There was a crash from the kitchen that sounded like a small garden shed being pushed down a flight of stairs. Her dad set down the cheese and calmly excused himself.
“I hear you’re an actor,” Mrs. Amberson said to Spencer.
“You heard correctly,” he answered, motioning to Eric. “We both are.”
“I’m an actress as well. Or, at least I was. I’m always interested in mentoring young thespians.”
A slightly vulpine smile crossed her lips.
It was obvious that Spencer had picked up on Mrs. Amberson’s signals. There was a playful glimmer in his eyes. Even his posture changed in a moment—he got straighter and started twirling his fork between his fingers like a tiny baton.
“I’ve always wanted to be mentored,” he said, slipping into a truly horrible grin.
Scarlett was trying to figure out how to get her knife under the table and stab Spencer in the knee without hitting Eric by accident, when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the black Mercedes stop in front of the hotel.
“It’s them,” Marlene said, springing out of her chair. “Lola and Chip. I’m going to ask Chip to stay, too.”
Spencer’s smile fell away completely and he stopped the evil flirting game.
“Is that Lola?” Mrs. Amberson said, craning her neck to look at them out of the window. “My, my. She’s stunning. You know who she reminds me of? The lead singer of ABBA. The blonde. I got stuck in a bathroom with her once, at Elaine’s. I was trying to tell her a joke. It was right after “Dancing Queen” came out. The joke had something to do with a dancing queen, and I know it was good. But she’s Swedish, and I was a little drunk, so I’m sure you can imagine how that went down.”
She took a deep breath and rubbed her cheeks roughly to wake herself.
“The Swedes are a difficult people to know,” she added thoughtfully.
Scarlett turned up her eyes slightly. She was sure that Eric would be staring at Lola out the window. All guys stared at Lola. It wasn’t Lola’s fault, and Scarlett didn’t resent her for it. Really, it had never been a problem until today. To Scarlett’s surprise, though, Eric wasn’t paying Lola the slightest bit of attention. He was looking squarely at her, Scarlett Martin. And he was smiling.
From this close, she could see the color of his eyes perfectly. They were a misty, shifting blue marbled with gray, like smoke rising through an early morning sky. Something deep inside of her was switching on—something felt like it was moving. It felt like the same part of her brain and stomach that responded to steep elevator drops. She was falling…
In her panic, she forced herself to turn away, and found herself looking into another pair of eyes—this time, the two glassy ones of the ferrety creature on Mrs. Amberson’s shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” Lola said, hustling into the dining room. Marlene had Chip by the hand and was dragging him along right behind her. “I forgot. I thought it was tomorrow…”
As soon as they came into the room, Eric shifted his attention away smoothly, but she could feel that she was still in his focus.
The kitchen door swung open and Scarlett’s parents emerged with a lasagna that had a foul-smelling gray cloud hovering over it. If they were startled that yet another visitor had joined them, they didn’t show it, possibly because they were concerned with the thing they had just dragged from the hellish depths of their temperamental industrial oven.
More introductions were made. Two more chairs were pulled up to the table. A pitcher of instant iced tea was passed, as was the droopy salad and a still partially frozen loaf of garlic bread. The lasagna hissed when it was touched by the metal spoon. Everyone ate in silence for a few moments, except for Mrs. Amberson, who was fine with a glass of water and a little of the bread. She graciously explained away her small appetite by saying that her stomach was still in a different time zone.
“What do you do, Chip?” she asked. “Are you a student?”
“I just graduated,” he answered, cautiously picking at his food.
“High school?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I went to Durban.”
“Where is Durban, again?” Spencer asked, all innocence. “Is it on Ninety-eighth Street?”
“No,” Chip said. “Seventy-third.”
“You sure? I could have sworn it was on Ninety-eighth. Something’s on Ninety-eighth. What could I be thinking of?”
Spencer flinched suddenly. Scarlett didn’t see her do it, but Lola must have gotten to him somehow. She had to shove some of the lasagna into her mouth to keep from laughing, and almost screamed from the scorching pain. She accidentally elbowed Mrs. Amberson in a mad grab for her iced tea.
“And what about you three?” Mrs. Amberson asked, jostled back into the conversation.