It's All Relative
Aria walks out of the ER, wishing the hospital had one of those punch card programs for frequent visitors. She’s sure she would be halfway to a free muffin or complimentary neck brace or something. She unlocks her car and jumps about three feet at the sight of Mona Vanderwaal sitting calmly in the passenger seat, typing furiously as she frowns at her laptop.
“Mona!” Aria exclaims. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re on the buddy system,” Mona shrugs. “Hanna and Emily are chasing down a different lead, and Spencer’s parents have her on lock down, so it looks like you and I are the last two kids picked for the kickball team.”
“I meant what are you doing in my car,” Aria clarifies.
“Oh,” Mona responds. “I didn’t want to intrude on the aftermath of the bro brawl.” She looks up from her computer as if she’s back at the end of lunch table, hoping to hear something juicy. “Is it true Ezra broke Liam’s nose?”
“He bruised his jaw,” Aria admits. “But then Liam broke his hand giving Ezra a black eye.”
“I can’t even imagine it,” Mona muses. “It’s like a cartoon where a chipmunk gets into a fight with a hedgehog.”
“It’s not funny,” Aria snaps, before sighing and resting her forehead against the steering wheel. “I’m sorry. When I woke up this morning, I had two boyfriends and a book contract. Now I’ve got nothing.”
Mona’s eyebrows shoot up, registering surprise at the apology. She pats Aria tentatively on the back. “Hey,” she says, soothingly. “You have more talent in your little finger than Ezra Fitz has in his whole body. Especially when he’s sulking in a vat of man tears. You don’t need a man. You have friends who love you, okay? Like, not me - let’s not get carried away - but lots of people didn’t want you to get burned to a crisp!”
Aria sniffs a little at the weird pep talk, then nods.
“And there’s one more thing that you have,” Mona adds. “An assignment from Spencer.”
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Forty-five minutes later, Aria is sipping a green kale smoothie and flipping through folders in the musty basement of the church.
“What are we doing?” she asks Mona.
“It’s a superfood,” Mona responds, barely looking up.
“No, I mean in why are we looking through a thousand dusty files that have no information about any of this? I have a budget for every church spaghetti dinner in 1985, I have minutes from the Youth for Christ meeting in October of 1992, I have a sheaf full of True Love Waits pledges - and none of it has anything to do with Charlotte or Mary Drake or whoever is after us now.”
“Because Charlotte’s birth certificate is conveniently missing from City Hall. But Mary Drake was in Radley, and they have an aggressive ministry outreach. There’s a decent chance her baby was baptized, and we might still be able to find a record or an announcement or something.
Aria’s smoothie cup is empty and another long interval of fruitless research has passed before Mona suddenly sits up. “I’ve got something!”
Aria scoots eagerly over, examining an old church bulletin over Mona’s shoulder. “Mary Drake, who regularly joins in worship at the Radley chapel outreach, gave birth to an infant over the weekend. The child will be christened Charles Drake next Sunday, all are welcome to attend.”
“Where are the baptismal records?” Mona asks, frantically pawing through the piles of paper.
“Can I help you?” a pleasant voice asks from the bottom of the stairs. Aria turns and sees Sean Ackard smiling blandly and looking starched within an inch of his life.
“Sean! You are a sight for sore eyes!” Mona sing-songs, as if they’re still planning double dates for the weekend. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m a Deacon now,” Sean says, proudly. He looks a little more pompous than he used to, he has the air of an aspiring televangelist about him. “My dad retired last year. Did I hear you say you were looking for baptism records?”
“I’m tracing my family history,” Mona informs him. “I did one of those searches on Ancestry.com, and it turns out the Vanderwaals might be descendants of Queen Victoria! Can you imagine? I could be five hundred and sixty-first in line to the throne! I could borrow Kate Middleton’s hats! I just have to do a little leg work, first.”
“Well, the baptismal records are upstairs in the office,” Sean explains helpfully. “Let me show you.”
“Great,” Mona says, flashing him a big smile. “Come on, Aria! Let’s go get my crown!”
“Oh!” Sean says, his focus shifting to Aria. “Wow. You look - nice.” The way he’s staring at her neckline makes Aria feel sure the actual word he was searching for was more along the lines of either loose or slutty, but she rolls her eyes and follows them upstairs.
“Look who I found!” Sean calls enthusiastically as they walk by Pastor Ted’s office. Pastor Ted comes out with a friendly smile on his face as Sean unlocks the door to the small filing room where the baptismal records are kept.
“Miss Vanderwaal!” he exclaims. “Our choir has never been the same without you!”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Mona giggles, tossing her hair. “I do like a good hymn, as you know.” She jerks her head to indicate that Aria should start digging while she distracts the Holy Rollers.
“Your voice always gave me chills,” he tells her. “So impassioned! How long are you back in town? Maybe we’ll see you at Sunday’s service?”
“Only if you promise that Amazing Grace will be on the roster,” Mona says. “It’s funny, I was just thinking of you the other day. I thought I saw you at the hospital.”
“Yes,” Ted says, putting his hands awkwardly in his pockets. “I saw you there with - Hanna’s mother.” He gets a bit red in the face as he hurriedly continues. “I was there to see Lucas Gottesman. Local boy makes good, then gets shot in the sanctuary.” He shakes his head sadly. “He asked after Hanna very eagerly. Do you know if she’s alright?”
“She’s peachy,” Mona enthuses. “How’s Lucas doing?”
“He should pull through,” Sean interjects. “A miracle from Jesus if ever there was one!”
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Hanna and Emily park outside Harold Lime’s studio. It’s less creepy in daylight, but still has an eerie stillness lingering in the air.
“Hello?” Hanna calls, pushing the door open with an ominous creak. “Anybody here?”
“No one but our faces,” Emily mutters. “Look at this!” The studio has indeed moved to shaped rubber masks instead of plaster, and there are four mannequin heads on the counter wearing the Liars’ faces. Emily runs a finger over the tip of the Spencer mask’s nose. “These are incredible.”
Hanna is already taking pictures of every mask she comes across. “Look for the one you took a piece out of the other night,” she tells Emily.
“This one,” Emily says, pointing to a generic female mask underneath a red wig. “With the fake glasses.”
Hanna snaps a picture and moves on. “I’ve got a whole drawer of Sara Harvey’s here. As if the real one wasn’t bad enough.”
“I found a Wilden,” Emily announces. “This place is like a rogue’s gallery of anyone who’s ever creeped on us.”
Hanna is tearing through closets and climbing step ladders with an intensity that makes Emily suspicious. “I don’t get it,” she mutters. “It’s not here.”
“What’s not here?” Emily asks. “Who are you looking for?”
“No one,” Hanna insists. “I thought I saw an old friend. It’s nothing.”
“Is this one Ian?” Emily asks, tilting her head.
“It’s Jason,” Hanna says, squinting.
“How can you even tell?”
“Obviously, I pay more attention to men’s faces than you do! Besides, look where he is.”
Emily glances at the masks on each side of Jason, and shudders. “I see what you mean,” she says, looking from a severe Melissa Hastings to an eerie replica of Charlotte DiLaurentis. “Right between his sisters.”
Emily strolls behind the worktable that serves as a counter, starts leafing through a thick sketchbook of designs.
“He has a 3D printer,” Hanna observes. “Those aren’t cheap.”
“They don’t need to be,” Emily says, inhaling sharply. “It looks like Harold Lime got a major arts grant last year.”
“This is art?” Hanna asks, skeptically. “He’s a hermit who steals people’s faces! Who would give him money for that?”
“Philanthropists,” Emily says, holding up a bank statement. “He got $100,000 from the Carissimi Foundation.”
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“Excuse me,” Aria says. “I think I found what we needed. You wouldn’t have a copy machine around here, would you?”
Sean steers her into his own office to let her use the copier, pulling a photo of Bridget Wu off the desk to show her. “Married last year,” he boasts. “No kids yet, but soon, God willing.”
“That’s great!” Aria tells him, wondering if it’s possible he’s still a virgin. “Congratulations!” She feigns a coughing fit to cover up a giggle, and he rushes out to the hallway to get her a drink of water. She uses his absence to quickly copy the small file on the baptism of Charles Drake.
He’s back with a paper cup in hand before she’s quite finished shoving the file underneath the one she pulled for Mona’s regency coup.
“Did Mike ever find him?” Sean asks politely.
“Hmm?” Aria asks, sipping the water.
“Your brother. I saw him last month, we had a laugh over Noel’s crazy band. Have you seen their album cover? He’s wearing guyliner. But he was here looking at that same file.”
“For Charles Drake?” Aria clarifies, stunned.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Sean nods. “Your long lost cousin.”