Scarlett Fever (6 page)

And then she noticed the front page:
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, EPISODE 391, “CROSSFIRE.” SHOOTING COPY, DO NOT DUPLICATE
. There was another paper attached, a list of times and locations, and a name at the top:
SPENCER MARTIN
.

Demo version limitation

THAT SPECIAL SOMETHING

Scarlett showed up at the appointed time the next day, malice in her heart, and twenty-five of the promised fifty dollars in her pocket. Chelsea lived in an old building in the East Thirties. Not a massive, fancy one like Mrs. Amberson’s. A smaller one, with no doorman. The elevator was one of those ridiculously small ones that only held two people. The hall was dark, and there were only three doors. One had been left ajar, and Scarlett pushed it open, feeling it make cushy contact with what must have been a bunch of coats hanging on the wall behind.

“Is that Scarlett?” Mrs. Biggs said. “Come in!”

Scarlett stepped into a tiny hallway, which was halved in size by all the coats. The living room was absolutely packed, every inch of space used to death. There was a full-size sofa, bookshelves, a set of drawers, a crowded console with the television and stereo equipment, stacks of DVDs of musicals, and books on acting. The space around it was taken up by an electronic keyboard, an exercise ball, free weights, and piles of music. It seemed like an excessive amount of activity went on in here—a lot of living.

Mrs. Biggs was sitting at a tiny table over by the kitchen alcove, doing something on a computer. She was wearing the dress that Scarlett had seen Chelsea in when they met. It also fit her perfectly. She and Chelsea were almost identical in size.

“Chelsea will be home in a minute,” she said, waving Scarlett to the sofa without even looking up. “Give me just a second. Chelsea got two fan mail letters today. I’m just answering them. Have a seat.”

The sofa was crowded at one end with piled blankets and pillows and clothes. There was a strong plug-in air freshener at the end of the sofa—a sickly one that was probably supposed to smell like clean linen but smelled more like sticky, floral bleach. The scent rang a bell in Scarlett’s mind. She knew it.

This was Max’s
bed.
Max trailed that air freshener smell all day.
That’s
what it was.

Scarlett quickly turned herself away from the sofa she was about to sit on and made a circuit around the room instead, pretending to take an interest in the things on the walls. There was a clear theme in the decorating scheme, and that theme was Chelsea. Somewhere in Scarlett’s mind, where things she didn’t know she was thinking were being thought, this had been expected. It seemed like every inch of wall space was encrusted with a show poster or a photo. There was no sign of Max except for the pile of clothes and bedding. It was like some kind of nature documentary, where you had to hunt for evidence that the animal had a den nearby.

Miranda noticed that Scarlett hadn’t sat, then looked over and saw why.

“Oh sorry,” she said, nodding at the pile in annoyance. “I tell Max to put his things away when he wakes up, but he never does.”

To be fair to Max, which was something Scarlett didn’t really feel like being, there didn’t seem to be anywhere for his stuff to go. This apartment was full. It would have been a tight fit for one person, or one really close couple. Three people—three people who needed their own space—that was impossible. Living like this would have made her insane.

Scarlett stood there uncomfortably while Mrs. Biggs typed. It was weird enough being invited here—but stranger still to be ignored once she arrived. As someone raised in the hospitality industry, Scarlett disapproved of this.

“There,” Miranda said, finishing up and shutting the computer. “So…I thought it might be nice for Chelsea to talk to you some more…and Max. We’re new to the city, so we don’t know many…Chelsea’s busy with the show, and Max doesn’t…”

None of those sentences were complete, but Scarlett grasped the missing concept. They don’t have
friends.
Friends, luckily, were something that Scarlett never felt short of. She might not have studied dance for a dozen years or been in a commercial or a Broadway show…but she had people she could call at one in the morning.

“So,” Miranda said, getting up and stepping into the kitchen, “was school good?”

When normal adults asked this question, Scarlett would move through a rote response indicating that school was school and the experience had yet to kill her. But Miranda Biggs didn’t ask innocent, polite questions. She wanted to know about Max. Of that, Scarlett was sure, and she wasn’t going to tell. Scarlett decided that she would talk about absolutely everything else, much more than she wanted to know. She walked Miranda through periods one through seven, everything but Bio. Scarlett listened to the impatient thwack of vegetables being chopped.

“Right,” Miranda said, her voice barely concealing her impatience, “but don’t you and Max have a class together? Biology?”

“Oh,” Scarlett said as if just remembering this. “Yeah.”

“And how’s that?”

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Well,” Scarlett said, “it’s just been a few days.”

More dismemberment of vegetables. Scarlett smiled to herself.

There was a jangle of keys, and Chelsea appeared. Her hair was back in two chunky little braids, and she wore a sleek exercise outfit. She was makeup-free, but had flushed little apple cheeks, fresh from a workout of some kind.

“Oh hi!” she chirped. “Just had to meet my trainer for a session.”

“Good,” Miranda said. “You’re here. I have to go out and get more broccoli. Did you do free weights?”

“No. I think I pulled something in my neck. Derrick told me I’d better not push it or I might have trouble during the show tonight.”

“I know the muscle mass is making your weight go up a little, but as long as we balance out the rest…”

“He’s checking every day,” Chelsea said. “I’ve gained five pounds, but I’m obviously leaner.”

“As long as he’s checking.”

On that unpleasant note, Miranda left to get her broccoli, and Chelsea excused herself to take a shower. Scarlett finally took a seat on the sofa and stared at the piles of Max’s things.

Chelsea was a quick showerer. She was back in a few minutes, wrapped in a towel.

“One sec,” she said, disappearing into what Scarlett presumed was her bedroom to change. It looked like there were two bedrooms in this apartment—one for Chelsea, and one for Chelsea’s mom.

“Must be kind of hard,” Scarlett said. “All three of you in here.”

“Oh, you have
no
idea.” Chelsea emerged, dressed in a nearly identical set of exercise clothes. Scarlett had a feeling that if she looked through Chelsea’s drawers, she would find a dozen of these uniforms. “Max sleeps in here, which is why his stuff is everywhere. It’s a pain for him to be in the living room, but in a way, he has the most space.”

She shrugged away his lack of privacy as if it simply could not be helped, and sat down next to Scarlett to put on her sneakers.

“We’re supposed to be getting a bigger place sometime,” she said. “But we can’t afford it right now. Everything here is so insanely expensive! He didn’t want to move, and he doesn’t need to be here like I do. But my mom was obsessed with getting him into a school in Manhattan.”

“We’re lab partners now. He sits next to me.”

“Be careful,” Chelsea said. “He cheats.”

“That’s what he said. I thought he was kidding.”

“It’s true. He does. He’s really lazy, and he’ll try to get you to help him. Don’t let him take advantage. I’m not going to mind,
trust
me. I don’t even know why my mom dragged him to New York. He should have stayed at home.”

“Where is home?”

“Binghamton. A few hours away. Our house is there, and my dad.”

“Your parents are still married?” Scarlett asked. Scarlett had assumed that there was no Mr. Biggs, that Mrs. Biggs had divorced and taken her kids to the city. As soon as she said this, though, she realized that sounded kind of bad. But Chelsea just laughed.

“Oh yeah. My parents are just…they’re fine. I don’t think it matters to them if they see each other very often. I think my dad likes having the house all to himself. We live on a golf course. He manages the place. He can just golf whenever he wants now. That’s like his
dream
.”

Mrs. Biggs returned with a shopping bag and Max in tow. He looked absolutely appalled to see Scarlett in his living room. She would have warned him in advance, but he hadn’t shown for Bio that day, which had been a pleasant surprise. A totally Max-free day would have been better still, but life doesn’t give you everything you ask for.

“Scarlett’s here for dinner,” Mrs. Biggs said.

Max grunted what Scarlett assumed was some kind of insult and dropped his bag in the center of the room.

“Not there, Max!” his mom called. “Someone will trip!”

“Who?” he asked, kicking it aside.

“I’m just making chicken and vegetables,” she said, ignoring this remark and addressing Scarlett. “I don’t like…weird food. I don’t like spices and things.”

What Miranda Biggs didn’t like, it seemed, was flavor of any kind. She steamed some broccoli until it was anemic, piled some lettuce with no dressing, and plopped down a baked, dry chicken breast. This was served up at a tiny table really only made for two people. Max sat down at the table without bothering to remove the earbuds from his ears. Sound dribbled from his head.

“I have some low-fat salad dressing spray,” Mrs. Biggs said. “Max, turn that off!”

Max couldn’t hear her, on account of the earbuds. She pulled one of them loose. Then she reached around to the refrigerator without even getting up and retrieved a spray bottle of low-fat dressing, as promised.

“Your brother went to the High School of Performing Arts, right?” Chelsea asked.

“Right.”

“But you don’t have the acting bug?”

“No,” Scarlett said.

“So what do you
do
?”

Max was clearly paying some kind of attention, because Scarlett saw him looking over at her at this.

“I…go to school…”

She was answering this question like a five-year-old.
I go to school.
Genius. What else did she do? She tied her shoes. She liked kittens.

“Yeah,” Chelsea said sympathetically, as if she knew this answer was exactly as pathetic as Scarlett feared. “You have to feel it. It has to be in you. And, you’re, you know, an agent. Or something.”

Max let out an audible sigh, grabbed the salad dressing, and sprayed everything on his plate until it had a high sheen.

“You need to be a special kind of person to be a star,” Mrs. Biggs said, slicing her chicken breast with a vigor usually reserved for the severing of human heads from still-struggling bodies. “It doesn’t just
happen.
It’s about talent, and it’s about focus. Chelsea’s been working toward her goal all her life. Sure, there are people who work just as hard, but if they don’t have the special something, then they aren’t going to make it. Chelsea has both.”

Max’s eyes fluttered slightly closed.

“Max is the academic one,” Mrs. Biggs said, remembering her other child at the table. “He gets by on just brains.”

“And the blood of virgins…” he said, drifting into the conversation.

“Don’t use that language at the table,” Mrs. Biggs snapped.

“English?”

Mrs. Biggs just looked up tiredly.

“That’s
not
what Max gets by on,” Chelsea said under her breath.

It was so strange being the outsider to all these little barbs and understandings. Scarlett suddenly had a lot of sympathy for people like…well, Eric and Chip…who had sat in the middle of six Martins at the dinner table and tried to keep up.

“I have to get home,” she said, the moment Mrs. Biggs stood to yank the plates away. “But thanks…”

“You should come again!” Chelsea said. “Anytime you want.”

Just when Scarlett thought she’d made her escape and was halfway down the steps, she heard a creak above her. Max was following her down.

“So,” he called down the stairwell, “you’re dating my sister now, huh? Or was that just you being a good lackey?”

“My boss gave me fifty bucks,” Scarlett answered honestly. “Next time? I’m going to ask her for double.”

For the first time, Scarlett heard Max laugh. If she had been guessing, she would have thought his laugh would sound like a mancackle, or something like the squawk of a dying bird. But it was a full, round sound. Not unlike an actor laugh—from the belly, full of voice. The largeness and humanness seemed to startle them both, and he turned and went back up.

As Scarlett walked back to the Hopewell, she saw Spencer’s bike still leaning against the stop sign invitingly. Someone had put a half-eaten hamburger on the seat, but still, no one had made the effort to take it. Upstairs, it was very quiet. The pigeons were cooing and resting on the outside of Scarlett’s air conditioner, their tiny feet tapping on the metal. She looked through her homework list—three paragraphs of French, thirty-five Trigonometry problems, five chapters of
Great Expectations
to read, one chapter of Biology with six end-of-chapter questions to answer, and five articles on the government of Pakistan to find, digest, and summarize. She decided the articles were a good place to start, but once she got online, she ended up reading all of her messages and watching Eric’s commercial seven times, closing down the window after each viewing and telling herself that she
would not
reopen it. Then she would go looking for articles for five minutes, but find her mind dragging her back to the commercial for one more look.

She slammed the computer shut and faced the silence. And in the silence, a question came. Another creeping question. The question the Biggses had put there:
What was she going to do with her life?
She’d never felt a pressing need to answer this question before now. She was fifteen. She wouldn’t have to choose a college or decide on a major for at least two more years. But still…there were classes to pick now. There were skills to pick up. Everyone else did things. It wasn’t just Chelsea who had trained since she was just a small cellular life-form. Almost all of her friends were developing some kind of special skill. And it wasn’t just a question of who she was and how much money they had—after all, Spencer had become an actor. Sure, he was just kind of born that way, but he had also taught himself many, many things. He always had a mission. Marlene had…well, cancer. But that had weirdly provided her with a social life and maybe some kind of perspective. And she was eleven, so who cared?