Scarlett Fever

DAWN OF THE DESPERATE

Sunday was a murky day. A moody day. The sky was the color of the rinse water that Scarlett used to produce when playing with her watercolor paints when she was little, each dip of the brush leaving a milky touch of pigment until it was a thin, gray mess. Her dress from the night before lay deflated on Lola’s bed. Her own bed was littered with all things Biology—a desperate scramble of notes on papers and cards, notes on her computer, her textbook, a mess of handouts. Much of this information was in her head, but in pieces—pieces that didn’t connect together to make a picture.

And it was almost evening.

She could call Dakota. Dakota was at home studying as well, and Dakota knew what she was doing and had two Biology professors in her house. As Scarlett reached for the phone, she realized that if Dakota picked up, she was going to have to talk about last night. She would have to explain what she had done.

Aside from the possibility of her friends calling, which would obviously result in an immediate confession…there were other horrors. Mrs. Amberson would probably try to call her today about something. That was extremely likely. Or what if Chelsea chose today to call and tell her all about her wonderful new relationship with her good friend Eric? Or Eric. What if he tried to call again and get it all off his chest?

Or Max. What if Max called? That seemed least likely, but held the most terror. What if he wanted to discuss what went on out there on the terrace?

What did happen out there on the terrace?

Well, what happened was that she made out with Max behind a wall of topiary for about a half hour, that’s what happened. And the only reason they stopped is that they were interrupted by a girl with a tray, who was startled by them and screamed.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the phone was her enemy.

There was only one thing she could think to do. She picked up her phone and walked it down the hall to her parents’ room. On the wall just inside the door, there was a little chute that dropped five floors down to an opening in the basement ceiling. This is where they tossed sheets and towels; they fell into a wheeled bin that was usually positioned just under the chute. She opened the chute and tossed the phone inside, for a six-floor free fall. If someone had actually decided to wheel the bin over to the washing machine and do the wash, the phone was history. She stuck her head into the dank and stale void, but there was no sound, nothing to indicate that her phone had fragmented into a hundred pieces. It was probably alive down there somewhere. She hadn’t quite figured out what she would have done if it had broken.

Probably ask Lola to buy her a new one. Maybe that’s how things were done now.

As she walked back to her room, Spencer stepped out of the elevator. He also looked a bit lost.

“You didn’t take any deliveries, did you?” he asked.

“Deliveries?”

“My script. It’s not here yet. I called, and they keep saying it’s on its way. They won’t tell me what my call times are for this week.”

“No,” Scarlett said. “Sorry.”

He nodded absently.

“I just took my suit over to get it cleaned. Mrs. Foo got really excited when she saw it. She loves a challenge. What are you doing? You look spooked.”

“Studying,” she said. “I have a Biology exam tomorrow.”

He rubbed his unshaven chin, which was just starting to develop a shadow, and then poked a finger into his ear.

“Frosting got in there,” he said. “I can’t hear right.”

On that, he drifted off to his room, and she went to hers and sat on the bed again. She closed her eyes, just to see what appeared in her mind—where her brain wanted to go.

It wanted to go to Max. It wanted to replay the whole experience over and over again.

She opened her eyes with a jolt and grabbed her textbook as protection. She had to learn. There was no more time, no more room in her mind for anyone.

Dakota was waiting for her on the front steps of the school the next morning.

“Can you just do one thing for me?” she asked. “Can you just explain…this?”

She held up her phone, revealing a large photo of a cake-covered Spencer.

“Oh yeah. Spencer, um…” Scarlett rubbed her eyes hard. “…he, um, the cake. At Lola’s party. Sorry, I didn’t…”

“Did you sleep?”

“Not really.”

“I figured this might happen. Look what I have for you.”

Dakota produced a large cup of coffee and pressed it into Scarlett’s hand. This was the kind of friend Dakota was. Always one step ahead. Always with the provisions.

Scarlett took the coffee and sipped it, letting it burn her mouth. The morning was overly bright. She had a floaty feeling for a moment, and as she drifted back into her body, something seemed off.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I’m not sure if I’m wearing underwear. I think I am. But I have no memory of putting it on. Dakota…what if I forgot to put on underwear?”

“Can’t you feel it?”

Scarlett couldn’t. She tried to get some sensation, but all was numbness. She shook her head.

“Reach around in the back and see if it’s there,” Dakota said.

Scarlett carefully reached around and felt just underneath the waist of her skirt, until her fingers hit a ridge of elastic.

“Why can’t I feel my waist?” she asked.

“Everything will be fine.” Dakota put her arm over Scarlett’s shoulders. “Drink your coffee. I’ll quiz you. We’ll get through it.”

“I made out with Max,” Scarlett admitted.

Dakota slipped her hair out of the crooked ponytail it was in and played with the band, stretching it between her fingers for a few moments.

“In detention?” she finally asked.

“At Lola’s party.”

“At the party?”

“He just kind of showed up,” Scarlett explained.

“And you made out.”

“That about sums it up,” Scarlett said.

Dakota finger-flexed a bit more.

“Have I always been like this?” Scarlett asked.

“You’ve always been entertaining, if that’s what you mean.”

“Of course,” Scarlett said, picking up her notes and staring at the words swimming on the page. “That’s exactly what I meant. And maybe…maybe he just won’t show.”

Max showed.

He had on a black sweater and jeans—slightly more neat and tidy than usual. He didn’t say a word. In fact, he didn’t even look at her. He just paged through his notes, and then when they got the word to clear their spaces for the test, he just put them away and looked at the model embryo in the corner.

She found herself burning with the need to speak to him, but just then, eight pages of exam were dropped in front of her, along with a look of “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but get it together” from Ms. Fitzweld.

Scarlett pulled the exam closer and opened it to find a lot of familiar-looking gibberish. In the first rush of panic, everything appeared broken. After flipping uselessly through the pages, she finally found something on page three that she felt like she could answer. The fetal pig diagram on page four should have been easy, but all the different pieces kept getting mixed up in her mind. Kidneys? Pancreas? Aorta?

She had to look through it three times to figure out where to begin, her brain working in starts and fits. She had just decided to answer the short fill-in-the-blanks on page five when she became aware of the fact that Max was moving, getting steadily closer, in millimeters. Her first instinct was to throw her arm around her test protectively, even though there was nothing written there.

Then she realized, he wasn’t trying to copy. Max was offering her his test to cheat from. He was filling everything in with certainty.

Her head felt light and funny, and there was a pulse beating over her left eye.

Scarlett kept her eyes averted for the rest of period. As the time went on, more things came back into her head. At the thirty-fiveminute mark, information came flooding back, and she tried to go back and fill in as much as she could. But it was too late. The bell rang.

“Bring them up,” Ms. Fitzweld said.

Max said nothing as he slipped off his stool, and he didn’t turn around when he walked out of the room. Apparently, whatever had happened was something he was prepared to sweep aside as brusquely as he did everything else—and maybe in the bargain, he would leave her alone.

“What the hell?” Dakota said, sliding up to her station. “What the hell was that? On page six?”

“I have no idea,” Scarlett said. The test had been over for thirty seconds, and already the experience was fading.

“Did he bother you?” Dakota asked, indicating Max’s empty seat.

“Nope. He acted like it didn’t even happen.”

“Thank God.”

This bothered her, this indifference of his. How could he just walk away from her, ignore her, and act like they hadn’t kissed? And, though she could never, ever admit this to Dakota, those kisses had been very good. So at the very least he owed her some sarcasm and contempt. Was that too much to ask? Would it kill him to display a little snide and inappropriate behavior?

“Yeah,” Scarlett said, forcing a smile. “Imagine if I started dating someone you hated more than Eric.”

“Don’t make jokes like that,” Dakota said. “The way things have been with you? Anything could happen. And I would hate to kill you. You’re so pretty.”

When Scarlett stumbled home, she found Lola in the Orchid Suite, going through her dresser. There was a pile of objects on Scarlett’s bed—two sweaters, some pajamas, a scarf, a winter hat, a number of things from the Drawer of Mysteries that Lola had acquired during her stints working at the spa and the makeup counter.

There was no point in asking what this stuff was. She already knew. Lola was casting off her old things. Her clothes. Everything that was broken, shantylike, about the hotel. There would be no more hoarding of free samples of moisturizer or half-empty testers of fancy lotions.

“Hey!” Lola said brightly. “I’m just doing a little sorting out. How was your day?”

Scarlett decided not to answer that question. She sat down and looked at the neat little piles of Lola stuff.

“Are you…” Scarlett had no idea how to phrase this question. “Coming back? To sleep, or…Where do you live now?”

“Well,” Lola said, refolding a sweater. “Chip went back to Boston today. I’ll spend maybe four days a week up in the apartment in Boston, and the other three I’ll be down here. Chip is going to transfer schools next semester. So I have until December to find an apartment for us. The Sutcliffes are…getting us one. Not a big one.”

Even a small apartment in Manhattan ran to a million or two—at least any apartment that the Sutcliffes would consider buying. There were many things Scarlett could say about this, but she decided not to.

“I want you to know,” Lola said. “I respect that this is your room now. I can’t just barge in whenever I want. I’ll always let you know, or stay in another room.”

“No,” Scarlett said quickly. “This is your room, too. I mean, when you’re just staying here. I’m not going to move your stuff.”

Lola looked over at her shyly and bit her lower lip. She shook out the sweater she had just refolded and did it yet again.

“I have to go over to the Sutcliffes’. We have some presents to open. Sounds like a lot of presents, actually.”

“So what does that look like, when the Sutcliffes’ friends give you presents?” Scarlett asked. “Is it kind of like what they find when they open up a pyramid? Do you go blind from all the gold?”

“It’s a little like that. But I’m staying here for dinner. I think we’re having pizza. Want to go down and ask Spencer what he wants on his? I think I just heard him come in.”

Scarlett dutifully stood and went down to Spencer’s room. He was standing by his bureau in a very strange position, leaning down on it, grasping his head in both hands as he intently read a script.

“So they finally sent it?” Scarlett asked.

Spencer said nothing.

“I’m supposed to ask you what you want on your pizza.”

Spencer said nothing.

“Is there still frosting in your ear?”

He finally looked over at her, but again, did not speak. Instead, he held out the script, open to the last page. Scarlett took it. There was only one bit of dialogue on it. It read:

BENZO

That was Frieze’s lawyer on the phone.

They just found him on the floor, beaten.

He’s dead. The son of a bitch is dead. The son of a bitch is dead.