Scarlett Fever

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THE VISITOR

There was a collection of Martin family photos on the hallway wall right next to the Jazz Suite, covering the life histories of all four Martin siblings. There were the usual baby and school photos, but there were also a few signature candids. There was one of Spencer as a sophomore dressed in a gangster suit with a fake mustache for Guys and Dolls. There was Lola looking demure and lovely in her Easter dress when she was ten. There was six-year-old Scarlett riding her bike out on the sidewalk, her expression unreadable under the cloudlike mass of blonde curls that covered her head like a weather pattern. There was Marlene, aged eight, in the playroom at the hospital giving a rare smile.

In the center of the collection was one group photo that, if you studied it closely enough, would tell you all you needed to know about the Martin siblings. At the time the picture was taken, Marlene had just gotten out of the hospital. The chemotherapy had caused her hair to fall out, and a reddish fuzz was just growing in. She was making a sun-in-the-eyes scowl. Lola stood behind her, her arms clasped around her shoulders, a radiant smile on her face. Spencer had just hit the same height as their dad, and he seemed to tower over them all.

Scarlett was on the edge of the picture. It was taken just before she realized that, for her, longer hair just meant bigger hair and that there was a secret point just below the nape of her neck—the magical line past which her hair became a nightmare.

So she looked a bit wild in the picture, longish blonde curls blowing in all directions. Her braces had recently been removed, and her teeth still felt huge and strange in her mouth. She was wearing one of Lola’s old dresses (some things never changed), which was just a little too long on her. She was the only one not looking at the camera. She was turned halfway back toward the hotel, and the expression on her face clearly said, “Am I the only one seeing this?”

Because in the background, a man could plainly be seen stealing the lid of their trash can.

After the photo was taken, Scarlett reported the theft of the lid to her dad, who said, “It must have just gotten knocked off. No one steals trash can lids.” Which was a reasonable enough assumption, except that it was false—a fact he admitted when he saw the picture and said, “Oh yeah. I guess you were right.” They still had that trash can, and it still had no lid.

This photo used to hang proudly with the dozen or so others behind the front desk downstairs (the Martins liked photos), but Marlene had requested that it be taken down. She didn’t like people seeing her “bald pictures.” So it had been moved here, to the fifth floor. Scarlett didn’t think this was a crazy request. She had never liked having the picture downstairs, advertising to the world that you could steal stuff from the Hopewell, get your picture taken doing it, and almost be celebrated for your accomplishment.

What disturbed Scarlett about the photograph now, however, was the strange woman who was staring at it when she got home from school. She wasn’t a guest—they only had five right now, and all of them were male, in town for a business meeting about popcorn franchises. This woman was maybe about fifty and carried a small plastic bag from Macy’s in one hand, and a clump of tissues in the other. Scarlett had already had a painfully long week, and this wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to find on a Friday afternoon.

“Can I help you?” Scarlett asked nervously.

“He killed Sonny,” the woman said, poking at Spencer’s photo with the tissues.

Scarlett did a quick mental inventory. She could tell from the quiet that she was the only Martin on the floor. The woman was three doors away, past the bathroom and Marlene’s room and the Jazz Suite. Three doors was ample running room, and chances were, the woman had no idea which door the stairs were hidden behind. She could make it, easy. Escape, very possible.

Just to be safe, she did a second inventory, looking for any possible weapon she had that could fend off an attacker, but the only thing in sight was a pair of Marlene’s sneakers, which she had left in the hall by her door. Marlene’s sneakers were small and from Payless. Scarlett had a similar pair, and she had once tried to kill a roach with them and, after beating said roach with one, the roach quite literally shook itself off and walked away, almost with an audible laugh. The only other option was a pile of newspapers that someone, possibly her, was supposed to take down for recycling. Newspaper is a terrible weapon.

The woman turned to Scarlett with a genuinely confused expression.

“Why did he do it?” she asked. “Kill Sonny?”

“Because that’s what the script said?” Scarlett replied.

The woman sighed. She was clearly not going to cause any harm, but still. It is never good to find someone crying in your hall, poking your brother’s picture with tissues.

“How did you get up here?” Scarlett asked.

“One of the men downstairs let me in,” she said. “No one was around. I just walked around until I got up here and saw this picture. I read about this place online…”

“We live up here,” Scarlett said. “This is our house, this part.”

“Oh!” The woman looked genuinely contrite. “I didn’t know. It doesn’t say.”

“It usually doesn’t come up,” Scarlett said.

“This young man…is your brother?”

“Yes,” Scarlett said. “My older brother. And he’s nice. Not, you know, a killer. Just an actor.”

“I’m sure he is,” she said, though not very convincingly. “I just wanted to see him and ask him, and I found this hotel online, and I just wanted to ask him why. I loved Sonny. I’ve loved Sonny for fifteen years.”

“The guy is fine,” Scarlett said. “He just moved to LA.”

“Guy?”

“The actor,” Scarlett said.

The woman cocked her head in bafflement.

“The actor who played Sonny,” Scarlett said.

“I just want to know why…”

She started crying again.

“I was sick for a long time,” the woman said, dabbing her eyes. “I couldn’t do much. I used to watch Crime and Punishment a lot.”

“My sister used to be really sick, too,” Scarlett said, trying to show the woman she understood, even though she didn’t. “She used to watch a lot of TV. And I loved Sonny, too.”

“I felt like Sonny was always there. I could always depend on him. Now I don’t know what to do.”

“The spin-off is pretty good,” Scarlett said. “Crime and Punishment: First Degree?”

“I tried that,” she said, crying harder. “It’s not the show. It’s Sonny. I just don’t understand. I need to understand. Who would do this? What kind of person?”

Her intensity was making the hair on Scarlett’s arms stand on end.

“Let me show you something,” Scarlett said. “Wait right there…”

“How did you get rid of her?” Spencer asked.

He was the last to arrive and hadn’t quite gotten the full story as he was ushered into the living room for a family conference about the stranger. He sat on the floor on the side of the room, eating a container of Chinese food. Scarlett sat in the middle of the sofa, the others gathered around her. She was the witness. The unharmed victim.

“I showed her a picture of you in a dress from…whatever show that was where you had to wear a dress,” Scarlett said. “She didn’t think you were scary after that, and I convinced her that Sonny would want her to go.”

“I think I looked nice in the dress,” Spencer said, nodding. “I had really good hair, too.”

“You did,” Scarlett said. “But you also looked a little cheap.”

“I resent that. It was the fake boobs, right? I kind of couldn’t help that. I’m not exactly blessed in that department. Don’t judge me. And I could have gone bigger, but I said no…”

“Enough,” her dad said tiredly. “This is serious. There are a lot of weirdos out there, and they’ve clearly figured out where you live.”

Spencer fell silent and poked at the noodles, looking unhappily puzzled by whatever he saw in the depths of the container. Outside, the pigeons on the window ledge cooed soothingly.

“Sorry,” Spencer said. “They must have just traced it back to the articles about the show. And I talked to a reporter in the lobby the other day, but that article’s not out…”

“It’s not your fault,” their mom said. “We just need to rethink how we do things. It’s obviously not enough to lock the lobby door when no one’s at the desk. We’ll either have to make sure someone is sitting there around the clock…”

Scarlett heard her father groan lightly.

“…or we stop giving keys to guests. We have the buzzer wired up to this floor. We do something to keep people out.”

“But this is a hotel,” Lola said, stating the obvious. “We let people in for a living.”

“People who pay to stay here.”

“How do we know they won’t start coming just to see him?” Lola said, flicking a hand in Spencer’s direction.

“You say that like having guests is a bad thing,” Spencer said.

“It is if they’re insane.”

“Insane people have credit cards.”

“Why won’t you take anything seriously?” she snapped.

And then she left the room, followed closely by Marlene. Spencer sighed, pushed his chopsticks into the noodles, and set the container on the floor next to him as if he was setting down a great burden.

“It’s not your fault,” their mom said again. “We’ll figure something out. Lola’s just…”

“I know what Lola is.”

“Don’t start,” Scarlett’s dad said. “Okay? This isn’t the time.”

Spencer shook his head, picked up his food, and left the room without another word.

“The two of them,” her dad said tiredly. “What is it with the two of them? Always going after each other. I thought they’d stop doing that when they grew up.”

“They still have a little ways to go on the growing up thing,” her mom said. “Give them time.”

“They’re both technically adults now, scary as that is.” He shook his head and looked over at Scarlett. “When do you think they’ll stop fighting?”

“I’d give it until they’re forty,” Scarlett said.

The three Martin sisters were all in the Orchid Suite a half hour later—Scarlett attempting to do her homework while Lola tried to braid Marlene’s hair. Marlene was speculating a mile a minute about the freaks and psychos that were theoretically coming for them now, and all the things they might do to the hotel. They would try to burn it down. They would leave poisonous chemicals in the lobby. They would check in under assumed names and sneak around the hotel at night, killing them all, one by one. On the non-lethal side, she also thought they would release rats or pigeons into the hotel (or, as Scarlett thought, more rats and pigeons), they would leave bad reviews online (more bad reviews), and they would destroy the furniture (again, a redundant gesture). Lola listened, tight-lipped and silent. She would work the braids halfway, give up, and undo them and start over. Scarlett read the same passage from The Sun Also Rises six times, but it never sunk in.

Spencer waited about an hour before he knocked on the door and let himself in. Scarlett knew he would come eventually. He could never leave an argument with Lola hanging. He dropped himself down on Scarlett’s bed, next to her. He gave Lola a defiant look.

“You think this is my fault,” he said. This was a more tempered response than he normally gave, which made Scarlett think that he probably was blaming himself.

“This is your fault.”

“You can’t blame me for getting a job,” he replied.

“Yes, a normal job. But everything you do makes things crazy here. Crazy people wandering the fifth floor are bad. Your little sister getting hurt is bad.”

“No one hurt me,” Scarlett said. “Notice how I’m fine?”

“You think I’m okay with people hurting you guys?” Spencer asked, ignoring this.

“No. I just don’t think you think about consequences.”

“I don’t know what you want from me, Lo,” he said.

“I want something to be simple,” Lola said. “I want there not to be a problem. Your face is everywhere now. People know you live here.”

“Want me to move?” he said with a wry smile.

“I just want you to take some responsibility! We can’t change everything just because you want to be an actor.”

Marlene shifted forward, pulling her half-formed braids from Lola’s hands, her eyes round with anticipation. When Spencer and Lola fought, it happened fast.

“Guys,” Scarlett said quickly. “Don’t do this.”

“I don’t want to do this,” Lola said, her voice shaking. “Trust me. I’m sick of doing this.”

“So don’t,” Spencer replied with a shrug. “Lola, what’s your problem?”

“My problem is that your problems follow us everywhere! You get crazy people coming after you on the street, and Scarlett got caught in that. Now they come home, to work…”

“Those people who bothered you at work had nothing to do with Spencer,” Scarlett said. “They were Chip’s friends.”

Spencer had been fairly restrained up until that point, processing all the accusations that were flying in his direction. At the sound of the name Chip, however, a look of furious understanding passed over his face, and his calmness was gone.

“Oh,” he said. “Chip’s friends. Chip’s friends bother you and it’s my fault. It’s not your fault for dating someone like Chip. Who could blame you for dating a great guy like that?”

Scarlett had seen them fight before—plenty of times—but there was something about the way this particular fight was going that scared her. The barometric pressure in the room dropped suddenly. Marlene sensed it, too. She didn’t seem so eager to watch anymore.

“Lola,” Scarlett said, “it’s not that bad. That first day with the doughnuts wasn’t even…”

But Lola didn’t want to know what it wasn’t.

“Don’t!” she yelled. “You always side with him!”

“She’s not siding with me,” Spencer shot back. “What gets you mad is that I’m actually doing something I like, and you have no idea what you want to do. You always act a martyr because you gave up going to college. No one asked you to. You didn’t even try. But for some reason it’s my fault that you have no plan—I mean, aside from dating rich people.”

Spencer must have hit a nerve. Lola clutched at her phone and, for a second, Scarlett thought she was going to throw it at the wall, or even at Spencer. Instead, she just left the room.

“She’s going to run out of rooms to storm out of,” Spencer said. “We only have about fifteen more.”

The next morning, Scarlett was vaguely aware that Lola was moving around at a slightly earlier hour than normal, but these were not things she cared about much at five A.M. She rolled toward the wall and continued sleeping. When she woke, she found a note sitting on her alarm clock. She picked it up and squinted at it in the half light. It read:

I just need to take a few days away to think things over. I’m taking the early bus to Boston. (I’ll call Mom and Dad from the bus—don’t worry, you don’t have to tell them.) Not sure when I’ll be back. Keep an eye on Marlene for me, okay?

Love, Lo

Scarlett jumped out of bed and pushed open Lola’s closet door. Her little wheeled suitcase was gone. She immediately ran to Spencer’s room, because this sort of thing—a brazen, dumb move—was his department. It took a few knocks to rouse him, tousled, unshaven, and confused.

“Lola’s gone,” she said. “She went to Boston.”

Spencer left the door hanging open as an invitation to let her come in, then walked back to his bed and dropped himself on it face-first, bouncing as he hit.

“Uh-huh,” he mumbled from the pillow.

“She ran off in the middle of the night,” Scarlett said, standing over him shaking his shoulder. “She…ran away.”

Seeing that he wasn’t going to be able to escape this conversation, Spencer reluctantly pushed himself up and rubbed his eyes.

“It’s not a big deal,” he said. “She’s eighteen. She can handle a little road trip.”

“But this is Lola,” Scarlett said. “Lola doesn’t run away. And what about her job?”

“Let her go blow off some steam for a few days, lose another retail job. It’s not the end of the world. It’ll be fine.”

But Scarlett didn’t feel fine. She felt queasy. Lola wasn’t a creature of clockwork predictability, but there was a soothing rhythm to her actions, like a loose, flowing embroidery made of even, careful stitches.

“I don’t like it,” Scarlett said, shaking her head at the note. “I think there’s something wrong with her.”

“Look,” Spencer said, “everyone rebels. Lola’s way overdue. Going to Boston is nothing. I did way stupider things than that. One time, I went to Jersey to see a girl I’d never even met in person.”

“Jersey is a lot closer,” Scarlett said.

“Not when you go by bike. I didn’t have the twenty bucks for the train and it looked a lot closer on the map. FYI, it’s not close. Can you trust me on this one? She’ll be back in a few days to obsess about the towels and yell at me for whatever. This is actually a good thing. It shows she’s normal.”

“You’re sure?” Scarlett asked.

He flipped over on his side, toward the wall.

“Have I ever been wrong?” he replied.