Emily smiled at all of them, instantly feeling better. One good thing had come out of this A mess: She’d reunited with her friends for real.
They moved closer to Erin Bang Bang’s booth. Now she was sitting on the lap of a tall guy with surfer-dude blond hair. “What do you say to a Titanic moment later on?” she cooed to him loudly, sounding a little drunk.
Surfer Dude widened his eyes. “Which moment would that be? ‘I’m the king of the world’? The part where Leo sketches Kate in the nude?”
“Whatever moment you want,” Erin Bang Bang said, trailing her finger up the boy’s cheek. “Want to meet in your room in an hour?”
Emily turned away. So much for a heart-to-heart bonding session tonight. For some reason, she felt like Erin was rejecting her, not just being a slut.
Spencer grabbed a napkin from the stack. “Forget about her, Em—we’ll have a great time together.” She pointed at a talent show poster on the wall, which featured silhouettes of kids dancing à la the iPod ads. “Why don’t we do an act together?”
Hanna rolled her eyes. “Why is everyone so into this stupid talent show? Didn’t they go out in, like, fourth grade?”
“Come on.” Aria nudged her. “We could all make up a dance routine.”
“What about a hula dance?” Emily suggested, spooning up whipped cream from the top of her sundae. “We could wear bathing suits and make grass skirts.”
“Perfect,” Spencer said. When she noticed Hanna’s sour face, she poked her arm. “You’re doing it with us whether you like it or not.”
“Fine,” Hanna said, rolling her eyes.
Sundaes in hand, they pushed through the crowd toward a booth that had just opened up. Emily slumped into the seat and gazed around the huge room once more. Kids hung on the railings and crammed against the bar. When she saw a flash of a white dress, her heart sped up a little. Ghost Girl?
But then the girl stepped out from the crowd. She had a stubby blond ponytail and a big nose. Emily’s shoulders drooped in disappointment.
A new song came on, and Jeremy’s voice boomed through the speakers. “This is going to be the last song of the night. I hope everyone had a great time, but we gotta get our beauty sleep!”
Spencer snorted into her hand. “Beauty sleep? That dude is so weird.”
“Does anyone else think he’s sort of a lech?” Hanna whispered. “I swear I’ve felt someone watching me all day. And when I turn around, he’s always there.”
“Are you sure it’s not A?” Aria asked.
“A’s not on the ship,” Emily insisted. “Didn’t you see all that security checking IDs at the gate?”
Aria raised an eyebrow. “Who says A doesn’t have an ID? I’m with Hanna. Ever since I boarded the cruise, I’ve felt … weird. Like someone is watching, but then ducking away before I can see who it is.”
“But …” Emily trailed off. She didn’t even want to consider the idea of A being on the boat.
She glanced around. A shadow slipped behind a large potted plant, but when Emily turned to see who it was, no one was there. James Freed was grinding against a few girls from Pritchard. Phi Templeton carried a big dish of ice cream to her seat.
As Beyoncé launched into a new verse, Jeremy cleared his throat. “One other thing, guys. Not to be a buzzkill, but some items have gone missing from people’s rooms. Please know we don’t tolerate this behavior. Respect the earth, respect people’s stuff, you know?”
Zora-Jean Jaffrey, a bookish girl from Rosewood Day whom everyone called Z-J, banged her spoon against her sundae glass from the next table over. “That thief took my makeup bag!” she said to her group of friends. “My mom quilted it for me and everything!”
When the song ended, the lights came up. Kids started toward the exit. Spencer leaned forward. “So what’s our game plan, guys? What should we do about A?”
“We should try to put together all the clues as to who A might be,” Emily said, shrugging. “It’s someone who knows everything, who was in Jamaica and Rosewood. I feel like the answer is right in front of us, and we just don’t see it.”
“Watch what you say,” Aria said warily. “A might be right in front of us—literally. If anyone sees anything weird, send a text, okay?”
“And maybe we should just enjoy ourselves a little, too.” Spencer dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “We haven’t had a chance to breathe since Tabitha’s body was found. This might be a good opportunity.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Aria murmured. “I just hope I can relax.”
Then Hanna mumbled something about hanging out with Naomi Zeigler, her roommate. As Emily was tossing her napkin in the trash, Aria touched her arm. “Are you going to be okay alone?”
Emily shrugged. “I’ll be fine.” Lonely, she thought, but fine.
“If you need to talk tonight, call me. Promise?”
“I promise.” Emily hugged her. “Same with you, okay?”
“Same for all of us,” Spencer said.
They parted ways. Emily boarded a stuffed elevator to the Sunshine Deck. When the car stopped on her floor, she got off and walked down the hall, looking at the marker boards the ship had affixed to everyone’s doors. Most of them had dirty drawings or scrawled messages making plans for when and where to meet. When she arrived at her own door, though, there were a bunch of hearts on the board and eleven notes for Erin, all signed with guys’ names. A guy wearing a Lacoste polo with longish blond-brown hair and a beaky nose was penning a note as she approached. He stepped back and watched Emily pull out her keycard, then shrugged.