Stunning (9 page)

All eyes were on Madame Richeau, their instructor. Even though she’d only been a cook on a Carnival cruise ship for all of six months in the eighties, she acted as though she were a celebrity chef on the Food Network, wearing a tall toque and speaking with a dubious French accent.

“The key to good risotto is constant stirring,” Madame Richeau said, inserting a wooden spoon into a pot and rotating it slowly around. She pronounced
the
like
zee.
“Never stop stirring until the rice is creamy. It’s a hard technique to master! Now, stir, stir, stir!”

Noel nudged Aria. “You aren’t stirring fast enough.”

Aria snapped to attention and looked down at her pot, which was full of Arborio rice and bubbling broth. “Oops,” she said distractedly, giving the concoction a few good mixes.

“Would you rather chop?” Noel held up the Japanese knife he’d brought from his parents’ kitchen. He was at work cutting a red onion for a side salad. “I don’t want our risotto to be ruined. Madame might give us the guillotine,” he said with a sly smile.

“I’m cool,” Aria said, glancing at his workstation. “Besides, I could never slice that onion as well as you.” Surprisingly, Noel had turned out to be pretty good at the class—especially the chopping part. Aria always got bored halfway through and left her vegetables in big, unwieldy chunks.

She could feel Noel studying her, but she pretended not to notice, instead vigorously stirring the risotto. Thankfully, Noel had missed the town hall meeting last night because he and his lacrosse buddies had a team dinner. And their schedules didn’t intersect in school for the past two days, which meant she hadn’t seen him in the halls. She’d considered not coming to cooking class, too, but then Noel would ask why. And what was she supposed to say—that she’d seen his father squeezing tomatoes in a dress at Fresh Fields?

She shuddered, the image swimming into her mind again. The moment she’d realized Mr. Kahn’s long-lost sister might just be Mr. Kahn himself, she’d shot out of the produce section as fast as she could and hidden behind a rack of French bread. She’d watched the man from afar, praying that she was wrong. Maybe it was another dude in drag. Maybe it was a really ugly woman. But then the person’s cell phone rang. “Hello?” a man’s voice said into the receiver—a man’s voice that sounded exactly like Mr. Kahn’s. Game over.

Aria wasn’t sure who she felt more embarrassed for—Mr. Kahn or herself. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole thing was
her
fault, which was how she’d felt when she discovered Byron kissing Meredith in seventh grade. If she hadn’t walked down that alley, if she hadn’t turned her head
at that moment
, she wouldn’t have been burdened with her dad’s secret—or the agonizing struggle of whether to tell Ella. Likewise, if she’d only gone to Fresh Fields a few moments later, or lingered at the cheese counter, she wouldn’t know something so damaging about Noel’s dad.

But now that she did know, she was dying to dig deeper. Was this something Mr. Kahn did often? He
was
a little odd—he’d dressed up as a cavemannish Viking for Klaudia’s welcome-to-the-U.S. party a month ago, and he was always drunkenly belting out opera songs and show tunes at Rosewood Day school board fund-raiser parties. But dressing up as a woman—in
public
? Didn’t he realize how that would look if someone caught him? And surely Mr. and Mrs. Kahn’s marriage wasn’t as solid as Aria had thought. Were they one of those couples who put up appearances but secretly didn’t love each other at all? That just made her heart break for Noel even more. He idolized his parents’ strong bond.

Aria had promised no more secrets, but this was definitely something Noel didn’t need to know—or
want
to know. And she could only hope A would never find out.

From the moment she’d woken up yesterday, Aria kept waiting for a taunting A message to arrive about Mr. Kahn. But miraculously, no note had been slipped under her windshield wiper, left in her locker, or beamed to her cell phone. Which meant one of two things: A was waiting for the perfect moment . . . or A didn’t know.

If Gayle was A, maybe Gayle had been too busy stalking Spencer and Emily to make time for Aria, too. It wasn’t like Gayle could be everywhere at once. And if A didn’t know, the best thing Aria could do was pretend she’d never seen Mr. Kahn. She wouldn’t even
think
about it.

“Everyone, get out your
beurre
and measure one half cup!” Madame Richeau crowed from the front.

“What’s
beurre
again?” Noel grumbled. “I hate when she says stuff in French.”

“Butter.” Aria reached into the mini fridge under the counter and pulled out a stick of Land O’Lakes. As she unwrapped it, her mind wandered again. Why was Gayle, a wealthy, successful woman, wasting her time and money stalking four high schoolers? Then again, she
was
nuts. Aria had only met Gayle once before, and she could tell immediately that there was something wrong with her.

It had been shortly after Emily admitted to Aria that she was pregnant. Aria was meeting Emily in the city. They’d planned to peruse the Italian Market, but then Emily asked if they could stop off to have coffee with Gayle, a strange, wealthy woman she’d met a week before.

“She got in touch with me through Derrick,” Emily explained, referring to her friend from the restaurant. “He works for her on the weekends. He’s asked her for more hours and listed me as a character reference.” She smiled apologetically. “It’ll only take a couple of minutes, I promise. And oh, I should warn you. She’s a little . . . weepy. But she seems nice enough.”

Aria had agreed, and Emily asked her to wear a wig and sunglasses so that Gayle wouldn’t recognize her and make the connection that both of them were the famous Pretty Little Liars. The only wig Aria had was a pink one from a few Halloweens earlier, but she’d worn it anyway.

The café was next to a yoga studio and a store that did tongue piercings. It was the kind of place that had reclaimed-wood farmhouse tables, weathervanes nailed to the walls, and a hand-printed menu on a chalkboard that said breakfast was served all day. Gayle was waiting for them in a booth, a big stack of blueberry pancakes already on the table. As soon as she spied Emily waddling up the aisle, she pushed the plate across the table. “Eat up. Blueberries are good for the baby’s developing brain.”

“Oh.” Emily looked startled. “That’s nice of you.”

“I’m just doing what’s best for the baby,” Gayle said, her gaze squarely on Emily, a sweet smile on her face.

“I appreciate it.” Emily took a bite of the pancakes and smiled. “They’re really good.”

Gayle cleared her throat awkwardly. “Pardon me if you think this is a little forward, but I assume you are putting your baby up for adoption. Can I ask if you’ve found a family yet?”

A muscle in Emily’s cheek twitched. Aria reached under the table and took Emily’s hand as if to say,
If you want to run out of here right now, I’m right behind you.
But instead, Emily had taken a breath. “Uh, yes. I found a nice couple who lives in the suburbs, not that far from me.”

Gayle looked crestfallen. “I figured as much. I recently lost a child, and it was devastating. My husband and I want a baby, and I’ve gone through countless fertility treatments, spent tens of thousands of dollars, but we haven’t had any luck.”

“That must be so rough for you,” Emily said, her features softening.

Gayle’s eyes welled with tears. “I want a baby of my own so badly. You seem like a beautiful, smart, well-rounded girl. I would be honored to raise your child, but I guess that’s not meant to be.” She hung her head.

“Gosh, if I’d have known,” Emily murmured, fiddling with her fork. “I’m really sorry.”

“Are you sure you couldn’t change your mind?” Gayle’s voice rose. “I could make it worth your while. My husband and I do very well for ourselves, and we would reward you handsomely.”

A zillion alarms blared in Aria’s head. Did this woman seriously mean she was going to
pay
Emily for her kid?

But Emily didn’t appear fazed. She reached for her water glass and took a long sip, nodding for Gayle to go on.

“The baby would have every privilege in the world,” Gayle said. “Private schools. Lessons of all kinds. Amazing trips around the world. You name it.”

Aria glanced around at the other patrons in the café, amazed no one had overheard what had just transpired. Wasn’t this illegal? Then Gayle dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table and stood. “Think about it, Heather. I’ll call you in a few days, or you call me.” She passed Emily a business card. A second later, she was gliding out of the café, waving good-bye to the balding owner in suspenders behind the counter as though she hadn’t just offered to buy a stranger’s baby.

As soon as Gayle disappeared down the sidewalk, Aria let out a breath. “Do you want to call the police, or shall I?”

Emily looked surprised. “What?”

Aria stared at her. “Are you high? She just offered you money for your baby.”

Emily picked at the pancakes. “I feel terrible for her. It’s obvious she really wants a baby. She seems so sad.”

“You bought that sob story?” Aria shook her head. Emily always was the most sensitive of the group, the one who saved baby birds when the mother pushed them out of the nest too early, or who tried to stop Ali when she teased someone too nastily. “Em, normal people don’t walk into cafés and offer to buy teenagers’ unborn children. Even people who are desperate to have kids. There’s something seriously wrong with her.”

But Emily was staring wistfully at her belly, appearing not to hear a word of what Aria said. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have everything you wanted in the world? Exotic trips? Fantastic summer camps? The baby’s life would be incredible.”

“Money isn’t everything, you know,” Aria pointed out. “Look at Spencer. She had every privilege in the world, and her family’s a mess. Can you honestly tell me that woman would be a caring, nurturing mother?”

“It’s possible,” Emily said, an empathetic look on her face. “We don’t even know her.”

“
Exactly!
” Aria pounded her fork on the table for emphasis. “I loved the sound of the first family you chose, Em. You got to know them. You picked them for a reason.”

“But they’re both teachers,” Emily protested. “Neither of them make that much money.”

“Since when do you care about that?”

“Since I got pregnant!” Emily’s cheeks flushed. She said it so loudly a couple of patrons looked up, startled, then sheepishly went back to their meals.

Aria talked on and on, listing reason after reason why Emily shouldn’t pay any attention to Gayle, but Emily still had that torn, faraway look on her face. It wasn’t surprising when Emily told her a few days later that she’d accepted Gayle’s offer. It also wasn’t that surprising that, only a few weeks later, Emily called Aria back in a panic, saying she’d changed her mind and that Aria had to help her get out of the Gayle mess.

“Your risotto has gone gelatinous!”

Madame Richeau was standing over Aria, peering into her pot with a look of abhorrence on her face. Sure enough, the rice had congealed into a thick paste. She tried to rake the wooden spoon through it, but the slop wouldn’t budge.

Madame Richeau shook her head and strode away, muttering. The whole class looked at Aria with tiny smirks on their faces. Noel stared at Aria curiously. “Are you sure everything is okay?” he asked.

Heavy pressure settled behind Aria’s eyes. She considered telling Noel about what was going on with Emily’s pregnancy . . . maybe even with A. Couples told each other everything, after all. They were supposed to trust each other, right?

But then the image of Mr. Kahn in that dress rushed to the forefront of her mind again. She straightened up and gave Noel a self-deprecating smile. “Sorry. I was thinking about what I was going to wear to Hanna’s dad’s benefit on Sunday. Do you think I should go vintage or buy something new?”

Noel studied her for a moment, looking puzzled, then shrugged and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “You’ll look fantastic in anything.”

Aria snuggled into him, her insides feeling as sludgy and unappetizing as the risotto she’d just botched. So much for the honesty pact. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flicker of white at the window. Was that . . . a flash of blond hair? But when she broke away from Noel and looked closer, the flicker had already vanished.

11

WORK IT

Later that night, Hanna walked through the steamed-up double doors of The Pump, a musclehead gym at the King James Mall. The gym smelled like sweat, spilled Gatorade, and that unidentifiable but utterly boy smell of burgeoning testosterone that always made Hanna gag. A slick-haired guy straight out of
Jersey Shore
central casting sat behind the check-in desk, drinking a protein shake and reading a bodybuilding magazine. Across from him was a giant mural of a gorilla lifting weights, his ab muscles well defined, his biceps bulging. She supposed it was meant to inspire people to work out more, but who wanted to look like a gorilla?

Hanna paid for a day pass and walked into the main exercise room, which consisted of racks of free weights, lines of bench-press machines, and a long bank of mirrors. There was the ear-splitting
clang
of metal weights hitting steel bars. When Hanna looked in the corner by the windows, her heart began to pound. James Freed and Mason Byers were doing pull-ups on side-by-side machines. Standing next to them, dressed in an old Phillies T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, staring dreamily at something across the room, was Mike.

Hanna swiveled around and followed Mike’s gaze to a large exercise classroom. On the front of the door was a sign that said POLE DANCING, 6:30. A bunch of metal poles had been spaced evenly in front of the mirrors. A few middle-aged women dressed in tight-fitting leotards, flirty miniskirts, and wobbly high heels stood around the room. Positioned in the very center, balanced perfectly in pointy stripper heels, was Colleen.