…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.
MISS CALCULATIONS
Every head turned away from the carnage on stage to watch as Scarlett made her wobbling, half-running way out of the darkened room into the blinding sunlight. She allowed her legs to follow their instincts. She rounded the building and headed for the playground. There was a low brick wall on the far side. She ducked behind it and sat on the ground, collapsing her face into her knees.
She was alone for several minutes, except for a few brave pigeons that would not be scared off by a human running at them, arms flapping in the wind. She tried to block everything out—shutting her eyes. But it was all still there. The girl. The look on his face. Eric crumpled on the stage.
She soon became aware that someone was standing nearby, but it didn’t seem worth it to look up and see who it was. The person slid down the wall and sat next to her.
“Do you remember when I accidentally set fire to myself?” Spencer asked.
Scarlett pulled her head up just enough to look over at his shoes.
“I saw it on TV, these stunt guys explaining how they do those scenes where they run out of exploding buildings. I thought I could do it by spraying hairspray over my pants and burning off the fumes. It actually worked for thirty seconds. Looked great. Except that I hadn’t worked out the plan for putting myself out. Stop, drop, and roll takes a lot longer than you’d think.”
Scarlett remembered this quite well, but couldn’t answer because a lump of something had risen in her throat so fast that it gagged her. She tried to force it back down, hold whatever was left of herself and her dignity together.
“I’m not asking for any particular reason,” he went on. “Except maybe to see if you noticed how stupid I am. You pretend not to see it, but I think you do.”
She wanted to say that he wasn’t stupid—she took all honors for that. Stupid to think she could date Eric, stupid to follow Mrs. Amberson’s advice, stupid not to listen to Spencer in the first place. She wanted to say she was sorry, but all that came out was a noise that almost sounded like a quack.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, dropping an arm over her shoulders.
Whatever was gripping her throat released it, and a torrent of tears erupted from some unknown reservoir inside. She buried her face in the folds of his jacket and sobbed huge, wheezing sobs that finally scared off the remaining birds. It was like she was draining herself dry.
It felt like they stayed like that a long time, but it was probably only a few minutes, then her tears slowed just as suddenly as they had come. She tried to make her breathing normal, but couldn’t. It staggered and fell all over the place, and she started to hiccup. She hadn’t felt like this since she was little, when she would run to Spencer when she got hurt or upset. Total regression.
He tipped her chin up to get a look at her face. She felt horrible and genuinely swollen, and the light hurt her eyes. Spencer’s jacket was soaked, and someth
ing was connecting her nose to the front of his collar. He wiped it away with his sleeve.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said thickly.
“Yeah…no you’re not.” He wiped at her face with his hand to try to dry it a bit and unstuck a curl from her cheek. “And I just punched my scene partner in the face.”
“I’m sorry…”
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “This one is all mine. But I’m going to have to go and answer for it.”
He stood, and then reached down to help her up.
“It looks like we have company,” he said.
Mrs. Amberson was waiting at the other end of the playground, flipping the cigarette case thoughtfully in her palm.
“You should probably go in,” she said to Spencer, when they reached her.
Spencer looked to Scarlett, checking on her general condition. It still wasn’t great.
“I’m not going back in there,” she said. “I’ll see you at home.”
“Okay…” he said. He didn’t seem to want to leave her there or go back inside, but he dragged himself forward.
“The plan,” Mrs. Amberson said, when he had walked off, “did not work quite as I anticipated.”
Scarlett decided that there was no need to add to this statement. It pretty much covered the situation.
“Think anyone noticed?” she croaked. Her throat was still a mess.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Actors love drama, by definition. You made their day.”
“Spencer slipped,” Scarlett said dutifully.
“Of course he did. Accidents happen. And this is just a temporary setback, O’Hara…if it’s a setback at all. Lover’s quarrels are a natural part of relationships. Making up is always the best part. Now, tell me what happened, and we’ll make a plan.”
“Please stop helping me,” Scarlett said.
“Too soon?” Mrs. Amberson said, undaunted. “Best to take the afternoon off. Here.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out some money for a cab.
“We’ll sort it out later, O’Hara,” she said, as Scarlett walked to the street. “You’ll see!”
Lola the Unstoppable was still at the desk when Scarlett returned, stamping and addressing all the brochures that she had never gotten to the other night.
“Someone left a message for you,” she said, holding up a slip of paper. “Probably something for Mrs. Amberson. Are you all right? Your eyes look kind of funny.”
“Um…allergies.” Scarlett’s voice was a bit thick still.
“Are you sure?”
Scarlett nodded and took the note.
“The woman asked you to call right away,” Lola said. “Do you even have allergies?”
“I’m fine,” Scarlett said, walking quickly toward the elevator. “I’ll call her. Thanks.”
Back in the Orchid Suite, Scarlett dropped the note on her bureau and drew the purple sheers. She could hear her parents yelling about the pigeons (“the flying rats”) from the opened window below. She dropped back on her bed and did nothing. She let the heat fall over her and crush her.
A few hours later, the door creaked open and Spencer looked inside. He was carrying a bag.
“I thought you might be here,” he said. “I bring presents. Soup dumplings from Joe’s Shanghai. Yes, I am actually that good.”
Soup dumplings were, arguably, Scarlett’s favorite food. They were dumplings full of the most delicious soup in the world, plus a little meatball.
“I’m not really hungry,” she said. “You can eat them.”
“Come on,” he said, holding out the bag. “I went all the way down there. And you’re telling me you won’t even eat one?”
Scarlett accepted the bag and pulled out the container of steaming-hot dumplings. She stared at the little globlike forms inside—forms that would usually have made her indescribably hungry. They did nothing now except repulse her slightly. Spencer flopped down next to her.
“How is he?” she asked, unable to even say Eric’s name.
“Bruised,” he said. “But fine. I was kind of hoping that if I screwed up that big I’d at least have given him a black eye, but I guess it’s good that I didn’t. I didn’t hit him that hard. He just wasn’t expecting it. If he’d had a chance to react, things would have ended differently.”
“Are you in trouble?”
Spencer shook his head.
“He obviously wanted to drop it. Someone got him some ice, he made a joke, I made a joke. We waited half an hour and did the fight again. Eat.”
Scarlett tried nibbling at the thin dough for Spencer’s sake, but gave up on the effort and set the soup back down.
“Why did you do it?” she asked.
“I know you like soup,” he replied.
“You know what I mean.”
Spencer took the container for himself and very deliberately avoided her stare.
“All I know,” he said, “is that Amy came by in the afternoon to work with me and was going on and on about how sad you looked. For about an hour.”
Right. The brilliant plan at work again.
“Then you came in with Eric. I’ve never seen that look on your face before. We were on stage, things were going fast, someone was telling me to hit him. My brain just decided to go all literal. I sort of watched myself do it. I saw the spot where my fist was supposed to turn, and it just didn’t turn.”
He shoved a dumpling in his mouth, not taking the time to create the vent on top that was so critical in the eating process. He jerked back when he felt the burn and opened his mouth to let out the steam. Scarlett had the feeling that that was self-punishment.
“You knew about the other girl,” she said. “Didn’t you?”
He looked at her as he waved his hand in front of his mouth frantically. He showed no surprise hearing that there was another girl.
“I didn’t know,” he said, when he had gotten it under control. “I guessed.”
“How?”
He sighed.
“Whenever anyone asked him if he was seeing anyone, he would always give cagey answers, at least around me. Once you said that it was his idea not to say anything…it all fell into place. There’s only one reason he would do that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
“There was nothing to tell. I never saw her. I told you I had a bad feeling. That was all it was.”
“Well,” she said, sniffing. “You were right.”
Scarlett was hit by a wave of exhaustion—a welcome chance to block it all out.
“I just want to sleep,” Scarlett said. “And never go back.”
She rolled over on her stomach. Spencer scrunched her curls until she settled herself—another throwback to when she was little. She heard him take the bag of soup away, heard him shut the door. What she couldn’t possibly have heard was his arm brushing the bureau as he left, causing a small slip of paper to flutter to the ground. It landed just under the bureau, where it could hardly be seen.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TOWELS
“Let’s talk about towels,” Lola said, coming into the Orchid Suite late the next morning.
Scarlett looked up over the top of her blanket blearily.
“What time is it?”
“Eleven. Spencer told me to let you keep sleeping. You must have been really sick. Do you feel any better?”
Scarlett had to make an effort to collect her thoughts. She’d been sleeping for something like fourteen hours. Her mouth was dry, her head hurt, and she was starving. Oh, and Eric had still dumped her.
“Not really,” she said.
“I’ll bring you up something to eat,” Lola said. “Unless you feel like you can get up.”
“No,” Scarlett said, sick of being in her bed. “I’ll get up. I need a shower.”
“Towels,” Lola repeated, indicating that it was the word of the day and needed to be used as frequently as possible. “That’s what sets certain hotels apart. Really
nice towels, and lots of them. As many as you like. I think towels are one of the big reasons people like hotels at all. You can use them and drop them on the floor…”
That was about how Scarlett felt. Used. Dropped on the floor. And she was really starting to miss Chip. She never had to deal with these kinds of wake-up calls before.
“…and someone comes along and picks them up and gives you new ones. Towels are nurturing. Towels go against bare skin. Now, lots of hotels provide piles of thin, scratchy towels. But when you use a good towel, a really thick, soft, amazing towel, you feel cared for. You remember the towels. And their cousin…the bathrobe.”
Scarlett picked up her shower basket and stared.
“Why are you talking about towels?” she finally asked.
Lola held up a photo from some high-end catalog. It showed some woman getting out of a tub the size of an SUV and wrapping herself in a massive blanketlike towel.
“Egyptian cotton,” Lola said. “These are pretty expensive, but once you feel them…”
“We have towels.”
“We have terrible towels from some bargain supply place.”
“They’re monogrammed.”
“They scratch! I’ve been trying to explain this to Mom and Dad. People are not going to come back if the towels scratch.”
“There are a lot of reasons people won’t come back,” Scarlett said. “Like, birds in the rooms and nonfunctional toilets. Do you really believe that expensive towels are going to solve our problems?”
“I’m just trying to come up with a few practical solutions,” Lola said.
“A bunch of towels we can’t afford for guests who aren’t here…that’s not really a solution.”
Lola looked genuinely saddened by Scarlett’s lack of support for her towel idea. It wouldn’t work…but Lola was the only one trying to help the hotel. Scarlett would have faked some more enthusiasm, but it wasn’t in her.
“Spencer told me to tell you that he’ll be back around six,” Lola said, carefully refolding her picture. “And it’s family dinner night tonight. Mom and Dad are out getting some pipes or something. There’s a leak in the kitchen. I have to get back down to the desk.”
Suite Scarlett Page 21