Stunning pll-11

by Sara Shepard

  Hanna gritted her teeth. How hard could the move be? She grabbed the pole and began to climb. She was able to stay up for a moment, but then her thighs gave out, and she began to slip toward the ground. She sank farther and farther until her butt kissed the floor. Her reflection in the mirror looked ridiculous.

  “Good try, Hanna,” Colleen chirped. “That move is really hard.”

  Hanna dusted off her butt, then gazed around at the other girls in the room all making love to their poles. Suddenly, they didn’t look like strippers, just chubby middle-aged women making fools out of themselves. This was the most idiotic fitness class she’d ever taken. There was a much easier way to get the boys’ attention.

  She turned to the window again and eyed the boys. When she was sure they were looking at her, she casually tugged down her leopard-print, too-small shirt, exposing the top of her red, scalloped-lace bra.

  By the looks on the boys’ faces, she knew they saw it. Their jaws dropped. James grinned. Mason pretended he was going to faint. Mike didn’t crack a smile, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. It was good enough for Hanna. She sauntered out of the class, swishing her hips to the strip-club beat.

  “You’re not staying?” James called out, his voice full of disappointment.

  “Gotta leave something for your imagination, don’t I?” Hanna said coyly. She could tell without turning around that Mike was still staring. She also knew that Colleen was watching her in the mirror, probably feeling a little confused. But whatever. She knew what Their Ali would say if she were still alive: All’s fair in love and pole dancing.

  12

  WORDS OF WISDOM

  That night, Emily stood in the hallway at Holy Trinity, the church her family attended. A bunch of construction-paper balloons bearing psalms and Bible verses were tacked up on the walls. A long gold runner stretched from one end of the hall to the other. The air smelled like a mixture of incense, stale coffee, and rubber cement, and the wind whistled noisily under the door. Years ago, Ali had told her that the whistling wind was the wails of the people buried in the cemetery out back. Sometimes Emily still believed that was true.

  A door at the far end of the hall opened, and a graying man peered out. It was Father Fleming, the oldest and sweetest priest at the church. He smiled. “Emily! Come in, come in!”

  For a second, Emily considered turning and bolting back to her car. Maybe this was a huge mistake. Yesterday, when she’d come home from swim practice, her mom had sat her down at the kitchen table and said she and her dad were considering postponing their trip to Texas. “Why?” Emily had asked. “You’ve planned this trip for months!”

  “You just don’t seem like yourself,” Mrs. Fields said, folding and unfolding a cloth napkin again and again. “I’m worried about you. I thought, with the scholarship to UNC, you’d turn a corner and put everything behind you. But it’s still weighing on your mind, isn’t it?”

  Tears inadvertently filled Emily’s eyes. Of course everything was still weighing on her—nothing had changed. Even worse, the woman who’d wanted her baby had found her. If A didn’t tell everyone about her pregnancy, Gayle probably would. And then what would happen? Would Emily still have a home to live in? Would her parents ever speak to her again?

  She put her face in her hands and murmured that everything was so hard. Mrs. Fields patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, honey.” Which made Emily feel even worse—Emily didn’t deserve her mom’s sympathy.

  “I have an idea.” Mrs. Fields picked up the cordless phone from its cradle. “Why don’t you talk to Father Fleming at the church?”

  Emily made a face, thinking about Father Fleming. She’d known him forever. He’d listened to her first confession when she was seven years old, telling her not to sweat calling Seth Cardiff a walrus in the schoolyard. But admitting to a priest she’d had premarital sex? It seemed so wrong.

  The thing was, Mrs. Fields wouldn’t take no for an answer—in fact, she’d already set up a meeting with Father Fleming the following day without asking Emily first. Emily relented, if only to reassure her parents that it was okay for them to go to Texas as planned. They’d left for the airport that morning, although Mrs. Fields had left a miles-long list of emergency contacts on the kitchen table and arranged for several neighbors to check in on Emily during the time they would be gone.

  But now here she was, shuffling toward Father Fleming’s office. Before she knew it, she was hanging her coat on a hook shaped like a hand making a thumbs-up sign on the back of the door and looking around the room. The décor took her aback. A ceramic head of Curly from The Three Stooges leered from the windowsill. The sanctimonious preacher from The Simpsons gave her a puckered-lipped pout from next to a gooseneck lamp. There were a lot of religious texts on the bookshelves, but Agatha Christie mysteries and Tom Clancy thrillers as well. On the desk were two tiny handmade Guatemalan worry dolls.

  Father Fleming noticed her looking at them. “You’re supposed to put them under your pillow to help you sleep.”

  “I know. I have some, too.” Emily couldn’t hide the surprise in her voice. She didn’t think priests were superstitious. “Do they work for you?”

  “Not really. What about you?”

  Emily shook her head. She’d bought six worry dolls at a head shop in Hollis shortly after what happened in Jamaica, hoping that placing them under her pillow would calm her down at night. But the same thoughts still zoomed through her mind.

  Father Fleming sat down in the leather chair behind his desk and folded his hands. “So. What can I do for you, Emily?”

  Emily stared at her chipped green nail polish. “I’m okay, really. My mom was just worried about my stress levels. It’s not a big deal.”

  Father Fleming nodded sympathetically. “Well, if you want to talk, I’m here to listen. And whatever you say goes no further than this room.”

  One of Emily’s eyebrows shot up. “You won’t tell my mom about . . . anything?”

  “Of course not.”

  Emily ran her tongue over her teeth, her secret suddenly feeling like a festering sore inside of her. “I had a baby,” she blurted. “This summer. No one in my family knew about it except for my sister.” Just saying it out loud in such a holy place made her feel like the devil.

  When she snuck a peek at Father Fleming, though, he still had the same unflappable expression on his face. “Your parents had no idea?”

  Emily nodded. “I hid in the city for the summer so they wouldn’t find out.”

  Father Fleming fingered his collar. “What happened to the baby?”

  “I gave her up for adoption.”

  “Did you meet the family?”

  “Yes. They were very nice. It all went very smoothly.”

  Emily stared at the cross on the wall behind Father Fleming’s desk, nervously hoping it wouldn’t shoot off of its hook and impale her for lying. Her baby was with the Bakers, but things had gone the opposite of smoothly.

  After Gayle had met with Emily and Aria in the café, Emily couldn’t get Gayle’s offer out of her mind. The Bakers seemed special, but what Gayle brought to the table was special, too. Aria had scolded Emily for being so preoccupied with Gayle’s money, but she didn’t want this baby to grow up the way she had, listening to her mom agonize about money every Christmas, missing out on a Washington, D.C., field trip because her dad was out of a job, being forced into keeping with a sport she wasn’t interested in anymore because it was her only ticket to college. Emily wanted to say that money didn’t matter to her, but since she’d always had to think about money, it definitely did.

  Two days later, after her shift at the restaurant, Emily called Gayle and said she wanted to talk more. They arranged to meet at a coffee shop near Temple that very night. A little before 8 PM, Emily cut through a small Philadelphia park, and a hand had shot out from the darkness and cupped her belly. “Heather,” a voice said, and Emily screamed. A figure stepped into the light, and Emily couldn’t be more surprised to see Gayle�
�s smiling face. “W-what are you doing here?” she gasped. Gayle shrugged. “It was such a nice night I thought we could talk outside. But someone’s jumpy,” she said with a laugh.

  Emily should have turned around and left, but instead she told herself that maybe she was being jumpy. Maybe Gayle was just playful. So she accepted Gayle’s carryout cup of decaf coffee and stayed. “Why do you want my baby?” she asked. “Why can’t you go through an adoption agency?”

  Gayle patted the seat next to her, and Emily plopped down on the bench. “The wait with an adoption agency is too long,” she said. “And we suspect that potential mothers wouldn’t choose me and my husband because of what happened to our daughter.”

  Emily raised an eyebrow. “What did happen to her?”

  A faraway, uncomfortable look came over Gayle’s face. Her left hand kneaded her thigh. “She had problems,” she said quietly. “She was in an accident when she was younger and never quite recovered.”

  “An . . . accident?”

  Suddenly, Gayle put her head in her hands. “My husband and I are dying to be parents again,” she said with urgency. “Please let us have the baby. We can give you fifty thousand dollars cash for your trouble.”

  Emily felt a palpable jolt of surprise. “Fifty thousand dollars?” she repeated. That could pay for all four years of college. She wouldn’t have to swim on scholarship every year. She could take a gap year and travel the world. Or she could donate it all to charity, to other babies who wouldn’t have an opportunity like this one.

  “Maybe we can work something out,” Emily said quietly.

  Gayle’s face twitched. She let out a whoop of joy and wrapped her arms around Emily tight. “You won’t regret this,” she said.

  Then she jumped up, rattled off information on how they would meet again in a few days, and was gone. The darkness swallowed Gayle up entirely. Only her laugh lingered, a haunting cackle that echoed through the woods. Emily sat on the bench for a few more minutes, watching the long, bright line of traffic on the 76 expressway in the distance. She wasn’t left with a feeling of comfort, as she’d hoped. Instead, she just felt . . . weird. What had she just done?

  A single pipe-organ note echoed through the church hall. Father Fleming lifted a jade paperweight on his desk and put it back down. “I can only imagine how much of a burden this has been for you. But it sounds like you did the right thing, giving the child up to a family who really wanted her.”

  “Uh huh.” Emily’s throat itched, a sure sign she was about to cry.

  “It must have been hard to give her up,” Father Fleming went on. “But you’ll always be in her heart, and she’ll always be in yours. Now, what about the father?”

  Emily jolted up. “What about him?”

  “Does he know about this?”

  “Oh my God, no.” Emily’s face felt hot. “He and I broke up long before I knew I was . . . you know. Pregnant.” She wondered what Father would think if he knew that the dad was Isaac, one of his parish members. Isaac’s band had played at quite a few church functions.

  Father Fleming folded his hands. “Don’t you think he deserves to know?”

  “No. Absolutely no way.” Emily shook her head vehemently. “He would hate me forever.”

  “You can’t know that.” He picked up a ballpoint pen and clicked it on and off. “And even if he’s angry with you, you might feel better if you tell the truth.”

  They talked for a while longer about how Emily had weathered having a baby on her own, what her recovery had been like, and what her college plans were. Just as the pipe organist launched into a long, droning variation of Canon in D, Father Fleming’s iPhone chimed. He smiled at her kindly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you now, Emily. I’ve got a meeting with the church board of trustees in about ten minutes. Do you think you’ll be all right?”

  Emily shrugged. “I guess.”

  He stood, patted Emily’s shoulder, and guided her toward the door. Halfway down the hall, he turned and looked at her. “It goes without saying, but everything you’ve told me is just between us,” he said softly. “Still, I know you’ll do the right thing.”

  Emily nodded dumbly, wondering what the right thing was. She considered Isaac again. He’d been so nice at Hanna’s dad’s town hall meeting. Maybe Father Fleming was right. Maybe she owed it to him. It was his baby, too.

  Heart thumping, Emily pulled out her cell phone and composed a new text to Isaac.

  I have something to talk to you about. Can we meet tomorrow?

  Before she could change her mind, she pressed SEND.

  13

  RING, RING, IT’S REAL ALI

  A few hours later, Aria sat in the kitchen at Byron and Meredith’s house, her laptop on the table in front of her. An IM from Emily appeared on the screen. Any news?

  Emily obviously wanted to know if Aria had gotten a message from A. Nope, Aria replied. I haven’t gotten anything yet. She hoped to keep it that way. As far as she was concerned, she didn’t know anything interesting about Mr. Kahn. A had no new reasons to torment her. The secret would stay locked away forever.

  Are we still on for Saturday? Emily wrote next.

  It took Aria a moment to remember that Emily had wanted her to go to the open house at the property on Ship Lane. Definitely.

  The front door slammed, and then came the sounds of keys dropping into a bowl and Meredith cooing soothingly to Lola. Meredith strode into the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge. She was dressed in stretch pants and a baggy white sweatshirt, a yoga mat tucked under her arm. Her dark hair was in a ponytail, her cheeks were flushed, and she looked very relaxed. Lola was strapped to her torso in a baby carrier, sound asleep.

  “Ugh, I’m so out of shape,” Meredith moaned, rolling her eyes. “Maybe I went back to teaching a little too soon. I couldn’t even do a handstand today.”

  “I was never able to do a handstand,” Aria said, shrugging.

  “I could teach you how if you want,” Meredith offered.

  “Sorry, I’m not really into yoga,” Aria said. The last thing she wanted was for Meredith to teach her something.

  Meredith placed the water bottle on the island and cleared her throat. “I really appreciate you going to Fresh Fields for me the other day.”

  Aria grunted, staring at an abstract painting of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz that Meredith had brought from her old apartment. If it weren’t for Meredith’s stupid dinner, Aria wouldn’t have happened upon Mr. Kahn’s awful secret. She couldn’t help but blame her a little.

  “And I am sorry . . . about the reason behind the dinner.” Meredith’s voice cracked.

  At first Aria bristled, but then realized she actually had something she wanted to ask Meredith. “When you and my dad were dating, did you tell anyone about it?”

  Meredith stiffened. After a moment, she adjusted the baby carrier so that Lola was more comfortable. “No,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t. I mean, when we were first together, your dad was my teacher—I didn’t want to get him fired. It wasn’t until you guys left for Iceland and I thought things were over that I told my mom. She was furious at me. She thought it was awful that I was fooling around with a married man.”

  Aria stared at the floor, surprised. She had assumed that Meredith bragged about her older professor boyfriend to her friends, laughed about the family she was destroying, and snickered at how much of an idiot Ella was for not suspecting something was going on.

  “When you guys came back from Iceland and your dad and I started dating again, I didn’t dare tell my mom what was going on,” Meredith went on. “I worried about telling anyone else, too, in case they told her—or judged me harshly. I knew what I was doing was wrong.”

  Aria traced her finger over a jute placemat, surprised again. Meredith had seemed so confident when she and Byron were secretly dating, insisting that she wasn’t a home wrecker because she and Byron were in love. She hadn’t expected Meredith to care about what
other people thought.

  “So you didn’t say anything to anyone? That whole time?” Aria asked incredulously.

  Lola stirred, and Meredith grabbed a pink pacifier from the table and popped it into the baby’s mouth. “I was afraid the secret would get out. I was terrified your mom would catch us.”

  “But she was going to find out eventually,” Aria pointed out.

  “I know, but I didn’t want to be the one to break the news.” Meredith pressed her fingers to her temple. “I really didn’t set out to destroy anyone’s life, I swear. It might not have seemed like it, but I had a very hard time with what we were doing.”

  Aria shut her eyes. She wanted to believe Meredith, but she wasn’t sure if she could.

  “You know, I saw you when you discovered me and Byron kissing in his car,” Meredith said softly. “I saw the look on your face, how devastated you were.”

  Aria turned away, that horrible memory flooding back to her.

  “I felt terrible about it. I wanted to explain myself. But I knew you wouldn’t want to talk to me.”

  “You’re right,” Aria admitted. “I wouldn’t have.”

  “And then you started showing up everywhere,” Meredith went on. “You came to the yoga studio—I recognized you right away. Then you showed up at my art class. You threw paint at me, remember?”

  “Uh huh,” Aria mumbled, staring at the floor. She’d drawn a red scarlet A for “adultress” on Meredith’s dress. It seemed so immature now.

  Neither of them said anything for a while. Meredith retied her ponytail. Aria stared at the ragged edges of her fingernails. Lola let out a loud burp in her sleep, the pacifier tumbling from her mouth. Aria giggled. Meredith laughed, too, then let out a long sigh. “It’s not fun to keep secrets,” she said. “But sometimes you have to do it to protect yourself. And to protect people around you.”

  For the first time ever, Aria agreed with Meredith. Protecting someone was exactly what she was doing by not telling Noel about his dad’s cross-dressing. Just hearing it put that way made her feel better about her decision.