Pretty Little Liars (6 page)

“Look at his butt!”

“Shut up!” Spencer knocked her friend Kirsten Cullen in the shin guard with her field hockey stick. They were supposed to be running defense drills, but they—along with the rest of the team—were too busy sizing up this year's new assistant coach. He was none other than Ian Thomas.

Spencer's skin prickled with adrenaline. Talk about weird; she remembered Melissa mentioning that Ian had moved to California. But then, a lot of people who you wouldn't expect ended up back in Rosewood.

“Your sister was so stupid to break up with him,” Kirsten said. “He's so
hot
.”

“
Shhh,
” Spencer answered, giggling. “And anyway, my sister didn't break up with him. He broke up with her.”

The whistle blew. “Get moving!” Ian called to them, jogging over. Spencer leaned over to tie her shoe, as if she didn't care. She felt his eyes on her.

“
Spencer?
Spencer Hastings?”

Spencer stood up slowly. “Oh. Ian, right?”

Ian's smile was so wide, Spencer was surprised his cheeks didn't rip. He still had that All-American, I'm-going-to-take-over-my-father's-company-at-twenty-five look, but now his curly hair was a little longer and messier. “You're all grown up!” he cried.

“I guess.” Spencer shrugged.

Ian ran his hand against the back of his neck. “How's your sister these days?”

“Um, she's good. Graduated early. Going to Wharton.”

Ian bent his head down. “And are her boyfriends still hitting on you?”

Spencer's mouth dropped open. Before she could answer, the head coach, Ms. Campbell, blew her whistle and called Ian over.

Kirsten grabbed Spencer's arm once his back was turned. “You
totally
hooked up with him, didn't you?”

“Shut
up
!” Spencer shot back.

As Ian jogged to center field, he glanced back at her over his shoulder. Spencer drew in her breath and leaned over to examine her cleat. She didn't want him to know she'd been staring.

 

By the time she got home from practice, every part of Spencer's body hurt, from her ass to her shoulders to her little toes. She'd spent the whole summer organizing committees, boning up on SAT words, and playing the lead in three different plays at Muesli, Rosewood's community theater—Miss Jean Brodie in
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
, Emily in
Our Town
, and Ophelia in
Hamlet
. With all that, she hadn't had time to keep in top shape for field hockey, and she was feeling it now.

All she wanted to do was go upstairs, crawl into bed, and not think about tomorrow and what another overachieving day would hold: French club breakfast, reading the morning announcements, five AP classes, drama tryouts, a quick appearance at yearbook committee, and another grueling field hockey practice with Ian.

She opened the mailbox at the bottom of their private drive, hoping to find the scores for her PSATs. They were supposed to be in any day now, and she'd had a good feeling about them—a better feeling, in fact, than she'd ever had about any other test. Unfortunately, there were just a pile of bills, info from her dad's many investment accounts, and a brochure addressed to Ms. Spencer J (for
Jill
) Hastings from Appleboro College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Yeah, as if she'd go
there
.

Inside the house, she put the mail on the marble-topped kitchen island, rubbed her shoulder, and had a thought:
The backyard hot tub. A relaxing soak. Awww, yeah
.

She greeted Rufus and Beatrice, the family's two labradoodles, and threw a couple of King Kong toys out into the yard for them to chase. Then she dragged herself along the flagstone path toward the pool's changing room. Pausing at the door, ready to shower and change into her bikini, she realized,
Who cares?
She was too tired to change, and nobody was home. And the hot tub was surrounded by rose bushes. As she approached, it burbled, as if anticipating her arrival. She stripped down to her bra, undies, and tall field hockey socks, did a deep forward bend to loosen up her back, and climbed into the steaming tub. Now
that
was more like it.

“Oh.”

Spencer turned. Wren stood next to the roses, naked to the waist, wearing the sexiest boxer brief Polo underwear she'd ever seen.

“Oops,” he said, covering himself with a towel. “Sorry.”

“You don't get here until tomorrow,” she blurted, even though he was very clearly here, right now, which was obviously
today
and not tomorrow at all.

“We don't. But your sister and I were at Frou,” Wren said, making a little face. Frou was this haughty store a few towns over that sold single pillowcases for about a thousand dollars. “She had to run another errand and told me to play with myself here.”

Spencer hoped that was just some bizarre English expression. “Oh,” she said.

“Did you just get home?”

“I was at field hockey,” Spencer said, leaning back and relaxing a little. “First practice of the year.”

Spencer glanced at her blurry body under the water. Oh God, she was still wearing her socks. And her high-waisted, sweaty panties and Champion sports bra! She kicked herself for not changing into the yellow Eres bikini she'd just bought but then realized how absurd that was.

“So, I was just planning to have a soak, but if you want to be alone, that's okay too,” Wren said. “I'll just go inside and watch TV.” He started to turn.

Spencer felt a tiny twinge of disappointment. “Um, no,” she said. He stopped. “You can come in. I don't care.” Quickly, while his back was turned, she yanked off her socks and threw them into the bushes. They landed with a soggy slap.

“If you're sure, Spencer,” Wren said. Spencer loved the way he said her name with his British accent—Spen-
saah.

He shyly slid into the tub. Spencer stayed very far on her side, curling her legs under her. Wren leaned his head back on the concrete deck and sighed. Spencer did the same and tried not to think about how her legs were getting really cramped and sore in this position. She stretched one tentatively and touched Wren's sinewy calf.

She jerked her leg away. “Sorry.”

“No worries,” Wren said. “So field hockey, huh? I rowed for Oxford.”

“Really?” Spencer said, hoping she didn't sound too
gushy. Her favorite driving-into-Philadelphia sight was of the Penn and Temple men's crew teams rowing on the Schuylkill River.

“Yeah,” he said. “I loved it. Do you love field hockey?”

“Um, not really.” Spencer took her hair out of its ponytail and shook her head around but then wondered if Wren would find this really skanky and ridiculous. She'd probably imagined the spark between them outside Moshulu.

But then, Wren
had
gotten into the hot tub with her.

“So if you don't like field hockey, why do you play?” Wren asked.

“Because it looks good on a college application.”

Now Wren sat up a little, making the water ripple. “It does?”

“Uh,
yeah
.”

Spencer shifted and winced when her shoulder muscle cramped into her neck.

“You okay?” Wren asked.

“Yeah, it's nothing,” Spencer said, and inexplicably felt an overwhelming wave of despair. It was only the first day of school, and she was already burned out. She thought of all the homework she had to do, lists she had to make, and lines she had to memorize. She was too busy to freak out, but that was the only thing keeping her from freaking out.

“Is it your shoulder?”

“I think,” Spencer said, trying to rotate it. “In field hockey, you spend so much time bending over, and I don't know if I pulled it or what….”

“I bet I could fix it for you.”

Spencer stared at him. She suddenly had an urge to run her fingers through his shaggy hair. “That's okay. Thanks, though.”

“Really,” he said. “I'm not going to bite you.”

Spencer hated when people said that.

“I'm a doctor,” Wren continued. “I bet it's your posterior deltoid.”

“Um, okay…”

“Your shoulder muscle.” He motioned for her to come closer. “C'mere. Seriously. We just need to soften the muscle.”

Spencer tried not to read into that. He was a doctor, after all. He was being doctorly. She drifted to him, and he pressed his hands into the middle of her back. His thumbs dug into the little muscles around her spine. Spencer closed her eyes.

“Wow. That's awesome,” she murmured.

“You just have some fluid buildup in your bursa sac,” he said. Spencer tried not to giggle at the word
sac.
When he reached under her sports bra strap to dig deeper, she swallowed hard. She tried to think about nonsexual things—her uncle Daniel's nose hair, the constipated look her mom got on her face when she rode a horse, the time
her cat, Kitten, carried a dead mole from the creek out back and left it in her bedroom.
He's a doctor
, she told herself.
This is just what doctors do.

“Your pectorals are a little tight too,” Wren said, and, horrifyingly, moved his hand to the front of her body. He slid his fingers under her bra again, rubbing just above her chest, and suddenly the bra strap fell off her shoulder. Spencer breathed in but he didn't move away.
This is a doctor thing
, she reminded herself again. But then she realized: Wren was a first-year med student.
He
will
be a doctor
, she corrected herself.
One day. In about ten years.

“Um, where's my sister?” she asked quietly.

“The store, I think? Wawa?”

“Wawa?” Spencer jerked away from Wren and pulled her bra strap back on her shoulder. “Wawa's only a mile away! If she's going there, she's just picking up cigarettes or something. She'll be back any minute!”

“I don't think she smokes,” Wren said, tilting his head questioningly.

“You know what I mean!” Spencer stood up in the tub, grabbed her Ralph Lauren towel, and began violently drying her hair. She felt so hot. Her skin, bones—even her organs and nerves—felt like they'd been braised in the hot tub. She climbed out and fled to the house, in search of a giant glass of water.

“Spencer,” Wren called after her. “I didn't mean to…I was just trying to help.”

But Spencer didn't listen. She ran up to her room and
looked around. Her stuff was still in boxes, still packed up to move to the barn. Suddenly she wanted everything organized. Her jewelry box needed to be sorted by gemstone. Her computer was clogged with old English papers from two years ago, and even though they'd gotten A's back then they were probably embarrassingly bad and should be deleted. She stared at the books in the boxes. They needed to be arranged by subject matter, not by author. Obviously. She pulled them out and started shelving, starting with Adultery and
The Scarlet Letter
.

But by the time she got to Utopias Gone Wrong, she still didn't feel any better. So she switched on her computer and pressed her wireless mouse, which was comfortingly cool, to the back of her neck.

She clicked on her e-mail and saw an unopened letter. The subject line read,
SAT vocab
. Curious, she clicked on it.

Spencer's stomach seized. She looked around.

Who. The. Fuck. Could. Have. Seen?

She threw open her bedroom's biggest window, but the Hastingses' circular driveway was empty. Spencer looked around. A few cars swished past. The neighbors'
lawn service guy was trimming a hedge by their front gate. Her dogs were chasing each other around the side yard. Some birds flew to the top of a telephone pole.

Then, something caught her eye in the neighbor's upstairs window: a flash of blondish hair. But wasn't the new family black? An icy shiver crept up Spencer's spine. That was Ali's old window.

Hanna sank farther into the squishy cushions of her couch and tried to unbutton Sean's Paper Denim jeans.

“Whoa,” Sean said. “We can't….”

Hanna smiled mysteriously and put a finger to her lips. She started kissing Sean's neck. He smelled like Lever 2000 and, strangely, chocolate, and she loved how his recently buzzed haircut showed off all the sexy angles of his face. She'd loved him since sixth grade and he'd only gotten handsomer with each passing year.

As they kissed, Hanna's mother, Ashley, unlocked the front door and walked inside, chatting on her teensy LG flip phone.

Sean recoiled against the couch cushions. “She'll see!” he whispered, quickly tucking in his pale blue Lacoste polo.

Hanna shrugged. Her mom waved at them blankly and walked into the other room. Her mom paid more attention to her BlackBerry than she did to Hanna. Because of her work schedule, she and Hanna didn't bond much, aside from periodic checkups on homework, notes on which shops were running the best sales, and reminders that she should clean her room in case any of the execs coming to her cocktail party needed to use the upstairs bathroom. But Hanna was mostly okay with that. After all, her mom's job was what paid Hanna's AmEx bill—she wasn't
always
taking things—and her pricey tuition at Rosewood Day.

“I have to go,” Sean murmured.

“You should come over on Saturday,” Hanna purred. “My mom's going to be at the spa all day.”

“I'll see you at Noel's party on Friday,” Sean said. “And you know this is hard enough.”

Hanna groaned. “It doesn't
have
to be so hard,” she whined.

He leaned down to kiss her. “See you tomorrow.”

After Sean let himself out, she buried her face in the couch pillow. Dating Sean still felt like a dream. Back when Hanna was chubby and lame, she'd adored how tall and athletic he was, how he was always really nice to teachers and kids who were less cool, and how he dressed well, not like a color-blind slob. She never stopped liking him, even after she shed her last few stubborn inches and discovered defrizzing hair products. So last school year,
she casually whispered to James Freed in study hall that she liked Sean, and Colleen Rink told her three periods later that Sean was going to call Hanna on her cell that night after soccer. It was yet another moment Hanna was pissed Ali wasn't here to witness.

They'd been a couple for seven months and Hanna felt more in love with him than ever. She hadn't told him yet—she'd kept
that
to herself for years—but now, she was pretty sure he loved her too. And wasn't sex the best way to express love?

That was why the virginity pledge thing made no sense. It wasn't as if Sean's parents were overly religious, and it went against every preconceived notion Hanna had about guys. Despite how she used to look, Hanna had to hand it to herself: With her deep brown hair, curvy body, and flawless—we're talking no pimples, ever—skin, she was hot. Who wouldn't fall madly in love with her? Sometimes she wondered if Sean was gay—he
did
have a lot of nice clothes—or if he had a fear of vaginas.

Hanna called for her miniature pinscher, Dot, to hop up on the couch. “Did you miss me today?” she squealed as Dot licked her hand. Hanna had petitioned to let Dot come to school in her oversize Prada handbag—all the girls in Beverly Hills did it, after all—but Rosewood Day said no. So to prevent separation anxiety, Hanna had bought Dot the snuggliest Gucci bed money could buy and left QVC on her bedroom TV during the day.

Her mother strode into the living room, still in her
tailored tweed suit and brown kitten-heel slingbacks. “There's sushi,” Ms. Marin said.

Hanna looked up. “Toro rolls?”

“I don't know. I got a bunch of things.”

Hanna strode into the kitchen, taking in her mom's laptop and buzzing LG.

“What now?” Ms. Marin barked into the phone.

Dot's little claws
tick-ticked
behind Hanna. After searching through the bag, she settled on one piece of yellowtail sashimi, one eel roll, and a small bowl of miso soup.

“Well, I talked to the client this morning,” her mom went on. “They were happy
then
.”

Hanna daintily dipped her yellowtail roll into some soy sauce and flipped breezily through a J. Crew catalog. Her mom was second-in-command at the Philly advertising firm McManus & Tate, and her goal was to be the firm's first woman president.

Besides being extremely successful and ambitious, Ms. Marin was what most guys at Rosewood Day would call a MILF—she had long, red-gold hair, smooth skin, and an incredibly supple body, thanks to her daily Vinyasa yoga ritual.

Hanna knew her mom wasn't perfect, but she still didn't get why her parents had divorced four years ago, or why her father quickly began dating an average-looking ER nurse from Annapolis, Maryland, named Isabel. Talk about trading down.

Isabel had a teenage daughter, Kate, and Mr. Marin had said Hanna would just
love
her. A few months after the divorce, he'd invited Hanna to Annapolis for the weekend. Nervous about meeting her quasi-stepsister, Hanna begged Ali to come along.

“Don't worry, Han,” Ali assured her. “We'll outclass whoever this Kate girl is.” When Hanna looked at her, unconvinced, she reminded Hanna of her signature phrase: “I'm Ali and I'm fabulous!” It sounded almost silly now, but back then Hanna could only imagine what it would feel like to be so confident. Having Ali there was like a security blanket—proof she wasn't a loser her dad just wanted to get away from.

The day had been a train wreck, anyway. Kate was the prettiest girl Hanna had ever met and her dad had basically called her a pig right in front of Kate. He'd quickly backpedaled and said it was only a joke, but that was the very last time she'd seen him…and the very first time she ever made herself throw up.

But Hanna hated thinking about stuff in the past, so she rarely did. Besides, now Hanna got to ogle her mom's dates in a not so will-you-be-my-new-father? way. And would her father let Hanna have a 2
A
.
M
. curfew and drink wine, like her mom did? Doubtful.

Her mom snapped her phone shut and fastened her emerald green eyes on Hanna. “Those are your back-to-school shoes?”

Hanna stopped chewing. “Yeah.”

Ms. Marin nodded. “Did you get a lot of compliments?”

Hanna turned her ankle to inspect her purple wedges. Too afraid to face the Saks security, she'd actually paid for them. “Yeah. I did.”

“Mind if I borrow them?”

“Um, sure. If you wa—”

Her mom's phone rang again. She pounced on it. “Carson? Yes. I've been looking for you all night…. What the hell is going on there?”

Hanna blew at her side-swept bangs and fed Dot a tiny piece of eel. As Dot spit it out on the floor, the doorbell rang.

Her mother didn't even flinch. “They need it
tonight
,” she said to the phone. “It's your project. Do I have to come down and hold your hand?”

The doorbell rang again. Dot started barking and her mother stood to get it. “It's probably those Girl Scouts again.”

The Girl Scouts had come over three days in a row, trying to sell them cookies at dinnertime. They were rabid in this neighborhood.

Within seconds, she was back in the kitchen with a young, brown-haired, green-eyed police officer behind her. “This gentleman says he wants to speak with you.” A gold pin on the breast pocket of his uniform read
WILDEN
.

“Me?” Hanna pointed at herself.

“You're Hanna Marin?” Wilden asked. The walkie-talkie on his belt made a noise.

Suddenly Hanna realized who this guy was: Darren Wilden. He'd been a senior at Rosewood when she was in seventh grade. The Darren Wilden she remembered allegedly slept with the whole girls' diving team and was almost kicked out of school for stealing the principal's vintage Ducati motorcycle. But this cop was definitely the same guy—those green eyes were hard to forget, even if it had been four years since she'd seen them. Hanna hoped he was a stripper that Mona had sent over as a joke.

“What's this all about?” Ms. Marin asked, looking longingly back at her cell phone. “Why are you interrupting us at dinner?”

“We received a call from Tiffany's,” Wilden said. “They have you on tape shoplifting some items from their store. Tapes from various other mall security cameras tracked you out of the mall and to your car. We traced the license plate.”

Hanna started pinching the inside of her palm with her fingernails, something she always did when she felt out of control.

“Hanna wouldn't do that,” Ms. Marin barked. “Would you, Hanna?”

Hanna opened her mouth to respond but no words came out. Her heart was banging against her ribs.

“Look.” Wilden crossed his arms over his chest.

Hanna noticed the gun on his belt. It looked like a toy. “I just need you to come to the station. Maybe it's nothing.”

“I'm sure it's nothing!” Ms. Marin said. Then she took her Fendi wallet out of its matching purse. “What will it take for you to leave us alone to have our dinner?”

“Ma'am.” Wilden sounded exasperated. “You should just come down with me. All right? It won't take all night. I promise.” He smiled that sexy Darren Wilden smile that had probably kept him from getting expelled from Rosewood.

“Well,” Hanna's mother said. She and Wilden looked at each other for a long moment. “Let me get my bag.”

Wilden turned to Hanna. “I'm gonna have to cuff you.”

Hanna gasped. “Cuff me?” Okay, now that was silly. It sounded fake, like something the six-year-old twins next door would say to each other. But Wilden pulled out real steel handcuffs and gently put them around her wrists. Hanna hoped he didn't notice that her hands were shaking.

If only this were the moment when Wilden tied her to a chair, put on that old '70s song “Hot Stuff,” and stripped off all his clothes. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

 

The police station smelled like burned coffee and very old wood, because, like most of Rosewood's municipal buildings, it was a former railroad baron's mansion. Cops fluttered around her, taking phone calls, filling out forms, and sliding around on their little castor-wheel chairs. Hanna
half expected to see Mona here, too, with her mom's Dior stole thrown over her wrists. But from the look of the empty bench, it seemed Mona hadn't been caught.

Ms. Marin sat very stiffly next to her. Hanna felt squirmy; her mom was usually really lenient, but then, Hanna had never been taken downtown and had the book thrown at her or whatever.

And then, very quietly, her mom leaned over. “What was it that you took?”

“Huh?” Hanna asked.

“That bracelet you're wearing?”

Hanna looked down.
Perfect.
She'd forgotten to take it off; the bracelet was circling her wrist in full view. She shoved it farther up her sleeve. She felt her ears for the earrings; yep, she'd worn them today too. Talk about stupid!

“Give it to me,” her mother whispered.

“Huh?” Hanna squeaked.

Ms. Marin held out her palm. “Give it here. I can handle this.”

Reluctantly, Hanna let her mom unfasten the bracelet from her wrist. Then, Hanna reached up and took off the earrings and handed them over too. Ms. Marin didn't even flinch. She simply dropped the jewelry in her purse and folded her hands over the metal clasp.

The blond Tiffany's girl who'd helped Hanna with the charm bracelet strode into the room. As soon as she saw Hanna, sitting dejectedly on the bench with the cuffs still on her hands, she nodded. “Yeah. That's her.”

Darren Wilden glared at Hanna, and her mom stood up. “I think there's been a mistake.” She walked over to Wilden's desk. “I misunderstood you at the house. I was with Hanna that day. We bought that stuff. I have a receipt for it at home.”

The Tiffany's girl narrowed her eyes in disbelief. “Are you suggesting I'm lying?”

“No,” Ms. Marin said sweetly, “I just think you're confused.”

What was she
doing
? A gooey, uncomfortable, almost-guilty feeling washed over Hanna.

“How do you explain the surveillance tapes?” Wilden asked.

Her mom paused. Hanna saw a tiny muscle in her neck quiver. Then, before Hanna could stop her, she reached into her purse and took out the loot. “This was all my fault,” she said. “Not Hanna's.”

Ms. Marin turned back to Wilden. “Hanna and I had a fight about these items. I said she couldn't have them—I drove her to this. She'll never do it again. I'll make sure of it.”

Hanna stared, stunned. She and her mom had never once discussed Tiffany's, let alone something she could or couldn't have.

Wilden shook his head. “Ma'am, I think your daughter may need to do some community service. That's usually the penalty.”

Ms. Marin blinked, innocently. “Can't we let this slide? Please?”

Wilden looked at her for a long time, one corner of his mouth turned up almost devilishly. “Sit down,” he said finally. “Let me see what I can do.”

Hanna looked everywhere but in her mom's direction. Wilden hunched over his desk. He had a Chief Wiggum figurine from
The Simpsons
and a metal Slinky. He licked his pointer finger to turn the pages of the papers he was filling out. Hanna flinched. What sort of papers were they? Didn't the local newspapers report crimes? This was bad. Very bad.

Hanna jiggled her foot nervously, having a sudden urge for some Junior Mints. Or maybe cashews. Even the Slim Jims on Wilden's desk would do.

She could just see it: Everyone would find out, and she'd be instantaneously friendless and boyfriendless. From there, she'd recede back to dorky, seventh-grade Hanna in reverse evolution. She'd wake up and her hair would be a yucky, washed-out brown again. Then her teeth would go crooked and she'd get her braces back on. She wouldn't be able to fit into any of her jeans. The rest would happen spontaneously. She'd spend her life chubby, ugly, miserable, and overlooked, just the way she used to be.