Stunning (11 page)

After Gayle had met with Emily and Aria in the café, Emily couldn’t get Gayle’s offer out of her mind. The Bakers seemed special, but what Gayle brought to the table was special, too. Aria had scolded Emily for being so preoccupied with Gayle’s money, but she didn’t want this baby to grow up the way she had, listening to her mom agonize about money every Christmas, missing out on a Washington, D.C., field trip because her dad was out of a job, being forced into keeping with a sport she wasn’t interested in anymore because it was her only ticket to college. Emily wanted to say that money didn’t matter to her, but since she’d always had to
think
about money, it definitely did.

Two days later, after her shift at the restaurant, Emily called Gayle and said she wanted to talk more. They arranged to meet at a coffee shop near Temple that very night. A little before 8 PM, Emily cut through a small Philadelphia park, and a hand had shot out from the darkness and cupped her belly. “Heather,” a voice said, and Emily screamed. A figure stepped into the light, and Emily couldn’t be more surprised to see Gayle’s smiling face. “W-what are you doing here?” she gasped. Gayle shrugged. “It was such a nice night I thought we could talk outside. But
someone’s
jumpy,” she said with a laugh.

Emily should have turned around and left, but instead she told herself that maybe she
was
being jumpy. Maybe Gayle was just playful. So she accepted Gayle’s carryout cup of decaf coffee and stayed. “Why do you want
my
baby?” she asked. “Why can’t you go through an adoption agency?”

Gayle patted the seat next to her, and Emily plopped down on the bench. “The wait with an adoption agency is too long,” she said. “And we suspect that potential mothers wouldn’t choose me and my husband because of what happened to our daughter.”

Emily raised an eyebrow. “What
did
happen to her?”

A faraway, uncomfortable look came over Gayle’s face. Her left hand kneaded her thigh. “She had problems,” she said quietly. “She was in an accident when she was younger and never quite recovered.”

“An . . . accident?”

Suddenly, Gayle put her head in her hands. “My husband and I are dying to be parents again,” she said with urgency. “Please let us have the baby. We can give you fifty thousand dollars cash for your trouble.”

Emily felt a palpable jolt of surprise. “Fifty thousand dollars?” she repeated. That could pay for all four years of college. She wouldn’t have to swim on scholarship every year. She could take a gap year and travel the world. Or she could donate it all to charity, to other babies who wouldn’t have an opportunity like this one.

“Maybe we can work something out,” Emily said quietly.

Gayle’s face twitched. She let out a whoop of joy and wrapped her arms around Emily tight. “You won’t regret this,” she said.

Then she jumped up, rattled off information on how they would meet again in a few days, and was gone. The darkness swallowed Gayle up entirely. Only her laugh lingered, a haunting cackle that echoed through the woods. Emily sat on the bench for a few more minutes, watching the long, bright line of traffic on the 76 expressway in the distance. She wasn’t left with a feeling of comfort, as she’d hoped. Instead, she just felt . . .
weird
. What had she just done?

A single pipe-organ note echoed through the church hall. Father Fleming lifted a jade paperweight on his desk and put it back down. “I can only imagine how much of a burden this has been for you. But it sounds like you did the right thing, giving the child up to a family who really wanted her.”

“Uh huh.” Emily’s throat itched, a sure sign she was about to cry.

“It must have been hard to give her up,” Father Fleming went on. “But you’ll always be in her heart, and she’ll always be in yours. Now, what about the father?”

Emily jolted up. “What about him?”

“Does he know about this?”

“Oh my God, no.” Emily’s face felt hot. “He and I broke up long before I knew I was . . . you know. Pregnant.” She wondered what Father would think if he knew that the dad was Isaac, one of his parish members. Isaac’s band had played at quite a few church functions.

Father Fleming folded his hands. “Don’t you think he deserves to know?”

“No. Absolutely no way.” Emily shook her head vehemently. “He would hate me forever.”

“You can’t know that.” He picked up a ballpoint pen and clicked it on and off. “And even if he’s angry with you, you might feel better if you tell the truth.”

They talked for a while longer about how Emily had weathered having a baby on her own, what her recovery had been like, and what her college plans were. Just as the pipe organist launched into a long, droning variation of
Canon in D
, Father Fleming’s iPhone chimed. He smiled at her kindly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you now, Emily. I’ve got a meeting with the church board of trustees in about ten minutes. Do you think you’ll be all right?”

Emily shrugged. “I guess.”

He stood, patted Emily’s shoulder, and guided her toward the door. Halfway down the hall, he turned and looked at her. “It goes without saying, but everything you’ve told me is just between us,” he said softly. “Still, I know you’ll do the right thing.”

Emily nodded dumbly, wondering what the right thing
was.
She considered Isaac again. He’d been so nice at Hanna’s dad’s town hall meeting. Maybe Father Fleming was right. Maybe she owed it to him. It was his baby, too.

Heart thumping, Emily pulled out her cell phone and composed a new text to Isaac.

I have something to talk to you about. Can we meet tomorrow?

Before she could change her mind, she pressed SEND.

13

RING, RING, IT’S REAL ALI

A few hours later, Aria sat in the kitchen at Byron and Meredith’s house, her laptop on the table in front of her. An IM from Emily appeared on the screen.
Any news?

Emily obviously wanted to know if Aria had gotten a message from A.
Nope
, Aria replied.
I haven’t gotten anything yet.
She hoped to keep it that way. As far as she was concerned, she didn’t know anything interesting about Mr. Kahn. A had no new reasons to torment her. The secret would stay locked away forever.

Are we still on for Saturday?
Emily wrote next.

It took Aria a moment to remember that Emily had wanted her to go to the open house at the property on Ship Lane.
Definitely.

The front door slammed, and then came the sounds of keys dropping into a bowl and Meredith cooing soothingly to Lola. Meredith strode into the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge. She was dressed in stretch pants and a baggy white sweatshirt, a yoga mat tucked under her arm. Her dark hair was in a ponytail, her cheeks were flushed, and she looked very relaxed. Lola was strapped to her torso in a baby carrier, sound asleep.

“Ugh, I’m so out of shape,” Meredith moaned, rolling her eyes. “Maybe I went back to teaching a little too soon. I couldn’t even do a handstand today.”

“I was
never
able to do a handstand,” Aria said, shrugging.

“I could teach you how if you want,” Meredith offered.

“Sorry, I’m not really into yoga,” Aria said. The last thing she wanted was for Meredith to teach her something.

Meredith placed the water bottle on the island and cleared her throat. “I really appreciate you going to Fresh Fields for me the other day.”

Aria grunted, staring at an abstract painting of the Wicked Witch of the West from
The Wizard of Oz
that Meredith had brought from her old apartment. If it weren’t for Meredith’s stupid dinner, Aria wouldn’t have happened upon Mr. Kahn’s awful secret. She couldn’t help but blame her a little.

“And I am sorry . . . about the reason behind the dinner.” Meredith’s voice cracked.

At first Aria bristled, but then realized she actually had something she wanted to ask Meredith. “When you and my dad were dating, did you tell anyone about it?”

Meredith stiffened. After a moment, she adjusted the baby carrier so that Lola was more comfortable. “No,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t. I mean, when we were first together, your dad was my teacher—I didn’t want to get him fired. It wasn’t until you guys left for Iceland and I thought things were over that I told my mom. She was furious at me. She thought it was awful that I was fooling around with a married man.”

Aria stared at the floor, surprised. She had assumed that Meredith bragged about her older professor boyfriend to her friends, laughed about the family she was destroying, and snickered at how much of an idiot Ella was for not suspecting something was going on.

“When you guys came back from Iceland and your dad and I started dating again, I didn’t dare tell my mom what was going on,” Meredith went on. “I worried about telling anyone else, too, in case they told her—or judged me harshly. I knew what I was doing was wrong.”

Aria traced her finger over a jute placemat, surprised again. Meredith had seemed so confident when she and Byron were secretly dating, insisting that she wasn’t a home wrecker because she and Byron were in love. She hadn’t expected Meredith to care about what other people thought.

“So you didn’t say anything to anyone? That whole time?” Aria asked incredulously.

Lola stirred, and Meredith grabbed a pink pacifier from the table and popped it into the baby’s mouth. “I was afraid the secret would get out. I was terrified your mom would catch us.”

“But she was going to find out eventually,” Aria pointed out.

“I know, but I didn’t want to be the one to break the news.” Meredith pressed her fingers to her temple. “I really didn’t set out to destroy anyone’s life, I swear. It might not have seemed like it, but I had a very hard time with what we were doing.”

Aria shut her eyes. She wanted to believe Meredith, but she wasn’t sure if she could.

“You know, I saw you when you discovered me and Byron kissing in his car,” Meredith said softly. “I saw the look on your face, how devastated you were.”

Aria turned away, that horrible memory flooding back to her.

“I felt terrible about it. I wanted to explain myself. But I knew you wouldn’t want to talk to me.”

“You’re right,” Aria admitted. “I wouldn’t have.”

“And then you started showing up everywhere,” Meredith went on. “You came to the yoga studio—I recognized you right away. Then you showed up at my art class. You threw paint at me, remember?”

“Uh huh,” Aria mumbled, staring at the floor. She’d drawn a red scarlet
A
for “adultress” on Meredith’s dress. It seemed so immature now.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Meredith retied her ponytail. Aria stared at the ragged edges of her fingernails. Lola let out a loud burp in her sleep, the pacifier tumbling from her mouth. Aria giggled. Meredith laughed, too, then let out a long sigh. “It’s not fun to keep secrets,” she said. “But sometimes you have to do it to protect yourself. And to protect people around you.”

For the first time ever, Aria agreed with Meredith. Protecting someone was exactly what she was doing by not telling Noel about his dad’s cross-dressing. Just hearing it put that way made her feel better about her decision.

Meredith opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle for Lola. “I have to tell you, though. I felt like crap when your friend called me and chewed me out.”

Aria frowned. “What friend?”

“You know. The friend you were with that day you saw us. Alison.”

A chilly jolt whizzed through Aria’s veins. “Wait. She
called
you?”

Meredith cocked her head. “She called me a while after you guys caught us in the car—sometime in June. She asked me all these questions about me and your dad—if we were in love, when we started dating, if we’d done it yet. She made me feel awful.” She searched Aria’s face. “You didn’t put her up to it?”

“No . . .” Ali had tormented Aria about Meredith constantly, but she’d never told Aria that she’d called Meredith behind her back. What had Ali expected to accomplish? And why had she waited until June to call her? Aria and Ali had caught Meredith and Byron in April.

Suddenly, a horrible thought popped into her mind. “
When
in June did Alison call you?”

Meredith drummed her fingers on the table. “The morning of the fifteenth. I remember it because it was my brother’s birthday. I thought it was him calling, but it was her.”

The room began to spin.
June fifteenth
. That was the day of their end-of-seventh-grade sleepover with Their Ali. According to the events pieced together by letters, testimonies, public documents, and the police investigation, the secret DiLaurentis sister had been picked up from the Preserve the day before. An unhappy family reunion had occurred. Two twins who hated each other were together again.

The day of the sleepover, Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily had gone into Ali’s room and discovered her sitting there, reading what looked like her diary with a big smile on her face. To this day, Aria wondered if it had been Their Ali in her bedroom . . . or her twin.

“Aria? Are you okay?”

Aria jumped. Meredith was staring at her with round blue eyes. Aria nodded faintly, feeling woozy. Ali had called Meredith all those years ago, all right—but it might not have been to make Meredith feel bad. It could have been to dig for dirt. And it wasn’t
Her
Ali, either.

It was Real Ali.

14

CATCHING UP

Thursday night, Emily walked into Belissima, the Italian bistro at the Devon Crest Mall across town, where she was meeting Isaac for dinner. The restaurant floor was made of bronze-colored terra-cotta tile, and the walls were painted to look as if they were part of an old, crumbling farmhouse. A shiny brass espresso machine sat behind the counter, bottles of wine were lined up on shelves around the big room, and the air smelled pungently of olive oil and mozzarella. Emily hadn’t been to this mall since two Christmases ago, when she’d agreed to be the mall’s Santa. She’d come to this restaurant with Cassie, one of Santa’s elves, and they’d bonded over their friendships with Ali.