#87: Stacey and the Bad Girls
Stacey has now been out of the BSC for a while, and she misses her old friends but she’s having fun hanging out with her “Robert friends”: Andi, Sheila, Jacqui, Mia, and Heather. These girls (minus Andi, who’s out of the picture on a family vacation) rub me the wrong way right off the bat because they mooch from the McGills’ pantry and one of them snoops in Stacey’s room. No bueno. Mrs. McGill is annoyed, too, and tells Stacey she has to get a job — which Stacey is actually excited about. (But, like, who hires thirteen-year-olds for things other than yard work or baby-sitting???) Stacey ends up getting hired at Bellair’s Kid Center which, truly, is perfect for her.
Quick side note to briefly stan Mrs. McGill — she calls the process her daughter goes through deciding what she’s going to wear each day SDT: Stacey’s Daily Trauma. LOL.
In a side plot, Dawn and Mary Anne are taking care of Dawn’s cousin Amy, whose parents are in Europe for three weeks. Dawn also gets a sad call from her California best friend Sunny, whose mother has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Dawn immediately declares she needs to return to California to be there for Sunny, setting up book #88 (Farewell, Dawn) and the future California Diaries series.
Anyway, Stacey is starting to feel weird about her new friends. They seem supportive — they show up outside Stacey’s job every afternoon and then want to go shopping in Bellair’s, but Stacey begins to suspect they might be shoplifting. Then they ask her to use her employee discount to buy stuff for them and they’ll pay her back. She goes along with it even though she doesn’t really like the idea. Later, she finds out they returned the items — without the receipt — and were refunded the full price. So the whole thing was a scam to make money. She feels like shit about it but she doesn’t want to lose her friends. (Ugh, this is so backwards — they should be begging to be friends with Anastasia McGill; she shouldn’t be trying to placate them!)
Stacey, Jacqui, Heather, Sheila, and Mia are going to a big concert by their favorite rock band, U4Me (sounds more like a boy band than a grunge band, but okay). Of course, Stacey’s asshole friends made her wait in line for the tickets. Boooooo. She’s excited for the concert, though, until she and her friends find their seats and the girls pull out mini bottles of alcohol and chug them down. Stacey is shocked. Even though they don’t pressure her to drink, she doesn’t feel good about any of this. And she’s right, because her friends get really sloppy and draw attention to themselves and get busted by security. And none of Stacey’s friends stick up for her and say she wasn’t drinking — in fact, they throw her under the bus because they’d hidden a flask in the sweater she’d taken off when they first got there.
Stacey is grounded and her mother strongly “encourages” her to drop her so-called friends, which Stacey does with relief. She keeps working at the Kid Center, and one day Dawn’s cousin Amy runs away from Dawn’s house (relatable) and ends up at the Kid Center. Stacey recognizes her name and calls Dawn and Mary Anne, who are relieved and appreciative. Stacey comes to the decision that she wants to rejoin the BSC. She tells Claudia, who talks to the BSC and then invites Stacey to their next meeting, where they invite her to rejoin on a probationary basis. ~Say hello to your friends…~
