She and Mona strode into Tiffany’s; it was full of glass, chrome, and white lights that made the flawless diamonds extra shimmery. Mona prowled around the cases and then raised her eyebrows at Hanna. “Maybe a necklace?”
“What about a charm bracelet?” Hanna whispered.
“Perfect.”
They walked to the case and eyed the silver charm bracelet with the heart-shaped toggle. “So pretty,” Mona breathed.
“Interested?” an elegant older saleswoman asked them.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hanna said.
“It suits you.” The woman unlocked the case and felt around for the bracelet. “It’s in all the magazines.”
Hanna nudged Mona. “You try it.”
Mona slid it onto her wrist. “It’s really beautiful.” Then the woman turned to another customer. When she did, Mona slid the bracelet off her wrist and into her pocket. Just like that.
Hanna mashed her lips together and flagged down another saleswoman, a honey-blond girl who wore coral lipstick. “Can I try that bracelet there, with the round charm?”
“Sure!” The girl unlocked the case. “I have one of these myself.”
“How about the matching earrings, too?” Hanna pointed to them.
“Of course.”
Mona had moved over to the diamonds. Hanna held the earrings and the bracelet in her hands. Together, they were $350. Suddenly, a swarm of Japanese girls crowded around the counter, all pointing at another round-charm bracelet in the glass case. Hanna scanned the ceilings for cameras and the doors for detectors.
“Oh, Hanna, come look at the Lucida!” Mona called.
Hanna paused. Time slowed down. She slid the bracelet onto her wrist and then shoved it farther up her sleeve. She stuck the earrings in her Louis Vuitton cherry-monogrammed coin purse. Hanna’s heart pounded. This was the best part of taking stuff: the feeling beforehand. She felt all buzzy and alive.
Mona waved a diamond ring at her. “Doesn’t this look good on me?”
“C’mon.” Hanna grabbed her arm. “Let’s go to Coach.”
“You don’t want to try any on?” Mona pouted. She always stalled after she knew Hanna had done the job.
“Nah,” Hanna said. “Purses are calling our names.” She felt the bracelet’s silver chain press gently into her arm. She had to get out of here while the Japanese girls were still bustling around the counter. The salesgirl hadn’t even looked back in her direction.
“All right,” Mona said dramatically. She handed the ring—holding it by its diamond, which even Hanna knew you weren’t supposed to do—back to the saleswoman. “These diamonds are all too small,” she said. “Sorry.”
“We have others,” the woman tried.
“Come on,” Hanna said, grabbing Mona’s arm.
Her heart hammered as they wove their way through Tiffany’s. The charm tinkled on her wrist, but she kept her sleeve pulled down. Hanna was a seasoned pro at this—first it had been loose candy at the Wawa convenience store, then CDs from Tower, then baby tees from Ralph Lauren—and she felt bigger and more badass every time. She shut her eyes and crossed the threshold, bracing herself for the alarms to blare.
But nothing did. They were out.
Mona squeezed her hand. “Did you get one too?”
“Of course.” She flashed the bracelet around her wrist. “And these.” She opened the coin purse and showed Mona the earrings.
“Shit.” Mona’s eyes widened.
Hanna smiled. Sometimes it felt so good to one-up your best friend. Not wanting to jinx it, she walked quickly away from Tiffany’s and listened for someone to come chasing after them. The only noise, though, was the burbling of the fountain and a Muzak version of “Oops! I Did It Again.”
Oh yes, I did, Hanna thought.
4
SPENCER WALKS THE PLANK
“Honey, you’re not supposed to eat mussels with your hands. It’s not polite.”
Spencer Hastings looked across the table at her mother, Veronica, who nervously ran her hands through her perfectly highlighted ash-blond hair. “Sorry,” Spencer said, picking up the ridiculously small mussel-eating fork.
“I really don’t think Melissa should be living in the town house with all that dust,” Mrs. Hastings said to her husband, ignoring Spencer’s apology.
Peter Hastings rolled his neck around. When he wasn’t practicing law, he was furiously cycling all the back roads of Rosewood in tight, colorful spandex shirts and bike pants, shaking his fist at speeding cars. All that cycling gave him chronically sore shoulders.
“All that hammering! I don’t know how she’ll get any studying done,” Mrs. Hastings went on.
Spencer and her parents were sitting at Moshulu, a restaurant aboard a clipper ship in the Philadelphia harbor, waiting for Spencer’s sister, Melissa, to meet them for dinner. It was a big celebratory dinner because Melissa had graduated from U Penn undergrad a year early and had gotten into Penn’s Wharton School of Business. The downtown Philly town house was being renovated as a gift from their parents to Melissa.
In just two days, Spencer was starting her junior year at Rosewood and would have to surrender herself to this year’s jam-packed schedule: five APs, leadership training, charity drive organizing, yearbook editing, drama tryouts, hockey practice, and sending in summer program applications ASAP, since everyone knew that the best way to get into an Ivy was to get into one of their pre-college summer camps. But there was one thing Spencer had to look forward to this year: moving into the converted barn that sat at the back of her family’s property. According to her parents, it was the perfect way to prepare for college—just look how well it had worked for Melissa! Barf. But Spencer was happy to follow in her sister’s footsteps in this case, since they led out to the tranquil, light-flooded guesthouse where Spencer could escape her parents and their constantly barking labradoodles.