Unbelievable (16 page)

Emily hesitated. She’d been in Rosewood for a whole day, but yesterday had been such a blur—there was her visit to the hospital, then A’s note, then classes and swimming and time spent with her parents—she hadn’t had time to talk to Maya yet. Emily had noticed Maya in the halls once yesterday, but she’d ducked into an empty classroom and waited for Maya to pass. She couldn’t exactly explain why. It wasn’t as if she was
hiding
from Maya or anything.

“I didn’t get back that long ago,” she managed. “And I’m back for good. I hope.”

The door to the tennis courts banged shut. Emily looked at the exit longingly. By the time she got outside, everyone in her gym class would’ve already found a tennis partner. She’d have to hit balls with Mr. Draznowsky, who, because he was also a health teacher, liked to give his students on-the-fly contraception lectures. Then, Emily blinked hard, as if startled out of a dream. What was her
problem
? Why did she care about stupid gym class when Maya was here?

She whipped back around. “My parents have done a one-eighty. They were so worried that something had happened to me after I left my aunt and uncle’s farm, they’ve decided to accept me for who I am.”

Maya widened her eyes. “That’s awesome!” She grabbed Emily’s hands. “So what happened at your aunt and uncle’s? Were they mean to you?”

“Sort of.” Emily shut her eyes, picturing Helene and Allen’s stern faces. Then, she imagined do-si-do’ing with Trista at the party. Trista had told Emily that if she were a dance, she’d most definitely be the Virginia reel. Maybe she should confess to Maya what happened with Trista…only, what
had
happened? Nothing, really. It would be better to just forget the whole thing. “It’s a long story.”

“You’ll have to give me all the details later, now that we can actually hang out in
public
.” Maya jiggled up and down, then glanced at the enormous clock on the scoreboard. “I should probably get back,” she whispered. “Can we meet up tonight?”

Emily hesitated, realizing this was the first time she could say yes without sneaking around behind her parents’ backs. Then she remembered. “I can’t. I’m having dinner out with my family.”

Maya’s face fell. “Tomorrow, then? We could go to Hanna’s party together.”

“S-sure,” Emily stammered. “That would be great.”

“And, oh! I have a huge surprise for you.” Maya hopped from foot to foot. “Scott Chin, the yearbook photographer? He’s in my history class, and he told me that you and I were voted this year’s best couple! Isn’t that fun?”

“Best
couple
?” Emily repeated. Her mouth felt gummy.

Maya took Emily’s hands and swung them back and forth. “We have a photo shoot in the yearbook room tomorrow. Won’t that be so cute?”

“Sure.” Emily picked up the hem of her T-shirt and squeezed it in her palm.

Maya cocked her head. “You sure you’re okay? You don’t sound so enthused.”

“No. I am. Totally.” Just as Emily took a breath to go on, her cell phone vibrated in her hoodie pocket, jolting straight through to her waist. She jumped and pulled it out, her heart pounding.
One new text message,
the screen said.

When she hit
READ
and saw the signature, her stomach turned for a different reason. She snapped the phone shut without reading the message. “Get anything good?” Maya asked, a little nosily, Emily thought.

“Nah.” Emily slid the phone back into her pocket.

Maya tossed the
pi
hall pass from one hand to the other. She gave Emily a quick kiss on the cheek, then sauntered out of the gym, her tall, sandstone-colored Frye boots clunking heavily against the wood floor. As Maya rounded the corner into the hall, Emily pulled out her cell phone, took a deep breath, and looked at the screen again.

Hey, Emily! I just heard the news that you’re GONE! I’m really going to miss you! Where do you live in PA? If you were a famous Philadelphia historical figure, who would you be? I’d be that guy on the Quaker Oats box…. He counts, right?

Maybe I could visit sometime? xxx, Trista

The gym’s central heater came on with a clank. Emily snapped her phone shut, and, after a pause, turned it off completely. Years ago, right before Emily had kissed Ali up in the DiLaurentises’ old tree house, Ali had confessed that she was secretly seeing an older guy. She’d never said what his name was, but Emily realized now that she must have been talking about Ian Thomas. Ali had grabbed Emily’s hands, full of giddy emotion. “Whenever I think about him, my stomach swoops around like I’m on a roller coaster,” she’d swooned. “Being in love is the best feeling in the world.”

Emily zipped up her hoodie to her chin. She thought she was in love, too, but it certainly didn’t make her feel like she was on a roller coaster. Inside the fun house was more like it—with surprises at every turn, and absolutely no idea what would happen next.

20

NO SECRETS BETWEEN FRIENDS

Thursday afternoon, Hanna stared at her reflection in the downstairs powder room mirror. She dabbed a bit of foundation on the stitches in her chin and winced. Why did stitches have to
hurt
so much? And why did Dr. Geist have to sew up her face with Frankenstein black thread? Couldn’t he have used a nice flesh-tone color?

She picked up her brand-new BlackBerry, considering. The phone had been waiting for her on the kitchen island when her father brought her home from the hospital earlier today. There was a card on the BlackBerry’s box that said,
WELCOME HOME
!
LOVE
,
MOM
. Now that Hanna wasn’t on the brink of death, her mother had returned to her round-the-clock hours at work, business as usual.

Hanna sighed, then dialed the number on the back of her foundation bottle. “Hello, Bobbi Brown hotline!” a cheerful voice on the other end chirped.

“This is Hanna Marin,” Hanna said briskly, trying to channel her inner Anna Wintour. “Can I book Bobbi for a makeup job?”

The hotline girl paused. “You’d have to go through Bobbi’s booking agent for something like that. But I think she’s really busy—”

“Can you get me her agent’s number anyway?”

“I don’t think I’m allowed to—”

“Sure you can,” Hanna cooed. “I won’t tell.”

After a bit of hemming and hawing, the girl put Hanna on hold, and someone else picked up the line and gave Hanna a 212 phone number. She wrote it down in lipstick on the bathroom mirror and hung up, feeling ambivalent. On one hand, it rocked that she could still push people to do exactly what she wanted. Only queen-of-the-school divas could do that. On the other hand, what if even
Bobbi
couldn’t fix Hanna’s mess of a face?

The doorbell rang. Hanna dabbed more foundation on her stitches and headed into the hall. That was probably Mona, coming over to help audition male models for her party. She’d told Hanna she wanted to book her the best hotties money could buy.

Hanna paused in the foyer next to her mother’s giant raku ceramic pot. What had Lucas meant at the hospital yesterday, when he said that Hanna shouldn’t trust Mona? And more than that, what had that kiss been about? Hanna had thought of little else since it happened. She’d expected to see Lucas at the hospital this morning, greeting her with magazines and a Starbucks latte. When he wasn’t there, she’d felt…disappointed. And this afternoon, after her father dropped her off, Hanna had lingered on
All My Children
on TV for three whole minutes before changing the channel. Two characters on the soap were passionately kissing, and she’d watched them, wide-eyed, with tingles running up and down her back again, suddenly able to relate.

Not that she
liked
Lucas or anything. He wasn’t in her stratosphere. And just to make sure, she’d asked Mona last night what she thought of Lucas, when Mona dropped off the coming-home-from-the-hospital outfit she’d selected from Hanna’s closet—skinny Seven jeans, a cropped plaid Moschino jacket, and an ultrasoft tee. Mona had said, “Lucas
Beattie
? Huge loser, Han. Always has been.”

So there you had it. No more Lucas. She would tell no one about the kiss, ever.

Hanna reached the front door, noticing the way Mona’s white-blond hair glowed through the frosted panels. She nearly fell over when she opened the door and saw Spencer standing there behind Mona. And Emily and Aria were walking up the front path. Hanna wondered if she’d accidentally told all of them to visit at the same time.

“Well, this is a surprise,” Hanna said nervously.

But it was Spencer who pushed around Mona and walked into Hanna’s house first. “We need to talk to you,” she said. Mona, Emily, and Aria followed, and the girls assembled on Hanna’s toffee-colored leather couches, sitting in the exact same seats they used to sit in when they used to be friends: Spencer in the big leather chair in the corner, and Emily and Aria on the couch. Mona had taken Ali’s seat, on the chaise by the window. When Hanna squinted, she could almost mistake Mona for Ali. Hanna snuck a look at Mona to see if she was pissed, but Mona looked sort of…okay.

Hanna sat down on the leather chair’s ottoman. “Um, we need to talk about
what
?” she asked Spencer. Aria and Emily looked a little confused too.

“We got another note from A after we left your hospital room,” Spencer blurted.

“Spencer,”
Hanna hissed. Emily and Aria gaped at her too. Since when did they talk about A around other people?

“It’s okay,” Spencer said. “Mona knows. She’s been getting notes from A too.”

Hanna suddenly felt faint. She looked at Mona for confirmation, and Mona’s mouth was taut and serious.
“No,”
Hanna whispered.

“You?” Aria gasped.

“How many?” Emily stammered.

“Two,” Mona admitted, staring at the outline of her knobby knees through her burnt orange C&C California jersey dress. “I got them this week. When I told Spencer about it yesterday, I never would have imagined that you guys were getting them too.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Aria whispered, looking around at the others. “I thought A was only sending messages to Ali’s old friends.”

“Maybe everything we thought was wrong,” Spencer said.

Hanna’s stomach spun. “Did Spencer tell you about the SUV that hit me?”

“That it was A. And that you knew who A was.” Mona’s face was pale.

Spencer crossed her legs. “Anyway, we got a new note. A obviously doesn’t want you to remember, Hanna. If we keep pushing you on it, A’s going to hurt us next.”

Emily let out a small whimper.

“This is really scary,” Mona whispered. She hadn’t stopped jiggling her foot, something she did only when she was very tense. “We should go to the police.”

“Maybe we should,” Emily agreed. “They could help us. This is serious.”

“No!” Aria nearly shrieked. “A will
know.
It’s like…A can see us, at all times.”

Emily clamped her mouth shut, staring down at her hands.

Mona swallowed hard. “I guess I know what you mean, Aria. Ever since I’ve gotten the notes, I’ve felt like someone has been watching me.” She looked around at them, her eyes wide and scared. “Who knows? A could be watching us right now.”

Hanna shivered. Aria looked around frantically, canvassing Hanna’s stuffy living room. Emily peeked behind Hanna’s baby grand piano, as if A might be crouching in the corner. Then Mona’s Sidekick buzzed, and everyone let out startled little yelps. When Mona pulled it out, her face paled. “Oh my God. It’s another one.”

Everyone gathered around Mona’s phone. Her newest message was a belated birthday e-card. Below the images of happy balloons and a frosted white cake that Mona would
never
eat in real life, the message read,

Happy belated b-day, Mona! So when are you going to tell Hanna what you did? I say wait until AFTER she finally gives you your birthday present. You might lose the friendship, but at least you’ll get to keep the gift!—A

Hanna’s blood turned to ice. “What you
did
? What’s A talking about?”

Mona’s face went white. “Hanna…okay. We did get into a fight the night of my party. But it was just a little one. Honestly. We should just forget about it.”

Hanna’s heart thrummed as loud as a car engine. Her mouth instantly went dry.

“I didn’t want to bring up the fight after your accident because I didn’t think it mattered,” Mona went on, her voice high-pitched and desperate. “I didn’t want to upset you. And I felt terrible about us fighting last week, Hanna, especially when I thought I’d lost you forever. I just wanted to forget about it. I wanted to make it up to you by throwing you this amazing party, and—”

A few aching seconds passed. The heat switched on, making them all jump. Spencer cleared her throat. “You guys shouldn’t fight,” she said gently. “A’s just trying to distract you from figuring out who’s sending these awful notes in the first place.”

Mona shot Spencer a grateful look. Hanna lowered her shoulders, feeling all eyes on her. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about this with the others around. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it at all. “Spencer’s right. This
is
what A does.”

The girls fell into silence, staring at the square-shaped, paper Noguchi lamp that sat on the coffee table. Spencer grabbed Mona’s hand and squeezed. Emily grabbed Hanna’s.