Sara Shepard - Pretty Little Liars

In just two days, Spencer was starting her junior year at Rosewood and would have to surrender herself to this year’s jam-packed schedule: five APs, leadership training, charity drive organizing, yearbook editing, drama tryouts, hockey practice, and sending in summer program applications ASAP, since everyone knew that the best way to get into an Ivy was to get into one of their pre-college summer camps. But there was one thing Spencer had to look forward to this year: moving into the converted barn that sat at the back of her family’s property. According to her parents, it was the perfect way to prepare for college—just look how well it had worked for Melissa! Barf. But Spencer was happy to follow in her sister’s footsteps in this case, since they led out to the tranquil, light-flooded guesthouse where Spencer could escape her parents and their constantly barking labradoodles.

The sisters had a quiet yet long-standing rivalry and Spencer was always losing: Spencer had won the Presidential Physical Fitness Award four times in elementary school; Melissa had won it five. Spencer got second place in the seventh-grade geography bee; Melissa got first. Spencer was on the yearbook staff, in all of the school plays, and was taking five AP classes this year; Melissa did all those things her junior year plus worked at their mother’s horse farm and trained for the Philadelphia marathon for leukemia research. No matter how high Spencer’s GPA was or how many extracurriculars she smashed into her schedule, she never quite reached Melissa’s level of perfection.

Spencer picked up another mussel with her fingers and popped it into her mouth. Her dad loved this restaurant, with its dark wood paneling, thick oriental rugs, and the heady smells of butter, red wine, and salty air. Sitting among the masts and sails, it felt like you could jump right overboard into the harbor. Spencer gazed out across the Delaware River to the big bubbly aquarium in Camden, New Jersey. A giant party boat decorated with Christmas lights floated past them. Someone shot a yellow firework off the front deck. That boat was having way more fun than this one was having.

“What’s Melissa’s friend’s name again?” her mother murmured.

“I think it’s Wren,” Spencer said. In her head she added, As in scrawny bird.

“She told me he’s studying to be a doctor,” her mother swooned. “At U Penn.”

“Of course he is,” Spencer quietly singsonged. She bit down hard on a piece of mussel shell and winced. Melissa was bringing her boyfriend of two months to dinner. The family hadn’t met him yet—he’d been away visiting family or something—but Melissa’s boyfriends were all the same: textbook handsome, well mannered, played golf. Melissa didn’t have an ounce of creativity in her body and clearly looked for the same predictability in her boyfriends.

“Mom!” a familiar voice called from behind Spencer.

Melissa swooped to the other side of the table and gave each of her parents a huge kiss. Her look hadn’t changed since high school: her ash-blond hair was cut bluntly to her chin, she wore no makeup except for a little foundation, and she wore a dowdy square-necked yellow dress, a pearl-buttoned pink cardigan, and semi-cute kitten-heeled shoes.

“Darling!” her mother cried.

“Mom, Dad, here’s Wren.” Melissa pulled in someone next to her.

Spencer tried to keep her mouth from dropping open. There was nothing scrawny, birdlike, or textbook about Wren. He was tall and lanky and wore a beautifully cut Thomas Pink shirt. His black hair was cut in a long, shaggy, messy style. He had beautiful skin, high cheekbones, and almond-shaped eyes.

Wren shook her parents’ hands and sat down at the table. Melissa asked her mom a question about where to have the plumber’s bill sent, while Spencer waited to be introduced. Wren pretended to be really interested in an oversize wineglass.

“I’m Spencer,” she said finally. She wondered if her breath smelled like mussels. “The other daughter.” Spencer nodded toward the other side of the table. “The one they keep in the basement.”

“Oh.” Wren grinned. “Cool.”

Was that a British accent she heard? “Isn’t it strange they haven’t asked you a single thing about yourself?” Spencer gestured at her parents. Now they were talking about contractors and the best wood to use for the living room floor.

Wren shrugged, and then whispered, “Kinda.” He winked.

Suddenly Melissa grabbed Wren’s hand. “Oh, I see you’ve met her,” she cooed.

“Yeah.” He smiled. “You didn’t tell me you had a sister.”

Of course she hadn’t.

“So Melissa,” Mrs. Hastings said. “Daddy and I were talking about where you might be staying while all the renovations are happening. And I just thought of something. Why not just come back to Rosewood to live with us for a few months? You can commute to Penn; you know how easy it is.”

Melissa wrinkled her nose. Please say no, please say no, Spencer willed.

“Well.” Melissa adjusted the strap of her yellow dress. The more Spencer stared at it, the more the color made Melissa look like she had the flu. Melissa glanced at Wren. “The thing is…Wren and I are going to be moving into the town house…together.”

“Oh!” Her mother smiled at both of them. “Well…I suppose Wren could stay with us too…what do you think, Peter?”

Spencer had to clutch her boobs to keep her heart from exploding out of her chest. They were moving in together? Her sister really had some balls. She could just imagine what would happen if she dropped a bomb like that. Mom really would make Spencer live in the basement—or maybe in the stable. She could set up shop next to the horses’ companion goat.

“Well, I suppose that’s all right,” her father said. Unbelievable! “It’ll certainly be quiet. Mom’s in the stable most of the day, and of course Spencer will be in school.”

“You’re in school?” Wren asked. “Where?”

“She’s in high school,” Melissa butted in. She stared long at Spencer, as if she were sizing her up. From Spencer’s tight ecru Lacoste tennis dress to her long, dark blond wavy hair to her two-carat diamond earrings. “Same high school I went to. I never asked, Spence—are you president of the class this year?”

“VP,” Spencer mumbled. There was no way Melissa hadn’t already known that.

“Oh, aren’t you so happy it worked out that way?” Melissa asked.

“No,” Spencer said flatly. She’d run for the spot last spring but had been beaten out and had to take the VP slot. She hated losing at anything.

Melissa shook her head. “You don’t understand, Spence—it’s soooooo much work. When I was president, I barely had time for anything else!”

“You do have quite a few activities, Spencer,” Mrs. Hastings murmured. “There’s yearbook, and all those hockey games….”

“Besides, Spence, you’ll take over if the president, you know…dies.” Melissa winked at her as if they were sharing this joke, which they weren’t.

Melissa turned back to her parents. “Mom. I just got the best idea. What if Wren and I stayed in the barn? Then we’d be out of your hair.”

Spencer felt as if someone had just kicked her in the ovaries. The barn ?

Mrs. Hastings put her French-manicured finger to her perfectly lipsticked mouth. “Hmm,” she started. She turned tentatively to Spencer. “Would you be able to wait a few months, honey? Then the barn will be all yours.”

“Oh!” Melissa laid down her fork. “I didn’t know you were going to move in there, Spence! I don’t want to cause problems—”

“It’s fine,” Spencer interrupted, grabbing her glass of ice water and taking a hearty swallow. She willed herself not to throw a tantrum in front of her parents and Perfect Melissa. “I can wait.”