They all turned back to their Pinkberries, saying nothing. Suddenly, a flash of blond hair in the atrium caught Hanna’s eye, and she whirled around. A group of girls in their twenties passed, swinging Saks shopping bags. They were all brunettes.
Hanna had been seeing a lot of phantom flashes of blond hair lately, and was constantly haunted by the eerie feeling that it could be Mona Vanderwaal, her old best friend. Mona had died almost two months earlier, but Hanna still thought of her many times a day—all the sleepovers they’d had, all the shopping trips they’d gone on, all the drunken nights at Mona’s house, giggling over boys who had crushes on them. Now that Mona was gone, there was a huge hole in Hanna’s life. At the same time, she felt like an idiot. Mona hadn’t really been her friend—Mona had been A. She’d ruined Hanna’s relationships, aired her dirty laundry, and tortured her for months. And BFFs definitely didn’t hit BFFs with Daddy’s SUV.
After the shoppers passed, Hanna noticed a familiar dark-haired figure just outside Pinkberry, talking on a cell phone. She squinted. It was Officer Wilden.
“Just calm down,” Wilden murmured into the phone, his voice urgent and distressed. His brow furrowed as he listened to the person on the other end. “Okay, okay. Sit tight. I’ll be there soon.”
Hanna frowned. Had he found out something about Ian’s body? She also wanted to ask him about the spooky hooded figure she’d seen in the woods the night of the party. Whoever it was had loomed over Hanna so threateningly, and, after a moment, the person had raised a finger to his lips and whispered shhh. Why would someone shush Hanna unless he’d done something awful—and didn’t want to be seen? Hanna wondered if the person had something to do with Ian’s death. Maybe he was A too.
Hanna started to stand, but before she could push her chair away from the table, Wilden jogged off. She sank back into her seat, figuring he was just busy and flustered. Unlike Spencer, Hanna didn’t think Wilden was hiding anything. Wilden had dated Hanna’s mom before she moved to Singapore to take a new job, and Hanna felt that she knew Wilden a little more intimately than the others. Okay, so finding him fresh from her shower wrapped in her favorite Pottery Barn towel was more awkward than intimate, but he was essentially a good guy who was looking out for them, right? If he thought A was a copycat, maybe A really was. Why would he mislead them?
Still, Hanna wasn’t taking any chances. With that in mind, she pulled her brand-new iPhone out of its calf leather Dior case and turned back to the girls. “So. I changed cell numbers, but I’m not giving it out to just anyone. You guys have to promise not to pass it around. If you do, I’ll know.” She eyed them seriously.
“We promise,” Riley said, eagerly pulling out her BlackBerry. Hanna sent them each a text with her new number. Really, she should’ve thought about getting a new phone number much sooner—it was a perfect way to A-proof her life. Besides, getting rid of her old number was a way of freeing herself from everything that had happened last semester. Voilà! All those shitty memories were gone for good.
“So anyway,” Kate said loudly after the girls finished texting, bringing the attention back to herself. “Back to Eric. I’m over him. There are plenty of other cute guys right under our noses.”
She jutted her chin in the direction of the atrium. A group of Rosewood Day lacrosse players, including Noel Kahn, Mason Byers, and Aria’s younger brother, Mike, were lingering by the fountain. Mike was gesticulating wildly with his hands as he told a story. He was too far away for them to hear what he was saying, but the other lacrosse boys were hanging on his every word.
“Lax boys?” Hanna made a face. “Tell me you’re joking.” She and Mona once made a pact never to date anyone on the lacrosse team. They did everything together, from studying to working out at Philly Sports Club, the grimy gym at the back of the King James, to eating nasty Chick-fil-A. Hanna and Mona used to joke that they also secretly had group sleepovers and styled each other’s hair.
Kate took another sip of her mint tea. “Some of them are seriously hot.”
“Like who?” Hanna challenged.
Kate watched the boys as they passed M.A.C., David Yurman, and Lush, the store that sold a million different types of handmade candles and soaps. “Him.” She pointed at one of the boys on the end.
“Who, Noel?” Hanna shrugged. Noel Kahn was okay, if you liked rich boys who had no inner censor and were obsessed with jokes about testicles, third nipples, and animals having sex.
Kate chewed on the stirrer in her mint tea. “Not Noel. The other one. With the dark hair.”
Hanna blinked. “Mike?”
“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”
Hanna’s eyes boggled. Mike, gorgeous? He was loud and annoying and uncouth. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t a total dog—he had the same blue-black hair, lanky body, and ice blue eyes as Aria did. But…still.
Suddenly, a possessive feeling began to course through Hanna’s veins. The thing was, Mike had been following Hanna around like a lost puppy for years. One weekend in sixth grade when Hanna, Ali, and the others were sleeping over at Aria’s house, Hanna had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. In the dark hall, a pair of hands reached out and groped her boobs. Hanna yelped, and Mike, then in fifth grade, stepped back. “Sorry. I thought you were Ali,” he said. After a pause, he leaned in and kissed Hanna anyway. Hanna let him, secretly flattered—she was chubby, ugly, and lame back then, and it wasn’t like she had tons of guys fighting over her. Mike was technically her first kiss.
Hanna faced Kate. She felt like a pot bubbling over. “Hate to break it to you, sweetie, but Mike likes me. Haven’t you noticed the way he ogles me at Steam every morning?”
Kate ran her fingers through her chestnut hair. “I’m at Steam every morning, too, Han. It’s hard to know who he’s looking at.”
“It’s true,” Naomi interjected, brushing some wisps of her growing-out severe blond haircut. “Mike looks at all of us.”
“Yeah,” Riley said.
Hanna pressed her French-manicured nails into her thigh. What the hell was going on here? Why were those two so solidly on Team Kate? Hanna was the queen bee.
“We’ll just have to see about that,” Hanna said, puffing up her chest. Kate cocked her head, as if to say, Oh yeah?
Then Kate rose. “You know, girls, I suddenly got a major craving for some red wine. Wanna swing by Rive Gauche?”
Naomi and Riley’s eyes lit up. “Totally,” they both said in unison, and stood up too.
Hanna let out an indignant squeak, and everyone stopped. Kate stuck out her lip in a faux-concerned pout. “Oh, Han! Are you really…upset about Lucas? I seriously thought you didn’t care.”
“No,” Hanna snapped, her voice irritatingly shaky. “I don’t care about him. I…I just don’t want to go somewhere with rats.”
“Don’t worry,” Kate said gently. “I won’t tell your dad if you don’t want to come along.”
She slung her Michael Kors bag over her shoulder. Naomi and Riley looked back and forth from Hanna to Kate, trying to decide what to do. Finally, Naomi shrugged, fiddling with her blond hair. “Red wine does sound really good.” She glanced at Hanna. “Sorry.” And Riley followed behind saying nothing. Traitors, Hanna thought.
“Watch out for rat tails in your wineglasses,” Hanna yelled after them. But the girls didn’t turn, traipsing into the courtyard, linking elbows and laughing. Hanna watched them for a moment, her cheeks blazing with fury, and then turned back to Dot, took a few deep breaths, and wrapped her cashmere poncho around her shoulders.