Scarlett Fever

THE DOTTED LINE

 

Mrs. Amberson had told Scarlett she didn’t have to come in that week, but going there was better than sitting around at home. She preferred going through the submissions and organizing the file of theater reviews to the yawning silences of the fifth floor. She decided to stop in on the way home from Dakota’s. The intense reporting of her movements had loosened slightly in the last few days. It was a minor benefit in an otherwise untenable situation.

 

Murray the doorman was in extra fine form, poised at his station, eating one of the biggest sandwiches Scarlett had ever seen.

 

“Hey!” he said. “That dog of yours made a mess again down here today!”

 

“I told you,” Scarlett said, “he is not my dog.”

 

“You gotta do something about…”

 

Scarlett felt like every capillary in her face had just gotten the go code. She could actually feel the blood filtering into her skin. Someone had to be punished today, and that person was going to be Murray the doorman.

 

“What part of not my dog do you not understand?” she asked. “What’s the stumbling block? Is it the not? Is it the dog? Is it the sentence? The dog does not belong to me. He doesn’t even belong to my boss. He’s a borrowed dog, and he has issues!”

 

Murray made a disapproving sound, slapped down his sandwich, and picked up the receiver to tell Mrs. Amberson that her psychotic assistant was on the way up. Scarlett felt bad enough to stalk away with her head down, not looking back as she turned the corner to go to the elevator bank. She rested her head against the mirrored tiles above the buttons and looked at her face in extreme close-up. Her pores looked huge, her eyes red, and her hair broken and crazy. She didn’t like mirror-Scarlett. She didn’t like the Scarlett she was in, either. Or anyone else, for that matter.

 

“Did you just yell at the gatekeeper?” Mrs. Amberson asked, curious, when Scarlett let herself in. She was sitting on one of the white sofas, sucking on a piece of dried mango and scanning a copy of Variety. “He called up here sounding very hurt. Remind me to give you a raise.”

 

“He keeps asking about the dog,” Scarlett said, walking past her and going right to her desk.

 

“Are you all right, O’Hara?” Mrs. Amberson said, looking over in interest.

 

“It’s nothing,” Scarlett said. She grabbed for the first of the pile of envelopes to be opened and sorted. She tore it viciously, ripping the headshot contained inside. Some actress. Another starry stare and whitened, eager-to-please smile. The world was full of them.

 

“O’Hara…”

 

Scarlett clawed the next envelope from the stack. Where did they all come from, these idiots who wanted to work with them? There had to be a hundred more today.

 

“O’Hara. Leave those for a moment. Come sit over here.”

 

“I need to get these done.”

 

“They can wait.”

 

Scarlett dropped the envelopes and came and sat opposite Mrs. Amberson, sinking deep into the plush sofa.

 

“You’re having a hard day,” Mrs. Amberson said. “You didn’t have to come in today, you know. I know it’s not the easiest time right now.”

 

“I’m fine,” Scarlett said, staring at the carpet.

 

“Lies are a tremendous karmic setback. Keep it up and you’ll come back in the next life as something without a spine. You’re not fine. And you don’t have to be fine. This move of your sister’s…it’s a shock.”

 

“I don’t understand anyone,” Scarlett mumbled. She felt her eyes filling up, but blotted any tears away with her thumbs.

 

Mrs. Amberson thought for a moment before speaking, which was a little bit frightening.

 

“O’Hara,” she finally said, “I speak from long experience—when it comes to romance, all bets are off. I like to think that I’m a sensible person, but I’ve done some extraordinary things for love. And even the things that didn’t work out, I don’t regret.”

 

“Are you actually married?” Scarlett asked.

 

“Oh, let’s not tell folktales right now,” Mrs. Amberson said. “My point is, the only way we learn anything is by taking chances. I can’t really explain what Lola’s done, or why, or say if it’s a good idea or bad. Nothing in this world is black or white.”

 

“What do I do?” Scarlett asked.

 

“Well,” Mrs. Amberson said. “You can’t control other people. They’re going to do things you don’t like, that you don’t agree with, that you don’t understand. But, by the same token, they cannot control you. You’re stuck in this situation. You have to decide what outcome you want. What do you want, right now?”

 

“I want my sister,” she said. “I don’t want to…lose my sister.”

 

“How could you lose her?”

 

“She’s gone,” Scarlett said. “She’s living at the Peninsula, and I don’t even know what’s going on with her or what she’s going to do, and…”

 

“Do you think your sister wants to lose you?” Mrs. Amberson asked.

 

“No.”

 

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