by Sara Shepard
“You’re so cute.” Maya looped her hands behind her back and swung her hips back and forth. Emily wondered what she meant by cute. Was that a California thing?
“So, well, have fun at swimming,” Maya said. “And thanks for showing me around today.”
“Sure.” Emily stepped forward, and their bodies smushed together in a hug.
“Mmm,” Maya said, squeezing tighter. The girls stepped back and grinned at each other for a second. Then Maya leaned forward and kissed Emily on both cheeks. “Mwah, mwah!” she said. “Like the French.”
“Well, then, I’ll be French too.” Emily giggled, forgetting about Ali and the tree for a second. “Mwah!” She kissed Maya’s smooth left cheek.
Then Maya kissed her again, on her right cheek, except now just a teensy bit closer to her mouth. There was no mwah this time.
Maya’s mouth smelled like banana bubble gum. Emily jerked back and caught her swimming bag before it slid off her shoulder. When she looked up, Maya was grinning.
“I’ll see ya,” Maya said. “Be good.”
Emily folded her towel into her swim bag after practice. The whole afternoon had been a blur. After Maya skipped into her house, Emily jogged back to school—as if running would untangle the jumble of feelings inside her. As she slipped into the water and swam lap after lap, she saw those haunting initials on the tree. When Coach blew her whistle and they practiced starts and turns, she smelled Maya’s banana gum and heard her fun, easy laugh. Standing at her locker, she was pretty sure she’d shampooed her hair twice. Most of the other girls had stayed in the communal showers for longer, gossiping, but Emily was too spaced out to join them.
As she reached for her T-shirt and jeans, folded neatly on the shelf in her locker, a note came fluttering out. Emily’s name was written on the front in plain, unfamiliar handwriting, and she didn’t recognize the graph notebook paper. She picked it up off the cold, wet floor.
Hey Em,
Sob! I’ve been replaced! You found another friend to kiss!
—A
Emily curled her toes around the rubber locker room mat and stopped breathing for a second. She looked around. No one was looking at her.
Was this for real?
She stared at the note and tried to think rationally. She and Maya were out in the open, but no one was around.
And…I’ve been replaced? Another friend to kiss? Emily’s hands trembled. She looked at the signature again. Laughter from the other swimmers echoed off the walls.
Emily had kissed just one other friend. It was two days after she carved their initials into that oak tree and just a week and a half before the end of seventh grade.
Alison.
7
SPENCER’S GOT A TIGHT POSTERIOR (DELTOID)
“Look at his butt!”
“Shut up!” Spencer knocked her friend Kirsten Cullen in the shin guard with her field hockey stick. They were supposed to be running defense drills, but they—along with the rest of the team—were too busy sizing up this year’s new assistant coach. He was none other than Ian Thomas.
Spencer’s skin prickled with adrenaline. Talk about weird; she remembered Melissa mentioning that Ian had moved to California. But then, a lot of people who you wouldn’t expect ended up back in Rosewood.
“Your sister was so stupid to break up with him,” Kirsten said. “He’s so hot.”
“Shhh,” Spencer answered, giggling. “And anyway, my sister didn’t break up with him. He broke up with her.”
The whistle blew. “Get moving!” Ian called to them, jogging over. Spencer leaned over to tie her shoe, as if she didn’t care. She felt his eyes on her.
“Spencer? Spencer Hastings?”
Spencer stood up slowly. “Oh. Ian, right?”
Ian’s smile was so wide, Spencer was surprised his cheeks didn’t rip. He still had that All-American, I’m-going-to-take-over-my-father’s-company-at-twenty-five look, but now his curly hair was a little longer and messier. “You’re all grown up!” he cried.
“I guess.” Spencer shrugged.
Ian ran his hand against the back of his neck. “How’s your sister these days?”
“Um, she’s good. Graduated early. Going to Wharton.”
Ian bent his head down. “And are her boyfriends still hitting on you?”
Spencer’s mouth dropped open. Before she could answer, the head coach, Ms. Campbell, blew her whistle and called Ian over.
Kirsten grabbed Spencer’s arm once his back was turned. “You totally hooked up with him, didn’t you?”
“Shut up!” Spencer shot back.
As Ian jogged to center field, he glanced back at her over his shoulder. Spencer drew in her breath and leaned over to examine her cleat. She didn’t want him to know she’d been staring.
By the time she got home from practice, every part of Spencer’s body hurt, from her ass to her shoulders to her little toes. She’d spent the whole summer organizing committees, boning up on SAT words, and playing the lead in three different plays at Muesli, Rosewood’s community theater—Miss Jean Brodie in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Emily in Our Town, and Ophelia in Hamlet. With all that, she hadn’t had time to keep in top shape for field hockey, and she was feeling it now.
All she wanted to do was go upstairs, crawl into bed, and not think about tomorrow and what another overachieving day would hold: French club breakfast, reading the morning announcements, five AP classes, drama tryouts, a quick appearance at yearbook committee, and another grueling field hockey practice with Ian.
She opened the mailbox at the bottom of their private drive, hoping to find the scores for her PSATs. They were supposed to be in any day now, and she’d had a good feeling about them—a better feeling, in fact, than she’d ever had about any other test. Unfortunately, there were just a pile of bills, info from her dad’s many investment accounts, and a brochure addressed to Ms. Spencer J (for Jill) Hastings from Appleboro College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Yeah, as if she’d go there.
Inside the house, she put the mail on the marble-topped kitchen island, rubbed her shoulder, and had a thought: The backyard hot tub. A relaxing soak. Awww, yeah.
She greeted Rufus and Beatrice, the family’s two labradoodles, and threw a couple of King Kong toys out into the yard for them to chase. Then she dragged herself along the flagstone path toward the pool’s changing room. Pausing at the door, ready to shower and change into her bikini, she realized, Who cares? She was too tired to change, and nobody was home. And the hot tub was surrounded by rose bushes. As she approached, it burbled, as if anticipating her arrival. She stripped down to her bra, undies, and tall field hockey socks, did a deep forward bend to loosen up her back, and climbed into the steaming tub. Now that was more like it.
“Oh.”
Spencer turned. Wren stood next to the roses, naked to the waist, wearing the sexiest boxer brief Polo underwear she’d ever seen.
“Oops,” he said, covering himself with a towel. “Sorry.”
“You don’t get here until tomorrow,” she blurted, even though he was very clearly here, right now, which was obviously today and not tomorrow at all.
“We don’t. But your sister and I were at Frou,” Wren said, making a little face. Frou was this haughty store a few towns over that sold single pillowcases for about a thousand dollars. “She had to run another errand and told me to play with myself here.”
Spencer hoped that was just some bizarre English expression. “Oh,” she said.
“Did you just get home?”
“I was at field hockey,” Spencer said, leaning back and relaxing a little. “First practice of the year.”
Spencer glanced at her blurry body under the water. Oh God, she was still wearing her socks. And her high-waisted, sweaty panties and Champion sports bra! She kicked herself for not changing into the yellow Eres bikini she’d just bought but then realized how absurd that was.
“So, I was just planning to have a soak, but if you want to be alone, that’s okay too,” Wren said. �
��I’ll just go inside and watch TV.” He started to turn.
Spencer felt a tiny twinge of disappointment. “Um, no,” she said. He stopped. “You can come in. I don’t care.” Quickly, while his back was turned, she yanked off her socks and threw them into the bushes. They landed with a soggy slap.
“If you’re sure, Spencer,” Wren said. Spencer loved the way he said her name with his British accent—Spen-saah.
He shyly slid into the tub. Spencer stayed very far on her side, curling her legs under her. Wren leaned his head back on the concrete deck and sighed. Spencer did the same and tried not to think about how her legs were getting really cramped and sore in this position. She stretched one tentatively and touched Wren’s sinewy calf.
She jerked her leg away. “Sorry.”
“No worries,” Wren said. “So field hockey, huh? I rowed for Oxford.”
“Really?” Spencer said, hoping she didn’t sound too gushy. Her favorite driving-into-Philadelphia sight was of the Penn and Temple men’s crew teams rowing on the Schuylkill River.
“Yeah,” he said. “I loved it. Do you love field hockey?”
“Um, not really.” Spencer took her hair out of its ponytail and shook her head around but then wondered if Wren would find this really skanky and ridiculous. She’d probably imagined the spark between them outside Moshulu.
But then, Wren had gotten into the hot tub with her.
“So if you don’t like field hockey, why do you play?” Wren asked.
“Because it looks good on a college application.”
Now Wren sat up a little, making the water ripple. “It does?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Spencer shifted and winced when her shoulder muscle cramped into her neck.
“You okay?” Wren asked.
“Yeah, it’s nothing,” Spencer said, and inexplicably felt an overwhelming wave of despair. It was only the first day of school, and she was already burned out. She thought of all the homework she had to do, lists she had to make, and lines she had to memorize. She was too busy to freak out, but that was the only thing keeping her from freaking out.
“Is it your shoulder?”
“I think,” Spencer said, trying to rotate it. “In field hockey, you spend so much time bending over, and I don’t know if I pulled it or what….”
“I bet I could fix it for you.”
Spencer stared at him. She suddenly had an urge to run her fingers through his shaggy hair. “That’s okay. Thanks, though.”
“Really,” he said. “I’m not going to bite you.”
Spencer hated when people said that.
“I’m a doctor,” Wren continued. “I bet it’s your posterior deltoid.”
“Um, okay…”
“Your shoulder muscle.” He motioned for her to come closer. “C’mere. Seriously. We just need to soften the muscle.”
Spencer tried not to read into that. He was a doctor, after all. He was being doctorly. She drifted to him, and he pressed his hands into the middle of her back. His thumbs dug into the little muscles around her spine. Spencer closed her eyes.
“Wow. That’s awesome,” she murmured.
“You just have some fluid buildup in your bursa sac,” he said. Spencer tried not to giggle at the word sac. When he reached under her sports bra strap to dig deeper, she swallowed hard. She tried to think about nonsexual things—her uncle Daniel’s nose hair, the constipated look her mom got on her face when she rode a horse, the time her cat, Kitten, carried a dead mole from the creek out back and left it in her bedroom. He’s a doctor, she told herself. This is just what doctors do.
“Your pectorals are a little tight too,” Wren said, and, horrifyingly, moved his hand to the front of her body. He slid his fingers under her bra again, rubbing just above her chest, and suddenly the bra strap fell off her shoulder. Spencer breathed in but he didn’t move away. This is a doctor thing, she reminded herself again. But then she realized: Wren was a first-year med student. He will be a doctor, she corrected herself. One day. In about ten years.
“Um, where’s my sister?” she asked quietly.
“The store, I think? Wawa?”
“Wawa?” Spencer jerked away from Wren and pulled her bra strap back on her shoulder. “Wawa’s only a mile away! If she’s going there, she’s just picking up cigarettes or something. She’ll be back any minute!”
“I don’t think she smokes,” Wren said, tilting his head questioningly.
“You know what I mean!” Spencer stood up in the tub, grabbed her Ralph Lauren towel, and began violently drying her hair. She felt so hot. Her skin, bones—even her organs and nerves—felt like they’d been braised in the hot tub. She climbed out and fled to the house, in search of a giant glass of water.
“Spencer,” Wren called after her. “I didn’t mean to…I was just trying to help.”
But Spencer didn’t listen. She ran up to her room and looked around. Her stuff was still in boxes, still packed up to move to the barn. Suddenly she wanted everything organized. Her jewelry box needed to be sorted by gemstone. Her computer was clogged with old English papers from two years ago, and even though they’d gotten A’s back then they were probably embarrassingly bad and should be deleted. She stared at the books in the boxes. They needed to be arranged by subject matter, not by author. Obviously. She pulled them out and started shelving, starting with Adultery and The Scarlet Letter.
But by the time she got to Utopias Gone Wrong, she still didn’t feel any better. So she switched on her computer and pressed her wireless mouse, which was comfortingly cool, to the back of her neck.
She clicked on her e-mail and saw an unopened letter. The subject line read, SAT vocab. Curious, she clicked on it.
Spencer,
Covet is an easy one. When someone covets something, they desire and lust after it.
Usually it’s something they can’t have. You’ve always had that problem, though, haven’t you?
—A
Spencer’s stomach seized. She looked around.
Who. The. Fuck. Could. Have. Seen?
She threw open her bedroom’s biggest window, but the Hastingses’ circular driveway was empty. Spencer looked around. A few cars swished past. The neighbors’ lawn service guy was trimming a hedge by their front gate. Her dogs were chasing each other around the side yard. Some birds flew to the top of a telephone pole.
Then, something caught her eye in the neighbor’s upstairs window: a flash of blondish hair. But wasn’t the new family black? An icy shiver crept up Spencer’s spine. That was Ali’s old window.
8
WHERE ARE THE DAMN GIRL SCOUTS WHEN YOU NEED THEM?
Hanna sank farther into the squishy cushions of her couch and tried to unbutton Sean’s Paper Denim jeans.
“Whoa,” Sean said. “We can’t….”
Hanna smiled mysteriously and put a finger to her lips. She started kissing Sean’s neck. He smelled like Lever 2000 and, strangely, chocolate, and she loved how his recently buzzed haircut showed off all the sexy angles of his face. She’d loved him since sixth grade and he’d only gotten handsomer with each passing year.
As they kissed, Hanna’s mother, Ashley, unlocked the front door and walked inside, chatting on her teensy LG flip phone.
Sean recoiled against the couch cushions. “She’ll see!” he whispered, quickly tucking in his pale blue Lacoste polo.
Hanna shrugged. Her mom waved at them blankly and walked into the other room. Her mom paid more attention to her BlackBerry than she did to Hanna. Because of her work schedule, she and Hanna didn’t bond much, aside from periodic checkups on homework, notes on which shops were running the best sales, and reminders that she should clean her room in case any of the execs coming to her cocktail party needed to use the upstairs bathroom. But Hanna was mostly okay with that. After all, her mom’s job was what paid Hanna’s AmEx bill—she wasn’t always taking things—and her pricey tuition at Rosewood Day.
“I have to go,” Sean murmured.
“You should come over on Saturday,” Hanna purred. “My mom’s going to be at the spa all day.”
“I’ll see you at Noel’s party on Friday,” Sean said. “And you know this is hard enough.”
Hanna groaned. “It doesn’t have to be so hard,” she whined.
He leaned down to kiss her. “See you tomorrow.”
After Sean let himself out, she buried her face in the couch pillow. Dating Sean still felt like a dream. Back when Hanna was chubby and lame, she’d adored how tall and athletic he was, how he was always really nice to teachers and kids who were less cool, and how he dressed well, not like a color-blind slob. She never stopped liking him, even after she shed her last few stubborn inches and discovered defrizzing hair products. So last school year, she casually whispered to James Freed in study hall that she liked Sean, and Colleen Rink told her three periods later that Sean was going to call Hanna on her cell that night after soccer. It was yet another moment Hanna was pissed Ali wasn’t here to witness.
They’d been a couple for seven months and Hanna felt more in love with him than ever. She hadn’t told him yet—she’d kept that to herself for years—but now, she was pretty sure he loved her too. And wasn’t sex the best way to express love?
That was why the virginity pledge thing made no sense. It wasn’t as if Sean’s parents were overly religious, and it went against every preconceived notion Hanna had about guys. Despite how she used to look, Hanna had to hand it to herself: With her deep brown hair, curvy body, and flawless—we’re talking no pimples, ever—skin, she was hot. Who wouldn’t fall madly in love with her? Sometimes she wondered if Sean was gay—he did have a lot of nice clothes—or if he had a fear of vaginas.
Hanna called for her miniature pinscher, Dot, to hop up on the couch. “Did you miss me today?” she squealed as Dot licked her hand. Hanna had petitioned to let Dot come to school in her oversize Prada handbag—all the girls in Beverly Hills did it, after all—but Rosewood Day said no. So to prevent separation anxiety, Hanna had bought Dot the snuggliest Gucci bed money could buy and left QVC on her bedroom TV during the day.