“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?”