Burned

by Sara Shepard

Page 20

 

  The tunnel opened into a large, square, dark room with a long, stainless-steel bar at one end and a bunch of banquettes at the back. A DJ spun records in the corner, and a huge dance floor took up the rest of the space. Bodies writhed on all sides of them, each guy more gorgeous than the last. The room smelled like booze, cigarettes, and the gardenia blooms that adorned every table. As the salsa beat rocked in Hanna’s ears, she unconsciously began to swing her hips.

  Hanna touched Naomi’s shoulder. “This is great!” she yelled over the music.

  “Right?” Naomi grinned, strutting up to the bar and batting her eyelashes at the bartender, who came over immediately.

  Naomi ordered two neon-orange cocktails and handed one to Hanna. Hanna took a small sip—she didn’t want to drink too much and let down her guard. People were dancing in every nook and cranny, including on top of the banquettes. There was a photographer wandering the perimeter with a huge digital camera around his neck, occasionally stopping and taking a shot of the dancers. After a moment, he stopped in front of them. “Can I take your photo?” he asked.

  “That depends. ” Naomi placed her hands on her hips. “What’s it for?”

  “The style section of the San Juan Hola. ”

  Hanna exchanged an excited look with Naomi—she’d always wanted to be in a Style section. She set her drink on a nearby table and wrapped her arm around Naomi’s shoulders. The photographer snapped and snapped. First Hanna gave him a sultry model gaze, then threw back her head. But she knew not to get too carried away—the experience with creepy Patrick was still fresh in her mind.

  “Gorgeous,” the photographer said when he was through. Then he glanced at the crowd behind them. “I think you have some fans. ”

  It was true. Tons of guys on the dance floor were now giving them the eye, including a dark-haired college-age kid in an oversized T-shirt and baggy jeans. When he met their gaze, he raised his drink at them from across the room and crooked his finger, beckoning them over. Hanna and Naomi nudged each other and snickered.

  “He’s cute, but he knows it,” Hanna yelled in Naomi’s ear.

  “Definitely. Come on, let’s dance,” Naomi said, grabbing Hanna’s hand and pulling her onto the dance floor. The song was something Latin and fast, and they started wriggling to the music, making sexy poses for the Hola photographer every time he did a lap. Then, as the DJ transitioned into a new song, Naomi tapped Hanna’s arm. “Who do you think is the hottest guy in this place?”

  Hanna slowed her dancing and surveyed the options. “It’s a toss-up between the Enrique Iglesias look-alike and James Bond in the corner. ”

  Naomi squinted at James Bond, who was wearing a slim-cut suit, expensive-looking shiny shoes, and Ray-Bans. “Hanna!” she shrieked. “He’s, like, forty years old!”

  “He is not!” Hanna said, studying the guy’s toned physique and thick brows. “He just looks older because he’s sophisticated. ”

  “He’s definitely only a six or a seven,” Naomi decided, sipping her cocktail. “Now that guy is a ten. ” She used her straw to point to a blond guy by the bar. He looked like he belonged on the cover of a surfing magazine.

  “Are you kidding?” Hanna wrinkled her nose. “He’s an eight at best. ”

  “What about him?” Naomi glanced at a guy sitting at a nearby table. He had a shaved head and sexy cheekbones.

  “Five,” Hanna decreed loudly, feeling more and more confident. “I hate shaved heads. ”

  “And him?” A guy with lobsterlike sunburn on his nose and arms.

  “Ick! One!” Hanna cried.

  They made it into a game, going around the room, tapping guys and assigning them numbers like deranged fairy godmothers. “Six!” they called to a slightly overweight guy who had thick, lustrous hair. “Nine!” they called to an Abercrombie-model look-alike who was dancing shirtless. “Seven!” “Four!” “Eight and a half!” At first, the guys at the club didn’t quite understand what the girls were doing, but they caught on pretty quickly. Those deemed eights and above looked pleased. A guy who’d gotten only a six narrowed his eyes and mouthed something that looked like Bitch.

  Someone caught Hanna’s arm as she was racing past the DJ booth. “What would you rate me?”

  She stopped short and looked at him. His hair was greasy, his nostrils weirdly oversized, and he was wearing a T-shirt that had the Chanel logo plastered across the front. He reminded Hanna of the guy who worked at the Motorola kiosk in the mall.

  She turned to Naomi, who’d paused, too. “Ali had a phrase for this, you know,” she screamed into her ear.

  “What was that?” Naomi asked.

  “Not it!”

  Hanna turned and fled. Naomi burst out laughing and raced behind her. Breathless from laughing, they spilled out onto the patio, which was much cooler and quieter. Naomi wiped her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard in my life. ”

  “Did you see the look on that greasy guy’s face when I said, ‘Not it’?” Hanna squealed. “I thought he was going to kill us!”

  Naomi collapsed into a chair. “Did you play that game a lot when Ali was around?”

  Hanna swallowed a giggle and shook her head. “Not like that. ”

  “She didn’t have that game when I was friends with her,” Naomi said. Then an uncomfortable look flashed across her face. “But I guess that was because it wasn’t the same Ali. ”

  Hanna’s spirits dimmed a little. “Yeah,” she said, then reached for her drink, not knowing what to say next.

  Naomi spun the bracelet around her wrist. “I feel terrible about what happened with you guys and Ali in the Poconos. It was all so unbelievable. ”

  “Thanks,” Hanna mumbled. Then she looked up, realizing something. “Were you surprised when you found out that there were two of them? And that the girl you were friends with was a murderer?”

  Naomi picked at her nails. “Well, kind of, but …”

  “But what?”

  Naomi stared at the lanterns hanging from the rafters. “The whole thing is just sad, you know? I feel like such a jerk for saying this, but sometimes I still miss her. ”

  “You’re not a jerk,” Hanna said quietly. It hadn’t occurred to her before that Naomi had lost Ali as well. Not their Ali, of course, but an Ali all the same.

  “You know what?” Naomi peered at her. “You’re really easy to talk to. I’m surprised. ”

  “I’m surprised about you, too,” Hanna said tentatively. The statement was way more loaded than Naomi might ever know.

  “I’ve told you stuff I haven’t told a lot of people,” Naomi said, leaning against the railing.

  “Oh? Like what?”

  “Like the bingeing, for one,” Naomi admitted. The light caught her gold earrings, making them glitter. “And the stuff just now, about Ali. ”

  “You mentioned something about a favorite cousin, too,” Hanna said, her heart hammering. “A girl who got in a car accident?”

  Naomi pressed her lips together. “Yeah. Madison. I never talk about her. ”

  “So … did she die in the accident?” Hanna held her breath.

  Naomi shook her head. “No. But she was messed up pretty bad—a lot of broken bones, and she was in a coma for a few days. She had to learn how to walk again. It was hard on all of us. ” Her voice broke.

  Hanna let out a huge mental sigh—Madison wasn’t dead. But hearing what had happened hit her unexpectedly hard, bringing tears to her eyes. Now she had a new image in her mind, one of Madison hanging on to one of those physical-therapy walker things, struggling to take a step.

  Naomi set her empty cocktail glass on the table, sniffing once more. “In a weird way, though, that crash was the best thing for my cousin. It got her straight. She was a major alcoholic before that—drinking instead of going to class, drinking as soon as she woke up in the morning, drinking and getting behind the wheel and nearly killing herself. I mean, yeah, it sucked that she tot
aled the car and had to go through so much pain, but she hasn’t had a drink since. She seems much happier now. ”

  “That’s … good,” Hanna said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “Yeah. ” Naomi raised her eyes to Hanna and smiled so sincerely it melted Hanna’s heart. “It is. ”

  They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the pounding bass inside the club. All of a sudden, Hanna wanted to reach across and give Naomi a big hug. Everything she’d worried about, everything she’d feared, suddenly went up in smoke. Their suspicions about Naomi were unfounded. Naomi wasn’t pissed Madison had gotten in a car accident—she was relieved because it had turned her life around. Whoever A was, it was someone who’d found out about Madison another way.

  It was amazingly freeing. Now she could be friends with Naomi without worrying. She could trust everything Naomi said to be the truth.

  Hanna stood up and offered Naomi her hand. “Are you ready to go back in and Not it some more?”

  Naomi looked up at her and grinned. “Definitely. ”

  They strutted back into the club like they owned the place. They’d been wrong about A before, Hanna thought as she squeezed Naomi’s hand. They were wrong again this time, too. A probably wanted her to suspect Naomi—and, in turn, lose a potential friend. Hanna wasn’t going to let that happen, though. Not this time.

  “Shhh!” Naomi scolded as they bumped clumsily down the hallway of the ship toward their room. It was a few hours later, and they’d gotten back onboard just before curfew, acting sober enough for a few minutes to fool the guards. “You almost took out that fire extinguisher!”

  “It was in my way,” Hanna declared petulantly, then burst into giggles.

  She hung on to Naomi’s back as Naomi inserted the key card into their door. The door opened, and the two girls tumbled inside. Hanna grabbed the door to the bathroom for balance. “It smells so good in here!” she cried, inhaling the fresh scents of baby powder and Kate Spade Twirl perfume.

  “Mind if I take the bathroom first?” Naomi asked, her hand on the doorknob.

  “Go for it,” Hanna said, flopping down on the bed.

  Naomi shut the door, and water started to run. Hanna rubbed her feet on the soft, silky sheets, feeling satisfyingly exhausted.

  Ping.

  She opened her eyes. Her phone, which was sitting on the nightstand, wasn’t blinking. Her gaze fell on the open laptop on Naomi’s bed. A message in the corner of the screen said New e-mail from Madison Strickland.

  She looked away. Who cared if Naomi had received an e-mail from Madison? Cousins contacted one another all the time.

  But one little peek wouldn’t hurt, would it?

  Hanna cocked her ear toward the bathroom. The shower was still running. Slowly, she eased her legs off the bed and tiptoed over to the laptop. The bedsprings squeaked as she sat on Naomi’s mattress. On the right-hand side of the desktop were two folders labeled School Papers and Princeton Application. Hanna scanned them, then exited. Next she waved the mouse over a Gmail icon. Taking a deep breath, she double-clicked on it. The program opened and launched right into her inbox. The new e-mail from Madison appeared. It was part of a thread titled That night. Hanna drew in a breath. The first e-mail in the thread was from early July of last summer.