by Sara Shepard
Melissa paused, shaking the mini martini bottle. “Yeah, it’s probably best you don’t drink. You might forget the gist of your Golden Orchid essay.”
“That’s very true,” Mrs. Hastings murmured. Spencer bristled and turned away.
Ian and Melissa’s room was right next to Spencer’s, and they slipped inside, giggling. As her mother reached for Spencer’s room key, a pretty girl about Spencer’s age swept past. Her head was down, and she was studying a cream-colored card that looked suspiciously similar to the Golden Orchid breakfast invite Spencer had tucked into her tweed Kate Spade bag.
The girl noticed Spencer staring and broke into a glimmering smile. “Hi!” she called brightly. She had the look of a CNN newscaster: poised, perky, congenial. Spencer’s mouth fell open and her tongue lolled clumsily in her mouth. Before she could respond, the girl shrugged and looked away.
The single glass of wine Spencer’s parents had allowed her to drink at dinner gurgled in her stomach. She turned to her mom.
“There are a lot of really smart applicants up for the Golden Orchid,” Spencer whispered, after the girl rounded the corner. “I’m not a shoo-in or anything.”
“Nonsense.” Mrs. Hastings’s voice was clipped. “You are going to win.” She handed her a room key. “This one’s yours. We got you a suite.” With that, she patted Spencer’s arm and continued down the hall to her own room.
Spencer bit her lip, unlocked the door to her suite, and snapped on the light. The room smelled like cinnamon and new carpet, and her king-size bed was loaded with a dozen pillows. She squared her shoulders and wheeled her bag to the dark mahogany wardrobe. Immediately, she hung up her black Armani interview suit and placed her lucky pink Wolford bra and panty set in the top drawer of the adjacent bureau. After changing into her pajamas, she went around the suite and made sure all of the chunky picture frames were straight and the enormous cerulean bed pillows were fluffed symmetrically. In the bathroom, she fixed the towels so they hung evenly on the racks. She positioned the Bliss body wash, the shampoo, and the conditioner in a diamond pattern around the sink. When she returned to her bedroom, she stared blankly at a copy of Time Out New York magazine. On the cover was a confident-looking Donald Trump standing in front of Trump Tower.
Spencer did yoga fire breaths, but she still didn’t feel any better. Finally, she pulled out her five economics books and a marked-up copy of Melissa’s paper and spread everything on her bed. You are going to win, her mother’s voice rang in her ear.
After a mind-numbing hour of rehearsing parts of Melissa’s paper in front of the mirror, Spencer heard a knock at the little adjoining door that led to the next suite. She sat up, confused. That door led to Melissa’s room.
Another knock. Spencer slid out of bed and crept toward the door. She glanced at her cell phone, but it was impassive and blank. “Hello?” Spencer called softly.
“Spencer?” Ian called hoarsely. “Hey. I think our rooms connect. Can I come in?”
“Um,” Spencer stammered. The adjoining door made a few clanking noises, then opened. Ian had changed out of his dress shirt and khakis into a T-shirt and Ksubi jeans. Spencer curled up her fingers, afraid and excited.
Ian looked around Spencer’s suite. “Your room is huge compared to ours.”
Spencer clasped her hands behind her back, trying not to beam. This was probably the first time ever she’d gotten a better room than Melissa. Ian gazed at the books splayed out on Spencer’s bed, then shoved them aside and sat down. “Studying, huh?”
“Sort of.” Spencer stayed glued to the table, afraid to move.
“Too bad. I thought we could take a walk or something. Melissa’s sleeping, after just one of those to-go cocktails. She’s such a lightweight.” Ian winked.
Outside, a series of cabs honked their horns, and a neon light blinked on and off. The look on Ian’s face was the same one Spencer remembered from years ago, when he’d stood in her driveway, about to kiss her. Spencer poured a glass of ice water from the pitcher on the table and took a long gulp, an idea forming in her mind. She actually had questions for Ian…about Melissa, about Ali, about the missing pieces of her memory, and about the dangerous, almost taboo suspicion that had been growing in her mind since Sunday.
Spencer set down her glass, her heart thumping hard. She tugged at her oversize University of Pennsylvania T-shirt so that it fell off one of her shoulders. “So, I know a secret about you,” she murmured.
“About me?” Ian thumbed his chest. “What is it?”
Spencer pushed some of her books aside and sat next to Ian. When she inhaled his Kiehl’s Pineapple Papaya facial scrub smell—Spencer knew the whole Kiehl’s skincare line by heart, she loved it so much—her head felt faint. “I know that you and a certain little blond girl used to be more than just friends.”
Ian smiled lazily. “And would that little blond girl be…you?”
“No…” Spencer pursed her lips. “Ali.”
Ian’s mouth twitched. “Ali and I hooked up once or twice, that’s it.” He poked Spencer’s bare knee. Tingles shot up Spencer’s back. “I liked kissing you more.”
Spencer leaned back, perplexed. In their last fight, Ali had told Spencer that she and Ian were together, and that Ian only kissed Spencer because Ali made him. Why, then, did Ian always seem so flirty with Spencer? “Did my sister know you hooked up with Ali?”
Ian scoffed. “Of course not. You know how jealous she gets.”
Spencer stared out over Lexington Avenue, counting ten yellow taxis in a row. “So were you and Melissa really together the whole night Ali went missing?”
Ian leaned back on his elbows, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “You Hastings girls are something. Melissa’s been talking about that night too. I think she’s nervous that cop is going to find out that we were drinking, since we were underage. But so what? It was over four years ago. No one’s going to bust us for it now.”
“She’s been…nervous?” Spencer whispered, her eyes widening.
Ian lowered his eyes seductively. “Why don’t you forget about all that Rosewood stuff for a little while?” He brushed Spencer’s hair off her forehead. “Let’s just make out instead.”
Desire teemed through her. Ian’s face came closer and closer, blocking out Spencer’s view of the buildings across the street. His hand kneaded her knee. “We shouldn’t do this,” she whispered. “It’s not right.”
“Sure it is,” Ian whispered back.
And then, there was another knock on her adjoining door.
“Spencer?” Melissa’s voice was thick. “Are you there?”
Spencer sprang out of bed, knocking her books and notes to the floor. “Y-yeah.”
“Do you know where Ian went?” her sister called.
When she heard Melissa turning the adjoining door’s knob, Spencer frantically gestured Ian toward the front door. He leaped off the bed, straightened his clothes, and slipped out of the room, just as Melissa pushed the door open.
Her sister had shoved her black silk sleeping mask onto her forehead and wore striped Kate Spade pajama pants and bottoms. She raised her nose slightly to the air, almost as if she was sniffing for Kiehl’s Pineapple Papaya. “Why is your room so much bigger than mine?” Melissa finally said.
They both heard the mechanical sound of Ian’s key card sliding into his door. Melissa turned around, her hair swinging. “Oh, there you are. Where’d you go?”
“To the vending machines.” Ian’s voice was buttery and smooth. Melissa shut the adjoining door without even saying good-bye.
Spencer flopped back on the bed. “So close,” she groaned loudly, although, she hoped, not loud enough for Melissa and Ian to hear.
23
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
When Hanna opened her eyes, she was behind the wheel of her Toyota Prius. But hadn’t the doctors told her she shouldn’t drive with a broken arm? Shouldn’t she be in bed, with her miniature Doberman, Dot, by her side?
“Hanna.�
�� A blurry figure sat next to her in the passenger seat. Hanna could only tell that it was a girl with blond hair—her vision was way too blurry to see anything else. “Hey, Hanna,” the voice said again. It sounded like…
“Ali?” Hanna croaked.
“That’s right.” Ali leaned close to Hanna’s face. The tips of her hair grazed Hanna’s cheek. “I’m A,” she whispered.
“What?” Hanna cried, her eyes wide.
Ali sat up straight. “I said, I’m okay.” Then she opened the door and fled into the night.
Hanna’s vision snapped into focus. She was sitting in the parking lot of the Hollis Planetarium. A big poster that said THE BIG BANG flapped in the wind.
Hanna shot up, panting. She was in her cavernous bedroom, snuggled under her cashmere blanket. Dot was curled up in a ball on his little Gucci dog bed. To her right was her closet, with its racks and racks of beautiful, expensive clothes. She took deep breaths, trying to get her bearings. “Jesus,” she said out loud.
The doorbell rang. Hanna groaned and sat up, feeling like her head was stuffed with straw. What had she just dreamed about? Ali? The Big Bang? A?
The doorbell rang again. Dot was now out of his dog bed, jiggling up and down at Hanna’s closed door. It was Friday morning, and when Hanna checked her bedside clock, she realized it was after ten. Her mom was long gone, if she’d even come home last night at all. Hanna had fallen asleep on the couch, and Mona had helped her upstairs to bed.
“Coming,” Hanna said, pulling on her navy blue silk robe, sweeping her hair into a quick ponytail, and checking her face in the mirror. She winced. The stitches on her chin were still jagged and black. They reminded her of the crisscrossed laces on a football.
When she peeped through the panels of her front door, she saw Lucas standing on the porch. Hanna’s heart immediately sped up. She checked her reflection in the hallway mirror and pushed back a few strands of hair. Feeling like a circus fat lady in her billowing silk robe, she considered running back upstairs and putting on real clothes.
Then she stopped herself, letting out a haughty laugh. What was she doing? She couldn’t like Lucas. He was…Lucas.
Hanna wriggled her shoulders, let out a breath, and flung open the door. “Hi,” she said, trying to act bored.
“Hi,” Lucas said back.
They stared at each other for what seemed like ages. Hanna was certain Lucas could hear her heart beating. She wanted to muzzle it. Dot danced around their legs, but Hanna was too transfixed to reach down and shoo him away.
“Is this a bad time?” Lucas asked cautiously.
“Um, no,” Hanna said quickly. “Come in.”
When she backed up, she nearly tripped over a carved Buddha doorstop that had been in her hallway for at least ten years. She wheeled her arms around, trying to keep herself from falling. Suddenly, she felt Lucas’s strong arms wrap around her waist. When he pulled Hanna upright again, they stared at each other. The corner of Lucas’s mouth curled into a smile. He leaned to her, and his mouth was on hers. Hanna melted into him. They danced over to the couch and fell down onto the cushions, Lucas carefully maneuvering around her sling. After minutes of nothing but smacking and slurping noises, Hanna rolled over, catching her breath. She let out a whimper and covered her face in her hands.
“I’m sorry.” Lucas sat back up. “Should I not have done that?”
Hanna shook her head. She certainly couldn’t tell him that for the past two days, she’d been fantasizing that this would happen again. Or that she had an eerie feeling that she’d kissed Lucas before their kiss on Wednesday—only, how was that possible?
She pulled her hands away from her face. “I thought you said you were in the ESP club at school,” she said quietly, remembering something Lucas had told her on their balloon ride. “Shouldn’t you telepathically know if you should’ve done that or not?”
Lucas smirked and poked her bare knee. “Well, then, I would guess that you did want me to. And that you want me to do it again.”
Hanna licked her lips, feeling as though the thousands of wild butterflies she’d seen at the Museum of Natural History a few years ago were fluttering around in her stomach. When Lucas reached out and lightly touched the inside of her elbow, where all the IVs had been, Hanna thought she was going to dissolve into goo. She ducked her head and let out a groan. “Lucas…I just don’t know.”
He sat back. “What don’t you know?”
“I just…I mean…Mona…” She waved her hands futilely. This wasn’t coming out right at all, not that she had any idea what she was trying to say.
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “What about Mona?”
Hanna picked up the stuffed dog her father had given her in the hospital. It was supposed to be Cornelius Maximillian, a character they’d made up when Hanna was younger. “We just became friends again,” she said in a small eggshell of a voice, hoping that Lucas knew what that meant without her having to explain.
Lucas leaned back. “Hanna…I think you should watch out for Mona.”
Hanna dropped Cornelius Maximillian to her lap. “What do you mean?”
“I just mean…I don’t think she wants the best for you.”
Hanna’s mouth fell open. “Mona’s been by my side at the hospital this whole time! And you know, if this has something to do with the fight at her party, she told me about it. I’m over it. It’s fine.”
Lucas studied Hanna carefully. “It’s fine?”
“Yes,” Hanna snapped.
“So…you’re okay with what she did to you?” Lucas sounded shocked.
Hanna looked away. Yesterday, after they’d finished talking about A and interviewed the male models and the other girls had left, Hanna found a bottle of Stoli Vanil in the same cabinet where her mother hid her wedding china. She and Mona had flopped down in the den, turned on A Walk to Remember, and played their Mandy Moore drinking game. Whenever Mandy looked fat, they drank. Whenever Mandy pouted, they drank. Whenever Mandy sounded robotic, they drank. They didn’t talk about the note A had sent Mona—the one about their fight. Hanna was certain they’d just bickered about something stupid, like party pictures or whether Justin Timberlake was an idiot. Mona always said he was, and Hanna always said he wasn’t.
Lucas blinked furiously. “She didn’t tell you, did she?”
Hanna breathed forcefully out of her nose. “It doesn’t matter, okay?”
“Okay,” Lucas said, holding up his hands in surrender.
“Okay,” Hanna stated again, squaring her shoulders. But when she closed her eyes, she saw herself in her Prius again. The Hollis Planetarium flag flapped behind her. Her eyes stung from crying. Something—maybe her BlackBerry—beeped at the bottom of her bag. Hanna tried to grab hold of the memory, but it was useless.
She could feel warmth radiating off Lucas’s body, he was sitting so close. He didn’t smell like cologne or fancy deodorant or other weird things boys sprayed on themselves, but just kind of like skin and toothpaste. If only they lived in a world where Hanna could have both things—Lucas and Mona. But she knew that if she wanted to stay who she was, that wasn’t possible.
Hanna reached out and grabbed Lucas’s hand. A sob welled up in her throat, for reasons she couldn’t explain or even understand completely. As she moved forward to kiss him, she tried yet again to access her memory of what was surely the night of her accident. But, as usual, there was nothing there.
24
SPENCER GETS THE GUILLOTINE
Friday morning, Spencer stepped into Daniel on Sixty-fifth Street between Madison and Park, a quiet, well-maintained block somewhere between Midtown Manhattan and the Upper East Side. It looked like she’d stepped onto the set of Marie Antoinette. The restaurant’s walls were made of carved marble, which reminded Spencer of creamy white chocolate. Luxurious dark red curtains billowed, and small, elegantly sculpted topiaries lined the entrance to the main dining room. Spencer decided that when she earned her millions, she would design her house to look exactly like
this.
Her entire family was right behind her, Melissa and Ian included. “Do you have all your notes?” her mother murmured, fiddling with one of the buttons on her pink houndstooth Chanel suit—she was dressed as if she were going to be interviewed. Spencer nodded. Not only did she have them, she’d alphabetized them.
Spencer tried to quell the churning feelings in her stomach, although the smell of scrambled eggs and truffle oil wafting in from the dining room wasn’t helping. There was a sign that said GOLDEN ORCHID INTERVIEW CHECK-IN over the hostess station. “Spencer Hastings,” she said to a shiny-haired Parker Posey look-alike who was taking names.
The girl found Spencer on the list, smiled, and handed her a laminated name tag. “You’re at table six,” she said, gesturing toward the dining room entrance. Spencer saw bustling waiters, giant flower arrangements, and a few adults milling about, chatting and drinking coffee. “We’ll call you when we’re ready,” the check-in girl assured her.
Melissa and Ian examined a marble statuette near the bar. Spencer’s father had migrated out to the street and was talking to someone on his cell phone. Her mom was on her cell phone, too, half-concealed behind one of Daniel’s bloodred curtains. Spencer heard her say, “So we’re booked? Well, fantastic. She’ll love it.”
I’ll love what? Spencer wanted to ask. But she wondered if her mom wanted to keep it a surprise until after Spencer won.
Melissa slipped off to the bathroom, and Ian plopped down on the chaise beside Spencer. “Excited?” He grinned. “You should be. This is huge.”
Spencer wished that just once, Ian would smell like rotting vegetables or dog breath—it would make it much easier to be near him. “You didn’t tell Melissa you were in my room last night, did you?” she whispered.