sitting in front of Sabino? You looked like a zombie.”
“It was freaky,” Lilianna piped up.
“Super freaky,” Gabriella agreed in an identical voice. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small prescription bottle. Popping off the cap, she shook two pills into her hand and pushed them into her mouth, washing them down with a swig from a Diet Coke bottle. Party girl, Emma thought warily.
She stared at the four girls. Should she tell them who she really was? What if it really was dangerous? Suddenly she felt her shoulder and realized that she’d lost her duffel bag in the fake kidnapping. When she looked across the street, it was still there. She’d slip away and get it as soon as she could. And if Sutton showed up, maybe she’d see it and know Emma had been there.
“Hang on a second.” Emma stopped short next to a large flowering barrel cactus. She wriggled her arm from Madeline’s grasp and pulled her phone out of her pocket—at least it wasn’t in the duffel, too. No new messages. She shaded the screen with one hand and composed several new texts to the cell number Sutton had given Emma in her Facebook reply last night: Your friends found me. I’m at a party across the street. They think I’m you. I didn’t know what to tell them. Txt me with further instructions, K?
Emma typed quickly—she knew the third-place finish in the speed-texting contest in Vegas two years ago would come in handy someday—and pressed SEND. There. Sutton could meet her here and straighten out who was who . . . or Emma could meet her later and just pretend she was Sutton for the duration of the party.
“Who are you writing to?” Madeline leaned over Emma’s phone, trying to get a look at the screen. “And why are you using a BlackBerry? I thought you got rid of that thing.”
Emma slipped her phone back into her pocket before Madeline could see. Sutton’s Facebook posts flitted into Emma’s mind. She straightened up and gave Madeline the same coy look she’d seen her sister make in the YouTube videos. “Wouldn’t you love to know, bitch.”
As soon as she’d finished saying the words, Emma clamped her mouth shut and sucked in her stomach. She wouldn’t have been more surprised if a bouquet of daisies had popped out of her mouth. Comments like that ended up on her CISS list, not in her day-to-day conversation.
Madeline let out a haughty sniff. “Fine, ho beast.” Then she whipped out her iPhone. A big sticker of a ballet dancer on the back said SWAN LAKE MAFIA. “Smush in!”
Everyone pressed together and smiled. Madeline held the phone outstretched. Emma stood on the end, grinning weakly.
And then they started down the driveway. The night air had cooled significantly, and the jumbled aromas of the charcoal grill, citronella candles, and cigarettes wafted into Emma’s nostrils. Gabriella and Lilianna walked and tweeted at the same time. As they bypassed the front door to cut around the stone path on the side of the house, Charlotte pulled Emma back so they were walking alone.
“Are you okay?” Charlotte straightened her flutter-sleeved dress so that her thick bra strap didn’t show. Her arms were dotted with thousands of freckles.
“I’m fine,” Emma said breezily, even though her fingers still trembled, and her heart banged madly against her ribs.
“So where’s Laurel?” Charlotte pulled a tube of lip gloss from her purse and smeared it over her lips. “I thought you said you were going to drive her here.”
Emma’s eyes darted back and forth. Laurel. That was Sutton’s sister, right? She wished she had a Wiki-Sutton application on her BlackBerry or something. “Uh . . .”
Charlotte widened her eyes. “You ditched her again, didn’t you?” She wagged her finger playfully in Emma’s face. “You’re a bad, bad sister.”
Before Emma could reply, they stepped into the backyard. Someone had strung a banner that said GOODBYE, SUMMER! across a salmon-colored storage shed. Girls in long, flowing maxi dresses and boys in Lacoste polos filled the patio. Two muscled guys in drenched HOLLIER WATER POLO shirts stood in the pool with two skinny girls in bikinis on their shoulders, poised for a chicken fight. A girl with curly hair and long feather earrings laughed way too loudly with a younger, hotter version of Tiger Woods. There was a long table filled with Mexican hot dogs, vegetarian burritos, sushi rolls, and chocolate-covered strawberries. Another table held a bunch of bottles of soda,