Perfect pll-3

by Sara Shepard

  Becka smiled sheepishly. “So do you.” She inspected Wendy almost in disbelief, as if Wendy had been resurrected from the dead. “You cut your hair.”

  Wendy touched it self-consciously. “Is it too short?”

  “No!” Becka said quickly. “It’s really cute.”

  Both of them kept smiling and giggling. Emily coughed, and Becka looked over. “Oh! This is Emily. My new Tree Tops friend.”

  Emily shook Wendy’s hand. Wendy’s short fingernails were painted seashell pink, and there was a Pokémon appliqué on her thumb.

  Wendy sat down and started lacing up her skates. “Do you guys skate a lot?” Emily asked. “You both have your own skates.”

  “We used to,” Wendy said, glancing at Becka. “We took lessons together. Well…sort of.”

  Becka giggled and Emily glanced at her, confused. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Becka answered. “Just…remember the skate rental room, Wendy?”

  “Oh my God.” Wendy clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “The look on that guy’s face!”

  Oh-kaaay. Emily coughed again, and Becka immediately stopped laughing, as if she realized where she was—or, perhaps, who she was.

  When Wendy finished lacing up, they all stepped onto the rink. Wendy and Becka immediately twirled around and began skating backward. Emily, who only knew how to skate forward in a somewhat jerky fashion, felt bumbling and oafish next to them.

  No one said anything for a while. Emily listened to the slicing noises their skates made in the ice. “So, are you still seeing Jeremy?” Wendy asked Becka.

  Becka chewed on the end of her wool mitten. “Not really.”

  “Who’s Jeremy?” Emily asked, skirting around a blond girl in a Brownie uniform.

  “A guy I met at Tree Tops,” Becka answered. She glanced at Wendy uncomfortably. “We went out for a month or two. It didn’t really work out.”

  Wendy shrugged and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I was going out with a girl from history class, but it didn’t go anywhere either. And I have a blind date next week, but I’m not sure if I’ll go. Apparently she’s into hip-hop.” She wrinkled her nose.

  Emily suddenly realized that Wendy had said she. Before she could ask, Becka cleared her throat. Her jaw was tense. “I might go on a blind date, too,” she said, louder than usual. “With another boy from Tree Tops.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” Wendy said stiffly, spinning to skate forward again. Only, she didn’t take her eyes off Becka, and Becka didn’t take her eyes off Wendy. Becka skated up next to Wendy, it seemed like she purposefully bumped hands.

  The lights dimmed. A disco ball descended from the ceiling and colored lights swirled around the rink. Everyone except for a few couples tottered off the ice. “Couples skate,” said an Isaac Hayes imposter over the loudspeaker. “Grab the one you love.”

  The three of them collapsed on a nearby bench as Unchained Melody belted out of the speakers. Ali had once remarked that she was tired of sitting out of couples skate. “Why don’t we just skate together, Em?” she suggested, offering Emily her hand. Emily would never forget what it felt like to wrap her arms around Ali. To smell the sweet, Granny Smith apple scent of Ali’s neck. To squeeze Ali’s hands when Ali lost her balance, to accidentally brush her arm against Ali’s bare skin.

  Emily wondered if she’d remember that event differently next week. Would Tree Tops wipe those feelings from her mind, the way the Zamboni machine smoothed away all the nicks and skate-marks from the ice?

  “I’ll be back,” Emily murmured, stumbling clumsily on the blades of her skates to the bathroom. Inside, she ran her hands under scalding hot water and stared at herself in the streaky mirror. Doing Tree Tops was the right decision, she told her reflection. It was the only decision. After Tree Tops, she would probably date boys just like Becka did. Right?

  When she walked back to the rink, she noticed that Becka and Wendy had left the bench. Emily plopped down, figuring they’d gone to get a snack, and stared at the darkened rink. She saw couples with their hands intertwined. Others were attempting to kiss while skating. One couple hadn’t even made it to the ice—they were going at it by one of the entrances. The girl plunged her hands into the guy’s curly dark hair.

  The slow song abruptly ended and the fluorescent lights snapped back on. Emily’s eyes widened at the couple by the door. The girl wore a familiar lace headband. Both were wearing white ice skates. The guy’s had rainbow laces. And…he was in a pink A-line dress.

  Becka and Wendy saw Emily at the same time. Becka’s mouth went round, and Wendy looked away. Emily could feel herself shaking.

  Becka walked over and stood next to Emily. She exhaled a puff of frosty air. “I guess I should explain, huh?”

  The ice smelled cold, like snow. Someone had left a single, child-size red mitten on the next bench over. On the rink, a child swooped by and cried, “I’m an airplane!” Emily stared at Becka. Her chest felt tight.

  “I thought Tree Tops worked,” Emily said quietly.

  Becka ran her hands through her long hair. “I thought it did, too. But after seeing Wendy…well, I guess you got the picture.” She pulled her Fair Isle sweater’s cuffs down over her hands. “Maybe you can’t really change.”

  A hot feeling spread in Emily’s stomach. Thinking that Tree Tops could change something so fundamental about her had scared her. It seemed so against the principles of…of being human, maybe. But it couldn’t. Maya and Becka were right—you couldn’t change who you were.

  Maya. Emily clapped her hand over her mouth. She needed to talk to Maya, right now. “Um, Becka,” she said quietly. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  Becka’s eyes softened. “Sure.”

  Emily skated for the exit. “I need you to drive me to a party. Right now. There’s someone I have to see.”

  31 THEY FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON

  Aria squinted into the lens of her Sony Handycam as Spencer adjusted the rhinestone crown perched atop her head. “Hey, guys,” Spencer whispered, sauntering over to an LG flip phone that was lying right side up on the Hastingses’ leather couch. “Want to read her texts?”

  “I do,” Hanna whispered.

  Emily stood up from her perch on the leather couch’s arm. “I don’t know….”

  “C’mon. Don’t you want to know who texted her?” Spencer demanded. Spencer, Hanna, and Emily gathered around Ali’s cell phone. Aria took the camera off the tripod and moved closer, too. She wanted to get all of this on film. All of Ali’s secrets. She zoomed in to get a good shot of the cell phone’s screen when suddenly she heard a voice from the hall.

  “Were you looking at my phone?” Ali shrieked, marching into the room.

  “Of course not!” Hanna cried. Ali eyed her cell on the couch, but then turned her attention to Melissa and Ian, who had just come into the kitchen.

  “Hey, girls,” Ian said, stepping into the family room. He glanced at Spencer. “Cute crown.”

  Aria retreated back to her tripod. Spencer, Ian, and Ali gathered on the couch, and Spencer began playing talk-show host. Suddenly, a second Ali walked right up to the camera. Her skin looked gray. Her irises were black and her neon-red lipstick was applied clownishly, in wriggly lines around her mouth.

  “Aria,” Ali’s doppelganger commanded, staring straight into the lens. “Look. The answer is right in front of you.”

  Aria furrowed her brow. The rest of the scene was rolling forward as usual—Spencer was asking Ian about base-jumping. Melissa was growing more pissed off as she put away their takeout bags. The other Ali—the normal-looking one on the couch—seemed bored. “What do you mean?” Aria whispered to the Ali in front of the lens.

  “It’s right in front of you,” Ali urged. “Look!”

  “Okay, okay,” Aria said hastily. She searched the room again. Spencer was leaning into Ian, hanging on his every word. Hanna and Emily were perched against the credenza, seeming relaxed and chill. What was Aria su
pposed to be looking for?

  “I don’t understand,” she whimpered.

  “But it’s there!” Ali screamed. “It’s. Right. There!”

  “I don’t know what to do!” Aria argued helplessly.

  “Just look!”

  Aria sprang up in bed. The room was dark. Sweat poured down her face. Her throat hurt. When she looked over, she saw Ezra lying on his side next to her, and jumped.

  “It’s okay,” Ezra said quickly, wrapping his arms around her. “It was just a dream. You’re safe.”

  Aria blinked and looked around. She wasn’t in the Hastingses’ living room but under the covers of Ezra’s futon. The bedroom, which was right off the living room, smelled like mothballs and old-lady perfume, the way all Old Hollis houses smelled. A light, peaceful breeze rippled the blinds, and a William Shakespeare bobble-head nodded on the bureau. Ezra’s arms were around her shoulders. His bare feet rubbed her ankles.

  “Bad dream?” Ezra asked. “You were screaming.”

  Aria paused. Was her dream trying to tell her something? “I’m cool,” she decided. “It was just one of those weird nightmares.”

  “You scared me,” Ezra said, squeezing her tight.

  Aria waited until her breathing returned to normal, listening to the wooden, fish-shaped wind chimes knocking together right outside Ezra’s window. Then she noticed that Ezra’s glasses were askew. “Did you fall asleep in your glasses?”

  Ezra put his hand to the bridge of his nose. “I guess,” he said sheepishly. “I fall asleep in them a lot.”

  Aria leaned forward and kissed him. “You’re such a weirdo.”

  “Not as weird as you, screamer,” Ezra teased, pulling her on top of him. “I’m going to get you.” He started to tickle her waist.

  “No!” Aria shrieked, trying to wriggle away from him.

  “Stop!”

  “Uh-uh!” Ezra bellowed. But his tickling hastily turned into caressing and kissing. Aria shut her eyes and let his hands flutter over her. Then, Ezra flopped back on the pillow. “I wish we could just go away and live somewhere else.”

  “I know Iceland really well,” Aria suggested. “Or what about Costa Rica? We could have a monkey. Or maybe Capri. We could hang out in the Blue Grotto.”

  “I always wanted to go to Capri,” Ezra said softly. “We could live on the beach and write poems.”

  “As long as our pet monkeys can write poems with us,” Aria bargained.

  “Of course,” Ezra said, kissing her nose. “We can have as many monkeys as you want.” He got a far-off look on his face, as if he were actually considering it. Aria felt her insides swell. She’d never felt so happy. This felt…right. They would make it work. She would figure out the rest of her life—Sean, A, her parents—tomorrow.

  Aria snuggled into Ezra. She started dozing off again, thinking about dancing monkeys and sandy beaches when suddenly, there was pounding at the front door. Before Aria and Ezra could react, the door split open and two policemen burst inside. Aria screamed. Ezra sat up and straightened his boxers, which had pictures of fried eggs, sausages, and pancakes all over them. The words Tasty Breakfast! were scrolled around the waistband. Aria hid under the covers—she was wearing an oversized Hollis University T-shirt of Ezra’s that barely covered her thighs.

  The cops stomped through Ezra’s living room and into his bedroom. They shined their flashlights first over Ezra, then on Aria. She wrapped the sheets around her tighter, scanning the floor for her clothes and undies. They were gone.

  “Are you Ezra Fitz?” demanded the cop, a burly, Popeye-armed man with slick black hair.

  “Uh…yeah,” Ezra stammered.

  “And you teach at Rosewood Day School?” Popeye asked. “Is this the girl? Your student?”

  “What the hell is going on?” Ezra shrieked.

  “You’re under arrest.” Popeye unhooked silver handcuffs from his belt. The other cop, who was shorter and fatter and had shiny skin that Aria could only describe as ham-colored, yanked Ezra out of bed. The threadbare, grayish sheets went with him, exposing Aria’s bare legs. She screamed and dropped to the other side of the bed to hide. She found a pair of plaid pajama pants balled up behind the radiator. She stuffed her legs into them as fast as she could.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Ham-face began. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

  “Wait!” Ezra screamed.

  But the cops didn’t listen. Ham-face spun Ezra around and snapped the cuffs on his wrists. He glanced disgustedly at Ezra’s futon. Ezra’s jeans and T-shirt were snarled up near the headboard. Aria suddenly noticed that the lacy black bra she’d had custom-fitted in Belgium was snagged on one of the bedposts. She quickly ripped it down.

  They shoved Ezra through the living room and out his own door, which hung precariously on one hinge. Aria ran after them, not even bothering to put on her checkerboard Vans, which waited in the second ballet position on the floor near the television. “You can’t do this!” she shouted.

  “We’ll deal with you next, little girl,” Popeye growled.

  She hesitated in the dingy, dimly lit front hall. The cops restrained Ezra like he was a skinny, breakfast-boxer-clad mental patient. Ham-face kept stepping on his knobby bare feet. It made Aria love him even more.

  As they bumbled out the door and onto the front porch, Aria realized someone else was in the hall with her. Her mouth fell open.

  “Sean,” Aria sputtered. “What…what are you doing here?”

  Sean was crumpled up against the gray mailbox unit, staring at Aria with dread and disappointment. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, staring pointedly at Ezra’s oversize pajama pants, which were threatening to fall down to her ankles. She quickly yanked them back up.

  “I was going to explain,” Aria mumbled.

  “Oh yeah?” Sean challenged, putting his hands on his hips. He looked sharper tonight, meaner. Not the soft Sean she knew. “How long have you been with him?”

  Aria silently stared at an Acme market coupon circular that had fallen on the floor.

  “I’ve packed up all your stuff,” Sean went on, not even waiting for her answer. “It’s on the porch. There’s no way you’re coming back to my house.”

  “But…Sean…” Aria said weakly. “Where will I go?”

  “That’s not my problem,” he snapped, storming out the front door.

  Aria felt woozy. Through the open door, she could see the cops guiding Ezra down his front walk and pushing him into a Rosewood Police cruiser. After they slammed the back door, Ezra glanced toward his house again. He looked at Aria, then Sean, then back again. There was a betrayed look on his face.

  A light switched on in Aria’s head. She followed Sean to the porch and grabbed his arm. “You called the police, didn’t you?”

  Sean crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. She felt dizzy and sick, and clutched the porch’s rusty blue-gray glider for balance.

  “Well once I got this…” Sean whipped out his cell phone and brought it close to Aria’s face. On the screen was a picture of Aria and Ezra kissing in Ezra’s office. Sean hit the side arrow. There was another photo of them kissing, just from a different angle. “I figured I should let the authorities know a teacher was with a student.” His lips curled around the word student, as if it was disgusting to him. “And on school property,” he added.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Aria whispered. And then, she noticed the text message that accompanied the last photo. Her heart sank a few thousand feet deeper.

  Dear Sean, I think someone’s girlfriend has a LOT of explaining to do.

  —A

  32 NOT-SO-SECRET LOVERS

  “And they were all over each other!” Emily took a huge sip of the sangria Maya had gotten for them from the planetarium bar. “All this time, I was afraid they could, like, change you, but it turns out that it’s fake! My sponsor’s back with her girlfriend and everything!”

  Maya g
ave Emily a crazy look, poking her in the ribs. “You seriously thought they could change you?”

  Emily leaned back. “I guess that is stupid, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Maya smiled. “But I’m glad it doesn’t work too.”

  About an hour ago, Becka and Wendy had dropped Emily off at Mona’s party and she had torn through the rooms, searching for Maya, terrified that she had left—or worse, that she was with someone else. She’d found Maya by herself near the DJ booth, wearing a black-and-white striped dress and patent-leather Mary Janes. Her hair was up in white butterfly clips.

  They had escaped outside to a little patch of grass in the planetarium’s garden. They could see the party still raging through the two-story, frosted-glass windows, but they couldn’t hear it. Shady trees, telescopes, and bushes pruned into the shapes of planets filled the garden. A few of the partygoers had spilled out and were sitting on the other side of the patio, smoking and laughing, and there was a couple making out by the giant, Saturn-shaped topiary, but Emily and Maya were pretty much sequestered. They hadn’t kissed or anything, but were merely staring up at the sky. It had to be almost midnight, which was normally Emily’s curfew, but she’d called her mom to say that she would be staying the night at Becka’s. Becka had agreed to corroborate the story, if need be.

  “Look,” Emily said, pointing at the stars. “That section of stars up there, don’t they look like they could form an E if you drew lines between them?”

  “Where?” Maya squinted.

  Emily positioned Maya’s chin correctly. “There are stars next to them that form an M.” She smiled in the darkness. “E and M. Emily and Maya. It’s, like, a sign.”

  “You and your signs,” Maya sighed. They were comfortably quiet for a second.

  “I was furious at you,” Maya said softly. “Breaking up with me in the kiln like that. Refusing to even look at me in the greenhouse.”

  Emily squeezed her hand and stared at the constellations. A tiny jet streaked past, a thousand feet up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I haven’t exactly been fair.”