I hoped she was right about Thayer still being in love with me. Of all the things my death had taken away from me, Thayer had been the hardest to lose.
He stood up carefully, testing his weight on his bad knee. “I should go. I’ve got physical therapy in thirty minutes.”
“How’s that going?”
“Better,” he said. “If I keep working on it, I might even get to play soccer next year.”
Emma beamed. “That’s great!”
“Yeah.” When Thayer smiled, a dimple appeared in his left cheek. “Anyway, tell your dad … well, whatever.”
“I’ll tell him you said hi,” Emma said.
Thayer saluted her, then turned and headed unstably to his car. For a moment, Emma wanted to run to him and hug him good-bye … but something told her that wasn’t a great idea.
Maybe that something was me. I hovered next to her, and together we watched as he started his car and drove away.
13
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A LITTLE RETAIL THERAPY
Emma was still standing on the porch when she heard something creak behind her. Her heart skipped a beat. What if it was Becky, escaped from the hospital? The journal pages covered with Emma swirled in her mind. But when she spun around, she came face-to-face with Laurel.
“You scared me,” Emma accused, her hand over her heart.
“Geez, you never used to scare so easy.” Laurel laughed, looping her arm in Emma’s elbow. “Dating a nice boy is making you soft. Now come on, we need to go.” She checked her lipstick in a Chanel compact, then pulled Emma toward the door.
“Where are we going?” Emma asked, grabbing her purse.
Laurel gave her an incredulous look. “Duh, space cadet. Only the biggest Saks sample sale of the year?”
Emma blinked. “Right,” she said. She had no idea what Laurel was talking about, but no doubt Sutton would have had this marked on her virtual calendar for months. She mock-slapped herself on the forehead. “It’s that time again?”
“Uh, it’s the same time every year.” Laurel rolled her eyes. “I think all that time at the hospital the other night must have affected your memory.”
She opened the door to her Jetta, and Emma climbed in. They drove past an emerald green golf course, vivid against Tucson’s tawny fall colors. Usher crooned softly on the stereo. Emma tipped her head up and felt the wind on her cheeks.
Laurel chattered happily as she drove. “I want something really special for Char’s party next weekend. I’m so tired of everything in my closet.”
“Tell me about it,” Emma lied. Sutton’s closet was, in a word, amazing. She had a zillion pairs of jeans. A bag for every pair of shoes. Racks of party dresses, some of them with tags still attached. A whole drawer of belts and scarves. A single outfit of Sutton’s cost more than Emma’s entire wardrobe from her former life. In a strange way, though, she kind of missed thrift stores—digging through the bins for buried treasure, laughing at the hideous pairs of shoes no one in their right mind should have bought the first time around, let alone the second, and picking up a knickknack from the housewares department just because. Not that she’d ever tell Laurel that.
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.