“Did you hear that?” Mrs. Amberson said ecstatically. “Did you hear what just came out of my mouth? I haven’t lost a thing. I am going to call my agent and tell him that he has to try to get me some kind of role as a child protection agent or something on Crime and Punishment. Someone who comes on and testifies and looks all shaken up but professional. Trouble is, I think my agent is dead. I guess I need a new one…”
“You stole tuna fish,” Scarlett finally managed. Her voice was loud enough to startle the driver and cause him to slide the panel behind his head shut. “You put it in my bag.”
“What’s even better,” Mrs. Amberson said, “is that he didn’t notice this. You covered so well!”
She reached into the waistband of her pants and pulled out a candy bar.
“I didn’t cover anything,” Scarlett said again, not bothering to lower her voice. “You almost got me arrested!”
Mrs. Amberson turned this time, but looked utterly unperturbed. She gazed at Scarlett through a thin veil of cigarette smoke.
“I would never have let that happen,” she said. “He was only bluffing. Wasn’t that fun?”
“I’m banned from the store! They think I’m a juvie tuna fish thief with a whole team of counselors and doctors!”
“You’ll never go to that store. It’s all the way across town. And they’ll never remember you, I promise. They just say that.”
“That is not the point!”
“You seem upset,” Mrs. Amberson said mildly. “You’re just full of adrenaline right now, and you’re using that adrenaline as panic. Performers constantly go through this, and we turn our head rush into performance. We use it. We enjoy it. Now breathe through your nose and out of your mouth, a nice cleansing flow of air. The store got money to cover what was taken. You didn’t get into any trouble. A very worthy organization got a hundred dollars to buy food for hungry people. Enjoy the moment!”
She was using a cooing, lulling voice that Scarlett felt was probably copied from one of her yoga instructors. Scarlett reached over and slid open the panel.
“Pull over,” she said to the driver.
“Oh, come on, Scarlett. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Adventure is white-water rafting. This…” She held up the can. “…is tuna.”
“That was very well phrased. You have a touch of the actress about you, too, you know.”
The cab stopped, and Scarlett opened the door and got out.
“You did very well!” Mrs. Amberson called to her as she walked off. “You pass! I think this is going to work out splendidly!”
Scarlett had no idea what that meant, and she didn’t care.
DEAL OF A LIFETIME
It took Scarlett the entire walk home to calm down—and it was a long, hot walk. When she arrived at the Hopewell, she pushed right on through the empty lobby, through the dining room, into the kitchen.
The Hopewell kitchen was embarrassingly large for a family that couldn’t cook and had no guests to feed. Most of the appliances were from the sixties and seventies, and there were way too many of them. Only about half of the stuff worked. Belinda could make the place behave somehow, but no one else could.
There was something else in the kitchen that refused to behave. Namely, her parents, who quickly moved away from each other and did some quick hair and clothes adjusting. Scarlett knew what that meant. She had walked in on them canoodling. Again. It was kind of nice to have parents who liked each other—she was one of the only people she knew who did. Still, every one of the Martin siblings had caught them making out. There was, after all, a good reason why there were four of them.
“Guys,” Scarlett said, wincing, “can’t you put up a sign or something?”
Her dad was pretending to be very interested in something behind one of the three refrigerators.
“Is it you or Marlene who freaks out about mice?” he asked casually. “I can never remember. I know one of you is spiders and one of you is mice.”
Scarlett responded by backing up against the worktable and pulling herself up to sit on it.
“Oh, right,” he said. “It’s you. You should ignore what we’re doing then.”
For once, the sucking face may have been preferable.
“Mrs. Amberson spoke to us this morning,” her mom said, opening a box of no-kill traps. “Has she told you her idea?”
“Oh, she told me,” Scarlett said, warily watching the floor.
“You don’t seem happy about it. I thought you’d be excited about working on a book.”
“Wait…what?”
“She wants you to be her assistant!” her mother said happily. “You really seem to have impressed her.”
“I thought you said I couldn’t get a job,” Scarlett said quickly.
Her parents gave each other googely-eyes for a moment.
“Look,” her dad said, “we had a long talk in bed this morning about all of you. And we’ve come to some decisions. We’ve realized just how much you all try.”
“Lola works hard and has voluntarily taken a year off from going to school or moving,” her mother said, reaching out for her dad’s hand. “Spencer has tried his best at auditioning, and he’s really straightened up in the last year—getting up at five every morning to work a breakfast shift. And you…you’ve never gotten much of a chance at all. And here comes something that is what you love, writing, that would pay a really generous amount.”