For the first time, Scarlett heard Max laugh. If she had been guessing, she would have thought his laugh would sound like a mancackle, or something like the squawk of a dying bird. But it was a full, round sound. Not unlike an actor laugh—from the belly, full of voice. The largeness and humanness seemed to startle them both, and he turned and went back up.
As Scarlett walked back to the Hopewell, she saw Spencer’s bike still leaning against the stop sign invitingly. Someone had put a half-eaten hamburger on the seat, but still, no one had made the effort to take it. Upstairs, it was very quiet. The pigeons were cooing and resting on the outside of Scarlett’s air conditioner, their tiny feet tapping on the metal. She looked through her homework list—three paragraphs of French, thirty-five Trigonometry problems, five chapters of Great Expectations to read, one chapter of Biology with six end-of-chapter questions to answer, and five articles on the government of Pakistan to find, digest, and summarize. She decided the articles were a good place to start, but once she got online, she ended up reading all of her messages and watching Eric’s commercial seven times, closing down the window after each viewing and telling herself that she would not reopen it. Then she would go looking for articles for five minutes, but find her mind dragging her back to the commercial for one more look.
She slammed the computer shut and faced the silence. And in the silence, a question came. Another creeping question. The question the Biggses had put there: What was she going to do with her life? She’d never felt a pressing need to answer this question before now. She was fifteen. She wouldn’t have to choose a college or decide on a major for at least two more years. But still…there were classes to pick now. There were skills to pick up. Everyone else did things. It wasn’t just Chelsea who had trained since she was just a small cellular life-form. Almost all of her friends were developing some kind of special skill. And it wasn’t just a question of who she was and how much money they had—after all, Spencer had become an actor. Sure, he was just kind of born that way, but he had also taught himself many, many things. He always had a mission. Marlene had…well, cancer. But that had weirdly provided her with a social life and maybe some kind of perspective. And she was eleven, so who cared?
The only other person who didn’t really seem to have a definite goal was…
The door to the Orchid Suite flew open, and in came Lola, the very person she was thinking of.
Except that Lola didn’t look like Lola. Her face was flushed and her eyes were narrowed. She was walking quickly, instead of her usual smooth, graceful step, and her back was hunched. It was like her entire body was trying to curl itself into a fist.
“You okay?” Scarlett asked.
Lola tore off her Bubble T-shirt and threw it at the end of her bed.
“Fine,” she said, her jaw set.
This was so obviously a lie that it didn’t need to be said. Scarlett just kept looking at her until she decided to explain.
“Do you remember Boonz?” Lola finally said.
“Chip’s friend?”
“Well, she’s one of his friend’s girlfriends. He doesn’t like her. Boonz was the one who made fun of me about the dress.”
“Oh,” Scarlett said, nodding quickly. “Her.”
Chip had given Lola a beautiful Dior dress. It was a dress Lola had seen in the window of Bergdorf’s and coveted deeply, but never even imagined owning. Lola wore the dress everywhere, to everything. It was the best article of clothing she had ever owned—was ever likely to own—and she maintained it with the zeal of a curator. It was her favorite thing until Chip’s friend Boonz made a snide comment about the repetitive wearings, questioning whether or not Lola owned any other clothes. The weight of dealing with much wealthier people must have been pressing on Lola for some time, though she had never really shown it. But when Boonz did that, something inside of Lola snapped. She ran away from the party and from Chip, escaping from society types and a competition she could never win.
“I guess I thought that stuff was over,” Lola said. “Chip’s up in Boston in school. He doesn’t see a lot of these people anymore. But she came into the spa this afternoon, she and some other girl. I was restocking some shelves. They followed me around, asking me stupid questions about the products. It was all just to mock me for working there. I even lost a sale, a big sale, because they wouldn’t leave me alone. You can’t get away when you work there.”
Her humiliation was so clear, Scarlett couldn’t think of anything that would make it better.
“Sorry,” Scarlett said.
“It’s fine,” Lola said. But she didn’t look fine. She reached to her dresser for a shirt. The drawer stuck. She jiggled it once, but it only gave another inch or two. She rattled it even harder until Scarlett heard a tiny crack and the drawer stopped moving completely.
“It’s their problem, not yours,” Scarlett said. “There’s nothing weird about having a job.”
Scarlett knew this was a pointless thing to say. It was true, but it was pointless.