“Wait,” Scarlett said. “Neither of you got the part on the show you wanted. Only Rick got in. What was the problem?”

“Thank you for asking, O’Hara. Weeks passed. I figured Donna would come home. But she said she liked the warm weather—it was horrible in New York that winter—and that she would be back in a few weeks. Rick and his new cast bonded, developed their characters, enjoyed themselves in LA. He called all the time to tell me he missed me. And then one day, two weeks before the big premiere, Rick called me one night, all tears, saying how sorry he was. He and Donna had decided that they liked the new climate, and each other.”

“I was told you had long been on the rocks,” Donna said.

“On the rocks! Did we look on the rocks?”

“So this is about Rick?” Scarlett asked. “This is about a guy?”

Donna was nodding, but Mrs. Amberson uttered a grave, “No.”

“No?” Donna said.

“No,” Mrs. Amberson said. “I found out the truth.”

“What truth?”

“Evil deeds,” Mrs. Amberson said. “They’ll always haunt you. Three years later I was having lunch with a mutual friend, someone else who was connected with that show.”

“The show never aired,” Donna explained to Scarlett. “Some producer changed his mind, and the whole thing was pulled at the last moment.”

“That’s correct,” Mrs. Amberson said, annoyed at the interruption. “My friend said to me, ‘You were smart to turn that show down. It was a disaster.’ Naturally, I had no idea what he was talking about. He said I had gotten the call and that the casting director had spoken to me.”

Donna almost dropped her tea.

“You see, I got the part, Scarlett,” Mrs. Amberson said, forcibly enough to cause a visible crack in her crust under the plastic. “They called me to tell me I made the last cut. They called me the next Gilda Radner on the phone, but some woman in my apartment pretending to be me said I wasn’t interested because live television was too scary!”

“You think I did that?” Donna said. “This is the first I’ve ever heard of this! This certainly explains your actions. There’s only one problem.”

“The only problem I’m seeing right now is that I’m entirely wrapped in plastic and can’t come over there and feel your peach fuzz.”

Scarlett was worried for a moment that Mrs. Amberson would get up and throw her clay-encrusted figure on top of Donna. She struggled to move, but Katiya had wound her too tight.

“I never took any phone call,” Donna said, standing up. “If you had gotten the part, I would have told you, Amy. You were my best friend, my partner. I couldn’t get through the last audition without you. I couldn’t keep up with Rick, so he played to the other actors.”

“Don’t try to deny it,” Mrs. Amberson said. “The person on the phone was female, Donna. Who else could it have been? The three of us were the only ones in that apartment.”