by Sara Shepard
Happy belated b-day, Mona! So when are you going to tell Hanna what you did? I say wait until AFTER she finally gives you your birthday present. You might lose the friendship, but at least you’ll get to keep the gift!—A
Hanna’s blood turned to ice. “What you did? What’s A talking about?”
Mona’s face went white. “Hanna…okay. We did get into a fight the night of my party. But it was just a little one. Honestly. We should just forget about it.”
Hanna’s heart thrummed as loud as a car engine. Her mouth instantly went dry.
“I didn’t want to bring up the fight after your accident because I didn’t think it mattered,” Mona went on, her voice high-pitched and desperate. “I didn’t want to upset you. And I felt terrible about us fighting last week, Hanna, especially when I thought I’d lost you forever. I just wanted to forget about it. I wanted to make it up to you by throwing you this amazing party, and—”
A few aching seconds passed. The heat switched on, making them all jump. Spencer cleared her throat. “You guys shouldn’t fight,” she said gently. “A’s just trying to distract you from figuring out who’s sending these awful notes in the first place.”
Mona shot Spencer a grateful look. Hanna lowered her shoulders, feeling all eyes on her. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about this with the others around. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it at all. “Spencer’s right. This is what A does.”
The girls fell into silence, staring at the square-shaped, paper Noguchi lamp that sat on the coffee table. Spencer grabbed Mona’s hand and squeezed. Emily grabbed Hanna’s.
“What else have your notes been about?” Aria asked Mona quietly.
Mona ducked her head. “Just some stuff from the past.”
Hanna bristled, focusing on the bluebird-shaped hair clip in Aria’s hair. She had a feeling she knew just what A was taunting Mona about—the time before Hanna and Mona were friends, when Mona was dorky and uncool. What secret had A focused on most? When Mona had tagged along behind Ali, wanting to be just like her? When Mona was the butt of everyone’s jokes? She and Mona never discussed the past, but sometimes Hanna felt like the painful memories loomed close behind, bubbling just below the surface of their friendship like an underground geyser.
“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” Hanna said quickly. “A lot of our A notes have been about the past, too. There’s lots of stuff we all want to forget.”
She met her best friend’s eyes, hoping Mona understood. Mona squeezed Hanna’s hand. Hanna noticed that Mona was wearing the silver-and-turquoise ring Hanna had made for her in Jewelry II, even though it looked more like one of the clunky Rosewood Day class rings that only nerds wore than a pretty bauble from Tiffany. A small spot in Hanna’s pounding heart warmed. A was right about one thing: Best friends shared everything. And now she and Mona could too.
The doorbell rang, three short Asian-inspired bongs. The girls shot up. “Who’s that?” Aria whispered fearfully.
Mona stood, shaking out her long blond hair. She broke into a big smile and pranced toward Hanna’s front door. “Something to make us forget about our problems.”
“What, like pizza?” Emily asked.
“No, ten male models from the Philly branch of the Wilhelmina modeling agency, of course,” Mona said simply.
As if it were preposterous to think it could be anyone else.
21
HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE EMILY?
Thursday night, after leaving Hanna’s, Emily skirted her way around all of the shopping bag–laden, expensive perfume–wearing King James Mall consumers. She was meeting her parents at All That Jazz!, the Broadway musical–themed restaurant next to Nordstrom. It had been Emily’s favorite restaurant when she was younger, and Emily guessed that her parents assumed it still was. The restaurant looked the same as always, with a fake Broadway marquee facade, a giant Phantom of the Opera statue next to the hostess podium, and photos of Broadway stars all over the walls.
Emily was the first to arrive, so she slid into a seat at the long, granite-topped bar. For a while, she stared at the collectible Little Mermaid dolls in a glass case near the hostess stand. When she was younger, Emily wished she could switch places with Ariel the Mermaid Princess—Ariel could have Emily’s human legs, and Emily would take Ariel’s mermaid fins. She used to make her old friends watch the movie, up until Ali told her it was lame and babyish and she should just stop.
A familiar image on the TV screen above the bar caught her eye. There was a blond, busty reporter in the foreground, and Ali’s seventh-grade school picture in the corner. “For the past year, Alison DiLaurentis’s parents have been living in a small Pennsylvania town not far from Rosewood while their son, Jason, finishes up his degree at Yale University. They’ve all been leading quiet lives…until now. While Alison’s murder investigation rolls on with no new leads, how is the rest of the family holding up?”
A stately, ivy-covered building flashed on the screen over a caption that read, NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT. Another blond reporter chased after a group of students. “Jason!” she called. “Do you think the police are doing enough to find your sister’s killer?”
“Is this bringing your family closer together?” someone else shouted.
A boy in a Phillies ball cap turned around. Emily’s eyes widened—she’d only seen Jason DiLaurentis a couple of times since Ali had gone missing. His eyes were cold and hard, and the corners of his mouth turned down.
“I don’t speak to my family much,” Jason said. “They’re too messed up.”
Emily hooked her feet under her stool. Ali’s family…messed up? In Emily’s eyes, the DiLaurentises seemed perfect. Ali’s father had a good job but was able to come home on the weekends and barbecue with his kids. Mrs. DiLaurentis used to take Ali, Emily, and the others shopping and made them great oatmeal raisin cookies. Their house was spotless, and whenever Emily ate dinners at the DiLaurentises’, there was always lots of laughing.
Emily thought of the memory Hanna had mentioned earlier, the one from the day before Ali went missing. After Ali had emerged on the back patio, Emily had excused herself to go to the bathroom. As she passed through the kitchen and skirted around Charlotte, Ali’s Himalayan cat, she’d heard Jason whispering to someone on the stairs. He sounded angry.
“You better stop it,” Jason hissed. “You know how that pisses them off.”
“I’m not hurting anything,” another voice whispered back.
Emily had pressed her body against the foyer wall, befuddled. The second voice sounded a little like Ali’s.
“I’m just trying to help you,” Jason went on, getting more and more agitated.
Just then, Mrs. DiLaurentis whirled in through the side door, running to the sink to wash dirt off her hands. “Oh, hi, Emily,” she chirped. Emily stepped away from the stairs. She heard footsteps climbing to the second floor.
Emily glanced again at the TV screen. The news anchor was now issuing an advisory to Rosewood Country Club members because the Rosewood Stalker had been spotted sneaking around the club’s grounds. Emily’s throat itched. It was easy to draw parallels between the Rosewood Stalker and A…and the country club? Hanna’s party was going to be there. Emily had been very careful not to ask Hanna any questions ever since she received A’s last note, but she still wondered if they should go to the police—this had gone far enough. And what if A had not only hit Hanna but killed Ali, too, as Aria suggested the other day? But maybe Mona was right: A was close by, watching their every move. A would know if they told.
As if on cue, her cell phone trumpeted. Emily jumped, nearly teetering off her chair. She had a new text, but thankfully, it was only from Trista. Again.
Hey, Em! What are you doing this weekend? xxx, Trista
Emily wished Rita Moreno wouldn’t sing “America” so loudly, and she wished she weren’t sitting so close to a picture of the cast of Cats—all the felines leered at her like they wanted to use her as a s
cratching post. She ran her hand along her Nokia’s bumpy keys. It would be rude not to reply, right? She typed, Hi! I’m going to a masquerade party for my friend this Friday. Should be fun!—Em
Almost immediately, Trista sent back a reply. OMG! Wish I could come!
Me too, Emily texted back. C ya! She wondered what Trista really planned to do this weekend—go to another silo party? Meet another girl?
“Emily?” Two ice-cold hands curled around her shoulders. Emily whirled around, dropping her phone on the floor. Maya stood behind her. Emily’s mother and father and her sister Carolyn and her boyfriend, Topher, stood behind Maya. Everyone grinned madly.
“Surprise!” Maya crowed. “Your mom called me this afternoon to ask if I wanted to come to your dinner!”
“O-ohh,” Emily stammered. “That’s…great.” She rescued her phone from the floor and held it between her hands, covering the screen as if Maya could see what Emily had just written. It felt like there was a hot, beaming spotlight on her. She looked at her parents, who were standing next to a big photo of the Les Misérables actors storming the barricades. Both of them were nervously smiling, acting the same way they had when they’d met Emily’s old boyfriend, Ben.
“Our table’s ready,” Emily’s mother said. Maya took Emily’s hand and followed the rest of her family. They all slid into an enormous royal purple banquette. An effeminate waiter, who Emily was pretty sure was wearing mascara, asked if they wanted any cocktails.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Fields,” Maya said once the waiter left. She grinned across the booth at Emily’s parents.
Emily’s mom smiled back. “It’s nice to meet you too.” There was nothing but warmth in her voice. Emily’s father smiled too.
Maya pointed at Carolyn’s bracelet. “That is so pretty. Did you make it?”
Carolyn blushed. “Yeah. In Jewelry III.”
Maya’s burnt-umber eyes widened. “I wanted to take jewelry, but I have no sense for color. Everything on that bracelet goes so well together.”
Carolyn looked down at her gold-flecked dinner plate. “It’s not really that hard.” Emily could tell she was flattered.
They eased into small talk, about school, the Rosewood Stalker, Hanna’s hit-and-run, and then California—Carolyn wanted to know if Maya knew any kids who went to Stanford, where she’d be attending next year. Topher laughed at a story Maya told about her old neighbor in San Francisco who had had eight pet parakeets and made Maya parakeet-sit for her. Emily looked at all of them, annoyed. If Maya was so easily likable, then why hadn’t they given her a chance before? What was all that talk about how Emily should stay away from Maya? Did she really have to run away for them to take her life seriously?
“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Emily’s father said as everyone received their dinners. “I reserved the house in Duck for Thanksgiving again.”
“Oh, wonderful.” Mrs. Fields beamed. “Same house?”
“Same one.” Mr. Fields stabbed at a baby carrot.
“Where’s Duck?” Maya asked.
Emily raked her fork through her mashed potatoes. “It’s this little beach town in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We rent a house there every Thanksgiving. The water’s still warm enough to swim if you have a wet suit.”
“Perhaps Maya would like to come,” Mrs. Fields said, primly wiping her mouth with a napkin. “You always bring a friend, after all.”
Emily gaped. She always brought a boyfriend, more like it—last year, she’d brought Ben. Carolyn had brought Topher.
Maya pressed her palm to her chest. “Well…yeah! That sounds great!”
It felt like the restaurant’s faux stage-set walls were closing in around her. Emily pulled at the collar of her shirt, then stood up. Without explaining, she wound her way around a pack of waiters and waitresses dressed up as the characters from Rent. Fumbling into a bathroom stall, she leaned against the mosaic-tiled wall and shut her eyes.
The door to the bathroom opened. Emily saw Maya’s square-toed Mary Janes under her stall door. “Emily?” Maya called softly.
Emily peeked through the crack in the metallic door. Maya had her crocheted bag slung across her chest, her lips pressed together in worry. “Are you okay?” Maya asked.
“I just felt a little faint,” Emily stammered, awkwardly flushing and then walking to the sink. She stood with her back to Maya, her body rigid and tense. If Maya touched her right now, Emily was pretty sure she would explode.
Maya reached out, then recoiled, as if sensing Emily’s vibe. “Isn’t it so sweet your parents invited me to Duck with you? It’ll be so fun!”
Emily pumped a huge pile of foamy soap into her hands. When they went to Duck, Emily and Carolyn always spent at least three hours in the ocean every day bodysurfing. Afterward, they watched marathons on the Cartoon Network, refueled, and went into the water again. She knew Maya wouldn’t be into that.
Emily turned around to face her. “This is all kind of…weird. I mean, my parents hated me last week. And now they like me. They’re trying to win me over, having you surprise me at dinner, and then inviting you to the Outer Banks.”
Maya frowned. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“Well, yes,” Emily blurted out. “Or, no. Of course not.” This was coming out all wrong. She cleared her throat and met Maya’s eyes in the mirror. “Maya, if you could be any kind of candy, what kind would you be?”
Maya touched the edge of a gilded tissue box that sat in the middle of the bathroom’s vanity counter. “Huh?”
“Like…would you be Mike and Ike? Laffy Taffy? A Snickers bar? What?”
Maya stared at her. “Are you drunk?”
Emily studied Maya in the mirror. Maya had glowing, honey-colored skin. Her boysenberry-flavored lip gloss gleamed. Emily had fallen for Maya as soon as she’d laid eyes on her, and her parents were making a huge effort to accept Maya. What was her problem, then? Why, whenever Emily tried to think about kissing Maya, did she imagine kissing Trista instead?
Maya leaned back against the counter. “Emily, I think I know what’s going on.”
Emily looked away quickly, trying not to blush. “No, you don’t.”
Maya’s eyes softened. “It’s about your friend Hanna, isn’t it? Her accident? You were there, right? I heard that the person who hit her had been stalking her.”
Emily’s canvas Banana Republic purse slipped out of her hands and fell to the tiled floor with a clunk. “Where did you hear that?” she whispered.
Maya stepped back, startled. “I…I don’t know. I can’t remember.” She squinted, confused. “You can talk to me, Em. We can tell each other anything, right?”
Three long measures of the Gershwin song that was twinkling out of the speakers passed. Emily thought about the note A had sent when she and her three old friends met with Officer Wilden last week: If you tell ANYONE about me, you’ll be sorry. “No one is stalking Hanna,” she whispered. “It was an accident. End of story.”
Maya ran her hands along the ceramic sink basin. “I think I’m going to go back to the table now. I’ll…I’ll see you out there.” She backed out of the bathroom slowly. Emily listened to the main door waft shut.
The song over the speakers switched to something from Aida. Emily sat down at the vanity mirrors, clunking her purse in her lap. No one said anything, she told herself. No one knows except for us. And no one is going to tell A.
Suddenly, Emily noticed a folded-up note sitting in her open purse. It said EMILY on the front, in round pink letters. Emily opened it up. It was a membership form for PFLAG—Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Someone had filled in Emily’s parents’ information. At the bottom was familiar spiky handwriting.
Happy coming-out day, Em—your folks must be so proud! Now that the Fields are alive with the sound of love and acceptance, it would be such a shame if something happened to their little lesbian. So you keep quiet…and they’ll get to keep you!—A
The bathroom door was s
till swinging from Maya’s exit. Emily stared back at the note, her hands trembling. All at once, a familiar scent filled the air. It smelled like…
Emily frowned and sniffed again. Finally, she put A’s note right up to her nose. When she breathed in, her insides turned to stone. Emily would recognize this smell anywhere. It was the seductive scent of Maya’s banana gum.
22
IF THE W’S WALLS COULD TALK…
Thursday evening, after a dinner at Smith & Wollensky, an upscale Manhattan steak house Spencer’s father frequented, Spencer followed her family down the W Hotel’s gray-carpeted hallway. Sleek black-and-white Annie Leibovitz photographs lined the halls, and the air smelled like a mix between vanilla and fresh towels.
Her mother was on her cell phone. “No, she’s sure to win,” she murmured. “Why don’t we just book it now?” She paused, as if the person on the other end was saying something very important. “Good. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She clapped her phone closed.
Spencer tugged at the lapel of her dove-gray Armani Exchange suit—she’d worn a professional outfit to dinner to get into award-winning essayist mode. She wondered who her mom was talking to on the phone. Perhaps she was planning something amazing for Spencer if she won the Golden Orchid. A fabulous trip? A day with a Barneys personal shopper? A meeting with the family friend who worked at the New York Times? Spencer had begged her parents to let her be a summer intern at the Times, but her mother had never allowed it.
“Nervous, Spence?” Melissa and Ian appeared behind her, pulling matching plaid suitcases. Unfortunately, Spencer’s parents insisted that Melissa come along to Spencer’s interview for moral support, and Melissa had brought Ian. Melissa held up a little bottle labeled MARTINI TO GO! “Do you want one of these? I could get one for you, if you need something to calm you down.”
“I’m fine,” Spencer snapped. Her sister’s presence made Spencer feel like roaches were crawling under her Malizia bra. Whenever Spencer shut her eyes, she saw Melissa fidgeting as Wilden asked her and Ian where they’d been the night of Ali’s disappearance and heard Melissa’s voice saying, It takes a very unique person to kill. And that’s not you.
