“I have some bad news,” she said.

“What?” Spencer replied. “Not today. Not when everything’s been going so well.”

Lola, of course, had no idea of the trauma of the morning. She stepped over Spencer to sit on the bed.

“We’re empty,” she said.

“Empty?” Spencer sat up on that one. “I thought we had those three guys coming in from Tokyo?”

“They canceled earlier this morning. That travel agency doesn’t like us anymore. I think that guy in the Sterling Suite three weeks ago complained about the toilet.”

“At least I don’t have to deal with that today,” Spencer mumbled. “Not that I don’t love doing that job.”

Lola slumped onto her bed. More than anyone else, she had been trying to keep things going. She had folded the toilet paper and researched the towels and gone without sleep. It looked like she took this as a personal failure.

“It’s not your fault, Lo,” Spencer said. “And it’ll be okay. Some idiot will find us and check in. Someone always does.”

Lola shook her head.

“This is bad, Spencer,” she said. “Really bad. I’m not sure if we’ve ever been completely empty before.”

“We’re empty,” Scarlett repeated.

The wheels in her head, which had been ground to a halt by the many obstructions life had thrown her way that day, started to click back into motion. The plan came in a rush, a chain of ideas loosely linked together. All of the fallen fruit of the summer gathered into one basket.

“Stay here,” she said to them, shoving herself from the bed and stepping over Spencer.

“Where are you going?” Lola asked.

“Just don’t go anywhere,” she said again, as she grabbed her bag and phone. “I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

The St. Regis was one of the major grande dame hotels of New York, with a massive white and gold lobby bursting with uniformed staff and hung with massive chandeliers that were actually clean and operational. When she arrived at the plush, cream-colored room, Mrs. Amberson was splayed out on her bed. All visible parts of her were covered in something sticky and brown and wrapped in plastic, the rest was covered by a plush robe. Her chipmunky hair had been wound in a pink turban, and a woman in a long-sleeved tunic and flowing yoga pants was jamming her thumb into her right ear.

“Scarlett!” she said. “Don’t mind Katiya…my God, Katiya, I think you just resolved all the problems from one of my former lives…She came over at a moment’s notice, bless her, to unblock one of my chakras. Help yourself from the minibar, and boil some water in that kettle and make me a nice, hot cup of rosehips tea, will you? Bags are on the side table.”

She was trying to act like nothing had happened that morning, just hours before—like the show hadn’t exploded or she hadn’t moved out. But Scarlett could hear the tension running underneath the sudden chakra crisis. She filled the little coffeepot from a bottle of spring water and took a soda from the minibar.