Suite Scarlett

by Johnson, Maureen

  “No worries. We can go through it a few times before we roll.”

  “Is it just the three of you?” Donna asked.

  “There are a lot more of us,” Eric said, pointing to the unconnected, dead video camera. “Video feed to LA. They’ll be about ten or fifteen people watching on the west coast.”

  God, he was good. Scarlett’s only hope now was that her computer didn’t start belching smoke or just explode for good measure.

  “We’re just going to read through it first,” Spencer said, throwing Scarlett a quick look to see how she was coping.

  The reading was easy enough, even though Scarlett didn’t sound remotely like an actress. She was, however, a natural at the “sitting and looking clueless” part. There was a bit of a snag when they got to the part where the girl was supposed to start crying hysterically. Scarlett couldn’t make herself cry. The only person she knew who could do that was Ashley Wallace at school, and Ashley was a well-known psychopath. At that part in the script, Scarlett just slapped her hand over her eyes to represent crying.

  Donna and Spencer actually did read the parts like actors. It was strange for Scarlett to hear her words spoken back to her. She fought the urge to correct them, to tell them how it sounded in her head.

  “Good,” Spencer said, when they were done. He said it with as much enthusiasm as he could without seeming like her brother trying to be nice about a terrible performance.

  Donna was eyeing Scarlett carefully. The one thing that must have been one million percent clear was that Scarlett was not an actress. A small, very dim child could have figured that out.

  “Are you…” she began, “are you in the show?”

  “Tara is the coproducer’s daughter,” Eric chimed in quickly. “She’s doing us a huge favor today. You have no idea how tight this situation is. We’ve never had to cast a lead in one day before.”

  It was a breathtaking save, and one that brought instant warmth from Donna Spendler. Now that Scarlett was Tara, daughter of a producer, and not just Tara, general idiot…there was a warm, almost maternal vibe.

  “You’re doing an excellent job,” she said sweetly. “I’d never have known you weren’t a pro.”

  “Thanks,” Scarlett said dryly.

  “Now let’s do it for real,” Eric said, pretending to switch on the camera.

  So they did it again. And again. And again. Eric watched and called “LA” (Mrs. Amberson) a few times to see if more was needed. LA always needed more. Scarlett was so fried she thought she’d cry if she had to read those lines again. Spencer and Donna, being professionals, kept going strong. After the eighteenth take, though, Donna called proceedings to a halt.

  “I feel like I’ve done all I can with that,” she said. “Without direction, I mean. At this point, we’re just repeating ourselves.”

  That’s the point, Scarlett wanted to say. But secretly she wanted to hug Donna for making it stop.

  “Sure,” Eric said confidently. “Let me give them a call.”

  He vanished into the hall with his phone. Donna went to the corner to drink from her bottle of water and do some neck rolls. Spencer gave Scarlett a sly shoulder bump of support as he went over to the table to move the headshots around, as if he was doing something useful with them.

  “Okay,” Eric said, returning. “They just need to see one more thing. We’re going to need to try a little improv scene with you and…Dick. Tara, you can come and sit over here with me.”

  This was new. Mrs. Amberson clearly needed time. It didn’t matter to Scarlett as long as she didn’t have to be in it anymore. Now her job was to sit next to Eric. That, she could do.

  “This character has a violence problem,” Eric explained. “We want to see a scene in the station where Alice really oversteps the bounds. Can you get rough with him?”

  As Donna and Spencer squared off, and Eric made up a situation, there was a convulsion in Scarlett’s abdomen, a physically painful twinge.

  Oh, no. This was bad.

  The hysteria finally hit Scarlett. She was going to start laughing, and she was never, ever going to stop. It wasn’t a joyful feeling, it was a horribly terrifying one.

  “Don’t worry,” Spencer was saying to Donna. “You can come right at me.”

  The heave of laughter was building in Scarlett’s chest. She put every ounce of energy in her body into pushing it down. She tried not to see, not to hear, not to think…even when Donna was throwing Spencer up against the wall and screaming the words, “Do you want to know what it feels like to be a victim?” into his face.

  The laugh was just at the bottom of her throat, and when it came, it would be loud, and it would never, ever stop. It would be laughter vomit.

  Just as it was all going to come out, Eric reached over and took her hand under the table.

  “Squeeze,” he whispered surreptitiously. “Hard.”

  Scarlett squeezed. She squeezed so hard that she worried that she might break his fingers. He didn’t wince. Didn’t blink. Just kept his eyes straight forward on the scene like it wasn’t even happening.

  She felt herself relaxing. The laugh eased itself back down. Scarlett released some of the pressure, but kept her hand in Eric’s for safety as Donna raged on, cycling through every emotion, showing them everything she could. She fought, she cried, she swung. Spencer weaved and dodged and held her back. And all the while, Eric squeezed Scarlett’s hand gently. Something real passed through that squeeze. He wasn’t doing it for the scene anymore—he was holding her hand because he wanted to, and he extracted it reluctantly when things drew to a close.

  “That was great,” he said, when Donna had finished. “I’ll just check with them…”

  “LA” was apparently satisfied, and Donna was thanked and dismissed, with promises that someone would be in touch soon. When she was gone, the three of them were quiet for a moment. They heard her footsteps going off in the distance, the ding of the elevator, the close of the door.

  Eric put his head down on the table. Spencer sprang up, grabbed Scarlett, and threw her over his shoulder.

  “You were amazing!” he said.

  “I sucked,” she replied, upside down. “I almost laughed.”

  “No,” Eric said, rubbing his crushed hand with a knowing smile. “You covered yourself really well.”

  “Seriously,” Spencer said, shifting her into piggyback position. “I have to admit I was worried when you got thrown into it, but you totally pulled it off like a champ. I could tell you were scared, but you did it, anyway.”

  This praise felt good…maybe better than anything in recent memory. She had made her brother proud and impressed the guy she liked. The mood only improved when Mrs. Amberson returned to see how it all went. She was effusive in her praise.

  “Now,” she said, passing some money to Spencer and Eric, “my friends didn’t want to bother with a confidentiality agreement, but it’s important that you don’t tell anyone about this. Word gets out way too easily. So, lips sealed! You two can head off. Scarlett and I will finish up here.”

  Eric looked like he wanted to linger a bit, but with Mrs. Amberson shooing him out and Spencer going as well, he couldn’t really stay.

  “I knew you had it in you,” Mrs. Amberson said when they were gone.

  “I guess,” Scarlett replied.

  “You guess? Learn to take a compliment, O’Hara. I asked for your help, and you came through. I won’t forget this, mark my words.”

  It was only now that Scarlett remembered what this was all about. For better or for worse, she had just helped to destroy Donna’s chance at a Broadway role. And though she knew that Mrs. Amberson’s words were meant in a friendly way, she couldn’t help but feel a faint sense of alarm, as if the sirens in the street below were headed in her direction.

  THE NEW SPACE

  “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 opport
unity 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?”