Perfect (Book Three)

Fifteen: Never, Ever Trust Something As Obsolete As A Fax Machine.

Wednesday afternoon at lunch, Hanna sat a teak farmhouse table that overlooked the Rosewood Day practice fields and the duck pond, Mount Kale rose up in the distance. It was a perfect afternoon. Tiffany-blue sky, no humidity, the smell of leaves and clean air all around them. The ideal setting for Hanna's perfect birthday present to Mona—now all Mona had to do was show up. Hanna hadn't been able to get a word in while they were fitted for their champagne-colored Zac Posen court dresses at Saks yesterday—not with Naomi and Riley around. She'd tried to call Mona to talk to her about it last night, too, but Mona had said she was in the middle of studying for a big German test. If she failed, the Sweet Seventeen was off.

But whatever. Mona was due any minute, and they'd make up for all the private Hanna-Mona time they'd missed. And yesterday's note from A about Mona not being trustworthy? Such a bluff. Mona might still be a little pissed about the Frenniversary misunderstanding, but there was no way she'd bail on their friendship. Anyway, Hanna's birthday surprise would make everything all better. So Mona had better speed it up before she missed the whole thing.

As Hanna waited, she scrolled through her BlackBerry. She had it programmed to keep messages until manually erased, so all her old Alison text conversations were still stored right in her inbox. Most of the time, Hanna didn't like going through them—it was too sad—but today, for some reason she wanted to. She found one from the first day of June, a few days before Ali went missing.

Trying to study for the health final, Ali had written. I have all this nervous energy.

Y? had been Hanna's answer.

Ali: I don't know. Maybe I'm in love. Ha ha.

Hanna: Yr in love? w/ who?

Ali: Kidding. Oh shit, Spencer's at my door. She wants to practice field hockey drills...AGAIN.

Tell her no, Hanna had written back. Who do U love?

You don't tell Spencer no, Ali argued. She'll, like, hurt you.

Hanna stared at her BlackBerry's bright screen. At the time, she'd probably laughed. But now Hanna looked at the old texts with a fresh eye. A's note—saying one of Hanna's friends was hiding something—scared her. Could Spencer be hiding something?

All of a sudden, Hanna recalled a memory she hadn't thought of in a long time: A few days before Ali went missing, the five of them had gone on a field trip to the People's Light Playhouse to see Romeo and Juliet. There weren't many seventh-graders who'd opted to go—the rest of the field-trippers had been high-schoolers. Practically all of the Rosewood Day senior class had been there—Ali's older brother, Jason, Spencer's sister, Melissa, Ian Thomas, Katy Houghton, Ali's field hockey friend, and Preston Kahn, one of the Kahn brothers. After the play was over, Aria and Emily disappeared to the bathroom, Hanna and Ali sat on the stone wall and started eating their lunches, and Spencer sprinted over to talk to Mrs. Delancey, the English teacher, who was sitting near her students.

"She's only over there because she wants to be near the older boys," Ali muttered, glaring at Spencer.

"We could go over too, if you want," Hanna suggested.

Ali said no. "I'm mad at Spencer," she declared.

"Why?" Hanna asked.

Ali sighed. "Long, boring story."

Hanna let it drop—Ali and Spencer often got and at each other for no reason. She started daydreaming about how the hot actor who played Tybalt had stared right at her all through his death scene. Did Tybalt think Hanna was cute...or fat? Or perhaps he wasn't staring at her at all—maybe he was just acting dead with his eyes open. When she looked up again, Ali was crying.