by Sara Shepard
“You know that guy had a boner,” Mona whispered, gathering the magazines into a pile. “What’s Sean gonna think?”
“He’ll laugh,” Hanna said.
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
Hanna shrugged. “He might.”
Mona snorted. “Yeah, flashing strangers goes well with a virginity pledge.”
Hanna looked down at her Michael Kors purple wedges. The virginity pledge. Hanna’s incredibly popular, extraordinarily hot boyfriend, Sean Ackard—the boy she’d lusted over since seventh grade—was behaving a little strangely lately. He’d always been Mr. All-American Boy Scout—as in volunteering at the old-age home and serving turkey to the homeless on Thanksgiving—but last night, when Hanna, Sean, Mona, and a bunch of other kids were hanging out in Jim Freed’s cedar hot tub, covertly drinking Coronas, Sean had taken All-American Boy Scout up a notch. He’d announced, a little proudly, that he’d signed a virginity “promise” and vowed not to have sex before marriage. Everyone, Hanna included, had been too stunned to respond.
“He’s not serious,” Hanna said confidently. How could he be? A bunch of kids signed the promise; Hanna figured it was just a passing trend, like those Lance Armstrong bracelets or Yogalates.
“You think?” Mona smirked, brushing her long bangs out of her eyes. “Let’s see what happens at Noel’s party next Friday.”
Hanna gritted her teeth. It seemed like Mona was laughing at her. “I want to go shopping,” she said, standing up.
“How about Tiffany’s?” Mona asked.
“Awesome.”
They strolled through the brand-new luxe section of the King James Mall, which had a Burberry, a Tiffany’s, a Gucci, and a Coach; smelled of the latest Michael Kors perfume; and was packed full of pretty back-to-prep-school girls with their beautiful moms. On a solo shopping trip a few weeks ago, Hanna had noticed her old friend Spencer Hastings slipping into the new Kate Spade, and remembered how she used to special-order an entire season’s worth of nylon shoulder bags from New York.
Hanna felt funny knowing those sorts of details about someone she wasn’t friends with anymore. And as she watched Spencer peruse Kate Spade’s leather luggage, Hanna wondered if Spencer was thinking what she was thinking: that the mall’s new wing was just the sort of place Ali DiLaurentis would have loved. Hanna often thought of all the things Ali had missed—last year’s homecoming bonfire, Lauren Ryan’s sweet sixteen karaoke party in her family’s mansion, the return of round-toed shoes, Chanel’s leather iPod nano holders…iPod nanos, in general. But the biggest thing Ali had missed? Hanna’s makeover, of course—and it was such a bummer she had. Sometimes, when Hanna twirled around in front of her full-length mirror, she pretended that Ali was sitting behind her, critiquing her outfits the way she used to. Hanna had wasted so many years being a chubby, clingy loser, but things were so different now.
She and Mona strode into Tiffany’s; it was full of glass, chrome, and white lights that made the flawless diamonds extra shimmery. Mona prowled around the cases and then raised her eyebrows at Hanna. “Maybe a necklace?”
“What about a charm bracelet?” Hanna whispered.
“Perfect.”
They walked to the case and eyed the silver charm bracelet with the heart-shaped toggle. “So pretty,” Mona breathed.
“Interested?” an elegant older saleswoman asked them.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hanna said.
“It suits you.” The woman unlocked the case and felt around for the bracelet. “It’s in all the magazines.”
Hanna nudged Mona. “You try it.”
Mona slid it onto her wrist. “It’s really beautiful.” Then the woman turned to another customer. When she did, Mona slid the bracelet off her wrist and into her pocket. Just like that.
Hanna mashed her lips together and flagged down another saleswoman, a honey-blond girl who wore coral lipstick. “Can I try that bracelet there, with the round charm?”
“Sure!” The girl unlocked the case. “I have one of these myself.”
“How about the matching earrings, too?” Hanna pointed to them.
“Of course.”
Mona had moved over to the diamonds. Hanna held the earrings and the bracelet in her hands. Together, they were $350. Suddenly, a swarm of Japanese girls crowded around the counter, all pointing at another round-charm bracelet in the glass case. Hanna scanned the ceilings for cameras and the doors for detectors.
“Oh, Hanna, come look at the Lucida!” Mona called.
Hanna paused. Time slowed down. She slid the bracelet onto her wrist and then shoved it farther up her sleeve. She stuck the earrings in her Louis Vuitton cherry-monogrammed coin purse. Hanna’s heart pounded. This was the best part of taking stuff: the feeling beforehand. She felt all buzzy and alive.
Mona waved a diamond ring at her. “Doesn’t this look good on me?”
“C’mon.” Hanna grabbed her arm. “Let’s go to Coach.”
“You don’t want to try any on?” Mona pouted. She always stalled after she knew Hanna had done the job.
“Nah,” Hanna said. “Purses are calling our names.” She felt the bracelet’s silver chain press gently into her arm. She had to get out of here while the Japanese girls were still bustling around the counter. The salesgirl hadn’t even looked back in her direction.
“All right,” Mona said dramatically. She handed the ring—holding it by its diamond, which even Hanna knew you weren’t supposed to do—back to the saleswoman. “These diamonds are all too small,” she said. “Sorry.”
“We have others,” the woman tried.
“Come on,” Hanna said, grabbing Mona’s arm.
Her heart hammered as they wove their way through Tiffany’s. The charm tinkled on her wrist, but she kept her sleeve pulled down. Hanna was a seasoned pro at this—first it had been loose candy at the Wawa convenience store, then CDs from Tower, then baby tees from Ralph Lauren—and she felt bigger and more badass every time. She shut her eyes and crossed the threshold, bracing herself for the alarms to blare.
But nothing did. They were out.
Mona squeezed her hand. “Did you get one too?”
“Of course.” She flashed the bracelet around her wrist. “And these.” She opened the coin purse and showed Mona the earrings.
“Shit.” Mona’s eyes widened.
Hanna smiled. Sometimes it felt so good to one-up your best friend. Not wanting to jinx it, she walked quickly away from Tiffany’s and listened for someone to come chasing after them. The only noise, though, was the burbling of the fountain and a Muzak version of “Oops! I Did It Again.”
Oh yes, I did, Hanna thought.
4
SPENCER WALKS THE PLANK
“Honey, you’re not supposed to eat mussels with your hands. It’s not polite.”
Spencer Hastings looked across the table at her mother, Veronica, who nervously ran her hands through her perfectly highlighted ash-blond hair. “Sorry,” Spencer said, picking up the ridiculously small mussel-eating fork.
“I really don’t think Melissa should be living in the town house with all that dust,” Mrs. Hastings said to her husband, ignoring Spencer’s apology.
Peter Hastings rolled his neck around. When he wasn’t practicing law, he was furiously cycling all the back roads of Rosewood in tight, colorful spandex shirts and bike pants, shaking his fist at speeding cars. All that cycling gave him chronically sore shoulders.
“All that hammering! I don’t know how she’ll get any studying done,” Mrs. Hastings went on.
Spencer and her parents were sitting at Moshulu, a restaurant aboard a clipper ship in the Philadelphia harbor, waiting for Spencer’s sister, Melissa, to meet them for dinner. It was a big celebratory dinner because Melissa had graduated from U Penn undergrad a year early and had gotten into Penn’s Wharton School of Business. The downtown Philly town house was being renovated as a gift from their parents to Melissa.
In just two days, Spencer was starting her junior ye
ar at Rosewood and would have to surrender herself to this year’s jam-packed schedule: five APs, leadership training, charity drive organizing, yearbook editing, drama tryouts, hockey practice, and sending in summer program applications ASAP, since everyone knew that the best way to get into an Ivy was to get into one of their pre-college summer camps. But there was one thing Spencer had to look forward to this year: moving into the converted barn that sat at the back of her family’s property. According to her parents, it was the perfect way to prepare for college—just look how well it had worked for Melissa! Barf. But Spencer was happy to follow in her sister’s footsteps in this case, since they led out to the tranquil, light-flooded guesthouse where Spencer could escape her parents and their constantly barking labradoodles.
The sisters had a quiet yet long-standing rivalry and Spencer was always losing: Spencer had won the Presidential Physical Fitness Award four times in elementary school; Melissa had won it five. Spencer got second place in the seventh-grade geography bee; Melissa got first. Spencer was on the yearbook staff, in all of the school plays, and was taking five AP classes this year; Melissa did all those things her junior year plus worked at their mother’s horse farm and trained for the Philadelphia marathon for leukemia research. No matter how high Spencer’s GPA was or how many extracurriculars she smashed into her schedule, she never quite reached Melissa’s level of perfection.
Spencer picked up another mussel with her fingers and popped it into her mouth. Her dad loved this restaurant, with its dark wood paneling, thick oriental rugs, and the heady smells of butter, red wine, and salty air. Sitting among the masts and sails, it felt like you could jump right overboard into the harbor. Spencer gazed out across the Delaware River to the big bubbly aquarium in Camden, New Jersey. A giant party boat decorated with Christmas lights floated past them. Someone shot a yellow firework off the front deck. That boat was having way more fun than this one was having.
“What’s Melissa’s friend’s name again?” her mother murmured.
“I think it’s Wren,” Spencer said. In her head she added, As in scrawny bird.
“She told me he’s studying to be a doctor,” her mother swooned. “At U Penn.”
“Of course he is,” Spencer quietly singsonged. She bit down hard on a piece of mussel shell and winced. Melissa was bringing her boyfriend of two months to dinner. The family hadn’t met him yet—he’d been away visiting family or something—but Melissa’s boyfriends were all the same: textbook handsome, well mannered, played golf. Melissa didn’t have an ounce of creativity in her body and clearly looked for the same predictability in her boyfriends.
“Mom!” a familiar voice called from behind Spencer.
Melissa swooped to the other side of the table and gave each of her parents a huge kiss. Her look hadn’t changed since high school: her ash-blond hair was cut bluntly to her chin, she wore no makeup except for a little foundation, and she wore a dowdy square-necked yellow dress, a pearl-buttoned pink cardigan, and semi-cute kitten-heeled shoes.
“Darling!” her mother cried.
“Mom, Dad, here’s Wren.” Melissa pulled in someone next to her.
Spencer tried to keep her mouth from dropping open. There was nothing scrawny, birdlike, or textbook about Wren. He was tall and lanky and wore a beautifully cut Thomas Pink shirt. His black hair was cut in a long, shaggy, messy style. He had beautiful skin, high cheekbones, and almond-shaped eyes.
Wren shook her parents’ hands and sat down at the table. Melissa asked her mom a question about where to have the plumber’s bill sent, while Spencer waited to be introduced. Wren pretended to be really interested in an oversize wineglass.
“I’m Spencer,” she said finally. She wondered if her breath smelled like mussels. “The other daughter.” Spencer nodded toward the other side of the table. “The one they keep in the basement.”
“Oh.” Wren grinned. “Cool.”
Was that a British accent she heard? “Isn’t it strange they haven’t asked you a single thing about yourself?” Spencer gestured at her parents. Now they were talking about contractors and the best wood to use for the living room floor.
Wren shrugged, and then whispered, “Kinda.” He winked.
Suddenly Melissa grabbed Wren’s hand. “Oh, I see you’ve met her,” she cooed.
“Yeah.” He smiled. “You didn’t tell me you had a sister.”
Of course she hadn’t.
“So Melissa,” Mrs. Hastings said. “Daddy and I were talking about where you might be staying while all the renovations are happening. And I just thought of something. Why not just come back to Rosewood to live with us for a few months? You can commute to Penn; you know how easy it is.”
Melissa wrinkled her nose. Please say no, please say no, Spencer willed.
“Well.” Melissa adjusted the strap of her yellow dress. The more Spencer stared at it, the more the color made Melissa look like she had the flu. Melissa glanced at Wren. “The thing is…Wren and I are going to be moving into the town house…together.”
“Oh!” Her mother smiled at both of them. “Well…I suppose Wren could stay with us too…what do you think, Peter?”
Spencer had to clutch her boobs to keep her heart from exploding out of her chest. They were moving in together? Her sister really had some balls. She could just imagine what would happen if she dropped a bomb like that. Mom really would make Spencer live in the basement—or maybe in the stable. She could set up shop next to the horses’ companion goat.
“Well, I suppose that’s all right,” her father said. Unbelievable! “It’ll certainly be quiet. Mom’s in the stable most of the day, and of course Spencer will be in school.”
“You’re in school?” Wren asked. “Where?”
“She’s in high school,” Melissa butted in. She stared long at Spencer, as if she were sizing her up. From Spencer’s tight ecru Lacoste tennis dress to her long, dark blond wavy hair to her two-carat diamond earrings. “Same high school I went to. I never asked, Spence—are you president of the class this year?”
“VP,” Spencer mumbled. There was no way Melissa hadn’t already known that.
“Oh, aren’t you so happy it worked out that way?” Melissa asked.
“No,” Spencer said flatly. She’d run for the spot last spring but had been beaten out and had to take the VP slot. She hated losing at anything.
Melissa shook her head. “You don’t understand, Spence—it’s soooooo much work. When I was president, I barely had time for anything else!”
“You do have quite a few activities, Spencer,” Mrs. Hastings murmured. “There’s yearbook, and all those hockey games….”
“Besides, Spence, you’ll take over if the president, you know…dies.” Melissa winked at her as if they were sharing this joke, which they weren’t.
Melissa turned back to her parents. “Mom. I just got the best idea. What if Wren and I stayed in the barn? Then we’d be out of your hair.”
Spencer felt as if someone had just kicked her in the ovaries. The barn?
Mrs. Hastings put her French-manicured finger to her perfectly lipsticked mouth. “Hmm,” she started. She turned tentatively to Spencer. “Would you be able to wait a few months, honey? Then the barn will be all yours.”
“Oh!” Melissa laid down her fork. “I didn’t know you were going to move in there, Spence! I don’t want to cause problems—”
“It’s fine,” Spencer interrupted, grabbing her glass of ice water and taking a hearty swallow. She willed herself not to throw a tantrum in front of her parents and Perfect Melissa. “I can wait.”
“Seriously?” Melissa asked. “That’s so sweet of you!”
Her mother pressed her cold, thin hand against Spencer’s and beamed. “I knew you’d understand.”
“Can you excuse me?” Spencer dizzily shoved her seat back from the table and stood up. “I’ll be right back.” She walked across the boat’s wooden floor, down the carpeted main stairs, and out the front entrance. She needed to get to dry
land.
Out on the Penn’s Landing walkway, the Philadelphia skyline glittered. Spencer sat down on a bench and breathed yoga fire breaths. Then she pulled out her wallet and started to organize her money. She turned all the ones, fives, and twenties in the same direction and alphabetized them according to the long letter-number combination printed in green in the corners. Doing this always made her feel better. When she finished, she gazed up at the ship’s dining deck. Her parents faced the river, so they couldn’t see her. She dug through her tan Hogan bag for her emergency pack of Marlboros and lit one.
She took drag after angry drag. Stealing the barn was evil enough, but doing it in such a polite way was just Melissa’s style—Melissa had always been outwardly nice but inwardly horrid. And no one could see it but Spencer.
She’d gotten revenge on Melissa just once, a few weeks before the end of seventh grade. One evening, Melissa and her then-boyfriend, Ian Thomas, were studying for finals. When Ian left, Spencer cornered him outside by his SUV, which he’d parked behind her family’s row of pine trees. She’d merely wanted to flirt—Ian was wasting all his hotness on her plain vanilla, goody-two-shoes sister—so she gave Ian a peck good-bye on the cheek. But when he pressed her up against his passenger door, she didn’t try to run away. They only stopped kissing when his car alarm started to blare.
When Spencer told Alison about it, Ali said it was a pretty foul thing to do and that she should confess to Melissa. Spencer suspected Ali was just pissed because they’d had a running competition all year over who could hook up with the most older boys, and kissing Ian put Spencer in the lead.
Spencer inhaled sharply. She hated being reminded of that period of her life. But the DiLaurentises’ old house was right next door to hers, and one of Ali’s bedroom windows faced one of Spencer’s—it was like Ali haunted her 24/7. All Spencer had to do was look out her window and there was seventh-grade Ali, hanging her JV hockey uniform right where Spencer could see it or strolling around her bedroom gossiping into her cell phone.
Spencer wanted to think she’d changed a lot since seventh grade. They’d all been so mean—especially Alison—but not just Alison. And the worst memory of all was the thing…The Jenna Thing. Thinking of that made Spencer feel so horrible, she wished she could erase it from her brain like they did in that movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
