Jake, Reinvented

Even though Rick has only known Jake for two weeks, the school considers him Jake’s best friend. Rick admits that he likes this reputation, since Jake is “famous” for his great parties and that makes Rick famous as well.

Arriving early at Jake’s house for the next party, Rick finds Jake writing a college paper on quantum physics on behalf of a college student named Connor Danvers. Rick learns that Jake has been financing his wild parties and buying nice clothes by ghostwriting college papers for students at Atlantica University. Those papers were in the envelopes that Rick saw Jake exchange with students when they visited the college campus.

Jake entrusts Rick with getting the party started downstairs, since he needs to hurry up and finish Connor’s paper. Jake would typically already have finished the paper, but he has fallen behind after spending so much time with Didi lately.

As the night begins, Rick watches out the window as his classmates slowly and repeatedly drive their cars past Jake’s house. Everybody wants to come to the party, but nobody wants to be the first to arrive. This stalemate ends when two of the cars bump into each other. Many people get out of their cars to argue about the collision and then, once the situation diffuses, they all head into Jake’s house together, nearly trampling Rick on the way. Once they get inside, the party begins naturally, and Rick thinks that “[e]veryone was drinking, so everything was fine” (73).

Todd and Didi arrive together to the party. Didi asks Rick to tell Jake that she is there. Jennifer separately insists to Rick that Didi will never break up with Todd. Jennifer says that Jake is just a hobby for Didi rather than anything real. The party starts to get crowded and Rick notices that more and more of the attendees are crashers who don’t go to their high school. Previously Rick enjoyed the “semi-funny, semi-moronic” antics of the partygoers, but now he finds the scene “vaguely unpleasant” (76).

When Jake comes downstairs and he and Didi see each other, Rick senses the incredible magnetism between them. Todd senses it too. He tries to get Didi to leave the party, but she insists on staying. Feeling vulnerable, Todd takes Nelson’s girlfriend Melissa to the spare bedroom. Nelson is too drunk and wild to notice. Jake and Didi disappear somewhere as well. The football players steal Dipsy’s pants again and the partiers think that the theft is hilarious. Rick, disillusioned by the “brainless and hurtful” nature of the hedonistic parties (80), doesn’t even smile.

Since most of the football team was at Jake’s party on Friday, almost everyone is hungover as they prepare for their first game of the season on Saturday. When their football coach—Coach Hammer—tries to pump up the team before they take the field, Nelson takes things too far, smashing up the locker room and putting his teammates in danger. It takes six of his teammates to hold Nelson down.

On the way to the field, Nelson tells Rick and Todd that he has discovered that Melissa has been cheating on him. Todd forces Rick to say that he won’t tell Nelson that Todd and Melissa have been hooking up. Having just witnessed Nelson’s destructive power, Rick worries about what might happen if Nelson found out the truth.

During the game, Todd plays poorly as the quarterback, but Nelson’s brute strength and anger about Melissa’s infidelity keeps their team in contention to win. In the stands, Dipsy cheers so intensely that he gets ejected from the stadium. The other fans applaud him as he is escorted out. Didi is there wearing Todd’s jersey, while Jennifer is asleep in the stands beside her.

With time winding down, Jake snaps the ball for Rick to kick in a field goal that wins the game. The fans rush the field and celebrate as if Todd is a hero, even though Jake and Rick were the real reasons that the team won. Jake is heartbroken to see Todd and Didi embracing during the celebrations; he tries to convince himself that Didi is just with Todd “out of pity” (90). Rick thinks that he is beginning to see the selfishness of “the real” Didi (90).

Hostile rumors begin to spread about Jake at school, and the students begin to speculate about how he pulls off such wild parties. Some of them think that he is dealing drugs, while others think he is an undercover cop. Despite the rumors, everyone is still eager to attend his parties.

Rick confronts Todd after learning that he is the one who started the rumors about Jake, but Todd doubles down, casting suspicion on Jake’s motives and threatening to destroy Rick’s popularity if Rick gets on his bad side. Rick warns Jake that Todd is dangerous, but Jake calmly shrugs off the threat.

Jake convinces Rick to skip school for a “surprise” outing. They pick up Didi and Jennifer and cruise around the neighborhood near Atlantica University. Didi looks at Jake with “rapturous admiration” when the college students treat him like a big shot (95). Afterwards, Jake drives them to a make-out spot and he and Didi begin hooking up in the front seat of the BMW. Rick and Jennifer, feeling awkward in the back seat, begin joking about hooking up themselves, making loud slurping noises. Didi and Jake seem not to notice.

As he and Jennifer continue their fake hookup in the back of the BMW, suddenly Rick suspects that Jennifer isn’t faking it; she really wants to kiss him. He debates internally about whether to go for it or not, but just as he decides to kiss Jennifer for real, he hears a change in the front seat. Jake and Didi are no longer hooking up but are instead arguing about Todd. Jake is insisting that Didi break up with Todd, but Didi says that Jake is spoiling everything. Didi eventually demands that they all go home.