“That’s right. Here’s your chance to show the world that you’ve put that nonsense behind you, and now you’re a fabulous actress. What do you say?”
Hanna’s mind whirled. She wanted to tell Felicia that maybe they hadn’t put the nonsense behind them . . . but Felicia would probably think she was nuts. Should she do it? Spencer had always been the drama girl, starring in every school play, memorizing Ibsen monologues just for the hell of it, and always wanting to do improv exercises during sleepovers. But it was tempting. Would this movie have a red-carpet premiere in Hollywood? Would she get to go?
Still, she wasn’t sure. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Actually, we have to know now,” Felicia said, suddenly sounding impatient. “C’mon, Hanna. It’ll be an amazing experience. Hank Ross is directing. And guess who’s playing you! Hailey Blake!”
Hanna’s mouth dropped open. Hailey Blake was a beautiful, glittering, überfamous young starlet who’d been a presence in Hanna’s consciousness for years, starting with her starring role as Quintana in Abracadabra, Hanna’s favorite Disney show. After that, she’d gone on to do a slew of cool teen movies. Most recently, she’d hosted the Teen Choice Awards and shared a kiss onstage with her cohost, the sexy guy from Bitten, a hot vampire movie. And if this movie was good enough for Hailey . . .
“I guess I can give it a try,” she heard herself say.
“Fabulous!” Felicia crowed. “I’ll email you the details.”
Hanna hung up, still in a daze. She was going to be in a movie . . . with Hailey Blake. A real movie, with a red-carpet premiere. Red-carpet premieres also meant film festivals in Sundance and Cannes, didn’t they? And all that meant interviews with Ryan Seacrest and all those people on E! Maybe she could do a guest spot on Fashion Police! She and Hailey, together!
All at once, her future unfurled before her, bright and glittering. For the first time, something actually positive might come out of the A nightmare.
2
TORTURED ARTIST
Aria Montgomery steered her family’s rattling, sputtering, rusty Subaru into a parking space in Old Hollis, an artsy neighborhood resplendent with uneven sidewalks, shabby-chic Victorian houses, and out-of-control gardens (some of which yielded nothing but marijuana plants). The sun streamed across the leafy street in bright, broad stripes. A child’s bicycle was tipped over one lawn, and across the street was an abandoned lemonade stand with a sign that said ALL ORGANIC INGREDIENTS!
“Hey!” Aria’s mom, Ella, crowed as Aria walked through the door of the Olde Hollis Gallery, where she’d worked since the family moved back from Iceland two years ago. Ella’s dark hair was pulled into a messy bun, and she wore a long, gauzy skirt and a ribbed tank top that showed off her toned arms. Bracelets jangled on her wrist, and huge turquoise earrings swung from her earlobes. She hugged Aria tight, giving off a strong scent of patchouli oil. Ella had really been into hugging lately. She’d been into giving long, meaningful looks, too. Aria had a feeling her latest attack by A had really thrown her mom for a loop.
“Want to help me set up this show?” Ella asked, gesturing at a bunch of paintings tipped against the walls around the room. The artist, an old, hairy-eared guy named Franklin Hodgewell, had shown at the gallery a zillion times before, and his works of eastern Pennsylvania landscapes, flocks of geese, and Amish buggies were tried-and-true big sellers. “I mean, only if you want to,” Ella added quickly. “If you have something else to do, that’s okay, too.”
“Nope, I can help.” Aria picked up a painting of a barn and placed it on a hook. “I can help with the cocktail party, too, if you want.”
“If you want,” Ella said tentatively, giving her a long look.
Since Nick’s attack, Aria had spent almost every minute at the gallery. There were legitimate reasons. One, she did have a job here, though her hours were only part-time. Two, it felt good to be near her strong, stable, comforting mom. And three, she didn’t have anything better to do.
She knew her mom thought it was weird. And she knew the question Ella was dying to ask: What was Aria going to do with herself this summer . . . and next year? Her friends had applied to colleges, and if they completed their course credits, they would still be able to matriculate in the fall. Aria had planned to take a gap year and travel through Europe, but now the idea of going to a foreign country alone sounded daunting. Maybe that was because the last time she’d gone abroad, back to Iceland, she’d been embroiled in an international art scandal and she’d met Nick, Ali’s crazy boyfriend, disguised as a sexy vigilante named Olaf.
She’d halfheartedly considered signing up for an artist retreat in Oregon, but the application deadline was last week. Then she’d toyed with the idea of taking art classes at the University of the Arts in Philly, but the first day had come and gone.
She felt . . . stuck. And freaked. It seemed like whenever Aria shut her eyes, Ali’s face shimmered into her mind. She’d looked so creepy the last time they saw her, like a hollowed-out corpse. The image haunted her so completely that, in hopes of expunging it from her brain, she’d painted Ali’s likeness on a huge canvas in the back of the gallery. She’d painted two versions of Ali, actually: one of the most recent Ali, the girl she saw in the basement of that dilapidated building next to Hanna’s father’s office; the second a portrait of the old Ali, the unattainable, überpopular girl from the beginning of sixth grade. Aria had used an old sketch of Ali she’d drawn the day Ali tore down the Time Capsule poster outside Rosewood Day and announced that she was going to get a piece of the Time Capsule flag. It was from before the twin switch happened. Before Courtney DiLaurentis approached the four of them at the charity drive and asked them to be her besties.
Once she’d finished helping Ella, Aria stepped into the back room and dared to examine both Ali paintings more closely. Usually, she had trouble with portraits—she’d painted a ton of Noel Kahn, her maybe-ex-boyfriend, and none of them quite captured his essence. But Ali’s Ali-ness had flowed from Aria’s brush, every feature chilling and precise. Just by looking at the canvases, she could almost smell Ali’s rotting breath and felt a shiver when she examined her wide, furious eyes. When Aria turned and peered at sixth-grade Ali, the girl’s condescending smirk made her feel as small and insignificant as that day Aria had sat alone on the wall at Rosewood Day sketching her.
She backed out of the room and shut the door. Spending too much time with Ali’s portraits even freaked her out.
She looked around the main gallery space for something to do, but it wasn’t her shift, and the two assistants on duty, Bernie and Sierra, were bored themselves. Suddenly, a figure out the window caught her eye. Her heart leapt into her throat.
Noel.
“Be back in a sec,” she muttered to her mom, darting out the door.
Noel was halfway up the block by the time Aria hit the sidewalk. “Hey!” she called out. “Noel?”
He turned around. The bruises on his face from when Ali and Nick had trapped him in a storage shed behind Rosewood Day on prom night had healed, and his dark hair had grown out a little, curling below his ears. When he saw Aria, though, his expression became guarded.