Perfect

Page 29

Wendy had a big smile on her face. “Wow, Becks. You look…great.”
Becka smiled sheepishly. “So do you.” She inspected Wendy almost in disbelief, as if Wendy had been resurrected from the dead. “You cut your hair.”
Wendy touched it self-consciously. “Is it too short?”
“No!” Becka said quickly. “It’s really cute.”
Both of them kept smiling and giggling. Emily coughed, and Becka looked over. “Oh! This is Emily. My new Tree Tops friend.”
Emily shook Wendy’s hand. Wendy’s short fingernails were painted seashell pink, and there was a Pokémon appliqué on her thumb.
Wendy sat down and started lacing up her skates. “Do you guys skate a lot?” Emily asked. “You both have your own skates.”
“We used to,” Wendy said, glancing at Becka. “We took lessons together. Well…sort of.”
Becka giggled and Emily glanced at her, confused. “What?”
“Nothing,” Becka answered. “Just…remember the skate rental room, Wendy?”
“Oh my God.” Wendy clapped a hand over her mouth.
“The look on that guy’s face!”
Oh-kaaay. Emily coughed again, and Becka immediately stopped laughing, as if she realized where she was—or, perhaps, who she was.
When Wendy finished lacing up, they all stepped onto the rink. Wendy and Becka immediately twirled around and began skating backward. Emily, who only knew how to skate forward in a somewhat jerky fashion, felt bumbling and oafish next to them.
No one said anything for a while. Emily listened to the slicing noises their skates made in the ice. “So, are you still seeing Jeremy?” Wendy asked Becka.
Becka chewed on the end of her wool mitten. “Not really.”
“Who’s Jeremy?” Emily asked, skirting around a blond girl in a Brownie uniform.
“A guy I met at Tree Tops,” Becka answered. She glanced at Wendy uncomfortably. “We went out for a month or two. It didn’t really work out.”
Wendy shrugged and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I was going out with a girl from history class, but it didn’t go anywhere either. And I have a blind date next week, but I’m not sure if I’ll go. Apparently she’s into hip-hop.” She wrinkled her nose.
Emily suddenly realized that Wendy had said she. Before she could ask, Becka cleared her throat. Her jaw was tense. “I might go on a blind date, too,” she said, louder than usual. “With another boy from Tree Tops.”
“Well, good luck with that,” Wendy said stiffly, spinning to skate forward again. Only, she didn’t take her eyes off Becka, and Becka didn’t take her eyes off Wendy. Becka skated up next to Wendy, it seemed like she purposefully bumped hands.
The lights dimmed. A disco ball descended from the ceiling and colored lights swirled around the rink. Everyone except for a few couples tottered off the ice. “Couples skate,” said an Isaac Hayes imposter over the loudspeaker. “Grab the one you love.”
The three of them collapsed on a nearby bench as Unchained Melody belted out of the speakers. Ali had once remarked that she was tired of sitting out of couples skate. “Why don’t we just skate together, Em?” she suggested, offering Emily her hand. Emily would never forget what it felt like to wrap her arms around Ali. To smell the sweet, Granny Smith apple scent of Ali’s neck. To squeeze Ali’s hands when Ali lost her balance, to accidentally brush her arm against Ali’s bare skin.
Emily wondered if she’d remember that event differently next week. Would Tree Tops wipe those feelings from her mind, the way the Zamboni machine smoothed away all the nicks and skate-marks from the ice?
“I’ll be back,” Emily murmured, stumbling clumsily on the blades of her skates to the bathroom. Inside, she ran her hands under scalding hot water and stared at herself in the streaky mirror. Doing Tree Tops was the right decision, she told her reflection. It was the only decision. After Tree Tops, she would probably date boys just like Becka did. Right?
When she walked back to the rink, she noticed that Becka and Wendy had left the bench. Emily plopped down, figuring they’d gone to get a snack, and stared at the darkened rink. She saw couples with their hands intertwined. Others were attempting to kiss while skating. One couple hadn’t even made it to the ice—they were going at it by one of the entrances. The girl plunged her hands into the guy’s curly dark hair.
The slow song abruptly ended and the fluorescent lights snapped back on. Emily’s eyes widened at the couple by the door. The girl wore a familiar lace headband. Both were wearing white ice skates. The guy’s had rainbow laces. And…he was in a pink A-line dress.
Becka and Wendy saw Emily at the same time. Becka’s mouth went round, and Wendy looked away. Emily could feel herself shaking.
Becka walked over and stood next to Emily. She exhaled a puff of frosty air. “I guess I should explain, huh?”
The ice smelled cold, like snow. Someone had left a single, child-size red mitten on the next bench over. On the rink, a child swooped by and cried, “I’m an airplane!” Emily stared at Becka. Her chest felt tight.
“I thought Tree Tops worked,” Emily said quietly.
Becka ran her hands through her long hair. “I thought it did, too. But after seeing Wendy…well, I guess you got the picture.” She pulled her Fair Isle sweater’s cuffs down over her hands. “Maybe you can’t really change.”
A hot feeling spread in Emily’s stomach. Thinking that Tree Tops could change something so fundamental about her had scared her. It seemed so against the principles of…of being human, maybe. But it couldn’t. Maya and Becka were right—you couldn’t change who you were.
Maya. Emily clapped her hand over her mouth. She needed to talk to Maya, right now. “Um, Becka,” she said quietly. “Can I ask you a favor?”
Becka’s eyes softened. “Sure.”
Emily skated for the exit. “I need you to drive me to a party. Right now. There’s someone I have to see.”
31
THEY FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON
Aria squinted into the lens of her Sony Handycam as Spencer adjusted the rhinestone crown perched atop her head. “Hey, guys,” Spencer whispered, sauntering over to an LG flip phone that was lying right side up on the Hastingses’ leather couch. “Want to read her texts?”
“I do,” Hanna whispered.
Emily stood up from her perch on the leather couch’s arm. “I don’t know….”
“C’mon. Don’t you want to know who texted her?” Spencer demanded. Spencer, Hanna, and Emily gathered around Ali’s cell phone. Aria took the camera off the tripod and moved closer, too. She wanted to get all of this on film. All of Ali’s secrets. She zoomed in to get a good shot of the cell phone’s screen when suddenly she heard a voice from the hall.
“Were you looking at my phone?” Ali shrieked, marching into the room.
“Of course not!” Hanna cried. Ali eyed her cell on the couch, but then turned her attention to Melissa and Ian, who had just come into the kitchen.
“Hey, girls,” Ian said, stepping into the family room. He glanced at Spencer. “Cute crown.”
Aria retreated back to her tripod. Spencer, Ian, and Ali gathered on the couch, and Spencer began playing talk-show host. Suddenly, a second Ali walked right up to the camera. Her skin looked gray. Her irises were black and her neon-red lipstick was applied clownishly, in wriggly lines around her mouth.
“Aria,” Ali’s doppelganger commanded, staring straight into the lens. “Look. The answer is right in front of you.”
Aria furrowed her brow. The rest of the scene was rolling forward as usual—Spencer was asking Ian about base-jumping. Melissa was growing more pissed off as she put away their takeout bags. The other Ali—the normal-looking one on the couch—seemed bored. “What do you mean?” Aria whispered to the Ali in front of the lens.
“It’s right in front of you,” Ali urged. “Look!”
“Okay, okay,” Aria said hastily. She searched the room again. Spencer was leaning into Ian, hanging on his every word. Hanna and Emily were perched against the credenza, seeming relaxed and chill. What was Aria supposed to be looking for?
“I don’t understand,” she whimpered.
“But it’s there!” Ali screamed. “It’s. Right. There!”
“I don’t know what to do!” Aria argued helplessly.
“Just look!”
Aria sprang up in bed. The room was dark. Sweat poured down her face. Her throat hurt. When she looked over, she saw Ezra lying on his side next to her, and jumped.
“It’s okay,” Ezra said quickly, wrapping his arms around her. “It was just a dream. You’re safe.”
Aria blinked and looked around. She wasn’t in the Hastingses’ living room but under the covers of Ezra’s futon. The bedroom, which was right off the living room, smelled like mothballs and old-lady perfume, the way all Old Hollis houses smelled. A light, peaceful breeze rippled the blinds, and a William Shakespeare bobble-head nodded on the bureau. Ezra’s arms were around her shoulders. His bare feet rubbed her ankles.
“Bad dream?” Ezra asked. “You were screaming.”
Aria paused. Was her dream trying to tell her something? “I’m cool,” she decided. “It was just one of those weird nightmares.”
“You scared me,” Ezra said, squeezing her tight.
Aria waited until her breathing returned to normal, listening to the wooden, fish-shaped wind chimes knocking together right outside Ezra’s window. Then she noticed that Ezra’s glasses were askew. “Did you fall asleep in your glasses?”
Ezra put his hand to the bridge of his nose. “I guess,” he said sheepishly. “I fall asleep in them a lot.”
Aria leaned forward and kissed him. “You’re such a weirdo.”
“Not as weird as you, screamer,” Ezra teased, pulling her on top of him. “I’m going to get you.” He started to tickle her waist.
“No!” Aria shrieked, trying to wriggle away from him.
“Stop!”
“Uh-uh!” Ezra bellowed. But his tickling hastily turned into caressing and kissing. Aria shut her eyes and let his hands flutter over her. Then, Ezra flopped back on the pillow. “I wish we could just go away and live somewhere else.”
“I know Iceland really well,” Aria suggested. “Or what about Costa Rica? We could have a monkey. Or maybe Capri. We could hang out in the Blue Grotto.”
“I always wanted to go to Capri,” Ezra said softly. “We could live on the beach and write poems.”
“As long as our pet monkeys can write poems with us,” Aria bargained.
“Of course,” Ezra said, kissing her nose. “We can have as many monkeys as you want.” He got a far-off look on his face, as if he were actually considering it. Aria felt her insides swell. She’d never felt so happy. This felt…right. They would make it work. She would figure out the rest of her life—Sean, A, her parents—tomorrow.