Perfect

1 SPENCER’S HARD WORK PAYS OFF

Spencer Hastings should have been sleeping at six-thirty on Monday morning. Instead, she was sitting in a therapist’s blue-and-green waiting room, feeling a little like she was trapped inside an aquarium. Her older sister, Melissa, was sitting on an emerald-colored chair opposite her. Melissa looked up from her Principles of Emerging Markets textbook—she was in an MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania—and gave Spencer a motherly smile.

“I’ve felt so much clearer since I started seeing Dr. Evans,” purred Melissa, whose appointment was right after Spencer’s. “You’re going to love her. She’s incredible.”

Of course she’s incredible, Spencer thought nastily. Melissa would find anyone willing to listen to her for a whole uninterrupted hour amazing.

“But she might come on a little strong for you, Spence,” Melissa warned, slapping her book closed. “She’s going to tell you things about yourself you don’t want to hear.”

Spencer shifted her weight. “I’m not six. I can take criticism.”

Melissa gave Spencer a tiny eyebrow-raise, clearly indicating that she wasn’t so sure. Spencer hid behind her Philadelphia magazine, wondering again why she was here. Spencer’s mother, Veronica, had booked her an appointment with a therapist—Melissa’s therapist—after Spencer’s old friend Alison DiLaurentis had been found dead and Toby Cavanaugh committed suicide. Spencer suspected the appointment was also meant to sort through why Spencer had hooked up with Melissa’s boyfriend, Wren. Spencer was doing fine though. Really. And wasn’t going to her worst enemy’s therapist like going to an ugly girl’s plastic surgeon? Spencer feared she’d probably come out of her very first shrink session with the mental-health equivalent of hideously lopsided fake boobs.

Just then, the office door swung open, and a petite blond woman wearing tortoiseshell glasses, a black tunic, and black pants poked her head out.

“Spencer?” the woman said. “I’m Dr. Evans. Come in.”

Spencer strode into Dr. Evans’s office, which was spare and bright and thankfully nothing like the waiting room. It contained a black leather couch and a gray suede chair. A large desk held a phone, a stack of manila folders, a chrome gooseneck lamp, and one of those weighted drinking-bird toys that Mr. Craft, the earth science teacher, loved. Dr. Evans settled into the suede chair and gestured for Spencer to sit on the couch.

“So,” Dr. Evans said, once they were comfy, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Spencer wrinkled her nose and glanced toward the waiting room. “From Melissa, I guess?”

“From your mom.” Dr. Evans opened to the first page of a red notebook. “She says that you’ve had some turmoil in your life, especially lately.”

Spencer fixed her gaze on the end table next to the couch. It held a candy dish, a box of Kleenex—of course—and one of those pegboard IQ games, the kind where you jumped the pegs over one another until there was only one peg remaining. There used to be one of those in the DiLaurentis family den; she and Ali had solved it together, meaning they were both geniuses. “I think I’m coping,” she muttered. “I’m not, like, suicidal.”

“A close friend died. A neighbor, too. That must be hard.”

Spencer let her head rest on the back of the couch and looked up. It looked like the bumpily plastered ceiling had acne. She probably needed to talk to someone—it wasn’t like she could talk to her family about Ali, Toby, or the terrifying notes she’d been getting from the evil stalker who was known simply as A. And her old friends—they’d been avoiding her ever since she’d admitted that Toby had known all along that they’d blinded his stepsister, Jenna—a secret she’d kept from them for three long years.

But three weeks had gone by since Toby’s suicide, and almost a month had passed since the workers unearthed Ali’s body. Spencer was coping better with all of it, mostly, because A had vanished. She hadn’t received a note since before Foxy, Rosewood’s big charity benefit. At first, A’s silence made Spencer feel edgy—perhaps it was the calm before the hurricane—but as more time passed, she began to relax. Her manicured nails dislodged themselves from the heels of her hands. She started sleeping with her desk light off again. She’d received an A+ on her latest calc test and an A on her Plato’s Republic paper. Her breakup with Wren—who had dumped her for Melissa, who had in turn dumped him—didn’t sting so much anymore, and her family had reverted back into everyday obliviousness. Even Melissa’s presence—she was staying with the family while a small army renovated her town house in Philly—was mostly tolerable.

Maybe the nightmare was over.

Spencer wiggled her toes inside her knee-high buff-colored kidskin boots. Even if she felt comfortable enough with Dr. Evans to tell her about A, it was a moot point. Why bring A up if A was gone?

“It is hard, but Alison has been missing for years. I’ve moved on,” Spencer finally said. Maybe Dr. Evans would realize Spencer wasn’t going to talk and end their session early.

Dr. Evans wrote something in her notebook. Spencer wondered what. “I’ve also heard you and your sister were having some boyfriend issues.”

Spencer bristled. She could only imagine Melissa’s extremely slanted version of the Wren debacle—it probably involved Spencer eating whipped cream off Wren’s bare stomach in Melissa’s bed while her sister watched helplessly from the window. “It wasn’t really a big deal,” she muttered.

Dr. Evans lowered her shoulders and gave Spencer the same you’re not fooling me look her mother used. “He was your sister’s boyfriend first, wasn’t he? And you dated him behind her back?”

Spencer clenched her teeth. “Look, I know it was wrong, okay? I don’t need another lecture.”

Dr. Evans stared at her. “I’m not going to lecture you. Perhaps…” She put a finger to her cheek. “Perhaps you had your reasons.”

Spencer’s eyes widened. Were her ears working correctly—was Dr. Evans seriously suggesting that Spencer wasn’t 100 percent to blame? Perhaps $175 an hour wasn’t a blasphemous price to pay for therapy, after all.

“Do you and your sister ever spend time together?” Dr. Evans asked after a pause.

Spencer reached into the candy dish for a Hershey’s Kiss. She pulled off the silver wrapper in one long curl, flattened the foil in her palm, and popped the kiss in her mouth. “Never. Unless we’re with our parents—but it’s not like Melissa talks to me. All she does is brag to my parents about her accomplishments and her insanely boring town house renovations.” Spencer looked squarely at Dr. Evans. “I guess you know my parents bought her a town house in Old City simply because she graduated from college.”

“I did.” Dr. Evans stretched her arms into the air and two silver bangle bracelets slid to her elbow. “Fascinating stuff.”

And then she winked.

Spencer felt like her heart was going to burst out of her chest. Apparently Dr. Evans didn’t care about the merits of sisal versus jute either. Yes.

They talked a while longer, Spencer enjoying it more and more, and then Dr. Evans motioned to the Salvador Dalí melting-clocks clock that hung above her desk to indicate that their time was up. Spencer said good-bye and opened the office door, rubbing her head as if the therapist had cracked it open and tinkered around in her brain. That actually hadn’t been as torturous as she’d thought it would be.

She shut the therapist’s office door and turned around. To her surprise, her mother was sitting in a pale-green wing chair next to Melissa, reading a Main Line style magazine.

“Mom.” Spencer frowned. “What are you doing here?”

Veronica Hastings looked like she’d come straight from the family’s riding stables. She was wearing a white Petit Bateau T-shirt, skinny jeans, and her beat-up riding boots. There was even a little bit of hay in her hair. “I have news,” she announced.

Both Mrs. Hastings and Melissa had very serious looks on their faces. Spencer’s insides started to whirl. Someone had died. Someone—Ali’s killer—had killed again. Perhaps A was back. Please, no, she thought.

“I got a call from Mr. McAdam,” Mrs. Hastings said, standing up. Mr. McAdam was Spencer’s AP economics teacher. “He wanted to talk about some essays you wrote a few weeks ago.” She took a step closer, the scent of her Chanel No. 5 perfume tickling Spencer’s nose. “Spence, he wants to nominate one of them for a Golden Orchid.”

Spencer stepped back. “A Golden Orchid?”

The Golden Orchid was the most prestigious essay contest in the country, the high school essay equivalent of an Oscar. If she won, People and Time would do a feature story on her. Yale, Harvard, and Stanford would beg her to enroll. Spencer had followed the successes of Golden Orchid winners the way other people followed celebrities. The Golden Orchid winner of 1998 was now managing editor of a very famous fashion magazine. The winner from 1994 had become a congressman at 28.

“That’s right.” Her mother broke into a dazzling smile.

“Oh my God.” Spencer felt faint. But not from excitement—from dread. The essays she’d turned in hadn’t been hers—they were Melissa’s. Spencer had been in a rush to finish the assignment, and A had suggested she “borrow” Melissa’s old work. So much had gone on in the past few weeks, it had slipped her mind.

Spencer winced. Mr. McAdam—or Squidward, as everyone called him—had loved Melissa when she was his student. How could he not remember Melissa’s essays, especially if they were that good?

Her mother grabbed Spencer’s arm and she flinched—her mother’s hands were always corpse-cold. “We’re so proud of you, Spence!”

Spencer couldn’t control the muscles around her mouth. She had to come clean with this before she got in too deep. “Mom, I can’t—”

But Mrs. Hastings wasn’t listening. “I’ve already called Jordana at the Philadelphia Sentinel. Remember Jordana? She used to take riding lessons at the stables? Anyway, she’s thrilled. No one from this area has ever been nominated. She wants to write an article about you!”

Spencer blinked. Everyone read the Philadelphia Sentinel newspaper.

“The interview and photo shoot are all scheduled,” Mrs. Hastings breezed on, picking up her giant saffron-colored Tod’s satchel and jingling her car keys.

“Wednesday before school. They’ll provide a stylist. I’m sure Uri will come to give you a blowout.”

Spencer was afraid to make eye contact with her mom, so she stared at the waiting-room reading material—an assortment of New Yorkers and Economists, and a big book of fairy tales that was teetering on top of a Dubble Bubble tub of Legos. She couldn’t tell her mom about the stolen paper—not now. And it wasn’t as if she was going to win the Golden Orchid, anyway. Hundreds of people were nominated, from the best high schools all over the country. She probably wouldn’t even make it past the first cut.

“That sounds great,” Spencer sputtered.

Her mom pranced out the door. Spencer lingered a moment longer, transfixed by the wolf on the cover of the fairy tale book. She’d had the same one when she was little. The wolf was dressed up in a negligee and bonnet, leering at a blond, naïve Red Riding Hood. It used to give Spencer nightmares.

Melissa cleared her throat. When Spencer looked up, her sister was staring.

“Congrats, Spence,” Melissa said evenly. “The Golden Orchid. That’s huge.”

“Thanks,” Spencer blurted. There was an eerily familiar expression on Melissa’s face. And then Spencer realized: Melissa looked exactly like the big bad wolf.