Quentin folded his hands next to his plate. “Have you always been interested in economics, Miss Hastings?”
“Um, of course.” Spencer’s voice came out scratchy and dry. “I’ve always found…um…economics, money, all that, very fascinating.”
“And whom do you consider to be your philosophical mentors?” Amanda asked.
Spencer’s brain felt hollowed out. Philosophical mentors? What the hell did that mean? Only one person came to mind. “Donald Trump?”
The interviewers sat stunned for a moment. Then Quentin began to laugh. Then Jeffrey, then Amanda. They were all smiling, so Spencer smiled, too. Until Jeffrey said, “You’re kidding, right?”
Spencer blinked. “Of course I’m kidding.” The interviewers laughed again. Spencer wanted so badly to rearrange the croissants in the middle of the table into a neater pyramid. She shut her eyes, trying to focus, but all she saw was the image of a plane falling from the sky, its nose and tail in flames. “But as far as inspirations…well, I have so many. It’s hard to name just one,” she sputtered.
The interviewers didn’t look particularly impressed. “After college, what’s your ideal first job?” Jeffrey asked.
Spencer spoke before thinking. “Working as a reporter at the New York Times.”
The interviewers looked confused. “A reporter in the economics section, right?” Amanda qualified.
Spencer blinked. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
She hadn’t felt this awkward and nervous since…well, ever. Her interview notes remained in a neatly stacked pile in her hands. Her mind felt like a chalkboard erased clean. A peal of laughter floated over from table ten. Spencer looked over and saw the brunette girl from the W smiling easily, her interviewers happily smiling back. Beyond her was a wall of windows; outside, on the street, Spencer saw a girl looking in. It was…Melissa. She was just standing there, staring blankly at her.
And she won’t think twice about doing it to you.
“So.” Amanda added more milk to her coffee. “What would you say is the most significant thing that’s happened to you during your high school career?”
“Well…” Spencer’s eyes flicked back to the window, but Melissa was gone. She took a nervous breath and tried to get a grip. Quentin’s Rolex gleamed in the light of the chandelier. Someone had put on too much musky cologne. A French-looking waitress poured another round of coffee at table three. Spencer knew what the right answer was: competing in the econ math bowl in ninth grade. Summer interning on the options trading desk at the Philly branch of J. P. Morgan. Only, those weren’t her accomplishments, they were Melissa’s, this award’s rightful winner. The words swelled on the tip of her tongue, but suddenly, something unexpected spilled out of her mouth instead.
“My best friend went missing in seventh grade,” Spencer blurted out. “Alison DiLaurentis? You may have heard about it. For years, I had to live with the question of what happened to her, where she’d gone. This September, they found her body. She’d been murdered. I think my greatest achievement is that I’ve held it together. I don’t know how any of us have done it, how we’ve gone to school and lived our lives and just kept going. She and I may have hated each other sometimes, but she meant everything to me.”
Spencer shut her eyes, returning to the night Ali went missing, to when she had shoved Ali hard, and Ali slid backward. A horrible crack rang through the air. And suddenly, her memory opened an inch or two wider. She saw something else…something new. Just after she shoved Ali, she heard a small, almost girlish gasp. The gasp sounded close, as if whoever it was had been standing right behind her, breathing on her neck.
She did it, you know.
Spencer’s eyes sprang open. Her judges seemed to be on pause. Quentin held a croissant an inch from his face. Amanda’s head was cocked at an awkward angle. Jeffrey kept his napkin at his lips. Spencer wondered, suddenly, if she’d just voiced her newly recalled memory out loud.
“Well,” Jeffrey said finally. “Thank you, Spencer.”
Amanda stood, tossing her napkin on her plate. “This has been very interesting.” Spencer was pretty sure that was shorthand for You have no chance of winning.
The other interviewers snaked away, as did most of the rest of the candidates. Quentin was the only one who remained sitting. He studied her carefully, a proud smile on his face. “You’re a breath of fresh air, giving us an honest answer like that,” he said in a low, confidential voice. “I’ve followed your friend’s story for a while now. It’s just awful. Do the police have any suspects?”
The air-conditioning vent far above Spencer’s head showered cold air on her full force, and the image of Melissa beheading a Barbie doll popped into her mind. “They don’t,” she whispered.
But I might.
25
WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS
After school on Friday, Emily wrung out her still-wet-from-swim-practice hair and walked into the yearbook room, which was plastered with snapshots of Rosewood Day’s finest. There was Spencer from last year’s graduation-pin ceremony, accepting the Math Student of the Year award. And there was Hanna, emceeing last year’s Rosewood Day charity fashion show, when she really should’ve been a model herself.
Two hands clapped over Emily’s eyes. “Hey there,” Maya whispered in her ear. “How was swimming?” She said it teasingly, sort of like a nursery rhyme.
“Fine.” Emily felt Maya’s lips brush against hers, but she couldn’t quite kiss back.
Scott Chin, a closeted-but-not-really yearbook photographer, swept into the room. “Guys! Congratulations!” He air-kissed both of them, then reached out to turn Emily’s collar out and sweep a stray kinky hair out of Maya’s face.
“Perfect,” he said.
Scott pointed Maya and Emily toward the white backdrop on the far wall. “We’re taking all the Most Likely To photos there. Personally, I would love to see the two of you against a rainbow background. Wouldn’t that be awesome? But we have to be consistent.”
Emily frowned. “Most likely to…what? I thought we were voted best couple.”
Scott’s houndstooth newsboy cap slipped over one of his eyes as he bent over the camera tripod. “No, you were voted most likely to be together at the five-year reunion.”
Emily’s mouth fell open. At the five-year reunion? Wasn’t that a tad extreme?
She massaged the back of her neck, trying to calm down. But she hadn’t felt calm since she found A’s note in the restaurant bathroom. Not knowing what else to do with it, she’d stashed it in the front pocket of her bag. She’d been taking it out periodically through her classes, each time pressing it to her nose to smell the sweet scent of banana gum.
“Say gouda!” Scott cried, and Emily moved toward Maya and tried to smile. The flash from Scott’s camera left spots in front of her eyes, and she suddenly noticed that the yearbook room smelled like burning electronics. In the next shot, Maya kissed Emily on the cheek. And in the next, Emily willed herself to kiss Maya on the lips.
“Hot!” Scott encouraged.
Scott peeked into his camera’s preview windowpane. “You’re free to go,” he said. Then, he paused, looking curiously at Emily. “Actually, before you do, there’s something you might want to see.”
He led Emily to a large drafting table and pointed to a bunch of pictures arranged in a two-page layout. Missing You Terribly, said the headline across the top of the mock-up. A familiar seventh-grade portrait stared at Emily—not only did she have a copy in the top drawer of her nightstand, but she’d also seen it nearly every night on the news for months now.