Wicked

11 IF YOU CAN’T BEAT HER, JOIN FORCES WITH HER

Wednesday morning, Hanna burrowed under her down comforter, trying to drown out the sound of Kate singing scales in the shower. “She’s so sure she’s going to get the lead in the play,” Hanna grumbled into her BlackBerry. “I wish I could see her face when the director tells her it’s Shakespeare, not a musical.”

Lucas chuckled. “Did she seriously threaten to tell on you when you weren’t going to give her a tour of the school?”

“Basically,” Hanna growled. “Can I move in with you until we graduate?”

“I wish,” Lucas murmured. “Although we’d have to share a bedroom.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Hanna purred.

“Me neither.” Hanna could tell he was smiling.

There was a knock at the door, and Isabel poked her head in. Before she’d gotten engaged to Hanna’s father, she’d been an ER nurse, and she still wore hospital-issue scrubs to bed. Yecch. “Hanna?” Isabel’s eyes were even droopier than usual. “No talking on the phone if you haven’t made your bed, remember?”

Hanna scowled. “Fine,” she said under her breath. Seconds after Isabel had hauled in her Tumi luggage and replaced the custom-made plantation shutters with purple, crushed-velvet drapes, she’d laid down all these rules: No Internet after 9 P.M. No talking on cell phones if chores weren’t finished. Absolutely no boys in the house when Isabel and Hanna’s father weren’t home. Hanna was basically living in a police state.

“I’m being forced to get off the phone,” Hanna said into her BlackBerry, loud enough for Isabel to hear.

“It’s okay,” Lucas said. “I need to get moving. Photography club meets this morning.”

He made a kissing sound and hung up. Hanna wiggled her toes, all of her irritations and worries melting away. Lucas was a way better boyfriend than Sean Ackard, and he almost made up for the fact that Hanna was essentially girlfriendless. He understood how hard she was taking what Mona had done to her, and he always snickered at her evil Kate stories. Plus, with a new salon haircut and a Jack Spade messenger bag to replace his ratty JanSport backpack, Lucas wasn’t half as dorky as he’d been when they first became friends.

Once Hanna was certain Isabel had retreated down the hall to the bedroom she and Hanna’s father shared—double ughh—she crawled out of bed, haphazardly pulling up the covers so it looked like she’d made it. She then sat down at her makeup table and snapped on her LCD TV. The Action News Morning Report song blared out of the speakers. ROSEWOOD REACTS TO IAN THOMAS’S TEMPORARY RELEASE flashed in big black block letters at the bottom of the screen. Hanna paused. As much as she didn’t want to watch the report, she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

A petite, redheaded news reporter was at the local SEPTA train station, canvassing commuters for their thoughts about the trial. “It’s despicable,” said a thin, stately older woman in a high-necked cashmere coat. “They shouldn’t let that boy out for even a minute after what he did to that poor girl.”

The camera moved to a dark-haired girl in her twenties. Her name, Alexandra Pratt, appeared below her face. Hanna recognized her. She’d once been Rosewood Day’s star field hockey player, but had graduated when Hanna was in sixth grade, a year ahead of Ian, Melissa Hastings, and Ali’s brother, Jason. “He’s definitely guilty,” Alexandra said, not bothering to take off her enormous Valentino sunglasses. “Alison occasionally played field hockey with a group of us on the weekends. Ian sometimes talked to Ali after the games. I never knew Ali that well, but I think he made her uncomfortable. I mean, she was so young.”

Hanna uncapped her Mederma scar cream. That wasn’t how she remembered it. Ali’s cheeks flushed and her eyes lit up any time Ian was around. At one of their sleepovers, when they were practicing kissing on the monkey pillow Ali had sewn in sixth-grade home ec, Spencer had made each of them confess which boy they wanted to kiss in real life. “Ian Thomas,” Ali had blurted out, and then quickly covered her mouth.

Ian’s senior picture was now on the screen, his smile so white, wide…and fake. Hanna looked away. Yesterday, after another awkward dinner with her new family, Hanna had dug out Officer Wilden’s business card from the bottom of her bag. She wanted to ask him how strict Ian’s house arrest was going to be. Would he be chained to his bed? Would he have on one of those ankle bracelet thingies that Martha Stewart had to wear? She wanted to believe Wilden was right about yesterday’s A note—that it was just a copycat—but every bit of reassurance would help. Plus, she thought Wilden might give her a little extra info. He’d always tried to be buddy-buddy with her back when he and her mom were dating.

Only useless Wilden had said, “Sorry, Hanna, but I’m really not allowed to discuss the case.” Then, as Hanna was about to hang up, Wilden had cleared his throat. “Look, I want him to fry as much as you do. Ian deserves to be locked up for a long, long time for what he did.”

Hanna clicked off the TV as the morning news moved on to a story about an E. coli scare in local grocery store lettuce. After a few more layers of Mederma, foundation, and powder, Hanna decided her scar was as hidden as it was going to get. She spritzed herself with Narciso Rodriguez perfume, straightened her uniform skirt, threw all her crap into her Fendi-logo tote, and walked downstairs.

Kate was already at the breakfast table. When she saw Hanna, her whole face broke into a dazzling smile. “Omigod, Hanna!” she cried. “Tom brought this amazing organic honeydew at Fresh Fields last night. You have to try it.”

Hanna hated how Kate called her father Tom, like he was their age. It wasn’t like Hanna called Isabel by her first name. Actually, she avoided calling Isabel anything at all. Hanna walked across the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. “I hate honeydew,” she said primly. “It tastes like sperm.”

“Hanna,” her father scolded. Hanna hadn’t noticed him by the kitchen island, finishing a slice of buttered toast. Isabel was next to him, still in those hideous puke-green scrubs, looking particularly faux-tan orange.

Mr. Marin approached the girls. He put one hand on Kate’s shoulder and one hand on Hanna’s. “I’m off. See you girls tonight.”

“Bye, Tom,” Kate said sweetly.

Her father left, and Isabel clomped back upstairs. Hanna stared at the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer her father had left on the table, but unfortunately, all the headlines were about Ian’s bail hearing. Kate kept eating her melon. Hanna wanted to just get up and leave, but why should she have to be the one to go? This was her house.

“Hanna,” Kate said in a small, sad voice. Hanna glanced up, giving Kate an arch look. “Hanna, I’m sorry,” Kate rushed on. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t just…sit here and not talk. I know you’re mad about this fall—about what happened at Le Bec-Fin. I was such a mess back then. And I’m really sorry.”

Hanna flipped to the next page of the newspaper. The obituaries, good. She pretended to be fascinated by an article about Ethel Norris, eighty-five, choreographer of a modern dance troupe in Philadelphia. She’d died yesterday in her sleep.

“I’m finding this difficult too.” Kate’s voice shook. “I miss my dad. I wish he were still alive. No offense to Tom, but it’s weird to see my mom with someone else. And it’s weird to be all happy for both of them, just like that. They don’t think about us, do they?”

Hanna was so outraged, she wanted to throw Kate’s melon across the kitchen. Everything out of Kate’s mouth was so scripted, it was like she’d downloaded some perfect feel bad for me speech off the Internet.

Kate took a breath. “I’m sorry about what I did to you in Philly, but I had other stuff going on that day. Stuff I shouldn’t have taken out on you.” There was a little clink as she set down her fork. “Something really scary happened to me right before that dinner. I hadn’t told my mom yet, and I was sure she was going to lose it.”

Hanna frowned, glancing at Kate for a split second. Trouble?

Kate pushed her plate away. “I was going out with this guy, Connor, last summer. One night, one of the last weekends before school started, things went kind of…far.” Her forehead wrinkled, and her bottom lip started to tremble. “He broke up with me the next day. About a month later, I went to the gynecologist, and there were…complications.”

Hanna widened her eyes. “Were you pregnant?”

Kate shook her head quickly. “No. It was…something else.”

Hanna was pretty sure that if her mouth gaped open any farther, it would graze the top of the table. Her brain raced a million miles a minute, trying to figure out what complications meant. An STD? A third ovary? A funny-looking nipple? “So…are you okay?”

Kate shrugged. “I am now. But it sucked for a while. It was really scary.”

Hanna narrowed her eyes. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I wanted to explain what was going on,” Kate admitted. Her eyes glistened with tears. “Look, please don’t tell anyone what I just told you. My mom knows, but Tom doesn’t.”

Hanna took a sip of her coffee. She was floored by Kate’s words—and also a little relieved. Perfect Kate had screwed up. And never in a zillion years did Hanna think she’d ever see Kate cry. “I won’t say anything,” Hanna said. “We all have issues.”

Kate let out a big, dubious sniff. “Right. What’s your issue?”

Hanna set down her polka-dotted coffee cup, debating. If nothing else, she could learn whether Ali had told Kate her secret. “Fine. But you probably already know it. The first time it happened was that time Alison and I came to Annapolis.”

She peeked at Kate, trying to gauge if she understood. Kate poked her fork into a piece of honeydew, shifting her eyes uneasily around the room. “You’re still doing that?” she asked quietly. Hanna felt a mixture of thrill and disappointment—so Ali had run back to the patio and told her.

“Not really,” Hanna mumbled.

They were silent for a moment. Hanna stared out the window at a big snowdrift in the neighbors’ backyard. Even though it was the ass-crack of dawn, the bratty six-year-old twins were out in the snow, pitching icy snowballs at squirrels. Then Kate cocked her head quizzically. “I meant to ask you. What’s up with you and Naomi and Riley?”

Hanna gritted her teeth. “Why are you asking me? Aren’t they your brand-new BFFs?”

Kate thoughtfully pushed a strand of chestnut hair behind her ears. “You know, I think they want to be friends. Maybe you should give them a chance.”

Hanna snorted. “Sorry, I don’t talk to girls who insult me to my face.”

Kate leaned forward on her elbows. “They probably say that stuff because they’re jealous of you. If you were nice to them, I bet they’d be nice back. And think about it—if we join up with them, we could be unstoppable.”

Hanna raised an eyebrow. “We?”

“Face it, Hanna.” Kate’s eyes danced. “You and I would totally rule their group.”

Hanna blinked. She gazed at the hanging rack over the kitchen island, which held a bunch of All-Clad pots and pans Hanna’s mother had bought a few years ago at Williams-Sonoma. Ms. Marin had left most of her personal belongings behind when she left for Singapore, and Isabel had had no problem claiming them as her own.

Kate definitely had a point. Naomi and Riley were insecure to the core—they had been ever since Alison DiLaurentis had dropped them for seemingly no reason in sixth grade and decided to be friends with Hanna, Spencer, Aria, and Emily instead. It certainly would be nice to have a clique again—especially one she could rule.

“Okay. I’m in,” Hanna decided.

Kate grinned. “Awesome.” She raised her orange juice glass in a toast. Hanna clinked it with her coffee mug. They both smiled and sipped. Then Hanna glanced back down at the newspaper, which was still open in front of her. Her eyes went right to an ad for vacation packages to Bermuda. All your dreams will come true, the ad copy assured her.

They’d better.