Suite Scarlett (13 page)

“Billy called me,” Mrs. Amberson said, when Scarlett walked in the next morning. “It seems that Donna has walked away from her new musical because of a major television opportunity that’s come up.”

She was sitting on her bed, in a meditative position, grinning like a serial killer who’d just been given all the keys to a dorm building. She got up and climbed onto her perch so Scarlett could change the sheets on her bed.

“We have to get going in a minute,” she said. “I have a lead on a place for rehearsal. It sounds absolutely ideal.”

The ideal place was a former church in the East Village. It looked like it had been repurposed long ago—there was nothing left on the inside to hint at its previous function except the stained glass windows. The main room had been gutted and a low stage installed at one end. The stage felt hollow when Scarlett walked on it, and there were small holes dotting its surface. The rest of the room was hard to walk through, as it contained a hundred or so folding chairs, countless boxes, folding tables, fake trees, broken clothes racks, and for some reason, a lawn mower. In the back, there was a large
closet with exposed insulation that they called the “workroom.” There were two tiny bathrooms and a dirty window facing an unused playground.

Mrs. Amberson wrote out a check for two thousand dollars for two weeks without blinking an eye.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said, carefully negotiating around the holes on the stage. “It’s a miracle we got it on such short notice and for such a short time. I wish we could just do the show here, but someone has it booked starting next week. Still. It gives us a good place to work out the new concepts. I have fabulous ideas.”

“Ideas?” Scarlett asked. “What are you…”

Mrs. Amberson held up a silencing finger.

“Scarlett, let me tell you the one thing I’ve learned in life. You have to tell people what they want. Most people don’t know. They mill around through life, bumping into things, waiting for someone to give them some
direction.
Trevor’s a sweetheart, but without guidance, this show will go nowhere. That’s the trouble with so many of these groups—they have no one to tell them the big things they have to do. And this works so well for us!”

“It does?”

“This is the second part of the story that will frame my narrative. I meet the theater group, pull a stunt out of
Hamlet
to right old wrongs, then save the show. This is part of my story! And you’re my Boswell.”

“Your what?”

“My Boswell. My right hand. The recorder of my adventures. Now, let’s wrap up some business. We need to call Donna and tell her there’s a delay for a few days while the script is being rewritten. Tell her that the studio will be sending someone over to cut
her hair short. It’s a nice touch. She’s always been a hair diva. It will be a very, very nice buzz cut.”

For some reason, this caused Scarlett to hesitate.

“It’s
hair
, Scarlett,” she said. “I’m not cutting off a finger. Now, I have a contact at the Roundabout who has access to the most amazing costumes. I’m going over to meet her. Move all of these things off the stage and the floor. I want this space completely clear and open. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Scarlett looked around at the chairs, furniture, boxes, and heavy pads.

“You want me to move all of this?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Mrs. Amberson said. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

She grabbed her purse and waved, leaving Scarlett alone in the sweltering room. This didn’t precisely seem like the copious thanks she’d been promised. Scarlett folded a few rows of chairs in a disgruntled manner, then planted herself on a pile of them to send some messages to her far-flung friends. She was so engrossed in this that she didn’t notice when, a half hour later, the door opened and someone walked through the mess in her direction.

“Hey,” Eric said.

Scarlett literally fell off the chairs in alarm. Profuse apologies from Eric followed. They weren’t needed. What she needed was some dignity and poise, but you can’t just get them at the corner deli.

“So we have to get this cleared out?” he asked, once he was sure that he hadn’t caused Scarlett any permanent damage. “I just got the call. I hope you didn’t do too much on your own. I have to change my shirt. I’ll be right back.”

He took a shirt (perfectly folded) from his bag, and went into the corner behind a box.

“I realize this is ridiculous,” he called from his impromptu dressing room. “Guys take their shirts off all the time in public, but I have the Southern thing going on, remember?”

He emerged, wearing a T-shirt so snug and perfect that Scarlett first thought that someone was playing a joke on her.

“It’s how we show respect,” he said. “We don’t flaunt our nakedness in front of ladyfolk.”

This was both a staggering disappointment and a touching show of thoughtfulness.

“I guess we should start moving this stuff,” he said, looking at the disaster around them. “And I guess there’s no chance there’s an air conditioner in here, is there?”

He poked around for a moment and eventually produced a small dolly with an unstable wheel.

“This should be fun,” he said, giving the dud wheel a spin. “Why don’t we move most of it toward the back? We’ll just pile it high. If you can move chairs, I’ll get the big stuff back there.”

It was clear from the first moment that Eric was going to try to keep Scarlett from doing the heavy work. She was torn between wanting to throw herself in and show that she was just as capable and, frankly, not wanting to get absolutely disgusting in the painful heat of the church. She decided the best idea was to fold as quickly as possible and help move the chairs. This also gave her the opportunity to watch Eric work, which was admittedly pretty engrossing.

“Do you know anything about what that thing yesterday was for?” he asked, shoving a refrigerator-sized box onto the dolly with only a little difficulty. “All Amy told us was that she was helping out someone who’s developing a reality show.”

Scarlett bit down hard on the tip of her tongue before answering.

“I think it’s just a test,” she said. “They’re just trying out some ideas.”

“Spencer and I were just talking about why it was done. We were thinking that maybe it was some kind of audition that Amy set up…”

The hope in his voice was depressing.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m pretty sure it was just…something to work out some ideas.”

“Oh.” He didn’t show any disappointment, but Scarlett still felt swamped with guilt. He worked quietly for a while on the other side of the room, and she finished up with the chairs. It seemed that he had nothing else to say to her, but then he abruptly stopped stacking boxes and came over to where she was.

“You two are a lot alike, you know that?” he asked, helping her with her halfhearted effort. “You and Spencer. You don’t look alike, but you act alike.”

“We’re close,” she said. “But we don’t seem alike. He can act. He likes to throw himself over walls. I can’t do anything that Spencer does.”

“He’s good at that,” Eric said, his voice getting twangy and soft and Southern again. “I think he’s the best I’ve ever seen. But you are alike. You’re both…personalities. Half the girls in the cast are after your brother right now. I’m not sure if you want to know that or not.”

“He was like that in high school. But you should tell him that. He thinks he’s losing his touch.”

“Stephanie—Ophelia. She has it really bad. We walked home the other night, and I promise you, she didn’t shut up about him for an hour. ‘Spencer’s so funny.’ ‘Spencer’s so good-looking.’ ‘Spencer sang
today and he has a great singing voice.’ ‘Spencer can fall over a half a dozen trash cans.’ I started to get a complex.”

“Why would
you
get a complex?” Scarlett said, without thinking.

Eric stopped in midreach for a pile of chairs. His shirt was soaked through in spots.

“I’m not smooth,” he said plainly. “I don’t have that natural…whatever it is that your brother has. I’m a hick, Scarlett. A hick in the big city who doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time.”

Was this how he saw himself? This gorgeous person with so much talent?

“But you’re…amazing,” Scarlett said. “You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”

He looked up at her and visibly worked through some kind of mental calculation. Then he stepped over to her, coming so close so quick that for some reason Scarlett assumed it was because something was wrong with her—like a spider on her arm.

“I really hope I don’t mess this up,” he said.

“Mess what…”

He kissed her. First on the nose, as if testing for approval, working down to her lips. He kept his mouth firmly closed, but that didn’t take away from the intensity of the moment at all.

He broke contact when her phone began to ring.

“I’m getting really sick of your phone,” he mumbled good-naturedly, gesturing for her to answer it. “I’ll bet I can guess who it is.”

Mrs. Amberson was maddeningly chipper on the other end.

“How’re things?” she asked.

“Fine…” Scarlett said, her teeth sightly clenched.

“I’m on my way back in a cab, with yet another cab behind me full of outfits. You should see this haul! Well, you will, in about fifteen minutes. Just giving you a little heads up to…set up a clothes rack or two.”

This remark was punctuated by a tiny snicker. Scarlett could hear her sucking on a cigarette in satisfaction.

“You know what I think, O’Hara?” she said. “I think I do know your type after all.”

She hung up.

“I’ve wanted to do that pretty much since I first saw you in the park,” he said. He almost sounded nervous. “I hope that was okay.”

Scarlett clutched the pile of chairs behind her in what she hoped looked like post-kiss casualness as opposed to just, well, collapsing in shock.

“I’m okay,” she said.

“I don’t want to be weird, but…we should maybe not tell your brother about this. Just because we work together, you know? Is that all right?”

“Sure,” she said, not even processing the question. Her brain had gone all soft and floppy. Something about not telling Spencer. Whatever. It was probably a good idea.

“So,” he said, “is she on her way?”

Scarlett nodded.

“Well, we probably have time…”

And then he did it again.

The train home that night was packed.

A crowded New York subway car in the summer is a wonderful place to meet new people. There is no decorum, no breathing room, and often, no deodorant. You survive by keeping yourself small and taking short maintenance breaths and making them last, like divers do.

Scarlett was well versed in the art of subway riding and could handle even the worst of conditions—but today, she was simply overloaded. Her brain was scrambled as they sped along, the train shaking back and forth. All she could see, all she could think about was the kissing. It had become overwhelming—it was taking over everything. It had passed over feeling good to that superintense feeling that is just too much for the brain or body to hold. She pushed her face, lips and all, against the subway pole to keep herself upright, even if that was almost a guarantee of catching something truly horrible.

“Are you going to puke?” Spencer asked. He was standing next to her, holding his bike upright with one hand and carefully balancing himself by holding onto the pole high over her head.

“Huh?”

“You look like you’re going to hurl,” he said in a low voice. “Should we get off?”

The man Scarlett was pressed up against on the other side looked down warily.

“I’m fine,” she said. “It was just warm in there today. Must be dehydrated…”

…from all the kissing I was doing. Shut up, brain!

“What’s wrong with you today?” he asked, unsatisfied. “It wasn’t just the heat. You seemed…I don’t know. Like something was up.”

When she was little, Spencer told her that he could see pictures of her thoughts in her eyes. Obviously, she had figured out this wasn’t possible, but there was still something in her that believed that he could get at her thoughts if he wanted to.

He was doing it now. He was looking her in the eye and seeing the truth there.

“Is there something going on?” he asked.

“Going on?” she repeated. “Going on with what?”

This was idiotic. She knew what Spencer meant, and he knew that she knew. This was her moment to come clean. So what if Eric had asked her to keep quiet? There was no need to keep things from Spencer.

Scarlett opened her mouth to tell him, but something strange flashed across his expression—something so fast and so subtle that anyone else would have missed it. But Scarlett saw it. He wasn’t going to like her answer.

“I got my period,” she blurted out, much to the continuing delight of the man pushed up next to her. “It’s catastrophic.”

“Oh,” Spencer said. “Why didn’t you say so? That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“You would tell me if there was something else, right?”

“Of course!” she said.

This was the first time she had ever really lied to Spencer. It was upsettingly easy. He turned back to the Manhattan Storage ad that he’d been staring at before this doomed conversation started. He had asked, and he had taken her at the word. Which made her the worst sister, ever.

Then again, she thought, she hadn’t really lied—she’d just
switched topics.
It wasn’t like Spencer told her every
little tiny detail.
She didn’t want to know every tiny detail. She had once seen an open box of condoms poking out from under a pile of his clothes, for example. She never whipped them out and said, “What, or
who
, have you been doing with these?” He told her the stuff that mattered to him. She had known about his major crushes, his biggest frustrations. The gory details weren’t important. He had to have left out some pretty big things along the way.

But he had never
lied.
If she had asked him something, he would have told her, no matter what it was. She knew that for a fact. If she had wanted, for some insane reason, to hear the gory details…he probably would have given them to her. Or, at least, he would have told her as much as he thought a younger sister could hear without her head exploding. He would not have looked her in the face and denied something.

And she didn’t have her period. That
was
actually a lie.

The train stopped, and he began to wheel off his bike. She followed him as he lifted it up the stairs into the heavy, humid night. He was already talking about something else—something that had
happened to him at work that morning. But she wasn’t listening. There was a low pounding in her head, like a pump gone haywire.

She had to tell him. No matter what Eric said. It would be fine. He wouldn’t care. It would change nothing.

Her phone beeped, registering a message that had come in when they were underground. Her hand shook a little as she flipped it open. It was from Eric.

You’ve made a country boy very happy, city girl
, it read.

“Who was that?” he asked. “Mrs. Amberson?”

She flipped the phone shut and shoved it into her pocket.

“Yeah,” she said, amazed at how quickly another lie flew from her mouth. “You know what she’s like.”

She would have cracked—started laughing uncontrollably, started screaming. It was unclear. But fate dealt her one other kind hand. As they approached the hotel, they noticed the black Mercedes lolling in front of it with the hazards on. The driver was out of the car and up the street a bit, talking on his phone.

“What’s going on here?” Spencer said, jumping on his bike. “I think we need to go and have a look.”

He rode off ahead. Scarlett walked slowly, trying to catch her breath. She’d made him happy. That was the kind of message you sent if there was a
thing
—a real thing. She was barely paying attention as Spencer circled the car like a shark, tapping on all the windows to torment the occupants. They didn’t respond to his efforts. The doors and windows remained closed when Scarlett approached.

“What do you think they’re doing in there?” Spencer asked, jumping off his bike and wheeling it to the curb. “If you were going to pick a place to have sex in a car, would it be in front of your own house, blocking traffic?”

“Probably not,” Scarlett said.

She suddenly felt a weird affection for Lola and Chip and their cozy little life.

The door flew open, and Lola got out. She was wearing the Dior dress. Chip looked like he was about to get out after her, but then he caught sight of Scarlett and Spencer standing there. His face was a mess—red, wet. Lola looked comparatively composed, though her eyes were clearly a bit on the runny side and her mascara was smudged a little under the eyes.

“Are you okay?” Spencer asked, as she approached them.

“I’m fine,” she said, brushing back some hair that had stuck to her damp cheeks. “Can you just ask him to go? And be
nice
to him, Spence. Okay?”

She said it so quietly and with such obvious discomfort that there was no way that Spencer was going to say a word in reply.

Lola went inside. Spencer passed his bike over to Scarlett and went over to the car and leaned over the door. Scarlett couldn’t hear what he was saying, but clearly he wasn’t mocking Chip. Chip put up no resistance. The driver got back into the car, and the Mercedes pulled off.

“I don’t believe it,” Spencer said. “She finally did it. She actually dumped him. I think…I think I feel
bad
for him. That’s annoying. But also, how great is this?”

As he went toward Trash Can Alley to lock up his bike, a glowing cigarette butt came sailing down next to Scarlett, striking itself out on the pavement on impact. She looked up, and was not surprised to see a thin trail of smoke and a shadow above.

“Interesting night, O’Hara?” a voice asked. “I have a feeling they’re only about to get more so. See you in the morning.”