“Hi,” she said, holding her hand out to the new girl. “My name’s Sutton.”
The girl didn’t budge from her yoga pose. After a moment Emma was forced to lower her hand awkwardly. It was only then that the girl gracefully dropped back to a standing position, opened her eyes, and gave Emma a big smile.
“Sorry about that—I like to see how long I can balance in vrksasana. My record is twelve minutes thirteen seconds.” She blinked placidly. “My name’s Celeste. Do you practice yoga?”
Emma pursed her lips. “Uh, no …”
“You totally should,” Celeste said, a languid smile on her face. “Not only does it improve your focus, but it can really put you in touch with the flow of the universe. My tennis game has improved so much since I started. Once you learn to move with the racket, it’s like it just finds its way to the ball.”
“That’s … cool,” Emma said.
Celeste grabbed a SmartWater from the bench and took a long swig. “We moved here from Taos. Daddy got a new position in the art department at the U. He’s a painter. He just finished a big exhibition in Berlin.”
Emma perked up. This at least sounded more interesting—she was a huge fan of art, especially photography. Ethan had taken her to an opening a month ago, and she’d loved it. “What kind of work does he do?”
“You like art?” A hint of skepticism had entered the girl’s voice. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. Daddy’s work is very conceptual. People don’t get it most of the time, at least not in Arizona.” She wrinkled her nose.
Emma frowned. “Arizona’s not so bad.”
“Oh, it’s fine, I suppose,” Celeste said. “I’m just used to Taos. It’s so beautiful there, and the people are all brilliant. They all live in such harmony with the earth. Tucson is, well … different.”
“The university has a great art department. I’m sure your dad will be really happy there.” Emma glanced around her, looking for a way to escape the conversation. Celeste was kind of snooty. She took a step backward. “Anyway, it’s nice to …”
But then Celeste cocked her head curiously. “You know, Coach Maggie told me all about you, Sutton. But I thought you’d look … stronger.” Her eyes went up and down Emma’s frame, clearly giving her the once-over, and she smiled dismissively.
Emma gritted her teeth. “Good things come in small packages,” she mumbled.
Thankfully, Coach Maggie chose that exact moment to blow her whistle. “Gather round, girls!”
The team trotted over to Maggie, a short, muscular woman who wore a baseball cap over her strawberry-blond hair. When Maggie put a hand on Celeste’s shoulder, Celeste bowed her head like a Buddhist monk. “All right, everyone, this is our newest Lady Chaparelle, Celeste Echols,” Maggie said. “She just moved here from New Mexico.”
Laurel nudged Emma. “What did she say to you?”
“You know who she is, right?” Clara whispered beside them in a reverent tone. “Her grandma is Jeanette Echols.”
“Who’s that?” Laurel crinkled her nose.
“The novelist?” Emma asked, before she could stop herself.
Charlotte, Laurel, and Nisha turned to stare at her. “When was the last time you opened a book?” Charlotte asked, a hand on one hip.
Emma feigned a cough to hide her misstep. One of her foster moms used to be into Jeanette Echols, who wrote fat paperbacks about vampires and witches and bloodthirsty fairies. When she was bored one day and couldn’t catch a ride to the library, Emma had finally caved and started to read the whole series. But they definitely weren’t the kind of thing Sutton would have read.
“Please make her feel welcome,” Maggie continued. She looked at Emma. “Sutton, are you ready to scrimmage?”
“Born ready,” Emma said, marching toward the court. For once she actually believed her own Sutton bravado. How big of a threat could Celeste be?
Celeste pulled her mass of braids up into one large ponytail and gave Emma a placid smile. “I should warn you, Mercury’s in retrograde and I’m really sensitive to that. I’m a Virgo.”
“Got it,” Emma said. She exchanged glances with Nisha, the only girl close enough to overhear. Nisha made a tiny index-finger-circling-the-ear gesture. Crazy, she mouthed. Emma giggled.
Maggie blew her whistle as a signal to play. Emma bounced the ball twice on the ground, stepped up to the baseline, and hit a hard serve over the net. Celeste returned it effortlessly, dropping the shot in the far left corner of the court. The ball sailed easily past Emma’s outstretched racket.
“Love-fifteen,” Maggie called out, pointing to Celeste’s side.
Emma gritted her teeth, twirling her racket. She crouched low and tried to refocus, but the same thing happened on the next serve. Celeste sent the ball back to Emma with a graceful swing, somehow finding a pocket of the court Emma couldn’t reach in time.
“Emma!” I groaned, wishing I could cover my eyes. She was destroying my badass tennis image.
“Love-thirty,” Maggie called.
Even the girls who were supposed to be involved in their own scrimmages stopped to watch. All Emma could do was shrug and serve again. This time she was able to return Celeste’s backhanded volley, but it arced straight up in the air as a lob. Celeste smashed it back down onto Emma’s side of the net, as easily as if she were swatting a fly.
“Nice try,” she said, her voice oozing sweetness. “I’m sure you’ll get the next one.”
But Emma didn’t hit the next one, or the next. Forty-five minutes later, Celeste had trounced her in five straight matches. Emma braced her hands against her thighs, panting, as the team stared in confusion, no one daring to clap against Sutton. Only when Maggie encouraged everyone did a few of the girls muster up halfhearted applause. Laurel and Charlotte crossed their arms over their chests, looking disgruntled. Nisha had done the same. Emma shuffled to the sidelines in humiliation.
“That was something else, Celeste!” Maggie cried, clapping loudly to make up for everyone else.
Celeste smiled, a thin sheen of perspiration glowing on her skin. She bowed her head to Emma. “Namaste.” Then she drifted off to one of the far courts. A few girls trotted behind her, and Emma could hear them talking about astrological signs and yoga poses.
Charlotte shook her head in wonderment. “Who does she think she is?”
Emma tried to look disdainful as she wiped the sweat off her face and shoulders, but a flutter of anxiety twisted her stomach. Her twin would have decimated that girl, she was sure of it.
“We’re done for the day!” Maggie called a few minutes later, guiding the girls to the locker room. Emma had never been more relieved for practice to be over. Steam billowed through the green-tiled room, the sound of the showers hissing in the background. Colorful shower poufs hung outside some of the lockers, laced through the combination locks to dry between uses.
Emma hooked Sutton’s basket of toiletries over her arm, threw a towel over her shoulder, and slid out of the aisle of lockers. On the end wall was an oversized display case that said HOLLIER HIGH CHAPARELLES MVP across the top. It featured the MVPs through the years, from girls with big eighties hair and massive earrings all the way to Sutton’s photo from last year, her dark hair sleek and straight, her eyes bright. Emma paused to look at it for a moment, suddenly sad. Someone stopped beside her and gasped.
“Who is this?” Celeste asked, her voice low and tremulous. She pointed at Sutton’s photo.
Emma stared at her. Was she joking? Was this some kind of game, an extension of the you-don’t-look-very-strong comment from earlier, her way of saying, There’s no way you’re going to be MVP this year. But Celeste’s eyes were round and ingenuous. She seemed to be looking right into Emma and struggling to understand what she saw there.
“Obviously that’s Sutton. Who else could it be?” Nisha had come up behind them to peer over Emma’s shoulder. She curled her lip.
Celeste shook her head, a pained crease between her eyes. “No, it’s not. The energy in this picture is nothing like yours, Sutton. You seem much … sweeter. Like you’ve lived a hard life and know what it’s like to suffer.”
Oh, great—since I’d died I’d had to hear time and time again what a bitch I’d been, and now I had to listen to the fact that my energy was mean, too?
Emma recoiled from the other girl’s gaze. It had been months since she’d been seen for herself by anyone except Ethan, and for better or worse she’d gotten used to being able to hide behind Sutton’s persona. Now she felt uncomfortably like someone was peeking behind her disguise, seeing how she really felt and what she really thought.
She gave Celeste a cold sneer. “Whatever you say,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Excuse me, I need to shower.” She sauntered past the other girl, forcing herself not to look at her again.
Careful, sis, I thought. I didn’t believe in premonitions or astrology or auras either, back when I was alive. But then again, I didn’t believe in ghosts. Sometimes there are things in the world beyond what you can see with the naked eye.
5
DADDY-DAUGHTER DINE-AND-DASH
Tuesday evening, the maître d’ of the La Paloma Country Club dining room hurried to the podium to meet Emma and her grandfather. Mrs. Mercer and Laurel had a mother-daughter community service meeting, so it was just Emma and Mr. Mercer for dinner that night.
“Oh, Mr. Mercer, your knee!” the maître d’ cried.
Mr. Mercer was propped up between two crutches, his knee buried in the straps and padding of a brace. He smiled ruefully. “You should see the other guy,” he said, wincing.
The maître d’ laughed mirthfully and waved for him to follow her to the dining room. Luckily, the room wasn’t crowded, so Mr. Mercer was able to maneuver easily around the tables. A piano tinkled in the corner, blending in with the low conversations and scrape of silverware. A few men in suits sat at the bar, talking golf, while women in designer dresses and pearls nibbled on colorful salads, the dressing in cups to the sides of their plates. The big floor-to-ceiling windows on the far wall offered a panoramic view of the Catalina Mountains. As they passed a large gilded mirror, Emma studied their side-by-side reflections. She’d inherited Mr. Mercer’s straight nose and jawline. She smiled at her own reflection and saw the matching smile on his face. It seemed so obvious that they were related, now that she knew to look for it.
“What happened?” a woman called out from a nearby table, glancing in concern at Mr. Mercer’s crutches. Mr. Mercer just smiled at her and passed on, but not before Emma noticed that a lot of the women in the dining room were eyeing Mr. Mercer appreciatively.
Ew, were they ogling my dad? Sure, he was good-looking in that salt-and-pepper way, dignified and handsome in his tan sports coat and Italian leather shoes. But he was here with his daughter, for crying out loud—well, really his granddaughter. And he was on crutches.