Party Time (Book 21) by "Emily Chase"

**This blog contains adult language**

Warning: Contains Spoilers!!! 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 was a total bitch in this book. Because you know at least one of them was.

Tag Line: Will Jane's roommates spoil the party?

From the Back of the Book: Everything is going wrong. Jane doesn't understand. Her friends should be honored to attend the Barrett Landing Party, the very formal annual celebration of the arrival of the first Barrett in Boston in 1663. But Toby and Andy are not exactly up on the rules of high-society etiquette and they are in trouble from the moment they arrive for the weekend. And with Jane's boyfriend Cary behaving his most outrageous, things do not look good for Jane's keeping her friends - or her boyfriend. Meanwhile Meredith Pembroke, the new housemother, is finding new rules and reasons for giving out demerits - until Toby takes matters into her own hands. How will the girls in 407 cope with the Barrett party and Meredith's strictness?

This blurb is a mess. Cary wasn't very outrageous at all. He was himself. Jane was never in danger of losing her friends OR boyfriend but she really should have been. And Toby didn't take anything into her own two hands at all. Sheesh, blurb writers. However, the cover artists were ON POINT this book. Those are the exact outfits described in the book. I might expire from the shock.

This book was published in 1987. When I was 12, I loved the cover of this book. I just thought Jane looked so pretty and I was super jealous of her dress. Looking at it now, I wonder what Toby and Andy were thinking. Jane looks super formal and they look super casual. Andy in particular looks dumpy and under-dressed. Maybe that's part of the conflict in this book. I don't remember it at all beyond the cover.

The ghostwriter for this book is Carol Anshaw. I looked her up and the Wiki page I found listed her as a teacher, painter and short story novelist. Also, she was heralded as an important feminist. Which leads me to think that this is not that Carol Anshaw. I can't imagine a feminist writing for this series.

Canby Hall Catch-Up: So you all know the drill. We have three protagonists (Jane – high society princess, Andy– urban ballerina and Toby – small town ranch girl). Jane is doing the “just friends” thing with Neal-the-blueblood but she still thinks of him as her boyfriend half the time and doing the “dating” thing with Cary-the-rock-god but forgets this fact any time he's out of direct sight. Andy is dating Matt (maybe). Toby wishes she was dating Randy who has magical aging powers. In the last book, Jane and Toby flew to Chicago over Christmas Break to help out at Andy's family's restaurant. Jane proved to be a lousy waitress but an excellent cheater as she picked up a guy named Zach (long live Canby Hall Cheater Fever) on the plane. Too bad Zach hated rich people and Jane had to pretend she was poor. Andy also picked up a guy – a waiter named Steve. They agree to date when Andy's home on break which is fine as long as Matt is good with it (as if she's going to tell him). Toby, as usual, was awesome – at waitressing and life in general. At the end of the book she made a date to make a date with Jane's favorite blueblood Neal.

This book picks up about a week after the Christmas break restaurant fiasco. Our protagonists are back at Canby Hall and under about a foot of snow. Toby is hopelessly out of her element. Andy thinks the weather is trying to help them keep Alison (the housemother) from leaving. As you might remember, she got married around Thanksgiving time and is now ready to finally start her new life as a wife. The girls are on their way to the dining hall for Alison's going away party.

We get our standard paragraph about how the girls are so different but really good friends.

The girls of Baker House do skits and read poems and sing tributes to Alison. A good time is had by all. The 407 girls prank her with a fake cake made out of a rock. Oh, the hilarity. After they have real cake and ice cream, Alison introduces her replacement to everyone.  Has she just been standing in the corner waiting for this moment, listening to everyone say how they want Alison to stay 4eva?  Awkward.

Meredith Pembroke is the exact opposite of Alison. She's dressed formally in a skirt suit and scarf tie. Her hair is pulled back severely in a bun. She's pretty but hard looking. Naturally, everyone pretty much hates her on sight and she's not going to have a chance with this crowd. She further alienates the girls by saying they're all past curfew and, while she won't give them demerits this time, if any of them take longer than 15 minutes to get back to Baker House, they'll be written up.

Way to make a good first impression, Meredith.

We hop ahead a day (or 12 – who knows?). Cary, Jane, Andy, Matt, Toby and Randy are all tobogganing down the hill. Randy is 20 in this book. I can't remember how old he was last book. It changes because the ghostwriters really can't keep track. We're treated to THREE PAGES of how unlikely of a couple Jane and Cary are. She's stuck up and preppy and a bitch while he's friendly and a rock god and has an earring. They both come from old Boston money which Jane loves and Cary doesn't.

They have a snowball fight, drink cider and engage in a sing-a-long in the back of Randy's truck on the way back to campus. You can't really get anymore wholesome than that. After the girls are dropped off, Jane tells them that she has something important to talk to them about. In a few weeks it will be time for the “Barrett Landing Party” {delicate sniff} and she wants them to come. Every year her family hosts a “semi-formal” party to celebrate when their ancestors landed in Massachusetts. Toby and Andy are immediately skeptical. Andy thinks there won't be any other people of color there and Jane rushes to announce there will be three. Wow. Three. Diverse. Toby makes a crack about there not being any ranch people there and Jane gets exasperated with them. It's one weekend at her home and one party Saturday night. Surely they can handle that.

Why, no, Jane. No, they surely can't. If they could, we wouldn't have a book.

Also, Jane clearly told them it was a "semi-formal" party.  So why did they bring the outfits they are wearing on the cover?  Neither of those outfits are "semi-formal".

Andy and Toby don't want to go especially and they're sure they'll be super out of place, but they like Jane and they want to be there for her. Toby vows to get a book on etiquette to brush up on rich people manners. She's such a good friend.

We didn't spend any time worshipping the old girls from afar last book, so the ghostwriter makes up for it in this one. Andy decides she needs to call Faith because only Faith could understand the problems of a “black girl in a white girl's school”. For those who don't remember, Dana (sophisticated New Yorker), Faith (urban photographer) and Shelley (rural actress-wannabe) used to live in room 407. They were different but the best of friends. Sound familiar? They're also fairly awful and I hate them but the series LOVES them so much it can't let them go.

Andy explains her apprehension about Jane's party and Faith says it will be fine because “there will be other blacks there”. I'm not making that up. It's in the book. Faith reminds her that “black is beautiful” and says if she could go to Shelley's hometown in Iowa where a black person was so rare that she attracted crowds on the street (this is a fucking untrue statement – I remember that book and nothing like that happened – I hate Faith) then Andy can go to one little Boston party.

Andy heads back upstairs feeling better. WHY? All Faith did was tell her black is beautiful. I guess that was enough. Meredith stops her before she can reach 407 and gives her a demerit for making a call after 11 pm which is against house rules. Andy thinks she's joking at first because Alison never gave out demerits but Meredith assures her that things are going to be very different from now on.  And our B-plot is born.

We get three pages of room description that I'm going to skip because who cares? The tea bag is mentioned along with the fact that it was one of the greatest mysteries of Baker House because Toby refused to explain it. TELL ME WHY YOU TAPED A TEA BAG TO YOUR CEILING, TOBY!!! I keep naming you Queen of the Book. You owe me this.

Jane is getting ready to go out with Cary so it must be a new day. She wants to ask him to go to the landing party with her but she's pretty sure he'll refuse. Cary is really trying to make a break from Bostonian “society” and Jane knows he won't want to go to such a thing. As she gets dressed, she does a lot of bragging to the other two about how a Barrett was at the Boston Tea Party and it was a Barrett who gave Paul Revere a fresh horse on his famous ride. Andy makes a crack about a Barrett being at the signing of the Declaration of Independence (which is funny how?) and Jane gets pissed. She asks Andy where she gets off making fun of such an important historical family. {delicate sniff}

By the way, Jane is described as wearing dark designer jeans, a powder blue ski sweater, a pink beret and a burgundy vest with an upturned collar. The other girls think she's a snazzy dresser but the vest part is killing me.  Do vests even have collars?  Okay, I Google Imaged it and it turns out that some vests do, indeed, have collars.  Blogger 0, Ghostwriter 1.

After Jane leaves, Toby and Andy go to the dining hall with Maggie and Dee from the room next door. The ghostwriter makes sure to remind us that Maggie is only important because she's sainted Dana's little sister. There's a lot of talk about how awful the food is, which is a running thing throughout the series. I have a tough time believing that an expensive, prestigious, private school would have awful food.

Andy bitches and whines about the party and Dee says to just stick her tongue out at all the guests because that's so incredibly mature. Toby proves her wonderfulness yet again by saying they care for Jane and they would never want to do anything that would hurt her. They're going to go and do their very best to fit in.

We hop to Jane who is just finishing up dinner at Pizza Pete's. She hasn't mustered the courage to invite Cary yet. Hopefully she's learned her lesson from Alison's wedding (she invited Neal because he was more socially acceptable and then invited Cary because he was who she wanted to go with and they BOTH ended up showing up). After dinner, Cary suggests they head back to his dorm. Once a month, Oakley Prep allows residents to have their friends or girlfriends over as long as they keep their dorm doors open. Jane is a little weirded out by Cary's anti-social roommate Stu and Cary's supreme neatness but she agrees to go.

Jane comments how weird it is that Cary rejects high society but he keeps his room neat as a pin.

Huh?

Are those two things ACTUALLY related? What a bizarre thing to say.

Cary reminds her that he was taught neatness way before he became a “rebel” and that prompts Jane to launch into this massive paragraph about how much it means to her to be a Barrett and how connected she feels to her ancestors throughout history. She brings up the landing party and Cary is actually excited to go. But not for any reason that Jane feels acceptable. He has an assignment for anthropology class to observe some sort of societal ritual. He thinks the landing party will do nicely. Jane gets hella pissed. She wants him to want to go because he thinks the Barretts are the most amazing thing since canned tuna, not because he wants to study them.

Cary reminds her that they met because she was studying HIM for a class assignment about a new and interesting experience. He points out that there's no difference in what she did and what he wants to do. She can't accept this reasonableness so she literally stomps off like a three year old. I hate Jane.

TEAM CARY!

Jane stomps all the way back to her room where Andy, Toby, Maggie and Dee are playing Clue because they're adorable. She throws a massive fit about Cary and then explodes when the girls just keep playing their game. She yells that her family has been insulted and she can't believe they're not at the door with torches and then she stomps out of the room again.

Bet you can't guess who will be the Bitch of Baker House for this book.

Dee asks Toby and Andy if they can knock Jane off her high horse because she's driving everyone up the wall. They reply that they're just going to have to live with it until the party is over. Bleak but probably accurate.

Jane is awful in the remaining days before the party. She continually spouts historical Barrett facts at every given opportunity. Toby and Andy are sick of hearing about the perfect Barretts {delicate sniff} but, like good friends, they bite their tongues and hope it will pass after the party. Meredith continues to be a pain in the ass, giving out demerits for rules no one knew existed. Because Faith wasn't worshipped enough during the phone call, there's several pages of Andy writing her a letter to tell you everything I just said in four sentences.

On the day before the party, Jane takes the train to Boston so she can help her mother with some last-minute things. Cary volunteers to drive Andy and Toby AND agrees to show them around town on Saturday because he's awesome and you should all love him as much as I do. Cary is charming on the drive. He kids around with Toby and Andy and shows he can handle being teased and is capable of laughing at himself.  Unlike someone we know.  He tells them that he finds Boston high-society suffocating and he thinks Jane's parents aren't going to like him much. Toby and Andy reveal they've had the same fear. Cary says they're all awesome and if the Barretts can't see that, it's their problem.

They arrive in Boston and the girls are impressed with how pretty Jane's neighborhood is. Cary gives them some background about the area and then pulls up to Jane's house. Toby admits she's nervous to go in and Cary tells her just to go in there like she belongs and knows what she's doing. He tells her that goes for the whole weekend. Andy gives him an affectionate arm punch and tells him he's pretty amazing. Which should have been obvious from the beginning.

TEAM CARY!

Toby and Andy ring the bell and are ushered into the south parlor by Bernice the maid. They explore the room a bit and then see a rope hanging in the corner. Toby pulls on it, pretending to be a train engineer or something and, to their surprise, a butler appears. He asks them if they want tea and the girls seem to assume it's a joke and Andy says they'd love tea and crumpets. Toby pipes in that she'd like scones. She doesn't know what they are, but she knows people have them with tea. Andy adds in cherries jubilee and the butler bows and leaves.

Andy then goes over to a chessboard by the window and starts moving pieces around.  Who does that?  Has she never been a guest in someone's home before?  Toby stops her and tells her that someone might have been in the middle of a game. Andy panics because she can't remember where the pieces were. They're trying to figure out what to do when the door opens again. An overweight young woman walks into the room.  Andy is stunned to find out it's Jane's older sister Charlotte. Jane raves about her sister and Andy expected someone cool, not this fat lump.

Fuck you, Andy.

Charlotte asks about their trip and welcomes them to the house. She's about to show them to their room when Walton the butler comes in with the tea tray filled with scones and crumpets and cherries jubilee. Charlotte sarcastically replies that she's glad the girls are making themselves at home. Toby and Andy are suitably embarrassed and they invite Charlotte to join them but she replies that dinner is in an hour and she doesn't think it's appropriate to eat so much food now. {delicate sniff} She tells Walton to show them to their room after they've finished their feast and she leaves.

The room the girls will be staying in is beautiful but simple. Andy notices that Toby is a little teary and she gently asks why. Toby reveals that she's always wanted a room like this but growing up on a ranch with only men around, she's never had the chance to do any kind of decorating. Andy realizes that's why Toby only has an army blanket on her bed and no real decorations. She promises Toby they'll go second-hand shopping when they get back and they'll find her some simple, beautiful things. It's a really nice, true moment between friends. Good job, ghostwriter.

Andy jokes that they can even find a cozy for the tea bag and then asks if Toby will ever tell her why it's there. Toby actually opens her mouth to tell.....................and Jane walks in and interrupts.

DAMN YOU JANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jane is there to bring them down to dinner. She then drops the bombshell that they're expected to “dress for dinner” which means a skirt or dress. Shouldn't she have told them this before they packed? How were they supposed to know. It's already been established that Jane is taller than Andy and a size bigger than Toby which means sharing clothes is more complicated. So they can't exactly borrow a dress from her. Although technically, the dress could be long on Andy and baggy on Toby and still be appropriate. Toby has a denim skirt which Jane says will have to do. {delicate sniff} Andy is already wearing a skirt but Jane asks her to change her Tina Turner sweatshirt for something more proper. {delicate sniff}  When Andy looks offended, Jane rushes to say that she wouldn't care what they wore to dinner but her parents will assume they don't care about making a good impression if they don't “dress”.

Ugh.

Toby and Andy get changed and go downstairs where everyone is seated around the dining room table. Andy thinks Mr and Mrs Barrett look like stereotypical socialites. Of course they do. Everyone is a stereotype in these books. Mr Barrett fancies himself a wit and cracks bad “dad jokes” at them. Dinner has many courses and Toby manages to bungle them all. She doesn't know how to eat artichoke or soft-shell crabs and she drinks her finger bowl. Mrs Barrett corrects her constantly and Mr Barrett mocks her, thinking he's being funny. Charlotte is silent through the entire two-hour meal.

Later that night when Toby and Andy are in their beds laughing about the horrible evening, Jane comes in. She tells them that Cary meeting her parents was pretty much awful. He didn't even try to suck up – he just acted like he always does. This infuriates her, of course, as she expected him to act more like Neal.

You know who acts like Neal, Jane? Neal. If you want a Neal, you can have a Neal. Stop trying to turn Cary into Neal.

Jane drops another bombshell on them. All the men at the party will be required to wear Pilgrim hats and all the women will be required to wear Pilgrim bonnets. They're personalized. Andy's will have a tiny ballerina on the edge and Toby's will have a horse. Neither girl is thrilled and Toby blurts out “no way” before she can think better of it.

Then we get this from Jane:

“Suddenly she wheeled around and lashed out at them. 'You are so incredibly selfish! I've had it with all of you! Cary shows up looking like Keith Richards and you two display the table manners of cave dwellers. And now you're balking at the honor of wearing Pilgrim bonnets to the Barrett Landing Party?! Sometimes I think that with friends like you...well, as they say, who needs enemies?”

Jane can suck an egg.

The next morning, Bernice wakes the girls with coffee and croissants on a tray. There's a note from Cary “Let's do Boston. Call me. Cary.” Toby couldn't be more excited to leave the Barrett house. She calls Cary immediately and makes arrangements for him to pick them up in half an hour.

Cary takes them to an old-fashioned marketplace first. It's set up like a street bazaar and has pretty much anything a person could want. Toby reveals a deep love for rainbows when she sees a rainbow shop and ends up buying a bedspread, rug and mobile there for her side of the dorm. A mobile? Like you hang over baby cribs? Odd. They roam around, having a great time. Andy buys a chocolate bar in the shape of a ballet slipper and Cary picks up a present for Jane even though she's being a complete bitch.

The next stop is a diner that serves authentic British fish and chips. Then Cary takes them on a driving tour of all the important landmarks. He stops at the museum so they can see the Barrett family collection and then even escorts them to his sister's favorite bargain shopping spot. When they get done with that, Andy stops at a payphone to let Jane know they're headed home. Jane comes to the phone screaming about how they sneaked off without telling her where they were going and how dare they when there was a party to prepare for. Andy reminds her that she set the thing up in the first place and Jane coldly says she doesn't remember doing that. Of course you did, bitch. It's YOUR boyfriend. You're the only one who really could set it up.

Andy apologizes for the miscommunication and says they'll be home soon. Jane mentions that her parents and Charlotte are VERY UPSET that Toby and Andy haven't been helping set up for a party they are supposed to be guests at. Seriously. They aren't family and they aren't hired help and NO ONE EVER ASKED THEM TO HELP. Andy is miffed. She thinks Jane ought to explain that JANE set it up for Andy and Toby to be gone. Jane says she might if she can catch anyone but they're pretty busy.

I call bullshit.

These people would HIRE help to set up. They wouldn't be doing it themselves.

Jane meets them at the door when they arrive. There are caterers and florists and maids bustling about but there's also Mrs Barrett up on a ladder hanging crepe paper.

Bullshit.

Mr Barrett is yelling on the phone about the chess game Andy fucked up. Apparently he's been playing with some guy in another country via telex. Telex is like.....the 80s version of texting. He has no idea Andy moved the pieces and he thinks the other guy is cheating. Nice. Jane rushes them up to her room to see her fancy party dress. While they're in there, Charlotte drops by to borrow some makeup and they have an odd conversation about why Charlotte doesn't have a date. Later, in their room, Toby and Andy discuss it and Andy predicts that Charlotte is having a “secret tragic romance”. I don't remember much of this book and a part of me hopes it's with a woman but I know that wouldn't fly back in the 80's.

Toby and Andy begin to get ready. Toby never unpacked and her outfit is horribly wrinkled. Andy suggests hanging it in the bathroom and turning the shower on hot so the steam will take care of the wrinkles. It doesn't work. They decide to go looking for an iron. Andy suggests they take the back stairs because they probably lead to the servant's quarters. As they're going down the stairs, Toby stumbles and falls into the wall. To their surprise, a secret door opens. Toby wants to keep going down the stairs, but Andy can't resist the allure of a secret passage.

The girls go through the passage and find another set of winding stairs that go down further into the house. They can smell lilac perfume so they know the stairs have been used recently. The stairs dead end. Andy suggests Toby “fall” into the wall again, so she does and a door clicks open again. They find themselves in a closet. On the other side of the closet door is McNulty's room. McNulty is the driver and they stumble onto him and Charlotte making out. Charlotte panics. She's been secretly seeing McNulty for over a year and her parents would never approve. Toby and Andy swear to keep her secret. Charlotte says they can tell Jane. She's been trying to figure out how to tell her for awhile now. McNulty offers to help them find an iron and all is well again.

The party is as dull as predicted. Toby and Andy are having a terrible time. Cary is getting plenty of notes for his research. In respect to Jane, he's dressed in a suit and tie and isn't wearing his sunglasses. Neal shows up and asks Toby to take a walk with him through the conservatory. They flirt a bit and Neal opens up about how trapped he feels in his life. His family has huge expectations of him and he's not sure he wants to follow the path they're laying out for him. Toby compares it to being handed a script of your life and having to just accept you'll be reading lines other people have written for you. Neal likes the way she thinks and they go through a compliment/blush cycle for a few pages before he tells her he wants her to meet his mother. You remember her – the woman who called Jane and begged her to take Neal back.

Toby and Neal leave the conservatory just as Jane and Cary go in. Cary pulls Jane behind the orchids for some smooching. Jane is glued to his face when her mom walks in. Mrs Barrett is very disapproving. She asks what people would think if they walked in there. Cary says they'd be very shocked to see mild-mannered Clark Kent, reporter, in such a situation but that's only because they don't realize he's really.....here he rips open his blazer to reveal superman suspenders......SuperCary!! Jane is mortified but her mom bursts out laughing. She tells Cary that she can see what Jane sees in him. Duh, lady, we ALL can.

Meanwhile the party is failing. Everyone is bored and several people have already left. The teens get together and decide they have to save this party.

You know.....this party that they have EVERY SINGLE YEAR exactly the same way and that everyone has previously enjoyed enough to KEEP COMING BACK. But THIS time....this year....it needs the kids to rescue it.

Sigh.

Cary talks to the band and they are going to shake things up and play something with a beat. They even have an extra guitar so he can show 'em how it's done. Jane is dubious. She isn't sure it's a rock crowd. Andy hops on stage and bellows into the microphone that she's going to give everyone "disco madness" lessons.

Oh, Lord.

At first, the crowd just stares at her, rather horrified. The teens and Charlotte rush forward to fill the dance floor and, to their surprise, several elderly people join them. Cary theorizes that the older people don't care so much about maintaining their stuffy reputations anymore. He gets the band started and Andy gets the group dancing by telling them to “merge their bodies with the music and get behind the sound”.

Oh, Lord.

Naturally this is a raging success and soon the whole place is dancing with wild abandon. The teens have saved the day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

The next day Cary drives them all back to Canby Hall. The girls are met by Meredith who gives them each a demerit for signing out in pencil instead of ink. We still have about 50 pages to go so I'm guessing we're moving on to the B plot.

Sure enough, the next several pages are just a laundry list of things the girls do to get demerits (kissing Cary, having a goldfish, using a hair dryer, messy room, etc). Andy finally says they need to go see PA. PA is the principal or headmistress or president or whatever of the school. They think she might be able to talk Meredith into being more reasonable.

The girls go to see PA who invites them into her study to talk. She hears them out and admits they aren't the first girls to come and complain. She tells them that Meredith is new and sometimes when someone is new they try way too hard to make sure they do the job right. Technically Meredith is doing exactly what she's supposed to do and making sure everyone follows the rules. PA admits that Meredith is being strict but she feels like the “dust will settle” and things will resolve themselves. She thinks that will be better than her coming down like a hammer on a person who is trying to find her footing in a new situation. I can see her point. It's not the answer the girls want, though, and they glumly leave.

In the midst of all the Meredith drama, Toby gets a letter from Neal. He's coming up on Saturday to take her to Pizza Pete's and she's pretty moony over it. Saturday morning she gets up early to take a ride at Randy's to work off some of her nervous energy. She's sitting on the front steps eating a donut for breakfast when Meredith pulls up with a friend. Toby is shocked to see that Meredith's friend is hip and punk and awesome. The two of them are laughing as they get out of the car but Meredith turns all business when she sees Toby.

Technically girls aren't allowed to leave the dorms that early in the morning. Especially if they are headed off campus which Toby admits she's doing. Meredith says she's giving Toby two demerits. Toby says fine and then starts to leave. Meredith asks her what she's doing and Toby replies that since she already got the demerits despite not having actually left campus, she might as well earn them by actually leaving campus. Part of me cheered for her, but most of me knew this was a hugely bad decision. Sure enough, Meredith grounds Toby to her room until Monday (except for the dining hall).

As Toby walks away, she hears Meredith's friend (Rachel) ask “Merry” why the hell she's acting like a witch. She reminds Meredith that Meredith broke every single rule at their school and the administration even had to add new rules to the books to cover some of the things Meredith did. Meredith hurriedly hushes her.

Toby goes in the front door and out the back door. She runs all the way to the ranch. Randy comes out to the barn as she's saddling Maxine and asks her if she's sure she's ready to ride in the snow. It's something she won't be used to, being a Texas girl. She's in a bad mood and snaps at him for treating her like a kid. Then she tells him she thinks she's in love with Neal. He asks how long she's been seeing Neal and she admits that they haven't even gone on their first date yet. Randy tells her that what she's feeling is attraction. Love takes time to grow. She doesn't want to hear it and she takes off at a full gallop.

Toby rides for a bit and then decides to head back. Unfortunately, Maxine gallops into a snow drift and throws Toby off in her panic. Toby hits her ankle on a tree and can't walk. She tries calling for help. Time passes. She begins to lose consciousness from exposure. She's about to drift off when she hears Randy yelling for her. She tries to yell back, but can't manage much sound. Remembering her red scarf in her pocket, she pulls it out and waves it. He finally sees her and comes to the rescue.

Randy puts her on his horse and swings up behind her. The infirmary at Canby Hall is the closest place to get her medical attention, so he heads there. On the way, he gets flagged down by Meredith who threatens to give him a demerit for having livestock on campus. HE DOESN'T EVEN GO THERE! He's like 20. Or 23. Or maybe 19. Sometimes he's 21.  AND HE'S A BOY!  When she sees Toby on the horse, she flies off the handle and threatens her with extreme punishment. When Toby just nods, Meredith realizes something is wrong and orders Randy to take her to the infirmary. HE WAS GOING THERE ALREADY YOU IDIOT.

Jane, Andy, Randy, Dee and Maggie crowd the waiting room of the infirmary waiting to hear from the doctor. He finally appears and tells them that Toby is going to be fine. Her ankle is severely sprained and she'll need to wear a soft cast and walk with a cane for awhile. Randy asks to go up and see her. While he's gone, Meredith shows up with Rachel demanding to talk to Toby. The nurse refuses to let her but makes her come into the office to sign some paperwork. While she's gone, Rachel joins the girls and tries to strike up conversation.

It's clear that Rachel expects the girls to like Meredith and she's surprised to hear they all hate her. She says that Meredith was the wildest girl on campus in college and she was worried when she heard Meredith got this job because she was afraid she'd be too lenient. Andy and Jane think that is probably the problem. Meredith doesn't want to be too lenient so she's being too strict. Meredith reappears and tells them she'll be back because she has something important to tell Toby.

I hope someone calls Neal and tells him Toby is sedated and won't exactly be going to Pizza Pete's.

Time passes. It's evening now. Toby wakes up to find her room full of balloons. Apparently someone DID call Neal because he brought a rainbow of balloons with him from Boston. He's also been down in the waiting room all afternoon waiting for her to wake up. He comes up and they reschedule their date for the next Saturday. He kisses her before he leaves.

Andy pulls out a white bag and says they got Chinese so Toby wouldn't have to eat the cafeteria food. Um. Like when? They had no idea when she'd wake up. Has it just been sitting there all afternoon? Are they trying to kill her? They're eating when Meredith comes in. She's wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and she just seems....different.

Meredith explains that she realized she'd gone overboard when she saw Toby on the horse and instead of wondering why, she was trying to figure out what kind of demerits she could give out. She tells them about being wild and crazy through her school years. Her dad died and her mom got sick and there was suddenly no money and she had to stop being wild and grow up. She needed a job and her family was friends with PA so PA offered her this one. But PA knew about her wild past and Meredith felt the need to prove she'd changed. She realizes she's gone too far and she wants to make a fresh start but she doesn't know how now that she's the most hated person on campus.

The girls suggest she call a house meeting and explain everything like she just did to them. She could hold an amnesty day on the demerits and start everyone out with a clean slate. Meredith thinks it's a good idea but doesn't hold much hope.

However it all turns out perfect because this is Canby Hall. “Merry” is accepted into the fold and all is perfect and pretty and wrapped up in a neat bow.

Hey.

NO ONE CHEATED ON ANYONE IN THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm........stunned.

Queen of the Book Award: Um. I should change the name of this.

Introducing.........

The Least Annoying Person in Greenleaf Award: I'm giving it to Cary. He was amazing in this book. He was understanding of Jane's altered state. He was good to her friends. He put on a suit for her party and he saved the day with a borrowed guitar.

The Bitch of Baker House Award: Jane. Was there ever any doubt. She was insufferable in this book and Cary should have dumped her ass in that conservatory.  Why did they all just let her get away with acting like that?  Someone should have roasted her for how she talked to all of them.  PLUS she interrupted Toby when we were about to find out about the tea bag!!!!!!!!!

Coming Up Next: Someone is making trouble for the girls in 407. Does this mean it's NOT the girls from 407 screwing up for once?

Friends Times Three (book 20) by "Emily Chase"

**This blog contains adult language.**

Warning: Contains Spoilers!!!  This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens.  Do NOT continue to read unless you want to find out which girl cheated on her boyfriend this time.

Tag Line: Are they three times the trouble?

From the Back of the Book: Some lessons are only learned one way.  The hard way.  The three roommates never thought they'd spend Christmas vacation together.  But during the holidays, when Andy and her family need extra waitresses in their restaurant, Jane and Toby fly to Chicago to help.  The girls quickly find out there's a lot more to waitressing than wearing uniforms and making tips, but Andy and Toby get the hang of it.  But Jane isn't sure she's cut out to be a waitress.  She has problems balancing trays and problems filling orders.  And once she meets Zach Foster, a handsome but opinionated boy from Chicago, her life doesn't get any easier.  Can Jane be a good waitress and a good friend with boy problems too?

As usual, the blurb isn't entirely accurate.  Andy didn't have to learn to be a waitress.  In the book she's heralded as an expert.  They can't say enough about what a fabulous waitress she is.  So there was nothing for her to get the hang of.

This book was published in 1987 and I definitely read it.  I remembered a couple of random, unimportant parts but not much of the actual story.  The ghost writer for this book was Barbara B Hiller.  I looked her up on Goodreads and only found one book. It was a “Twistaplot” which sounds like a “Choose Your Own Adventure”.

Canby Hall Catch-Up: So you all know the drill. We have three protagonists (Jane – high society princess, Andy – urban ballerina and Toby – small town ranch girl). Jane is dating both Neal-the-blueblood and Cary-the-rock-god. Andy is dating Matt. Toby wishes she was dating Randy who has magical aging powers. In the last book, the old girls (Dana, Faith and Shelley the life-ruiners) showed up to sabotage housemother Alison's wedding because they thought they were the best people to run her life. Fortunately they failed and Alison and David managed their happily-ever-after. There. All caught up now.

We begin with our protagonists in their room celebrating the end of term. They are all headed home for Christmas break soon and are looking forward to two weeks off from school. Andy is excited about all the things she's going to do on break (see ballets, etc) but Jane is worried she'll be bored. Cary's band Ambulance has a gig in Colorado over the break so she'll be enduring stuffy Boston parties all by her lonesome. Do high school bands really get out-of-state gigs? Does this actually happen? And their parents let them go over Christmas? Sounds unrealistic to me. Especially since Ambulance is made up of boarding school kids who might not have been home since August. I'm betting their parents might actually like to see them before the new year.

The girls exchange presents. Jane got Andy and Toby art prints from her mother's gallery. Andy's is a print of ballet dancers and Toby's is a print of cattle. Andy got Jane some electric blue hair color to use for Cary's next concert and a Texas tea cup for Toby. Toby got both girls leather hand-tooled wallets.

Before the "party" ends, Andy gets a call from her dad that changes everything. His best waiter and waitress have fallen in love and eloped. They'll be spending two weeks in Jamaica for their honeymoon and Andy is going to have to pitch in with the rest of her family to take their place. No more ballet and theater for her.

Dee and Maggie pop in from their room next door. Maggie mentions that she'll be spending the first week of break at home but she's flying out to California to spend the second week with Dee. This puts an idea in Jane's brain. She proposes that she and Toby fly out to Chicago to spend the second week of break helping Andy out in the restaurant.

Annnnnnd I guess we know what the drama will be this book. Jane hasn't worked a day in her life and Toby is more at home on a horse than in an apron. I think Andy is going to regret accepting this offer of “help” but if she didn't, we wouldn't have a book.

We get our usual paragraph explaining how different the three friends are. I'm sure it was typed up and handed to each ghost writer to fit in somewhere in the first three chapters along with a footnote to mention Dana, Faith and Shelley in reverent tones as many times as possible throughout the book.  (Note from future me: Brace yourselves.  I don't think the life-ruiners were mentioned AT ALL in this book.  I feel like my entire world view has been altered and everything I thought I knew is a big lie.)

The girls go home for break and enjoy their very different lives. Toby is content with her plans and the world in general because Toby is awesome. Jane is nervous about waitressing. She's never done anything like this before and she's not sure she'll be good at it. She gets to the airport and finds out that first class has been overbooked so she can either travel coach and they'll give her three first class upgrades to use at a later date, or she can wait for the next flight and ride first class on that one. She chooses the coach/upgrade option thinking that she can use the upgrades to fly Andy and Toby back to school with her after break is over.

Jane boards the plan and is pleasantly surprised to see that the seat next to her is occupied by a gorgeous stunner named Zach Foster. She impatiently waits for him to start a conversation and wonders if he has a girlfriend. JANE. Seriously. I know you unfortunately got infected with Canby Hall Cheater Fever and it's a lifelong affliction but please at least TRY to remember you have TWO boyfriends already. Have mercy on this poor blogger who has to introduce all the recurring characters each blog. I don't want to have to remember Zach's name!!!

Zach finally speaks to her and, when he finds out she's going to Chicago to waitress, his “eyes lit up with admiration”. Really, ghost writer? Okay. Zach's apparently the easily-impressed type. To Jane's horror, he immediately goes on a two page rant about how much he hates rich people. Oh noes. Now she'll have to pretend to be poor so she can date this asshole and make me remember his name.

Jane pulls out needlepoint to distract herself while he goes on and on about how evil money is and how only rotten people have a lot of it. 

Needlepoint. 

Is this a Jane Austen book? What fifteen year old girl carries needlepoint around? How many fifteen year old girls even know what needlepoint is? This is so bizarre. 

Zach must be turned on by thread because he asks if he can see her while she's in Chicago and she just hands over Andy's phone number and address TO A COMPLETE STRANGER SHE JUST MET FIVE MINUTES AGO. If this was an episode of Dateline, she'd be dead two chapters from now.

Stupid. So stupid I can't even really form words about how very stupid it was.

But Jane says he looks “too nice” to be dangerous.

They said that about Bundy too, my love. It was kind of his bait for little empty-headed girls like you.

Jane meets up with Andy and Toby at the airport and the three of them head for Andy's house. Along the way Jane tells them about Zach and Toby tries to gently remind her of her two already-boyfriends. Jane replies that Neal is still mad about being one of two dates Jane invited to Alison's wedding and she thinks he has a crush on Toby now anyway.  Who could blame him?  I totally have a book crush on Toby.

At the restaurant, Jane and Toby get a crash course in waitressing that really doesn't sound very helpful at all. They change into their uniforms (navy skirts, light blue blouses, small white aprons and blue and white caps) and Andy proclaims them ready. No real training or anything. Uniform and done. This is going to turn out great.

The first day goes predictably awful. Jane messes up more times than I can recap and poor Toby got knocked down by a customer. They return back to Andy's house exhausted and disillusioned.

The next morning, Zach calls for Jane. He invites Jane to lunch and to the Art Institute with him. She accepts because her boyfriends are all the way in Boston and Colorado and that's way too far for her to remember that she holds their hearts in her hands. Jane briefly thinks of Cary (poor Neal) but decides that it can't be wrong to go out with Zach if she feels so happy. She borrows clothes from Toby and Andy so she doesn't look rich and away she goes.

That evening, Andy is retraining them because she did such an awful job of training them when Steve Palmer walks in. He's a waiter and he clearly has a crush on Andy WHO IS DATING MATT. I am throwing my hands up in the air, y'all. I can't believe these girls. He sings Andy's praises for a bit and then disappears into the kitchen.

That night, Andy and Steve do the smart thing and partner up with Jane and Toby to train them a little better. Steve takes Toby and Andy takes Jane. She finds she has very little patience for Jane, though. The two snap at each other all night. Jane gets through it by concentrating on her after-work date with Zach.

The next day is going to be something called a “Family Lunch”. The restaurant is closed on Wednesdays at lunch time and the staff and their families gather to test out new recipes and have a good time. Jane asks if she can bring Zach and Mrs Cord says he'll be very welcome.

Toby finds the Family Lunch a little overwhelming. She's used to a lot more silence. When everyone starts talking about their afternoon plans, Toby volunteers to watch Andy's baby sister Nancy. They bundle up and head out for the park. Toby is walking along and talking to Nancy about Jane/Zach and Andy/Steven. Before long she realizes they've been walking for an hour and a half and she's completely lost in Chicago. She panics a bit but then sees a mounted police officer and he directs her to a taxi stand where she gets a ride home. Later Andy jokes that Toby probably found the only horse in all of Chicago.

Meanwhile, Jane is spending every afternoon and every night after work with Zach and she's exhausted. To the point that she falls asleep in the break room at work and Toby has to cover two sections of the restaurant by herself. Jane wonders later why she's going from bad to worse as a waitress and Toby is handling things just fine. Well, because Toby's fucking awesome Jane and she's not sleeping through her shifts like someone I could name.

The day before New Year's Eve, Toby and Mrs Cord discuss chili. The restaurant is expecting about 250 people the next night for a buffet and Mrs Cord really wants to serve chili. She'd love to serve authentic Texas chili so Toby tells her the recipe the mess cook uses at home to the best of her ability. This is ripe for disaster. Toby doesn't usually make the chili herself and unless a person makes something themselves and makes it often, they are bound to forget an ingredient or two. She should at least call the cook and ask for the recipe but, no, the ghost writer needs some kind of conflict to make one last exciting incident before she closes up the book.  (Note from future me: there was no conflict or excitement.  It was all resolved before anything happened.)

That night Jane proves she's just not cut out to be a waitress at all. She messes up the bills, takes the wrong tray to the wrong table, gets into verbal altercations with the guests and ends up dumping an entire tray of gooey, sticky desserts on a table full of people. She realizes she's just getting worse every day instead of better and she decides to bail on her promise to help and just go home. Right before their biggest night of the year. Nice, Jane.

Zach drives Jane to the airport. He thinks she's leaving because the Cord's worked her too hard. He asks her what time her flight is leaving and she has to dig through her messy, disorganized bag to find her ticket. In the process all her credit cards fall out. Zach immediately assumes that she's stolen them. How else does a poor girl come to be in possession of gold cards? Jane reveals the cards are hers and he reads the names on them and realizes who her parents are. He makes some snide comments about how the poor little rich girl can't handle an honest day's work and she retorts that she tried but she just couldn't do it. I think she thinks she tried. I mean, I think she feels like she gave it effort but we know that wasn't really the case. She went into the whole thing thinking it was going to be fun and how awesome she was going to look for volunteering to help and feeling really good about herself. She didn't take it very seriously and then, she didn't give it real effort. Every time it got hard, she just collapsed and let Toby or Andy or Steve pick up the slack. She doesn't see it that way, but that's how it was written and presented to the rest of us.

Zach dumps Jane off at the airport and she broods for awhile about all the injustices she's suffered in this book. She thinks about changing rooms or dropping out of school because there's no way she can look Toby or Andy in the face ever again. Then she realizes she always runs away from her problems and she decides this time she's going to face them. She's hurrying through the airport to find the taxi stand when her poorly packed suitcase gives up the ghost and throws her belongings everywhere.

A basketball team from Texas stops to help her. They introduce themselves (Dan, Bob the Lobber, Sid who they call Everest because he's so tall, Rebound Pete, Buck as in Buckingham Palace because he's the guard, and PeeWee because at 6'1” he's the shortest). Jane says she can't possibly be taxed to remember all the names of people who will only be in the book for a chapter or two so Dan says they all answer to “Tex”. They've been stranded in Chicago by mechanical failure and the airport booked them rooms but they ask Jane if she knows where they can get some food and have some fun. Boy, does she!!!

Yee Haw!

Jane brings the collective Tex to the restaurant where the chili is simmering. One of them sniffs the air and says it doesn't smell right. He asks Toby if she put the cumin in and, of course, it's the one thing she forgot. Deus ex Tex. They all troop into the kitchen to offer chili suggestions and the disaster is averted and wrapped up in about four sentences. The crowd that night is bigger than the expected and Toby and “Tex” are extremely busy making new batches of chili to feed everyone. At one point they run out of onions and Toby suggests that “Tex” ask Andy or Steve to go down to the basement storeroom to get more. Charlie (Andy's brother) goes to find Andy and unbeknownst to anyone, a Tex goes to find Steve. 

Oooooooooooooooh. I bet you can't predict what's going to happen. I mean it's only 100 fucking percent obvious.

Sure enough, Andy and Steve manage to get themselves locked down in the basement together.

THAT WAS COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED!!

They end up talking and they have a bunch in common. Steve loves ballet and wants to be a musician. Andy loves music and wants to be a ballerina. Clearly they are destined to be together forever.  By the time Charlie comes looking for them a few minutes later, they have a date to see a ballet during Spring Break and Matt can just stick that in his eye!

At some point during the evening, Toby gets a call from Neal. He offers to pick the three of them up from the airport and then asks Toby if she'll go get pizza with him afterwards. Toby accepts. This is not a case of Canby Hall Cheater Fever because Toby has a crush on Randy but they are not going out. In fact, he's made it pretty clear that romance can never happen between them. Although, I will note that it's a bit weird of Toby to be dating Neal while Neal is still somewhat attached to Jane. I mean, he's currently mad at her and I think they mostly decided to just be friends, but the whole thing is murky and undefined really.

The next day it's time to head back to Canby Hall. Jane surprises Andy and Toby with their first class upgrades. I'm still trying to figure out how this worked. If they were Jane's upgrades, wouldn't she have to buy Toby and Andy's tickets in order to apply them? Maybe things worked different back in the 80's. I'm willing to go along with that. The enjoy the fruits of first class and Jane remarks that she never really thought about the people who served her and how much hard work it really was. She vows to pay more attention to the little people from now on. {delicate sniff}

The girls discuss their New Year's resolutions. Jane says hers is to be more honest with herself. I really think hers should be to respect Cary, but whatever. Andy resolves to be more honest with others. Which doesn't even make a huge amount of sense. She reaches this resolution because she wasn't honest with how she felt about Steve but it's not like she was lying to him and telling him she hated him when she secretly loved him. THAT would be her being dishonest with others. What she's describing is being dishonest with HERSELF.

You know, I just realized Jane and Andy made each other's resolutions. Jane's should have been to be honest with others because she is continually lying to people (about how many dates she has to a dance or wedding or how much money she has or how much work experience she has for instance). Andy's should have been to be honest with herself because she ignores her own feelings a lot of the time. Silly ghost writer. Pay attention, would ya?

Toby says her resolution is to work on her attitude. She often thinks that the way things are in Texas should be the way they are everywhere else and she wants to work on that. I totally love Toby, y'all.

All Canby Hall books seem to end with a sentence so corny that I just want to die. This one is no exception. Toby remarks that she could get used to First Class. Jane replies that there's a problem with that.

“There's no such thing as First Class at Canby Hall.”

“Oh, yes there is,” Toby corrected her. “There's First Class friendship and you can't ask for anything better than that!”

Oh, mercy. I think my book crush just died.

Queen of the Book Award: Y'all, it's honestly Toby again.  She volunteered to help Andy's family out and then ACTUALLY made an effort to do the job and be helpful.  

The Bitch of Baker House Award: It's going to Jane this time.  She did a half-assed job at the restaurant that just made more work for everyone else.  Instead of trying to improve, she just gave up and ran away.  Super unhelpful.  Plus, she cheated on Cary.  AGAIN.

Coming Up Next:  Jane's family is throwing her a super proper party {delicate sniff} and her unsophisticated roommates are sure to ruin the proper-ness with their urban and rural ways.  Whatever will poor Jane do?

Something Old, Something New (Super Edition) by Emily Chase

**This blog contains adult language.**

Warning: Contains Spoilers!!!  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 who the life ruiner is this book.

Tag Line: Here comes the wedding.  But where is the bride.

From the Back of the Book: Will too many roommates spoil the wedding?  Andy, Jane and Toby are planning their housemother's wedding, but Dana, Faith and Shelley, the old Baker 407 girls, have other ideas.  Sparks are flying!  Will six roommates, three old and three new, keep the bride from walking down the aisle?

Both the tag line and the blurb are inaccurate.  The bride wasn't the one missing at the wedding and the girls were NOT planning Alison's wedding.  I know it's small, but it really bugs me when the things on the outside of the book are wrong.  It shows a lack of attention and care that never bodes well for the book itself.

This cover marks Toby's first appearance without her cowboy hat.  You should mark down the date so we can celebrate it next year.

I had to provide the back cover for this one.  I didn't want you to miss out on the glory of our exalted "old" girls.  We can worship them from up close now instead of afar.  Oh, and the picture of the old girls isn't accurate either.  That hat was not a part of the wedding attire and Faith has different hair.  I give up.

This book came out in 1986.  I remember the cover but not the actual book.  (Note from future me: I don't think I ever read this one.  I didn't remember a single thing from it.)

The ghostwriter for this book is Carol White. I tried to look her up on Goodreads but not much came up. I hope that isn't an omen.

We begin with our protagonists Jane, Toby and Andy walking across campus discussing the weather and it's every bit as fascinating as it sounds. They review how different they are (Jane – preppy, Toby – hick, Andy – black) and then we settle into Toby's head for a spell. She throws a penny into the wishing well and wishes that Randy (the local cowboy who is suddenly 20 again) will realize that she's not too young for him. Except she is. In an illegal kind of way.

PA, the headmistress, appears and asks them if they've signed up for the annual Leaf Rake. It's two hours of leaf-raking on a Saturday morning that begins at 7am so, of course, they haven't signed up. Toby blurts out that they were just on their way to do so and her roommates start secretly plotting her demise. Toby points out that it will get Alison (the housemother) off the hook because she's only managed to get two sign-ups from Baker House so far.

Andy, the gossip queen of Baker House, says that Alison has been far too busy traveling back and forth to Boston to recruit leaf-rakers. Andy doesn't know what Alison is doing, but she goes to Boston every single weekend instead of spending time with her boyfriend Michael (school counselor) and it's suspicious. The other girls immediately assume that Alison is cheating on Michael because that's what girls at Canby Hall do. Every single one of them. They all cheat.

The girls go to sign up for the Leaf Rake and there's a notice on the bulletin board from Alison saying that there's a house meeting that evening because she has an important announcement.

We skip to dinner. The girls pick a table in the dining hall and are soon joined by Dee and Maggie (next door neighbors and friends). They all rag about the food a bit and then theorize over what the house meeting is going to be about. Jane thinks Alison got a new job. Andy thinks Alison got a new boyfriend (although why she'd hold a house meeting about that is beyond me). Maggie thinks Alison and Michael are engaged. Andy shoots that down. She says that lately Alison has been floating on air while Michael looks like he's drowning in a bog. She says she knows all about these romance things. Maggie takes this opportunity to tease Andy about Matt (boy from Oakley who did the lights for Andy's recital in the last book) and Jane and Toby are surprised. Apparently they didn't know about him. Which seems wrong. Continuity is always an issue when each book is written by a different person.

The house meeting starts ten minutes late. Alison is perpetually late. She announces that she will be leaving Canby Hall at the end of the term because she's getting married. Everyone starts to bizarrely chant Michael's name and Alison has to shut it down. She's marrying some guy named David who lives in Boston and is a news anchor. She invites all the girls to the wedding which will be held in the chapel on campus the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Dana is to be Alison's maid of honor and Faith and Shelley are invited too so we don't have to merely worship them from afar as we usually do. Goody.

We land in Dana's head now and the only good thing about that is she's currently in Hawaii. I've never been so I'm living vicariously through a fictional character. She's thrilled to be Alison's maid-of-honor but devastated that Alison isn't marrying Michael. She volunteers to make the phone calls to Faith and Shelley which....it's Alison's news to share and she should get to share it, but whatever. She calls Faith who is just as surprised that Michael got dumped as Dana was. Faith offers to call Shelley so Dana's dad won't kill her over the phone bill.

We jump out of Dana's head and land in Shelley's. Probably my least favorite head of Canby Hall because Shelley is my least favorite character of Canby Hall. And that's saying a lot because a lot of these people are plain awful. True to form, Shelley demands to know who David is and why he dares to think he can marry Alison.

I bet you that I can predict the rest of this book. Dana, Faith and Shelley will come to town and try to convince Alison not to marry David because they always think they know best and they want her with Michael. Jane, Toby and Andy, however, will probably be pro-David because the author needs some reason for the six girls to fight with each other and this is convenient. I'm sure they'll get paired off too (because they're literally the same people with different names). Faith and Andy will be at war because they're the two black characters. Shelley and Toby will be at war because they're the two farm girls. Dana and Jane will be at war because they're the two sophisticated characters. And we'll be miserably stuck in the middle just trying to get through this book so we can get the old hags back out of Dodge where we can simply be forced to worship them endlessly but not actually have to deal with them much.

Toby is concerned that she doesn't have anything appropriate to wear. Jane and Andy offer to give her a make-over. Considering Jane and Andy's vastly different styles, I can't see this going well.

Saturday morning dawns and the girls get up to rake the leaves. Alison is there too and they can't help but notice how happy she looks. They are just finishing up when David arrives. He and Alison are clearly in love and extremely happy and the girls end up feeling okay about things.

After raking, they go to the mall to find Toby a dress. As predicted, they bicker over what store to go in. Andy wants something punk but Jane reminds her that they're shopping for a wedding. Jane picks the store and, after getting a general idea of what kinds of fabrics and colors Toby likes, she picks out two outfits for her. One involves dressy pants and the other a skirt. Toby likes the skirt outfit best but is having fun trying on clothes and being the center of attention, so she asks Jane to bring her some dresses.

She's doing all sorts of twists and turns and generally acting silly in a fancy blue dress with sequins when she happens to look outside the store window to see Randy staring at her. Completely embarrassed, she goes back inside the fitting room and has a good cry. Jane heads to the register with the skirt outfit and Randy comes over to ask if Toby's okay. Jane says she was just embarrassed to be seen acting silly and Randy asks her to pass on the message that Toby looked really pretty in the dress.

I love Randy.

Sunday morning, Randy calls the room and invites Toby to go riding. She's thrilled. She really enjoys spending time with Randy on the ranch. They ride for awhile and then stop to let the horses rest a bit. Toby tells him about Alison's wedding and then mentions that Dana, Faith and Shelley will be returning for the ceremony. Randy goes pale. He tells her he used to date Dana and when Toby asks if he'll want to see her while she visits, Randy replies that Hawaii is just the right amount of distance between him and Dana. Which just makes me want to hug him, this magical age-defying man, because that's how I feel about her too.

Toby suddenly feels jealous. She wonders what Dana is like and decides that she's one of those perfect girls that guys fall all over constantly. She's never met Dana, but she wants to BE her and it's sad. Toby is perfect as she is. She's my favorite of all six of them because she's just kind.

Now we're in Jane's head and she's in the basement of Cary's (Jane's best boyfriend) dorm listening to his band Ambulance rehearse. She's surprised by her interest considering a few short months ago she found rock music “raw and crude” and rock musicians ten times worse. Cary's the bomb though and even proper Jane can admit it.

Jane's been up all night trying to decide what to do about Alison's wedding. Or more specific, who to do Alison's wedding with. Her first thought is proper Neal (Jane's boring boyfriend). He's from a proper Boston family and wouldn't do anything to embarrass her. He'd dress appropriately and act appropriately and he'd be thrilled that he was the one she chose for such an “important event”. Cary, on the other hand, is the most “dreadfully wrong” person she could invite. He'd embarrass her with his rocker attire and earring and probably with his behavior. Which is a pretty ridiculous assumption. His family is proper Bostonian and I'm sure he knows how to clean up and act at formal events.

Finally, she graciously decides that she's going to bestow the coveted invitation to Cary despite her enormous misgivings and thoughts of how much it will disappoint Neal not to attend. I have NO idea why she thinks Neal would be so disappointed not to be invited to a wedding of two people he doesn't know at all. He's a teenage boy. Why would he want to go? Jane thinks pretty highly of herself and how much her company is valued. Cary proves me right by acting like a normal teenage boy and saying he'd really rather not go, which causes Jane to fantasize about smashing a cream pie in his face.

That's a bizarre reaction to the circumstances.

She bursts into tears and runs from the room. She expects him to follow her out, repentant for his horrible ways, but he doesn't. Because he's a teenage boy and all he did was say he didn't want to go to a wedding.

Weeks pass. It's almost Thanksgiving and Alison finds herself overwhelmed with wedding preparations. The “old” girls are due in the next day and she's nervous about what they'll think of David when they all loved Michael so much. She's on the phone being all lovey dovey with David when someone knocks on her door. She opens it to find three girls with their hair up in towel turbans and mud masks covering their faces. She doesn't recognize them at first but then realizes it's the exalted Dana, Faith and Shelley and life can begin again because the sun has returned to Massachusetts.

Faith has notably changed her hairstyle from her customary Afro to cornrows with gold beads. So.....not like the person on the back cover. I get that cover artists don't have time to actually read all the books they draw for, but you'd think the actual author could provide an accurate description of her characters.

Shelley gets right to the point and asks Alison if she ever really loved Michael. It's an awkward moment and Alison stammers a bit before telling them not to ask her questions she can't answer. I'm sure they'll take that to mean that she still loves him. They stay up all night talking and then sleep late the next day.

As soon as they are up and dressed, they drop by Room 407. They are dismayed to see the black walls have been repainted and the mattresses are no longer on the floors. They are making fun of the room and its occupants when Jane arrives and overhears them. She's not amused {delicate sniff}. Especially when they start in on poor Toby's tea bag. The older girls offer a half-hearted apology and leave. Dana and Shelley decide to find Maggie and partake in a Canby Hall lunch for old time's sake. Faith isn't insane, so she goes down to the vending machines in the basement to get a Snickers and a Tab.

Andy is at the machine in front of her and greets Faith warmly. The two of them met in the book about the dance recital where Faith told Andy that Canby Hall was the most unprejudiced place on earth. Andy is glad to see Faith and mentions it's nice to have a little color around the place. Faith pretends she has no idea what Andy's talking about and says she never felt like the odd one out at Canby. She is really condescending and unlikable here. And A LIAR. Clearly Faith has developed selective amnesia and the ghost writer hasn't read the first part of this series. Andy gets tired of Faith's superior attitude and tells her that maybe she's just forgotten what it feels like to be black since she's turned “beige” from being around the white folk so long.

Ouch.

And awkward.

Later that afternoon, Maggie talks Dana into helping her dye her hair blue. Dana is hesitant but Maggie assures her it will be easy and mess-free. She's a liar too. Toby walks in to find half the bathroom and both Morrison girls covered in blue-black dye. As she's helping them clean up, she mentions seeing Alison and David walking together on campus looking very much in love. Dana counters that she doesn't think it's love at all. It's attraction. Love takes time and the two of them have only known each other a few months. She thinks Alison is dazzled by David's “fame” and will eventually come to her senses.

I'm pretty pleased that my predictions are coming true so far.

Dana goes running the next morning and finds her feet automatically taking her to Randy's ranch because she hasn't hurt him for the last time yet. She's sitting by a tree staring at his house when he rides up on his horse. At first he's cold and unhappy to see her but they talk awhile and then he surprises her by trying to kiss her. She rebuffs him and he takes off again. On her way back to the dorm, she sees Toby on her way out to the ranch and wonders what she could possibly be doing.

Toby finds Randy in the hayloft looking depressed and upset. She asks him what's wrong and he tells her he just needs to be alone for awhile. Toby is an honest to God genuinely nice person so she doesn't get offended. She respects his need for space and simply leaves wishing she could comfort him somehow. As she heads back home, she puts two and two together and realizes Dana must have upset Randy somehow. She feels really protective of him, which is super sweet.

I guess I should try to explain the Randy-Dana thing since it's come up and I didn't recap those books. Dana met Randy soon after coming to Canby. He fell super hard for her and she let him think the feeling was mutual. But Canby Hall has some kind of contagious cheater-fever or something which causes all the inhabitants to act like bitches and date as many boys simultaneously as humanly possible, so Dana also began a relationship with a boy named Bret. Who ironically cheated on her the whole time too. She dated Randy when it served her purpose and then dumped him when someone else seemed more fun and then returned to him when she got bored. This continued for the entire series until he broke it off with her which she seemed really confused by because she thinks pretty highly of herself. Poor Randy.

I also have to explain Shelley's love life because it's come up as well. This one would be worse if I loved any of the boys as much as I love Randy. Shelley arrived at Canby as a sophomore seriously “committed” to a boy back home named Paul. Like, we're going to be married after graduation committed. But she became infected with cheater-fever as well and ended up dating Tom (and Randy! and a few others) while remaining in a relationship with Paul. She's still “with” both of them, having a relationship with Paul in person and Tom by letter. Oh, and she's also seeing some guy named Mark at school so I guess you never really get over the cheater-fever once infected. Now Tom has stopped writing and Shelley is stalking him to find out why. It turns out he is “cheating” on Shelley with a girl named Cynthia. She's irritated because she can have three boyfriends but each of them must remain 100% devoted to her and only her.

Do you see why I hate these girls?

Shelley reports back to Dana and Faith about Tom's betrayal and they make fun of Cynthia for wearing babyish clothes for awhile.  She had ducks on her socks or something like that.  They're so awful. Dana reminds them that they are supposed to be meeting Jane, Andy and Toby to plan out Alison's shower and Faith is instantly annoyed. She doesn't see why the “new” girls think they should be involved in the shower planning because clearly the “old” girls know Alison better and have more right. Dana says the shower was the “new” girls idea, but Faith doesn't think that matters at all.

It's clear from the outset that things are not going to go well. They begin fighting over the pizza order until Toby suggests a reasonable compromise. Then they bicker over the theme of the shower, the gifts and the location. The “old” girls are smug and superior and “new” girls are a little childish. Not much gets actually decided and they set up another meeting for the next day so they all have time to think of more ideas.

Later that night, Andy tells her roommates that they're going to the theater. Jane doesn't want to go. She's seen the movie and she has French notecards to make. Toby doesn't want to go because she just wants to be lazy. Andy insists. She's heard Alison making plans with David to go and she wants to get there and sit in front of them (in disguise) in an effort to see how David treats Alison when no one else is around.  I guess they forgot that they had no reservations about him left after the Leaf Rake.  Their disguises consist of long gray beards, thick glasses, long black robes and red stocking caps with tassels. They even make up a “language”.

Alison realizes who they are pretty quickly and lets David in on it. They decide to have some fun with it. David starts going on and on about how Alison is going to be the perfect “wifey” and keep his house and raise mushrooms and darn his socks. The girls are getting angrier and angrier. Then he tells her that she can't have the girls visit because they might put ideas in her head and the girls break character to confront him. Alison and David start laughing and the girls know they've been had.

After the girls remove their disguises, the five of them go for a walk and then out for ice cream. Alison and David reassure the girls that they've talked everything through and have agreed on a true 50/50 partnership. They've discussed Alison going back for an advanced degree and who will stay home with any future babies. The girls are left feeling much better about David and the marriage as a whole.  Again.  For the second time.  

At some point, Dana and Toby run into each other at the lockers. I'm not sure where the lockers even are, but Dana is trying to open her old locker with no luck. Toby has gone to her extra locker (she was mistakenly assigned two) to retrieve her dressy, fancy boots for the shower. They talk briefly and Toby kind of opens Dana's eyes to how Randy might be feeling. Yes, he's the one who walked away but it wasn't because he stopped loving Dana. It was because she's an awful bitch. Dana considers this for awhile and feels like it adds an enticing layer to Randy. She thinks she might be ready to chew up his heart and spit it out again.

Talk turns to Alison's wedding and Dana admits that she wants David to disappear so Alison can be with Michael forever. She doesn't give a damn what Alison wants or what's best for Alison because she KNOWS BETTER. Toby again tries to get Dana to look at things from Alison's perspective and says that she and David seem very, very much in love but Dana doesn't accept this.

The “old” girls head up to Alison's room for a Meet David Brunch just in time to witness one of those little spats that happen when two people are nervous and stressed. David storms out, more embarrassed than mad and the girls rush in to “help”. Faith is the voice of reason. She says people get that way before weddings sometimes and it doesn't mean anything really. Dana, however, jumps in to suggest that Alison and David are moving too fast and this whole thing might be a mistake. Alison reveals that she's been with David a lot longer than anyone knows. Apparently cheater-fever struck her too and she was seeing David long before she broke up with Michael. Nice.

Alison says the romance went out of her relationship with Michael a long time ago. Toward the end, they only talked about work and there was just no spark. Shelley points out that the spark goes out of every relationship eventually and wonders if Alison thinks she's in love with David simply because the relationship is new and sparky. Alison eventually waves away all their protests and says the wedding is going to happen no matter what. She doesn't seem as confident as she did before though and the girls wonder if they might be meddling too much.

YA THINK?!?!?!?!?!?!?

After the failed brunch, the “old” girls race to meet the “new” girls for the second shower planning meeting and they are running late again because they really don't care about anyone but themselves. The tension in the room is thick with everyone except Toby who is just too damn likable for anyone to be mad at. She tells the “old” girls that Jane has come up with a great idea for the shower gift. They'll use the old poem “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue” to base their gifts on. Since there are four categories and six of them, they'll put slips in a hat and draw. If two girls get the same slip, they'll buy their present as a team. Shelley is the only one who draws Something Blue and Toby is alone with Something Borrowed. Jane and Dana draw Something Old so that leaves Andy and Faith to grab Something New.

Jane and Dana make their way through the antique shops and vintage stores. They finally decide on an antique silk camisole that is over 100 years old. It's beautiful and they know it will appeal to Alison's retro style.

Toby finds the perfect thing to loan Alison among her belongings. We don't get to hear what it is yet. She frets that the “sophisticated” girls won't understand it, but she thinks Alison will and that's all that matters.

Shelley knows that Alison and David are taking a delayed honeymoon to Jamaica, so she's determined to get a pair of blue fins and a snorkel at the local sporting goods store. Unfortunately she forgot it's November in Massachusetts and such items would be a little hard to find. Added to that, the person minding the store is none other than Cynthia, Tom's new girlfriend who is currently in a teddy bear sweater. Shelley is pretty rude to her initially but Cynthia stays her sweet self and eventually her charm wears away Shelley's bitchiness. Mostly. They go down to the unorganized store room to look for the fins and Shelley discovers that not only is Cynthia a really nice person, but the childish clothes are hand-me-downs that Cynthia is forced to wear because her family is too poor to buy new clothes. 

Andy and Faith patch things up while doing the mall crawl. Andy admits she was out of line with the beige comment and Faith admits she had selective amnesia during that conversation. They find the perfect gift for Alison – a talking toaster that announces when the toast is done. While waiting for it to be gift wrapped, they run into Michael. He looks miserable and the girls feel super sorry for him.

On the way to the shower, the predicted thing happens. Dana comments that they have to help Alison get out of this wedding. Shelley immediately agrees. Faith chimes in and says she thinks they saw the “real” David and the other girls just saw a man trying to impress them. Jane snaps that Alison invited them to celebrate her wedding and now they are trying to undermine Alison's choice like evil bitches. She calls them bad friends.

When they get to the venue (a hippie cafe), Cary is waiting in the doorway. Jane is embarrassed after Dana makes a crack about him being one of the “weird types” that hang around a place like this. Cary asks to speak to her alone. He apologizes and says he was thinking too much of how he dislikes going to weddings and not enough about her feelings. He says the only important thing is that she wanted him there and he asks for forgiveness. This is where Jane SHOULD have mentioned that she invited Neal and Neal said yes, but she gets distracted by Cary's kiss and doesn't bother.

Sigh.

They go through the shower (which is only attended by the six of them – the truly think they're the most important people in Alison's world) and spend a lot of time talking about Canby Hall. Then they do cake and open gifts. Toby's something borrowed is a rusty horseshoe that nearly killed her once. She figures the fact it didn't means it's truly lucky. Alison hands it back and says she's been thinking that she should postpone the wedding. On the day before the wedding. Dana rushes to say she agrees and Jane yells at her for interfering. Andy reassures Alison that everyone gets nervous on the night before the wedding and Faith interrupts to say that Andy and Jane aren't being honest. Alison and David have REAL ISSUES that they need to address. Shelley chimes in and says they aren't just talking about a wedding, they are talking about a marriage!!!! Won't somebody think about the marriage?!?!?!?!?  Finally Alison throws her hands up in the air and tells them to leave her alone and let her think.

The “new” girls accuse the “old” girls of coming to town and ruining Alison's life. The “old” girls accuse the “new” girls of being too immature to see the real issue. A fight breaks out that ends with Shelley shoving a piece of cake in Jane's face (what is with this author and shoving dessert in people's faces???). Which is definitely MATURE behavior, amirite???

The six of them walk back to Baker House in tense silence. Upon arrival, the security desk tells them that there's a package for the “old girls of 407”. It turns out to be a video tape of David doing a mock new story where he reports he acted like a complete jerk and hopes they'll forgive him. The “old” girls aren't completely convinced yet and the “new” girls are exasperated at their pig-headedness.

Faith decides to splinter off and go see Michael. She's anxious to hear his side of things.

The remaining girls head upstairs. Dana and Shelley decide they'll have to sleep on Maggie's floor since Alison asked for privacy. The phone is ringing in 407 when they reach the 4^th floor. Toby runs to answer it and it's Randy but he's calling for Dana.

Ouch.

She handles it with grace though.

Dana agrees to meet him and the two of them drive down to the creek. Randy confesses that he got caught up in nostalgia the other day and apologizes for trying to kiss her. Dana says she understands and she's been thinking of him a lot lately. Randy sensibly replies that she's just getting caught up in nostalgia too. If she really thinks about it, small town life....and a small town man....aren't really exciting enough for her. She protests that they might be. He says he doesn't want to start anything back up with her unless she's going to stay. So she kisses him, sending him the signal that she's going to do just that. Randy's been down the road of “Dana's mixed signals” before though and asks her point blank if this means she's staying to be with him. She says she has to think about it.

THEN WHY DID YOU KISS HIM, BITCH?

Poor Randy.

Faith sits down to cocoa with Michael in his kitchen and finds that things aren't as the “old” girls assumed. Not only is Michael okay with Alison's marriage, he's met David and thinks the two of them are perfect for each other. And he's in a new relationship himself. Hopefully with someone who lives off campus so she won't catch cheater-fever and betray him like Alison did. Faith asks him why he's looked so miserable lately and he says he had four wisdom teeth pulled. He's been miserable but only from a dentistry standpoint.

Faith asks him to prove he's in a new relationship and he calls a woman named Rita in from the study where she's been sitting grading papers while he was having cocoa with Nosy Nancy. Rita's a teacher too but at Greenleaf High so she lives in town. Hopefully that's far enough away from the contagion. Faith ends up liking Rita a lot and is happy to hear Michael insinuate that they might be engaged soon.

Faith makes it back to room 409 (How did she know to go there? Didn't they make that decision after she left?) and gives Dana a whispered report since everyone else is asleep. Man, they go to sleep early in Massachusetts. Dana finally admits that she, Faith and Shelley came to town and wrecked things. Faith tells her to go talk to Alison and fix things before it's too late.

No pressure, Dana.

As Dana heads for the top floor, she realizes someone is just ahead of her. It's Toby who has come to try to talk to Alison too. She's surprised to hear that Dana has come over from the Dark Side. Alison lets them in and it's clear she's been crying for hours. They sit down just as the phone begins to ring. At that hour it can only be David and they all know it. Alison doesn't answer, though. Toby asks how many times he's called and Alison says eleven. The girls give her their spiel about how she should give him another chance because clearly it was just a case of nerves (like the “new” girls have been saying ALL ALONG). Alison says she already came to that conclusion and she's not going to postpone the wedding after all. SO ANSWER THE PHONE.

The morning of the wedding dawns gray and wet. It matches Jane's mood. She finally 'fesses up that she has two dates. Again. Didn't this JUST happen a book or so ago? Sheesh. Toby tells her the honest thing to do is tell Cary that she promised to go with Neal first. Jane pouts and says she'd rather go with Cary and Neal's train doesn't leave for an hour so she has time to fake a stomach ache. Toby doesn't dignify this nonsense with a response.

Jane goes to call Cary but his roommate Stu says that Cary is out picking up his tux for the wedding.  (Note from future me: this is inaccurate.  He only picked up a dinner jacket and wore it with nice jeans.)  Jane feels awful. She returns to the room in time for Alison to call and ask if they want to help her get ready for the wedding. All three girls rush to Alison's room. Jane vows to straighten things up with Cary later.

Sure she will.

There's a flurry of activity as they get Alison washed and polished up. Then everyone has to rush to get dressed themselves. Finally, just as they're about to walk out the door, PA shows up. She tells them that there's a line at the end of the traditional wedding poem that they based their shower gifts on. The last line is “And a six pence in her shoe”. She presents Alison with the six pence and mentions how hard it has been to interview for her replacement.

As they head to the chapel, the rain ends and a stunning rainbow appears. Because of course it does. This IS fiction after all. There's only one small problem to mar the day. The groom doesn't show up. Everyone tries to keep Alison calm but by 45 minutes past wedding time, she's losing all hope. Suddenly they hear hoof beats and Randy rides in to save the day AGAIN. He has David in a tux on the back of his horse. Apparently David's car broke down on the highway and Randy somehow found him and brought him to the church.  Because Randy's just awesome like that.

The wedding goes off with no more impediments. There's not a dry eye in the house. Afterwards, Jane is forced to deal with Neal and Cary who sat together at the wedding. They're both furious with her and stomp off leaving her dateless for the reception. Good for them.

There's some racist comment about black people being the only ones who really know how to cook ribs and then the reception begins. Dana spends the whole time talking to the best man Vince who is also from New York. She doesn't bother with poor Randy who is eating dinner with Toby. Because Dana's a heart-chewing bitch.

Cary shows up at the reception. He says he's just there for the food and the band. Jane asks if Neal came back too and Cary says Neal was super hurt and already boarded a train for home. She feels bad but since Cary is the date she wanted anyway, she gets over it fast. I have NO IDEA why he is forgiving her. She's just going to keep doing this to him. I keep hoping he really WAS just hungry.

The reception ends and everyone is friends again. The six girls of 407 get together on Sunday before the “old” girls leave and it's only then that I realize how very little time Dana spent with her sister Maggie in this book. Lucky Maggie.

The book ends with these actual words: “Out onto the front lawn of Baker House, where all six of them tumbled into a huge pile of leaves, laughter and friendship.”

Oh, gag me.

Queen of the Book Award: Not to sound like a broken record, but it totally goes to Toby again. She was the only one throughout the whole book that actually considered other people's feelings and did what was best for them and not herself.

The Bitch of Baker House Award: This is a hard one. So many deserve it. I'm going to go with Dana here. Not only did she completely toy with Randy and get his hopes up only to completely ignore him through the entire reception, but she was the first to suggest that they break up the wedding and the first to encourage Alison's doubts and fears. She had help, but she was the instigator so she gets the award.

Final Thoughts: This book was pretty predictable as evidenced by the fact that all my early predictions (except the Toby/Shelley thing) came true. I should have known not to bet against Toby. I hate the “old” girls with a passion (which is why I started this blog with the “new” girls), so I knew this book was going to be a huge pain in my ass. It didn't disappoint. P.S. I'm still Team Cary. Yes, he acted like a 15 year old boy in this book because he IS A 15 YEAR OLD BOY.

Coming up next: Toby and Jane are headed to Chicago over Christmas Break to help out in Andy's family's restaurant. I can just picture proper Jane slinging ribs. {delicate sniff}