Lola, at thirteen, was already very responsible, very popular, very perfect. She could easily have become a queen of her class, but she softened her ambitions to spend as much time with Marlene as she could. She started doing things around the hotel without being asked.
Spencer, at fifteen, still messed around—but Scarlett noticed that he started to make much more deliberate efforts not to get hurt. He went to the hospital regularly to entertain Marlene, covered up his excesses carefully (and there were plenty), and picked up all the slack when it came to Scarlett. While everyone else was busy, they cemented their already strong bond.
And so, the pairs were set, and they had never altered. It was Lola and Marlene, Spencer and Scarlett from then on.
The Powerkids were Marlene’s “class”—part of a charity surrounding the group of kids in her unit. Even though she had been in remission for two years, the Powerkids were still the center of her life. The Powerkids gave Marlene a social calendar that easily rivaled Lola’s. She went to basketball games at Madison Square Garden and baseball games at Yankee Stadium. She saw the Rockettes every Christmas. She went on special tours of the Bronx Zoo where they let you feed the monkeys. She had met the mayor, at least a dozen major league sports players, and a handful of TV stars. She had also gotten to switch on the lights on top of the Empire State Building one night.
It had definitely crossed Scarlett’s mind once or twice that having cancer was a serious boost to your social life.
She went back to the Orchid Suite and sat on her bed. A fat pigeon landed with a heavy thump on the outside of the window air conditioner and stared in at Scarlett. It shook out some feathers and squatted there, apparently finding her an engrossing sight.
Lola entered, smiling brightly and carrying a steaming mug of coffee, which she handed to Scarlett. Lola was already dressed in a pretty white sundress, imprinted faintly with white dots. Her fair hair was wound into a loose knot on the back of her head, and her pink diamond earrings flashed warmly.
“She won’t let me shower,” Scarlett said.
Lola looked at the dress hanging from the wardrobe door worriedly, then fished around in the Drawer of Mysteries—the massive, slightly unstable top drawer of her dresser in which she kept special samples of expensive products and magical clothes-fixing devices. She removed a small baby-blue package of what appeared to be wipes of some kind.
“These are amazing,” Lola said, delicately drawing a wipe from the pack. “They have verbena, Turkish sea salt, vitamin A, sage, and ginger.”
“Do I eat it?” Scarlett asked, taking the wipe by the corner as it was offered. “Sounds healthy.”
“It’s about twenty times better for you than soap,” Lola said with a smile. “They’re a hundred and fifty dollars a pack and very, very effective. I only have them because the company rep likes me.”
Lola resealed the pack with the same kind of care that doctors use when packing up organs for emergency transport. Then she left for a few moments to let Scarlett rub herself down in spicy-herby-salty goodness. At first, it was freezing cold. Then her skin tingled wherever the rub had touched. Actually, it almost burned—but it was a strange cold-burn. The wipes clearly did something. She wrapped her pajama top around herself and stood there shivering in the heat.
“Feel clean?” Lola asked, as she came back in.
“Clean, and kind of rashy.”
“That’s the ginger,” Lola said. “It’s stimulating your pores.”
“Is that a good thing?”
Lola’s smile said that it was impossible for pore stimulation not to be a good thing.
“Now,” she said. “I just need to get you some things. Drink your coffee.”
Scarlett sat and sipped while Lola dug around in the next drawer, the one filled with perfectly folded panties, spooned together bras, floral sachets, and tiny packets of special detergents for the most delicate materials.
“Here we go,” she said, lifting a complicated adjustable bra from her drawer. It looked like something that had been removed from a parachute, all clamps and straps and impossible-to-disengage safety features. She helped fasten Scarlett into it, then removed the dress from its padded hanger and handed it over.
“What is this thing you’re going to?” Scarlett asked.
“A clambake.”
Scarlett stopped with the dress halfway down her face.
“You’re leaving me with Marlene for a clambake?”
Lola pulled the dress down and shifted it into place. It strained a bit over her hips, but it eventually gave.
“This looks great on you,” she said soothingly. “It’s a little long, but I can fix that by tying this a little tighter.”
The dress tied at the back of the neck. Lola adjusted it carefully. It was only when everything was moored in place that Scarlett was allowed to put on deodorant.
“Clambake,” Scarlett muttered. “Chip and the clambake. It sounds like a mismatched partner cop comedy.”
“See? You haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
“I haven’t gone anywhere yet.”