On Wednesday afternoon, Emily stood in front of Steam. As usual, every stool in the cafe was taken. Naomi Zeigler, Riley Wolfe, and Kate Randall held court under the big Italian poster of La Dolce Vita. Kirsten Cullen and Amanda Williamson stood at the counter and argued over which cupcake they wanted to split.
Students swept down the hall, heading to lunch or their next classes. First, Emily spotted Hanna through the crowd. She had a faraway smile on her face, seemingly oblivious to the people around her. Then, almost a split second later, Spencer rounded the corner, talking loudly to Scott Chin, one of her yearbook coeditors. "I had an amazing time at the Kahns' smorgasbord last night, didn't you?" she said.
And next, possibly because Emily was thinking about her, Aria strutted down the hall, arm in arm with that new exchange student from Finland who was living with Noel Kahn.
Not a single one of them glanced at Emily. The horrible A note in Ali's mailbox seemed a zillion miles from their thoughts. Why couldn't Emily forget about it, too?
"Hey, Emily!"
Chloe emerged through the clot of students. Emily waved. "Hey!"
As Chloe ran toward her, Emily felt a happy rush. This was their first lunch together, but since Emily had visited Chloe on Monday they'd friended one another on Facebook, commented on each other's posts, and had a lengthy IM chat last night before bed, gossiping about people in their classes, teachers to avoid, and the long-standing rumor about how the A/V supply room was where horny couples went to have sex.
Chloe looked Emily up and down, a smirk on her face. "Now, where have I seen that outfit before?" She gestured to Emily's Rosewood Day uniform plaid skirt and white blouse, then fingered her own identical blue blazer. "It's so bizarre to go to a school that enforces uniforms. We look like members of a cult."
"I've had to suffer through it for twelve years," Emily groaned. Then she turned toward the cafeteria. "You ready?"
Chloe nodded, and Emily followed the crowd of kids into the cafeteria, which was rapidly filling up with students. As they walked through the food lines, Emily gave Chloe a brief run-down. "The sushi is good, but don't get the chicken teriyaki—it comes out of a can."
"Got it."
Emily selected a Caesar salad and a package of pretzels and put them on her tray. "The pasta bar is okay, but for some reason only kids in band and orchestra eat pasta. No one else."
"What about soft pretzels?" Chloe pointed at the pretzel rack.
"Pretzels are fine," Emily said vaguely. Actually, the big soft pretzels used to be Ali's signature lunchtime food in seventh grade. Once they became part of Ali's clique, Emily, Aria, and Spencer ate pretzels, too, and lots of girls in their class copied them.
A charred smell wafted out of the kitchen then, reminding Emily of the fire in the Poconos. Even though the flames had reached the tops of the trees, even though the police had sworn over and over that there was no way Ali could have survived the explosion, Emily still had a horrible feeling Ali had gotten away. The very night after it happened, she'd had a dream about finding Ali in the woods beyond her parents cabin, covered in burns. Ali had opened her eyes and stared straight at her. "You just dug your own grave, Emily," she said laughingly, reaching out to claw Emily with catlike talons.
"You coming?" Chloe called, staring at Emily inquisitively.
Emily looked down. She'd stopped dead in the cafeteria line, lost in thought. "Of course," she said, scurrying through the checkout.
They found a seat by the windows. Pure white snow blanketed the practice fields.
Chloe pulled out her phone and pushed it across the table to Emily. "Look at this picture of Grace. My mom sent it to me this morning."
On the screen was a photo of Grace with Cheerios all over her face. "Adorable," Emily cooed. "You must just want to eat her up every day."
"I do." Chloe beamed. "She's just so pudgy and cute. It's so fun to have a little sister."
"Was she…planned?" Emily blurted, surprising herself. She squeezed her eyes shut. "Sorry. That was really nosy."
"Nah, everyone asks it." Chloe took a bite of pretzel. "She was and she wasn't. My parents always wanted me to have a sibling, but it was pretty hard for them to get pregnant again. When Grace came along, they were both stunned. She saved my parents, though—they were having problems before this. Now, everything's great."
"Oh." Emily feigned fascination with a piece of chicken in her salad, not wanting to make eye contact. "What were things like with your parents before Grace?"
"Oh, the usual crap." Chloe stuck a straw into her can of ginger ale. "Bickering, rumors of cheating. My mom is a classic over-sharer, so I heard way more than I should have."
"But everything's good now?" The few bites of salad Emily had eaten felt like lead in her stomach. Mr. Roland's hip-grab floated into her mind again.
Chloe shrugged. "It seems to be."
A figure loomed over them, and Emily looked up. Ben, her old boyfriend from swimming, leered at both of them. "Hey, Emily. Who's your friend?"
Chloe smiled innocently. "Chloe Roland. I'm from North Carolina."
She stuck out her hand, and Ben made a big deal of shaking it. His best friend, Seth Cardiff, sidled up behind him and started to snicker. "You guys look pretty cozy together," Ben teased.
"I'm going to vote you Best Couple," Seth joked.
"Very funny," Emily snapped. "Leave us alone."
Ben looked at Chloe. "You know about her, right? You know what she's into?" He made a humping motion with his hips.
"Go away," Emily said through her teeth.
The two boys dissolved into dirty-sounding chuckles and wandered away. Emily stared out the window, her heart raging in her ears.
"What was that about?" Chloe asked.
"He's my ex," Emily said flatly. "He's kind of never forgiven me for something."
"What?"
Emily turned and watched as Ben and Seth bumbled out of the cafeteria, periodically shoving each other into the wall. She hadn't wanted to tell Chloe about her past so soon, but there was no way around it now. "I broke up with him last year to go out with a girl."
A surprised look passed over Chloe's face, but it disappeared fast. "God. I bet it was a huge blow to his manhood, huh?"
"Uh, yeah. He tormented me for months." Emily squinted at Chloe, surprised at her tempered reaction. It was so nice that someone wasn't freaking out for once. "You don't think that's weird that I dated a girl?"
"Hey, if it feels good, go with it." Chloe popped the last of her pretzel into her mouth. "That's my motto. So was this girl special?"
Emily thought of Maya St. Germain, her crush last year, and smiled. "She was at the time. She really helped me figure out what I did and didn't want. But we don't talk much now—she's seeing someone else, a sophomore. She wasn't the love of my life or anything."
That, of course, was Ali—her Ali. Was it crazy to still crush on a dead girl? Her Ali still had such a hold on her. And when "Courtney" returned, confessed to Emily that she was her real friend, and kissed Emily passionately on the lips, Emily had been in heaven. Now, even though Emily knew, logically, that her Ali had died the night of the seventh-grade sleepover, she still longed for that girl to return once more.
It made her think of that fateful first night in Jamaica. When Emily was on her way back from the bathroom after yet another puke session, a hand caught her arm. "Hey!" a girl said in a bright, familiar voice.
Emily stared. It was the girl she'd seen earlier, the one she thought was Ali. "H-Hi?"
"I'm Tabitha." The girl thrust out her hand, which was covered in scars. "I saw you watching me from across the room. Do you go to my school?"
"I-I don't think so," Emily squeaked. But she couldn't stop staring. Did Tabitha look like Ali, or didn't she?
Tabitha cocked her head. "Want to take a picture? It'll last longer."
Emily wrenched her eyes away. "Sorry. I just feel like I know you from somewhere."
"Maybe you do." Tabitha winked. "Maybe we've met in a past life." A Ke$ha song blared over the stereo. Tabitha's eyes lit up. "I love Ke$ha!" she exclaimed, grabbing Emily's hand harder. "Dance with me!"
Dance with her? It was one thing for this girl to remind Emily of Ali, but now she was acting like her, too. Still, Emily couldn't resist. Feeling hypnotized, she let Tabitha lead her onto the dance floor and spin her around. Halfway through the song, Tabitha stretched out her arm and took a picture of both with her phone. She promised to send it to Emily later, but she never did.
A straw wrapped bounced off Emily's nose. Chloe giggled across the table. "Gotcha, space cadet!"
It was enough to break Emily out of her funk. "That's it." She grabbed her own straw and peeled off the wrapper. "You're going down."
She blew the wrapper at Chloe's ear. Chloe retaliated by tossing her napkin at Emily's shoulder. Emily beaned a crouton at Chloe, and Chloe pelted her with an M&M. It ricocheted off Emily's forehead and disappeared down Imogen Smith's shirt.
Imogen turned around and glowered. James Freed stood at a nearby table and grinned. "I'll search for it, Imogen!" Imogen had some of the biggest boobs in the class.
The cafeteria monitor, an ancient woman named Mary, stormed over to Emily and Chloe. "No throwing food! Am I going to have to separate you two?" Her glasses swung on a chain around her neck. She wore a sweatshirt with kittens on the front.
"Sorry," Emily whispered. Then she and Chloe looked at each other and burst into giggles. It reminded Emily of a feeling she'd had a long time ago, when she, Ali, and the others used to giggle in just this way in just this cafeteria.
Suddenly, she realized what that feeling was: happiness.