Middle Aged Slumber Party #11

Christopher Pike's Slumber Party: Chapter Five, Part One

Hello, friends.

Thanks for bearing with me last week!

Welcome to the eleventh installment of my deep dive into Christopher Pike’s Slumber Party, in which Lara hears Rachael make a SUSPICIOUS phone call and also the dorks show up.

Want to start from the beginning?

Chapter One: Part One. Part Two. Part Three. Part Four.
Chapter Two: Part One. Part Two. Part Three.
Chapter Three: Part One. Part Two.
Chapter Four.

Subscribe to follow along, re-read the book if you’re feeling it, and for SURE, please tell me all about your memories of reading this way back when.

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“Lara? Can you hear me? Wake up, Lara.”

“Dirty blood!” she cried, bolting upright. Hands were on her shoulders.

—Slumber Party, Chapter Five

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Scene One: In which Lara wakes up and Celeste is a weirdo

Lara comes out of her dream with a start, finding Celeste sitting next to her on the bed. Celeste asks what she was dreaming about:

Lara wiped at her eyes, thankful for the poor light. She had been crying. “Nothing,” she said quickly.

Celeste answers Lara’s questions—it’s almost seven, Dana is still missing, the park ranger hasn’t called—and when Celeste tells her that the food is almost ready, Lara gives her a big hug and tells her that she’s glad she came:

“Yeah?” Celeste said softly, slightly embarrassed, uncertain.

Lara sat back against the pillows. “Yeah, definitely.” She smiled. “I hope we stay friends forever.”

Celeste looked away. “I don’t know.”

Okay, based on the last chapter, if this is all a revenge plot, it seems clear that Celeste/Possible Nicole(?) is NOT all-in on it. And I’m starting to think that IF that’s what’s going on, sure, she’s maybe got some Large Issues, but it’s Nell who’s the Truly Dangerous One?

(Can you even imagine how exhausting it is to watch movies with me? Poor Josh.)

Anyway, Lara goes on about how they’ll stay friends even though she’s going away to college soon—apparently she’s counting on going to Humboldt even though she hasn’t been accepted yet?—and Celeste gets (shocker) weird:

“What if you’re accepted and you don’t go?”

“Why wouldn’t I go? Hey, what’s wrong?”

Celeste was fidgeting, keeping her eyes averted. “I want to tell you something,” she said slowly, with difficulty.

But then she clams up, and Lara does what Lara does and assumes she knows what the problem is—that Celeste is homesick, even though it’s been like eight hours, OMG HOW HAS IT ONLY BEEN EIGHT HOURS—and Celeste pretty much just latches onto that and drops the subject, which is fine with Lara because she needs to get dressed up for PERCY. She does verbalize that she really likes Nell, though, which… that makes one of us.

Before Celeste heads off to check on the chickens, Lara does tell Celeste that they can leave a day early if she’d like, though I’m not sure how she’s going to manage that without a car??

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Lara climbed out of bed and put on her unused pair of burgundy cords—cursing the fact that she hadn’t brought a dress—and a flimsy pink shirt that needed both pockets, not to be indecent. She was brushing her hair when she decided to call the lodge again about Dana. Rather than go downstairs, she trekked up the hall looking for a phone in one of the other bedrooms. The door to one of the rooms was closed, muffled voices coming through the wood. Sounded like Rachael and Mindy. Lara was on the verge of knocking when she though she heard her name mentioned. Naturally she put her ear to the door.

—Slumber Party, Chapter Five

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Scene Two: In which Lara uses an old-timey phone for old-timey phone shenanigans

This is part of what Lara overhears through the door:

“We could get in serious trouble,” Mindy was saying.

“Damn your whining, you coward. Who will be there to squeal?”
Rachael snapped.

WHY IS THERE NOT A MOVIE OF THIS

I guarantee that if there was, and if the dialogue stayed true to the book, that it would be on constant repeat in our household and we’d DEFINITELY have introduced DAMN YOUR WHINING into our Household Lexicon, along with WILL YOU BRING ME SOME CANDY and WELL WHY DON’T YOU. GO. DIE. and pretty much everything anyone ever said on Twin Peaks.

Anyway, so Lara deduces that Rachael is talking on the phone—that was just an aside to Mindy—and what she overhears next is even MORE sketchy???:

“Don’t worry, I’m behind you a hundred percent. Who cares about Dana? She’s out of the way. Lara’s the only one that matters. She’s smart, but she’ll never know, not until it’s too late.”

WHAT! IS! HAPPENING!!!

AND WHO IS SHE TALKING TO???

After reading the above like fifteen times, though, I get the impression that Rachael DOESN’T have anything to do with Dana’s disappearance? She just doesn’t care?

Is this going to be one of those mysteries where the villain is only revealed at the very end, and it turns out to be someone we’ve never met??? Is Colonel Sanders Nicole’s great-uncle or something??

But then, based on what we can hear from Rachael’s end of the conversation, it sounds like whoever she’s talking to is maybe propositioning her, which only suggests Cal—assuming that Christopher Pike isn’t cheating and that she’s talking to someone we’ve already met???:

“Who could image [sic] such power! I can hardly believe it. Fate must have brought us together. . . . Hmm, let me think about it. . . . Get me what I want first and then we’ll see. . . . No problem with the car. . . . To hell with her; she’s just another fly to swat. . . .”

So Lara sneaks off and heads for the master bedroom to see if she can eavesdrop via the extension… only to find Nell in there, “kneeling on the floor, fighting with something stuck in the closet.”

And Lara doesn’t notice, because A) she’s focused on the whole Rachael Is Maybe Hatching An Evil Plan thing, and B) she’s Lara, but Nell is acting TOTALLY squirrelly and weird. And by “totally squirrelly” I mean SUSPICIOUS AS HELL, even though squirrels are never anything other than PURE DELIGHTS, but I’m not the boss of the English language, so I don’t know what to tell you. (Hoo boy, Digression City this week, sorry.)

ANYWAY, Nell is like WHY DON’T YOU USE ONE OF THE FOUR PHONES DOWNSTAIRS, STALKER. But Lara actually does want it for a good reason—the ones downstairs can’t be unplugged, and so she wouldn’t be able to do that Classic Eavesdropping Trick where you unplug the phone before lifting the receiver, though it should be noted that her Powers of Observation are seriously hit-or-miss, because she apparently noticed the plugs on all of the phones in the house but not, like, Nell being a complete weirdo about hiding something in the closet OMG WHAT IF IT’S DANA—but ANYWAY obviously she can’t tell Nell that, and so she’s like… UHHHHH BECAUSE I’M IN A HURRY?

Anger, never too far from the surface of Nell’s personality, flashed in her eyes. It remained even when she smiled thinly and said, “Suit yourself. I suppose you want privacy?”

Nell apologizes for snapping and leaves, Lara does the phone trick thing, and when she picks up, Rachael is CLEARLY talking about Carrie (which doesn’t bode well for anyone because we all know how Carrie ends), and is also OBVIOUSLY WELL VERSED in Eavesdropping 101 because she IMMEDIATELY clocks that someone else is on the line, so Lara plays dumb and starts dialing the phone like she’s just picked up, and Rachael screams at her and:

“Are you using the phone?” Lara asked with brilliant innocence.

“No, I’m dusting the furniture and just happen to have it taped to my ear. Would you please get off the line and let me finish?”

Which, I’m sorry, I don’t care how Evil she is, #TeamRachael.

Lara tries to stall, hoping that the other person on the line will give themselves away—even faking a “SEXY TONE”—but no luck. At this point, Rachael is livid and Lara is like, GOSH RACHAEL WHY YOU SO MAD which is easily the funniest thing she’s done in the entire 81 pages I’ve known her.

She mulls things over, not really coming to any specific conclusion:

Rachael was up to no good and she had a male accomplice. [Note: As I really don’t think she ever heard the other person on the line, I assume this is just Lara being heteronormative, etc., etc.] But who was he, and how serious were their intentions? With Mindy involved it seemed impossible that it was anything really bad. [Note: HA! Poor Mindy, what a chump.] But that line about Dana being out of the way, and Dana’s disappearance, did not sit well. [Note: OMG YOU THINK??] Lara was tempted to confront Rachael with what she’d heard, but the accusations sounded so ridiculous in her own mind that she decided to hold off. [Note: I mean usually I hate this as a plot point, but it’s pretty fair in this case?]

She leaves the room, and Nell is RIGHT OUTSIDE, possibly eavesdropping on HER???

Nell mentions that the upstairs phones and the downstairs phones are on different lines, Lara asks again about when she called and no one picked up, she asks if Nell could have been in the basement, Nell gets a little weird about it—which even Lara clocks as weird, considering that Nell had directed Rachael and Mindy to clean it lo those many months ago (remember that??? were we ever so young?)—and then she shifts gears and asks about what bedroom she’s in and good grief at this point I don’t know why Nell is even ANSWERING these questions anymore, like even Santa Claus isn’t this gd nosey.

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Lara spent the next hour making and applying four different colors of icing to a carrot cake that Celeste had baked. She drew a miserable carrot with two blurred nibbling bunnies. The passing minutes were fretful. Dana hadn’t showed up, and the line to the lodge was busy. An arctic blizzard was a more appropriate name for the storm. With guilt, she had to admit that she was more concerned about Percy not appearing than Dana.

—Slumber Party, Chapter Five

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Scene Three: In which the boys (ugh) show up

Just, wow, Lara. The above paragraph is followed by this, which made me laugh out loud at the circulation desk:

“They’re here!” Mindy shouted, bouncing into the kitchen, ecstatic.

“Dana with them?” Lara asked, her throat dry. She’d forgotten to put on makeup!

No, Dana is not with them.

OMG they made me laugh out loud AGAIN:

“Take that gum out of our mouth,” Lara said, following Mindy to the living room. “Makes you sound like a cow.”

“How gross,” Mindy said, swallowing it.

I don’t know, maybe now I’m rooting for Mindy to make it.

And poor Dana, assuming she’s not dead.

I just:

Cal was standing with his fingers hooked — macho style — in his pockets, talking to Nell.

MACHO STYLE.

Percy was sitting on the bricks next to the fire, his gray sweat shirt rolled up, revealing dark muscular arms. Rachael, dazzling in tight, white dress pants and a black turtleneck sweater minus the bra, sat by his side, laughing gratefully at whatever he was saying, letting her fingers do all the things Lara had feared.

LAUGHING GRATEFULLY.

What does that even MEAN?

But, my god, that outfit is A CHOICE.

When Lara enters the room, Percy is THERE FOR IT:

Percy stood smoothly — every move he made had class — and squeezed the tops of her arms. Not an embrace, but it would do.

Lara, dearheart: Seriously. How low, exactly, is your bar?

It’s already clear that Nell HATES Cal, which, SAME. I still think she’s supremely unpleasant and possibly a murderer, but I don’t know, I’d certainly rather hang out with her than Cal.

Celeste and Nell—who are maybe in a fight?—bring all the food out, and there is a LOT of it: Multiple chickens, baked potatoes, two casseroles, wild rice, two bottles of wine, the carrot cake.

Nervous, Lara had no appetite, but nevertheless filled her plate. She had read in Cosmopolitan that men found women with huge appetites sexy.

Has anyone written a book about the damage that Cosmo—and other supposedly empowering women’s magazines—has done over the years? If so, I want to read it.

Cal starts zeroing in on Celeste, which, gross.

And Percy, being Mr. Classy, notices that his hostess is withdrawn, and so makes an effort to bring Nell into the conversation, with more success than anyone else has had so far. She talks a bit about how the house was originally owned by a mob boss?? Who disappeared but then the FBI found traces of human bones in the fireplace??

WHAT??

Lara is peeved about the whole thing—I guess she thinks talking about it is not CLASSY??—and also privately notes that Nell “hadn’t bothered” covering her scars.

Like, shut tf up, Lara, it’s none of your business whether or not Nell covers her scars, you’re the worst.

And then Cal starts talking—he’s drunker than everyone else AND brought a bottle of rum—about being in Germany, and… wow:

“Anyway, what you said about that guy getting fried reminds me of this time we accidentally napalmed these four Kraut soldiers. Hell, those Krauts thought Hitler was still on the throne, I swear. Couldn’t stand those bastards.”

I say again, because I don’t have anything else: Wow.

He goes into detail, and long story short, they though their helicopter was going down, so they dumped their load of napalm and it landed on the German soldiers. It sounds like he might have been dishonorably discharged because his colonel didn’t believe it was an accident? And I mean, who could blame someone for suspecting it wasn’t an accident:

“Took them a month to identify those Krauts. You should have seen those flames. Better than Fourth of July.” He finished his wine. “Made me feel proud to be an American.”

I am so… wow. I don’t even know what to do with any of this, it feels like it’s from another novel entirely, possibly one that gets turned into a gritty Oscar-winning war movie. (Is it totally obvious that I have seen approximately zero gritty Oscar-winning war movies?)

And then CAL GETS ANNOYED that the party is suddenly a downer, and blames it on the fact that there is no music.

Rachael suggests that they play strip poker…

…but then there is a second suggestion:

“We could play charades,” Celeste said, coming to life.

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AND ON THAT NOTE—despite the fact that we’re mid-scene—I’m going to pause.

Next up: CHARADES!!! AND A FIGHT!!!

In the meantime, subscribe so that you don’t miss installments, let me know about your memories of reading (and watching!) horror as a tween and teen. I’m also always here if you’ve got recommendations.

Talk soon,
Leila