“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.
18
WHERE’S OUR OLD EMILY AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HER?
“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.
Their mother greeted them at the front door, holding the cordless phone. “Emily, I need to speak with you.”
Emily glanced at Carolyn, who ducked her head and ran upstairs. Uh-oh. “What’s up?”
Her mom smoothed her hands over her gray pleated slacks. “I was on the phone with Coach Lauren. She said your head seems to be somewhere else, not focused on swimming. And…you missed practice on Wednesday.”
Emily swallowed hard. “I was tutoring some kids in Spanish.”
“That’s what Carolyn told me. So I called Ms. Hernandez.”
Emily stared down at her green Vans. Ms. Hernandez was the Spanish teacher in charge of tutoring.
“Don’t lie to me, Emily.” Mrs. Fields frowned. “Where were you?”
Emily walked into the kitchen and slumped into a chair. Her mom was a rational person. They could discuss this.
She fiddled with the silver loop at the top of her ear. Years ago, Ali had asked Emily to come to the Piercing Palace with her when she got her belly button pierced, and they’d ended up getting matching piercings at the top of their ears, too. Emily still wore the same little silver hoop. Afterward, Ali bought Emily a pair of leopard-print earmuffs to hide the evidence. Emily still wore those earmuffs on the coldest days in the winter.
“Look,” she finally said. “I was just hanging out with that new girl, Maya. She’s really nice. We’re friends.”
Her mother looked confused. “Why didn’t you just do something after practice, or on Saturday?”
“I don’t see why it’s such a big deal,” Emily said. “I missed one day. I’ll swim a double this weekend—I promise.”
Her mother pursed her thin lips in a straight line and sat down. “But Emily…I just don’t understand. When you signed up for swimming this year, you made a commitment. You can’t go running off with friends if you’re supposed to be swimming.”
Emily stopped her. “Signed up for swimming? Like I had a choice?”
“What’s going on with you? You’re using a strange tone of voice; you’re lying about where you’ve been.” Her mother shook her head. “What’s with this lying? You’ve never lied before.”
“Mom…” Emily paused, feeling very tired. She wanted to point out that yes, she had lied, plenty. Even though she’d been the good girl of her seventh-grade friends, she’d done all kinds of stuff her mom never knew about.