Scarlett Fever

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A PLAGUE OF ACTORS

“Isn’t she a gem?” Mrs. Amberson asked on the cab ride back.

“Yeah,” Scarlett said under her breath. “She’s the Hope Diamond. Isn’t that the one that kills you?”

“I heard that, O’Hara. It was quite funny, actually.”

“Did you see that look she gave me?” Scarlett asked. “When you said that thing about me going to the show with her brother?”

“No, I must have missed that,” Mrs. Amberson replied. She was futzing around in her massive purse for the tea tree oil sticks she had to chew after eating in place of her cigarette. “It’s not Chelsea that concerns me. It’s her mother. What a piece of work that woman is. She’s exactly the kind of stage parent I can’t stand. I think it’s hilarious how the most deluded ones always say, ‘Oh, we’d leave this all behind tomorrow if little Chelsea here didn’t want to dance! She loves to wake up at the crack of dawn and work all day long until she drops! It’s all her idea, I just ride along with it!’ Of course it is. The constant, hammering pressure has nothing to do with it. If Chelsea tried to walk away from her show, there’d be bloodshed and psychological warfare in that house, mark my words.”

“So why do you want her?” Scarlett asked.

“Because…” Mrs. Amberson dug harder for the sticks as her need increased. “There’s a lot of very good buzz about Chelsea, and I have no doubt that she could end up being quite a big deal if she’s managed correctly. Think about that, Scarlett. Her success is your success. And a good agent could be a useful buffer between her and mommy dearest. I’d love a chance to give that bloodsucking harpy Miranda a run for her money. I’ll eat her for breakfast.”

The tea tree oil sticks were recovered, and Mrs. Amberson hastily opened the box and shoved one in her mouth.

“Oral fixations are so cumbersome,” she said, easing back into the seat and chewing contentedly.

“If she signs with us,” Scarlett said. “Her mom didn’t seem that into the idea until you said…”

And then, Scarlett realized that something had just happened. That she had been moved like a pawn in a chess game. She didn’t know the overall strategy or what her fate was to be—but she felt it as clearly as if an enormous pair of fingers had picked her up by the head and moved her a square or two.

“Why am I going to this show?” she asked.

“It’s a free ticket!”

“You said it’s horrible.”

“Yes, but it’s barely two hours.”

“Why?” Scarlett asked again.

“What’s the first rule of this agency?” Mrs. Amberson asked. “Our first rule is…and make a note of this, O’Hara…you must always do a little spying.”

“It is?”

“Yes. And that’s exactly what I did. Before we met Chelsea, I took one of the dancers from The Flower Girl out for cocktails on the roof of the Met and got the whole story on the family. The wild card here is Max Biggs. Max is sixteen and generally considered to be the family liability. Quite bright by all accounts—he did get into your school, after all. But there have been issues along the way. He is less motivated than his sister, but his mother is convinced he’s a latent genius.”

“So you want me to go to a bad show with him,” Scarlett said. “For what? How does that help?”

“I want you to get a good look at him. You’ll be going to school with him, after all. Just go to the show. Talk to him a little. We need to seem to be everywhere—you at the school, the show. Signing with us will just feel inevitable after a while. It’s just a show, O’Hara. You see shows all the time. Is that asking so much?”

It was, but Scarlett shook her head no. She was trained to obey. It was sad.

The cab approached Mrs. Amberson’s new apartment, which was on Fifth Avenue, on the east side of Central Park. It wasn’t too far from the Hopewell, actually, a five- or ten-minute walk at most. But those few blocks seemed to span several worlds. This was a lush neighborhood of embassies and museums. The park was the front lawn, fifty city blocks of emerald green grass, ponds, and paths. Even by the standards of the neighborhood, this was a nice building, twenty chalk-white stories of parkside elegance, with a long green awning that extended almost to the curb to protect its residents from rain and snow and sun.

“Do me a favor, O’Hara,” Mrs. Amberson said, shaking the nearly empty box of tea tree sticks. “Run down to the health food store and get me more of these? Also, some more umeboshi plums. I’m out.”

Clearly, Scarlett was not released for the day. Not yet. Her boss went through umeboshi plums—small, gray, salty things that came in a tiny plastic container—at an astonishing rate. This was a common and easy enough errand, though. She was there and back in a few minutes.

The lobby of Mrs. Amberson’s new building was cold and beautiful, from the marbled walls and floor to the gleam of the brass mailboxes to the buttery leather sofas off to the side. The man on duty was new to Scarlett. He was shaped roughly like a postbox, but moved with slightly less grace than a postbox might if it freed itself from its moorings and went for a stroll down the street. He was spraying the delicate orchid on the coffee table with water, pumping the bottle hard, as if the orchid had said something offensive about his mom. The orchid shook under the onslaught. He took his time setting down the bottle and coming over to the desk. Things really went wrong when she told him that she was going to 19D. He seemed to take it as a personal affront.

“The freight elevator closes at six,” he said, pulling on his name tag for emphasis. His name was Murray.

“Okay?” Scarlett said.

“At six,” he said again. “When you gonna be done? I got to keep the lobby clear. When you gonna be done?”

Scarlett looked around at the lobby, which was empty.

“I can’t have you moving boxes through here all day. And sofas. And chairs. I gotta keep the lobby clear.”

“It is clear,” she said.

“You have to get your stuff up there by six,” he said. “The freight elevator closes at six. I lock it then.”

“It’s not my stuff,” Scarlett said.

“What? I gotta lock it at six.”

“Yes, but…”

“Hey! I gotta keep it clear!”

“Six,” Scarlett replied. “Got it. Six.”

He picked up his phone. Scarlett could just hear Mrs. Amberson’s voice on the other end, and she didn’t sound happy.

“You can go,” he said, disappearing behind his New York Post, still making noises of general disapproval. “Six o’clock. Remember.”

Scarlett turned the corner, around the bank of gleaming brass mailboxes with the marble shelf, to the elevators. She stabbed the button several times in her annoyance.

“What time was that?” she said, in a low, mocking voice. “Six? Was it six? Did you say six? Oh wait…six?”

“Hey!” Murray called loudly. Scarlett blanched, wondering if he’d heard her. She poked her head back around the corner to see him holding up a bundle of large envelopes bound together with rubber bands. Scarlett walked back to collect it.

“Gets a lot of mail,” the guy muttered. “Always going to get this much mail?”

Murray didn’t seem to like anything that involved doing his job, like greeting people or letting people move in or getting packages. As someone who lived in a hotel, Scarlett recognized his resentment of visitors, and while she sympathized, she didn’t approve of it.

“Probably,” she said, taking the three dozen or so large envelopes he pushed in her direction. Mrs. Amberson had posted an ad in Back Stage, advertising her services. The headshots and résumés had been coming steadily since, dozens every day. Scarlett had always known there were lots of actors in New York—but she didn’t know there were this many who apparently thought that working with Mrs. Amberson sounded like a good idea. Yes, there was always going to be this much mail.

“Six o’clock,” he said again. “You tell your boss.”

Scarlett rode the elevator up to the nineteenth floor. It was a fancy elevator, quiet and efficient, unlike the one at home. She was deposited in a dark hall with lush blue carpeting. Scarlett walked to the end and let herself into 19D.

There was no denying that Mrs. Amberson’s new home was a step up from the Hopewell. It was a massive, airy space, with a long string of windows facing the park. There were white sofas that hadn’t been there the day before, a plush white rug on the hardwood floor. The built-in bookcases were still empty, but there were unopened boxes everywhere. Only one area of the apartment was completely set up. That was the large desk, bulletin board, and file cabinet unit that served as “the office.” These pieces of furniture formed the physical structure of Mrs. Amberson’s new business.

“I’m here!” Scarlett called.

No reply.

Scarlett wandered deeper into the apartment, over to the board of photos featuring their one and only client. Mrs. Amberson had paid for an expensive photo shoot and had Spencer photographed in a dozen different ways. There was Spencer in a T-shirt, looking young and tech-savvy, ready to do a computer commercial. There was Spencer in a suit, looking like a hard-boiled young attorney. Over on the left, there was Spencer in a sleek dress shirt with an unbuttoned collar, doing his best sexy face. On the right, there was comic Spencer, doing a handstand. There were a few other photos on the board—photos of the production of Hamlet at the hotel, carefully posed stills of various scenes. There was Spencer in his loose-fitting suit, balancing perfectly on his unicycle next to…

Eric.

Even in the comic outfit, with his expression set in mock alarm, it was such a good picture of him. He was supporting Spencer as he tilted backward, and you could see just how strong and graceful he was.

Okay. So she had looked at that one. She would be fine as long as she didn’t look at the next one, the close-up of him as he stood alone onstage. She would not look at that. No. She would not. Except…she was already doing it. There he was, his shirt hanging open to the third button. That wide mouth that was always on the verge of a slow smile…

“You know what would be great,” Scarlett mumbled to herself, “is if I could get some more reminders…”

“O’Hara!” a voice yelled. “In here!”

The voice seemed to be coming from the kitchen, but the kitchen was fully visible from the living room—just a sleek pathway of granite and stainless steel, divided off by a bar where you could sit and eat. Scarlett walked around and found Mrs. Amberson sitting on the sparkling floor, wrestling the Styrofoam insert out of a box. She had changed into her normal clothes—stretchy yoga stuff. She had a pair of scissors in her mouth. Her lips were holding the tip, in a dangerous and unbalanced way. She took them out to speak again.

“Did that maniac talk to you?” she asked. “Every time I even cross the lobby that deranged hobbit comes after me, screaming about boxes. I have read the building rules. Repeatedly. I can move in from nine in the morning until six in the afternoon. That is my right.”

She passed the scissors to Scarlett a little too roughly, almost stabbing her in the palm.

“What does he expect?” she went on, gripping the box with her knees and yanking away. “That no one should ever be allowed to move in or out?”

The contents of the box yielded to Mrs. Amberson’s efforts, and she produced a sarcophagus of foam, which she managed to crack through to reveal a stainless steel electric kettle.

“All this packaging,” she mumbled, rubbing the little foam niblets from the kettle’s surface. “That’s an ice shelf crumbling right there.”

She pulled herself off the floor and placed the kettle on the granite counter, then opened a cabinet to reveal three packed shelves full of boxes of organic herbal teas. She plugged in the kettle and filled it from a bottle of spring water. It set to work with a polite hiss.

“New headshots,” Scarlett said, holding up the bundle of envelopes. Mrs. Amberson reached for them and started ripping them open, tossing the envelopes to the floor and extracting the glossy headshot photos and résumés. Once you’d seen a dozen headshots, you felt like there was too much sameness in the world. Pretty people smiling big smiles, sometimes leaning forward casually, sometimes leaning against something. Or you’d just get a big close-up of their beautiful eyes and perfect skin and teeth. Actors. So many actors.

“Tea?” Mrs. Amberson asked, not looking up from the parade of faces.

“Is there coffee?”

“O’Hara, you know that caffeine is the great dehydrator. It’s like a vampire. Invite it into your body and it sucks all the moisture right out. That’s the real fanged bandit. It will drain you dry and…”

The rest of the remark was lost under the keening cry of the kettle, which apparently couldn’t take the vampire comparisons anymore. Mrs. Amberson switched it off, then fiddled around in her herbal tea emporium for a moment, putting a spoonful of this dried-up thing and that dried-up thing into a tea ball, finally dropping the whole mess into a cup and covering it with hot water.

“We’ll let this steep for a moment, O’Hara. That is a very potent brew. Some very special teas and ingredients in there, from a very special shop in Chinatown…some of them not entirely legal in the United States. This stuff is better than any medication on the market, and certainly a lot faster and better for you. I feel that the word ‘detoxify’ is overused, but that is exactly what this does. Now, these new headshots…”

She flipped through them all again for a few seconds each. The few that she thought were worth a second look she set on the side of the counter. The majority of them she dropped in one big sloppy pile. Scarlett picked up her tea and sniffed it carefully. It smelled like cooked pencil shavings and just a tiny, tiny bit like burning plastic. She set it back down again.

“God,” Mrs. Amberson said in disgust, “I’m just not getting the quality that I’m looking for. I’ve set my bar, and it’s high.”

She pushed the photos to the floor in dismissal.

“What’s wrong with those?” Scarlett asked, looking at the faces of actors around her feet. They looked sad and desperate now, smiling all around her shoes, asking to be picked up. They had done nothing wrong. They just wanted a chance.

“No spark,” Mrs. Amberson said. “You can see it at once. You know when you see it.”

“How can you see a spark in pictures? They all look the same.”

“Exactly.” Mrs. Amberson gulped down some tea, even though vast clouds of steam were still coming off of it. “They all look the same. We need Chelsea. She’s the key. She’s our next step.”

Scarlett picked the pictures up from the floor and piled them on one of the bar stools. She had to do that much for them.

“That’s all for today,” Mrs. Amberson said. “Oh, but you have to deliver something very important. Do you see that large envelope over there on the bookcase? Take that with you. Your brother has an audition tomorrow for Crime and Punishment! He’s reading for the part of a young pervert! He’ll enjoy that!”

“Crime and Punishment? You mean, like, to be on the show with Sonny Lavinski? The Crime and Punishment?”

Scarlett liked Crime and Punishment. Everyone liked Crime and Punishment. Crime and Punishment had been on TV as long as she’d been alive. It had four spin-off shows and was on in reruns pretty much all the time on one network or another. And wisecracking lead detective, Sonny Lavinski, was pretty much her favorite character on any show. Everyone loved Sonny Lavinski.

“I’ve been talking to the producers for a while,” Mrs. Amberson said, “since one of the directors came to see Hamlet. They have real interest in him. I’ve been working on this for weeks, but I didn’t want to say anything until it came through. Make sure he looks at the pages tonight. The audition tomorrow is at four. I have a very good feeling about this one.”