Maybe Aria hadn’t given enough back. Maybe she hadn’t been a good girlfriend. The incident in Iceland flashed through her mind again, and she shut her eyes.
“Okay,” Aria consented, gathering the snowsuit in her arms. “I’ll try it on. But if it makes my butt look enormous, I’m not buying it.”
“Awesome!” Klaudia cried.
Then Klaudia’s eyes widened at something across the store. “Be back,” she murmured, migrating toward a long black coat with a fur hood that looked almost identical to the one she was wearing. Aria turned to the dressing room, then noticed an iPhone balanced on the hat rack. It had a big Finnish flag on the case.
“Klaudia?” Aria called. The phone had to be hers.
But Klaudia was too busy finding the coat in her size. Aria picked up the phone. It made a chiming sound, startling her. She stabbed the screen to shut it up. A text bubble from Tanja, Klaudia’s friend, appeared. The text was in Finnish, but Aria noticed her name in Klaudia’s previous message. Huh.
She peered across the store again. Klaudia had tried on a coat and was inspecting herself in the mirror. She looked down at Klaudia’s phone. It felt heavy in her hands. She should just turn it off. Friends didn’t read other friends’ texts.
But as she slipped into the dressing room, her name on the screen haunted her. What were Klaudia and her friend saying about her? Was it good or bad? Just one peek, she decided. She moved her finger across the iPhone to unlock it. The text thread between Klaudia and Tanja popped up, blocks and blocks of words with umlauts and Os with slashes through them. Aria skimmed the Finnish, spotting Noel’s name. Then Noel’s again. And then again. But maybe that was natural—they were living under one roof. Maybe Aria would write about her foreign exchange host, too.
Finally, she found her name at the bottom. Aria on peikko, Klaudia wrote.
Peikko? Aria sounded it out in her mouth—PEE-ko. It sounded so cute, like a Disney character. What could it mean? Sprightly? Gamine? The best friend ever?
Excited, she scribbled it down on a pad she kept inside her purse. After a moment, she decided to copy Klaudia and Tanja’s sentences about Noel, too. Maybe Klaudia had written about one of Noel’s cute and slightly embarrassing habits Aria already knew about. It could be something she and Klaudia could laugh about together—Hey, I accidentally saw your text about Noel. Isn’t that crazy that he watches iCarly every afternoon?
“Aria?”
It was Klaudia. Aria peered through the crack in the dressing room door and saw her standing only a few feet away. “Uh, hey,” Aria said. The iPhone felt like a grenade in her hands. She quickly hit the home screen button, opened the door of the dressing room, and shoved it out. “I found this on the floor. I didn’t want someone to step on it.”
“Oh.” Klaudia glanced confusedly at Aria, but then just shrugged and slipped it in her pocket. “You try on ski suit?”
“Just getting to it.” Aria shut the door again. She stared at her reflection, expecting the guilt to be written on her face, but she looked like she always did—wavy black hair, ice blue eyes, and pointed chin. The urge to find out what peikko meant pulsed inside her. Maybe Klaudia could teach her Finnish and the two of them could use it as a secret code against the Typical Rosewoods.
She reached for her own phone in her bag and copied the Finnish texts into Babel Fish. The little wheel spun slowly, processing the results. When a new page appeared, Aria’s mouth dropped open.
Noel deserves better, said the English translation of Klaudia’s texts. He is so hot and American sexy and needs real girl.
Like you? Tanja wrote back. Klaudia replied with a winking smiley.
Aria’s stomach burbled. She hadn’t just read that. Babel Fish had made a mistake. Swallowing hard, she typed in Aria on peikko. The page loaded even slower this time.
“Aria?” Klaudia’s voice sounded from the other side of the dressing room. “It look good? You super ski bunny?”
“Uh . . .” Aria glanced frantically at the snowsuit hanging from the hook in the corner. It was so yellow it nearly blinded her. Why had Klaudia chosen it for her? Because Noel would appreciate the effort . . . or because it would make her look like a neon-yellow Sasquatch? Because he was a super hot American boy and needed an appropriate girlfriend, not a skiing-hating, artsy freak?
Don’t think that way, she told herself. Klaudia had been nice. There had to be another explanation.
But then the latest translated page popped up. Aria read the line slowly, her mouth suddenly bone-dry. Aria is a . . . troll.
Aria’s hands gripped her phone. Aria on peikko meant Aria is a troll.
“Is okay?” Klaudia called from outside, her voice still friendly and chipper.
Aria ran her hands down the length of her face and stared at her phone again. Suddenly, it made a loud trumpeting sound, nearly causing her to drop it. NEW TEXT MESSAGE FROM ANONYMOUS, the screen said.
Dizziness overcame her. Please no, Aria thought. But when she opened the text, she saw it was exactly what she feared.
Watch out, Aria—I think you have some competition. We
both know Noel has a thing for blondes, after all. Mwah! –A
Chapter 17
Dance like no one’s watching
“There’s a spot!” Spencer bellowed, pointing to an empty space on the side of Walnut Street in downtown Philadelphia.
Zach nodded, wrenched the wheel of his Mercedes to the right, and pulled in neatly behind a dented Ford Explorer. “Am I a genius parallel parker or what?”
“The best,” Spencer said.