And that, she did not need.

THE GOOD SHIP REALITY HAS DOCKED

Generally speaking, New York City is a good place to spend your birthday. You can go to a show, you can shop, you can eat and see the sights. There is very little you can’t do in New York, if you set your mind to it.

The problem, however, is if you are alone and broke. If you have about sixteen dollars left to your name, with no prospect of getting many more…if your friends have scattered around the globe, your older sister is working a ten-hour shift, your younger sister probably wouldn’t put you out if you were on fire, and your brother, who would normally have spent the day with you, is out trying to save his career…it’s not all it could be. Especially if you live there, and have therefore seen all the sights, because the “sights” are really just the “things on your street.”

If you add to that the fear that your family is on the verge of total financial collapse, you have the makings of a birthday that is memorable for all the wrong reasons. You should probably go back to bed.

Scarlett tried to make the most of her day. She wandered around some stores and went to Central Park. She’d even gotten away with using the expired ice cream coupon, which felt like a minor victory. When it got too hot and walking around got tiring, she went home and sat on her bed with her computer.

Her computer was one of the things in life that made her very happy, despite the fact that it was old and very slow. It was a hand-me-down from Chloe, who got new computers and phones on a regular basis. Aside from Marlene, Scarlett was the only Martin with a personal computer; everyone else shared the one at the front desk.

This was especially useful since Scarlett liked to write—and you didn’t need money to do that. She could be one of those people who published a book at age fifteen and went on to worldwide fame and fortune and didn’t have to scam ice-cream places with expired coupons.

That sounded very appealing, so she spent several hours trying to string together some meaningful sentences. She tried to write about what she knew—but what she knew didn’t seem very interesting. No one was going to want to read about getting stuck in the elevator or missing subway trains or having furniture break underneath you.

Lola came home at a little after eight, and went immediately to take a post free-makeover-day bubble bath. The tiles, massive clawfoot tub, sloped high ceiling, and skylight in the bathroom next to the Orchid Suite created a perfect echo chamber, enough noise to easily penetrate the thin walls—so Scarlett never got to miss a thing in terms of the bathroom activities. It was just one of those little bonuses that life had thrown her way.

Scarlett’s writing process was therefore interrupted by Lola and Chip’s phone conversation. Tonight’s was all about shirts. Granted, she was only hearing Lola’s end of it, but this was still pretty clear. Spencer was right—their conversations weren’t exactly romantic. This one certainly wasn’t. Who made the highest count cotton dress shirts? Was tawny rose just pink, was pink what he really wanted, and if so, was it this pink? Was it better just to get shirts made? If so, by whom?