. Faith and Shelley have never in their lives been in anything so fancy and they're a little awestruck. While they wait for their server, Pamela begins to name drop all the people her mother hangs out with and Faith calls her on it, saying they really don't care. Pamela instantly starts crying for some reason which makes Faith feel bad and she apologizes.

Suddenly Bret-the-two-timer shows up beside the table. He's there with his parents and he spotted the girls from across the room. Pamela's tears disappear as if they were never there and she flirts with Bret for a few minutes, sending gloating glances at Dana the entire time. Bret eventually excuses himself to go back to his parents and tells Pamela that he'll call her later that evening. Dana is pretty crushed. Pamela picks up her menu and suggests they start with the pate even though it's “peasantish” which I'm pretty sure isn't even a word.

Dana stands up and says she's going back to the dining hall to eat “peasantish” cod patties instead and Faith goes with her. Shelley stays behind with Pamela.

Later that evening when she gets home she tries to tell Faith and Dana that Pamela really isn't that bad. The other two girls say that they'll accept the fact that Shelley wants to be friends with Pamela but they refuse to do anything with Pamela ever again. Shelley agrees to stop forcing them all together but admits that she still has the Thanksgiving fantasy in her heart. Dana says she'd rather be buried under the tulips than go anywhere with Pamela over Thanksgiving.

Dana suddenly remembers the B-plot and sends Casey a note to meet her after class. She wants to spy on PA to find out what's going on with that mystery man. She's set a telescope up on the roof of Baker House and aimed it at PA's house. When the time is right and the mystery man is there, she wants Casey to sit behind the bush under PA's window with her and eavesdrop.

This is almost as dumb as that whole Ooga-Booga thing. Is Dana just going to stand on the roof 24/7 waiting for that guy to show up?

Casey is reluctant. She hasn't been in big trouble for awhile now and this sounds like big trouble. But Dana calls her chicken and Casey agrees. They put the plan into effect that night with Dana up on the roof with the telescope. For 4-5 nights there's nothing and then finally the mystery man appears.

She goes to collect Casey and the two of them head to PA's house together. There are some stupidly dramatic moments as they get into place to eavesdrop and then it finally pays off. Sort of. The guy's name is Yale and he's been in prison. He says that “Patsy” didn't stick by him. She tells him that she tried to do everything she could to help him before he was sent to prison but he didn't want her help then. Afterwards it would have killed her career to be associated with him, so she protected herself.

The girls assume he's a former lover but he's a lot younger than PA. I'm predicting brother.

I think it's the next evening now but White didn't exactly make it clear. Shelley is going on a date with Tom to Pizza Pete's but she's ready early so she takes some French flashcards outside to study while she waits. Pamela comes up as she's sitting on a bench outside. They've been spending a lot of evenings together watching the “movie cassettes” that YY sends Pamela constantly but Shelley acknowledges that it's the only activity she can really stand to do with Pamela. Pamela is narcissistic and cruel and Shelley has a hard time being around that. Which is HILARIOUS since everyone one in these books is narcissistic and cruel.

Except 💫Randy💫.

This book needed WAY more Randy.

Pamela seems down and when Shelley asks about it, she says she's bummed because she called Bret's room just now and his roommate said he'd gone home for the week. Shelley knows this isn't true because she just saw him with another girl walking across the lawn five minutes ago but she doesn't bother telling Pamela this. She impulsively invites Pamela to come on her date and Pamela goes up to change.

Tom gets there 10 minutes later but Pamela isn't ready for another 20. Tom is pretty pissed. He's mad at Shelley for inviting Pamela along without even checking with him and he's pissed at Pamela for keeping them waiting. His mood visibly improves when he sees Pamela for the first time and suddenly he's full of charm. Pamela flirts with him and Shelley seethes. She's pretty much a hypocrite since she spent all summer making out with Paul but whatever. I'm so over this right now.

They get to the pizza place and it's pretty clear that Pamela is making a hard play for Tom. Shelley feels really betrayed. She's the only person who will give Pamela the time of day at Canby and this is how she's repaid. She excuses herself to go splash cold water on her face in the bathroom. While she's in there she comes up with the plan to claim she's suddenly sick and needs to go home. When she gets back to the table, though, Tom and Pamela are holding hands.

Shelley runs from the restaurant and down the street. Tom eventually catches up to her and makes her stop. He says Pamela was “reading his palm” (#yeahright) and that's all that was going on. He advises Shelley to dump Pamela as a friend, though, because she obviously doesn't care about Shelley at all.

Tom and Shelley walk back to the car and get in and drive back to campus. It's only when they get to Baker House that Shelley remembers they just left Pamela in the restaurant. They go back but Pamela is already gone. Shelley feels bad but she's determined to end the friendship now.

Time passes. {{{shrug}}} Shelley is at play practice. The director is new and hasn't seen what an amazing actress Shelley is or how much Shelley shined during the summer intensive class (these are Shelley's own thoughts, BTW) so she's nervous that her skill isn't being properly appreciated. She was cast as the sister of the lead, after all, instead of the lead. The rehearsal gets off to a rocky start when the director makes fun of her awful Irish accent. Shelley is mortified. She feels that the director (Mac) is purposely being harder on her than anyone else to “whittle her down a few pegs” since she was the obvious star of the drama department.

#delusionalmuch?

Shelley gets back to 407 wanting to whine to her roommates only to find the room empty. Apparently their main form of communication with each other is writing notes on the mirror in lipstick which just seems like a waste of lipstick and a pain in the ass to clean up. At any rate, there's a message scrawled in lipstick that Faith and Dana have gone to the dining room to eat. Shelley doesn't feel like eating and decides to work on her history paper instead. Dana is the only one with a typewriter but she shares so Shelley heads for Dana's desk to use it. There's an unfinished letter already in it addressed to Faith's sister. Shelley unashamedly reads it.

The letter......WHICH IS SO OBVIOUSLY A FAKE....goes on and one about how bored Faith is and how much she hates her roommates. She makes fun of Dana's pseudo-style (can't blame her there) and how annoying Shelley is with all her “theatah” bullshit (again....accurate). But clearly it's a planted letter written by Pamela. Shelley is hella dumb, though, and falls for it, bursting into tears.

Dana and Faith come back in laughing about some girl who slipped on a pea in the cafeteria and fell on her ass. #nicegirls Shelley shoves the letter at Faith and she and Dana read it. Of course, Faith says she didn't write it but Shelley calls her a liar. She balls it up and throws it hard in Faith's face which is a punchable offense in my book. Faith asks Dana if Dana believes her and Dana says she does but we take a head hop into her brain long enough to find out that Dana is lying too. She isn't sure she believes Faith at all and she's hurt.

Two days pass and after I pass out from the shock of White actually giving us a time stamp, I find myself with Faith at the newspaper office. She tells us that Shelley hasn't spoken to her at all and Dana is being pretty standoffish as well. She has every right to be pissed about this since she didn't do anything wrong but she's more sad than anything. Some random chick comes in to tell her that Shelley wants to meet her at the falls and Faith hopes this means they're going to talk. She has to break a date with Johnny to go and he isn't happy about it but she knows it's for the best.

It turns out it's Johnny's birthday and she's ditching him for Shelley. #ouch And this is totally the wrong blog for this but Imma do it anyway.

Odds that Shelley is the one who sent Faith the message: 10%

The falls are deserted when Faith gets there. She waits more than an hour but Shelley never shows up. Faith is hella pissed but decides the best way to play this is to not give Shelley the satisfaction of reacting. She'll just pretend it never happened. But she vows to never speak to Shelley again. Which happens roughly twice in each book. #predictable

On Wednesday morning, Faith wakes up late. Shelley is already gone which is a big deal because Wednesdays are room inspection days and they didn't clean the night before. She doesn't have time to do it now which means it will all fall on Dana. She wakes Dana up to beg that she clean up before inspection and Dana sleepily agrees. When Faith gets back from class that afternoon, though, she finds a note from Alison saying they flunked inspection and the room looks like Dana didn't do anything at all. Faith is pissed.

Odds that Dana actually cleaned the room and then Pamela “uncleaned” it: 95%

Dana, naturally, defends herself saying she knows she cleaned it and she can't figure out how it got messy again. Faith doesn't believe her. These girls are really idiots.

#thisisNOThowfriendshipworks

Alison calls Dana up to a meeting and Dana uses the opportunity to tell her about all the weird things going on in 407. Alison listens but tells Dana she has bigger problems. PA has been tipped off that Dana and Casey have been spying on her and she wants to meet with them at her house. Dana is surprised they're not being called into the office instead.

Dana and Casey discuss who could have ratted them out. Casey told absolutely no one because she's the only one on campus with any brains at all. Dana told Faith and Shelley but insists that they wouldn't have betrayed her. Still, she goes to talk to them about everything that's been going on. They aren't interested at first but Dana just keeps talking until they listen. She tells them that she thinks they're all being pranked.

After a lot of discussion about various plot points involving typewriters, falls and room inspections, Dana asks them if they told anyone about the spy missions. Shelley admits she told Pamela to make herself look important. I'm not sure how ratting on Dana and Casey made her feel important but this book isn't high on the logic scale.

They decide to come up with a plan and my butthole clenches with fear because we all know how these girls plan.

The next afternoon, Dana and Casey meet at PA's house for their interrogation. They decide to just tell the truth so Dana admits she was curious about Yale and they went to eavesdrop to see if they could find anything out. She seems to think it was just harmless fun but PA points out that Dana wouldn't be too happy if PA stood outside her window and spied on her. Dana is outraged at the idea and thinks it would be very creepy if PA or Alison or someone was eavesdropping on her. It takes her a minute to realize what she did was equally bad but she does finally make the connection.

PA says they'll be restricted to campus for a month as punishment. Then she says if they wanted to know about Yale they should have just asked her. She goes to the door and asks Yale to come in and then introduces him as her brother.


And out B-plot is wrapped up with a nice little bow.

Time passes. Suddenly it's October. We just started school a few pages ago. Dana and Alison are sitting out on Alison's “deck” which prompted me to yell out of the blue “What kind of an attic has a fucking deck?” much to the surprise of my manager and husband. The scene serves absolutely no purpose except to annoy me with the deck thing and to pad White's page count.

Back in 407, the girls put their plan (“DPC – Drive Pamela Crazy”) into effect. #harebrained #thesegirlssuckatnamingplans #whoamIkiddingthesegirlsjustsuckingeneral

Step one of the plan is to send a rose and a fake note from Bret. I have to say I find it disgusting already. Bret's an asshole but they shouldn't be roping him into this and sending fake notes from boys is pretty much one of the nastiest things you can do. If I didn't hate them all before, I definitely do now. #burnthemallthefuckdown The note tells her to meet “Bret” at the french restaurant at 4:00 to talk.

Step two is to have Tom call the restaurant just after 4:00 pretending to be Bret with a message for Pamela that he got detention and to meet him on campus under the big clock at 5:00 instead. Man, these girls suck. This isn't cute or funny. They could be the bigger people here.

Step three is to have some random friend of Tom's who Pamela couldn't possibly know pose as Bret's friend and meet her under the clock. He's passing along a message that Bret decided the clock wasn't a special enough rendezvous place so he wants to meet her by the skating pond instead. They apparently paid this guy in quarters because he loves to play Pacman at the arcade. That does it. Random guy is my second favorite character now. (You all know I can't ditch Randy. He's magical.)

The girls rush ahead to the pond to set everything up. They spread out a blanket and put candles and flowers on it and hang crepe paper from the trees. They tape up red construction paper hearts with Bret & Pamela printed on them and set out a radio tuned to an easy listening station. Then they hide and wait.

The final step is to “accidentally” run into Pamela waiting on the blanket. She rushes to explain that she didn't set the scene, Bret did it. They act doubtful and tell her that they just saw Bret with another girl walking across campus. She's embarrassed and they move on.

Seriously. What the fuck was the point of that?

Pamela is super pissed off and vows to make the girls of room 407 miserable for the rest of her existence at Canby and then the book abruptly ends. I swear it was like in mid-thought. What the hell happened, White? Did they edit off the end of your book or did you just not bother to write it?

#allswellthatdoesn'tendatall

The Least Annoying Person in Greenleaf Award:  I'm giving this to Pacman guy.  Celebrate with a round on me, gamer dude.

The Bitch of Baker House Award:  Dana, Faith, Shelley and Casey are going to have to share this one for Plan DPC.  Bitches.  All of them are bitches.

Coming up Next: Michael the guidance counselor finally makes his appearance and all the girls go crazy over him.  #ew







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