Scarlett Fever

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ACT IV

Gothammag.com

THE MOST HATED MAN IN NEW YORK

When I meet Spencer Martin in the lobby of his family’s small Upper East Side hotel, he’s doing a handstand. A slightly younger girl with wild blonde curls stands next to him. From upside-down, he asks me to wait just a moment over by the desk.

“Remember,” he says to the girl, “go slow.”

The girl lifts her foot, and pauses.

“You’ve got it,” he says, shifting his weight from arm to arm, steadying himself. “Don’t worry. What’s the worst that can happen?”

I’m about to ask what’s going on when the girl swings her leg back and appears to kick Martin directly in the face. I’m not sure what to do—call for help, call the police, or join her. Right now, a lot of people around New York think kicking Spencer Martin in the face is a very, very good idea.

Martin comes crashing to the floor, landing with a loud smack, sprawled in all directions. I’ve just decided that the correct thing to do is come to his aid, when he sits up.

“I think that works,” he says, getting off the floor, completely uninjured. He puts an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “This is Scarlett. She’s my sister. She’s still mad at me for shooting Sonny.”

This is all the explanation I get for the scene I’ve just witnessed.

Unlike the intense, sneering character he plays on television, Martin is the picture of affability. On screen, he looks gaunt, with piercing eyes. In person, he is tall and slender, his eyes bright and friendly. Martin, 19, is a recent graduate of the High School of Performing Arts. Right before he was cast on Crime and Punishment, he was your typical young New York actor—working a day job as a waiter, doing small productions at night. He is eager to please, maybe to offset the negative reaction many people have had to his character.

Though he lives in a hotel, Martin is quick to point out that he isn’t exactly a Hilton—his getting a part on television has nothing to do with privilege. A quick look around the lobby, where we sit down to talk, confirms his story. There are threadbare patches on the arms of the chairs and the floorboards are uneven. The phone never rings, and no one comes through the front door. No, the Hiltons they are not.

“I spent most of the summer doing Hamlet in that room right there,” Martin says, pointing at the dining room. “On a unicycle.”

A unicycle? Hamlet? In the hotel?

“It was kind of a carnival, old movie setting,” he explains. “We had to do the show here because…well, that’s a long story. But we were sort of the goofballs of the show. I’ve run into that dining room door headfirst more times than I can count.”

Martin explains that his part on Crime and Punishment was supposed to be a small one—a one-off episode. But when the script was changed to accommodate the departure of Donald Purchase, he found himself thrust into the spotlight.

So, how does it feel to be the most hated man in New York?

“I don’t know,” he says. “Kind of weird? Very weird? I like doing this part, but…people seem really upset about what happened. It’s just a show…”

But for many, Crime and Punishment isn’t just a show—and the characters aren’t just people on TV. They’re old friends. And Sonny Lavinski was the oldest friend of all. I’ve read enough reports of people attacking Martin in the street, throwing food at him, to know this must be an ongoing issue for him. Would he still take the part, even knowing what would happen?

“Sure,” he says, without hesitation. “I’m an actor. I have to take work when I can get it.”

Does he worry that he’ll be typecast? That he might not work again because people will always associate him with this odious role? That maybe he’s done a little too well?

For the first time since I’ve met him, Martin’s features cloud over, his cheeks hollow a bit, and I see just the smallest hint of the darkness of his character.

“You think?” he asks.





THE WORST OF TIMES

All of the rooms in the Hopewell Hotel were called suites, even though they were single rooms, and a suite by definition is a series of rooms. It had always been this way. When the hotel was given its very expensive makeover in 1929, this lie was physically manifested in the form of a hand-engraved brass sign on every door, edged in a Deco lightning-bolt motif.

No one ever complained about the non-suiteness of a Hopewell room. They complained about other things, like broken televisions, or squeaky old bed frames, or the damp in the walls. Or incidents like that time two years ago when a pigeon got into the Sterling Suite when it had been vacant for a while and the window was left open to air the room. The pigeon nested in one of the wall sconces, a fact that remained undiscovered until the guest turned on the light and the enraged pigeon flew out, much like the proverbial bat from hell, and started flapping around the room. Smoke started billowing out of the wall. Within seconds, the Sterling Suite was a scene from a horror film.

When those are your problems, no one gets crazy about semantics.

Everything over the next few days had a similar air of hazy definition and disaster. Whatever had happened was called a wedding, but it didn’t feel like one. Not that Scarlett had any real frame of reference for how weddings were supposed to be. She had never attended one, never developed any particular fascination for them, harbored no particular like or dislike of any kind. But she didn’t think they were supposed to be like this. They weren’t supposed to be secret, unseen events where the aftermath looks a lot like the before except everyone is gloomy and tense all the time, like they’ve just heard that there’s been an outbreak of plague in the town upstream.

Chip and Lola took up temporary residence in the swanky Peninsula Hotel. They made a brief appearance on Sunday afternoon, during which they both looked very stressed-out. Monday arrived just like it always did, creeping in during the night like the neighbor’s cat, come to illicitly drop dead mice by the bedside. Scarlett opened her eyes and saw Lola’s empty bed, instantly remembering what a few hours of sleep had blanked away. She looked at the clock. Six A.M. She had another half hour of sleep to go, but something had woken her.

It was a hand, shaking her very gently. Lola’s hand, specifically. Lola was sitting on the other side of Scarlett’s bed, facing the windows. She had pulled her hair up into a twist so severely that it was pulling at the skin around her face.

“When did you get here?” Scarlett asked groggily.

“A few minutes ago. But we’re all having breakfast together.”

“What, now?”

“Half an hour. You get ready for school. I have to go wake up Marlene.”

An unpleasant breakfast of burned bacon and undercooked pancakes was spread out over two of the small dining room tables. It looked like no one had slept well, and the sight in front of them wasn’t helping. Spencer slumped in his seat, his hair still soaking wet from his shower, a faint trace of stubble around his jaw. Scarlett’s father was wearing one of his thrift store cowboy shirts again—a subdued black one with white piping—but he had misbuttoned it. Scarlett’s mom’s curls were as frazzled as her own for once, and she was furiously passing around the wet pancakes, trying to nudge Marlene into eating.

“What brought you back?” Spencer asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon or something?”

“I’m back to work,” Lola said. “Towels don’t fold themselves. No honeymoon, at least for a while. There’s a lot going on.”

Spencer laughed mirthlessly to himself and shoved a piece of badly burned bacon into his mouth.

“How long are you staying at the Peninsula?” Scarlett asked.

“A few more days,” Lola replied. “Just while we get everything…settled. Then Chip has to go back to school. He’s already missed a lot of classes.”

“You can always come and stay here,” her dad said a bit hesitantly. “You can have the Empire Suite.”

“I think we need…some space.”

“You mean there’s no way in hell Chip is going to come and stay here,” Spencer said. “It’s not really his standard of living.”

“Chip would be very happy to stay here,” Lola replied. “But I didn’t think you would appreciate having to live with him.”

“Good call,” Spencer said. He pushed himself away from the table. “Scarlett, if you want a ride, the car will be here in five minutes.”

“It’s okay,” Scarlett said, looking out at the gray sky. “I’ll walk.”

Scarlett cut across Central Park and made her meandering, diagonal way up the forty blocks past the joggers and the dog walkers and the moms with the big strollers. She had dressed carelessly, throwing on a pink shirt and an old blue skirt of Lola’s that didn’t really fit her right. It was a horrible day, too. Cloudy, but refusing to rain. Just gray, gray, gray. The leaves were just starting to shrivel and detach apathetically from the trees. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she was late.

Scarlett stopped at the park gate and looked across the street. Frances Perkins looked like the big red loony bin more than ever. Today would be terrible. She would tank on her International Politics quiz. Her French homework was half-baked.

What she needed to do…was skip. Just walk away from school. You can’t lose if you don’t play.

But skipping—that wasn’t in her. She was programmed to obey. Scarlett staggered into the building. The computer screens in the hall seemed too bright, and had too much information on them—this activity was being moved to a new room, this class had completed such and such a project, the jazz band was performing at fourth period lunch if anyone wanted to go. The day went every bit as badly as Scarlett suspected, and she developed a massive headache in third period that never went away. But Biology brought the worst news of all. She blinked and stared in front of her, at the word EXAM written on the board.

“If you’ve had a good look at the syllabus,” Ms. Fitzweld said, “you’ll see that your grade is based on five exams over the course of the year, and the first of these will be next Monday.”

“I hope you study,” Max said, leaning close. “I always try to sit next to a winner. There’s no point in cheating otherwise.”

“Max,” Scarlett said calmly, “I swear to God, I’ll kill you if you don’t shut up right now. I will kill you dead.”

“You just violated the no-tolerance violence policy in a huge way.”

“It’ll be worse when I put my pen in your eye.”

Surprisingly, he backed off. But she could feel him watching her the whole period.

“Oh, Martin,” Dakota said, putting a hand on her shoulder after class. “You are structurally unsound right now. I have some of those big chocolate chip cookies from Fairway. Here.”

It was like she was six years old all of a sudden. But Dakota was right. This is what she needed. She took a big bite of the cookie, feeling the warm chocolate smudge around her mouth.

“Married,” she said, spitting crumbs by accident as she walked down the hall. “Married? What does that even mean?”

“Some people get married at eighteen,” Dakota offered. “I mean, no one I know, but people do. People used to do it all the time.”

“She doesn’t even like him that much! She broke up with him a few months ago. She’s just bored. You don’t get married when you’re eighteen because you’re bored.”

Scarlett ate the rest of the cookie in three angry bites.

“She can undo it,” Dakota said after a moment. “It’s not like it’s forever.”

“It’s kind of forever,” Scarlett replied. “She said she’s not going to, you know, get divorced.”

“She’s saying that now. She’s only been married for five minutes. Once they realize what they’ve done…”

“Once they realize what they’ve done, Lola will be rich. She probably already is.”

Scarlett said it without even meaning to. It just came out of her mouth, a total surprise, like a frog had just sprung forth.

“There is that,” Dakota said quietly. “Do you think that…that Lola…”

“Married for the money?” Scarlett said unhappily. The words hurt. She didn’t even want them out in the universe. “No, but…I can’t think of why else she’d do it, either.”

Being a good friend, Dakota just left that alone. But it was there, the only possibility left standing in Scarlett’s mind.

“Well,” Scarlett said, leaning against her locker, feeling the metal give gently against her weight, “at least you’ll be happy about one thing. I almost went to Chelsea’s show with Eric. But then all this happened, and I never called him.”

“You’re right. That is a good thing.”

“And I guess it makes me seem all aloof and over it, right?” Scarlett added, trying to smile. “That’s supposed to make you more attractive to guys, when you don’t seem to care. They like a little abuse.”

“We love it. We need a spanking.”

That was from Max, who was heading for his usual music room by Scarlett’s locker. He had stopped a few feet off to unabashedly listen to the conversation. Dakota reeled around on him.

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“Don’t ask him that,” Scarlett said. “He doesn’t mind.”

“What she said.” Max nodded at Scarlett.

“Go. Away,” Dakota told him. “I am not kidding. She is not okay right now.”

Max obeyed this time, perhaps a little too quickly.

“See?” Dakota said. “You just need to use a little force with him. Now come to my house. We’re going to watch TV.”

“I’m not always going to be like this,” Scarlett said. “I’ve been useful to you, right?”

“Many times,” Dakota said, leading her along. “Sometimes, we all get a little broken.”

A little broken. Scarlett wondered about that. At what point do you get so broken that it’s time to just get thrown away? She had a feeling she was going to find out.





THE DOTTED LINE

Mrs. Amberson had told Scarlett she didn’t have to come in that week, but going there was better than sitting around at home. She preferred going through the submissions and organizing the file of theater reviews to the yawning silences of the fifth floor. She decided to stop in on the way home from Dakota’s. The intense reporting of her movements had loosened slightly in the last few days. It was a minor benefit in an otherwise untenable situation.

Murray the doorman was in extra fine form, poised at his station, eating one of the biggest sandwiches Scarlett had ever seen.

“Hey!” he said. “That dog of yours made a mess again down here today!”

“I told you,” Scarlett said, “he is not my dog.”

“You gotta do something about…”

Scarlett felt like every capillary in her face had just gotten the go code. She could actually feel the blood filtering into her skin. Someone had to be punished today, and that person was going to be Murray the doorman.

“What part of not my dog do you not understand?” she asked. “What’s the stumbling block? Is it the not? Is it the dog? Is it the sentence? The dog does not belong to me. He doesn’t even belong to my boss. He’s a borrowed dog, and he has issues!”

Murray made a disapproving sound, slapped down his sandwich, and picked up the receiver to tell Mrs. Amberson that her psychotic assistant was on the way up. Scarlett felt bad enough to stalk away with her head down, not looking back as she turned the corner to go to the elevator bank. She rested her head against the mirrored tiles above the buttons and looked at her face in extreme close-up. Her pores looked huge, her eyes red, and her hair broken and crazy. She didn’t like mirror-Scarlett. She didn’t like the Scarlett she was in, either. Or anyone else, for that matter.

“Did you just yell at the gatekeeper?” Mrs. Amberson asked, curious, when Scarlett let herself in. She was sitting on one of the white sofas, sucking on a piece of dried mango and scanning a copy of Variety. “He called up here sounding very hurt. Remind me to give you a raise.”

“He keeps asking about the dog,” Scarlett said, walking past her and going right to her desk.

“Are you all right, O’Hara?” Mrs. Amberson said, looking over in interest.

“It’s nothing,” Scarlett said. She grabbed for the first of the pile of envelopes to be opened and sorted. She tore it viciously, ripping the headshot contained inside. Some actress. Another starry stare and whitened, eager-to-please smile. The world was full of them.

“O’Hara…”

Scarlett clawed the next envelope from the stack. Where did they all come from, these idiots who wanted to work with them? There had to be a hundred more today.

“O’Hara. Leave those for a moment. Come sit over here.”

“I need to get these done.”

“They can wait.”

Scarlett dropped the envelopes and came and sat opposite Mrs. Amberson, sinking deep into the plush sofa.

“You’re having a hard day,” Mrs. Amberson said. “You didn’t have to come in today, you know. I know it’s not the easiest time right now.”

“I’m fine,” Scarlett said, staring at the carpet.

“Lies are a tremendous karmic setback. Keep it up and you’ll come back in the next life as something without a spine. You’re not fine. And you don’t have to be fine. This move of your sister’s…it’s a shock.”

“I don’t understand anyone,” Scarlett mumbled. She felt her eyes filling up, but blotted any tears away with her thumbs.

Mrs. Amberson thought for a moment before speaking, which was a little bit frightening.

“O’Hara,” she finally said, “I speak from long experience—when it comes to romance, all bets are off. I like to think that I’m a sensible person, but I’ve done some extraordinary things for love. And even the things that didn’t work out, I don’t regret.”

“Are you actually married?” Scarlett asked.

“Oh, let’s not tell folktales right now,” Mrs. Amberson said. “My point is, the only way we learn anything is by taking chances. I can’t really explain what Lola’s done, or why, or say if it’s a good idea or bad. Nothing in this world is black or white.”

“What do I do?” Scarlett asked.

“Well,” Mrs. Amberson said. “You can’t control other people. They’re going to do things you don’t like, that you don’t agree with, that you don’t understand. But, by the same token, they cannot control you. You’re stuck in this situation. You have to decide what outcome you want. What do you want, right now?”

“I want my sister,” she said. “I don’t want to…lose my sister.”

“How could you lose her?”

“She’s gone,” Scarlett said. “She’s living at the Peninsula, and I don’t even know what’s going on with her or what she’s going to do, and…”

“Do you think your sister wants to lose you?” Mrs. Amberson asked.

“No.”

“Have you spoken to her? Called her?”

No, Scarlett had not called her. She’d been too angry.

“The answer seems simple enough,” Mrs. Amberson said. “I know you are more than capable of being direct. Go to your sister and tell her you do not want to lose her. Find out what is going on. Go do it now. Get to the bottom of it before it becomes a much bigger problem. And I know Lola. She undoubtedly wants to talk to you.”

Murray came along the edge of the sofa, sniffing a trail on the floor. He wriggled his pencil-thin stump of a tail nervously at her, in a little show of encouragement.

Lola answered on the first ring.

“Are you talking to me?” she asked.

“I called.”

“I’m at work right now,” she said. “But can we talk? Or meet?”

“You’re at work?” Scarlett asked.

“I work on Wednesdays. But I get a break soon. Can we meet at the park? Southeast corner, by the book stands? In an hour?”

Lola appeared right on time, wearing a little black skirt and blue Bubble Spa T-shirt. She approached Scarlett cautiously.

“You’re still working?” Scarlett asked. “Even after…”

“Sure,” Lola said. “I had to cover for those few days, though. I had the flu, remember?”

It was so odd. Scarlett and Lola had shared a room all their lives. Lola’s presence was just something she took for granted. This looked like Lola as usual, in her black skirt and blue Bubble Spa T-shirt, her fine blonde hair looped back in an attractive knot. But everything had changed. There was a space between them that was hard to cross.

“I’m glad you’re still talking to me,” Lola said. “You’re the only one.”

Scarlett could only shrug.

“Marlene was doing so much better,” Lola continued. “And Spencer…I know that a lot of times it seems like we don’t get along, but it’s just…I don’t know. He frustrates me sometimes. We’re just so different. But I’m so proud of him. Spencer’s on TV. My big brother. I always thought that was impossible, but there he is. And he’s so good.”

That was maybe the biggest compliment Lola had ever paid Spencer, and he was nowhere around to hear it.

“I didn’t think it would be like this,” Lola said. “I knew people would be a little shocked, but I didn’t expect Marlene to react like that. Or even Spencer. Mom and Dad look heartbroken. I don’t want everyone to be upset because of me. I’m going to make it up to everyone. It’s going to be fine.”

“I need to know something,” Scarlett said. “I need you to tell me the truth.”

Lola looked over cautiously, but she nodded. She guided Scarlett to a bench and they both sat down. Scarlett had to take a deep breath before asking the question.

“I need to know if you married him for the money. Because you thought we needed it, or…just to be…secure.”

“That’s what everyone thinks?” Lola asked quietly.

“I don’t know what anyone thinks. I don’t even know what I think. I mean, you get married, you move into one of the most expensive hotels in the city…”

Lola flipped over the edge of her skirt and examined the hem.

“Let me tell you something about the money,” she said. “But I don’t want anyone else to know. You have to keep this a secret. Do you promise?”

Scarlett nodded.

“The Sutcliffes aren’t paying for the hotel,” she said.

“Then who is?” Scarlett asked.

“A friend of their family. The Sutcliffes…cut Chip off. All of his money has been locked up. His credit cards have been stopped. Even his tuition bill won’t be paid. Right now, we have nothing.”

Scarlett just shook her head in confusion. The idea of Chip not having money was…well, that idea didn’t compute. Chip was money. There seemed little else to look at.

“The only way we can fix it,” Lola said, “is if I sign a postnuptial agreement that says I have no claim to any of the Sutcliffe money. They brought in a lawyer and everything. If I sign it, they’ll recognize the marriage by throwing us a party and announcing it. And they set up an account for me. Mrs. Sutcliffe keeps calling it a ‘household account.’ A credit card and a few thousand a month for whatever I need, plus credit at shops for buying things for our new apartment.”

“You mean, like an allowance?” Scarlett asked. “A really big allowance?”

“I didn’t ask for it,” Lola said. “The lawyer just read it off as part of the deal. I told them I didn’t want that, but they just said it was all part of the package. What they really mean is if I’m going to be their daughter-in-law I have to live up to a certain standard. They’re afraid I’m using him, but I’m not. I didn’t do this for money.”

“Why did you marry him?” Scarlett asked.

“It wasn’t…enough.” Lola’s voice wobbled uncertainly. “I just needed…I wanted something real. Something that worked. And I know you don’t believe this, but Chip and I work. I know I’m young, I know all of that. It doesn’t mean I don’t know what I want. You have to understand, the money is just a side benefit.”

“You’re telling me that if Chip wasn’t Chip Sutcliffe you’d marry him anyway? If he didn’t live in a huge apartment on Park Avenue? If he didn’t have a car and a driver, if he couldn’t buy you expensive stuff?”

“It’s all part of who he is,” Lola said, shrugging. “He can’t help that. That’s not why I like him.”

“So then sign the paper,” Scarlett said, shrugging.

On this, Lola got very animated.

“I wanted to! I said I would sign it. I had the pen in my hand. Chip stopped me.”

“Why?”

“Because he didn’t want me to feel second-rate,” Lola said. “He wants his family to accept me, totally. And if they don’t, he’s prepared, you know…for what comes. He’s prepared to let them take it all away. He’s for real, Scarlett.”

That did sound genuine. Scarlett had never doubted Chip’s intentions. She had only doubted Lola’s.

“Yeah, but…” Scarlett hated doing this to Lola, but it had to be said. “He hasn’t felt it yet. He still has lots of nice stuff. He hasn’t been kicked out of school yet. So, he can say now that he’s fine with it, but how is that really going to be for him, when he has no money?”

“I know,” Lola said. “I thought about that. The worst part wouldn’t be the money, but his parents rejecting us. He feels rejected a lot. Like by Spencer. And, well, kind of by you. You don’t get it, Scarlett. His family is a mess. He’s always been jealous of us. We all get along, more or less. We all like each other. He’s never had that. He’d love to be a part of it, but no one will let him in. Except Marlene, and I think she just likes the boat.”

This was all too big for Scarlett. They sat in silence for a moment, watching the squirrels run by, and the owners getting tugged along by their dogs, and the nannies pushing the strollers. It was getting cold. Scarlett shivered. She should have been wearing her coat, but she had gone out in a thin jacket. Cold and confused.

“So what do I do?” Lola asked. “Do I do what Chip wants? If I refuse to sign, everyone’s just going to think I want money. Or do I just go and sign it? Chip will be mad, but at least everyone else will be happy, and things might actually go back to something like normal. I don’t know what to do.”

“What’s more important?” Scarlett heard herself say. “Taking this stand that just makes you look like you’re after money, or proving that you’re not?”

“I want to prove that I’m not,” Lola said.

“So go and sign the paper.”

“He’d be really upset, Scarlett.”

“Do you have to tell him?” Scarlett asked. “You could sign and you could tell them not to tell Chip. That way, they see you don’t care about money, and Chip thinks they just changed their minds.” Lola cocked her head. Obviously, this option had not occurred to her. Lola was just too fundamentally and plainly honest. Unlike Scarlett, apparently.

“You mean lie to him?” Lola asked.

“No, not lie. Just don’t tell…” Scarlett stopped herself. She had been down this road before and knew better. “Yes, lie.”

“But this is…the foundation of our marriage.”

“No it isn’t. It’s something dumb the Sutcliffes are doing, and Chip is just mad. Tell him later, when everything has calmed down. Everyone is just freaking out right now. Someone…has to be calm.”

She had no idea what she was saying now. Words were just coming out of her mouth. But Lola seemed interested in the words. She was nodding.

“You’re right,” she said. “Everyone’s too upset right now. Someone has to do something sensible. Chip probably won’t even care in a few months. I could just go and sign the paper, and everyone would calm down.”

“If you want,” Scarlett said, backtracking a little. “I mean, I have no idea about any of this. I’m an idiot.”

The idea, now seeded, had quickly taken root in Lola’s mind.

“I have to show them that I’m not after the money,” she said, mostly to herself. “Chip needs to go back to school. You’re right…I didn’t even think of it, but you’re right.”

The more she was told that she was right, the more Scarlett wanted to distance herself from the idea. All she’d really said was, “People are crazy. Why don’t you lie to them?”

“I need to prove it to everyone,” Lola said, turning to look at Scarlett straight on. “Especially you. This isn’t about money. You’re the only one who knows the specifics, but…I’m glad you know.”

She took Scarlett’s hand and squeezed it. “Do you hate me?” she asked.

“What? No. I…No.”

Scarlett’s eyes were welling up, and so were Lola’s.

“I’ll always remember you did this for me,” Lola said. “Always.”

And there was such a moment of sisterly bonding, such genuine gladness that she was there with Lola and they clearly loved each other, that Scarlett decided not to think about the fact that this was probably true. Lola would never forget, and Scarlett had absolutely no idea what she had just done.