This was a bit of a low blow.
“All I’m saying,” Lola went on, returning to her reasonable tone, “is that we all have to face the fact that we live here, and that things are like they are. Mom and Dad break their backs to keep things going. They do every job now. He’s had a year to try. And if there is a scholarship offer, he should take it.”
Scarlett’s eyes automatically turned to the graduation cap that sat on the top of Lola’s dresser.
“What about you?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about me,” Lola said, getting up and opening her armoire. “I have my year now to figure out what I want to do next. I have my job, which I love. And in the meantime, I have somewhere I have to be tomorrow. So, is it a deal? Because if it is, I have something special for you to wear.”
She lifted out a plastic garment bag attached to a thickly padded hanger. She hung this on the edge of the door and unzipped it, revealing a sleekly-cut black summer dress—light enough for day, dressy enough for night. The perfect dress. It was Dior. Chip had purchased it for Lola two months before for some event that required a designer label. This was Lola’s biggest gun—the most valuable thing she owned, aside from the pink diamonds.
“This must be important,” Scarlett said.
“It would mean a lot to me.”
“Where exactly would I be taking her?”
“Somewhere fun!”
“Seriously, Lola. Where am I taking her?”
“To the set of Good Morning, New York!” Lola said. “You don’t have to do a thing. Just sit in the audience while they stand around doing something for a segment on healthy cooking. I promise you. It’ll take two hours. That’s all.”
She waggled the dress and smiled her sweetest smile.
“That won’t fit me.” Scarlett said skeptically. Lola was taller, but Scarlett was far curvier.
“Of course it will!” Lola said, refusing to be daunted. “We’re almost the same size. In fact, this will look better on you than me. You can fill it out in the right places.”
It was clear that Lola was determined to make this work.
“Why not?” Scarlett said, turning back to the futile effort struggling along on her screen. “Might as well start the summer on a high note.”
THE GOOD BURN
When Scarlett woke the next morning, Lola was already awake and out of the room. Scarlett found that her hair had grown during the night, like a mushroom, and her curls clung to her eyelashes. She grabbed her shower basket and stumbled out into the hall, half-blinded.
The bathroom door opened just a sliver, and the smell of burning hair slithered through the crack. Spencer was long gone, and Lola’s blonde locks were so fragile that she never used any heating devices on them. That left one person.
“Marlene?” she asked the crack. “Are you on fire?”
The door was foomped shut as hard as it could be, which wasn’t very hard. The door was a little crooked and didn’t shut completely.
“Just tell me if there are actual flames coming off your head,” Scarlett said, patiently leaning against the wall.
“Shut up.”
Scarlett nodded. Marlene couldn’t be on fire and telling her off at the same time. Well, maybe she could…but she couldn’t be a complete fireball, and that was what mattered.
“I’m going to need the shower, too,” she said.
“I’m busy.”
It didn’t sound like Marlene knew about the switch yet. She wouldn’t have been talking to Scarlett at all if that were the case.
“Can I just…”
Foomp. The door stuck shut this time. Marlene must have hit it hard.
It was a complicated thing having a cancer survivor for a little sister.
There was a time—thought it seemed like a long time ago—when Scarlett remembered liking being an older sister. She took Marlene on the carousel in Central Park. She took her for ice cream down the block (as long as Spencer or Lola walked with them long enough to help them cross Second Avenue). And then, one day when Scarlett was eleven and Marlene was seven, Marlene got cranky. A few days later, they first saw the little bluish lump on Marlene’s neck. A week later, it hadn’t gone away, and it was joined by another bluish lump under her arm. She went to the doctor’s office one afternoon and didn’t come home that night.
That was the beginning of it all. The disease entered all of their lives.
Marlene was in and out of the hospital for seven months. What leukemia really was…what it really meant…Scarlett didn’t really get the details. She understood more from watching how the rest of the family reacted. Her parents stopped paying as much attention to the hotel. They did what they needed to, but they reserved most of their energy for the hospital. They closed doors more often, physically huddled together more.