Wicked (15 page)

It explained a lot of other things, too. Like why her parents always favored Melissa over Spencer. Why they were always so disappointed in her. Maybe it wasn’t disappointment at all—maybe they were snubbing her because she wasn’t really a Hastings. But why hadn’t they admitted it years ago? Adoption wasn’t scandalous. Kirsten Cullen was adopted; her birth mother was from South Africa. The first show-and-tell of every elementary school year, Kirsten would bring in pictures from her summer trip to Cape Town, her birthplace, and every girl in Spencer’s class would ooh with jealousy. Spencer used to wish she’d been adopted too. It seemed so exotic.

Spencer stared through the study room’s porthole window at the enormous blue modern art mobile hanging from the library ceiling. “Sorry,” she admitted to Andrew. “I’m a little stressed.”

Andrew furrowed his brow. “Because of econ?”

Spencer breathed in, ready to shoo him away and tell him it was none of his business. Only, he was looking at her so eagerly, and he
was
helping her. She thought more about that horrible night at Foxy. Andrew had been really excited when he thought they were actually going on a date, but had become dejected and angry when he found out Spencer was just using him. All that A and Toby Cavanaugh stuff had happened right after Andrew found out that she was dating someone else. Had Spencer even properly apologized?

Spencer began capping her multicolored highlighters and putting them back in their plastic sleeve, careful to make sure the markers were all turned the exact same way. Just as she slid the electric blue pen back in its place, everything inside her started to fizz, like she was a science-fair volcano about to bubble over.

“I got this application to Yale’s pre-college summer program in the mail yesterday, and my mother threw it away before I could even look at it,” she blurted out. She couldn’t tell Andrew about Ian or A, but it felt good to at least say
something.
“She said there was no chance in hell Yale would be letting me in to their summer program. And…and my parents are planning a Rosewood Day fund-raiser this weekend, but my mom didn’t even tell me about it. Usually I help her plan them. And then my grandmother died on Monday, and—”

“Your grandmother died?” Andrew’s eyes widened. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Spencer blinked, thrown off track. Why
would
she tell Andrew her grandmother died? It wasn’t as if they were friends. “I don’t know. But anyway, she left a will, and I wasn’t in it,” she went on. “At first I thought it was because of this Golden Orchid mess, but then my sister was talking about how the will said
natural-born grandchildren.
I didn’t believe her right away, but then I started thinking about it. It makes perfect sense. I should’ve known.”

“Slow down,” Andrew said, shaking his head. “I don’t understand. You should’ve known…what?”

Spencer took a breath. “Sorry,” she said softly. “
Natural-born grandchildren
means that one of us is
not
naturally born. It means I’m…adopted.”

Spencer tapped her nails against the wood-grain patterns in the study room’s big mahogany desk. Someone had etched
Angela is a slut
into the surface. It felt weird for Spencer to say the words out loud—
I’m adopted.

“Maybe it’s a good thing,” Spencer mused, stretching her long legs under the table. “Maybe my real mother would actually care about me. And maybe I could get out of Rosewood.”

Andrew was silent. Spencer glanced at him, wondering if she’d said something offensive. Finally he turned and looked straight into her eyes.

“I love you,” Andrew announced.

Spencer’s eyes popped out. “Ex
cuse
me?”

“It’s a Web site,” Andrew went on, unfazed. His chair creaked as he leaned back. “I love you dot com. Or maybe
you
is just the letter
u,
I’m not sure. It matches adopted kids to their birth mothers. This girl I met on the trip to Greece told me about it. She wrote me the other day saying it worked. She’s meeting her birth mother next week.”

“Oh.” Spencer pretended to smooth down her already perfectly ironed skirt, feeling a little flustered. Of course she hadn’t thought Andrew was actually saying he loved
her
or anything.

“Do you want to register for it?” Andrew began to load his books into his backpack. “If you’re not adopted, they just won’t find a match. If you are…maybe they will.”

“Um…” Spencer’s head spun. “Okay. Sure.”

Andrew made a beeline through the library for the computer lab, and Spencer followed. The main reading room was mostly empty save for a few late-night studiers, two boys hovering around the copier, no doubt contemplating whether to copy their faces or their butts, and what looked like a cult meeting—every single middle-aged woman was in some sort of blue hat. Spencer thought she saw someone quickly duck behind one of the autobiography shelves, but when she looked again, no one was there.

The computer lab was at the front of the library, surrounded on all sides by large glass windows. Andrew sat down at a console and Spencer pulled out a chair next to him. He wiggled the mouse, and the screen flickered on. “Okay.” Andrew started typing and tilted the screen toward Spencer. “See?”

Reconnecting families,
announced flowery pink script at the top of the page. On the left of the screen were a series of pictures and testimonials from people who had already used the service. Spencer wondered if Andrew’s little Greece friend was pictured—and if she was pretty. Not that she would have been jealous or anything.

Spencer clicked on a link that said,
Sign up here.
A new page popped up, asking her to answer various questions about herself, which the site would then use to match Spencer with her potential mother.

Spencer’s eyes floated back to the testimonials.
I thought I would never find my son!
Sadie, age forty-nine, wrote.
Now we’re reunited and best friends!
A girl named Angela, twenty-four, exclaimed,
I always wondered who my true mother was. Now I’ve found her, and we’re starting an accessories business together!
Spencer knew the world wasn’t this innocent and naïve—things didn’t work out this easily. But she couldn’t help but hope all the same.

She swallowed hard. “What if it actually works?”

Andrew pushed his hands into his blazer pockets. “Well, that’s good, right?”

Spencer rubbed her jaw, took a deep breath, and started to type her name, cell phone number, and e-mail address. She filled in the blanks of where and when she’d been born, any health problems she’d had, and her blood type. When she got to the question that asked,
Please explain why you’re conducting this search,
her fingers hovered over the keyboard, searching for the appropriate answer.
Because my family hates me,
she wanted to type.
Because I mean nothing to them.

Andrew shifted over her shoulder.
Curiosity,
Spencer finally typed. Then she took a deep breath and hit Send.

“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” tinkled over the computer’s tiny speakers, and onto the screen floated an animated picture of a stork flying around the world, as if diligently searching for Spencer’s match.

Spencer cracked her knuckles, numb to what she’d just done. As she looked around, everything suddenly seemed unfamiliar. She’d been coming to this library all her life, but she’d never noticed that all the oil paintings on the computer room’s walls were of woodsy landscapes. Or that the big sign on the back of the door said,
LIBRARY USERS
:
WHEN ON INTERNET
,
NO FACEBOOK OR MYSPACE
,
EVER
! She’d never really looked at the sand-colored wood floors, or the huge, pentagon-shaped lamps that hung majestically from the library ceiling.

When she glanced at Andrew, he was kind of unfamiliar too—in a good way. Spencer blushed, feeling vulnerable. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Andrew stood up and leaned against the doorjamb. “So, you feel less stressed?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

“Good.” Andrew smiled and checked his watch. “I have to go, but I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

Spencer watched as he strode through the library, waved to Mrs. Jamison, the librarian, and pushed out through the turnstile. She then turned back to the computer, logging into her e-mail. The adoption site had sent her a welcome message, stating that she would most likely hear results in anywhere from the next few days to six months. As she was about to log out, a new e-mail popped up in her inbox. The sender’s name was a jumble of letters and numbers, and the subject line read,
I’m watching.

Prickles ran up Spencer’s back. She opened the e-mail and squinted at the words.

I thought we were friends, Spence. I send you a sweet little note, and you call the cops…. What do I have to do to keep you girls quiet? Actually, don’t tempt me!

—A

“Oh my God,” Spencer whispered.

A thumping noise sounded behind her. Spencer turned, her muscles rigid. No one else was in the computer room. A spotlight shone on the courtyard behind the library, but there wasn’t a single footprint in the bright white snow. Then Spencer noticed something on the outside of one of the windowpanes—a quickly fading smudge from someone’s breath.

Spencer’s blood turned cold.
I’m watching
. Someone had been right there just seconds ago…and she hadn’t had any idea.

16

WEIRDOS ATTRACT

The next morning, Aria walked downstairs, rubbing her eyes. The smell of the organic coffee Ella bought at the farmer’s market—one of the few items she paid premium price for without complaining—lured her to the kitchen. Ella had already left for work, but Mike was at the table, inhaling a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and Twittering on his iPhone. When Aria saw who was sitting next to Mike, she let out a startled cry.

“Oh.” Xavier looked up, alarmed. “Hey.”

Xavier was wearing a plain white T-shirt and very familiar plaid pajama pants. At first, Aria thought they might be ones Byron had left behind, but then she realized they were
Ella’s
. Byron’s favorite old Hollis College coffee mug sat in front of Xavier’s place, as did today’s
Philadelphia Inquirer
cryptoquote. Aria pressed her arms tightly and chastely against her chest. She hadn’t thought she needed to put on a bra for breakfast.

A horn honked outside. The chair made an angry scrape as Mike stood up, milk dribbling from his chin. “That’s Noel.” He grabbed his enormous bag of lacrosse gear and regarded Xavier. “Wii tonight, right?”

“I’ll be there,” Xavier answered.

Aria looked at her watch. “It’s seven twenty.” School started in an hour, and Mike usually procrastinated until the very last second.

“We’re getting a prime seat at Steam so we can check out Hanna Marin and her hot stepsister.” Mike’s eyes goggled. “Have you
seen
that Kate girl? I can’t believe the two of them live together! You talk to Hanna sometimes—do you know if they sleep in the same bed?”

Aria gave him an exasperated look. “Do you honestly expect me to answer that?”

Mike hefted his bag over his shoulder and sauntered into the hall, knocking over the enormous frog-faced totem pole Ella had found at a junk shop in Turkey. The front door slammed heavily. Aria heard an engine gunning…and then nothing.

The house was maddeningly still. The only thing Aria heard was the Indian sitar music Ella always listened to before work—she often left it on all day, maintaining that it was soothing for their cat, Polo, and the plants.

“Do you want a part of the paper?” Xavier broke the silence.

He held up the front page. Splayed across the top was the headline
Ian Thomas Vows to Find Real DiLaurentis Killer Before Trial Tomorrow.
Aria shuddered. “That’s okay.” She quickly poured herself a cup of coffee and headed back toward the stairs.

“Wait,” Xavier said loudly. Aria stopped so abruptly, some of her coffee spilled to the floor. “I’m sorry if I might have made you uncomfortable at the restaurant last night,” Xavier said solemnly. “That’s the last thing I meant to do. And I wanted to be gone before you came down today—I didn’t want to skeev you out more. I know how weird this must be.”

Aria wanted to ask if he meant that it must be weird because he knew she had been interested in him, or because he was dating her not-yet-divorced mom.

“It’s…fine.” Aria set her coffee down on the telephone table next to the door. It was littered with a whole bunch of flyers and postcards of Xavier’s recent shows—Ella must have been boning up on his work. Then she adjusted her way-too-short gray terry-cloth pajama shorts. If only she hadn’t been wearing the ones with the enormous pink Pegasus silk-screened across the butt.

She thought about the A note she’d received at Rabbit Rabbit yesterday. Wilden had promised to call her once he traced the origin of her latest A note. She hoped she’d hear from him today so she could put the whole thing behind her.

Aria had debated just explaining the photos of her and Xavier to Ella before A had the chance. She tried to picture it.
The thing is, I kind of liked Xavier before you started dating him,
she could say.
But it’s not like I do now! So if anyone sends you a note or pictures, ignore them, okay?
But their relationship was just too fragile to broach something like this—especially if she didn’t need to.