Scarlett Fever

OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE

When Scarlett got home the next afternoon, the lobby was full of bags—shopping bags, garment bags. She hadn’t seen so much stuff since the day Mrs. Amberson moved in. There was no one at the front desk, but the door to the dining room was partway open and there were voices coming from inside. Scarlett slid it open the rest of the way, revealing a small gathering—her parents and Lola.

“We’re having a kind of family meeting,” Lola said chirpily. “To talk about the party.”

“Party?” Scarlett repeated.

The party, Scarlett quickly gathered, was going to be a pretty epic affair. It was going to be held at a place called Point Manhattan, a private club on the roof of a building in midtown. The view, Lola assured them, was stunning, and the Sutcliffes pulled a few strings. A fabulous swing band had been hired. Menus were going to be finalized in the morning. The florists were already hard at work getting in the orders from all the flower markets. Scarlett watched her parents valiantly making efforts to argue that the party should be at the Hopewell, but clearly a massive engine had been set in motion, an engine that could be stopped by no one. Lola was hyper, chattering like a monkey.

“Come on,” Lola said, pulling Scarlett a little too roughly from her chair, “I have things to show you!”

In the lobby, Lola started grabbing bags. When she could carry no more, she shoved one of the shopping bags along the parqueted floor with her foot. Scarlett picked up what was left.

“What is this?” Scarlett asked, looking around.

“Just a few things for the wedding party.”

“Does this mean…”

“Wait until we get upstairs,” Lola said under her breath.

They managed to get it all in the elevator by propping open the gate and piling the bags around them. Once the elevator had creaked and moaned them up to the fifth floor, they pushed out the bags and got everything down the hall to the Orchid Suite. Within five minutes, there was an explosion of pastel tissue paper, box lids, ribbons, and wrappers. Five garment bags weighed down the closet doors. Lola gave them each a quick squeeze, seemingly able to divine their contents by the way they scrunched.

“You signed it,” Scarlett said.

She pushed aside some of the packages to make enough room to sit down. All of these lovely things looked so strange in the Orchid Suite—strange and right. At some point in history, people who wore lovely things were here all the time. That’s why the hotel was filled with dressing tables with many secret drawers and large carved wardrobes and silk-cushioned chairs to sit on while you applied your makeup.

These were the things that came from the Sutcliffes—small tokens of their much vaster wealth. And all Lola had had to do to earn them was sign a piece of paper saying that she wasn’t really equal to them. Yesterday, Scarlett didn’t see what the big deal was, and if Lola wanted to sign, she should sign. But now, seeing this, she started to change her mind. Maybe…Chip was right. Maybe she should have held out, just ignored the Sutcliffes entirely.

Of course, she couldn’t say this to Lola now.

“But how did all of that party stuff get planned today?” Scarlett said, looking around at the mass of things piled around them.

“It didn’t,” Lola said. “I think they knew I was going to sign, so Mrs. Sutcliffe—Anna—hired someone earlier in the week to start setting things up on the sly. She has friends everywhere, and she does a lot of society and charity events, so she has the number of every good florist, caterer, bakery in town. She picked out the cake.” The word cake came out with the kind of inflection used for words like taxes or dumped.

“What’s wrong with the cake?”

“The cake,” Lola said slowly, “is shaped like an enormous boat. Specifically, their boat. I hate boats.”

“So why…”

“Because,” Lola said, waving her arms helplessly, “they love their boat. And they seem convinced that the boat is what brought us back together. Chip must have told her we went for a ride on it, you know, the night of the show. And she knows we took a ride on the boat before he left for school. They went out to the slip yesterday to take photos. This bakery’s claim to fame is that they can make anything—and it’s all edible. No posts or supports or plastic bits. It’s one big…”

“Boat cake.”

“Right,” Lola said.

“Just like every girl dreams of,” Scarlett said.

“It’s awful. And it’s going to cost about ten thousand dollars.”

On hearing that figure, Scarlett was struck silent. Lola went through the bags, trying to calm herself down.

“This isn’t a party for me,” Lola said. “It’s a party for them to show off and make it all official. All I have to do is be gracious. I picked these clothes out, though. Now look at this. It’s for you.”

She went over to one of the garment bags and unzipped it, revealing a dress. Even at a first glance, it was clear that it was perfect for Scarlett. It was midnight blue silk, with a fitted bodice and a full skirt, with a wide swath of steel-silver silk at the waist that wrapped around and tied at the front. At the very bottom, there was a fringe of silvery-gray tulle.

“It’s very Grace Kelly. And it will be amazing with your hair. And here are the shoes…and the purse…” Lola was already fishing around in a bag, producing silver shoes and a bag. “Now, if you don’t like this, it can go back, but I think you will…or I hope you will…and I have a seamstress who can do all alterations in twenty-four hours, and you don’t even have to go anywhere, she’ll come here, but I know your size so this should fit, but…”

“It’s amazing,” Scarlett said.

“And this is to go with it,” she said, handing Scarlett a small blue jewelry box from a shop on Madison Avenue that she had passed a million times but never been in. Scarlett took the box a bit warily and opened it. Inside, there was a heart-shaped platinum necklace set with a large blue stone.

“It’s a sapphire,” Lola said. “Take it out, look at it in the light. Go on!”

The chain of the necklace was very delicate, so Scarlett carefully removed it from the small velvet bindings that kept it in place. She held the heart up to the window, allowing the light to shine through it.

“Isn’t it pretty?” Lola asked eagerly. “I thought you would love it. If you don’t, they have loads of others, but I thought…”

“How much did this cost?” Scarlett asked.

“Don’t worry about that. Do you like it?”

“Yeah, but…I thought you just had a little allowance…”

“This is different. Try on the dress! Try it on!”

Lola pulled a tiny shopping bag out of a larger one, and then extracted from that a pink tissue-wrapped bundle.

“New bra to go with it,” she said, unrolling the paper.

Scarlett accepted the bra and changed into it, while Lola lifted the dress off its hanger. She lowered it down over Scarlett’s head, trapping her in a world of blue satin with occasional scraps of tulle. Lola tugged it down firmly, adjusting it over her hips, tugging at the back, zipping and hooking everything into place.

Scarlett looked in the slightly dusty mirror. For a moment, she tried to fight loving the dress, but it was simply impossible. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and she could barely believe it was hers. This is what it meant for something to fit well. This is what people meant by real artistry in clothing. This was the feeling of silk nestled against her skin, forming a shape around her that was graceful and elegant, making her into a new kind of person—a beautiful person. A more confident person. A more together person. A…

A richer person.

“Oh my God, Scarlett,” Lola said, putting her hand over her mouth. “I knew it would be good on you but…oh my God. You’re so beautiful.”

Scarlett smoothed her hands over the fabric of the skirt.

“I hope they all turn out this good!” Lola squealed. She fussed around Scarlett for a moment, tugging material this way and that, feeling around the waist, examining the hemline from the floor, checking the shoulders, and finally studying the strain of the material around the chest.

“You’re bustier than I realized,” Lola said, checking to see if there was any material to spare. “We’re going to have to have this let out a little. But that’s an easy fix. This is the only thing we need to do for yours.”

She got out a big notebook covered in light blue leather, flipped through a few pages of scrawled notes and swatches of fabric, and wrote something down.

“It’s just a party,” she said, mostly to herself. “It’s just a party.”

“You obviously don’t want the party,” Scarlett said. “So why don’t you just tell them no?”

Lola looked up from the book and sighed.

“Mom and Dad said the same thing, but…the Sutcliffes have to make a statement in order to be happy. They have to spend a bunch of money and have the right people see that Chip didn’t just run off with his girlfriend, that it’s all approved of and correct. It has to look right. It’s like a show, and I just have to be in it, and then we’ll have peace.”

“What makes you think they’ll be any different after the party?”

That, Lola was not prepared to answer. She closed the book decisively and reached for another bag.

“Now,” she said. “Where’s Spencer? I have to see him in this suit. I’m almost positive this will be a great fit. I mean, I know his general size and his pants measurements were up on eBay anyway. Look!”

She unzippered another Bergdorf bag. There was a sharp, gray pin-striped suit inside.

“And these go with it,” she said, indicating various bags. “Shirt, shoes, cuff links. It’s the perfect suit. I mean, if you were going to have one suit in your whole life, this should be that suit. And he can carry a suit so well, you know, because he’s got the height going for him. We might have to take the trousers up a half inch or so, and I had to guess on the shirt since he has long arms, so I just bought three and we’ll see which one works.”

“I don’t think he’s here,” Scarlett said.

“Okay, well…let’s show Marlene her dress!”

The clothes seemed to make Lola manic—giving her focus, something she could understand. Something she could share. She plucked up Marlene’s garment bag and hurried down the hall, forgetting that Marlene still wasn’t very happy with her.

Marlene was on her bed, yet another biography of Princess Diana open in front of her, but it didn’t seem like she was reading.

“You really like Princess Diana,” Scarlett said.

Marlene gave Scarlett a look that suggested that another pointless conversational remark about Princess Diana might result in a Princess Diana biography making contact with her face. At least she was acting kind of normal.

“I got you a dress,” Lola said.

“I don’t care.”

Lola ignored this and hung the bag on the closet door. She unzipped it, revealing what looked like a rose-colored ballerina outfit. Marlene stared at it, then turned right back to her book.

“Well?” Lola said hopefully.

“Looks expensive,” she said. “I guess you’re rich now.”

They left her alone. Lola insisted on waiting for Spencer to get home, and got a similar reaction—he stared at the suit on his bed, asked who died, and shut his door. Lola never once stopped smiling.

“Tomorrow,” Lola said as she prepared to go. “I scheduled your fitting with the seamstress at four. And get Spencer to try on his suit, please? You’re the only one on my side.”

She reached out and grabbed Scarlett’s hand for support.

“Sure,” Scarlett said. “I’ll try.”