Perfect pll-3

by Sara Shepard

  “I heard she’s at the police station like every day,” Noelle said.

  “And you know she’s not invited to Mona’s anymore, right?” Anna whispered. “They had this huge fight because Hanna humiliated her with that skywriting thing.”

  “Mona’s wanted to drop her for a couple months now,” Noelle said knowingly. “Hanna’s become this huge loser.”

  That was too much. Hanna whirled around. “Where did you hear that?”

  Anna and Noelle exchanged a smirk. Then they sauntered down the hill without answering.

  Hanna shut her eyes and leaned against the metal flagpole, trying to ignore the fact that everyone in her chem class was now staring at her. It had been twenty-four hours since the disastrous skywriting debacle, and things had gone from bad to worse. Hanna had left at least ten apologetic messages on Mona’s cell last night…but Mona hadn’t called back. And today, she’d been hearing strange, unsavory things about herself…from everyone.

  She thought of A’s note. And Mona? She’s not your friend, either. So watch your back.

  Hanna scanned the crowd of kids on the commons. Next to the doors, two girls in cheerleading uniforms were pantomiming a cheer. Near the gum tree, a couple of boys were “blazer fighting”—whapping each other with their Rosewood Day blazers. Aria’s brother, Mike, walked by playing his PSP. Finally, she spied Mona’s white-blond hair. She was heading back into the main building via one of the side doors with a bored, haughty look on her face. Hanna straightened her blazer, clenched and unclenched her fists, and made a beeline for her best friend.

  When she reached Mona, she tapped her on her bony shoulder. Mona looked over. “Oh. It’s you,” she said in a monotone, the way she normally greeted losers not cool enough to be in her presence.

  “Are you saying stuff about me?” Hanna demanded, putting her hands on her hips and keeping pace with Mona, who was striding quickly through the side door and down the art studio hallway.

  Mona hitched her tangerine Dooney & Bourke tote higher on her shoulder. “Nothing that’s not true.”

  Hanna’s mouth fell open. She felt like Wile E. Coyote in one of those old Looney Toons cartoons she used to watch—he would be running and running and running and suddenly run off a cliff. Wile E. would pause, not realizing it for a second, and then rapidly plummet. “So you think I’m a loser?” she squeaked.

  Mona raised one eyebrow. “Like I said, nothing that’s not true.”

  She left Hanna standing in the middle of the hall, students swarming around her. Mona walked to the end of the corridor and stopped at a clump of girls. At first they all looked the same—expensive handbags, shiny hair, skinny fake-tanned legs—but then Hanna’s eyes unblurred. Mona was standing with Naomi and Riley, and they were all whispering.

  Hanna was certain she was going to cry. She fumbled through the bathroom door and closed herself into a stall next to Old Faithful, an infamous toilet that randomly spurted out plumes of water, drenching you if you were stupid enough to use it. The boys’ room had a spewing toilet, too. Through the years, plumbers had tried to fix them both, but since they couldn’t figure out the cause, the Old Faithfuls had become a legendary part of Rosewood Day lore. Everyone knew better than to use them.

  Except…Mona had used Old Faithful just a few weeks after she and Hanna became friends, back when Mona was still clueless. She’d frantically texted Hanna in health class, and Hanna had rushed to the bathroom to slip Mona the extra uniform skirt and blouse she’d had in her locker. Hanna remembered balling up Mona’s soaked skirt in a Fresh Fields plastic bag and sliding out of the stall so Mona could furtively change—Mona had always been funny about changing in front of other people.

  How could Mona not remember that?

  As if on cue, Old Faithful erupted. Hanna shrieked and pressed herself against the opposite stall wall as a column of blue toilet water shot into the air. A few heavy droplets hit the back of Hanna’s blazer, and she curled up against the stall wall and finally started to sob. She hated that Mona no longer needed her. And that Ali had been murdered. And that her dad still hadn’t called. Why was this happening? What had she done to deserve this?

  As Old Faithful quieted down to a gurgle, the main door swung open. Hanna made tiny gasping noises, trying to keep quiet. Whoever it was walked to the sink, and Hanna peered under the door. She saw a pair of clunky, black, boyish loafers.

  “Hello?” a boy’s voice said. “Is…is someone in there?”

  Hanna put her hand to her mouth. What was a guy doing in this bathroom?

  Unless…No. She hadn’t.

  “Hanna?” The shoes stood in front of her stall. Hanna recognized the voice, too.

  She peeked out the crack in the door. It was Lucas, the boy from Rive Gauche. She could see the edge of his nose, a long piece of white blond hair. There was a big GO ROSEWOOD SOCCER! pin on his lapel. “How did you know it was me?”

  “I saw you come in here,” he answered. “You know this is the boys’ room, right?”

  Hanna answered with an embarrassed sniff. She took off her wet blazer, shuffled out of the stall, walked to the sink, and forcefully pumped the soap dispenser. The soap had that fake almond smell Hanna hated.

  Lucas’s eyes cut to the Old Faithful stall. “Did that thing erupt?”

  “Yes.” And then Hanna couldn’t control her emotions anymore. She hunched over the sink, her tears dripping into the basin.

  Lucas stood there a moment, then put his hand on the middle of her back. Hanna felt it shake a little. “It’s only Old Faithful. It erupts, like, every hour. You know that.”

  “That’s not it.” Hanna grabbed a scratchy paper towel and blew her nose. “My best friend hates me. And she’s making everyone else hate me, too.”

  “What? Of course she doesn’t. Don’t be crazy.”

  “Yes, she does!” Hanna’s high-pitched voice bounced off the bathroom’s tiled walls. “Mona’s hanging out with these girls now who we used to hate, and she’s gossiping about me, all because I missed the Frenniversary and the skywriter wrote, ‘Fart with Mona,’ instead of, ‘Party with Mona,’ and she disinvited me to her birthday party, and I’m supposed to be her best friend!”

  She said it all in a long sentence without breathing, despite where she was and who she was talking to. When she finished, she stared at Lucas, suddenly irritated that he was there and had heard it all.

  Lucas was so tall he practically had to stoop to not hit his head on the ceiling. “I could start spreading rumors about her. Like maybe she’s got a disease where she can’t help but secretly eat her snot when no one’s looking?”

  Hanna’s heart thawed. That was gross…but also funny…and sweet. “That’s okay.”

  “Well the offer stands.” Lucas had an earnest look on his face. In the hideous green bathroom light, he was actually cute. “But hey! I know something we can do to cheer you up.”

  Hanna looked at him incredulously. What, did Lucas think they were friends now, because he’d seen her in the bathroom? Still, she was curious. “What?”

  “Can’t tell you. It’s top secret. I’ll come get you tomorrow morning.”

  Hanna shot him a warning look. “Like, a date?”

  Lucas raised his hands in surrender. “Absolutely not. Just as…friends.”

  Hanna swallowed. She needed a friend right now. Bad. “All right,” she said quietly, feeling too exhausted to argue. Then, with a sigh, she pushed out of the boys’ Old Faithful bathroom and headed for her next class. Strangely, she felt a teensy bit better.

  But as she turned the corner to the foreign languages wing, Hanna reached around to put her blazer back on and felt something sticking to the back. She pulled off a wrinkled piece of paper. Feel sorry for me, it said, in spiky pink handwriting.

  Hanna looked around at the passing students, but no one was paying attention. How long had she been walking around with the note on her? Who could have done this? It could have been anyone. She’d been in that crowd during the f
ire drill. Everyone had been there.

  Hanna looked down at the paper again and turned it over in her hands. On the other side was a typewritten note. Hanna got that familiar sinking feeling in her stomach.

  Hanna: Remember when you saw Mona leaving the Bill Beach plastic surgery clinic? Hello, lipo!! But shh! You didn’t hear it from me.

  —A

  20 LIFE IMITATES ART

  Thursday afternoon at lunch, Aria turned the corner to Rosewood Day’s administrative wing. All the teachers had offices here and often tutored or advised students during their lunch periods.

  Aria stopped at Ezra’s closed office door. It had changed a lot since the beginning of the year. He’d installed a white board, and it was chock-full of blue-inked notes from students. Mr. Fitz—Want to talk about my Fitzgerald report. I’ll stop by after school.—Kelly. There was a Hamlet quote at the bottom: O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! Below the marker board was a cutout of a New Yorker cartoon of a dog on a therapist’s couch. And on the doorknob was a DO NOT DISTURB sign from a Day’s Inn; Ezra had turned it to the DISTURB side: MAID,

  PLEASE CLEAN UP THIS ROOM.

  Aria tentatively knocked. “Come in,” she heard him say from the other side. She’d expected Ezra to be with another student—from snippets she heard in class, she’d thought his lunchtime office hours were always busy—but here he was alone, with a Happy Meal box on his desk. The room smelled like McNuggets.

  “Aria!” Ezra exclaimed, raising an eyebrow. “This is a surprise. Sit down.”

  She plopped down on Ezra’s scratchy tweed couch—the same kind that was in the Rosewood Day headmaster’s office. She pointed at his desk. “Happy Meal?”

  He smiled sheepishly. “I like the toys.” He held up a car from some kids’ movie. “McNugget?” He proffered the box. “I got barbecue.”

  She waved him away. “I don’t eat meat.”

  “That’s right.” He ate a fry, his eyes locked with hers. “I forgot.”

  Aria felt a swoosh of something—a mix of intimacy and discomfort. Ezra looked away, probably feeling it too. She looked around on his desk. It was littered with stacks of paper, a mini zen rock garden, and about a thousand books.

  “So…” Ezra wiped his mouth with a napkin, not noticing Aria’s expression. “What can I do for you?”

  Aria leaned her elbow on the couch’s arm. “Well, I’m wondering if I can have an extension on the Scarlet Letter essay that’s due tomorrow.”

  He set down his soda. “Really? I’m surprised. You’re never late with anything.”

  “I know,” she mumbled sheepishly. But the Ackards’ house was not conducive to studying. One, it was too quiet—Aria was used to studying while simultaneously listening to music, the TV, and Mike yammering on the phone in the next room. Two, it was hard to concentrate when she felt like someone was…watching her. “But it’s not a big deal,” she went on. “All I need is this weekend.”

  Ezra scratched his head. “Well…I haven’t set a policy on extensions yet. But all right. Just this once. Next time, I’m going to have to mark you down a grade.”

  She pushed her hair behind her ears. “I’m not going to make a habit of it.”

  “Good. So, what, are you not liking the book? Or haven’t you started it?”

  “I finished it today. But I hated it. I hated Hester Prynne.”

  “Why?”

  Aria fiddled with the buckle on her Urban Outfitters ivory suede flats. “She assumes her husband’s lost at sea, and so she goes and has an affair,” she muttered.

  Ezra leaned forward on his elbow, looking amused. “But her husband isn’t a very good man, either. That’s what makes it complicated.”

  Aria stared at the books that were crammed into Ezra’s cramped, wooden bookshelves. War and Peace. Gravity’s Rainbow. An extensive collection of e. e. cummings and Rilke poetry, and not one but two copies of No Exit. There was the Edgar Allan Poe collection Sean hadn’t read. All of the books looked creased and worn from reading and rereading. “But I couldn’t see past what Hester did,” Aria said quietly. “She cheated.”

  “But we’re supposed to feel for her struggle, and how society has branded her, and how she strives to forge her own identity and not allow anyone to create one for her.”

  “I hated her, okay?” Aria exploded. “And I’ll never forgive her!”

  She covered her face with her hands. Tears spilled down her cheeks. When she shut her eyes, she pictured Byron and Meredith as the book’s illicit lovers, Ella as Hester’s vengeful, wronged husband. But if life really imitated art, Byron and Meredith should be suffering…not Aria. She’d tried to call her house last night, but as soon as Ella picked up and heard Aria’s voice on the other end, she hung up. When Aria waved at Mike across the gym, Mike had quickly spun on his heel and marched back into the locker room. No one was on her side.

  “Whoa,” Ezra said quietly, after Aria let out a stifled sob. “It’s okay. So you didn’t like the book. It’s fine.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just…” She felt hot tears on her palms. Ezra’s room had grown so quiet. There was only the whirring of the computer’s hard drive. The buzz of the fluorescent lamp. The happy cries from the lower school playground—all the little kids were out for recess.

  “Is there something you want to talk about?” Ezra asked.

  Aria wiped her eyes with the back of her blazer sleeve. She picked at a loose button on one of the couch’s seat cushions. “My father had an affair with his student three years ago,” she blurted out. “He’s a professor at Hollis. I knew about it the whole time, but he asked me not to tell my mom. Well, now he’s back with the student…and my mom found out. She’s furious I knew for so long…and now my dad’s gone.”

  “Jesus,” Ezra whispered. “This just happened?”

  “A few weeks ago, yeah.”

  “God.” Ezra stared up at the beamed ceiling for a while. “That doesn’t sound very fair of your dad. Or your mom.”

  Aria shrugged. Her chin started to tremble again. “I shouldn’t have kept it a secret from my mom. But what was I supposed to do?”

  “It’s not your fault,” Ezra told her.

  He got out of his chair, walked around to the front of the desk, pushed a few papers aside, and sat on the edge.

  “Okay. So, I’ve never told anyone this, but when I was in high school, I saw my mom kissing her doctor. She had cancer at the time, and since my dad was traveling, she asked me to take her to her chemotherapy treatments. Once, while I was waiting, I had to use the bathroom, and as I was walking back through the hall, I saw this exam room door open. I don’t know why I looked in, but when I did…there they were. Kissing.”

  Aria gasped. “What did you do?”

  “I pretended like I didn’t see it. My mom had no idea that I had. She came out twenty minutes later, all straightened up and proper and in a hurry. I really wanted to bring it up, but at the same time, I couldn’t.” He shook his head. “Dr. Poole. I never looked at him in the same way again.”

  “Didn’t you say your parents got divorced?” Aria asked, remembering a conversation they’d had at Ezra’s house. “Did your mom go off with Dr. Poole?”

  “Nah.” Ezra reached over and grabbed a McNugget out of the box. “They got divorced a couple years later. Dr. Poole and the cancer were long gone.”

  “God,” was all Aria could think to say.

  “It sucks.” Ezra fiddled with one of the rocks in the mini zen rock garden that sat at the edge of his desk. “I idolized my parents’ marriage. It didn’t seem to me like they were having problems. My whole relationship ideal was shattered.”

  “Mine too,” Aria said glumly, running her foot against a stack of paperbacks on the floor. “My parents seemed really happy together.”

  “It has nothing to do with you,” Ezra told her. “That’s a big thing I learned. It’s their thing. Unfortunately, you have to deal with it, and I think it makes you stronger.”

  Aria groane
d and clunked her head against the couch’s stiff back. “I hate when people say things like that to me. That things will make me a better person, even if the things themselves suck.”

  Ezra chuckled. “Actually, I do too.”

  Aria shut her eyes, finding this moment bittersweet. She had been waiting for someone to talk to about all this—someone who really, truly understood. She wanted to kiss Ezra for having as messed-up a family as she did.

  Or maybe, she wanted to kiss Ezra…because he was Ezra.

  Ezra’s eyes met hers. Aria could see her reflection in his inky pupils. With his hand, Ezra pushed the little Happy Meal car so that it rolled across his desk, over the edge, and onto her lap. A smile whispered across his face.

  “Do you have a girlfriend in New York?” Aria blurted out.

  Ezra’s forehead furrowed. “A girlfriend…” He blinked a few times. “I did. But we broke up this summer.”

  “Oh.”

  “Where did that come from?” Ezra asked.

  “Some kids were talking about it, I guess. And I…I wondered what she was like.”

  A devilish look danced in Ezra’s eyes, then escaped. He opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind. “What?” Aria asked him.

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just…” He glanced at her askance. “She was nothing compared to you.”

  A hot feeling swished through Aria. Slowly, without taking his eyes off her, Ezra slid off the desk to stand. Aria inched toward the edge of the couch. The moment stretched on forever. And then, Ezra lunged forward, grabbed Aria at her shoulders, and pressed her to him. Her lips crashed onto his. She held the sides of his face, and he ran his hands up the length of her back. They broke away and stared at each other, then dove back in again. Ezra smelled delicious, like a mix of Pantene and mint and chai tea and something that was just…Ezra. Aria had never felt this way from kissing. Not with Sean, not with anyone.

  Sean. His image swam into her head. Sean letting Aria lean into him while they watched the BBC version of The Office last night. Sean kissing her before bio class, comforting her because they were starting dissections today. Sean holding her hand at dinner with his family. Sean was her boyfriend.