They’d both been the perfect candidates for Easy A. At first, the pills hadn’t had much effect other than making them both feel really awake even when they’d pulled all-nighters. But as time went on, they both began to notice when they hadn’t taken it. “I can’t keep my eyes open,” Spencer would say during class. “I feel like a zombie,” Kelsey would groan. They watched Phineas across the room, covertly slipping yet another pill under his tongue. If he was okay taking more, maybe they would be, too.
A car with a rattling muffler drove past, breaking Spencer from her thoughts. Straightening up, she climbed the steps to Beau’s front porch, checked herself out in the front sidelight window—she’d dressed in skinny jeans, a soft cashmere sweater, and tall boots, which she thought looked appropriately cute but not like she was trying to impress Beau—and rang the bell.
No one answered. She rang it again. Still no one.
“Hel-lo?” Spencer said impatiently, rapping hard on the door.
Finally, a light snapped on, and Beau appeared at the window. He whipped open the door. His eyes were sleepy, his dark hair was tousled, and he was shirtless. Spencer nearly swallowed the piece of Trident she was chewing. Where had he been hiding those abs?
“Sorry,” Beau said drowsily. “I was meditating.”
“Of course you were,” Spencer mumbled, trying not to stare at his thousand-sit-ups-a-day torso. This was like the time she and Aria had taken a life-drawing class at Hollis that had nude male models. The models seemed so nonchalant, but Spencer kept wanting to burst into giggles.
She strode into the foyer, noting that the inside of the Purple House was as chaotic-looking as the outside. The hallway walls were filled with an eclectic mix of handwoven tapestries, oil paintings, and metal signs advertising brands of cigarettes and long-defunct diners. Shabby mid-century modern furniture adorned the large living room off to the left, and a rustic maple table covered in hardcover books of all shapes and sizes took up most of the dining room. At the end of the hall was an unrolled blue yoga mat. A small boombox sat nearby playing a soothing harp song, and an incense holder bearing a single lit stick wafted smoke into the air from an end table.
“So is your family renting this place?” Spencer asked.
Beau strolled over to the mat, scooped up a white T-shirt from the floor, and pulled it over his head. Spencer was both relieved and oddly disappointed that he was covering up. “No, we’ve owned it for almost twenty years. My parents rented it out to professors, but then my dad got a job in Philly and we decided to move back in.”
“Did your parents paint it purple?”
Beau grinned. “Yep, back in the seventies. It was so everyone knew where the orgies were.”
“Oh, I heard something about that,” Spencer said, trying to sound nonchalant.
Beau snorted. “I’m messing with you. They were both literature professors at Hollis. Their idea of a thrill was reading The Canterbury Tales in Old English. But I heard all the rumors.” He glanced at her knowingly. “Rosewood people love to talk, don’t they? I heard some rumors about you, too, Pretty Little Liar.”
Spencer turned away, pretending to be fascinated with a folk art sculpture of a large black rooster. Even though surely everyone in town—in the country—had heard about her ordeal with Real Ali, it was strange that someone like Beau had paid attention. “Most of the rumors aren’t true,” she said quietly.
“Of course they aren’t.” Beau strolled toward her. “But it sucks, doesn’t it? Everyone talking. Everyone looking at you.”
“It does suck,” she said, surprised Beau had nailed her struggle so succinctly.
When she looked up, he was staring at her with an enigmatic look on his face. It was almost like he was trying to memorize every inch of her features. Spencer stared back. She hadn’t noticed how green his eyes were before. Or the cute little dimple on his left cheek.
“So, um, should we get started?” she asked after an awkward beat.
Beau broke his gaze, walked across the room, and settled into a leather chair. “Sure. If you want.”
Spencer felt a stab of exasperation. “You told me to come here so you could teach me. So . . . teach me.”
Beau tilted the chair back and pressed a hand to his lips. “Well, I think your problem is that you don’t understand Lady Macbeth. You’re just a high school girl regurgitating her lines.”
Spencer straightened her spine. “Of course I understand her. She’s determined. She’s ambitious. She gets in over her head. And then she’s plagued by guilt for what she did.”
“Where’d you get that from, SparkNotes?” Beau scoffed. “Knowing facts isn’t the same as getting into the character. You have to experience what she experiences and really feel her. That’s Method acting.”
Spencer resisted the urge to laugh. “That’s bullshit.”
Beau’s eyes flashed. “Maybe you’re scared to really go for it. Method acting can dredge up some demons.”
“I’m not scared.” Spencer crossed her arms over her chest.
Beau rose from the chair and moved a few steps closer to her. “Okay, so you’re not scared. But you are doing this to get a four-point-oh, aren’t you? Not because you care about acting. Not because you care about the integrity of the play.”
Heat rushed to Spencer’s face. “You know what, I don’t need this.” She spun on her heel and started out of the room. Arrogant jerk.
“Wait.” Beau clamped his hand on hers and spun her around. “I’m challenging you. I think you’re good, better than you realize. But I also think you can step it up to the next level.”
The sudden scent of sandalwood incense tickled Spencer’s nose. She looked down at Beau’s large, warm fingers tightly entwined around hers. “Y-you think I’m good?” she asked in a voice barely over a whisper.
“I think you’re very good,” Beau said in a suddenly tender voice. “But you also have to let go of a lot of things first.”
“Let go of what?”
“You need to become Lady Macbeth. Go to a special place inside of you to understand her motivations. Feel what she feels. Know what you would do, if faced with her predicament.”
“Why does it matter what I would do?” Spencer protested. “She’s the character Shakespeare wrote about. Her lines are there on the page. She helps kill the king and sits silently by while her husband kills off everyone else in his way. Then she freaks.”
“Well, wouldn’t you freak if you killed someone and kept terrible secrets?”
Spencer looked away, a lump rising in her throat. This was a little too close for comfort. “Of course I would. But I’d never do that.”
Beau sighed. “You’re taking this too literally. You’re not Spencer Hastings, good girl, straight-A student, teacher’s pet. You’re Lady Macbeth. Sinister. Conniving. Ambitious. You convinced your husband to murder an innocent man. If it hadn’t been for you, he might not have gone off his rocker. What does it feel like to be responsible for so much damage?”
Spencer picked at a loose thread on her cashmere sweater, uncomfortable with Beau’s scrutiny. “How do you become one with Macbeth? Where’s the special place you go to?”
Beau looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Spencer placed her hands on her hips.
Beau pressed his lips together. “Fine. If you must know, I was bullied a lot when I was younger.” His voice was pinched. “I thought a lot about getting revenge. That’s where I go. I think about . . . them.”