Sara Shepard - Two Truths and a Lie

Lili sat up straighter and shot a look at Gabby. Gabby gave a small nod, her eyes widening. “So Gabs and I spent last night brainstorming ideas for our first official prank,” Lili announced. She glanced at Emma deferentially. Of course , Emma thought. She thinks I’m Sutton. She’s about to pitch prank ideas and is waiting for my approval .

It was interesting watching how powerful I was from afar. I remembered how many suggestions I’d shot down, how many get-togethers I canceled when I simply wasn’t feeling up to it, and how many evenings were spent doing exactly what I’d planned. After all, my ideas were the best ones. And everyone knew it.

Emma gritted her teeth, then decided to use Sutton’s power to her advantage. She let out a barking laugh and cocked her head to the side. “Nice try,” she said icily. “But I don’t think the Lying Game is taking suggestions from newbies just yet.”

“Yeah, watch and learn, girls.” Charlotte closed Cosmo and sat up straighter. “So. Does anyone know what Ethan’s into?”

A smile rolled across Laurel’s face. “Sutton knows what he’s into, right, Sis?”

Emma’s throat tightened.

The girls looked at her. “And why would you know what Ethan Landry’s into?” Madeline asked incredulously.

“I don’t know,” Emma snapped, shooting a nasty look at Laurel.

“Sure you do,” Laurel said cheerfully. She plucked a stuffed dog off of Madeline’s bed and cradled it in her arms. “Don’t be so modest, Sis. You know all the dirt.” She turned to the girls. “Sutton just told me this past weekend that Ethan secretly does poetry slams at Club Congress downtown.”

“I never told you that!” Emma cried, heat rising to her chest, racking her brain to remember when she and Ethan had discussed the poetry slam. And then … it hit her. At the park, on Saturday. So Laurel had been spying. But what else had she heard?

“Of course he does poetry.” Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Every good emo boy does.” She whipped out her phone and loaded up Google. After a moment, she let out a squeal. “Here he is! Ethan Landry, listed as contestant number four on the slam list. We can make an awesome prank out of this!”

Madeline scooted closer. “We could hire people to sit in the audience to boo him or throw tomatoes at him.”

“Or what if we planted a fake editor in the audience?” Lili breathed. “He could say he’s super into Ethan’s work and wants to publish him—but only if Ethan flies out to New York to meet with the publisher. But when Ethan gets there, they’ll say they’ve never heard of him!”

Gabby nodded, her eyes wide. “He would feel like such a loser.”

“Or …” Laurel said leadingly, waggling his eyebrows, “We can sneak into his house, steal a couple of his poems and post them online under a fake name. Then when he goes to read them, we can hire someone to pretend to be the real author and accuse Ethan of plagiarism. And when he shows that he uploaded the poems two weeks prior to the reading, Ethan will be so humiliated.”

“That’s genius!” Charlotte cried. “We’ll tape the whole thing and put it on YouTube!”

Madeline high-fived Laurel. “Totally brilliant.”

Gabby gestured dramatically, like she was giving a Shakespearean monologue, and trilled, “Roses are red, violets are blue, Ethan Landry, prank’s on you!”

Laurel turned and eyed Emma. “What do you think, Sutton?”

Emma’s entire body flushed with heat like she was about to be sick. She turned away from the girls, pretending to examine one of the Degas prints on Madeline’s wall so they wouldn’t see the look on her face. Every fiber of her being wanted to derail this prank, but she couldn’t figure out a way to stop it. Sutton probably would have. Sutton would’ve made a biting comment that would have put everyone in their places. It made her feel like Old Emma again—tongue-tied, acquiescent, and wimpy.

“I, um, have to go to the bathroom,” she blurted, jumping to her feet and running into the hall. If she stayed in Madeline’s room a moment longer, she might burst into tears.

She made her way down the beige-carpeted hallway, trailing her hand along the adobe walls. Where the hell was Madeline’s bathroom, anyway? She peered into the first available door, but it was just a linen closet. Behind the second door was an office with a computer and an industrial-sized printer. She passed the third door, which hung slightly ajar, and peeked inside. It was a room done up in light blue carpeting, darker blue walls, and a black bedspread. Soccer posters were taped to the walls, and shiny trophies stood on a shelf by the window.

Thayer’s room.

Her stomach lurched. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of this sooner? If Sutton and Thayer had a secret relationship, maybe there would be some sort of evidence of it in here.

She shot a quick glance over her shoulder, then nudged the door open and tiptoed inside. Books were stacked neatly on the desk. There wasn’t a trace of dust or clutter anywhere. A swivel chair with leather padding was tucked beneath his dark wooden desk. No one had bothered flipping the months on the Arizona Diamondbacks calendar tacked to the wall—a photo of a uniformed player swinging a bat and about to make contact with a blurry white ball hung above block letters marking JUNE. It was clear that this room had already been thoroughly searched, probably by the cops—by Quinlan—when Thayer went missing. Emma ran her fingertips along the stereo. She picked up an iPod and put it back down.

Seeing the iPod and stereo made my mind expand. I saw myself in Thayer’s room, listening to an Arcade Fire song on that iPod. Thayer lay next to me on the carpet, grazing his fingertips across my knee. Strands of carpet tickled the backs of my bare legs. I reached forward to toy with the edge of his light green T-shirt, lifting it just a sliver to touch the hard stomach muscles beneath. Thayer cupped my chin with his palms and leaned forward until his mouth was a breath away. His lips covered mine and I felt my entire body spark. And then a door creaked open. We froze for a split second before breaking apart, sneaking down the back staircase, and slipping into the den. Just as Mr. Vega crossed the foyer and stared at us with wide, suspicious eyes, the memory faded away.

Emma circled the room, running her hands under the pillows on Thayer’s bed, peeking into the bureau and desk drawers, and poking her head into the nearly empty closet. It was as bare and impersonal as a hotel room. Nothing was out of the ordinary. There were no left-behind tubes of lipstick that might have been Sutton’s. No pictures of her on his bulletin board. If Thayer had a relationship with Sutton, he’d kept it a secret.

But then, suddenly, she saw it. There, stacked alongside the crime novels on the bookshelf, was a tattered, pale yellow book. Little House on the Prairie , said the spine. Emma reached for it. If it was random that Sutton had a book from the Little House series, it was downright bizarre that soccer-star-jock-boy Thayer had one.

The book felt light in Emma’s hands. When she turned it over, she realized the pages had been removed and the book was hollow. Shaking, she plunged her hand into the opening and felt her fingers close on a bunch of papers. As she pulled them out, she got a whiff of a flowery fragrance she instantly recognized. It was the same musky smell Emma had spritzed on herself from an expensive-looking bottle with a gold-trimmed label marked ANNICK on Sutton’s dresser.

With trembling fingers, she unfolded the papers. Sutton’s distinctly rounded handwriting stared back at her. Dear Thayer , it began. I think about you all the time… I can’t wait until we can meet up again… I am so in love with you …