“Oh, no,” Celeste pouted, her large eyes blinking dopily. “But yellow so clashes with your aura. I wouldn’t wear it, if I were you.”
Nisha scowled. “Who died and made you the new age fashion police?”
Garrett frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. His sister looked between all the girls and took a tentative step back.
“Oh, please.” Celeste laughed, all innocence. “I would never claim to be the police of anything, let alone fashion. I don’t believe in anything so … fleeting. Meaningless.”
“Then why are you here?” Laurel asked, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.
Nice one, little sister, I cheered silently.
“Just to keep my friends company and pick up a few gifts,” Celeste explained, draping an arm around Garrett’s shoulders suggestively. “But you’re right, it’s time for me to leave. My chakras are extremely sensitive to all this consumerism.” She sniffed and turned toward the door.
“Um, right,” Garrett said, hurrying to catch up. He shot Emma one more venomous look before disappearing from view.
Emma slumped against the shoe rack, feeling drained. “She’s so weird.”
Nisha waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t let her get to you.”
“Oh, she’s not,” Emma said in her best Sutton voice.
“And don’t let Garrett bother you either,” Laurel said quietly. “He’s just jealous.”
Emma nodded, turning back to the shoes, but she wasn’t so sure. Garrett had seemed more than jealous at the Halloween dance. He’d seemed angry—violent, even.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Garrett’s face either. My memories of my ex were hazy, but I could still see his sweet smile, the gentleness in his eyes when he looked at me. I’d never thought he was capable of that kind of hatred. Was all that anger just because Emma wouldn’t sleep with him? The idea broke my heart a little. I had thought I’d known him better than that.
But obviously I didn’t know anyone as well as I’d thought I did, as Emma kept proving again and again.
14
THE SCHOOL OF BITCHCRAFT
Friday morning, Emma plopped Sutton’s red Kate Spade purse on the table in the pottery studio and slid into the seat between Charlotte and Madeline. A misshapen vase sat in front of Madeline. Charlotte turned over a bulky mug. Across from them, Laurel toyed with two tiny espresso cups. Pots of glaze were strewn across the table alongside paintbrushes of varying sizes, and paper towels.
“That looks awesome, Char,” Emma said after she collected her own long, footed pot from the rack. She pointed to the swirl Charlotte was painting on her mug.
Charlotte flushed with pleasure. “It’s just like putting on eyeliner,” she said.
“Okay, girls,” Madeline interrupted. “We have party details to figure out. It’s a week away, and we’re running out of time.”
Party? Emma almost said out loud, then remembered that Charlotte’s parents were out of town next weekend.
Charlotte propped her chin on her perfectly manicured hand. “I know a guy who can get us a few kegs. That and my parents’ liquor cabinet should be enough.”
Emma tilted her head. “Won’t your parents notice if anything goes missing?”
Charlotte snorted. “Please. They go through Tanqueray like water.”
“What about food?” Madeline asked.
Charlotte shrugged. “We’ll get some platters at AJ’s. I’ve been jonesing for their Brie en croûte, anyway.”
Emma reached for the container of blue glaze, thinking about the parties she’d attended in her old life, where party snacks pretty much consisted of Doritos, Oreos, or a big bowl of Starbursts. She tried to picture Sutton’s friends at one of those parties and nearly burst out laughing.
Suddenly, the telltale jingle of silver on silver made her look up. Celeste stood at the door to the studio in a long loose tunic embroidered with shiny metallic thread, Garrett at her side. She leaned up and planted a wet, lingering kiss on his lips, then shot a pointed glance at Emma, as if to rub in the fact that she was with Sutton’s ex.
“Thanks for walking me to class,” she cooed, her voice low and dreamy.
Garrett touched one of her braids. “See you soon,” he said huskily. She hung on the doorjamb after he left, watching him until he disappeared around the corner.
Madeline’s jaw dropped open. Charlotte threw her brush on the table in disgust, then peered at Emma. “Um, why aren’t you more pissed?”
Emma shrugged, unscrewing the lid to the glaze. “I saw them last night at Saks. Apparently, they’re a thing now.”
Charlotte balled up her fist. “Well, he’s clearly going out with her just to get back at you, Sutton. There’s no way he actually likes her.”
Laurel cleared her throat. “Apparently, a lot of the guys think she’s really cute.” All heads whipped around to face her. She shrugged. “Thayer says they’re all talking about her, anyway.”
“Does Thayer think she’s cute?” Emma asked, wrinkling her nose. Celeste didn’t seem like his type.
Laurel rolled her eyes. “He says, and I quote, ‘She’s got a celestial body.’”
“Ew!” I said aloud, though no one heard me. That didn’t sound like Thayer at all.
Celeste entered the room, drifted to the rack of fired pottery, and removed a bowl, the bells at her ankles jingling with every move. On her way back to her seat, she paused at Emma’s table. She looked at Emma searchingly, as if she were trying to make her out through a dense fog.
“Can I help you?” Emma said acidly, suddenly on the defensive. She wasn’t ready for another baffling Celeste confrontation.
“I just wish I could help you,” Celeste breathed. Madeline and Charlotte exchanged glances, arching their eyebrows. “Laugh all you will,” Celeste said to them, “but Sutton’s aura is in dire need of healing energy. Somewhere along the way, maybe in a past life, her spirit has been fractured. That’s why it’s so hard for you to be emotionally generous,” she said to Emma in a sickly sweet tone.
“I hear you’re getting pretty emotionally generous with Sutton’s ex,” Charlotte spat. “Hope your birthday’s coming up. He gives pretty good presents.”
Madeline and Laurel both snorted with laughter.
Celeste just smiled knowingly, her gaze still on Emma. “Secrets will out, Sutton Mercer. You’ve been warned.” With that, she drifted past them in a wave of patchouli.
The words hit Emma like a brick. Secrets were the only thing keeping her alive.
“What’s her problem?” Charlotte whispered.
“Yeah, did you hurt her in a past life or something, Sutton?” Madeline joked.
“I don’t know,” Emma said, feeling uneasy. “But she definitely has it in for me.”
They stared at Celeste, who’d found a spot at a table full of boys, all of whom were now surreptitiously ogling her. One of them, a junior who wore his hair in an emo shag over his left eye, leaned over to inspect the bowl she was painting, using the opportunity to look down her shirt.
“You know what I’ve been thinking?” Madeline said, her voice dropping low. “I think we’re overdue for a Lying Game prank. And I think our next victim may have just fallen right in our lap.”
The other three girls all leaned imperceptibly toward Madeline, eyes flashing in breathless excitement. But Emma still felt torn. The Lying Game’s pranks sometimes made her uncomfortable—she’d been on the receiving end of popular kids’ cruelty too many times back in Nevada. She couldn’t shake a feeling of guilt whenever she participated.
“This school’s cafeteria is totally disappointing,” Celeste was saying to an athletic boy across the room. “In Taos, my school only sold organic produce, and all of the entrées were farm-to-table.”
“Cool,” the boy said. As if he really cared.
“And there are so many snack machines in this place,” Celeste went on. “It’s disgusting. You know those things are full of toxins—plus, they make you overweight.” Her gaze slid to Beth Franklin, a sweet but slightly heavy girl who was munching on a bag of vending machine pretzels at the next table. Beth turned purple and shoved the pretzels back into her bag.
Then again, Emma wasn’t sure she would feel guilty about this prank. Maybe Celeste deserved it.
I was thinking the same thing.
“So what should we do?” asked Laurel. “Write some love letters from ‘Garrett’ and send her on an embarrassing fake date? Like, with a mime or a clown or something?”
“We’ve done stuff like that already.” Charlotte shook her head. “We need something special for this girl.”
They all fell silent, brainstorming. A low, cool voice came from behind Emma. “Hold a séance.”
They all turned at once to see Nisha, who hadn’t even looked up from the clay cat she was painting. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail that spilled down over one shoulder. As she carefully lined whiskers onto the cat’s face, she continued. “Fake a bunch of ghosts. You know she believes in all that crap. She’ll totally fall for it.”
The girls exchanged a glance. Emma could tell they were impressed. Finally, Madeline spoke up, an indignant huff in her voice. “We don’t accept suggestions from people outside the Lying Game.”
Nisha shrugged. “You don’t usually have such good ideas.”
“Have you forgotten about the locker room murder?” Madeline shot back, referring to a prank they’d played on Nisha several months earlier, creating a mock crime scene at Nisha’s locker. “You were ready to pee your pants.”
Nisha opened her mouth to argue, but Emma jumped in before she could. “Nisha’s right,” she said. “A fake séance would be an amazing trick.” It also seemed more harmless than some of the other Lying Game ideas, which had included things like nearly choking Sutton into unconsciousness or parking Sutton’s Volvo on the train tracks.
Emma looked around at the others. “C’mon, guys, this idea rocks. And Nisha, since you thought of it, do you want to help?”
Madeline, Charlotte, and Laurel whipped their heads around to stare at her. “Are you crazy?” hissed Madeline, leaning close. “She’s not an official member.”
“Gabby and Lili will be so pissed,” Charlotte added. “It took them years to get in.”
“Since when do we make decisions based on what Gabby and Lili think?” Emma asked.
Madeline crossed her arms over her chest. “I wanted Samantha Weir to join two years ago and you were a mega-bitch about it then, Sutton. I don’t see what’s changed.”
“Nisha’s way cooler than Samantha Weir,” Emma argued, channeling her inner Sutton. “But if you have a better idea, we won’t use Nisha’s and we won’t let her in on it. Anyone?”
They looked back and forth at one another. No one said anything. Finally, Madeline blew out a loud breath. “Okay. But this is a one-time-only deal. We don’t need any associate members.”
