Kate shrugged. “Actually, I’m taking some time off from Naomi and Riley.”
“Really?” Hanna sat up with interest. “Why?”
Kate passed a flyer to a college-age girl in a leather jacket. “We had a fight.”
“About what?”
Kate coughed awkwardly. “Um, about the upcoming Eco Cruise. And about you, actually.”
Hanna wrinkled her nose. “What about me?”
“Forget it.” Kate looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Hanna was about to press Kate for more details when her father appeared from the food court with a cardboard container of Starbucks lattes and a bag of assorted muffins. “You girls are doing an amazing job,” he said, clapping a hand on Kate’s shoulder. “I’ve seen tons of people with flyers. I bet we’ll get a great turnout at the town hall meeting on Tuesday. And Hanna, I’m still getting a lot of positive feedback on the commercial. I may ask you to film another one.” He winked.
“Of course!” Hanna said brightly. In the six years since her father had divorced her mom, moved out of the house, and forgotten Hanna existed, she’d yearned for his acceptance, trying so hard to get him to notice her. Ever since she’d tested well in the focus groups, she was a star in his eyes. Her dad asked her opinion about campaign strategy, and he actually wanted to be around her.
Then Mr. Marin turned and took the arm of a woman behind him. Hanna expected to see Isabel, her dad’s new wife and Kate’s mother, but instead it was a tall, stately woman in her early forties. She wore a gorgeous camel hair coat and high, pointed Jimmy Choo boots.
“Ladies, this is Ms. Riggs,” he said. “She just moved to Rosewood, and she’s promised a huge donation to the campaign.”
“You deserve it, Tom.” Ms. Riggs’s voice was very refined, like Katharine Hepburn’s. “We need more people like you in Washington.”
She turned to the girls, shaking Kate’s hand, then Hanna’s. “You look very familiar,” she said, looking Hanna up and down. “Where have I seen you?”
Hanna’s lips twitched. “People magazine, probably.”
Ms. Riggs smiled. “Goodness, why?”
Hanna’s eyebrows shot up. Did this woman seriously not know?
“People did a profile on Hanna,” Mr. Marin said. “Her best friend was Alison DiLaurentis. The girl murdered by her twin sister.”
Hanna squirmed in her seat, not wanting to correct her dad on the details. Technically, her best friend had been Courtney DiLaurentis, the girl who’d impersonated Alison while Alison had been forced to take Courtney’s place at the mental hospital. But it was way too complicated to get into.
“I did hear something about that.” Ms. Riggs gazed at Hanna sympathetically. “You poor thing. Are you all right?”
Hanna shrugged. She was sort of all right . . . and sort of not. Could you ever really get over something like that? And then there was a new A on the scene. A knew about Tabitha, about Hanna’s naughty pictures with Patrick, the photographer who’d promised he’d make her a model but just wanted to get in her pants, and about her tryst with Liam. Any of those things could ruin her life—and her dad’s campaign. Thank God A didn’t know about the accident she’d been in last summer.
Ms. Riggs checked her watch. “Tom, we’re late for the strategy talk.”
“You go on ahead. I’ll be there in a second,” Mr. Marin said. Ms. Riggs waved good-bye to the girls, and then headed in the direction of The Year of the Rabbit, an upscale Chinese restaurant. Mr. Marin lingered behind, eyeing Hanna and Kate when Ms. Riggs was a safe distance away. “Be nice to Ms. Riggs, okay?” he murmured.
Hanna made a face. “I was nice!”
“I’m always nice, Tom,” Kate added, looking offended.
“I know, I know, girls, just keep it up.” Mr. Marin’s eyes were wide. “She’s a huge philanthropist and very influential. We need her funds to air our commercials throughout the state. It could mean the difference between winning and losing.”
Her father scampered after Ms. Riggs, and Kate headed to the bathroom. Hanna gazed at the passersby again, annoyed that her father had lectured her like she was a naughty six-year-old. Since when did Hanna need a lesson on being nice to donors?
A figure emerged from Armani Exchange, and Hanna perked up. Hanna took in the boy’s wavy hair, square jaw, and slim-cut, beat-up leather jacket. Something inside her stirred. It was her ex, Mike Montgomery. She’d avoided him ever since the Macbeth cast party a few weeks ago, where he’d asked for her to take him back and she’d rejected him. But he looked positively delicious tonight.
Hanna called his name, and Mike looked up and smiled. As he walked toward her, Hanna adjusted her polka-dotted silk blouse so that a teensy bit of her bra strap was showing and quickly checked her reflection in the back of her iPod. Her auburn hair was shiny and full, and her eyeliner was smudged to perfection.
“Hey.” Mike leaned his elbows on the table. “Campaigning, huh?”
“Yup.” Hanna crossed her legs coquettishly, a nervous buzz in her stomach. “And you’re . . . shopping?” She wanted to smack herself for sounding so lame.
Mike held up the A/X bag. “I got that black sweater you and I looked at a while back.”
“The slimming one?” Hanna wound a piece of hair around her finger. “That looked really good on you.”
Two dimples appeared on either side of Mike’s face when he smiled. “Thanks,” he said bashfully.