Wicked (5 page)

Fifteen minutes later, Aria reached the gallery. The art opening was being held in an old, lofty farmhouse in the woods. As she parked Ella’s Subaru on the gravel embankment and got out, she heard rustling. The sky was so black out here.

Something made a strange squawking noise off in the woods. And then…more rustling. Aria took a step back. “Hello?” she called quietly.

A pair of curious eyes stared back at her from behind a dilapidated wooden fence. For a moment, Aria’s heart stopped. But then she realized the eyes were surrounded by white fur. It was only an alpaca. As several more trotted to the edge of the fence, batting their enviably long eyelashes, Aria smiled and exhaled, figuring the farm must have a whole herd of them. After months of being stalked, it was hard to shake the paranoid feeling that someone was watching.

The inside of the farmhouse smelled like freshly baked bread, and a Billie Holliday song was playing softly over the stereo. A waitress carrying a large tray of Bellinis swept past. Aria eagerly grabbed a glass. After she downed the whole thing, she looked around the room. There were at least fifty paintings on the walls, with small plaques bearing the title, artist’s name, and price. Thin women with angularly cut dark hair loitered in clusters near the appetizers. A guy in dark-framed glasses talked anxiously to a buxom woman with a beet-red beehive. A wild-eyed man with frizzy gray hair sipped what looked like a glass of bourbon, whispering something to his Sienna-Miller-look-alike wife.

Aria’s heart thumped. These weren’t the normal, local collectors who came to Rosewood art openings—people like Spencer’s parents, who dressed in business suits and carried thousand-dollar Chanel purses. Aria was pretty sure this was the authentic art world, maybe even from New York City.

The exhibit featured three different artists, but the majority of the onlookers were gathered around abstract paintings by someone named Xavier Reeves. Aria walked up to one of his only pieces that didn’t have an enormous crowd of people around it and assumed her best art critic pose—hand on chin and frowning like she was deep in thought. The painting was of a large purple circle with a small, darker purple circle in the middle.

Interesting,
Aria thought to herself. But honestly…it looked like a giant nipple.

“What do you think of the brushstrokes?” someone murmured behind her.

Aria turned around and found herself looking into the soft brown eyes of a tall guy in a ribbed black sweater and dark blue jeans. An excited jolt shot through her body, leaving her toes tingling in her scuffed satin flats. With his prominent cheekbones and super-short hair that stood up in a tuft at the front, he reminded Aria of Sondre, the hot musician she’d met in Norway last year. She and Sondre had spent hours in a fisherman’s pub in Bergen, drinking homemade whiskey and making up stories about the mounted trophy fish that hung on the pub’s wood-paneled walls.

Aria assessed the painting again. “The brushstrokes are very…powerful.”

“True,” the guy agreed. “And emotional.”

“Definitely.” Aria was thrilled to be having an authentic art critic conversation, especially with someone so cute. It was also nice to not be around Rosewood people and have to listen to the constant gossip about Ian’s upcoming trial. She scrambled for something else to say. “It makes me think of…”

The guy leaned closer, smirking. “Suckling, maybe?”

Aria’s eyes widened in surprise. So she
wasn’t
the only one who saw the resemblance. “It does look a little bit like that, doesn’t it?” she giggled. “But I think we’re supposed to take this seriously. The painting’s called
The Impossibility of the Space Between
. Xavier Reeves probably painted it to represent solitude. Or the proletarian struggle.”

“Shit.” The guy was so close to Aria, she could smell his cinnamon-gum-and-Bellini-scented breath. “I guess that means the one over there called
Time Moves Handily
isn’t a penis, huh?”

An older woman in multicolored cat-eye glasses looked over, startled. Aria covered her mouth to keep from laughing, noticing how there was a crescent moon–shaped freckle right by her new friend’s left ear. If only she hadn’t worn the same pilled green cowl-necked sweater she’d lived in the entire winter break. She should’ve wiped the fondue stain off the collar, too.

He polished off the rest of his drink. “So what’s your name?”

“Aria.” She chewed coyly on the swizzle stick that had come with her Bellini.

“It’s nice to meet you, Aria.” A group of people swept by, pushing Aria and her new friend closer together. As his hand bumped against her waist, heat rose to Aria’s cheeks. Had he touched her by accident…or on purpose?

He grabbed two more drinks and handed one to her. “So do you work around here, or are you still in school?”

Aria opened her mouth, contemplating. She wondered how old this guy was. He looked young enough to be a college student, and she could picture him living in one of the shabby-chic Victorian houses near Hollis College. But she’d made that same assumption about Ezra, too.

Before Aria could say a word, a woman in a fitted houndstooth suit inserted herself between them. With her spiky black hair, she bore more than a passing resemblance to Cruella De Vil from
101 Dalmatians
. “Mind if I borrow him?” Cruella looped her arm around his elbow. He gave Cruella’s arm a little squeeze.

“Oh. Sure.” Aria stepped away, disappointed.

“Sorry.” Cruella smiled apologetically at Aria. Her lipstick was so dark it was almost black. “But Xavier’s quite in demand, as you know.”

Xavier?
Aria’s stomach dropped. She grabbed his arm. “
You’re
…the artist?”

Her new friend stopped. There was a naughty little sparkle in his eye. “Busted,” he said, leaning in to her. “And by the way, the painting really
is
a boob.”

With that, Cruella pulled Xavier forward. He fell into step with Cruella and flirtatiously whispered something in her ear. They both giggled before marching into the throng of the art elite, where everyone gushed over how brilliant and inspirational Xavier’s paintings were. As Xavier grinned and shook his admirers’ hands, Aria wished there was a trapdoor in the wood floor she could disappear through. She’d broken the cardinal rule of art openings—don’t talk about the work to strangers, since you never know who’s who. And for God’s sake, don’t insult an up-and-coming hotshot’s masterpiece.

But judging by the sneaky little smile Xavier had just shot in Aria’s direction, maybe he didn’t mind her interpretation much at all. And that made Aria very, very happy, indeed.

4

BOTTOM OF THE CLASS

Monday morning, Spencer Hastings hunched over her desk in AP English, scribbling a few sentences on her timed
The Sun Also Rises
essay quiz. She wanted to add a few quotes from one of the Hemingway critical essays in the back of the book in an attempt to earn some extra brownie points with her teacher, Mrs. Stafford. These days, she had to scramble for every little crumb of brownie she could get.

The PA speaker at the front of the room crackled. “Mrs. Stafford?” called Mrs. Wagner, the school secretary. “Can you please send Spencer Hastings to the office?”

All thirteen students looked up from their papers, staring at Spencer as if she’d come to school in the lacy blue Eberjay bra and panties set she’d bought at the Saks after-Christmas sale. Mrs. Stafford, who looked nearly identical to Martha Stewart, but who had almost certainly never cracked an egg or embroidered an apron in her life, laid down her wrinkled copy of
Ulysses
. “Fine, go.” She shot Spencer a
what have you done
this
time?
look. Spencer couldn’t help but ask herself the same question.

Spencer stood up, did a few covert yoga fire breaths, and placed her quiz facedown on Mrs. Stafford’s desk. She couldn’t really blame her teacher for treating her like this. Spencer had been the very first Rosewood Day student to be nominated for a Golden Orchid essay award. It had been a
huge
deal, big enough to land her on the front page of the
Philadelphia Sentinel
. In the very last round, when the judge had called Spencer to tell her that she’d won, she’d finally blurted out the truth—that she’d stolen the AP Economics paper from her sister, Melissa. Now, all of her other teachers wondered if she’d cheated in
their
classes, too. She was no longer in the running for valedictorian, and the school had asked her to step down as student council vice president, bow out of her role in the school play, and resign as the yearbook editor in chief. They had even threatened to expel her, but Spencer’s parents had cut some sort of deal that most likely involved a hefty donation to the school.

Spencer understood why Rosewood Day couldn’t just let this blow over. But after all the tests she’d aced, committees she’d commandeered, and clubs she’d created, couldn’t they cut her just a teensy bit of slack? Didn’t they care that Ali’s body had been found a few feet from her own backyard, or that she’d received horrific messages from crazy Mona Vanderwaal, who was trying to
impersonate
her old,
dead
best friend? Or that Mona had almost pushed Spencer over the precipice of Falling Man Gorge because Spencer hadn’t wanted to be A along with her, or that it was because of Spencer that
Ali’s murderer was now in jail
? Nope. The only thing that mattered was that Spencer had made Rosewood Day look foolish.

She shut the door of the English room and started toward the office. The hall smelled as it always did, like pine-scented floor wax and a confused tangle of perfume and cologne. Hundreds of glitter-covered paper snowflakes hung overhead. Every December, Rosewood Day Elementary held a schoolwide snowflake-making contest, and the winning designs were displayed in the elementary and high schools all winter. Spencer used to feel so devastated when her classroom lost—the judges announced the winner right before winter break, so it kind of ruined Christmas. Then again, Spencer found every defeat crushing. She still seethed at how Andrew Campbell had been elected class president instead of her, that Ali had taken Spencer’s rightful spot on the JV field hockey team in seventh grade, and that she hadn’t gotten to decorate a piece of the Time Capsule flag in sixth grade. Even though the school had continued to hold the contest every year after that, it had never mattered as much as it had that first year she’d been able to play. Then again, Ali hadn’t gotten to decorate a piece in the end, either, which had softened the blow.

“Spencer?” Someone crept around the corner.
Speak of the devil,
Spencer thought grumpily. It was Andrew Campbell, Mr. Class President himself.

Andrew walked up to her, pushing his longish blond hair behind his ears. “What are you doing roaming the halls?”

Typical nosy Andrew.
He was undoubtedly thrilled that Spencer was no longer in the running for valedictorian—the Spencer voodoo doll she was convinced he had stashed under his bed had finally worked its magic. He probably thought it was comeuppance, too, for how Spencer had invited him to the Foxy benefit last fall, only to ditch him once they got there.

“They want me in the office,” Spencer said icily, hoping against hope that it wasn’t bad news. She picked up the pace, her chunky-heeled boots ringing out on the polished wooden floor.

“I’m going that way, too,” Andrew chirped, walking alongside her. “Mr. Rosen wants to talk to me about the trip I took to Greece over the break.” Mr. Rosen was the Model UN advisor. “I went with the Philadelphia Young Leaders Club. Actually, I thought you were coming too.”

Spencer wanted to slap Andrew’s ruddy cheeks. After the whole Golden Orchid debacle, PhYLC—which always reminded Spencer of the noise one made when hocking up phlegm—had immediately revoked her membership. She was positive Andrew knew. “I had a conflict of interest,” she said frostily. Which was actually true: She’d had to house-sit while her parents went to their ski chalet in Beaver Creek, Colorado. They hadn’t bothered to invite Spencer along.

“Oh.” Andrew peered at her curiously. “Is something…wrong?”

Spencer stopped dead, astonished. She threw up her hands. “Of course something’s wrong.
Everything’s
wrong. Happy now?”

Andrew stepped back, blinking rapidly. Realization washed slowly over his face. “
Ohhh
. The Golden Orchid…stuff. I forgot about all that.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m an idiot.”

“Whatever.” Spencer gritted her teeth. Could Andrew seriously have
forgotten
what had happened to her? That was almost worse than him gloating about it all winter break. She glared at a neatly cut-out snowflake over the handicapped water fountain. Andrew used to be good at cutting out snowflakes, too. Even back then, it was a private battle between the two of them to see who could be the best at everything.

“I guess I put it out of my head,” Andrew blurted out, his voice rising higher and higher. “Which was why I was so surprised when I didn’t see you in Greece. It’s too bad you weren’t there. No one on the trip was really very…I don’t know. Smart. Or cool.”

Spencer fidgeted with the leather tassels on her Coach bucket bag. It was the nicest thing anyone had said to her in quite a while, but it was too much for her to bear, especially coming from Andrew. “I have to go,” she said, and hurried down the hall to the headmaster’s office.

“He’s expecting you,” the head secretary said when Spencer burst through the office’s double glass doors. Spencer walked toward Appleton’s office, passing the large papier-mâché shark that had been left over from last year’s Founders’ Day float parade. What did Appleton want, anyway? Maybe he’d realized he’d been too harsh on her and was ready to apologize. Maybe he wanted to reinstate her class rank or let her do the play after all. The drama club had planned to perform
The Tempest
, but right before winter break, Rosewood Day told Christophe Briggs, the senior director, that he wasn’t allowed to use water or pyrotechnics onstage to replicate the play’s signature storm. Christophe, kicking up a tempest of his own, had shut down
The Tempest
for good and started casting for
Hamlet.
Since everyone was learning new parts, Spencer hadn’t even missed any rehearsals.