Flawless (17 page)

Emily frowned. It was just the sort of ridiculous, over-the-top thing her mother would worry about. Last year, Mrs. Fields saw a
20/20
program on crystal meth and how it was everywhere, even in private schools, and she banned Sudafed from the house, as if Emily and Carolyn were going to start up a mini meth lab in their bedroom. She let out a half-laugh. “I’m not going to get—”

But Mrs. Fields started chuckling and caught Emily’s eye in the mirror. “I’m only kidding.” She nodded to Maya’s receding figure, now at the opposite end of their street, and added, “It’s nice to see you making new friends.”

19

WATCH OUT FOR GIRLS WITH BRANDING IRONS

The Strawberry Ridge Yoga Studio was in a converted barn on the other side of Rosewood. On her bike ride there, Aria passed a tobacco-colored covered bridge and the row of Hollis art department houses, charmingly ramshackle Colonials that were spatter-painted various shades of purple, pink, and blue. She crammed her bike into the rack in front of the yoga studio; it was already full of other bikes, all bearing
MEAT IS MURDER
and PETA stickers on their frames.

She paused in the yoga studio’s lobby and looked at the scruffy, makeupless girls and hairy, limber boys. Was she crazy to take A’s instructions—
Strawberry Ridge Yoga Studio. Be there
—literally? And was she ready to see Meredith? Perhaps A was baiting her. Perhaps A was
here
.

Aria had seen Meredith only three times before: first when Meredith came over to her dad’s student-teacher cocktail party, then when she caught Meredith and her dad in the car together, and finally the other day at the Victory, but she’d have recognized her anywhere. Now Meredith was paused in front of the studio’s closet, dragging down mats, blankets, blocks, and straps. Her brown hair was up in a messy ponytail and there was that pink spiderweb tattoo on the inside of her wrist.

Meredith noticed Aria and smiled. “You’re new, right?” She met Aria’s eyes, and for a terrifying second Aria was certain Meredith knew who she was. But then she broke eye contact, leaning over to pop a CD into the portable stereo. Indian sitar music swam out. “Have you done Ashtanga before?”

“Um, yes,” Aria answered. She noticed a big sign on the table that said
INDIVIDUAL CLASSES
$15, and fished out a ten and a five and laid them on the desk, wondering how A knew Meredith was here—and if A really was here.

Meredith smirked. “And I guess you know the secret, huh?”

“W-What?” Aria whispered, her heart pounding. “
Secret?
”

“You brought your own mat.” Meredith pointed to the red yoga mat under Aria’s arm. “So many new people come here and use the studio’s mats. You didn’t hear it from me, but you could scrape off the foot fungus on our mats and make cheese.”

Aria tried to smile. She’d brought her own yoga mat to classes ever since she first went with Ali in seventh grade. Ali always used to tell her that community yoga mats gave you STDs.

Meredith squinted at her. “You look familiar. Are you in my drawing class?”

Aria shook her head, suddenly aware that the place smelled like a mixture of feet and incense. This was the sort of yoga studio Ella would go to. In fact, perhaps Ella already
had
.

“What’s your name?”

“Um, Alison,” Aria said quickly. It wasn’t as if she had the most common name in the world, and she was afraid Byron might have mentioned it to Meredith. Which made her pause.
Would
Byron talk about Aria to Meredith?

“You look like this girl in the drawing class I TA for,” Meredith said. “But class just started. I get everyone confused.”

Aria picked up a leaflet for a seminar on Getting to Know Your Chakras. “So, you’re a grad student?”

Meredith nodded. “Getting my MFA.”

“What is your, um, medium?”

“Well, I do all sorts of stuff. Painting. Drawing.” Meredith looked behind Aria and waved at someone else coming in. “But I recently got into branding.”

“What?”

“Branding. I weld these custom-made branding irons together to make words, and then I burn the words on big blocks of wood.”

“Wait, so the brands are like cattle brands?”

Meredith ducked her head. “I try to explain it, but most people think I’m crazy.”

“No,” Aria said quickly. “It’s cool.”

Meredith glanced at the clock on the wall. “We have a couple minutes. I can show you some photos.” She reached into a striped cloth bag that sat next to her and pulled out her cell phone. “Just scroll through these, here….”

The photos were of blond slabs of wood. A few just had single letters on them, and a few said short things, like
catch me
and
control freak
. The letters were a little strangely shaped, but looked really cool charred into the wood. Aria flipped to the next photo. It was a longer slab that said,
To err is human, but it feels divine
.

Aria looked up. “Mae West.”

Meredith brightened. “It’s one of my favorite quotes.”

“Same.” Aria handed her back the phone. “These are really cool.”

Meredith smiled. “Glad you like ’em. I might have a show in a couple months.”

“I’m sur…” Aria clamped her lips together. She was about to say,
I’m surprised
. She hadn’t expected Meredith to be like this. When Aria imagined Meredith, only uncool attributes had come to mind. Imaginary Meredith #1 studied art history and worked for a stuffy, stale gallery somewhere on the Main Line that sold Hudson River School landscapes to rich old ladies. Imaginary Meredith #2 listened to Kelly Clarkson, loved
Laguna Beach
, and, if encouraged, would lift her shirt to get on
Girls Gone Wild
. Never did Aria think she’d be arty. Why would Byron need an artist? He had Ella.

As Meredith greeted another yoga student, Aria moved into the main studio room. It had high ceilings, exposing the barn’s wooden rafters; shiny, caramel-colored wood floors; and large, Indian-print sheets hanging everywhere. Most people had already sat down on their mats and were lying on their backs. It was weirdly silent.

Aria looked around the room. A girl with a brown ponytail and large thighs was doing a backbend. A lanky guy moved from downward dog into child’s pose, breathing forcefully through his nose. A blond girl in the corner did a seated twist. When she faced forward, Aria’s stomach dropped. “
Spencer?
” she blurted.

Spencer paled and pushed herself onto her knees. “Oh,” she said. “Aria. Hey.”

Aria swallowed hard. “What are you doing here?”

Spencer looked at her crazily. “Yoga?”

“No, I know that, but…” Aria shook her head. “I mean, did someone tell you to come here, or…?”

“No…” Spencer narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Wait. What do you mean?”

Aria blinked.
Wondering who I am? I’m closer than you think.

She looked from Spencer to Meredith, who was chatting with someone in the lobby, then back to Spencer. The wheels in her head started to turn. Something about this felt really, really messed up.

Her heart pounded as she backed out of the main room. She rushed to the door, bumping up against a tall, bearded guy in a leotard. Outside, the world was maddeningly impassive to her panic—the birds chirped, the pines swayed, a woman walked by with a baby carriage, talking on her cell phone.

As Aria flung herself toward the bike rack and unlocked her bike, a hand squeezed down on her arm. Hard. Meredith was standing next to her, giving her a very fixed stare. Aria’s mouth fell open. She gasped loudly.

“You aren’t staying?” Meredith asked.

Aria shook her head. “I…um…family emergency.” She jerked her bike free and started pedaling away.

“Wait!” Meredith screamed. “Let me give you your money back!”

But Aria was already halfway down the block.

20

LAISSEZ-FAIRE MEANS “HANDS OFF,” BTW

Friday in AP econ, Andrew Campbell leaned across the aisle and tapped the top of Spencer’s notebook. “So, I can’t remember. Limo or car to Foxy?”

Spencer rolled her pencil between her fingers. “Um, car, I guess.”

It was a tough one. Normally, Promzilla that she was, Spencer always insisted on a limo. And she wanted her family to think she was taking tomorrow’s date with Andrew seriously. Only, she felt so tired. Having a brand-new boyfriend was wonderful, but it was tough to try to see him
and
remain Rosewood Day’s most ambitious student. Last night, she’d done homework until 2:30
A.M
. She’d fallen asleep this morning at yoga—after Aria had so bizarrely run out. Maybe Spencer should have mentioned her note from A, but Aria bolted before she could. She’d dozed off again in study hall. Maybe she could go to the nurse’s office and sleep on the little cot for a bit?

Andrew didn’t have time to ask any more questions. Mr. McAdam had given up on his battle with the overhead projector—it happened every class—and was now standing at the board. “I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s essay questions on Monday,” he boomed. “And I have a surprise. If you can e-mail your essays to me by tomorrow, you’ll get five points extra credit to reward you for beginning them early.”

Spencer blinked, puzzled. She pulled out her Sidekick and checked the date. When had it become Friday? She scrolled to Monday. There it was. Econ essays due.

She hadn’t started on them. She hadn’t even
thought
about them. After the credit card fiasco Tuesday, Spencer had meant to get McAdam’s supplemental books at the library. Except then Wren happened, and the B minus didn’t matter as much. Nothing did.

She’d spent Wednesday night at Wren’s house. Yesterday, after sneaking into school after third period, she ditched hockey and sneaked into Philly again, taking SEPTA this time instead of driving, because she figured it would be quicker. Except…her train stalled. By the time she got into Thirtieth Street station, she only had forty-five minutes before she had to turn around to get home for dinner. So Wren had met her there and they’d made out on a secluded bench behind the concourse’s flower stand, emerging flushed with kisses and smelling like lilacs.

She noticed that the first ten cantos of
The Inferno
translated for Italian VI were also due Monday. And a three-page English paper on Plato. A calculus exam. Auditions for
The Tempest
, Rosewood Day’s first play of the year, were Monday. She put her head on her desk.

“Ms. Hastings?”

Startled, Spencer looked up. The bell had rung, everyone else had filed out, and she was alone. Squidward stood over her. “Sorry to wake you,” he said icily.

“No…I really wasn’t…” Spencer mustered, gathering up her things. But it was too late. Squidward was already erasing notes off the board. She noticed he was slowly shaking his head, as if she were hopeless.

“All right,” Spencer whispered. She was sitting at her computer, books and papers around her. Slowly, she mouthed the first essay question again.

Explain Adam Smith’s concept of an “invisible hand” in a laissez-faire economy, and give a modern-day example.

Okaaay.

Normally, Spencer would have read the AP econ assignment
and
Adam Smith’s book cover to cover, marked the appropriate pages, and made an outline for the answer. But she hadn’t. She had no idea what laissez-faire even meant. Was it something to do with supply and demand? What was invisible about it? She typed a few key words into Wikipedia, but the theories were complex and unfamiliar. So were her pages of class notes; she didn’t remember writing any of them down.

She’d slaved over school for eleven long, arduous years—twelve, if you counted Montessori school before kindergarten. Just this once, couldn’t she write some lame, B-minus paper and make up the grade later in the semester?

But grades were more important than ever. Yesterday, as she and Wren were wrenched from each other at the train station, he suggested she should graduate at the end of this year and apply to Penn. Spencer immediately warmed to the idea, and in the last few minutes before her train pulled up, they’d fantasized about the apartment they’d share, how they’d have separate corners of the room for studying, and how they would get a cat—Wren had never had one when he was young, because his brother was allergic.

The idea had blossomed in Spencer’s head on the train ride home, and as soon as she was back in her bedroom, she checked to see if she had enough credits to graduate from Rosewood and downloaded an application to Penn. It was kind of sticky since Melissa went to Penn too, but it was a big school, and Spencer figured they’d never run into each other.

She sighed and glanced at her Sidekick. Wren had told her he’d call today between five and six, and it was now six-thirty. It bothered Spencer when people didn’t do what they said they would. She skimmed her phone’s missed-calls log, to see if his number was there. She called her voice mail to see if her phone wasn’t getting reception. No new messages.

Finally, she tried Wren’s number. Voice mail again. Spencer threw her phone over on her bed and looked at her questions again. Adam Smith. Laissez-faire. Invisible hands. Big, strong, doctorly, British hands. All over her body.

She fought the temptation to try Wren again. It seemed too high school—ever since Wren remarked that Spencer seemed so grown-up, she’d started to question her every action. Her cell phone’s default ringtone was “My Humps” by Black Eyed Peas; did Wren see it as ironic, as she did, or simply adolescent? What about the lucky stuffed monkey key chain she’d pinned on her backpack? And would an older girl have paused when Wren plucked a single tulip from the flower stand when the florist wasn’t looking and handed it to Spencer without paying, thinking they were going to get in trouble?

The sun started to sink into the trees. When her dad poked his head into her room, Spencer jumped. “We’re eating soon,” he told her. “Melissa’s not joining us tonight.”

“All right,” Spencer answered. These were the first non-hostile words he’d said to her in days.