Spencer waved her hands in front of her face, wishing she could shut the door and start this all over again.
“So, what’s up?” Courtney said, leaning against the doorjamb. There was a hole in her left red-and-white-striped sock.
Spencer chewed her lip awkwardly. God, she even sounded like Ali. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“Cool.” Courtney ushered Spencer in, then turned and padded down the hall toward the stairs. Framed photos of the DiLaurentis family lined the walls. Spencer recognized many of them from the DiLaurentises’ old house. There was the picture of the family on a double-decker bus in London, a black-and-white one of them on a beach in the Bahamas, and the fish-eye-lens photo of them in front of the giraffe habitat at the Philadelphia Zoo. The familiar images took on new significance as Spencer followed the unpictured DiLaurentis through the house. Why hadn’t Courtney gone on any of the vacations? Had she been too sick?
Spencer stopped in front of a photo she didn’t recognize. It was of the family on the back porch of their old house. Mother, father, son, and daughter grinned broadly, happily, as if they didn’t have a secret in the world. It must have been close to the time Ali went missing—there was a big bulldozer looming in the yard, near where the gazebo was going to be. There was another shape at the edge of the property, too. It looked like a person. Spencer leaned close, squinting, but couldn’t quite make out who it was. Courtney cleared her throat, waiting on one of the upper steps. “Coming?” she asked, and Spencer scuttled away from the photos, like she’d been caught spying. She sprinted up the stairs.
There were lots of moving boxes in the upstairs hallway. Spencer dug her fingers into her palm when she saw one labeled Ali—Field Hockey. Courtney skirted around a purple Dyson vacuum and pushed through a door at the end of the hall. “Here we are.”
When Spencer saw the room, she felt as though she’d stepped back in time. She recognized the hot-pink bedspread immediately—she’d helped Ali pick it out at Saks. There was the big black Rockefeller Center subway station sign that Ali’s parents had bought for her at an antique store in SoHo. And the license-plate mirror over the bureau was the most familiar of all. Spencer had given it to Ali on her thirteenth birthday.
These were Ali’s things, all of them. Didn’t Courtney have any possessions of her own?
Courtney flopped down on the bed. “What’s on your mind?”
Spencer sank into the paisley, stuffed chair across the room and straightened the protective arm covers so the patterns matched up. This wasn’t something she could drop on a person without warning—especially someone who’d spent her life battling a mysterious illness. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe she should just up and leave. Maybe…
“Let me guess.” Courtney picked at a loose thread on the duvet. “You want to talk about the affair.” Courtney shrugged. “Your dad. My mom.”
Spencer gasped. “You know?”
“I’ve always known.”
“But…how?” Spencer cried.
Courtney’s head was down, and Spencer could see her jagged part and perfectly honey-blond roots. “Ali found out. And then she told me on one of her visits.”
“Ali knew? Billy wasn’t just making that up?” Billy-as-Ian had IM’ed Spencer about the affair right before he’d killed Jenna.
“And she never told you, right?” Courtney clucked her tongue.
A sparrow landed on the ledge of Courtney’s window. The room smelled suddenly of new carpet and fresh paint. Spencer blinked hard. “Do Jason and your dad know?”
“I’m not sure. No one’s ever said anything. But if my sister knew, my brother probably does, too. And my parents pretty much hate each other—which means my dad is probably clued in.” She rolled her eyes. “I swear they only stayed together because Ali went missing. I’ll bet you that a year from now they divorce.”
Spencer felt a tangerine-size lump in her throat. “I don’t even know where my dad is right now. And my mom just found out about this. She’s really messed up.”
“I’m sorry.” Courtney looked straight at Spencer.
Spencer shifted her weight, and the chair squeaked angrily. “Everyone was keeping things from me,” she said quietly. “I have an older sister, Melissa. You may have seen her at the press conference. She was talking to your brother.” She was also the one who glared at you, she wanted to add.
“Melissa told me she’s known that Ali had a twin since high school,” Spencer continued. “She never bothered to mention it to me. I’m sure she loved knowing something I didn’t. Some sister, huh?” She let out a loud, clumsy sniff.
Courtney rose, plucked a Kleenex box off the bedside table, and plopped down at Spencer’s feet. “She sounds really competitive and insecure,” she said. “That’s how Ali was with me, too. She always wanted the limelight. She hated if I was better at anything. I know she was pretty competitive with you, too.”
That was an understatement. Spencer and Ali used to compete over everything—who could bike to Wawa the fastest, who could kiss the most older guys, or who could make JV field hockey in seventh grade. There were lots of times Spencer didn’t want to race, but Ali always insisted. Was it because Ali knew they were also sisters? Was she trying to prove something?
Salty tears spilled down Spencer’s cheeks, and sobs rose in her chest. She wasn’t even sure what she was crying about. All the lies, maybe. All the hurt. All the deaths.
Courtney pulled her in and hugged her tight. She smelled like cinnamon gum and Mane ‘n Tail shampoo. “Who cares what our sisters knew?” she murmured. “The past is the past. We have each other now—right?”
“Uh-huh,” Spencer murmured, still choking on sobs.
Courtney pulled away, her face brightening. “Hey! Want to go dancing tomorrow?”
“Dancing?” Spencer wiped her puffy eyes. Tomorrow was a school night. She had an AP history test at the end of the week. She hadn’t seen Andrew in days, and she still needed to get a dress for the Valentine’s Day dance. “I don’t know….”
Courtney grabbed her hands. “C’mon. It’ll be our chance to break free of our evil sisters! It’s like that ‘Survivor’ song!” And then she leaned back and launched into the old Destiny’s Child song. “‘I’m a sur-vi-vor!’” she sang as she waved her hands over her head, stuck out her butt, and wheeled around crazily. “Come on, Spencer! Say you’ll go dancing with me!”
Despite all her grief and confusion, Spencer burst out laughing. Maybe Courtney was right—maybe the best thing to do amidst all this craziness was kick back, let go, and have a good time. This was what she’d wanted, after all—a sister she could confide in, rely on, and have fun with. Courtney seemed to want the same exact thing.
“Okay,” Spencer said. And at that, she let out a big breath of air, stood up, and sang along with her sister.
10 A TICKET TO POPULARITY
A few hours later, Hanna maneuvered her Prius up the winding driveway, turned off the engine, and grabbed two shopping bags from Otter from the passenger seat. She’d made an emergency, I-feel-sorry-for-myself trip to the King James Mall after school today, though it wasn’t much fun shopping without a BFF or Mike. She didn’t trust her judgment anymore, either, and she wasn’t sure if the ultra-skinny Gucci leather pants she’d purchased were disco-fabulous or just plain slutty. Sasha, Hanna’s favorite salesgirl, had said Hanna looked great in them…but then again, she got commission on the sale.