Perfect pll-3

by Sara Shepard

  Aria chewed on the inside of her cheek. If only Aria had talked to Mrs. Ackard before she branded Meredith.

  “The Scarlet Letter.” Mr. Ackard put his finger to his lips. “They made that into a movie, didn’t they?”

  “Uh-huh,” Sean said. “With Demi Moore.”

  “The one where the man falls in love with a younger girl, right?” Mr. Ackard added. “So scandalous.”

  Aria drew in her breath. She felt like everyone was looking at her, but in reality, only Sean was. His eyes were wide and drawn down, mortified. I’m sorry, his expression said. “No, David,” Mrs. Ackard said quietly, in a voice that indicated she had some idea of Aria’s situation. “That’s Lolita.”

  “Oh. Right.” Mr. Ackard shrugged, apparently not realizing his faux pas. “I get them all mixed up.”

  After dinner, Sean and the twins went upstairs to do their homework, and Aria followed. Her guest room was quiet and inviting. Some time between dinner and now, Mrs. Ackard had put a box of Kleenex and a vase of lavender on her nightstand. The flowers’ grandmotherly smell filled the room. Aria flopped on her bed, switched on the local news for company, and opened Gmail on her laptop. There was one new note. The name of the sender was a series of garbled letters and numbers. Aria felt her heart stop as she double-clicked it open.

  Aria: Don’t you think Sean should know about that extra-credit work you did with a certain English teacher? Real relationships are built on truth, after all.

  —A

  Just then, the central heating shut off, making Aria sit up straighter. Outside, a twig snapped. Then another. Someone was watching.

  She crept to the window and peered out. The pine trees cast lumpy shadows across the tennis court. A security camera perched on the edge of the house slowly swiveled from right to left. There was a flicker of light, then nothing.

  When she looked back into her room, something on the news caught her eye. New stalker sighting, the banner at the bottom of the screen said. “We’ve received news that a few people have seen the Rosewood Stalker,” said a reporter, as Aria turned up the volume. “Stand by for details.”

  There was an image of a police car in front of a behemoth of a house with castlelike turrets. Aria turned to the window again—there they were. And sure enough, a blue police siren was now flashing against the far-off pines.

  She stepped into the hall. Sean’s door was shut; Bloc Party drifted out. “Sean?” She pushed his bedroom door open. His books were strewn all over his desk, but his desk chair was empty. There was an indentation on his perfectly made bed where his body had been. His window was open, and a chilly breeze blew in, making the curtains dance like ghosts.

  Aria didn’t know what else to do, so she went back to her computer. That’s when she saw a new e-mail.

  P.S. I may be a bitch, but I’m not a murderer. Here’s a clue for the clueless: someone wanted something of Ali’s. The killer is closer than you think.

  —A

  12 AH, COURT LIFE

  Tuesday evening, Hanna strolled down the main concourse at the King James Mall, puzzling over her BlackBerry. She’d sent Mona a text asking R we still meeting 4 my dress fitting? but she hadn’t received a response.

  Mona was probably still annoyed at her because of the Frenniversary thing, but whatever. Hanna had tried to explain why her old friends had been at her house, but Mona had interrupted her before she could even start, declaring in her frostiest voice, “I saw you and your besties on the news. Congrats on your big TV debut.” Then she hung up. So sure she was pissed, but Hanna knew Mona couldn’t stay mad for long. If she did, who would be her BFF?

  Hanna passed Rive Gauche, the mall brasserie where they were supposed to have their Frenniversary dinner yesterday. It was a copy of Balthazar in New York, which was a copy of zillions of cafés in Paris. She caught sight of a group of girls at Hanna’s and Mona’s favorite banquette. One of the girls was Naomi. The next was Riley. And the girl next to her was…Mona.

  Hanna did a double take. What was Mona doing with…them?

  Even though the lights in Rive Gauche were dim and romantic, Mona was wearing her pink-tinted aviators. Naomi, Riley, Kelly Hamilton, and Nicole Hudson—Naomi and Riley’s bitchy sophomore toadies—surrounded her, and a big, uneaten plate of fries sat in the middle of the table. Mona appeared to be telling a story, waving her hands around animatedly and widening her big, blue eyes. She came to a punch line, and the others hooted.

  Hanna squared her shoulders. She strode through the café’s antique brown door. Naomi was the first to notice her. Naomi nudged Kelly, and they whispered together.

  “What are you girls doing here?” she demanded, standing over Riley and Naomi.

  Mona leaned forward on her elbows. “Well, isn’t this a surprise? I didn’t know if you still wanted to be on the court, since you’re so busy with your old friends.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and took a sip of Diet Coke.

  Hanna rolled her eyes and settled on the end of the dark red banquette bench. “Of course I still want to be on your court, drama whore.”

  Mona gave her a bland smile. “’Kay, tubbykins.”

  “Bitch,” Hanna shot back.

  “Slut,” Mona said. Hanna giggled…and so did Naomi, Riley, and the others. Sometimes she and Mona got in mock-fights like this, although normally they didn’t have an audience.

  Mona twirled a piece of pale blond hair around her finger. “Anyway, I decided the more, the merrier. Small courts are boring. I want this party to be over-the-top.”

  “We’re so excited,” Naomi gushed. “I can’t wait to try on the Zac Posen dress Mona picked out for us.”

  Hanna shot them a taut smile. This really didn’t make any sense. Everyone at Rosewood knew Riley and Naomi had been talking about Hanna behind her back. And wasn’t it just last year that Mona had vowed she’d despise Naomi forever after Naomi gossiped that Mona had gotten skin grafts? Hanna had fake-friended Naomi for that—she’d pretended she and Mona were in a fight, won Naomi’s confidence, then pilfered a cheesy love letter Naomi had written to Mason Byers from Naomi’s notebook. Hanna posted the letter anonymously on Rosewood Day’s intranet the very next day, everyone laughed, and all was right again.

  All at once, Hanna had an epiphany. Of course! Mona was fake-friending! It completely made sense. She felt a little better, realizing what was going on, but she still wanted confirmation. She eyed Mona. “Hey, Mon, can I talk to you for a sec? Alone?”

  “Can’t right now, Han.” Mona looked at her Movado watch. “We’re late for our fitting. C’mon.”

  With that, Mona strolled out of the restaurant, her three-inch heels clacking against the shiny walnut floor. The others followed. Hanna reached over to grab her enormous Gucci purse, but the zipper had come undone and the entire contents spilled under the table. All her makeup, her wallet, her vitamins, the Hydroxycut she’d stolen ages ago from GNC but was a little too scared to take…everything. Hanna scrambled to pick it all up, her eyes on Mona and the others as they snaked away. She knelt down, feverishly trying to stuff everything into her bag as quickly as possible.

  “Hanna Marin?”

  Hanna jumped. Above her was a familiar, tall, floppy-haired waiter. “It’s Lucas,” he reminded her, fiddling with the cuff on his white button-down, the Rive Gauche uniform. “You probably don’t recognize me because I look so French in this outfit.”

  “Oh,” Hanna said wearily. “Hey.” She’d known Lucas Beattie forever. In seventh grade, he’d been popular—and, bizarrely, for a second, he’d liked Hanna. Word had gotten around that Lucas was going to send Hanna a red heart-shaped box of candy on the schoolwide Candy Day. A boy sending you a heart-shaped box of candy meant love, so Hanna got really excited.

  But then, a few days before Candy Day, something changed. Lucas was suddenly a dork. His friends started to ignore him, girls began to laugh at him, and a rampant rumor that he was a hermaphrodite swirled. Hanna couldn’t believe her luck, but she secretly wonde
red if he’d gone from popular to a loser all because he’d decided to like her. Even if she was Ali D’s friend, she was still a fat, dorky, clumsy loser. When he sent her the candy, Hanna hid it in her locker and didn’t thank him.

  “What’s up?” Hanna asked blandly. Lucas had pretty much stayed a loser.

  “Not much,” Lucas responded eagerly. “What’s up with you?”

  Hanna rolled her eyes. She hadn’t meant to start a conversation. “I have to go,” she said, looking toward the courtyard. “My friends are waiting for me.”

  “Actually…” Lucas followed her toward the exit, “your friends forgot to pay the bill.” He whipped out a leather booklet. “Unless, um, you were getting it this time.”

  “Oh.” Hanna cleared her throat. Nice of Mona to mention it. “No problem.”

  Lucas swiped her AmEx and gave her the bill to sign, and Hanna strode out of Rive Gauche without adding a tip—or telling Lucas good-bye. The more she thought about it, she was excited that Naomi and Riley were part of Mona’s court. Around Rosewood, party court girls competed over who could get the birthday girl the most glamorous gift. A day pass to the Blue Springs Spa or a Prada gift card didn’t cut it, either—the winning gift had to be totally over the top. Julia Rubenstein’s best friend had hired male strippers to perform at an after-party for a select few—and they’d been hot strippers, not muscle-heads. And Sarah Davies had convinced her dad to hire Beyoncé to sing “Happy Birthday” to the girl-of-honor. Thankfully, Naomi and Riley were about as creative as the newborn panda at the Philadelphia Zoo. Hanna could out-glam them on her worst day.

  She heard her BlackBerry humming in her bag and pulled it out. There were two messages in her mailbox. The first, from Mona, had come in six minutes ago.

  Where R U, bee-yotch? If you’re any later, the tailor’s going to get pissed.

  —Mon

  But the second text, which had arrived two minutes later, was from a blocked number. That could only be one person.

  Dear Hanna, We may not be friends, but we have the same enemies. So here are two tips: One of your old friends is hiding something from you. Something big. And Mona? She’s not your friend, either. So watch your back.

  —A

  13 HELLO, MY NAME IS EMILY. AND I’M GAY.

  That night at 7:17 Emily pulled into her driveway. After she’d run out of the natatorium, she’d walked around the Rosewood Bird Sanctuary for hours. The busily chirping sparrows, happy little ducks, and tame parakeets soothed her. It was a good place to escape from reality…and a certain incriminating photo.

  Every light in the house was on, including the one in the bedroom that Emily and Carolyn shared. How would she explain the photo to her family? She wanted to say that kissing Maya in that picture had been a joke, that someone was playing a prank on her. Ha ha, kissing girls is gross!

  But it wasn’t true, and it made her heart ache.

  The house smelled warm and inviting, like a mixture of coffee and potpourri. Her mother had turned on the hallway Hummel figurines cabinet. Little figurines of a boy milking a cow and a lederhosen-clad girl pushing a wheelbarrow slowly rotated. Emily made her way down the floral wallpapered hallway toward the living room. Both her parents were sitting on the flowered couch. An older woman sat on the love seat.

  Her mother gave her a watery smile. “Well, hello, Emily.”

  Emily blinked a few times. “Um, hi…” She looked from her parents to the stranger on the love seat.

  “You want to come in?” her mother asked. “We have someone here to see you.”

  The older woman, who was wearing high-waisted black slacks and a mint-green blazer, stood and offered her hand. “I’m Edith.” She grinned. “It’s so nice to meet you, Emily. Why don’t you sit down?”

  Emily’s father bustled into the dining room and dragged another chair over for her. She sat down tentatively, feeling jumpy. It was the same feeling she used to get when her old friends played the Pillow Game—one person walked around the living room blindfolded, and, at a random moment, the others bombarded her with pillows. Emily didn’t like playing—she hated those tense moments right before they started smacking her—but she always played anyway, because Ali loved it.

  “I’m from a program called Tree Tops,” Edith said.

  “Your parents told me about your problem.”

  The bones in Emily’s butt pressed into the bare wood of the dining room chair. “Problem?” Her stomach sank. She had a feeling she knew what problem meant.

  “Of course it’s a problem.” Her mother’s voice was choked. “That picture—with that girl we forbade you to see—has it happened more than once?”

  Emily nervously touched the scar on her left palm that she’d gotten when Carolyn accidentally speared her with the gardening shears. She’d grown up striving to be as obedient and well behaved as possible, and she couldn’t lie to her parents—at least not well. “It’s happened more than once, I guess,” she mumbled.

  Her mother let out a small, pained whimper.

  Edith pursed her wrinkly, fuchsia-lined lips. She had an old-lady mothball smell. “What you’re feeling, it’s not permanent. It’s a sickness, Emily. But we at Tree Tops can cure you. We’ve rehabilitated many ex-gays since the program began.”

  Emily barked out a laugh. “Ex…gays?” The world started to spin, then recede. Emily’s parents looked at her self-righteously, their hands wrapped around their coffee cups.

  “Your interest in young women isn’t genetic or scientific, but environmental,” Edith explained. “With counseling, we’ll help you dismiss your…urges, shall we say.”

  Emily gripped the arms of her chair. “That sounds…weird.”

  “Emily!” scolded her mother—she’d taught her children never to disrespect adults. But Emily was too bewildered to be embarrassed.

  “It’s not weird,” Edith chirped. “Don’t worry if you don’t understand it all now. Many of our new recruits don’t.” She looked at Emily’s parents. “We have a superb track record of rehabilitation in the greater Philadelphia area.”

  Emily wanted to throw up. Rehabilitation? She searched her parents’ faces, but they gave her nothing. She glanced out to the street. If the next car that passes is white, this isn’t happening, she thought. If it’s red, it is. A car swept past. Sure enough, it was red.

  Edith placed her coffee cup on its saucer. “We’re going to have a peer mentor come talk to you. Someone who experienced the program firsthand. She’s a senior at Rosewood Senior High, and her name’s Becka. She’s very nice. You’ll just talk. And after that, we’ll discuss you joining the program properly. Okay?”

  Emily looked at her parents. “I don’t have time to talk to anybody,” she insisted. “I have swimming in the mornings and after school, and then I have homework.”

  Her mother smiled tensely. “You’ll make time. What about lunch tomorrow?”

  Edith nodded. “I’m sure that would be fine.”

  Emily rubbed her throbbing head. She already hated Becka, and she hadn’t even met her. “Fine,” she agreed. “Tell her to meet me at Lorence chapel.” There was no way Emily was talking with Little Miss Tree Tops in the cafeteria. School was going to be brutal enough tomorrow as it was.

  Edith brushed her hands together and stood up. “I’ll make all the arrangements.”

  Emily stood against the foyer wall as her parents handed Edith her coat and thanked her for coming. Edith navigated down the Fieldses’ stone path to her car. When Emily’s parents turned back to her, they had weary, sober looks on their faces.

  “Mom, Dad…” Emily started.

  Her mother whirled around. “That Maya girl has a few tricks up her sleeve, huh?”

  Emily backed up. “Maya didn’t pass that picture around.”

  Mrs. Fields eyed Emily carefully, then sat down on the couch and put her head in her hands. “Emily, what are we going to do now?”

  “What do you mean, we?”

  Her mother looked up. “Don
’t you see that this is a reflection on all of us?”

  “I didn’t make the announcement,” Emily protested.

  “It doesn’t matter how it happened,” her mother interrupted. “What matters is that it’s out there.” She stood up and regarded the couch, then picked up a decorative pillow and smacked it with her fist to fluff it up. She set it back down, picked up another, and started all over again. Thwack. She was punching them harder than she needed to.

  “It was so shocking to see that picture of you, Emily,” Mrs. Fields said. “Horribly shocking. And to hear that it’s something you’ve done more than once, well…”

  “I’m sorry,” Emily whimpered. “But maybe it’s not—”

  “Have you even thought about how hard this is for the rest of us?” Mrs. Fields interrupted. “We’re all…well, Carolyn came home crying. And your brother and sister both called me, offering to fly home.”

  She picked up another pillow. Thwack, thwack. A few feathers spewed out and floated through the air before settling on the carpet. Emily wondered what this would look like to someone passing by the window. Perhaps they’d see the feathers flying and think that something silly and happy was happening, instead of what actually was.

  Emily’s tongue felt leaden in her mouth. A gnawing hole at the pit of her stomach remained. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Her mother’s eyes flashed. She nodded to Emily’s father. “Go get it.” Her father disappeared into the living room, and Emily listened to him rooting through the drawers of their old antique bureau. Seconds later, he returned with a printout from Expedia. “This is for you,” Mr. Fields said.

  It was an itinerary, flying from Philadelphia to Des Moines, Iowa. With her name on it. “I don’t understand.”

  Mr. Fields cleared his throat. “Just to make things perfectly clear, either you do Tree Tops—successfully—or you will go live with your aunt Helene.”