Scarlett noticed a black car stopping in front of the building. She couldn’t see it very clearly through the window at that distance, but she knew who was in it. So, apparently, did Spencer.

“I stand corrected…” he said, eyeing the car.

“I have to go,” Lola said apologetically. “I had no idea about all of…this…until this morning when I came down to decorate. I have to go to a breakfast with Chip before work.”

Spencer examined the contents of the now cold-and-gluey syrup, sticking his finger in the jug and pulling out the thick film. He seemed to consider dropping this in his mouth for a moment, then decided against it and scraped the tarlike substance off with the butter knife.

“A breakfast?” he said mildly. “Didn’t you just have a breakfast?”

“It’s for his dad’s investment partner’s birthday,” Lola answered. “They’re having a little breakfast thing at their club before they go out on the boat for the day. I’m not going to eat—I just have to put in an appearance before I go to work.”

Spencer had never quite forgiven Lola for dating Chip, Durban School’s senior class secretary, Gothamfrat.com’s #98 on the “New York’s 100 Top Prep School Scenesters” list. Spencer took a lot of glee from the fact that Chip only made ninety-eight, considering that someone at Durban wrote the list in the first place. That had been his nickname ever since.

“One doesn’t want to be late for one’s appearance at the club,” Spencer said. “One doesn’t want to start talk. Give Number Ninety-eight my love and kisses.”

Lola gracefully ignored this little needling by stacking all the used silverware on her plate.

“It’s free makeover day at the store today,” she went on. “It’s going to be tragic. Every tourist in New York is going to be there. I’ll try to get back as soon as I can, and we can talk. And Scarlett…happy birthday. It’ll be okay.”

She hurried out, her heels just barely clicking against the herringbone floor. She slid the doors shut behind her gently, leaving Spencer and Scarlett alone with the remains of the party. Spencer got up and watched as Chip greeted Lola outside the car.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “She never even smiles around him. Back when I had girlfriends, I looked happier than that, didn’t I?”

Spencer had never been short of company in high school. He had been quite the ladies’ man. That had dried up in the last year, along with his work prospects.

“I have literally been more passionate with a fake streetlight,” he said.

“You were in Singin’ in the Rain,” Scarlett pointed out.

“That didn’t make it any less real. The worst part was—that streetlight didn’t even call me the next day.”

Scarlett couldn’t even bring herself to smile at the joke. Instead, she pulled down a balloon and pressed her face into it, letting herself sink into a world colored in cheerful, rubbery yellow. She bounced her chin against the balloon a few times and let it fall to the floor, where it promptly popped on a small piece of splinter that was coming up from one of the boards. That was her summer in a nutshell. Boom.