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.”

BAD OMENS

The moving van had come while Scarlett was out and the stage platform and lights were gone. Only the chairs remained, scattered around in a confused fashion. Hamlet was truly over, and the room was once again an underused, dingy dining area. Scarlett took a moment to stand alone in the empty room, listening to the echo of traffic outside, the creak of the floor. The feeling of loss was so profound that for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Something wonderful had happened here—something confusing, but wonderful—and now it was gone, and it would never come back. The show was permanently over.

She probably would have started crying, but she was startled by a noise behind her. Quick little steps in the lobby.

“There you are,” Lola called. “I was worried you’d be late for dinner.”

Lola had been cleaning. Unlike most people, Lola cleaned while wearing neat and formfitting black pants and shirt, with a little white pocket apron tied around her waist. She carried a little caddy of furniture spray and cloths. Her hair was pulled back in a loose, flattering knot.

Lola was the second-oldest Martin, just three months out of high school. She had taken a “year off” to work at home at the hotel, instead of going to college like all of her friends. Of course, there was no money for college, but that was never mentioned. Lola always acted like her service was completely voluntary. She was unfailingly, sometimes infuriatingly gracious. She was also a strange throwback to some other generation of Martins—white-pale with a fragile build. If she had been a character in an old romance story, she would have been the lovely maiden at court, the one with the terrible wasting disease who had to be married off before she dropped elegantly dead.