Sara Shepard - Pretty Little Liars

It was a color printout from a private school’s online

newsletter. Hanna looked at the familiar people in the photo. The caption said, Kate Randall was Barnbury School’s student speaker at the benefit. Pictured here with her mother, Isabel Randall, and Ms. Randall’s fiancé, Tom Marin.

Hanna blinked quickly. Her father looked the same as when she’d last seen him. And although her heart stopped when she read the word fiancé – when had that happened? – it was the image of Kate that made her skin itch. Kate looked more perfect than ever. Her skin was glowing and her hair was perfect. She had her arms gleefully wrapped around her mom and Mr. Marin.

Hanna would never forget the moment she first saw Kate. Ali and Hanna had just gotten off Amtrak in Annapolis, and at first Hanna saw only her dad leaning up against the hood of his car. But then the car door opened, and Kate stepped out. Her long chestnut hair was straight and shiny, and she held herself like the kind of girl who’d taken ballet since she was two. Hanna’s first instinct was to crouch behind a pole. She looked at her snug jeans and stretched-out cashmere sweater and tried not to hyperventilate. This was why Dad left, she thought. He wanted a daughter who wouldn’t embarrass him.

‘Oh my God,’ Hanna whispered, searching the envelope for a return address. Nothing. Something occurred to her. The only person who really knew about Kate was Alison. Her eyes moved to the A on the note.

The Tofutti Cutie burbled in her stomach. She ran for the bathroom and grabbed the extra toothbrush in the ceramic cup next to the sink. Then she knelt down over the toilet and waited. Tears dotted the corners of her eyes. Don’t start this again, she told herself, gripping the toothbrush hard by her side. You’re better than this.

Hanna stood up and stared in the mirror. Her face was flushed, her hair was strewn around her face, and her eyes were red and puffy. Slowly, she put the toothbrush back in the cup.

‘I’m Hanna and I’m fabulous,’ she said to her reflection.

But it didn’t sound convincing. Not at all.

‘Okay.’ Aria blew her long bangs out of her eyes. ‘In this scene, you have to wear this colander on your head and talk a lot about a baby we don’t have.’

Noel frowned and brought his thumb to his pink, bow-shaped lips. ‘Why do I have to wear a colander on my head, Finland?’

‘Because,’ Aria answered. ‘It’s an absurdist play. It’s supposed to be, like, absurd.’

‘Gotcha.’ Noel grinned. It was Friday morning, and they were sitting on desks in English class. After yesterday’s Waiting for Godot disaster, Ezra’s next assignment had been for them to break up into groups and write their own existentialist plays. Existentialist was another way of saying, ‘silly and out there.’ And if anyone could do silly and out there, it was Aria.

‘I know something really absurd we could do,’ Noel said. ‘We could have this character drive a Navigator and, like, after a couple of beers, crash it into his duck pond. But he’s, like, fallen asleep at the wheel, so he doesn’t notice he’s in the duck pond until the next day. There could be ducks in the Navigator.’

Aria frowned. ‘How could we stage all that? It sounds impossible.’

‘I don’t know.’ Noel shrugged. ‘But that happened to me last year. And it was really absurd. And awesome.’

Aria sighed. She hadn’t exactly chosen Noel to be her partner because she thought he’d be a good cowriter. She looked around for Ezra, but he unfortunately wasn’t watching them in fitful jealousy. ‘How about if we make one of the characters think he’s a duck?’ she suggested. ‘He could randomly quack.’

‘Um, sure.’ Noel wrote that down on a piece of lined paper with a gnawed-up Montblanc pen. ‘Hey, maybe we could shoot this with my dad’s Canon DV camera? And have this as a movie instead of a boring play?’

Aria paused. ‘Actually, that would be kind of cool.’

Noel smiled. ‘Then we could keep the Navigator scene!’

‘I guess.’ Aria wondered if the Kahns really had a spare Navigator to crash. Probably.

Noel nudged Mason Byers, who was paired up with James Freed. ‘Dude. We’re going to have a Navigator in our play! And pyrotechnics!’

‘Wait. Pyrotechnics?’ Aria asked.

‘Nice!’ Mason said.

Aria clamped her lips shut. Honestly, she didn’t have the energy for this. Last night, she hardly slept. Plagued by yesterday’s cryptic text message, she’d spent half the night thinking and furiously knitting a purple hat with earflaps.

It was awful to think that someone knew not only about her and Ezra, but also about that stuff with her dad. What if this A person sent her mom messages next? What if A already had? Aria didn’t want her mom to find out – not now, and not that way.

Aria also couldn’t shake the idea that the A message might actually be from Alison. There just weren’t that many people who knew. A few faculty members maybe, and Meredith knew, obviously. But they didn’t know Aria.

If the text was from Alison, that meant she was alive. Or ... not. What if the texts were from Ali’s ghost? A ghost could have easily slid between the cracks of the women’s bathroom at Snookers. And spirits from the dead sometimes contacted the living to make amends, right? It was like their final homework assignment before graduating to heaven.

If Ali needed to make amends, though, Aria could think of a more deserving candidate than her. Try Jenna. Aria put her hands over her eyes, blocking out the memory. Screw therapy that said you should face your demons: She tried to block out The Jenna Thing as much as she tried to block out her dad and Meredith.

Aria sighed. At times like this, she wished she hadn’t drifted from her old friends. Like Hanna, a few desks over – if only Aria could walk up to Hanna and talk to her about this, ask her questions about Ali. But time really changed people. She wondered if it would be easier to talk to Spencer or Emily instead.

‘Hey there.’

Aria straightened up. Ezra was standing in front of her desk. ‘Hi,’ she squeaked.

She met his blue eyes and her heart ached.

Ezra tilted his hips awkwardly. ‘How are you?’

‘Um, I’m . . . great. Really awesome.’ She sat up straight. On the plane back from Iceland, Aria had read in a Seventeen she found in her seat pocket that boys liked enthusiastic, positive girls. And since brilliant hadn’t worked yesterday, why not try out peppy?

Ezra clicked and unclicked his Bic pen. ‘Listen, sorry to cut you off yesterday in the middle of your speech. Do you want to give me your index cards so I can take a look at them and grade you?’

‘Okay.’ Huh. Would Ezra do that for the other students? ‘So . . . how are you?’

‘Good.’ Ezra smiled. His lips twitched as if he wanted to say more. ‘What’re you working on, there?’ He placed his hands on her desk and leaned over to look at her notebook. Aria stared at his hands for a moment, then slid her pinkie finger up against his. She tried to make it look like an accident, but he didn’t pull away. It felt like electricity was surging between their two pinkies.

‘Mr. Fitz!’ Devon Arliss’s hand shot up in the back row. ‘I have a question.’

‘Be right there,’ Ezra said, straightening up.

Aria put the pinkie finger that had touched Ezra’s into her mouth. She watched him for a few seconds, thinking he might come back to her, but he didn’t.

Well then. Back to plan J, for Jealous. She turned to Noel. ‘I think our movie should have a sex scene in it.’

She said it really loud, but Ezra was still bent over Devon’s desk.

‘Awesome,’ Noel said. ‘Does the guy who thinks he’s a duck get some?’

‘Yep. With a woman who kisses like a goose.’

Noel laughed. ‘How does a goose kiss?’

Aria turned toward Devon’s desk. Ezra was facing them now. Good.

‘Like this.’ She leaned over and smacked Noel on the cheek with her lips. Surprisingly, Noel smelled pretty good. Like Kiehl’s Blue Eagle shaving cream.

‘Nice,’ Noel whispered.

The rest of the class burbled with activity, unaware of any goose kissing, but Ezra, still next to Devon’s desk, stood absolutely still.

‘So did you know I’m having a party tonight?’ Noel put his hand on Aria’s knee.

‘Yeah, I heard something about that.’

‘You should totally come. We’re going to have a lot of beer. And other things . . . like Scotch. Do you like Scotch? My dad has a collection, so . . .’

‘I love Scotch.’ Aria felt Ezra’s eyes burning into her back. Then she leaned over to Noel, and said: ‘I’ll totally come to your party tonight.’

By the way his pen fell out of his hand and clattered to the ground, it wasn’t hard to guess whether or not Ezra had heard them.

‘Are you going to the Kahn party later?’ Carolyn asked, steering the car into the Fieldses’ driveway.

Emily ran a comb through her still-wet hair. ‘I don’t know.’ Today at practice, she and Ben hadn’t said two words to each other, so she wasn’t exactly sure about going with him. ‘Are you?’

‘I don’t know. Topher and I might just go to Applebee’s instead.’

Of course Carolyn would have a hard time deciding between a Friday night field party and Applebee’s.

They slammed the doors of the Volvo and walked up the stone path to the Fieldses’ thirty-year-old colonial-style house. It wasn’t nearly as big or flashy as most of the houses in Rosewood. The blue-painted shingles were chipping a little and some of the stones in the front path had disappeared. The deck furniture looked kind of outdated.