Sara Shepard - Wicked

As she reached down to grab her bag to follow the others out, she noticed her BlackBerry was flashing with a new text. Hanna glanced up. Kate was busy shrugging into her princess-seamed coat, Naomi was signing the bill, and Riley was reapplying her lip gloss. The waiters swirled around Rive Gauche, taking orders and clearing plates. She tossed her hair behind her shoulders and opened the text.

Dear Little Piggy,

Those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Remember your unfortunate “accident”? Tell anyone about little ol’ moi, and this time I’ll make sure you don’t wake up. But just to show that I’m willing to play nice, here’s a helpful hint: Someone in your life isn’t what they seem.

Love ya!—A

“Hanna?”

Hanna covered the BlackBerry’s screen fast. Kate was a few paces away, waiting by the marble-topped bar. “Everything okay?”

Hanna took a deep breath, and slowly, the spots in front of her eyes receded. She let her cell phone slip back into her bag. Whatever. Screw knockoff A—anyone could have heard about that Little Piggy stuff and her accident. She was back on top where she belonged, and she wasn’t about to let some stupid kid mess with her.

“Everything’s perfect,” Hanna chirped, zipping up her bag. Then she strode across the restaurant and joined the others.

Spencer watched blankly as steam from her stainless-steel coffee carafe evaporated into the air. Andrew Campbell sat across from her, flipping a page of their massive AP econ textbook. He tapped a highlighted chart.

“Okay, this is talking about how the Federal Reserve controls the money supply,” Andrew explained. “Like, if the Fed worries that the economy is going into a recession, it lowers its reserve requirements and interest rates for borrowing money. Remember when we talked about this in class?”

“Uh-huh,” Spencer mumbled vaguely. The only thing she knew about the Federal Reserve was that when it lowered interest rates, her parents got all excited because that meant their stocks would go up and her mother could redecorate the living room— again . But Spencer didn’t recall talking about this in class at all. She felt the same frustrated, helpless feeling about AP econ as she did about her recurring dream of being trapped in an underground room that was slowly filling with water. Every time she tried to dial 911, the numbers on the phone kept moving around on her. And then the buttons turned to gummy bears and the water rose over her mouth and nose.

It was after 8 P.M. on Wednesday night, and Spencer and Andrew were sitting in one of the Rosewood Public Library’s private, book-lined study rooms, going over the latest econ unit. Because she’d plagiarized an econ paper, Rosewood Day had mandated that if she didn’t get an A this semester, she would be removed from the class permanently. Her parents certainly weren’t going to shell out the money for a tutor—and they still hadn’t reopened Spencer’s credit card accounts—so Spencer had broken down and called Andrew, who had the highest grade in the class. Weirdly, Andrew had been happy to meet with her, even though they had tons of AP English, calculus, and chemistry homework tonight.

“And then there’s the monetary equation of exchange here,” Andrew said, tapping the book again. “You remember this? Let’s do some chapter problems using it.”

A piece of Andrew’s thick blond hair fell over his eyes as he reached for his calculator. She thought she detected the chestnutty smell of Kiehl’s Facial Fuel, her favorite guy soap smell. Had he always used that, or was it something new? She was pretty sure he hadn’t worn it to Foxy, the last time she’d been this close to him.

“Earth to Spencer?” Andrew waved his hand in front of her face. “Hello?”

Spencer blinked. “Sorry,” she stammered.

Andrew folded his hands over the textbook. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

“Sure,” Spencer assured him, although when she tried to remember, her brain called up other things instead. Like the A note they’d received after Ian was released on bail. Or the news reports about Ian’s upcoming trial on Friday. Or that her mother was planning a fund-raiser without her. Or, the clincher, that Spencer might not truly have been to the Hastings manor born.

Melissa didn’t have much to back up the theory she’d blurted out Tuesday night. Her only proof that Spencer was possibly adopted was that their cousin Smith had teased her about it once when they were little. Genevieve had quickly spanked him and sent him to his room. And, come to think of it, Melissa couldn’t remember their mother actually being pregnant with Spencer for nine months, either.

It wasn’t much, but the more Spencer thought about it, the more it felt like an important puzzle piece snapping into place. Except for their similarly colored dirty-blond hair, she and Melissa looked nothing alike. And Spencer always wondered why her mom had acted so spazzy when she caught Spencer, Ali, and the others playing We Are All Secretly Sisters in sixth grade. They’d made up this fantasy that their birth mother was really worldly, rich, and connected, but she’d lost her five beautiful daughters in the Kuala Lumpur airport (mostly because they liked the words Kuala Lumpur ) because she was schizo (mostly because they liked the word schizo). Usually Mrs. Hastings pretended Spencer and her friends didn’t exist. But when she’d heard what they were doing, she’d quickly interjected, saying it wasn’t funny to joke about mental illness or mothers abandoning their children. But hello? It was a game.

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—”