by Sara Shepard
Not long after, Ali made everyone the bracelets to remind them they were best friends forever and now that they shared a secret like this, they had to protect one another forever. Spencer waited for Ali to tell the others that someone saw her, but she never did.
When the cops questioned Spencer after Ali went missing, they asked if Ali had any enemies, anyone who hated her so much they might want to hurt her. Spencer said that Ali was a popular girl, and like any popular girl, there were some girls who didn’t like her, but it was just jealousy.
That, of course, was a bold-faced lie. There were people who hated Ali, and Spencer knew she should tell the police what Ali told her about The Jenna Thing…that maybe Toby wanted to hurt Ali…but how could she tell them that without telling them why? Spencer couldn’t get through a day without passing Toby and Jenna’s house on her street. But they’d been sent away to boarding school and hardly ever came home, so she thought their secret was safe. They were safe from Toby. And Spencer was safe from ever having to tell her best friends what she alone knew.
As Tracey Reid said good-bye, Emily turned around. She seemed surprised Spencer was still standing there. “I’ve got to get to class,” she said. “Good to see you, though.”
“’Bye,” Spencer answered, and she and Emily exchanged one last awkward smile.
15
INSULTING HIS MASCULINITY IS SUCH A DEAL BREAKER
“You guys are looking lazy. I want to see better form!” Coach Lauren yelled at them from the deck.
On Thursday afternoon, Emily bobbed with the other swimmers in the crystal blue water of Rosewood’s Anderson Memorial Natatorium, listening to their youngish, former-Olympian coach, Lauren Kinkaid, scream at them. The pool was twenty-five yards wide, fifty yards long, with a small diving well. Huge skylights mirrored the length of the pool, so when you did backstrokes in the evening, you could look up and see the stars.
Emily held on to the wall and pulled her cap over her ears. Okay, better form. She needed to really concentrate today.
Last night, after getting back from the creek with Maya, she’d lain on her bed for a long time, flip-flopping from feeling warm and happy about the fun she and Maya had had…to feeling uneasy and antsy about Maya’s confession. I’m not sure I like guys. I think I’d like someone more like me. Did Maya mean what Emily thought she meant?
Thinking about how giddy Maya had been at the waterfall—not to mention how much they’d tickled and touched each other—Emily felt nervous. After getting home last night, she’d rifled through her swimming bag for that note from A from the day before. She read it over and over again, picking apart every word until her eyes blurred.
By dinnertime, Emily decided she needed to throw herself back into swimming. No more skipped practices. No more slacking. From now on, she’d be the model swimmer girl.
Ben paddled over to her and put his hands on the wall. “I missed you yesterday.”
“Mmmm.” She should make a new start with Ben, too. With his freckles, piercing blue eyes, slightly stubbly jaw, and beautifully chiseled swimmer’s body, he was hot, right? She tried to imagine Ben jumping off the Marwyn trail bridge. Would he laugh or think it was immature?
“So where were you?” Ben asked, blowing on his goggles to defog them.
“Tutoring for Spanish.”
“Wanna come over to my house after practice? My parents won’t be home till eight.”
“I…I’m not sure if I can.” Emily pushed away from the wall and started to tread water. She stared down at her blurrily pumping legs and feet.
“Why not?” Ben pushed off the wall to join her.
“Because…” She couldn’t come up with an excuse.
“You know you want to,” Ben whispered. He took some water into his hands and began splashing her. Maya had done the same thing yesterday, but this time Emily jerked away.
Ben stopped splashing. “What?”
“Don’t.”
Ben put his hands around her waist. “No? You don’t like to get splashed?” he asked in a baby voice.
She took his hands off her. “Don’t.”
He backed away. “Fine.”
Sighing, Emily floated over to the other side of the lane. She liked Ben, she really did. Maybe she should just go over to Ben’s after swimming. They’d watch TiVo’ed episodes of American Chopper, eat pizza delivered from DiSilvio’s, and he’d feel underneath her unsexy sports bra. Suddenly tears sprang to her eyes. She really didn’t want to sit on Ben’s itchy blue basement couch, picking oregano spices out of her teeth and rolling her tongue around the inside of his mouth. She just didn’t.
She wasn’t the kind of girl who could fake things. But did that mean she wanted to break up? It was hard to make up your mind about a boy when he was right in your swimming lane, four feet away.
Her sister Carolyn, who was practicing in the lane next to her, tapped Emily on the shoulder. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah,” Emily mumbled, grabbing a blue kickboard.
“Okay.” Carolyn looked as if she wanted to say more. After her trip with Maya to the creek yesterday, Emily had skidded the Volvo into the parking lot just in time to see Carolyn exiting the natatorium’s double doors. When Carolyn asked where Emily had been, Emily had told her she had to tutor for Spanish. It seemed like Carolyn believed her, despite Emily’s damp hair and the funny ticky noise the car was making—something it did only when it was cooling down from a drive.
Even though the sisters looked alike—both had broad freckles over their noses, chlorine-bleached reddish brown hair, and had to wear a lot of Maybelline Great Lash to lengthen their stubby lashes—and even though they shared a room, they weren’t close. Carolyn was a quiet, demure, and obedient girl, and although Emily was all those things too, Carolyn seemed really satisfied to be that way.
Coach Lauren blew the whistle. “Kicking time! Line up!”
The swimmers lined up from fastest to slowest, kickboards in front of them. Ben was in front of Emily. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow.
“I can’t come over tonight,” she said quietly, so the other boy swimmers—who were crowded around behind her and laughing at Gemma Curran’s fake tan gone wrong—couldn’t hear. “Sorry.”
Ben’s mouth flattened into a straight line. “Yeah. As if that’s a surprise.” Then, as Lauren blew the whistle, he pushed off the wall and began dolphin-kicking. Uneasy, Emily waited until Lauren blew the whistle again, and pushed off behind him.
As she swam, Emily stared at Ben’s pumping legs. It was so dorky how he wore a cap over his already-short hair. He got so OCD before races, too, shaving off every hair on his body, including the ones on his arms and legs. Now, his feet made exaggeratedly huge splashes, which sprayed right into Emily’s face. She glared at his head bobbing in front of her and pumped her legs harder.
Even though she’d left five seconds behind him, Emily reached the opposite wall at almost the same time Ben did. He turned to her, pissed. Swim team etiquette dictated that no matter how big a swimming star you were, if someone caught your feet on a set, you let them go ahead of you. But Ben just pushed back off the wall.
“Ben!” Emily called, the irritation in her voice showing.
He stood up in the shallow end and turned around. “What?”
“Let me go in front of you.”
Ben rolled his eyes and ducked back underwater.
Emily shoved off the wall and kicked crazily until she caught up to him. He reached the wall and turned to face her.
“Would you stay off my ass?” he practically yelled.
Emily burst out laughing. “You’re supposed to let me go!”
“Maybe if you didn’t leave right on top of me you wouldn’t be on top of me.”
She snorted. “I can’t help it if I’m faster than you.”
Ben’s mouth fell open. Oops.
Emily licked her lips. “Ben…”
“No.” He held up his hand. “Just go swim really fast, okay?” He to
ssed his goggles onto the deck. They bounced awkwardly and landed back in the water, narrowly missing Gemma’s fake-tanned shoulder.
“Ben…”
He glared at her, then turned and got out of the pool. “Whatever.”
Emily watched him angrily push open the boys’ locker room door.
She shook her head, watching the door slowly swing back and forth. Then she remembered the thing Maya said yesterday.
“Fuck a moose,” she tried out quietly, and smiled.
16
NEVER TRUST AN INVITE WITHOUT A RETURN ADDRESS
“So are you coming over tonight?” Hanna switched her BlackBerry to her other ear and waited for Sean’s answer.
It was Thursday after school. She and Mona had just met for a quick cappuccino on campus, but Mona had to leave early to practice her drive for the mother/daughter golf tournament she was competing in this weekend. Now, Hanna sat on her front porch, talking to Sean and watching the six-year-old twins next door draw surprisingly anatomically correct naked boys in chalk all over their driveway.
“I can’t,” Sean answered. “I’m really sorry.”
“But Thursday is Nerve night; you know that!”
Hanna and Sean were hooked on this reality show Nerve, which documented the lives of four couples who’d met online. Tonight’s episode was extremely important, because their favorite two characters, Nate and Fiona, were about to do it. Hanna thought it might at least start a conversation.
“I…I have a meeting tonight.”
“A meeting for what?”
“Um…V Club.”
Hanna’s mouth fell open. V Club? As in Virginity Club? “Can you skip it?”
He was quiet for a minute. “I can’t.”
“Well, are you at least coming to Noel’s tomorrow?”
Another pause. “I don’t know.”
“Sean! You have to!” Her voice squeaked.
“All right,” he answered. “I guess Noel would be kinda pissed if I didn’t.”
“I would be pissed too,” Hanna added.
“I know. See you tomorrow.”
“Sean, wait—” Hanna started. But he’d already hung up.
Hanna unlocked her house. Sean had to come to the party tomorrow. She’d hatched a foolproof, romantic plan: She’d take him to Noel’s woods, they’d confess their love for each other, and then they’d have sex. V Club couldn’t argue with having sex if you were in love, could it? Besides, the Kahn woods were legendary. They were known as the Manhood Woods, because so many guys at so many Kahn parties had lost their virginity there. It was rumored that the trees whispered sex secrets to new recruits.
She stopped at the mirror in the hallway and pulled up her shirt to examine her taut stomach muscles. She swiveled sideways to investigate her small, round butt. Then she bent forward to look at her skin. Yesterday’s blotchiness was gone. She bared her teeth. One bottom front tooth crossed over a canine. Had they always been that way?
She threw her thick-strapped, gold leather handbag onto the kitchen table and opened the freezer. Her mom didn’t buy Ben & Jerry’s, so Tofutti Cutie 50-percent-less sugar faux ice-cream sandwiches would have to do. She took out three and began to greedily unwrap the first one. As she took a bite, she felt that familiar tug to eat more.
“Here, Hanna, have another profiterole,” Ali had whispered to her that day they visited her dad in Annapolis. Then Ali turned to Kate, her dad’s girlfriend’s daughter, and said, “Hanna’s so lucky—she can eat anything and not gain an ounce!”
It wasn’t true, of course. That’s what made it so mean. Hanna was already chubby and seemed to be getting more so. Kate giggled, and Ali—who was supposed to be on Hanna’s side—laughed too.
“I got you something.”
Hanna jumped. Her mom sat at the little telephone table in a hot pink Champion sports bra and black flared-leg yoga pants. “Oh,” Hanna said quietly.
Ms. Marin appraised Hanna, her eyes settling on the ice-cream sandwiches in her hands. “Do you really need three?”
Hanna looked down. She’d chomped through one sandwich in less than ten seconds, hardly even tasting it, and had already unwrapped the next.
She smiled faintly at her mom and quickly stuffed the remaining Cuties back into the freezer. When she turned back around, her mother set a little blue Tiffany bag on the table. Hanna looked at it questioningly. “This?”
“Open it.”
Inside was a little blue Tiffany box, and inside that was the complete Tiffany toggle set—the charm bracelet, round silver earrings, plus the necklace. The very same kind she’d had to hand over to the Tiffany’s woman at the police station. Hanna held them up, letting them sparkle in the overhead light. “Wow.”
Ms. Marin shrugged. “You’re welcome.” Then, to signify that the conversation was finished, she retreated to the den, unrolled her purple yoga mat, and turned on her Power Yoga DVD.
Hanna slowly slid the earrings back in the bag, confused. Her mom was so weird. That was when she noticed a creamy, square card envelope sitting on the little telephone table. Hanna’s name and address were typewritten in all caps. She smiled. An invite to a sweet party was just the thing she needed to cheer up.
Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth, the soothing yogi instructed from the TV in the den. Ms. Marin stood with her arms placidly by her sides. She didn’t even move when her BlackBerry started singing Flight of the Bumblebee, which meant she had an e-mail. This was her Me time.
Hanna grabbed the envelope and climbed upstairs to her room. She sat down on her four-poster bed, felt the edges of her billion-thread-count sheets, and smiled at Dot, sleeping peacefully on his doggie bed.
“Come here, Dot,” she whispered. He stretched and sleepily climbed into her arms. Hanna sighed. Maybe she just had PMS, and these jittery, uneasy, the-world-is-caving-in feelings would go away in a few days.
She sliced the envelope open with her fingernail and frowned. It wasn’t an invitation, and the note didn’t really make sense.
Hanna,
Even Daddy doesn’t love you best!
—A
What was that supposed to mean? But when she unfolded the accompanying page stuffed inside the envelope, she yelped.
It was a color printout from a private school’s online newsletter. Hanna looked at the familiar people in the photo. The caption said, Kate Randall was Barnbury School’s student speaker at the benefit. Pictured here with her mother, Isabel Randall, and Ms. Randall’s fiancé, Tom Marin.
Hanna blinked quickly. Her father looked the same as when she’d last seen him. And although her heart stopped when she read the word fiancé—when had that happened?—it was the image of Kate that made her skin itch. Kate looked more perfect than ever. Her skin was glowing and her hair was perfect. She had her arms gleefully wrapped around her mom and Mr. Marin.
Hanna would never forget the moment she first saw Kate. Ali and Hanna had just gotten off Amtrak in Annapolis, and at first Hanna saw only her dad leaning up against the hood of his car. But then the car door opened, and Kate stepped out. Her long chestnut hair was straight and shiny, and she held herself like the kind of girl who’d taken ballet since she was two. Hanna’s first instinct was to crouch behind a pole. She looked at her snug jeans and stretched-out cashmere sweater and tried not to hyperventilate. This was why Dad left, she thought. He wanted a daughter who wouldn’t embarrass him.
“Oh my God,” Hanna whispered, searching the envelope for a return address. Nothing. Something occurred to her. The only person who really knew about Kate was Alison. Her eyes moved to the A on the note.
The Tofutti Cutie burbled in her stomach. She ran for the bathroom and grabbed the extra toothbrush in the ceramic cup next to the sink. Then she knelt down over the toilet and waited. Tears dotted the corners of her eyes. Don’t start this again, she told herself, gripping the toothbrush hard by her side. You’re better than this.
Hanna stood up and stared in the mirror. Her fa
ce was flushed, her hair was strewn around her face, and her eyes were red and puffy. Slowly, she put the toothbrush back in the cup.
“I’m Hanna and I’m fabulous,” she said to her reflection.
But it didn’t sound convincing. Not at all.
17
DUCK, DUCK, GOOSE!
“Okay.” Aria blew her long bangs out of her eyes. “In this scene, you have to wear this colander on your head and talk a lot about a baby we don’t have.”
Noel frowned and brought his thumb to his pink, bow-shaped lips. “Why do I have to wear a colander on my head, Finland?”
“Because,” Aria answered. “It’s an absurdist play. It’s supposed to be, like, absurd.”
“Gotcha.” Noel grinned. It was Friday morning, and they were sitting on desks in English class. After yesterday’s Waiting for Godot disaster, Ezra’s next assignment had been for them to break up into groups and write their own existentialist plays. Existentialist was another way of saying, “silly and out there.” And if anyone could do silly and out there, it was Aria.
“I know something really absurd we could do,” Noel said. “We could have this character drive a Navigator and, like, after a couple of beers, crash it into his duck pond. But he’s, like, fallen asleep at the wheel, so he doesn’t notice he’s in the duck pond until the next day. There could be ducks in the Navigator.”
Aria frowned. “How could we stage all that? It sounds impossible.”
“I don’t know.” Noel shrugged. “But that happened to me last year. And it was really absurd. And awesome.”
Aria sighed. She hadn’t exactly chosen Noel to be her partner because she thought he’d be a good cowriter. She looked around for Ezra, but he unfortunately wasn’t watching them in fitful jealousy. “How about if we make one of the characters think he’s a duck?” she suggested. “He could randomly quack.”
“Um, sure.” Noel wrote that down on a piece of lined paper with a gnawed-up Montblanc pen. “Hey, maybe we could shoot this with my dad’s Canon DV camera? And have this as a movie instead of a boring play?”
