So very, very boring. Everything was boring.

Scarlett listened to the distant droning on about shirts and stared at the screen. Nothing was coming to her now—nothing but thoughts about shirts. She put on her headphones to block it out.

A few minutes later, Lola returned to their room, wrapped in her silky, pink knee-length robe. She sat down on her bed primly, knees tucked together, and stared at her dresser. She cocked her head slightly, following its angle. One of the legs had come off years ago and been replaced by one that was a centimeter or two too short.

She let out a light, airy sigh. Lola was often like this when she finished talking to Chip. Not exactly sad, but not brimming with excitement, either. Tonight, she seemed a bit more pensive than usual. She picked up her brush and stroked her hair slowly.

“Problem?” Scarlett asked.

“Something’s come up tomorrow,” Lola said. “I have to go somewhere with Chip. But I’m supposed to be taking Marlene to an event in the morning.”

“Oh,” Scarlett said sympathetically. Marlene was strictly Lola’s job, because Marlene pretty much refused to go anywhere with anyone else.

“I was wondering if you could do it, since you’re not…well, working. And it won’t take long.”

“Me?” Scarlett gasped.

“Well…”

“Don’t you, um, have work?”

“I took off,” Lola said. “Or, I will in the morning. I’ll call in sick. She really likes going places with you. She just doesn’t know how to show it.”

Scarlett leveled a look at her sister that could have penetrated a cement barricade.

“It’s really not that bad,” Lola said. “Honest. I won’t forget this. I will owe you, and you know I’m good for it.”

Lola was actually good for these kinds of things. She very much operated on the system of doing and returning favors. Her credit was impeccable. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was Marlene would burst a blood vessel. She would scream and howl and make all their lives a misery.

Before Scarlett could point out this incredibly obvious fact, there was a rapid knock on the door. After a short decency pause, Spencer let himself in without preamble. He went airborne and landed hard on Scarlett’s bed, causing her frail computer to bounce. She grabbed and stabilized it before it exploded into its component parts.

“I have news,” he said. “Remember how I told you that I was going to call everyone I knew? It turns out that one of my friends from school knows these people who are doing Hamlet. One of their cast members just got cast in a touring company of Mamma Mia, like, yesterday. So he’s leaving, and they called me to come in and read for the part.”

“Spence,” Scarlett said. “That’s amazing! You’re going to be Hamlet!”

“Well, not Hamlet. I’m up for Guildenstern, one of Hamlet’s guys—and also one of what the script calls two clowns, who are actually unfunny gravediggers. Here’s the thing, though. This isn’t just a straight-up Hamlet, it’s kind of like a carnival. It’s the happy Hamlet. Until everyone dies, including the guy I would play. But until we bite it, we basically run around like idiots through the whole show.”