Spencer widened her eyes. “What?”
“He made us get down on our stomachs on the sidewalk.” Mrs. Hastings’s mouth wobbled. “I didn’t care that I gave him my wallet, but I was so scared for you girls. You kept whimpering and crying. You kept asking me if we were going to die.”
Spencer twisted the end of the napkin in her lap. She didn’t remember this.
“He told me to count to one hundred before we could get up again,” her mother said. “After the coast was clear, we ran to our car, and I drove us home. I drove nearly thirty miles over the speed limit, I remember. It’s a wonder I didn’t get stopped.”
She paused and sipped her drink. Someone dropped a bunch of plates in the kitchen, and most of the diners craned their necks in the direction of the shattering china, but Mrs. Hastings acted as if she hadn’t even heard it. “When we got home, you had a horrible fever,” she went on. “It came on suddenly. We took you to the ER. We were afraid you had meningitis—there had been a case of it a few towns over. We had to stay close to home while we waited for the test results, in case we had to rush you back to the hospital. We had to miss Melissa’s national spelling bee. Remember when she was preparing for that?”
Spencer remembered. Sometimes, she and Melissa would play Bee—Melissa as the contestant, Spencer as the judge, lobbing Melissa words to spell from a long list. That was back when Melissa and Spencer used to like each other. But the way Spencer remembered it, Melissa had opted out of the competition because she had a field hockey game that same day. “Melissa went to the bee after all?” she sounded out.
“She did, but she went with Yolanda’s family. Remember her friend Yolanda? She and Melissa were in all those knowledge bowls together.”
Spencer crinkled her brow. “Yolanda Hensler?”
“That’s right.”
“Melissa was never Yolanda’s—” Spencer stopped herself. She was about to say that Melissa was never Yolanda Hensler’s friend. Yolanda was the type of girl who was sweetie-pie around adults but a bossy terror in private. Spencer knew that Yolanda had once forced Melissa to go through every knowledge bowl sample question without stopping, even though Melissa told her a zillion times that she had to pee. Melissa had ended up peeing in her pants, and it seeped all over Yolanda’s Lilly Pulitzer comforter.
“Anyway, a week later, your fever broke,” her mother said. “But when you woke up, you’d forgotten the whole thing ever happened. You remembered going to the Franklin Institute, and you remembered walking through the heart, but then I asked if you remembered the mean man in the city. And you said, ‘What mean man?’ You couldn’t remember the ER, having tests run, being sick, anything. You just…erased it. We watched you the rest of that summer, too. We were afraid you might get sick again. Melissa and I had to miss our mother-daughter kayak camp in Colorado and that big piano recital in New York City, but I think she understood.”
Spencer’s heart was racing. “Why hasn’t anyone ever told me this?”
Her mother looked at her dad. “The whole thing was so strange. I thought it might upset you, knowing you’d missed a whole week. You were such a worrier after that.”
Spencer gripped the edge of the table. I might have missed more than a week of my life, she wanted to say to her parents. What if it wasn’t my only blackout?
She shut her eyes. All she could hear was that crack from her memory. What if she had blacked out before Ali disappeared? What had she missed that night?
By the time Pooh set down their steaming plates, Spencer was shaking. Her mother cocked her head. “Spencer? What’s wrong?” She swiveled her head to Spencer’s father. “I knew we shouldn’t have told her.”
“Spencer?” Mr. Hastings waved his hands in front of Spencer’s face. “You okay?”
Spencer’s lips felt numb, as if they’d been injected with novocaine. “I’m afraid.”
“Afraid?” her father repeated, leaning forward. “Of what?”
Spencer blinked. She felt like she was having the recurring dream where she knew what she wanted to say in her head, but instead of words coming out of her mouth, out came a shell. Or a worm. Or a plume of purple, chalky smoke. Then she clamped her mouth closed. She’d suddenly realized the answer she was looking for—what she feared.
Herself.
22 THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE ROSEWOOD—FROM 3,000 FEET UP
Friday morning, Hanna stepped out of Lucas’s maroon Volkswagen Jetta. They were in the parking lot of Ridley Creek State Park, and the sun was barely up.
“This is my big surprise that’s supposed to make me feel all better?” She looked around. Ridley Creek Park was full of undulating gardens and hiking trails. She watched as a bunch of girls in running shorts and long-sleeved T-shirts passed. Then a bunch of guys on bikes in colorful spandex shorts rode by. It made Hanna feel lazy and fat. Here it was, not even 6 A.M., and these people were virtuously burning off calories. They probably hadn’t binged on a whole box of cheddar-flavored goldfish crackers last night, either.
“I can’t tell you,” Lucas answered. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
Hanna groaned. The air smelled like burning leaves, which Hanna always found spooky. As she crunched through the parking lot gravel, she thought she heard snickering. She whipped back around, alert.
“Something wrong?” Lucas said, stopping a few paces away.
Hanna pointed at the trees. “Do you see someone?”
Lucas shaded his eyes with his hand. “You worried about that stalker?”
“Something like that.”
Anxiety gnawed at her belly. When they’d driven here in semi-darkness, Hanna felt like a car had been following them. A? Hanna couldn’t stop thinking about the bizarre text from yesterday about Mona going to Bill Beach for plastic surgery. In some ways, it made sense—Mona never wore anything that revealed too much skin, even though she was way thinner than Hanna was. But plastic surgery—anything but a boob job, anyway—was kind of…embarrassing. It meant genetics were against you, and you couldn’t exercise your way down to your ideal body. If Hanna spread that rumor about Mona, her popularity quotient might sink a few notches. Hanna would have done it to another girl without batting an eye…but to Mona? Hurting her felt different.
“I think we’re okay,” Lucas said, walking toward the pebbly path. “They say the stalker only spies on people in their houses.”
Hanna rubbed her eyes nervously. For once, she didn’t need to worry about smudging her mascara. She’d put on next to no makeup this morning. And she was wearing Juicy velour pants and a gray hoodie she often wore to run laps around the track. This was all to show they were not on some queer early morning date.
When Lucas showed up at the door, Hanna was relieved to find that he was wearing ratty jeans, a scruffy tee, and a similar gray hoodie. Then he’d flopped into a leaf pile on their way to the car and squirmed around like Hanna’s miniature Doberman, Dot. It was actually kind of cute. Which was totally different from thinking that Lucas was cute, obviously.
They entered a clearing and Lucas turned around. “Ready for your surprise?”
“This better be good.” Hanna rolled her eyes. “I could still be in bed.”
Lucas led her through the trees. In the clearing was a rainbow-striped hot air balloon. It was limp and lying on its side, with the basket part tipped over. A couple of guys stood around it as fans blew air up into the balloon, making it ripple.
“Ta-daaa!” Lucas cried.
“Okaaay.” Hanna shaded her eyes with her hand. “I’m going to watch them blow up a balloon?” She knew this wasn’t a good idea. Lucas was so lame.