Ruthless

Chapter 7 THANK GOODNESS FOR CELL PHONE ADDRESS BOOKS

Before the last period on Friday afternoon, Aria lingered outside her art history class with her phone open, stalking the Tabitha Clark Memorial website. There were a few new postings, mostly from friends and family offering condolences. She also noticed a mention of a CNN special about spring break alcohol abuse that would air next week; apparently, Tabitha’s story would be mentioned. Aria swallowed a huge lump in her throat. It felt so weird and terrible to just let the world think that Tabitha had perished because of drinking.

She looked up just in time to see Mike stop at his locker. He was talking to Colleen Lowry, a pretty cheerleader in his grade; rumor had it they were in a scene in the school play together. As he slammed the locker shut and turned a corner, Mike placed his hand on Colleen’s butt. He’d spent the last few weeks moping over his breakup with Hanna, but it looked like he was moving on.

Despair filled her. Would there come a time when Aria was over Noel, too? Would she eventually be able to look at random items around her room—an empty plastic cup from an outdoor concert on the Camden waterfront she and Noel had attended this past summer, a large temporary tattoo template of Robert Pattinson, who Noel teased Aria about loving, the schedule of the cooking class they were taking together at Hollis—and not burst into tears? She couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d done wrong in the relationship. Dragged him to too many poetry readings, probably. Acted bored at the many Typical Rosewood parties he threw. And then there was what happened in Iceland. But only Hanna knew about that, and she was sworn to secrecy.

“Aria.”

Aria turned and saw Hanna striding toward her with purpose. Even though her auburn hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, her makeup looked like it had been professionally applied, and the pinstriped tunic under her blue Rosewood Day blazer was perfectly pressed, she still seemed frazzled. “Hey.” She sounded out of breath.

“What’s up?”Aria asked.

Hanna fingered the leaf-green leather satchel on her shoulder. Her eyes shifted back and forth. “Have you gotten any notes from . . . you know?”

Aria toyed with a hemp bracelet she’d bought at a head shop in Philly. “Not since the one two weeks ago.” The newscast of Tabitha’s remains washing up on shore flashed through Aria’s mind. “Why, have you?”

The between-classes classical music, which the Rosewood Day administration thought was mentally stimulating, stopped abruptly, signaling that the next period was about to begin. Hanna twisted her mouth and looked across the hall at the trophy case.

Aria grabbed Hanna’s wrist. “What did it say?”

A fresh crop of kids scampered past. “I-I have to go,” Hanna stammered. Then she scuttled down the hall and ducked into a French classroom.

“Hanna!” Aria cried out.

Hanna’s French classroom door slammed shut. After a moment, Aria dropped her shoulders, let out a pent-up sigh, and walked into her own class before the final bell rang.

Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Kittinger, the art history teacher, dimmed the lights and switched on the old-school slide projector, which always made a rattling noise and smelled slightly of burnt hair. A dusty yellow beam flickered down the center of the classroom and projected an image of Salon at the Rue des Moulins by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec onto the white screen in front of the blackboard. French prostitutes sat around a Parisian brothel, killing time.

“Everyone keeps secrets, especially artists,” Mrs. Kittinger said in her deep, gravelly voice, which matched her slicked-back, boyish haircut and her elegantly tailored men’s suit. Everyone at Rosewood gossiped that Mrs. Kittinger was a lesbian, but Aria’s mother knew her from the art gallery where she worked and said she was happily married to a sculptor named Dave.

“And by looking at Mr. Toulouse-Lautrec’s paintings,” Mrs. Kittinger went on, “you might think his secret had something to do with matters of the flesh, but in fact his problems were quite the opposite. Any guesses?”

Bored silence reigned. Art history was Aria’s favorite subject, but most of the other kids weren’t taking it seriously. They’d probably elected to take it because it sounded like art, which didn’t require much thought. On the first day of class, when Mrs. Kittinger handed out the thick textbooks, a lot of the students stared at the pages like they were written in Morse code.

Finally, James Freed raised his hand. “Was he born a woman?”

Mason Byers snickered, and Aria rolled her eyes.

“Actually, that’s pretty close,” Mrs. Kittinger said. “Toulouse-Lautrec was born with congenital defects, mostly because his parents were first cousins.”

“Hot,” James Freed said under his breath.

“He had a growth disease that gave him the legs of a child and the torso of an adult,” Mrs. Kittinger added. “Rumor had it that he also had deformed genitalia.”

“Ew,” a girl said. Aria had a feeling it was Naomi Zeigler. Someone else giggled next to Naomi, and Aria was pretty sure she knew who that was, too. Klaudia. She’d unfortunately joined the class at the end of last week.

Mrs. Kittinger flipped to the next slide. It was a self-portrait of a red-haired artist, done with swirling brush strokes. “Who’s this?”

“Vincent Van Gogh,” Aria answered.

“Correct,” Mrs. Kittinger said. “Now, Mr. Van Gogh seems like such a happy fellow, right? Always painting sunflowers or beautiful starry nights?”

“That’s not true,” Kirsten Cullen piped up. “He was severely depressed and in lots of pain. And he took painkillers, which might have altered his visual perception, which could be why his paintings are so vibrant and hypnotic.”

“Very good,” Mrs. Kittinger said.

Aria shot Kirsten a smile. She was the only person besides Aria who actually tried in this class.

Mrs. Kittinger shut off the projector, turned the lights back on, and walked to the blackboard, her oxfords clacking loudly on the wood floor. “Our next project is going to be about psychology. I’m going to assign you an artist, and you’re going to investigate his mental state and link it to his work. The paper is due not this coming Monday, but next.”

Mason groaned. “But I have an indoor soccer tournament all next week.”

Mrs. Kittinger gave him an exasperated look. “Luckily for you, we’re working in pairs.”

Aria instantly turned to Kirsten, wanting to work with her. Other kids silently paired up, too. “Not so fast.” Mrs. Kittinger lifted a piece of chalk in the air. “I’m doing the pairing, not you.”

She pointed to Mason Byers and matched him with Delia Hopkins, who hadn’t said a word all semester. She paired Naomi Zeigler and Imogen Smith, a tall girl with large boobs who’d never shaken her reputation as the class slut.

Then Mrs. Kittinger pointed to Aria. “And Aria, you’ll report on Caravaggio. And you’ll work with . . .” She pointed at someone in the back. “What did you say your name was again, dear?”

“Is Klaudia Huusko,” chirruped a voice.

Aria’s blood went cold. No. Please, please, no.

“Perfect.” Mrs. Kittinger wrote Aria’s and Klaudia’s names on the board. “You two are a team.”

Mason turned around and stared at Aria. Naomi let out a mrow. Even Chassey Bledsoe giggled. Clearly everyone knew that Noel had dumped Aria and was with Klaudia now.

Aria swiveled around and looked at Klaudia. Her uniform skirt barely skimmed her thighs, showing off every curve of her impossibly perfect Finnish legs. Her ankle was propped up against the back of Delia’s chair, but Delia was too much of a wuss to tell her to move it. A beat-up leather bomber jacket hung over her shoulders. Aria squinted at it, recognizing the eagle military patch on the arm. It was Noel’s jacket, a beloved hand-me-down from his great-grandfather, who’d fought in World War II. Once, Aria had asked to try it on, but Noel had refused—he didn’t let anyone wear it, he said. It was too special.

Guess the rules didn’t apply to his new Finnish girlfriend.

Klaudia met Aria’s gaze and smiled triumphantly. Then she turned to Naomi. “Guess what I plan for this weekend? I go with Noel to romantic dinner! We going to have wine, feed each other bites of meal, is going to be sexy time!”

“That sounds amazing.” Naomi smirked at Aria.

Aria faced front again, her cheeks on fire. She hated Klaudia. How could Noel fall for her ridiculous act? Everything about her was fake, even her choppy, I-don’t-know-English accent—when Klaudia had threatened Aria on the chair lift, all traces of it had vanished. It seemed the bimbos of the world always got the guys. Where did that leave Aria?

She looked around the classroom. Both art history and English classes met here, so there was a motley mix of Cézanne and Picasso prints and black-and-white photos of Walt Whitman, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Virginia Woolf. Tacked up in the corner was a poster labeled great shakespearean sayings. That poster had hung in Aria’s English classroom last year, too, the class that had briefly been taught by Ezra Fitz, with whom Aria had had a fling until A got him fired.

Ezra. Now there was someone who would have enjoyed going to an art gallery and commiserating about all the Typical Rosewoods. The first time Aria and Ezra had met, they’d had a real connection. Ezra understood what it was like to be part of a family that was falling apart. He got what it was like to be different.

Aria surreptitiously pulled out her phone and looked at her contacts list. Ezra’s name was still there. Just wondering what you’re up to, she typed in a new email. Going through a hard time right now. Feeling lonely and in need of a good convo about poetry writing and the ridiculousness of the suburbs. Ciao, Aria.

And then, before she lost her nerve, she pressed SEND.