Suite Scarlett (18 page)

Scarlett’s head was starting to hurt.

“I thought it was all about having someone you could be really truthful with,” she said. “I didn’t know there were games.”

It sounded so dumb saying that out loud. Mrs. Amberson gave her a look that was infuriatingly affectionate, like she was a very slow but adorable puppy who’d gotten her snout stuck in a shoe.

“You
are
being truthful,” she said. “You’re just being very
choosey
about how to present that truth. Life is an art, O’Hara, and we all have to cultivate an image. Don’t worry. It’s an acquired skill, and
you’re a sharp girl. But for today, I have a plan to fix all of your problems.”

She scooped up some adzuki dip with her finger.

“You are going to run an errand for me. Tomorrow afternoon, about three hours before rehearsal, you are going to take this book down to Eric.”

With her other hand, she fished a book called
Viral Theater Tactics in Shakespeare
out of her bag.

“I’ll call ahead before your arrival to prepare him. You will wear that dress, so don’t get anything on it tonight.”

“I wore it today, though,” she said, thinking about Lola’s experience. “Shouldn’t I wear something different?”

“You could wear the same outfit every single day and no guy—who isn’t gay—will notice. And there is nothing about that dress not to like. It’s a classic. I’d rather have one good outfit than a closet full of half-assed ones.”

There was something reassuring in this. Mrs. Amberson was not on the obnoxious dress-snob team.

“Tell him I said that he should read chapter four, not that I have the slightest idea what chapter four is about. Of course, since you came all the way downtown, he’ll invite you to stay until rehearsal. You will refuse.”

“I will?” Scarlett said.

“Yes. Instead, you are going to wait at that little coffee place on the corner, the one with the red awnings. The lighting there is excellent. Now, I haven’t actually read this book, but from what I can tell, it’s dull enough to kill a monk. It will drive him out of his apartment. You will be seated, very prettily, in the window, writing. Get that window seat. You will not notice him unless he comes right
down and sits with you. Remain intent on your work, as if he was the last thing on your mind.”

It was good, Scarlett had to admit. Very good.

“Meanwhile,” she went on, “I am going to take your brother down to the theater a bit early to see his ideas for the fight again. I will impress on him, in my subtle way, how sad you’ve looked the last few days…
except when watching him perform.
Spencer will feel both appreciated and guilty and will want to talk to you. Eric will be intrigued by your firm, independent streak and the sight of you pursuing your own art. Also, you will look good. He will see that he needs to step up his game. If you aren’t back on track with both of them by the end of the night, I’ll eat a Happy Meal.”

From Mrs. Amberson, that was a serious threat.

“There will be one final, perfect touch,” she said with a smile. “I will put you on stage to stand in for Hamlet during the fight practice this afternoon. You don’t have to do a thing—just stand there and hold still while they work around you. It’ll free up Hamlet to run his lines, and it will put you in the forefront of the action.”

She snapped her fingers for the check, which the annoyed waiter was more than happy to bring.

“Finish up,” she said. “You need to get a full forty winks tonight, and I’ll give you Charlie to put over your eyes. He’ll help with the swelling.”

It took Scarlett a minute to remember that Charlie was a dead ferret full of beads and essential oils—not some guy who hovered over you as you slept and did things to your face.

“What swelling?” Scarlett asked.

“This is another rule in life, O’Hara,” she said, throwing down some cash. “Always assume you are a little swollen. Lola understands
that rule, I guarantee it. The entire beauty industry is based on that truth.”

Mrs. Amberson seemed to be aware of many “truths” floating just under the surface of everyday reality. If she was right, then Scarlett had
never
had any idea what was going on around her.

Which was a scary thought, but it explained a lot.

Scarlett slept surprisingly well for someone with a dead ferret on her face. Charlie had done a good job of blocking out the light from outside. For once this week, she was rested.

Lola, being Lola, did not make a rude comment about the dead ferret. Instead, she picked it up from where it had landed between their beds in the middle of the night, sniffed it, and said, “Lavender. The real stuff. Told you. It makes a difference.”

“His name is Charlie,” Scarlett explained.

“Whatever his name is, you look much better this morning. A little less puffy.”

“I was puffy?” Scarlett said, touching her face. This was disturbing evidence that Mrs. Amberson may have been right.

“It was probably stress from all that stuff with Spencer. Did that go well?”

“Uh…yes?”

“You were down there long enough. I’m glad that’s fixed. I couldn’t have taken that any longer.”

“Me, either,” Scarlett said.

Maybe it wasn’t entirely a lie if she was going to fix it now, she figured. Then she realized that, no, it was just a lie.

Scarlett followed every instruction to the letter. She put on the black dress, tried to calm down her curls, and applied the red lipstick. She even raided Lola’s Drawer of Mysteries for whatever looked useful. Mrs. Amberson called her to let her know that she had spoken to Eric and that he was expecting the book. She packed her computer. All systems were go.

When she arrived at his apartment, it took three tries before Eric answered the door. Instead of buzzing her in, he said he would come down and open the door himself—which was a lot of needless work for a walk-up. He leaned out, blocking the door from locking with his body. He was shoeless, hair unbrushed.

“Thanks for bringing this down,” he said. It was friendly, but there was a lack of enthusiasm. “This looks…awful, actually.”

This was the place where he was supposed to ask her up, provide shelter from the summer sun. Instead he clutched the book. Now that she had the puffy thing in her head, Scarlett was seeing it everywhere. Eric’s face looked odd. He was a bit swollen under the eyes, which were much redder than normal.

“So…see you at rehearsal?” he asked.

Why was she surprised that Mrs. Amberson’s plan wasn’t clicking from the start?

“Actually,” she said, trudging on with it, “I’m just going to be over there. Writing.”

She pointed at the coffee shop and slapped at the computer in her bag for good measure.

“Oh. Got it. I’ll swing by on my way over, okay?”

Why hadn’t Eric, Mr. Southern Manners of 1877, invited her up?
There were lots of possible reasons. Maybe it was messy. Maybe he was sick. Maybe there was a Civil War documentary on and his grandmother didn’t allow him to watch those with Yankee girls. Whatever the reason, she was down here now and there was no point in going home.

The coffee shop was full, of course. All the good tables in the windows were occupied.

There was a deli just opposite his building. As long as no big trucks came by, she had a good view of his stoop. She opened her computer and settled in to wait with a cup of burned coffee. Yes, it was a
little
stalkerish, but if he hadn’t been Captain Mysterious all week, this could have been avoided.

Two hours is a long time to have to wait for someone to come out of his house. She began to understand why the cops on stakeout on
Crime and Punishment
always looked so bored. Her patience and willingness to lower her own standards of appropriate behavior paid off. Twenty minutes before rehearsal, Eric stepped out of the door. He turned toward the coffee shop for just a second, put on his sunglasses, and sat down on the stoop.

“What are you doing?” Scarlett asked herself out loud, very softly, as he continued to sit there for almost five minutes. It finally struck her that maybe he was waiting for her, and she quickly slammed the computer closed and shoved it in her bag.

Just as Scarlett stepped outside, a girl carrying a quilted overnight bag came out of the front door of Eric’s building. She was very tiny and coconut-tanned, with a short denim skirt, a stylish tank top, and massive sunglasses. She stopped and spoke to Eric for a moment. Or at Eric. He didn’t reply.

A girl was the last thing Scarlett wanted to see.

It was enough to make Scarlett duck down behind a parked car, pretending to fix her shoe. She watched from her crouched position, her heart pounding furiously. The rising nausea that hit when she first saw Coco McBigGlasses subsided when she saw how they interacted with each other. There was a large space between them as they spoke, and Eric kept his arms folded over his chest—not angrily, more like he was just hanging out, maybe giving directions. The girl definitely seemed annoyed about something. She was waving her arms a lot. When she finally finished whatever she was raving on about, she hurried down the street. Eric stayed exactly where he was.

Something had just happened, but Scarlett had no idea what. The girl didn’t act like she was there
with
Eric—it looked more like she was stopping to complain about something. Aside from the fact that they came out of the same door a few minutes apart and that they spoke for a moment, there was nothing worrying there.

Scarlett felt like an idiot. She backed up, slipping around the corner, so that Eric wouldn’t see her suddenly spring from a crouched position across the street. He had to be on to the shoe trick by now. She really needed a second stealth move. Actually, what she needed was to be less insane.

She waited a minute or two, taking the time to pet a Labrador that had been tied to a stop sign while his owner went into a bakery. The poor dog looked confused by his temporary abandonment, eager for any kind of company or reassurance.

“Waiting is the worst,” Scarlett said to the dog. “I know.”

The dog wagged his tail in happy understanding.

When Scarlett rounded the corner, Eric was still in his spot,
staring up at his window a few floors above. Scarlett shook out her curls and put on her best, “I was just wandering along—I had no idea you were here!” face, which was just her normal face with slightly widened eyes.

“Hi,” she said. “I was just walking over.”

“Hey,” he said. He was extra Southern now. He must have dragged five syllables out of the word. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

He stirred, like he had forgotten why he was standing outside in the first place, and slowly followed along.

“You seem kind of tired today,” Scarlett said.

“Yeah. I didn’t sleep too much last night.”

And that was it for his end of the conversation for the next four blocks. Scarlett filled in, telling him all about Lola’s toilet paper folding and lavender essences and breakfast-redesign schemes. It was impossible to tell if he was listening at all, so she shut up by the final block.

“Stop a second,” he said, slowing her down at the corner before the church. He reached for his glasses, as if he was going to take them off, and then decided against it.

“I’ve just been thinking about your question,” he said. “And you’re right, we need to figure that out.”

This was good. Very good. This made Scarlett love the sun on her skin, and the smell of detergent coming out of the laundry next to them, and the people walking by talking on their phones. The world
worked.
Everyone in it was happy, really. Maybe that’s what he’d been doing in his apartment—he’d been
thinking.
Maybe Mrs. Amberson’s plan hadn’t worked exactly as she described, but still that little bit of space had really…

“I can’t really
be
that right now,” he said.

…
what?

“What?” she said out loud.

A pause. A terrible, terrible pause.

“A boyfriend.” More playing with the sunglasses. “And if I can’t give you that, I’m not sure we should go on like this.”

“If you’re worried about Spencer,” Scarlett said, scrambling for words, “I’ve talked to him. He’s being a little weird, but it’s not you. It’s because I didn’t tell him.”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “This is my fault. I really don’t want to lose you or Spencer as a friend and…”

Scarlett didn’t hear the rest. All she knew was that he meant it. She knew it in her bones, her blood, her heart and mind. Eric was dumping her. The smell of detergent burned her nose and the people on their phones were too loud and obnoxious and there was a glare. The ground felt like it was falling away.

She was vaguely aware that they both started walking again in the direction of the church, that a few of the cast members were just a few steps away.

“Excuse me,” she said, walking away from Eric and cutting through them.

Inside the church, it was hot enough to bake a pie. Scarlett dropped her bag to the ground with a thud, forgetting her computer was inside, and not really caring when she remembered. The actors buzzed around her, plucking their costumes from the racks. People said hi to her and tried to start conversations, but she couldn’t speak. She slipped up to the space behind the stage.

Mrs. Amberson and Trevor were conferring away, and Spencer was circling the stage on the unicycle, trying out some bounces. He
was already dressed in his comic suit. All the sights were familiar, but it all felt distant and crazy. She put her head against the wall and tried to breathe deeply.

“All right!” Mrs. Amberson called. “We’re going to run Spencer and Eric’s fight first just to get the mechanics down. Let’s clear some space for them.”

Oh, no. The plan was still rolling on to its horrible conclusion.

“Scarlett!” she said. “Scarlett, where are you? We need you to read Hamlet’s lines while he gets changed.”

She was barely aware of stepping out on the stage and taking the script Paulette was holding out in her direction. Spencer had stopped circling and was staring in her direction, brows furrowed. She turned away from him as much as she could. Eric appeared a moment later, buttoning up his shirt quickly and rolling his sleeves. He didn’t look in her direction.

“Okay,” Mrs. Amberson said, slipping her a subtle wink. “We’re going to work out the mechanics of the fight. The important thing is that you just stay still while they work, okay?”

This was all just noise to Scarlett. She went over and stood in the spot that Mrs. Amberson was pointing to. Eric and Spencer got into position behind her. Spencer was still studying her out of the corner of his eye. He knew something was going on, and that made her panic more.

“And…go!” Trevor said.

Eric immediately grabbed Spencer by the neck to drag him over to her. Spencer rolled out of this, tripping Eric expertly in the process. He landed right below her. Eric was literally at her feet. What was happening? Why were her ears ringing?

“What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?” he asked.

Scarlett’s mind faintly registered that she should be looking at the page. The words swam in front of her.

“Compounded it with dust,” she read. “Whereto ’tis kin.”

Her voice was a squeak.

“A little louder,” Mrs. Amberson directed.

“Compounded it with dust,” she read again, not really much louder. “Whereto ’tis kin.”

Spencer made an escape off to the side, and Eric bounced up from the floor to catch him. They slapped each other around a little on the other side of the stage, giving Scarlett a chance to get her balance. All she had to do was make it a few more minutes…

The smack startled her again.

Spencer was flipped over backward onto his face. Same trick as ever. Everyone in the room broke into laughter, except for her.

“Now, Spencer, get up!” Trevor yelled. “Get over there, turn him around, and hit him.”

This part may have been new, not that she cared. Her job was to stand still and let the world spin around her. Then she could go and puke and curl up into a ball and die.

Spencer pulled himself up and strode over as directed. Scarlett saw him move Eric into position, and Eric responded like a partner in a dance, turning himself so that his body would block the trick. He drew his right arm back dramatically, the comic buildup to the punch. Something unusual passed over Spencer’s face—something Scarlett had only seen a handful of times before.

Instead of his fist flying past Eric’s face, a move they’d practiced a hundred times, something went wrong. There was a dull noise, not like the sharp fake-punch sound they produced
through trickery. Eric staggered, but not a calculated, staged stagger—a real staggering stagger that concluded with him losing his balance and falling to the floor. He landed on his back, hard.

Scarlett decided it was time to go. Immediately.