Mona twirled a piece of pale blond hair around her finger. “Anyway, I decided the more, the merrier. Small courts are boring. I want this party to be over-the-top.”
“We’re so excited,” Naomi gushed. “I can’t wait to try on the Zac Posen dress Mona picked out for us.”
Hanna shot them a taut smile. This really didn’t make any sense. Everyone at Rosewood knew Riley and Naomi had been talking about Hanna behind her back. And wasn’t it just last year that Mona had vowed she’d despise Naomi forever after Naomi gossiped that Mona had gotten skin grafts? Hanna had fake-friended Naomi for that—she’d pretended she and Mona were in a fight, won Naomi’s confidence, then pilfered a cheesy love letter Naomi had written to Mason Byers from Naomi’s notebook. Hanna posted the letter anonymously on Rosewood Day’s intranet the very next day, everyone laughed, and all was right again.
All at once, Hanna had an epiphany. Of course! Mona was fake-friending! It completely made sense. She felt a little better, realizing what was going on, but she still wanted confirmation. She eyed Mona. “Hey, Mon, can I talk to you for a sec? Alone?”
“Can’t right now, Han.” Mona looked at her Movado watch. “We’re late for our fitting. C’mon.”
With that, Mona strolled out of the restaurant, her three-inch heels clacking against the shiny walnut floor. The others followed. Hanna reached over to grab her enormous Gucci purse, but the zipper had come undone and the entire contents spilled under the table. All her makeup, her wallet, her vitamins, the Hydroxycut she’d stolen ages ago from GNC but was a little too scared to take…everything. Hanna scrambled to pick it all up, her eyes on Mona and the others as they snaked away. She knelt down, feverishly trying to stuff everything into her bag as quickly as possible.
“Hanna Marin?”
Hanna jumped. Above her was a familiar, tall, floppy-haired waiter. “It’s Lucas,” he reminded her, fiddling with the cuff on his white button-down, the Rive Gauche uniform. “You probably don’t recognize me because I look so French in this outfit.”
“Oh,” Hanna said wearily. “Hey.” She’d known Lucas Beattie forever. In seventh grade, he’d been popular—and, bizarrely, for a second, he’d liked Hanna. Word had gotten around that Lucas was going to send Hanna a red heart-shaped box of candy on the schoolwide Candy Day. A boy sending you a heart-shaped box of candy meant love, so Hanna got really excited.
But then, a few days before Candy Day, something changed. Lucas was suddenly a dork. His friends started to ignore him, girls began to laugh at him, and a rampant rumor that he was a hermaphrodite swirled. Hanna couldn’t believe her luck, but she secretly wondered if he’d gone from popular to a loser all because he’d decided to like her. Even if she was Ali D’s friend, she was still a fat, dorky, clumsy loser. When he sent her the candy, Hanna hid it in her locker and didn’t thank him.
“What’s up?” Hanna asked blandly. Lucas had pretty much stayed a loser.
“Not much,” Lucas responded eagerly. “What’s up with you?”
Hanna rolled her eyes. She hadn’t meant to start a conversation. “I have to go,” she said, looking toward the courtyard. “My friends are waiting for me.”
“Actually…” Lucas followed her toward the exit, “your friends forgot to pay the bill.” He whipped out a leather booklet. “Unless, um, you were getting it this time.”
“Oh.” Hanna cleared her throat. Nice of Mona to mention it. “No problem.”
Lucas swiped her AmEx and gave her the bill to sign, and Hanna strode out of Rive Gauche without adding a tip—or telling Lucas good-bye. The more she thought about it, she was excited that Naomi and Riley were part of Mona’s court. Around Rosewood, party court girls competed over who could get the birthday girl the most glamorous gift. A day pass to the Blue Springs Spa or a Prada gift card didn’t cut it, either—the winning gift had to be totally over the top. Julia Rubenstein’s best friend had hired male strippers to perform at an after-party for a select few—and they’d been hot strippers, not muscle-heads. And Sarah Davies had convinced her dad to hire Beyoncé to sing “Happy Birthday” to the girl-of-honor. Thankfully, Naomi and Riley were about as creative as the newborn panda at the Philadelphia Zoo. Hanna could out-glam them on her worst day.
She heard her BlackBerry humming in her bag and pulled it out. There were two messages in her mailbox. The first, from Mona, had come in six minutes ago.
Where R U, bee-yotch? If you’re any later, the tailor’s going to get pissed.
—Mon
But the second text, which had arrived two minutes later, was from a blocked number. That could only be one person.
Dear Hanna, We may not be friends, but we have the same enemies. So here are two tips: One of your old friends is hiding something from you. Something big. And Mona? She’s not your friend, either. So watch your back.
—A
13
HELLO, MY NAME IS EMILY. AND I’M GAY.
That night at 7:17 Emily pulled into her driveway. After she’d run out of the natatorium, she’d walked around the Rosewood Bird Sanctuary for hours. The busily chirping sparrows, happy little ducks, and tame parakeets soothed her. It was a good place to escape from reality…and a certain incriminating photo.
Every light in the house was on, including the one in the bedroom that Emily and Carolyn shared. How would she explain the photo to her family? She wanted to say that kissing Maya in that picture had been a joke, that someone was playing a prank on her. Ha ha, kissing girls is gross!
But it wasn’t true, and it made her heart ache.
The house smelled warm and inviting, like a mixture of coffee and potpourri. Her mother had turned on the hallway Hummel figurines cabinet. Little figurines of a boy milking a cow and a lederhosen-clad girl pushing a wheelbarrow slowly rotated. Emily made her way down the floral wallpapered hallway toward the living room. Both her parents were sitting on the flowered couch. An older woman sat on the love seat.