Interesting, Aria thought to herself. But honestly…it looked like a giant nipple.
“What do you think of the brushstrokes?” someone murmured behind her.
Aria turned around and found herself looking into the soft brown eyes of a tall guy in a ribbed black sweater and dark blue jeans. An excited jolt shot through her body, leaving her toes tingling in her scuffed satin flats. With his prominent cheekbones and super-short hair that stood up in a tuft at the front, he reminded Aria of Sondre, the hot musician she’d met in Norway last year. She and Sondre had spent hours in a fisherman’s pub in Bergen, drinking homemade whiskey and making up stories about the mounted trophy fish that hung on the pub’s wood-paneled walls.
Aria assessed the painting again. “The brushstrokes are very…powerful.”
“True,” the guy agreed. “And emotional.”
“Definitely.” Aria was thrilled to be having an authentic art critic conversation, especially with someone so cute. It was also nice to not be around Rosewood people and have to listen to the constant gossip about Ian’s upcoming trial. She scrambled for something else to say. “It makes me think of…”
The guy leaned closer, smirking. “Suckling, maybe?”
Aria’s eyes widened in surprise. So she wasn’t the only one who saw the resemblance. “It does look a little bit like that, doesn’t it?” she giggled. “But I think we’re supposed to take this seriously. The painting’s called The Impossibility of the Space Between. Xavier Reeves probably painted it to represent solitude. Or the proletarian struggle.”
“Shit.” The guy was so close to Aria, she could smell his cinnamon-gum-and-Bellini-scented breath. “I guess that means the one over there called Time Moves Handily isn’t a penis, huh?”
An older woman in multicolored cat-eye glasses looked over, startled. Aria covered her mouth to keep from laughing, noticing how there was a crescent moon–shaped freckle right by her new friend’s left ear. If only she hadn’t worn the same pilled green cowl-necked sweater she’d lived in the entire winter break. She should’ve wiped the fondue stain off the collar, too.
He polished off the rest of his drink. “So what’s your name?”
“Aria.” She chewed coyly on the swizzle stick that had come with her Bellini.
“It’s nice to meet you, Aria.” A group of people swept by, pushing Aria and her new friend closer together. As his hand bumped against her waist, heat rose to Aria’s cheeks. Had he touched her by accident…or on purpose?
He grabbed two more drinks and handed one to her. “So do you work around here, or are you still in school?”
Aria opened her mouth, contemplating. She wondered how old this guy was. He looked young enough to be a college student, and she could picture him living in one of the shabby-chic Victorian houses near Hollis College. But she’d made that same assumption about Ezra, too.
Before Aria could say a word, a woman in a fitted houndstooth suit inserted herself between them. With her spiky black hair, she bore more than a passing resemblance to Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmatians. “Mind if I borrow him?” Cruella looped her arm around his elbow. He gave Cruella’s arm a little squeeze.
“Oh. Sure.” Aria stepped away, disappointed.
“Sorry.” Cruella smiled apologetically at Aria. Her lipstick was so dark it was almost black. “But Xavier’s quite in demand, as you know.”
Xavier? Aria’s stomach dropped. She grabbed his arm. “You’re…the artist?”
Her new friend stopped. There was a naughty little sparkle in his eye. “Busted,” he said, leaning in to her. “And by the way, the painting really is a boob.”
With that, Cruella pulled Xavier forward. He fell into step with Cruella and flirtatiously whispered something in her ear. They both giggled before marching into the throng of the art elite, where everyone gushed over how brilliant and inspirational Xavier’s paintings were. As Xavier grinned and shook his admirers’ hands, Aria wished there was a trapdoor in the wood floor she could disappear through. She’d broken the cardinal rule of art openings—don’t talk about the work to strangers, since you never know who’s who. And for God’s sake, don’t insult an up-and-coming hotshot’s masterpiece.
But judging by the sneaky little smile Xavier had just shot in Aria’s direction, maybe he didn’t mind her interpretation much at all. And that made Aria very, very happy, indeed.
4 BOTTOM OF THE CLASS
Monday morning, Spencer Hastings hunched over her desk in AP English, scribbling a few sentences on her timed The Sun Also Rises essay quiz. She wanted to add a few quotes from one of the Hemingway critical essays in the back of the book in an attempt to earn some extra brownie points with her teacher, Mrs. Stafford. These days, she had to scramble for every little crumb of brownie she could get.
The PA speaker at the front of the room crackled. “Mrs. Stafford?” called Mrs. Wagner, the school secretary. “Can you please send Spencer Hastings to the office?”
All thirteen students looked up from their papers, staring at Spencer as if she’d come to school in the lacy blue Eberjay bra and panties set she’d bought at the Saks after-Christmas sale. Mrs. Stafford, who looked nearly identical to Martha Stewart, but who had almost certainly never cracked an egg or embroidered an apron in her life, laid down her wrinkled copy of Ulysses. “Fine, go.” She shot Spencer a what have you done this time? look. Spencer couldn’t help but ask herself the same question.
Spencer stood up, did a few covert yoga fire breaths, and placed her quiz facedown on Mrs. Stafford’s desk. She couldn’t really blame her teacher for treating her like this. Spencer had been the very first Rosewood Day student to be nominated for a Golden Orchid essay award. It had been a huge deal, big enough to land her on the front page of the Philadelphia Sentinel. In the very last round, when the judge had called Spencer to tell her that she’d won, she’d finally blurted out the truth—that she’d stolen the AP Economics paper from her sister, Melissa. Now, all of her other teachers wondered if she’d cheated in their classes, too. She was no longer in the running for valedictorian, and the school had asked her to step down as student council vice president, bow out of her role in the school play, and resign as the yearbook editor in chief. They had even threatened to expel her, but Spencer’s parents had cut some sort of deal that most likely involved a hefty donation to the school.
Spencer understood why Rosewood Day couldn’t just let this blow over. But after all the tests she’d aced, committees she’d commandeered, and clubs she’d created, couldn’t they cut her just a teensy bit of slack? Didn’t they care that Ali’s body had been found a few feet from her own backyard, or that she’d received horrific messages from crazy Mona Vanderwaal, who was trying to impersonate her old, dead best friend? Or that Mona had almost pushed Spencer over the precipice of Falling Man Gorge because Spencer hadn’t wanted to be A along with her, or that it was because of Spencer that Ali’s murderer was now in jail? Nope. The only thing that mattered was that Spencer had made Rosewood Day look foolish.