Time elapsed in this book: 3 weeks
Length of their junior year: 3 years, 5 months, 1 week
Jessica’s love interest: A.J. Morgan and Christopher (Of course there are two! The title is literally Two-Boy Weekend!)
Entertainment rating: 7/10
There are three unalterable truths in Sweet Valley: 1) you need a date for every social event, 2) it’s not a weekend unless there’s a party or dance going on, and 3) Jessica cannot survive more than 48 hours without male attention.
At school, A.J. tells Jess that he’s going to Dallas Wednesday afternoon to attend a party for his grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary and won’t be back until Sunday. Jess doesn’t know what to do without him (see truth #3 above)! He tries to assure her it’s not that long, but Jess doesn’t want to hear it and says this means she’ll have to miss Ken’s party (see truth #2 above) because she won’t have a date (see truth #1 above). A.J. consoles her with good news: he won the essay contest about Sweet Valley in the year 2000, so he’ll be king of the Citizen’s Day Ball and she’ll be his queen. This cheers her up a little.
Friday, Jess is depressed because A.J. is gone. Her friends tell her to lighten up, and Cara points out that sometimes she goes weeks without seeing Steven, but Jess continues to mope. She agrees to go to the beach with Cara, Amy, and Lila after school. Cara reads a quiz from Cosmopolitan (ahh, memories!) but Jess is too depressed to pay attention. Her friends go to the Dairi Burger, but Jess stays at the beach to wallow.
She watches a surfer catch some waves. Eventually, he comes up and introduces himself as Christopher. He asks what a gorgeous girl like her is doing alone at the beach and invites her to dinner. Jess is all too thrilled to have male attention and says she’ll meet him at the restaurant in an hour.
Jess goes home to shower and change. She tells Liz she met a new friend named Chris at the beach and that they’re going to grab dinner. Liz assumes that Chris is a girl, and Jess doesn’t correct her. At dinner, Chris asks a bunch of questions, which Jess is all too happy to answer; when she asks him questions, he says the answers don’t matter and then asks her more about herself. Jess is flattered and tells him everything about herself, except for the fact that she has a boyfriend. They go for a walk on the beach after dinner and he kisses her. Jess finds it intoxicating!
They spend Saturday together and meet on Sunday morning as well. Jess says she can only be with him until noon. Right before she leaves, Jess tells Christopher that she can’t see him again and admits it’s because she has a boyfriend. He says he understands, and Jess is relieved.
A.J. returns and tells Jess he missed her. Jess says she missed him too but wonders if this is true, since she only really missed him until she met Christopher, at which point she wished he’d never come back.
Monday, Christopher calls Jess. She tells him he shouldn’t have called. He calls again Tuesday, then sends her flowers at school on Wednesday. Jess goes to the Dairi Burger on Friday and sees Christopher in the parking lot. He calls her Saturday and tells her that if her boyfriend knew about him, he wouldn’t be happy.
On Sunday, Jess goes to A.J.’s. He’s preparing to meet with a potential buyer for his car. The buyer turns up, and it’s Christopher! Christopher pretends he doesn’t know Jess. She realizes that when he was in the Dairi Burger’s parking lot, he was getting the number off the “For Sale” sign in A.J.’s car! A.J. gets a phone call right before he can take Christopher on a test ride, so A.J. tells Christopher to go with Jess and jokes that it’s not like he’s going to kidnap her. Jess is petrified but doesn’t know what else to do. Christopher drives like a maniac and asks if she’s told A.J. about them yet. When Jess says no, he says this means she needs to go out with him again and suggests Saturday. Jess eventually agrees, figuring she’ll get out of it somehow.
In a carryover subplot from Second Chance, Liz takes her Little Sister, Kim, to hang out at the mall. Once there, both notice a guy following them. Liz ignores him at first, but finally he confronts her and asks why she’s avoiding him. Liz thinks this is an arrogant pickup line and tells him to leave her alone, then quickly leaves.
When Liz gets home, Jess confesses to her that she cheated on A.J. and doesn’t know what to do. If she tells him what happens, he’ll break up with her, and she can’t do that before the Citizen’s Ball on Saturday. Liz realizes that the guy she saw at the mall was Christopher.
Christopher calls Jess every day that week, sometimes more than once a day. On Friday, he calls and says he’s looking forward to their date. When he calls on Saturday, Jess tells him she’s sick and can’t go out that night. Christopher seems to buy it, but Liz isn’t so sure he’d give up that easily.
The twins go to the Citizen’s Ball. Liz goes outside to dance with Jeffrey… and then Christopher appears and cuts in! Liz signals to Jeffrey that it’s okay, figuring that if Christopher thinks she’s Jessica, he won’t be able to ruin Jessica’s coronation! Christopher suggests they go for a walk and whisks her away.
Inside, Jeffrey asks Jess if she’s seen Liz, saying she went on a walk with some guy and hasn’t returned. Jess knows it was Christopher. She tells Jeffrey that she’ll help him look after the coronation.
Outside, Christopher tells Liz they need to be together all the time. He pulls out a knife and leads her to his car. He unlocks the trunk, pulls out rope (seems like Liz could have run away during this, but she doesn’t), and then ties her hands together. He puts her in the trunk!
Meanwhile, A.J. is introduced so he can read his winning essay to the crowd. As soon as he gets on stage, Jess is overwhelmed with worry about Liz and knows she’s in trouble! She leads Jeffrey into the parking lot and finds Christopher’s car, which has just roared to life. She pounds on the car, and Christopher is shocked to see her. He tries to grab her, but then Jeffrey pounces and they fight! Not quite a Todd Punch but I’ll take it. Jess hears banging from the trunk, so she pops that open and rescues Liz! Jeffrey wrestles Christopher into submission, and Christopher goes limp when he sees the twins.
Liz tells Jess to go to the coronation. Jess runs back to the building and finds security guards, directing them to help Liz. The police are eventually called and Christopher asks for his psychiatrist because apparently he’s a “deeply troubled young man, undergoing therapy.” Talk about very quickly (and smoothly) wrapping this up!
Jess makes it back for the end of A.J.’s speech. When he steps off the stage, she tells him that she can’t be tied down to a single boy and that they need to break up. He insists she still be his queen for the night to honor what they had, and Jess obliges. I was never really into A.J., so I’m okay with this breakup.
Up next: will basketball star Shelley Novak ever find a date?