Perfect

“It doesn’t matter how it happened,” her mother interrupted. “What matters is that it’s out there.” She stood up and regarded the couch, then picked up a decorative pillow and smacked it with her fist to fluff it up. She set it back down, picked up another, and started all over again. Thwack. She was punching them harder than she needed to.



“It was so shocking to see that picture of you, Emily,” Mrs. Fields said. “Horribly shocking. And to hear that it’s something you’ve done more than once, well…”



“I’m sorry,” Emily whimpered. “But maybe it’s not—”



“Have you even thought about how hard this is for the rest of us?” Mrs. Fields interrupted. “We’re all…well, Carolyn came home crying. And your brother and sister both called me, offering to fly home.”



She picked up another pillow. Thwack, thwack. A few feathers spewed out and floated through the air before settling on the carpet. Emily wondered what this would look like to someone passing by the window. Perhaps they’d see the feathers flying and think that something silly and happy was happening, instead of what actually was.



Emily’s tongue felt leaden in her mouth. A gnawing hole at the pit of her stomach remained. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.



Her mother’s eyes flashed. She nodded to Emily’s father. “Go get it.” Her father disappeared into the living room, and Emily listened to him rooting through the drawers of their old antique bureau. Seconds later, he returned with a printout from Expedia. “This is for you,” Mr. Fields said.



It was an itinerary, flying from Philadelphia to Des Moines, Iowa. With her name on it. “I don’t understand.”



Mr. Fields cleared his throat. “Just to make things perfectly clear, either you do Tree Tops—successfully—or you will go live with your aunt Helene.”



Emily blinked. “Aunt Helene…who lives on a farm?”



“Can you think of another Aunt Helene?” he asked.



Emily felt dizzy. She looked to her mom. “You’re going to send me away?”



“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Mrs. Fields answered.



Tears dotted Emily’s eyes. For a while, she couldn’t speak. It felt as if a block of cement were sitting on her chest. “Please don’t send me away,” she whispered. “I’ll…I’ll do Tree Tops. Okay?”



She lowered her gaze. This felt like when she and Ali used to arm wrestle—they were matched for strength and could do it for hours, but eventually, Emily would surrender, letting her arm go limp. Maybe she was giving up too easily, but she couldn’t fight this.



A small, relieved smile crept over her mother’s face. She put the itinerary in her cardigan pocket. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”



Before she could respond, Emily’s parents left the room.



14



SPENCER’S BIG CLOSE-UP



Wednesday morning, Spencer stared at herself in her mahogany Chippendale vanity mirror. The vanity and dressing table had been in the Hastings family for two hundred years, and the watermark stain on the top had allegedly been made by Ernest Hemingway—he’d set his sweaty glass of whisky on it during one of Spencer’s great-great-grandmother’s cotillions.



Spencer picked up her round boar-bristle brush and began raking it through her hair until her scalp hurt. Jordana, the reporter from the Philadelphia Sentinel, would be showing up soon for her big interview and photo shoot. A stylist was bringing wardrobe options, and Spencer’s hairdresser, Uri, was due any minute to give her a blowout. She just finished her own makeup, going for a subtle, refined, fresh-faced look, which hopefully made her look smart, put-together—and absolutely not a plagiarist.



Spencer gulped and glanced at a photo she kept wedged in the corner of the mirror. It was of her old friends on Ali’s uncle’s yacht in Newport, Rhode Island. They were all smashed together, wearing matching J. Crew bikinis and wide-brimmed straw hats, grinning like they were goddesses of the sea.



This will go fine, Spencer told the mirror, taking a deep breath. The article would probably end up being a tiny item in the Style section, something no one would even see. Jordana might ask her two or three questions, tops. A’s note from yesterday—I know what you did—had only been meant to scare her. She tried to sweep it to the back of her mind.



Suddenly, her Sidekick bleeped. Spencer picked it up, pushed a few buttons to get into her texts inbox, and squinted at the screen.



Need another warning, Spence? Ali’s murderer is right in front of you.



—A



Spencer’s phone clattered to the floor. Ali’s murderer? She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Then at the picture of her friends in the corner. Ali was holding the yacht’s wheel, and the others were grinning behind her.



And then, something in the window caught her eye. Spencer wheeled around, but there was nothing. No one in her yard except for a lost-looking mallard duck. Nobody in the DiLareuntises’ or the Cavanaughs’ yards, either. Spencer turned back to the mirror and ran her cool hands down the length of her face.



“Hey.”



Spencer jumped. Melissa stood behind her, leaning against Spencer’s four-poster bed. Spencer whirled around, not sure if Melissa’s reflection was real. She’d sneaked up on Spencer so…stealthily.



“Are you all right?” Melissa asked, fiddling with the ruffled collar of her green silk blouse. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”



“I just got the weirdest text,” Spencer blurted out.



“Really? What did it say?”



Spencer glanced at her Sidekick on the cream-colored rug, then kicked it farther under the dressing table.



“Never mind.”



“Well, anyway, your reporter is here.” Melissa wandered out of Spencer’s room. “Mom wanted me to tell you.”



Spencer stood up and walked to her door. She couldn’t believe she’d almost told Melissa about A’s note. But what had A meant? How could Ali’s killer be right in front of her, when she was staring in the mirror?



A vision flashed in front of her eyes. Come on, Ali cackled nastily. You read it in my diary, didn’t you?



I wouldn’t read your diary, Spencer replied. I don’t care.



There were a few spots and flashes, and a white rush of movement. And then, poof, gone. Spencer blinked furiously for a few seconds, standing dazed and alone in the middle of the upstairs hallway. It felt like a continuation of the strange, fuzzy memory from the other day. But what was it?



She strode slowly down the stairs, gripping the railing for support. Her parents and Melissa were gathered around the couch in the living room. A plump woman with frizzy black hair and black plastic cat’s-eye glasses, a skinny guy with a patchy goatee and a ginormous camera around his neck, and a petite Asian girl who had a pink streak in her hair stood near the front door.



“Spencer Hastings!” the frizzy-haired woman cried when she spied Spencer. “Our finalist!”



She threw her arms around Spencer, and Spencer’s nose smushed into the woman’s blazer, which smelled like the maraschino cherries Spencer used to get in her Shirley Temples at the country club. Then, she stepped back and held Spencer at arm’s length. “I’m Jordana Pratt, style editor of the Philadelphia Sentinel,” she cried. Jordana gestured to the other two strangers. “And this is Bridget, our stylist, and Matthew, our photographer. It’s so nice to meet you!”



“Likewise,” Spencer sputtered.



Jordana greeted Spencer’s mother and father. She passed over Melissa, not even looking at her, and Melissa cleared her throat. “Um, Jordana, I believe we’ve met too.”



Jordana narrowed her eyes and wrinkled her nose, as if a bad smell had just permeated the air. She stared at Melissa for a few seconds. “We have?”



“You interviewed me when I ran the Philadelphia Marathon a couple years ago,” Melissa reminded her, standing up straighter and pushing her hair behind her ears. “At the Eames Oval, in front of the art museum?”



Jordana still looked lost. “Great, great!” she cried distractedly. “Love the marathon!” She gazed at Spencer again. Spencer noticed she was wearing a Cartier Tank Americaine watch—and not one of the cheap stainless ones, either. “So. I want to know everything about you. What you like to do for fun, your favorite foods, who you think is going to win on American Idol, everything. You’re probably going to be famous someday, you know! All Golden Orchid winners end up stars.”



“Spencer doesn’t watch American Idol,” Mrs. Hastings volunteered. “She’s too busy with all her activities and studies.”



“She got a 2350 on her PSATs this year,” Mr. Hastings added proudly.



“I think that Fantasia girl is going to win,” Melissa said. Everyone stopped and looked at her. “On American Idol,” Melissa qualified.



Jordana frowned. “That was practically the first season.” She turned back to Spencer and pursed her glossy red lips. “So. Miss Finalist. We want to emphasize how fantastic and smart and wonderful you are, but we want to keep it fun, too. You were nominated for an economics essay—which is business stuff, right? I was thinking the shoot could be a spoof on The Apprentice. The photo could scream, Spencer Hastings, You’re Hired! You’ll be in a sleek black suit, sitting behind a big desk, telling a man he’s fired. Or hired. Or that you want him to make you a martini. I don’t care.”



Spencer blinked. Jordana spoke very fast and gesticulated wildly with her hands.



“The desk in my study might work,” Mr. Hastings offered. “It’s down the hall.”



Jordana looked at Matthew. “Wanna go check it out?” Matthew nodded.



“And I have a black suit she could borrow,” Melissa piped up.



Jordana pulled her BlackBerry off her hip-holster and started feverishly typing on the keypad. “That won’t be necessary,” she murmured. “We’ve got it covered.”



Spencer took a seat on the striped chaise in the living room. Her mother plopped onto the piano bench. Melissa joined them, perching near the antique harp. “This is so exciting,” Mrs. Hastings cooed, leaning over to push some hair out of Spencer’s eyes.



Spencer had to admit, she loved when people fawned over her. It was such a rare occurrence. “I wonder what she’s going to ask me,” she mused.



“Oh, probably about your interests, your education,” Mrs. Hastings singsonged. “Be sure to tell her about those educational camps I sent you to. And remember how I started teaching you French when you were eight? You were able to go straight to French II in sixth grade because of that.”



Spencer giggled into her hand. “There are going to be other stories in Saturday’s edition of the Sentinel, Mom. Not just mine.”



“Maybe she’ll ask you about your essay,” Melissa said flatly.



Spencer looked up sharply. Melissa was calmly flipping through a Town & Country, her expression giving nothing away. Would Jordana ask about the essay?