by Sara Shepard
“They’re not real,” Byron reassured her. “Meredith painted them. She’s really personalized this place with an artistic touch.”
Aria felt like she was going to hyperventilate. “They look real to me!”
Byron looked honestly surprised. “I thought you’d like this place. It was the best we could put together on such short notice.”
Aria shut her eyes. She missed Ezra’s shabby little apartment, with its bathtub and thousands of books and map of the New York City subway system shower curtain. There were no roaches there, either—real or fake.
“Honey?” Meredith’s voice rang out from the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready.”
Byron gave Aria a tight smile and turned for the kitchen. Aria figured she should follow. In the kitchen, Meredith was setting bowls at each of their plates. Thankfully, dinner wasn’t gruel, but innocent-looking chicken soup. “I thought this would be best for my stomach,” she admitted.
“Meredith’s been having some stomach issues,” Byron explained. Aria turned to the window and smiled. Maybe she’d get lucky and Meredith would have somehow contracted the bubonic plague.
“It’s low-salt.” Meredith punched Byron in the arm. “So it’s good for you, too.”
Aria looked at her father curiously. Byron used to salt every single bite while it was on the fork. “Since when do you eat low-salt stuff?”
“I have high blood pressure,” Byron said, pointing to his heart.
Aria wrinkled her nose. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.” Byron tucked his napkin into his collar. “I have for a while now.”
“But…but you’ve never eaten low-salt stuff before.”
“I’m a slave driver,” Meredith insisted, scraping back a seat and sitting down. Meredith had positioned Aria at the head of the Wicked Witch cutout. Aria slid her bowl over to cover the witch’s pea-green visage. “I keep him on a regimen,” Meredith went on. “I make him take vitamins, too.”
Aria slumped, dread welling in her stomach. Meredith was already acting like Byron’s wife, and he’d only lived with her for a month.
Meredith pointed to Aria’s hand. “Whatcha got there?”
Aria stared down at her lap, realizing she was still holding the Shakespeare bobblehead Ezra had given her. “Oh. It’s just…something from a friend.”
“A friend who likes literature, I guess.” Meredith reached out and made Shakespeare’s head bob up and down. There was a tiny glint in her eye.
Aria froze. Could Meredith know about Ezra? She glanced at Byron. Her father slurped his soup, oblivious. He wasn’t reading at the table, something he constantly did at home. Had Byron seriously been unhappy at home? Did he honestly enjoy bug-painting, taxidermy-loving Meredith more than he loved Aria’s sweet, kind, loving mother, Ella? And what made Byron think Aria could just sit idly by and accept this?
“Oh, Meredith has a surprise for you,” Byron piped up. “Every semester, she gets to take a class at Hollis for free. She says you can use this semester’s credit to take a class instead.”
“That’s right.” Meredith passed the Hollis College continuing education course book to Aria. “Maybe you’d like to take one of the art classes I’m teaching?”
Aria bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. She’d rather have shards of glass permanently lodged in her throat than spend a single additional moment with Meredith.
“Come on, pick a class,” Byron urged. “You know you want to.”
So they were forcing her to do this? Aria whipped open the book. Maybe she could take something in German filmmaking, or microbiology, or Special Topics in Neglected Children and Maladjusted Family Behavior.
Then something caught her eye. Mindless Art: Create uniquely crafted masterpieces in tune with your soul’s needs, wants, and desires. Through sculpture and touch, students learn to depend less on their eyes and more on their inner selves.
Aria circled the class with the gray ROCKS ROCK! Hollis geology department pencil she’d found wedged in the course book. The class definitely sounded kooky. It might even end up being like one of those Icelandic yoga classes where instead of stretching, Aria and the rest of the students danced with their eyes closed, making hawk noises. But she needed a little mindlessness right now. Plus, it was one of the few art classes that Meredith wasn’t teaching. Which pretty much made it perfect.
Byron excused himself from the table and bounded off to Meredith’s minuscule bathroom. After he turned on the bathroom’s overhead fan, Meredith laid down her fork and looked squarely at Aria. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said evenly, rubbing her thumb along the pink spiderweb tattoo on her wrist. “You hate that your father’s with me. But you’d better get used to it, Aria. Byron and I are going to be married as soon as your parents’ divorce goes through.”
Aria accidentally swallowed an unchewed bite of noodles. She coughed up the broth, sputtering it all over the table. Meredith jumped back, her eyes wide. “Something you ate not agreeing with you?” she simpered.
Aria looked away sharply, her throat burning. Something hadn’t agreed with her, all right, but it wasn’t the Wicked Witch’s soup.
6 EMILY’S JUST A SWEET, INNOCENT MIDWESTERN GAL
“Come on!” Abby urged, pulling Emily across the farmyard. The sun was sinking over the flat Iowa horizon, and all sorts of long-legged Midwestern bugs were coming out to play. Apparently, Emily, Abby, and Emily’s two eldest boy cousins, Matt and John, were also going out to play.
The four of them stopped at the edge of the road. John and Matt had both changed out of their plain white T-shirts and work pants into baggy jeans and T-shirts with beer slogans. Abby pulled at the bodice of her tube top and checked her lipstick in her little compact mirror. Emily, in the same jeans and swimming T-shirt she’d worn when she arrived, felt plain and underdressed—which was pretty much how she always felt back in Rosewood.
Emily gazed over her shoulder at the farmhouse. All of its lights were off, but the dogs were still running crazily around the property, and the bad goat was still chained to the cattle guard, the bell around her neck clanging back and forth. It was a wonder Helene and Allen didn’t put bells on their children. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” she wondered aloud.
“It’s fine,” Abby answered, her hoop earrings swinging. “Mom and Dad go to bed at eight P.M. like clockwork. That’s what happens when you wake up at four.”
“We’ve been doing this for months and haven’t gotten caught once,” Matt assured her.
Suddenly, a silver pickup truck appeared on the horizon, dust kicking up in its wake. The truck rolled slowly up to the four of them and stopped. A hip-hop song Emily couldn’t place wafted out, along with the strong smell of menthol cigarettes. A dark-haired, Noel Kahn look-alike waved to the cousins, then smiled at Emily. “Soooo…this is your cousin, huh?”
“That’s right,” Abby said. “She’s from Pennsylvania. Emily, this is Dyson.”
“Get in.” Dyson patted the seat. Abby and Emily climbed in the front, and John and Matt climbed into the pickup bed. As they rolled off, Emily glanced once more at the farmhouse receding in the distance, an uneasy feeling gnawing at her.
“So, what brings you to glamorous Addams?” Dyson clunkily shifted gears.
Emily glanced at Abby. “My parents sent me.”
“They sent you away?”
“Totally,” Abby interrupted. “I heard you’re a real badass, Emily.” She looked at Dyson. “Emily lives on the edge.”
Emily stifled a laugh. The only rebellious thing she’d ever done in front of Abby was sneak an extra Oreo for dessert. She wondered if her cousins knew the truth of why her parents had banished her here. Probably not—lesbian was most likely a swear-jar word.
Within minutes, they drove up an uneven path to a large, burnt-orange silo, and parked on the grass next to a car with a bumper sticker that read, I BRAKE FOR HOOTERS. Two pale boys rolled out of a red pickup and bumped fists with a couple beefy, towheaded b
oys climbing out of a black Dodge Ram. Emily smirked. She’d always thought using the word corn-fed to describe someone from Iowa was a cliché, but right now, it was the only description that came to mind.
Abby squeezed Emily’s arm. “The ratio of guys to girls here is four to one,” she whispered. “So you’ll totally hook up tonight. I always do.”
So Abby didn’t know about Emily. “Oh. Great.” Emily tried to smile. Abby winked and jumped out of the truck. Emily followed the others toward the silo. The air smelled like Clinique Happy perfume; hoppy, soapy beer; and dried grass. When she walked inside, she expected to see bales of hay, a farm animal or two, and perhaps a bare, unstable ladder that led to a freaky girl’s bedroom, just like in The Ring. Instead, the silo had been cleared out and Christmas lights hung from the ceiling. Plush, plum-colored couches lined the walls, and Emily saw a turntable in the corner and a bunch of enormous kegs near the back.
Abby, who’d already grabbed a beer, pulled a couple of guys toward Emily. Even in Rosewood, they would’ve been popular—they all had floppy hair, angular faces, and brilliant white teeth. “Brett, Todd, Xavi…this is my cousin Emily. She’s from Pennsylvania.”
“Hi,” Emily said, shaking the boys’ hands.
“Pennsylvania.” The boys nodded appreciatively, as if Abby had said Emily was from Naughty Dirty Sex Land.
As Abby wandered off with one of the boys, Emily made her way to the keg. She stood in line behind a blond couple who were grinding against each other. The DJ melted into Timbaland, whom everyone at Rosewood was into right now, too. Really, people in Iowa didn’t seem that different from people at her school. The girls all wore denim skirts and wedge heels, and the guys wore oversize hoodies and baggy jeans, and seemed to be experimenting with facial hair. Emily wondered where all of them went to school, or if their parents homeschooled them as well.
“Are you the new girl?”
A tall, white-blond girl in a striped tunic and dark jeans stood behind her. She had the broad shoulders and powerful stance of a professional volleyball player, and four small earrings snaked up her left ear. But there was something very sweet and open about her round face, light blue eyes, and small, pretty lips. And unlike practically every other girl in the silo, she didn’t have a guy’s hands draped over her boobs. “Uh, yeah,” Emily replied. “I just got here today.”
“And you’re from Pennsylvania, right?” The girl pivoted back on her hips and appraised Emily carefully. “I was there once. We went to Harvard Square.”
“I think you mean Boston, in Massachusetts,” Emily corrected her. “That’s where Harvard is. Pennsylvania has Philadelphia. The Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin stuff, all that.”
“Oh.” The girl’s face fell. “I haven’t been to Pennsylvania, then.” She lowered her chin at Emily. “So. If you were candy, what kind would you be?”
“Sorry?” Emily blinked.
“Come on.” The girl poked her. “Me, I’d be an M&M.”
“Why?” Emily asked.
The girl lowered her eyes seductively. “Because I melt in your mouth, obviously.” She poked Emily. “So how about you?”
Emily shrugged. This was the strangest getting-to-know-you question anyone had ever asked her, but she kind of liked it. “I’ve never thought about it. A Tootsie Roll?”
The girl violently shook her head. “You wouldn’t be a Tootsie Roll. That looks like a big long poop. You’d be something way sexier than that.”
Emily breathed in very, very slowly. Was this girl flirting with her? “Um, I think I need to know your name before we talk about…sexy candy.”
The girl stuck out her hand. “I’m Trista.”
“Emily.” As they shook, Trista spiraled her thumb around the inside of Emily’s palm. She never took her eyes off Emily’s face.
Maybe this was just some sort of cultural Iowan way of saying hello.
“Do you want a beer?” Emily sputtered, turning back for the keg.
“Absolutely,” Trista said. “But let me pour it for you, Pennsylvania. You probably don’t even know how to pump a keg.” Emily watched as Trista pumped the keg handle a few times and let the beer filter slowly into her cup, producing almost no foam.
“Thanks,” Emily answered, taking a sip.
Trista poured herself a beer and led Emily away from the line to one of the couches that lined the walls of the silo. “So, did your family just move here?”
“I’m staying with my cousins for a little while.” Emily pointed to Abby, who was dancing with a tall blond boy, and to Matt and John, who were smoking cigarettes with a petite redhead wearing a skintight pink sweater and skinny jeans.
“You on a little vacation?” Trista asked, fluttering her eyelashes.
Emily couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like Trista was moving closer and closer to her on the couch. She was doing everything in her power not to touch Trista’s long legs, which were dangling inches from her own. “Not exactly,” she blurted out. “My parents kicked me out of the house because I couldn’t live by their rules.”
Trista fiddled with the strap of her tan boots. “My mom’s like that. She thinks I’m at a choir concert right now. Otherwise she never would’ve let me out.”
“I used to have to lie to my parents about going to parties too,” Emily said, suddenly afraid she was going to start crying again. She tried to imagine what was happening at her house right now. Her family had probably gathered around the TV after dinner. Just her mom, her dad, and Carolyn, happily chatting among themselves, glad that Emily, the heathen, was gone. It hurt so much it made her feel nauseated.
Trista glanced at Emily sympathetically, as if she sensed something was wrong. “So hey. Here’s another one. If you were a party, what kind of party would you be?”
“A surprise party,” Emily blurted out. That seemed like the story of her life lately—one big surprise after another.
“Good one.” Trista smiled. “I’d be a toga party.”
They smiled at each other for a long moment. There was something about Trista’s heart-shaped face and wide, blue eyes that made Emily feel really…safe. Trista leaned forward, and so did Emily. It was almost like they were going to kiss, but then Trista bent down very slowly and fixed the strap on her shoe.
“So why’d they send you here, anyway?” Trista asked when she sat back up.
Emily took a huge swallow of beer. “Because they caught me kissing a girl,” she blurted out.
When Trista leaned back, her eyes wide, Emily thought she’d made a horrible mistake. Perhaps Trista was just being Midwestern friendly, and Emily had misinterpreted. But then, Trista broke into a coy smile. She moved her lips close to Emily’s ear. “You totally wouldn’t be a Tootsie Roll. If it were up to me, you’d be a red-hot candy heart.”
Emily’s heart did three somersaults. Trista stood up and offered Emily her hand. Emily took it, and without a word, Trista led her to the dance floor and started dancing sexily to the music. The song changed to a fast one, and Trista squealed and started to jump around as if she were on a trampoline. Her energy was intoxicating. Emily felt like she could be goofy with Trista—not constantly poised and cool, as she always felt she had to behave around Maya.
Maya. Emily stopped, breathing in the rank, humid silo air. Last night, she and Maya had said they loved each other. Were they still together, now that Emily was possibly permanently stuck here, amid all this corn and cow manure? Did this qualify as cheating? And what did it mean that Emily hadn’t thought of her once tonight, until now?
Trista’s cell phone beeped. She stepped out of the circle of dancers and pulled it out of her pocket. “My stupid mom’s texting me for like the gazillionth time tonight,” she yelled over the music, shaking her head.
A shock vibrated through Emily—any minute now, she’d probably be getting a text of her own. A always seemed to know when she was having naughty thoughts. Only, her cell phone…was in the swear jar.
Emily let out a thrilled bleat of laughter.
Her phone was in the swear jar. She was at a party in Iowa, thousands of miles from Rosewood. Unless A was supernatural, there was no way A could know what Emily was doing.
Suddenly, Iowa wasn’t quite so bad. Not. At. All.
7 BARBIE DOLL…OR VOODOO DOLL?
Sunday evening, Spencer swung gently on the hammock on the wraparound porch of her grandmother’s vacation house. As she watched yet another hot, muscular surfer boy catch a wave at Nun’s, the surfing beach just down the road that bordered a convent, a shadow fell over her.
“Your father and I are going to the yacht club for a while,” her mother said, shoving her hands into her beige linen trousers.
“Oh.” Spencer struggled to get out of the hammock without getting her feet tangled in the netting. The Stone Harbor yacht club was in an old sea shack that smelled a little like brine in a moldy basement. Spencer suspected her parents liked going there solely because it was a members-only establishment. “Can I come?”
Her mother caught her arm. “You and Melissa are staying here.”
A breeze that smelled of surf wax and fish smacked Spencer in the face. She tried to see things from her mother’s perspective—it must have sucked to see her two children fighting so bloodthirstily. But Spencer wished her mom could understand her perspective, too. Melissa was an evil superbitch, and Spencer didn’t want to speak to her for the rest of her life.
“Fine,” Spencer said dramatically. She pulled open the sliding glass door and stalked into the grand family room. Even though Nana Hastings’s Craftsman-style house had eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a private path to the beach, a deluxe playroom, a home theater, a gourmet chef’s kitchen, and Stickley furniture throughout, Spencer’s family had always affectionately called it the “taco shack.” Perhaps it was because Nana’s mansion in Longboat Key, Florida, had wall frescoes, marble floors, three tennis courts, and a temperature-controlled wine cellar.
