Perfect (3 page)

“I did.” Dr. Evans stretched her arms into the air and two silver bangle bracelets slid to her elbow. “Fascinating stuff.”

And then she winked.

Spencer felt like her heart was going to burst out of her chest. Apparently Dr. Evans didn’t care about the merits of sisal versus jute either.
Yes
.

They talked a while longer, Spencer enjoying it more and more, and then Dr. Evans motioned to the Salvador Dalí melting-clocks clock that hung above her desk to indicate that their time was up. Spencer said good-bye and opened the office door, rubbing her head as if the therapist had cracked it open and tinkered around in her brain. That actually hadn’t been as torturous as she’d thought it would be.

She shut the therapist’s office door and turned around. To her surprise, her mother was sitting in a pale-green wing chair next to Melissa, reading a
Main Line
style magazine.

“Mom.” Spencer frowned. “What are you doing here?”

Veronica Hastings looked like she’d come straight from the family’s riding stables. She was wearing a white Petit Bateau T-shirt, skinny jeans, and her beat-up riding boots. There was even a little bit of hay in her hair. “I have news,” she announced.

Both Mrs. Hastings and Melissa had very serious looks on their faces. Spencer’s insides started to whirl. Someone had died. Someone—Ali’s killer—had killed again. Perhaps A was back.
Please, no,
she thought.

“I got a call from Mr. McAdam,” Mrs. Hastings said, standing up. Mr. McAdam was Spencer’s AP economics teacher. “He wanted to talk about some essays you wrote a few weeks ago.” She took a step closer, the scent of her Chanel No. 5 perfume tickling Spencer’s nose. “Spence, he wants to nominate one of them for a Golden Orchid.”

Spencer stepped back. “A Golden
Orchid
?”

The Golden Orchid was
the
most prestigious essay contest in the country, the high school essay equivalent of an Oscar. If she won,
People
and
Time
would do a feature story on her. Yale, Harvard, and Stanford would beg her to enroll. Spencer had followed the successes of Golden Orchid winners the way other people followed celebrities. The Golden Orchid winner of 1998 was now managing editor of a very famous fashion magazine. The winner from 1994 had become a congressman at 28.

“That’s right.” Her mother broke into a dazzling smile.

“Oh my God.” Spencer felt faint. But not from excitement—from dread. The essays she’d turned in hadn’t been hers—they were Melissa’s. Spencer had been in a rush to finish the assignment, and A had suggested she “borrow” Melissa’s old work. So much had gone on in the past few weeks, it had slipped her mind.

Spencer winced. Mr. McAdam—or Squidward, as everyone called him—had loved Melissa when she was his student. How could he not remember Melissa’s essays, especially if they were
that
good?

Her mother grabbed Spencer’s arm and she flinched—her mother’s hands were always corpse-cold. “We’re so proud of you, Spence!”

Spencer couldn’t control the muscles around her mouth. She had to come clean with this before she got in too deep. “Mom, I can’t—”

But Mrs. Hastings wasn’t listening. “I’ve already called Jordana at the
Philadelphia Sentinel
. Remember Jordana? She used to take riding lessons at the stables? Anyway, she’s thrilled. No one from this area has ever been nominated. She wants to write an article about you!”

Spencer blinked. Everyone read the
Philadelphia Sentinel
newspaper.

“The interview and photo shoot are all scheduled,” Mrs. Hastings breezed on, picking up her giant saffron-colored Tod’s satchel and jingling her car keys.

“Wednesday before school. They’ll provide a stylist. I’m sure Uri will come to give you a blowout.”

Spencer was afraid to make eye contact with her mom, so she stared at the waiting-room reading material—an assortment of
New Yorker
s and
Economist
s, and a big book of fairy tales that was teetering on top of a Dubble Bubble tub of Legos. She couldn’t tell her mom about the stolen paper—not now. And it wasn’t as if she was going to
win
the Golden Orchid, anyway. Hundreds of people were nominated, from the best high schools all over the country. She probably wouldn’t even make it past the first cut.

“That sounds great,” Spencer sputtered.

Her mom pranced out the door. Spencer lingered a moment longer, transfixed by the wolf on the cover of the fairy tale book. She’d had the same one when she was little. The wolf was dressed up in a negligee and bonnet, leering at a blond, naïve Red Riding Hood. It used to give Spencer nightmares.

Melissa cleared her throat. When Spencer looked up, her sister was staring.

“Congrats, Spence,” Melissa said evenly. “The Golden Orchid. That’s huge.”

“Thanks,” Spencer blurted. There was an eerily familiar expression on Melissa’s face. And then Spencer realized: Melissa looked exactly like the big bad wolf.

2

JUST ANOTHER SEXUALLY CHARGED DAY IN AP ENGLISH

Aria Montgomery sat down in English class on Monday morning, just as the air outside the open widow started to smell like rain. The PA crackled, and everyone in the class looked at the little speaker on the ceiling.

“Hello, students! This is Spencer Hastings, your junior class vice president!” Spencer’s voice rang out clear and loud. She sounded perky and assured, as if she’d taken a course in Announcements 101. “I want to remind everyone that the Rosewood Day Hammerheads are swimming against the Drury Academy Eels tomorrow. It’s the biggest meet of the season, so let’s all show some spirit and come out and support the team!” There was a pause. “Yeah!”

Some of the class snickered. Aria felt an uneasy chill. Despite everything that had happened—Alison’s murder, Toby’s suicide, A—Spencer was the president or VP of every club around. But to Aria, Spencer’s spiritedness sounded…fake. She had seen a side of Spencer others hadn’t. Spencer had known for years that Ali had threatened Toby Cavanaugh to keep him quiet about Jenna’s accident, and Aria couldn’t forgive her for keeping such a dangerous secret from the rest of them.

“Okay, class,” Ezra Fitz, Aria’s AP English teacher, said. He resumed writing on the board, printing
The Scarlet Letter
in his angular handwriting, and then he underlined it four times.

“In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece, Hester Prynne cheats on her husband, and her town forces her to wear a big, red, shameful
A
on her chest as a reminder of what she’s done.” Mr. Fitz turned from the board and pushed his square glasses up the bridge of his sloped nose. “Can anyone think of other stories that have the same falling-from-grace theme? About people who are ridiculed or cast out for their mistakes?”

Noel Kahn raised his hand and his chain-link Rolex watch slid down his wrist. “How about that episode of
The Real World
when the housemates voted for the psycho girl to leave?”

The class laughed, and Mr. Fitz looked perplexed. “Guys, this is supposed to be an AP class.” Mr. Fitz turned to Aria’s row. “Aria? How about you? Thoughts?”

Aria paused. Her life was a good example. Not long ago, she and her family had been living harmoniously in Iceland, Alison hadn’t been officially dead, and A hadn’t existed. But then, in a horrible unraveling of events that started six weeks ago, Aria had moved back to preppy Rosewood, Ali’s body had been discovered under the concrete slab behind her old house, and A had outed the Montgomery family’s biggest secret: that Aria’s father, Byron, had cheated on her mother, Ella, with one of his students, Meredith. The news hit Ella hard and she promptly threw Byron out. Finding out that Aria had kept Byron’s secret from her for three years hadn’t helped Ella much either. Mother-daughter relations hadn’t been too warm and fuzzy since.

Of course, it could have been worse. Aria hadn’t gotten any texts from A in the last three weeks. Although Byron was now allegedly living with Meredith, at least Ella had begun speaking to Aria again. And Rosewood hadn’t been invaded by aliens yet, although after all the weird things that had happened in this town, Aria wouldn’t have been surprised if that were next.

“Aria?” Mr. Fitz goaded. “Any ideas?”

Mason Byers came to Aria’s rescue. “What about Adam and Eve and that snake?”

“Great,” Mr. Fitz said absentmindedly. His eyes rested on Aria for another second before looking away. Aria felt a warm, prickly rush. She had hooked up with Mr. Fitz—Ezra—at Snooker’s, a college bar, before either of them knew he would be her new AP English teacher. He was the one who’d ended it, and afterward, Aria had learned he had a girlfriend in New York. But she didn’t hold a grudge. Things were going well with her new boyfriend, Sean Ackard, who was kind and sweet and also happened to be gorgeous.

Besides, Ezra was the best English teacher Aria had ever had. In the month since school had started, he’d assigned four amazing books and staged a skit based on Edward Albee’s “The Sandbox.” Soon, the class was going to do a
Desperate Housewives
–style interpretation of
Medea,
the Greek play where a mother murders her children. Ezra wanted them to think unconventionally, and unconventional was Aria’s forte. Now, instead of calling her Finland, her classmate Noel Kahn had given Aria a new nickname, Brownnoser. It felt good to be excited about school again, though, and at times she almost forgot things with Ezra had ever been complicated.

Until Ezra threw her a crooked smile, of course. Then she couldn’t help but feel fluttery. Just a little.

Hanna Marin, who sat right in front of Aria, raised her hand. “How about that book where two girls are best friends, but then, all of a sudden, one of the best friends turns
evil
and steals the other one’s boyfriend?”

Ezra scratched his head. “I’m sorry…I don’t think I’ve read that book.”

Aria clenched her fists.
She
knew what Hanna meant. “For the last
time,
Hanna, I didn’t steal Sean from you! You guys were already. Broken. Up!”

The class rippled with laughter. Hanna’s shoulders became rigid. “Someone’s a little self-centered,” she murmured to Aria without turning around. “Who said I was talking about
you
?”

But Aria knew she was. When Aria had returned from Iceland, she’d been stunned to see that Hanna had morphed from Ali’s chubby, awkward lackey to a thin, beautiful, designer-clothes-wearing goddess. It seemed like Hanna had everything she’d ever wanted: she and her best friend, Mona Vanderwaal—also a transformed dork—ruled the school, and Hanna had even nabbed Sean Ackard, the boy she’d pined over since sixth grade. Aria had only gone for Sean after hearing that Hanna had dumped him. But she quickly found out it had been the other way around.

Aria had hoped she and her old friends might reunite, especially since they’d all received notes from A. Yet, they weren’t even speaking—things were right back to where they’d been during those awkward, worried weeks after Ali’s disappearance. Aria hadn’t even told them about what A had done to her family. The only ex–best friend Aria was still sort of friendly with was Emily Fields—but their conversations had mostly consisted of Emily blubbering about how guilty she felt about Toby’s death, until Aria had finally insisted that it wasn’t her fault.

“Well, anyway,” Ezra said, putting copies of
The Scarlet Letter
at the front of each row to pass back, “I want everyone to read chapters one through five this week, and you have a three-page essay on any themes you see at the beginning of the book due on Friday. Okay?”

Everyone groaned and started to talk. Aria slid her book into her yak-fur bag. Hanna reached down to pick her purse off the floor. Aria touched Hanna’s thin, pale arm. “Look, I’m sorry. I really am.”

Hanna yanked her arm away, pressed her lips together, and wordlessly stuffed
The Scarlet Letter
into her purse. It kept jamming, and she let out a frustrated grunt.

Classical music tinkled through the loudspeaker, indicating the period was over. Hanna shot up from her seat as if it were on fire. Aria rose slowly, shoving her pen and notebook into her purse and heading for the door.

“Aria.”

She turned. Ezra was leaning against his oak desk, his tattered caramel leather briefcase pressed to his hip.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Sorry about all that,” she said. “Hanna and I have some issues. It won’t happen again.”

“No problem.” Ezra set his mug of chai down. “Is everything
else
okay?”

Aria bit her lip and considered telling him what was going on. But why? For all she knew, Ezra was as sleazy as her father. If he really did have a girlfriend in New York, then he’d cheated on her when he’d hooked up with Aria.

“Everything’s fine,” she managed.

“Good. You’re doing a great job in class.” He smiled, showing his two adorably overlapping bottom teeth.

“Yeah, I’m enjoying myself,” she said, taking a step toward the door. But as she did, she stumbled over her super-high stack-heeled boots, careening into Ezra’s desk. Ezra grabbed her waist and pulled her upright…and into him. His body felt warm and safe, and he smelled good, like chili powder, cigarettes, and old books.

Aria moved away quickly. “Are you okay?” Ezra asked.

“Yeah.” She busied herself by straightening her school blazer. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Ezra answered, jamming his hands in his jacket pockets. “So…see you.”

“Yeah. See you.”

Aria walked out of the classroom, her breathing fast and shallow. Maybe she was nuts, but she was pretty sure Ezra had held her for a second longer than he needed to. And she was certain she’d liked it.

3

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS BAD PRESS

During their free period Monday afternoon, Hanna Marin and her best friend, Mona Vanderwaal, were sitting in the corner booth of Steam, Rosewood Day’s coffee bar, doing what they did best: ripping on people who weren’t as fabulous as they were.