Sara Shepard - Pretty Little Liars

‘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 face 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.

‘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?’

Aria paused. ‘Actually, that would be kind of cool.’

Noel smiled. ‘Then we could keep the Navigator scene!’

‘I guess.’ Aria wondered if the Kahns really had a spare Navigator to crash. Probably.

Noel nudged Mason Byers, who was paired up with James Freed. ‘Dude. We’re going to have a Navigator in our play! And pyrotechnics!’

‘Wait. Pyrotechnics?’ Aria asked.

‘Nice!’ Mason said.

Aria clamped her lips shut. Honestly, she didn’t have the energy for this. Last night, she hardly slept. Plagued by yesterday’s cryptic text message, she’d spent half the night thinking and furiously knitting a purple hat with earflaps.

It was awful to think that someone knew not only about her and Ezra, but also about that stuff with her dad. What if this A person sent her mom messages next? What if A already had? Aria didn’t want her mom to find out – not now, and not that way.

Aria also couldn’t shake the idea that the A message might actually be from Alison. There just weren’t that many people who knew. A few faculty members maybe, and Meredith knew, obviously. But they didn’t know Aria.

If the text was from Alison, that meant she was alive. Or ... not. What if the texts were from Ali’s ghost? A ghost could have easily slid between the cracks of the women’s bathroom at Snookers. And spirits from the dead sometimes contacted the living to make amends, right? It was like their final homework assignment before graduating to heaven.

If Ali needed to make amends, though, Aria could think of a more deserving candidate than her. Try Jenna. Aria put her hands over her eyes, blocking out the memory. Screw therapy that said you should face your demons: She tried to block out The Jenna Thing as much as she tried to block out her dad and Meredith.

Aria sighed. At times like this, she wished she hadn’t drifted from her old friends. Like Hanna, a few desks over – if only Aria could walk up to Hanna and talk to her about this, ask her questions about Ali. But time really changed people. She wondered if it would be easier to talk to Spencer or Emily instead.

‘Hey there.’

Aria straightened up. Ezra was standing in front of her desk. ‘Hi,’ she squeaked.

She met his blue eyes and her heart ached.

Ezra tilted his hips awkwardly. ‘How are you?’

‘Um, I’m . . . great. Really awesome.’ She sat up straight. On the plane back from Iceland, Aria had read in a Seventeen she found in her seat pocket that boys liked enthusiastic, positive girls. And since brilliant hadn’t worked yesterday, why not try out peppy?

Ezra clicked and unclicked his Bic pen. ‘Listen, sorry to cut you off yesterday in the middle of your speech. Do you want to give me your index cards so I can take a look at them and grade you?’

‘Okay.’ Huh. Would Ezra do that for the other students? ‘So . . . how are you?’

‘Good.’ Ezra smiled. His lips twitched as if he wanted to say more. ‘What’re you working on, there?’ He placed his hands on her desk and leaned over to look at her notebook. Aria stared at his hands for a moment, then slid her pinkie finger up against his. She tried to make it look like an accident, but he didn’t pull away. It felt like electricity was surging between their two pinkies.

‘Mr. Fitz!’ Devon Arliss’s hand shot up in the back row. ‘I have a question.’

‘Be right there,’ Ezra said, straightening up.

Aria put the pinkie finger that had touched Ezra’s into her mouth. She watched him for a few seconds, thinking he might come back to her, but he didn’t.

Well then. Back to plan J, for Jealous. She turned to Noel. ‘I think our movie should have a sex scene in it.’

She said it really loud, but Ezra was still bent over Devon’s desk.

‘Awesome,’ Noel said. ‘Does the guy who thinks he’s a duck get some?’