Yeah, my friends aren’t exactly the Goodwill type. Emma had dragged Mads into a thrift store when she first arrived. And even though she’d scored a sweet pair of Chanel shades, poor Mads had backed away from the place as if everything was crawling with lice.
As the Saks Fifth Avenue sign glittered into view, Laurel gave Emma an awkward glance. “Um, I invited Nisha to meet us,” Laurel blurted. “Is that okay?”
Emma blinked. “Nisha?”
Laurel angled the car into a parking space and turned off the ignition. “It’s just—it seems like you guys are getting along better now.... She really put Celeste in her place at tennis, you know? We’ve been working together on that physics project and I just thought …”
“Sure, it’s fine. I was just surprised,” Emma said.
A relieved smile crossed Laurel’s face. Emma remembered how nervous Laurel had been when Emma discovered she’d been at Nisha’s slumber party the night Sutton died. Poor Laurel had closed her eyes, almost as if to brace herself for some kind of punishment. She wondered why Sutton had cared so much about who her sister had spent time with. The Lying Game girls were extremely invested in managing each other’s social lives.
Watching from this distance, I wasn’t sure why myself. I remembered the rush of power, of strength, when I drove people together or apart, when I told my friends who they were allowed to like, or date. Now it just seemed … small.
Nisha stood outside the Saks entrance, her straight, shiny hair loose around her shoulders. She lifted her hand almost shyly as they approached. The light was fading fast, the sky a pale silvery blue overhead. Magpies flitted through the parking lot, screaming from the tops of light posts and swooping down to get the crumbs trailing from the food court to the cars. The three girls stood awkwardly for a moment, looking at each other.
Then Emma grinned and gestured toward Saks. “You girls ready for combat?”
Nisha’s dark brown eyes lit up. “Born ready. Thanks for inviting me.”
“Of course,” Laurel said, pushing through the wide glass door. “Let’s do it.”
The scene inside the store was a madhouse. Women swarmed like angry bees, grabbing clothes off hangers and out of bins. Two girls Emma recognized from her German class were actually yanking a pair of jeans back and forth between them, arguing loudly over who’d seen them first. Older women reeking of Chanel No. 5 pursed their lips in disdain at the disorder, but snatched at hats and bags just as eagerly when they found the labels they were looking for. Salesgirls tottered around on five-inch heels looking harassed.
Emma ran her hand over a cashmere T-shirt left rumpled on a table. When she flipped over the tag, she burst into a fit of coughing. Even with the price reduction, the shirt was four hundred dollars. Laurel grabbed her elbow.
“Ralph Lauren? Who are you shopping for, Grandma? Come on.” She steered her toward a cluster of cocktail dresses. Nisha was already sorting through a rack of jewel-toned Oscar de la Rentas. Laurel whipped her sweater off and pulled a strapless yellow minidress over her camisole and jeans, then, frowning, tugged off the jeans underneath. It would have been strange if all the other women in the store hadn’t been doing the same thing. Laurel studied her reflection in a full-length mirror on a pillar, then looked enviously at Emma. “I wish I had your shoulders.” She pulled off the minidress and handed it to her. “You try it on.”
Emma tugged the dress over her head. She pivoted back and forth in the mirror, scrunching up her face. The color was way too banana.
Come on, I wanted to tell her. Didn’t she know yellow was the color this year? And she and I actually have the skin tone to pull it off.
Now Laurel was wearing a gold lace Dolce & Gabbana number that made her skin glow. “So you’re talking to Thayer again, huh? I saw you guys in the front yard.”
Emma shrugged as she took the dress off. “Yeah. It’s been kind of awkward between us, but I don’t want to lose him as a friend.”
Laurel scoffed. “Well, what’d you expect? I don’t know what happened between you or why you decided to break it off with him, but he’s not over it.”
Emma eyed her carefully. Laurel had forgiven her sister for coming between her and Thayer, but her tone was still tinged with wistfulness. She grabbed a short red Alice + Olivia dress.
“You would look drop-dead in this,” Emma said, holding the dress out to Laurel. “Every guy at the party will be drooling over you.”
“Really?” Laurel said, looking touched.
“Promise.” Emma grabbed more dresses from the rack and held them up to her body without trying them on. Tucking a black sheath under her chin, she used both hands to pull her hair away from her face to see what the dress would look like in an updo.
Laurel glanced at her and made a jealous snort. “You and your cheekbones. It’s so unfair. Who was your birth mom, some Russian ballerina?”
Emma’s eyebrows shot up. She and Laurel had never talked about Sutton’s birth mother before. Had she and Sutton? She appraised Laurel’s face out of the corner of her eye. Their coloring was completely different—Laurel had the peachy skin and sandy-blond hair of Mr. Mercer’s side of the family, while Emma had inherited Mrs. Mercer’s dark hair and porcelain skin. At first glance they looked nothing alike. But the longer she looked, the more she noticed the things they shared: the arching brows, the same small, delicate earlobes, the same hairline. She wondered if Sutton and Laurel had ever noticed or commented on it growing up.
“Thayer’s still got it bad for you, you know,” Laurel went on. “He looks at you the same way he did two summers ago at that county fair. Remember that? He spent three hours to win you that giant Scooby-Doo prize in the ring toss? That’s dedication. That kind of feeling doesn’t go away overnight.”
Emma hid a smile. That was dedication. No one had spent three hours doing anything for her, but it was the kind of goofy romantic gesture she loved. She imagined the two of them sharing a funnel cake, riding the Ferris wheel. But then she stopped in confusion. Who was she picturing in this memory—Sutton, or herself?
Watch it, Emma. Like I said, I don’t share well, especially with sisters.
Nisha appeared beside them, wearing a paper-thin purple dress that made her skin look radiant. She’d already been through the register and carried two black Saks bags over her shoulder. “So how are things with you and Ethan?” she asked.
“Good,” Emma said. “He’s such a romantic.”
Nisha nudged her. “And he’s got a pretty fierce right hook, too.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “How stupid was that fight? I could have strangled them both.”
Laurel laughed from the depths of a black peplum dress she was in the process of tugging on over her head. “Like you haven’t been playing him and Thayer off each other. Seriously, Sutton, everyone knows how you work. You like keeping them jealous.”
“I do not!” Emma insisted, crossed her arms over her chest and glaring. “Why can’t they just mellow out and accept that I’m not in the market for more drama right now?”
“I wouldn’t worry. Ethan’s obviously nuts about you. If he can’t handle a little competition, he can’t handle dating Sutton Mercer.” Laurel gave her a playful body check, then ripped off the dress without even glancing at it in the mirror. “Let’s check out the shoes.”
Emma ditched a sequined Badgley Mischka dress and followed Laurel across the store. Shoe boxes, tissue paper, and crumpled disposable nylon socks were strewn all over the footwear section. A blond woman with skin so tan it looked like leather modeled a pair of leopard-print six-inch heels, while a balding middle-aged man in an Armani suit held her purse. A gaggle of preteen girls giggled and took pictures of one another in Lanvin platforms they clearly weren’t going to buy.
Laurel reached out hungrily toward a pair of velvet Louboutins. She slid them onto her small feet and cocked her hip critically.
“Mom and Dad would kill me,” she said, looking at the price. “But at least I’d die happy.”
“They look …” Suddenly Nisha trailed off and grabbed Emma’s arm. “Uh-oh,” she said under her breath.
Emma followed her gaze across the store. Just twenty feet away, standing in front of a rack of silk scarves, was Garrett Austin, Sutton’s ex-boyfriend.
Emma stared back. Garrett was wearing a crisp, striped oxford shirt and a pair of perfectly broken-in J Brands. He’d grown out his sandy blond hair, trading the preppy cut he’d had while dating Sutton for a longer, more tousled look. All in all, he was pretty cute … except for the fiery expression on his face.
Emma recoiled and looked down, surprised to see him so angry. She knew that Garrett harbored a lot of ill will toward her, both for rejecting him the night of Sutton’s birthday party and for breaking up with him soon afterward. He’d practically attacked her at the Halloween dance. If it hadn’t been for Ethan interrupting them, who knew what would have happened.
At that moment, two girls approached Garrett, their arms full of overstuffed shopping bags. “We’re all done,” said a girl in a fedora and black lace miniskirt. Emma was pretty sure she was Louisa, Garrett’s little sister. The other girl was Celeste.
“Thanks so much again for the ride, Garrett,” Celeste cooed, touching Garrett suggestively with her long, multiringed fingers. “It’s so sad that people in Tucson waste gas going in separate cars. In Taos, everyone carpools everywhere.”
Nisha made a noise at the back of her throat.
Garrett blushed, smiling bashfully at the new girl. “I totally agree. We’ve got to, like, preserve the earth’s resources. But some people are selfish, I guess.”
I snorted with laughter. This, coming from the guy who begged his dad for a gas-guzzling Hummer.
Emma looked at Nisha. “I guess this means you and Garrett aren’t together anymore?” she murmured.
Nisha looked like she was choking down laughter. “Please. We weren’t ever really together. He’s still kind of hung up on you, but he won’t admit it. Even I got tired of hearing about what a bitch you were.”
Emma poked her. “How charitable of you.”
Nisha grinned. “Plus, he’s kind of a crybaby.”
Emma eyed Garrett and Celeste again. “That’s exactly right,” Celeste was saying, squeezing Garrett’s hand. “There are a lot of selfish people around here.” She glanced back at Emma, Laurel, and Nisha, shooting them a pinched smile.
“Excuse me!” Laurel said, stepping forward, her shoulders tense.
Celeste blinked innocently. “Oh, I didn’t mean you, obviously.” She brightened when her gaze landed on Emma, as if noticing her for the first time. “Sutton! Hi!” She eyed Emma’s empty arms. “What’s the matter? Can’t find anything that fits?” Garrett snickered.
Emma jerked back, like she’d been slapped. “As a matter of fact, she was just about to buy this,” Laurel jumped in, holding up the yellow dress Emma had tried on earlier.