Ali and Hanna plopped down in a booth. Ali pulled a silk scarf out of her Otter bag and wound it around her neck. “I want everyone to come to the Poconos house tomorrow after the Valentine’s dance. We can get drunk, go in the hot tub, reconnect….”
“That would be awesome.” Hanna clapped.
Ali looked uncertain for a moment. “Do you think the others will go for it?”
“Spencer and Emily definitely will,” Hanna answered. Aria, on the other hand, wouldn’t stop talking about some old wishing well. “Ali said it was the inspiration for the well on her flag,” she’d whispered urgently to Hanna last night on the phone. “Did she ever tell you about a well?”
“No, but who cares?” Hanna had answered, not understanding where Aria was going with this. So Ali had a secret wishing well she kept all to herself. Who cared?
“We’ll have to pick up alcohol and snacks,” Ali said, ticking the items off on her fingers.
Hanna imagined a trip to the Poconos. They’d play drinking games and tell secrets. They’d climb into the hot tub, clad in string bikinis, except this time Hanna wouldn’t self-consciously cover her chubby stomach. Back in the day, Hanna had been plagued by the worry that she was the joke of the group, the girl who was always on the verge of being ousted. But there was a new Hanna in town—a pretty, skinny, confident Hanna.
A skinny waitress with a French twist and high cheekbones flitted to their table. Hanna handed back the menu without looking at it. “We’ll get moules frites.”
The waitress nodded and left, pausing to check on a table of Quaker schoolgirls by the window.
Ali whipped out her iPhone from its cracked leather case. “Okay. On to Operation TTBD—Take Those Bitches Down.”
“Great,” Hanna chirped. She was so ready. Kate, Naomi, and Riley had strutted around school today, telling everyone that all Hanna’s couture was as fake as the DVF fashion show tickets. And that morning at breakfast, Kate had complained to Hanna’s father that Hanna had dragged her all the way to New York as a joke, making her miss the Hamlet rehearsal. As usual, Hanna’s dad believed Kate. Hanna didn’t even bother to defend herself. What was the point?
“I’ve figured out the perfect thing to do.” Ali tapped her iPhone’s screen. “So at the sleepover the other day?”
“Yeah.” Hanna shoved her Otter carrier bags under the booth.
Ali started pressing buttons on the phone. “Well, before you got home, we were buzzed on rum, and they all wrote love letters to their crushes.”
“Love letters? Really?” Hanna wrinkled her nose. “That’s so…”
“Seventh grade?” Ali rolled her eyes. “I know. Anyway, you should’ve seen the letters they wrote. Really juicy stuff.” She leaned across the table, her mouth so close that Hanna could smell her strawberry lip gloss. “I stayed out of it, of course, because as Courtney, I haven’t been here long enough to have a crush on anyone yet. But right before I left, I stole the letters and scanned them on the machine in your mom’s old office. They’re all on my phone. We can print them and pass them out at the dance. Valentine’s Day is all about unrequited love, after all!”
Ali brought up the images on her phone and waved the screen in Hanna’s face. Kate’s letter gushed about how she had a secret crush on Sean Ackard, Hanna’s ex, vowing to attend V Club sessions with him. Riley’s love letter was to Seth Cardiff, a stocky swimmer. Apparently she loved how he looked in his tight Speedo. Naomi’s letter was to Christophe Briggs, the flaming senior director of the Rosewood Day drama club, saying she wanted a crack at “turning him straight.” Each girl had signed their love letter with a red-lipstick kiss. They must have been wasted when they wrote them.
Humiliating.
“Sweet.” Hanna high-fived Ali.
“So until the dance, I need to pretend Naomi, Riley, Kate, and I are still BFFs. They can’t know we’re talking, otherwise it’ll blow the whole thing.”
“Of course,” Hanna agreed. It would be such an appropriate, satisfying repeat of the first time Ali ditched Naomi and Riley, just before the Rosewood Day Charity Drive in sixth grade. Hanna would never forget the mortified looks on Naomi’s and Riley’s faces when they’d realized they’d been replaced. So satisfying.
“Why did you ditch Naomi and Riley back in seventh grade anyway?” Hanna asked. It was something she and Ali had never discussed—Hanna had been too afraid to bring it up, worried that it might jinx her friendship with Ali. But that was years ago, and they were finally equals.
The double doors to the kitchen swished open, and a waitress emerged carrying a tray of dishes. A muscle near Ali’s mouth twitched. “I realized they weren’t really my friends after all.”
“Did they do something to you?” Hanna pressed.
“You could say that,” Ali mumbled vaguely.
A group of girls a few tables over flipped through a copy of Us Weekly, gossiping about a starlet’s botched plastic surgery. An old married couple shared a piece of molten chocolate cake. A steaming plate of mussels and fries appeared in front of Hanna and Ali. Ali dove in right away, but Hanna hung back for a moment, trying to figure out what Naomi and Riley had done.
“The letter thing is an awesome plan.” Hanna grabbed a fry from the top of the pile. “It’ll be like the famous Will Butterfield note!”
Ali paused, a shiny mussel shell between her thumb and forefinger. There was a wrinkle between her eyebrows. “Huh?”