Tuesday morning, when she should have been strolling into her Pilates II class at Body Tonic gym, Hanna was instead lying flat on her back as two fat female nurses cleaned her off with a sponge. After they left, her physician, Dr. Geist, strode into the room and flipped on the light.
"Turn it off!" Hanna demanded sharply, quickly covering her face.
Dr. Geist left it on. Hanna had put in a request for a different doctor—if she was spending all this time here, couldn't she at least have an M.D. who was a little bit hotter?—but it seemed like nobody in this hospital was listening.
Hanna slid halfway under the covers and peeked into her Chanel compact. Yep, her monster face was still there, complete with the stitches on her chin, the two black eyes, the fat, purplish bottom lip, and the enormous bruises on her collarbone—it was going to be ages before she could wear low-cut tops again. She sighed and snapped the compact closed. She couldn't wait to go to Bill Beach to fix all the damage.
Dr. Geist inspected Hanna's vital signs on a computer that looked like it had been in the sixties. "You're recovering very well. Now that the swelling's gone down, we don't see any residual brain injury. Your internal organs look fairly good. It's a miracle."
"Ha," Hanna grumbled.
"It is a miracle," Hanna's father butted in, walking in to stand behind Dr. Geist. "We were sick with worry, Hanna. It makes me sick that someone did this to you. And that they're still out there."
Hanna sneaked a peek at him. Her dad wore a charcoal gray suit and sleek black shiny loafers. In the twelve hours since she'd awakened, he'd been incredibly patient, succumbing to Hanna's every whim…and Hanna had lots of whims. First, she demanded that they move her into her own private room—the last thing she needed was to hear the old lady on the other side of the curtain in intensive care talk about her bowel habits and imminent hip replacement. Next, Hanna had made her dad get her a portable DVD player and some DVDs from the nearby Target. The hospital rent-a-TVs only got six lame-ass network channels. She'd begged her dad to make the nurses give her more painkillers, and she'd deemed the mattress on the hospital bed completely uncomfortable, forcing him to go out to the Tempur-Pedic store an hour ago to get her a space-age foam topper. From the looks of the mammoth Tempur-Pedic plastic bag he was holding, it appeared that his trip had been successful.
Dr. Geist dropped Hanna's clipboard back into the slot at the foot of her bed. "We should be able to let you out in a few more days. Any questions?"
"Yes," Hanna said, her voice still croaky from the ventilator they'd had her on since her accident. She pointed to the IV in her arm. "How many calories is this thing giving me?" By the way her hip bones felt, it seemed as if she'd lost weight while being in the hospital—bonus!—but she just wanted to make sure.
Dr. Geist looked at her crazily, probably wishing he could switch patients too. "It's antibiotics and stuff to hydrate you," Hanna's father quickly injected. He patted Hanna's arm. "It's all going to make you feel much better." As he and her dad left the room, Dr. Geist snapped off the light again.
Hanna glowered for a moment at the empty doorway, then fell back onto her bed. The only thing that could make her feel better right now was a six-hour massage by some hot, shirtless Italian male model. And, oh yeah, a brand-new face.
She was completely weirded out that this had happened to her. She kept wondering if, after falling asleep again, she'd wake up in her own bed with its six-hundred thread-count pima cotton sheets, beautiful as before ready for a day of shopping with Mona. Who gets hut by a car? She wasn't in the hospital for something cool, like a high-stakes kidnapping or Petra Nemcova's tsunami tragedy.
But something that scared her far more—and something that she didn't want to think about—was that the whole night was a huge, gaping hole in Hanna's memory. She couldn't even remember Mona's party.
Just then, two figures in familiar blue blazers appeared at the door. When they saw Hanna was awake and decent, Aria and Spencer rushed in quickly, their faces pinched with worry. "We tried to see you last night," Spencer said, "but the nurses wouldn't let us in."
Hanna noticed that Aria was sneaking a peek at Hanna's greenish bruises, a grossed-out look on her face. "What?" Hanna snapped, smoothing out her long, auburn hair, which she'd just spritzed with Bumble & Bumble Surf Spray. "You should try to be a little more Florence Nightingale, Aria. Sean's really into that."
It still rankled Hanna that her ex, Sean Ackard, had broken up with her to be with Aria. Today, Aria's hung in chunks around her face, and she wore a red-and-white-checkered tent dress under her Rosewood Day blazer. She looked like a cross between that freaky drummer girl in the White Stripes and a tablecloth. Besides, didn't she know that if she got caught without the plaid pleated skirt part of the school's uniform, Appleton would just send her home and make her change?
"Sean and I broke up," Aria mumbled.
Hanna raised a curious eyebrow. "Oh really? And why is that?"
Aria sat down in the little orange plastic chair next to Hanna's bed. "That doesn't matter right now. What matters is…this. You." Her eyes welled with tears. "I wish we would've gotten to the playground sooner. I keep thinking about it. We could've stopped that car, somehow. We could've pulled you out of the way."
Hanna stared at her, her throat constricting. "You were there?"
Aria nodded, then glanced at Spencer. "We were all there. Emily too. You wanted to meet us."
Hanna's heart quickened. "I did?"
Aria leaned closer. Her breath smelled like Orbit Mint Mojito gum, a flavor Hanna hated. "You said you knew who A was."
"What?" Hanna whispered.
"You don't remember?" Spencer shrieked. "Hanna, that's who hit you!" She whipped out her Sidekick and brought up a text. "Look!"
Hanna stared at the screen. She knew too much. —A
"A sent us this right after you were hit by the car," Spencer whispered.
Hanna blinked hard, stunned. Her mind was like a big, deep Gucci purse, and when Hanna rooted around in the bottom, she couldn't come up with the memory she needed. "A tried to kill me?" Her stomach began to churn. All day, she'd had this awful feeling, deep down that this hadn't been an accident. But she'd tried to quell it, telling herself that was nonsense.
"Maybe A had spoken to you?" Spencer tried. "Or maybe you saw A doing something. Can you think? We're afraid that if you don't remember who A is, A might…" She trailed off, gulping.
"…strike again," Aria whispered.
Hanna shivered spastically, breaking out in a cold, horrified sweat. "Th-the last thing I remember was the night before Mona's party," she stammered. "The next thing I know, we're all sitting in Ali's backyard. We're in seventh grade again. It's the day before Ali disappeared, and we're talking about how we're going to have the sleepover in the barn. Remember that?"
Spencer squinted. "Uh…sure. I guess."
"I kept trying to warn Ali that she was going to die the next day," Hanna explained, her voice rising. "But Ali wouldn't pay attention to me. And then she looked at me and said I should stop making a big deal out of it. She said she was fine."
Spencer and Aria exchanged a glance. "Hanna, it was a dream," Aria said softly.
"Well, yeah, obviously." Hanna rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying. It was like Ali was right there." She pointed at a pink Get Well Soon balloon at the end of the bed. It had a round face and accordion-style arms and legs, and it could walk on its own.
Before either of Hanna's old friends could respond, a loud voice interrupted them. "Where's the sexiest patient in this hospital?"
Mona stood in the doorway, her arms outstretched. She, too, wore her Rosewood Day blazer and skirt along with an amazing pair of Marc Jacobs boots Hanna had never seen. Mona glanced at Aria and Spencer suspiciously, then dumped a pile of Vogue, Elle, Lucky, and Us Weekly magazines on the nightstand. "Pour vous, Hanna. A lot has happened to Lindsay Lohan that you and I need to discuss."
"I so love you," Hanna cried, quickly trying to switch gears. She couldn't dwell on this A thing. She just couldn't. She was relieved that she hadn't been hallucinating yesterday when she woke up and saw Mona standing over her bed. Things with Mona had been rocky last week, but Hanna's last memory was receiving a court dress for Mona's birthday party in the mail. It was obviously an olive branch, but it was weird that she couldn't remember their makeup conversation—usually, when Hanna and Mona made up, they gave each other gifts, like a new iPod case or a pair of Coach kidskin gloves.
Spencer looked at Mona. "Well, now that Hanna's awake, I guess we don't have to do that thing on Friday."
Hanna perked up. "What thing?"
Mona perched on Hanna's bed. "We were going to have a little vigil for you at the Rosewood Country Club," she admitted. "Everyone at school was invited."
Hanna put her IV-rigged hand to her mouth, touched it. "You guys were going to do that…for me?" She caught Mona's eye. It seemed unusual that Mona would be planning a party with Spencer—Mona had a lot of issues with Hanna's old friends—but Mona actually looked excited. Hanna's heart lifted.
"Since the club's already booked…maybe we could have a welcome-back party instead?" Hanna suggested in a small, tentative voice. She crossed her other hand's fingers under her sheets for luck, hoping Mona wouldn't think it was a stupid idea.
Mona pursed her perfectly lined lips. "I can't say no to a party. especially a party for you, Han."
Hanna's insides sparkled. This was the best news she'd gotten all day—even better than when the nurses had permitted her to use the bathroom unattended. She wanted to leap and give Mona an enormous, thankful, I'm-so-happy-we're-friends-again hug, but she was attached to too many tubes. "Especially since I can't remember your birthday party," Hanna pointed out, pouting. "Was it awesome?'
Mona lowered her eyes, picking a fuzz ball off her sweater.
"It's cool," Hanna said quickly. "You can tell me it rocked. I can handle it." She thought for a moment. "And I have a fantastic idea. Since it's kind of close to Halloween, and since I don't look my absolute best right now…" She waved her hands around her face. "Let's make it a masquerade!"
"Perfect," Mona gushed. "Oh, Han, it'll be amazing!"
She grabbed Mona's hands and they started squealing together. Aria and Spencer stood there awkwardly, left out. But Hanna wasn't about to squeal with them, too. This was something only BFFs did, and there was only one of those in Hanna's world.