Perfect

Ezra turned his head and noticed what was on. “Shit,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He rooted around in the pile of magazines and Thai takeout menus on his coffee table and finally found the remote. He switched one channel up, which was QVC. Joan Rivers was selling a giant dragonfly-shaped brooch.

Ezra pointed at the screen. “I’ll buy that for you, if you want.”

Aria giggled. “No thanks.” She put her hand on Ezra’s and took a deep breath. “So, what you said…about making this work. I…I think I want it to work with you, too.”

He brightened and Aria could see her reflection in his glasses. The old grandfather clock near Ezra’s dining room table chimed out the hour. “R-really?” he murmured.

“Yes. But…but I also want to do it right.” She swallowed hard. “I have a boyfriend right now. So…I have to take care of that, you know?”

“Sure,” Ezra said. “I understand.”

They stared at each other for at least a minute more. Aria could have reached over, torn his glasses off, and kissed him a billion times. “I think I should go now,” she said wistfully.

“Okay,” Ezra answered, his eyes not leaving hers. But when she slid off the couch and tried to put on her shoes, he pulled at the edge of her T-shirt. Even though she’d wanted to leave, she just…couldn’t.

“Come here,” Ezra whispered, and Aria fell back into him. Ezra reached out his arms and caught her.

28

SOME OF HER LETTERS ALSO SPELL JAIL

A little before eight on Saturday night, Spencer was lying on her bed, watching her palm-leaf ceiling fan go around and around. The fan cost more than a decent-running car, but Spencer had begged her mom to buy it because it looked identical to the fan in her private cabana the time her family stayed at the Caves in Jamaica. Now, however, it looked so…Spencer at thirteen.

She got out of bed and slid her feet into her black Chanel sling-backs. She knew she should muster up some enthusiasm for Mona’s party. She would have last year—then again, everything had been different last year. All day, she’d been having strange visions—fighting with Ali outside the barn, Ali’s mouth moving but Spencer not hearing the words, Spencer taking a step toward her, a crack. It was as if the memory, pent up for all these years, wanted to be the star.

She swiped more toasted almond-colored gloss on her lips, straightened her kimono-sleeve black dress, and clomped downstairs. When she reached the kitchen, she was surprised to see that her mother, father, and Melissa were sitting at the table around an empty Scrabble board. The two dogs snuggled at their feet. Her father wasn’t wearing his standard uniform of either a suit or cycling clothes, but a soft white T-shirt and jeans. Her mom was in yoga pants. The room smelled like steamed milk from the Miele espresso maker.

“Hey.” Spencer couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her parents home on a Saturday night. They were all about being seen—whether it was at a restaurant opening or at the symphony or at one of the dinner parties the partners at her father’s firm were always having.

“Spencer! There you are!” Mrs. Hastings cried. “Guess what we just got?” With a flourish, she presented a printout she had been holding behind her back. It had the Philadelphia Sentinel ’s gothic-script logo on the top. Underneath was the headline, Move Over, Trump! Spencer Hastings Is Coming! Spencer stared at the photo of herself sitting at her father’s desk. The battleship gray Calvin Klein suit with the raspberry silk camisole underneath had been a good choice.

“Jordana just e-mailed us the link,” her mother chirped. “Sunday’s front page won’t be ready until tomorrow morning, of course, but your story is already up online!”

“Wow,” Spencer said shakily, too unfocused to actually read the story. So this was really happening. How far was this going to go? What if she actually won?

“We’re going to open a bottle of champagne to celebrate,” Mr. Hastings said. “You can even have some, Spence. Special occasion and all.”

“And maybe you want to play Scrabble?” Mrs. Hastings asked.

“Mom, she’s all dressed up for a party,” Melissa urged.

“She doesn’t want to sit here and drink champagne and play Scrabble.”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Hastings said. “It’s not even eight yet. Parties don’t start this early, do they?”

Spencer felt trapped. They were all staring at her. “I…I guess not,” she said.

She dragged a chair back, sat down, and kicked off her shoes. Her father got a bottle of Moët out of the fridge, popped the cork, and took out four Riedel glasses from the cabinet. He poured a whole glass for himself, Spencer’s mother, and Melissa, and a half glass for Spencer. Melissa put a Scrabble rack in front of her.

Spencer plunged her hand into the velvet bag and selected letters. Her father selected his letters next. Spencer was amazed he knew how to do it—she’d never seen him play a game, not even on vacation. “When do you hear what the judges’ final decision is?” he asked, taking a sip of his champagne.

Spencer shrugged. “I don’t know.” She glanced at Melissa, who gave her a brief, indecipherable smile. Spencer hadn’t talked to Melissa since their hot-tub session last night, and she felt a little strange around her sister. Apprehensive, almost.

“I had a chance to read it yesterday,” Mr. Hastings continued, folding his hands. “I love how you updated the concept for modern times.”

“So who goes first?” Spencer asked shrilly. There was no way they were talking about the content of the essay. Not around Melissa.

“Didn’t 1996’s Golden Orchid winner win a Pulitzer last year?” Mrs. Hastings asked.

“No, it was a National Book Award,” Melissa said.

Please stop talking about the Golden Orchid, Spencer thought. Then, she realized: for once, they were talking about her—not Melissa.

Spencer looked at her tiles. She had I, A, S, J, L, R, and H. She rearranged the letters and almost choked on her tongue. LIAR SJH. SJH, as in Spencer Jill Hastings.

Outside, the sky was raven-colored. A dog howled. Spencer grabbed her champagne flute and drained its contents in three seconds flat. “Someone’s not driving for at least an hour,” her father mock-scolded.

Spencer tried to laugh, sitting on her hands so her dad wouldn’t see that they were shaking.

Mrs. Hastings spelled WORM with her tiles. “Your turn, Spence,” she said.

As Spencer picked up her L tile, Melissa’s slim Motorola lit up. A fake cello vibrated out of the cell’s speaker, playing the theme to Jaws. Duh-DUH. Duh-DUH. Spencer could see the screen from here: new text message.

Melissa flipped the screen open, angling it away from Spencer’s view. She frowned. “Huh?” she said aloud.

“What is it?” Mrs. Hastings asked, raising her eyes from her tiles.

Melissa scratched her head. “The great Scottish economist Adam Smith’s invisible-hand concept can be summed up very easily, whether it’s describing the markets of the nineteenth century or those of the twenty-first: you might think people are doing things to help you, but in reality, everyone is only out for himself. Weird! Why would someone send me part of an essay I wrote when I was in high school?”

Spencer opened her mouth to speak, but only a dry exhalation came out.

Mr. Hastings put down his glass. “That’s Spencer’s Golden Orchid essay.”

Melissa examined the screen. “No, it’s not, it’s my…” She looked at Spencer. “No.”

Spencer shrank down in her chair. “Melissa, it was a mistake.”

Melissa’s mouth was open so wide, Spencer saw the silver fillings in her molars. “You bitch!”

“Things got out of hand!” Spencer cried. “The situation slipped away from me!”

Mr. Hastings frowned, confused. “What’s going on?”

Melissa’s face contorted, the corners of her eyes turning down and her lips curling up sinisterly. “First you steal my boyfriend. And then my paper? Who do you think you are?”

“I said I was sorry!” Spencer cried at the same time.

“Wait. It’s…Melissa’s paper?” Mrs. Hastings said, growing pale.

“There must be some mistake,” Mr. Hastings insisted.

Melissa put her hands on her hips. “Should I tell them? Or would you like to?”

Spencer jumped up. “Tell on me like you always do.” She ran down the hall toward the stairs. “You’ve gotten so good at it by now.”

Melissa followed. “They need to know what a liar you are.”

“They need to know what a bitch you are,” Spencer shot back.

Melissa’s lips spread into a smile. “You’re so lame, Spencer. Everyone thinks so. Including Mom and Dad.”

Spencer scrambled up the stairs backwards. “They do not!”

“Yes, they do!” Melissa taunted. “And it’s the truth, isn’t it? You’re a boyfriend-stealing, plagiarizing, pathetic little bitch!”

“I’m so sick of you!” Spencer screamed. “Why don’t you just die?”

“Girls!” Mr. Hastings cried.

But it was as if the sisters were in a force-field bubble all their own. Melissa didn’t break her stare from Spencer. And Spencer started shaking. It was true. She was pathetic. She was worthless.

“Rot in hell!” Spencer screamed. She took two stairs at a time.

Melissa was right behind her. “That’s right, little baby who means nothing, run away!”

“Shut up!”

“Little baby who steals my boyfriends! Who isn’t even smart enough to write her own papers! What were you going to say on TV if you won, Spencer? Yes, I wrote every word of it myself. I’m such a smart, smart girl! What, did you cheat on the PSATs, too?”

It felt like fingernails scraping against Spencer’s heart. “Stop it!” she rasped, nearly tripping over an empty J. Crew box her mother had left on the steps.

Melissa grabbed Spencer’s arm and swung her around. She put her face right up to Spencer’s. Her breath smelled like espresso. “Little baby wants everything of mine, but you know what? You can’t have what I have. You never will.”

All the anger that Spencer had held in for years broke free and flooded her body, making her feel hot, then wet, then shaky. Her insides were so bathed in fury they were starting to prune. She braced herself against the railing, grabbed Melissa by the shoulders and started to shake her as if she were a Magic Eight Ball. Then she shoved her. “I said, stop it!”

Melissa stumbled, grabbing the railing for support. A frightened look danced over her face.

A crack started to form in Spencer’s brain. But instead of Melissa she saw Ali. They both wore the same smug, I’m everything and you’re nothing expression. You try to steal everything away from me. But you can’t have this. Spencer smelled the dewy humidity and saw the lightning bugs and felt Ali’s breath close to her face. And then, a strange force invaded Spencer’s body. She let out an agonized grunt from somewhere deep inside her and shot forward. She saw herself reaching out and pushing Ali—or was it Melissa?—with all her strength. Both Melissa and Ali fell backward. Their heads both made skull-shattering cracks as they fell against something. Spencer’s vision cleared and she saw Melissa tumbling down, down, down the stairs, falling into a heap at the bottom.