Flawless

Emily’s field of vision narrowed. “Picture?” she repeated hoarsely. She thought of the photo booth picture A had texted her yesterday. A had spread it around. It was starting.



“Yeah, it’s from the Tate meet yesterday?” Carolyn reminded her. “You look…I don’t know. Ambushed. You have this funny expression on your face.”



Emily blinked. The picture Scott took. With Toby. Her muscles relaxed. “Oh,” she said.



“Emily?”



Emily looked up and made a tiny, inaudible gasp. Maya stood a few feet away from them on the street, straddling her blue Trek mountain bike. Her curly, brownish-black hair was clipped out of her face, and she’d rolled up the sleeves of her white denim jacket. There were dark circles under her eyes. It seemed weird, seeing her at such an early hour of the morning.



“Hey,” Emily squeaked. “Um, what’s up?”



“This was the only place I thought I could actually catch you.” Maya gestured to Emily’s house. “You haven’t said a word to me since, like, Monday.”



Emily glanced over her shoulder at Carolyn, who was now rooting through the front pocket of her purple North Face backpack. She thought again of A’s note. How could A have gotten those pictures? Didn’t Maya have them…or had there been others?



“I’m sorry,” Emily said to Maya. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she placed them on top of her mailbox, which was a miniaturized version of her house. “I’ve been sort of busy.”



“Yep, sure looks that way.”



The bitterness in Maya’s voice made the hair on the back of Emily’s neck rise. “W-What do you mean?” Emily snapped.



But Maya merely looked blank and sad. “I…I just mean you haven’t called me back.”



Emily pulled the strings of her red hoodie. “Let’s go over here,” she murmured, walking to the edge of her property under a weeping willow tree. All she wanted was some simple privacy, so Carolyn wouldn’t listen in, but unfortunately, it was kind of sexy under the tree’s thick, concealing branches. The light was a very pale green, and Maya’s skin looked so…dewy. She looked like a wood sprite.



“I have a question for you, actually,” Emily whispered, trying to block out all sexy-wood-sprite thoughts. “You know those pictures of us, from the photo booth?”



“Uh-huh.” Maya was leaning so close, Emily could almost feel the tips of her hair grazing her cheek. It felt, suddenly, like she’d grown a billion extra nerve endings, and they were all tingling.



“Has anyone seen them?” Emily whispered.



It took Maya a minute to respond. “No…”



“Are you sure?”



Maya cocked her head, birdlike, and grinned. “But I’ll show them around, if you want….” When she saw Emily cringe, the teasing sparkle in her eyes dimmed. “Wait. Is this why you’re avoiding me? You thought I actually did show them around?”



“I don’t know,” Emily mumbled, running her foot along one of the willow’s big exposed roots. Her heart was beating so fast, she was pretty sure it was setting some sort of new world record.



Maya reached out and took Emily’s chin in her hand, tilting it up so that Emily would look at her. “I wouldn’t do that. I want to keep them for myself.”



Emily jerked her chin away. This could not happen in her front yard. “There’s something else you should know. I’ve…I’ve met someone.”



Maya tilted her head. “What kind of someone?”



“His name’s Toby. He’s really nice. And…and I think I like him.”



Maya blinked in disbelief, as if Emily had told her she’d fallen in love with a goat.



“And I think I might ask him to Foxy,” Emily went on.



The idea had just occurred to Emily, but it felt okay. She liked that Toby wasn’t perfect and didn’t bother to try. And if she tried hard enough, she could almost forget the complication that he was Jenna’s stepbrother. And if she took a boy to Foxy, it would negate those photos from Noel’s party and prove to everyone she wasn’t gay.



Er, right?



Maya clucked her tongue. “But isn’t Foxy tomorrow? What if he has plans?”



Emily shrugged. She was pretty sure Toby didn’t.



“And anyway,” Maya went on. “I thought you said Foxy was too expensive.”



“I was, um, named the captain of the swim team. So I get to go for free.”



“Wow,” Maya said, after a pause. It was as if Emily could smell Maya’s disappointment, like it was a pheromone. Maya had been the person to convince Emily to quit swimming. “Well, congrats, I guess.”



Emily stared at her burgundy Vans. “Thanks,” she said, even though Maya clearly hadn’t meant it nicely. She could feel Maya waiting for her to look up and say, Silly. I’m just kidding. Emily felt a surge of irritation. Why did Maya have to make this so difficult? Why couldn’t they just be normal friends?



Maya sniffed loudly, then pushed through the tree’s branches, back into Emily’s yard. Emily followed, only to realize that her mother was at the front door. Mrs. Fields’s close-cropped hair was stiff and blown out, and she had her Don’t mess with me, I’m in a hurry look on her face.



When she noticed Maya, she paled. “Emily, time to go,” she barked.



“Sure thing,” Emily chirped. She had not wanted her mom to see this. She turned back to Maya, who now stood next to her bike at the curb.



Maya was staring at her. “You can’t change who you are, Emily,” she said in a loud voice. “I hope you know that.”



Emily felt her mother and Carolyn staring at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she cried just as loudly.



“Emily, you’re going to be late,” Mrs. Fields warned.



Maya gave Emily a parting look, then pedaled furiously down the street. Emily swallowed hard. She felt so ambivalent. On one hand, she was angry at Maya for confronting her—here, in her yard, in front of Carolyn and her mom. On the other, she had the same feeling she did when she was seven years old and had accidentally let go of the Mickey Mouse–shaped balloon she’d begged her parents to buy her at Disney World. She’d watched it float into the sky until it was no longer visible. She’d thought about it for the rest of the trip until her mom said, It’s just a balloon, sweetie! And it’s your fault you let go of it!



She trudged back to the Volvo and gave Carolyn the front seat without a fight. As they pulled out of the driveway, Emily glanced at Maya, now a tiny dot in the distance, then took a deep breath and put her hands on the back of her mother’s seat.



“Guess what, Mom. I’m going to ask a boy to the charity thing tomorrow.”



“What charity thing?” Mrs. Fields murmured, in a voice that said, I’m not happy with you right now.



“Foxy.” Carolyn announced, fiddling with the radio. “The annual thing that the news covers. It’s so big, some girls get plastic surgery for it.”



Mrs. Fields pursed her lips. “I’m not sure I want you going to that.”



“But I get to go for free. Because I’m captain.”



“You have to let her go, Mom,” Carolyn urged. “It’s soooo glamorous.”



Mrs. Fields glanced at Emily in the rearview mirror. “Who’s the boy?”



“Well, his name is Toby. He used to go to our school, but now he goes to Tate,” Emily explained, leaving out where Toby had been for the past three years—and why. Luckily, her mother didn’t memorize every detail about every Rosewood kid Emily’s age, like some mothers did. Carolyn didn’t appear to remember the name, either—Carolyn never remembered scandals, not even juicy Hollywood ones. “He’s really sweet, and he’s a really good swimmer. Way faster than Ben.”



“That Ben was nice,” Mrs. Fields murmured.



Emily gritted her teeth. “Yeah, but Toby is much, much nicer.” She also wanted to add, And don’t worry, he’s white, but she didn’t have the nerve.



Carolyn twisted around in her seat. “Is it the boy in that picture I saw of you?”



“Yeah.” Emily said quietly.



Carolyn turned to their mother. “He’s good. He beat Topher in the 200 free.”



Mrs. Fields gave Emily a little smile. “You’re supposed to be grounded, but after all the circumstances of this week, I suppose you can go. But no plastic surgery.”



Emily frowned. It was just the sort of ridiculous, over-the-top thing her mother would worry about. Last year, Mrs. Fields saw a 20/20 program on crystal meth and how it was everywhere, even in private schools, and she banned Sudafed from the house, as if Emily and Carolyn were going to start up a mini meth lab in their bedroom. She let out a half-laugh. “I’m not going to get—”



But Mrs. Fields started chuckling and caught Emily’s eye in the mirror. “I’m only kidding.” She nodded to Maya’s receding figure, now at the opposite end of their street, and added, “It’s nice to see you making new friends.”



19



WATCH OUT FOR GIRLS WITH BRANDING IRONS



The Strawberry Ridge Yoga Studio was in a converted barn on the other side of Rosewood. On her bike ride there, Aria passed a tobacco-colored covered bridge and the row of Hollis art department houses, charmingly ramshackle Colonials that were spatter-painted various shades of purple, pink, and blue. She crammed her bike into the rack in front of the yoga studio; it was already full of other bikes, all bearing MEAT IS MURDER and PETA stickers on their frames.



She paused in the yoga studio’s lobby and looked at the scruffy, makeupless girls and hairy, limber boys. Was she crazy to take A’s instructions—Strawberry Ridge Yoga Studio. Be there—literally? And was she ready to see Meredith? Perhaps A was baiting her. Perhaps A was here.



Aria had seen Meredith only three times before: first when Meredith came over to her dad’s student-teacher cocktail party, then when she caught Meredith and her dad in the car together, and finally the other day at the Victory, but she’d have recognized her anywhere. Now Meredith was paused in front of the studio’s closet, dragging down mats, blankets, blocks, and straps. Her brown hair was up in a messy ponytail and there was that pink spiderweb tattoo on the inside of her wrist.



Meredith noticed Aria and smiled. “You’re new, right?” She met Aria’s eyes, and for a terrifying second Aria was certain Meredith knew who she was. But then she broke eye contact, leaning over to pop a CD into the portable stereo. Indian sitar music swam out. “Have you done Ashtanga before?”



“Um, yes,” Aria answered. She noticed a big sign on the table that said INDIVIDUAL CLASSES $15, and fished out a ten and a five and laid them on the desk, wondering how A knew Meredith was here—and if A really was here.



Meredith smirked. “And I guess you know the secret, huh?”



“W-What?” Aria whispered, her heart pounding. “Secret?”



“You brought your own mat.” Meredith pointed to the red yoga mat under Aria’s arm. “So many new people come here and use the studio’s mats. You didn’t hear it from me, but you could scrape off the foot fungus on our mats and make cheese.”