“What about Caleb?”
Laurel blinked, caught off guard. “Caleb and I never were exclusive,” she said after a moment.
Emma sniffed. It certainly looked that way at the Homecoming Dance, she wanted to say.
“Why do you care, anyway?” Laurel snapped, turning back to her phone. “Now that you have Ethan?”
Emma flinched at the disgusted way Laurel said Ethan’s name. Sutton’s friends had seemed pretty accepting of him, Laurel especially. She’d been the one who’d encouraged her to come clean with their friends about their romance. But was that an act? Or, if Laurel had killed Sutton, was it a secret wink-wink, nudge-nudge as if to say, I know you’re not my real sister. I know you never cared about Thayer.
“No, I don’t care,” Emma said tightly. “I was just making conversation.”
But I cared. What if Thayer did like my sister? Would he do that to me? Then again, he probably figured I’d abandoned him for Ethan. If only he knew the truth.
Emma turned up the Mercers’ driveway. The sun was setting behind their two-story adobe home, a home Emma had gawked at when she’d first laid eyes on it. She still had trouble accepting that she actually lived here. The orange rays glinted off Mr. Mercer’s Range Rover. Next to it was a gleaming black Cadillac Emma had never seen before. Its California license plate said FOXY 70.
“Whose car is that?” Emma asked, turning off the ignition.
Laurel gave her a funny look. “Uh, Grandma’s?” she said in a duh voice.
Heat rose to Emma’s cheeks. “Oh, right. I knew that. She just hasn’t been here in a while.” She was used to covering for her I’m-not-Sutton gaffes by now, not that she felt any more graceful about it. And, of course, Grandma Mercer would be yet another person Emma had to fool into believing she was Sutton.
Laurel was already climbing out of the car. “Sweet,” she said, tossing a lock of honey-blond hair over her shoulder. “Dad’s grilling.” And with that, she slammed the door.
Emma pulled up the parking brake. She’d forgotten Mr. Mercer’s mom was flying in for his fifty-fifth birthday party, which Mrs. Mercer had been frantically planning for the past few weeks. So far, she’d arranged the caterers, organized a band, pored over the guest list, micromanaged the seating arrangements, and dealt with dozens of other details. Grandma was here to help, too.
With a deep, fortifying breath, Emma climbed out and lifted her tennis bag from the trunk. She followed Laurel along a stone path that led to the Mercers’ backyard. A woman’s gravelly, throaty laugh cut through the air, and as soon as Emma turned the corner, she saw Mr. Mercer standing at the grill, holding a tray of skewered veggies. Next to him was a well-preserved older woman holding a martini. She was pretty much what Emma pictured when she imagined a Grandma Mercer: poised, classy, elegant.
The woman’s face broke into a cool smile when she saw the girls. “Darlings.”
“Hey, Grandma!” Laurel called out.
The old woman moved toward them, amazingly not spilling a single drop of alcohol onto the stone patio. She looked Laurel up and down. “Gorgeous, as usual.” Then, she turned to Emma and gave her a big hug. Her pearl necklace jabbed into Emma’s collarbone, and she felt surprisingly solid for such a petite woman.
Emma returned the hug, inhaling the woman’s gardenia perfume. When Sutton’s grandmother pulled away, she held Emma at arm’s length and examined her closely. “My goodness,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve obviously been gone too long. You look so…different.”
Emma tried not to squirm in the woman’s grip. Different wasn’t exactly the look she was going for.
Sutton’s grandmother squinted. “Is it your hair?” She put a bony, perfectly manicured finger to her lips. “What’s with the bangs in your eyes? How can you see?”
“It’s the way everyone’s wearing them these days,” Emma said, pushing her bangs out of her eyes. She’d let them grow a little because Sutton’s bangs were this long, too, but deep down, she agreed with Sutton’s grandmother.
Grandma wrinkled her nose, not satisfied. “You and I need to have a little talk,” she said sharply. “I hear you’re still giving your parents trouble?”
“Trouble?” Emma squeaked.
Grandma’s mouth became a straight line. “Something about shoplifting from a boutique not so long ago.”
Emma’s throat went dry. It was true that she’d stolen a purse from a boutique to gain access to Sutton’s police file—Quinlan, a detective on the force, had a huge folder on Sutton full of various Lying Game pranks she’d played throughout the years.
As Grandma stared unwaveringly at Emma, a memory zoomed back to me: I was sitting in my bedroom about to upload tennis team pictures to Facebook when I heard voices in the living room. Camera in hand, I tiptoed to the staircase, straining to hear. It sounded like Grandma and my dad were arguing, but about what? And that’s when my brand-new digital camera slipped from my hand and landed on the top step with a thud. “Sutton?” my dad said. He and my grandmother moved from the living room to the base of the stairs before I could scamper off. They stared at me in the same way Grandma was looking at Emma right now.
“We’ve moved past that,” Mr. Mercer said, flipping steaks on the grill. He was wearing a black apron with a coiled rattlesnake on the front, and his graying hair was combed off his forehead. “She’s been doing really well lately, actually. Got the highest grade on a German test recently. She’s getting good grades in English and history as well.”
“You’re too easy on her,” Grandma snapped. “Was she even punished for what she did?”
Mr. Mercer seemed to wilt a little. “Well, yes. She was grounded.”
Grandma guffawed. “For what? A day?”
Actually, Mr. Mercer had lifted the grounding early. Everyone shut their mouths awkwardly, and for a few long beats, the only sounds were the sizzling grill and the calling birds. Emma glanced at Grandma Mercer, who was staring at her son. It was strange to see someone boss Mr. Mercer around.
After a beat, Mr. Mercer cleared his throat. “So, girls. Chicken or steak?”
“Chicken, please,” Emma said, eager to change the subject. She took a seat next to Laurel on one of the green patio chairs assembled around a glass outdoor table. The patio door creaked open, and out bounded Drake, the Mercers’ enormous Great Dane. As usual, he made a beeline straight for Emma—it was like he sensed she was uncomfortable with dogs and was trying his hardest to make her like him. Tentatively she stuck out her hand and let him lick it. She’d been afraid of dogs ever since a Chow bit her, but she was slowly getting used to the massive animal.
Mrs. Mercer emerged from the house next, a blue-and-white-checkered tablecloth in one hand and her BlackBerry, which was always ringing, in the other. Her expression was drawn, but when she saw her daughters sitting at the table, she broke into a smile. Even when Mrs. Mercer was stressed, the sight of Emma and Laurel seemed to lift her mood. It was a new experience for Emma. Usually parent-types looked at her with a tight-lipped, where’s-my-paycheck expression.
“So, girls. How was practice?” Mrs. Mercer raised the checkered cloth in the air and let it settle over the glass table.
“Murder.” Laurel grabbed a carrot stick from a vegetable platter on the grill and crunched down on it loudly.
Emma flinched at Laurel’s choice of word, but forced a tired smile on her face. “We had a five-mile run,” she explained.
“In addition to tennis drills?” Mrs. Mercer squeezed Emma’s shoulder. “You must be exhausted.”
Emma nodded. “I’ll definitely need a hot shower tonight.”
“I need one, too,” Laurel said petulantly. “Don’t take one of your thirty-minute soaks.”
Emma opened her mouth, about to tell Laurel she’d never take a thirty-minute soak, but then she realized that was probably something Sutton did. She’d started another list as well: Ways I’m Not Sutton. It helped her remember who she was amidst all this. When she’d come to Tucson, all she’d brought was a small duffel, which had been stolen when she arrived. The rest of her belongings—her guitar, her savings, and the secondhand laptop she’d gotten at a pawn shop—were stashed in a locker at the Vegas bus station. Lately, it felt like she’d left her identity in that locker, too. The only person she kept in contact with from her old life was her best friend, Alex Stokes, who she’d barely spoken to since she got to Tucson. Alex thought Emma was living happily with Sutton at the Mercers’. Emma couldn’t tell her the truth, and all the lies made the distance between them feel too great to cross.
Mr. Mercer swooped up to the table and set down five plates full of grilled food. “Chicken for my girls, steak for me and Grandma—medium rare—and super-well-done for my beautiful wife.” He pushed a lock of hair out of Mrs. Mercer’s eyes and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
Emma smiled. It was nice to see that two people could be together for decades and still be so solid. Rarely did she ever live with a foster family who had two parents who lived together, let alone loved each other.
It was something I noticed now that I was dead, too—my parents did really care for each other. They finished each other’s sentences. They were still affectionate and sweet to one another. It was never something I’d appreciated when I was alive.
Grandma Mercer turned her steely blue eyes on Mr. Mercer. “You look thin, dear. Are you eating enough?”
Mr. Mercer chuckled. “Seriously? My washboard abs are no more.”
“He eats plenty. Trust me,” Mrs. Mercer said. “You should see our grocery bills.” Then her BlackBerry chimed, and she glanced at the screen and frowned. “I don’t believe it. The party is on Saturday, and now the florist tells me she can’t do desert globemallows in the table bouquets. I really wanted to keep all the flowers and plants native to Arizona, but I may have to do a few bouquets of calla lilies if the florist can’t get her act together.”
Emma laughed good-naturedly. “Tragic, Mom!”
Sutton’s grandmother’s clear blue eyes narrowed, her face suddenly hard. “Attitude,” she warned. Her voice was so sharp it could cut glass.
Emma’s cheeks burned. “I was just kidding,” she said in a tiny voice.
“I highly doubt that,” Grandma said, spearing her steak.
Yet again, there was a long, awkward silence. Mr. Mercer dabbed at his mouth with his napkin, and Mrs. Mercer fiddled with the Chanel bangle around her wrist. Emma wondered what subtext she was missing here.
I racked my foggy memory for an answer, but I couldn’t come up with anything. Grandma definitely had it in for me, though.
Mrs. Mercer looked around the table, then shut her eyes. “I forgot the pitcher of water and the glasses. Girls, can you go inside and get them?” She sounded weary, as though Grandma had drained her of strength.