“Say gouda!” Scott cried, and Emily moved toward Maya and tried to smile. The flash from Scott’s camera left spots in front of her eyes, and she suddenly noticed that the yearbook room smelled like burning electronics. In the next shot, Maya kissed Emily on the cheek. And in the next, Emily willed herself to kiss Maya on the lips.
“Hot!” Scott encouraged.
Scott peeked into his camera’s preview windowpane. “You’re free to go,” he said. Then, he paused, looking curiously at Emily. “Actually, before you do, there’s something you might want to see.”
He led Emily to a large drafting table and pointed to a bunch of pictures arranged in a two-page layout. Missing You Terribly, said the headline across the top of the mock-up. A familiar seventh-grade portrait stared at Emily—not only did she have a copy in the top drawer of her nightstand, but she’d also seen it nearly every night on the news for months now.
“The school never did a page for Alison when she went missing,” Scott explained. “And now that she…well…we thought we should. We might even have a commemorative event to show off all these old Ali photos. Sort of an Ali retrospective, if you will.”
Emily touched the edge of one of the photos. It was of Emily, Ali, Spencer, Aria, and Hanna at a lunch table. In the photo, they all clutched Diet Cokes, their heads thrown back in hysterical laughter.
Next to it was a photo of just Ali and Emily, walking down the hall with their books clutched to their chests. Emily towered over the petite Ali, and Ali was leaning up to her, whispering something in her ear. Emily bit down on her knuckles. Even though she’d found out lots of things about Ali, things that she wished Ali had shared with her years ago, she still missed her so much that it ached.
There was someone else in the background of the photo that Emily hadn’t noticed at first. She had long, dark hair and a familiar apple-cheeked face. Her eyes were round and green, and her lips were pink and bow-shaped. Jenna Cavanaugh.
Jenna’s head was turned toward someone beside her, but Emily could only see the edge of the other girl’s thin, pale arm. It was strange to see Jenna…sighted. Emily glanced at Maya, who had moved on to the next photo, obviously not seeing this one’s significance. There was so much Emily hadn’t told her.
“Is that Ali?” Maya said. She pointed to a shot of Ali and her brother, Jason, embracing on the Rosewood Day commons.
“Uh, yeah.” Emily couldn’t control the annoyance in her voice.
“Oh.” Maya stood back. “It just doesn’t look like her, is all.”
“It looks like every other picture of Ali here.” Emily fought the urge to roll her eyes as she glanced at the picture. Ali looked impossibly young, maybe only ten or eleven. It had been taken before they’d become friends. It was hard to believe that once upon a time, Ali had been the leader of a completely different clique—Naomi Zeigler and Riley Wolfe had been her underlings. They’d even teased Emily and the other girls from time to time, making fun of Emily’s hair, which was tinged green from hours spent in chlorinated water.
Emily studied Jason’s face. He seemed so delighted to be giving Ali a bear hug. What in the world had he meant in that news interview yesterday, when he said his family was messed up?
“What’s this?” Maya pointed to the photos on the next desk.
“Oh, that’s Brenna’s project.” Scott stuck his tongue out, and Emily couldn’t help but giggle. The bitter rivalry between Scott and Brenna Richardson, another yearbook photographer, was the stuff of reality TV. “But for once, I think it’s a good idea. She took pictures of the insides of people’s bags to show what a typical Rosewood student carries around each day. Spencer hasn’t seen it yet, though, so she might not approve.”
Emily leaned over the next desk. The yearbook committee had written each bag’s owner’s name next to each photo. Inside Noel Kahn’s lacrosse duffel bag were a bacteria-laden towel, the lucky squirrel stuffed animal he always talked about, and Axe body spray. Ick. Naomi Zeigler’s elephant-gray quilted tote held an iPod Nano, a Dolce & Gabbana glasses case, and a square object that was either a tiny camera or a jeweler’s loupe. Mona Vanderwaal carried around M.A.C. lip gloss, a pack of Snif tissues, and three different organizers. Part of a photo showing a slim arm with a frayed sleeve cuff poked out of the blue one. Andrew Campbell’s backpack contained eight textbooks, a leather day planner, and the same Nokia Emily had. The photo showed the start of a text message he had either written or received, but Emily couldn’t tell what it said.
When Emily looked up, she saw Scott fiddling with his camera, but she didn’t see Maya anywhere in the room. Just then, her cell phone started vibrating. She had one new text message.
Tsk tsk, Emily! Does your girlfriend know about your weakness for blondes? I’ll keep your secret…if you keep mine. Kisses!—A
Emily’s heart hammered. Weakness for blondes? And…where had Maya gone?
“Emily?”
A girl stood in the yearbook doorway, wearing a gauzy pink baby-doll top, as if she were impervious to the mid-October chill. Her blond hair whipped around like she was a bikini model standing in front of a wind machine.
“Trista?” Emily blurted out.
Maya reemerged from the hallway, frowning, then smiling. “Em! Who’s this?”
Emily whipped her head around at Maya. “Where were you just now?”
Maya cocked her head. “I was…in the hall.”
“What were you doing?” Emily demanded.
Maya shot her a look that seemed to say, What does it matter? Emily blinked hard. She felt like she was losing her mind, suspecting Maya. She looked back at Trista, who was striding across the room.
“It’s so good to see you!” Trista crowed. She gave Emily a huge hug. “I hopped a plane! Surprise!”
“Yeah,” Emily croaked, her voice barely more than a whisper. Over Trista’s shoulder, Emily could see Maya glaring at her. “Surprise.”
26
DELIGHTFULLY TACKY, YET UNREFINED
After school on Friday, Aria drove down Lancaster Avenue past the strip malls, Fresh Fields, A Pea in the Pod, and Home Depot. The afternoon was overcast, making the normally colorful trees that lined the road look faded and flat.
Mike sat next to her, sullenly screwing and unscrewing his Nalgene bottle cap over and over again. “I’m missing lacrosse,” he grumbled. “When are you going to tell me what we’re doing?”
“We’re going somewhere that’s going to make everything right,” Aria said stiffly. “And don’t worry, you’re going to love it.”
As she paused at a stop sign, a shimmer of pleasure ran through her. A’s hint about Meredith—that she had a dirty little Hooters secret—made perfect sense. Meredith had acted so funny when Aria saw her at Hollis the other day, saying she had to be somewhere but not telling where that somewhere was. And just two nights ago, Meredith had commented that because the rent on the Hollis house was going up and she hadn’t made much on her artwork lately, she might have to get a second job to make ends meet. Hooters girls probably got great tips.
Hooters. Aria clamped her mouth shut to keep from laughing. She couldn’t wait to reveal this to Byron. Every time they’d driven by the place in years past, Byron had said that only puerile philistines went to Hooters, men who were more closely related to monkeys than humans. Last night, Aria had given Meredith a chance to admit her sins to Byron on her own, sidling up to her and saying, “I know what you’re hiding. And you know what? I’m going to tell Byron if you don’t.”
Meredith had stepped back, dropping the dish towel from her hands. So she did feel guilty about something! Still, Meredith clearly hadn’t said a word about it to Byron. Just this morning they’d peacefully crunched on bowls of Kashi GoLean at the table, getting along as happily as before. So Aria had decided to take matters into her own hands.
Even though it was midafternoon, the Hooters parking lot was nearly full. Aria noticed four cop cars lined up—the place was a notorious cop hangout, as it was right next to the police station. The Hooters owl on the sign grinned at them, and Aria could just make out girls in skintight shirts and orange mini shorts through the restaurant’s tinted windows. But when she looked over to Mike, he wasn’t frothing at the mouth or getting a hard-on or whatever normal boys did when they pulled up to this place. Instead, he looked annoyed. “What the hell are we doing here?” he sputtered.
“Meredith works here,” Aria explained. “I wanted you to be here with me so we could confront her together.”
Mike’s mouth dropped open so wide, Aria could see the bright green gum lodged behind his molars. “You mean…Dad’s…?”
“That’s right.” Aria reached into her yak-fur bag for her Treo—she wanted to take pictures of Meredith, for evidence—but it wasn’t in its usual place. Aria’s stomach churned. Had she lost it? She’d dropped her phone on a table after she’d gotten A’s note in art class, fleeing the room and peeling off her mask in Hollis’s lobby bathroom. Had she forgotten to pick it up? She made a mental note to stop by class later to look for it.
When Aria and Mike swept through the double doors, they were greeted by a blaring Rolling Stones song. Aria was overcome by the stench of hot wings. A blond, super-tan girl stood at the hostess station. “Hi!” she said happily. “Welcome to Hooters!”
Aria gave their name and the girl turned around to check on available tables, shaking her ass as she walked away. Aria nudged Mike. “Did you see the boobs on her? Ginormous!”
She couldn’t believe the things that were spilling out of her mouth. Mike, however, didn’t even crack a smile. He was acting like Aria had dragged him to a poetry reading instead of hooter heaven. The hostess returned and led them to their booth. When she bent to place their silverware on the table, Aria could see right down the girl’s T-shirt to her bright fuchsia bra. Mike’s eyes remained fixed on the orange carpet, as if this sort of thing was against his religion.
After the hostess left, Aria looked around. She noticed a group of cops across the room, shoveling in enormous plates of ribs and french fries, staring alternately at a football game on TV and the waitresses that passed by their table. Among them was Officer Wilden. Aria slid down in her seat. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t be here—Hooters always stressed that it was a family place—but she didn’t really feel like seeing Wilden right now, either.
Mike stared sourly at the menu as six more waitresses passed by, each one more jiggly than the last. Aria wondered if somehow, instantly, Mike had turned gay. She turned away—if he was going to be like that, fine. She’d search for Meredith herself.
All the girls were dressed alike, their shirts and shorts eight sizes too small and their sneakers the kind the cheerleading squad wore on game day. They all sort of had the same face, too, which would make it easy to pick out Meredith among them. Only, she didn’t see a single dark-haired girl here, much less one with a spiderweb tattoo. By the time the waitress set down their enormous plate of fries, Aria finally got up the courage to ask. “Do you know if someone named Meredith Gates works here?”