Sara Shepard - Heartless

Just as Aria was about to turn and run back to her car, Noel flung open the door, dressed in a plain black T-shirt and black swim trunks. “You’re here!” he whooped to Aria and only Aria, ignoring the other girls. “Are you ready for the hot tub?”

“I don’t know,” Aria answered shyly. At the last minute, she’d thrown a bikini in her bag, but she hadn’t decided whether she’d wear it. She still didn’t even know what she was doing here. This wasn’t exactly her group.

Noel scowled. “It’s a hot tub party. You’re going in.”

Aria giggled, trying to relax. But then Mason Byers grabbed Noel’s arm and asked where the bottle opener was. Naomi Zeigler waltzed over and said that a skanky drunk girl was throwing up in the powder room. Aria sighed, deflated. It was a Typical Kahn party—what did she expect? That just because she and Noel had shared something special yesterday, he’d cancel the kegger and instead host a sophisticated wine-and-cheese event?

As if sensing her annoyance, Noel glanced over his shoulder at Aria and held up a single finger. Be back in a sec, he mouthed. Aria wandered past the double staircase and the legendary marble lions that Mr. Kahn had allegedly procured from an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. To her right was the living room, stuffed full ofauthentic O’Keeffes and Jasper Johnses. She walked into the gigantic stainless-steel kitchen. Kids were everywhere. Devon Arliss was mixing drinks in a blender. Kate Randall was parading around the room in a skimpy Missoni bikini. Jenna Cavanaugh was leaning against the window, whispering in Emily’s ex-girlfriend’s ear.

Aria stopped, backtracking. Jenna Cavanaugh? No one had bothered to tell Jenna that her service dog was lapping up a puddle of beer on the floor, or that someone had fastened a black lacy bra around the dog’s neck, its padded cups hanging down like a bow tie.

Suddenly Aria was desperate to know what Jenna and Jason had been fighting about in her house last week, when Emily had seen them through the window. Aria had been Ali’s best friend, but Jenna seemed to know much more about Ali’s family than Aria did—including Ali’s alleged “sibling problems” with Jason. Aria nudged through the crowd, but then more kids filed into the kitchen, blocking her way. By the time Aria could see the window again, Jenna and Maya had disappeared.

A bunch of guys on the Rosewood Day swim team came up behind Aria and grabbed some beer from the cooler under the table. Aria felt a tug on her arm. When she turned, she saw a bleached-blond girl with flawless skin and big boobs staring at her. She was one of the Quaker school girls Aria had stood next to on the front porch.

“You’re Aria Montgomery, right?” the girl said. Aria nodded, and the girl gave her a knowing smirk. “Pretty Little Liar,” she chanted.

A skinny brunette in a fuchsia silk dress sidled up too. “Have you seen Alison today?” she teased. “Do you see her right now? Is she standing right next to you?” She wiggled her fingers in front of her face spookily.

Aria took a step back, bumping into the round kitchen table.

The jeers continued. “ I see dead people, ” Mason Byers said in falsetto, leaning against the counter near the pot rack.

“She just likes the attention,” Naomi Zeigler scoffed from the sliding glass door. Beyond that was the Kahns’ patio. Steam rose from the hot tub. Aria caught sight of Mike way at the edge of the lawn, horsing around with James Freed.

“She probably just wants to be on the news,” Riley Wolfe added, perched on a stool near the veggies and dip.

“That’s not true!” Aria protested.

More kids entered the room, staring Aria down: Their eyes were derisive and hateful. Aria looked right and left, eager to escape, but she was pinned against the kitchen table, barely able to move. Then someone grabbed her left wrist. “C’mon,” Noel said. He pulled her through the crowd.

Kids parted immediately. “Are you kicking her out?” a boy on the baseball team whose name Aria never remembered crowed.

“You should turn her in!” Seth Cardiff encouraged.

“No, he shouldn’t, idiot,” Mason Byers’s voice rose above the din. “This party is a cop-free zone.”

Noel dragged Aria up to the second floor. “I’m so sorry,” he said, nudging open a dark bedroom that had an enormous oil painting of Mrs. Kahn on the wall. The room smelled overpoweringly like mothballs. “You don’t need to be in the middle of that.”

Aria sat down on the bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. What had she been thinking, coming here? Noel settled next to her, offering Aria a Kleenex and his gin and tonic. She shook her head. Downstairs, someone turned up the stereo. A girl shrieked. Noel rested his glass on his knee. Aria glanced at his sloped nose, his bushy eyebrows, his long eyelashes. It felt comforting, sitting here in the dark next to him.

“I’m not doing this for attention,” she blubbered.

Noel turned to her. “I know. People are idiots. They have nothing better to do than gossip.”

She flopped back on the pillow. Noel settled next to her. Their fingers lightly touched. Aria felt her heart begin to pound. “I have something to tell you,” Noel said.

“Oh?” Aria squeaked. Her throat suddenly felt dry.

It was a long time before Noel spoke again. Trembling with anticipation, Aria tried to calm down by watching the rotating ceiling fan above their heads. “I found another medium,” Noel finally admitted.

All the air slowly drained from Aria’s body. “Oh.”

“And this one’s supposedly really good. She, like, becomes the person you’re trying to contact. All she needs is to be at the spot where the person died, and then . . .” Noel waved his hands in the air, indicating a magical transformation. “But we don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. Like I said, going to the cemetery and just talking also really helps too. It’s peaceful.”

Aria laced her hands over her belly. “But going to the cemetery isn’t going to give me answers. It’s not like Ali’s going to talk back.”

“Okay.” Noel set his drink on the side table, pulled out his cell phone, and scrolled through his contacts. “How about I call the medium and tell her we can meet tomorrow night? I could pick you up and we could drive to Ali’s old backyard together.”

“Wait.” Aria sat up, the bedsprings squeaking. “Ali’s . . . backyard? ”

Noel nodded. “We have to go where the person died. That’s how it works.”

Aria’s hands tingled and it felt like the temperature in the room had dropped at least ten degrees. The idea of standing over the half-dug hole where Ali had been found chilled Aria to the bone. Did she really want to speak to Ali’s ghost that badly?

Yet a nagging feeling tugged at her. Deep down, she felt like Ali really did have something important to say, and it was Aria’s responsibility to listen.

“Okay.” Aria gazed out the window at the fingernail-shaped moon above the trees. “I’ll do it.” She pulled her knees in so that she was sitting cross-legged. “Thanks for helping me with this. And for getting me out of that mess downstairs. And . . .” She took a deep breath. “Thanks for being so nice to me in general.”

Noel gave her a crazy look. “Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

“Because . . .” Aria trailed off. Because you’re a Typical Rosewood Boy, she was about to say, but she stopped. She didn’t really know what that meant anymore.

They were silent for what seemed like hours. Not able to stand the tension any longer, she leaned over and kissed him. His skin smelled like chlorine from the hot tub, and his mouth tasted like gin. Aria shut her eyes, forgetting momentarily where she was. When she opened them, Noel was there, smiling at her, like he’d been waiting for her to do that for years.