Like all good things, it will come to an end, so get your tickets while you can. (SHOW CLOSES AUGUST 28, TICKETS AVAILABLE THROUGH TICKETPRO OR FREE TO HOTEL GUESTS.)

SAFETY FOR THE STUPID

It was four thirty in the morning, and Scarlett wanted answers.

Unfortunately, four-thirty-in-the-morning questions are often of a very different nature than, say, three-twenty-in-the-afternoon questions. At three twenty in the afternoon, the questions you might be asking yourself are, “What’s for dinner?” or “I wonder if that button on my cell phone is stuck or completely broken and if I keep pressing it will I fix it or will it fall off?” You can wave those questions off with a quick swing of the hand. They scare easy.

The questions that creep around at four thirty in the morning are not the kind that can be easily dismissed. You can beat them with a shovel, and they’ll just keep getting back up. “What are you going to do with your life?” they demand, pulling themselves from the ground with no visible damage. “Who are you, really?”

Hamlet was big on questions. “To be, or not to be,” he asked peevishly, “that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.”

In other words, why not just give up? What’s the point? Life is rough—is it easier just not to bother? Lie here and do nothing? Curl up and die? Scarlett Martin knew the whole whiny speech because she had seen the show every single day for the last four weeks, plus rehearsals. It’s hard to miss a show when it’s in your dining room.

The questions that Scarlett was asking herself at the moment weren’t quite that dramatic. They weren’t even that specific. What was going through her head was a querulous vibration with a questiony flavor…a general “What the hell is going on?”

She lay on the twelve-foot-wide main stage platform, her feet propped up on a unicycle ramp. A sheer purple curtain dangled just inches above her forehead. Higher up, silver banners and purple drapes hung from the set walls. Beyond that, tin lanterns were suspended from the ceiling. Around her, theatrical lights were attached to freestanding poles, and a hundred empty chairs pointed in her direction—an audience of no one.

This was the skeleton of the show, stripped bare of flesh and life. It had been closed for two days, and for those two nights, Scarlett hadn’t really slept. She tossed in bed for a few hours, then took the steps down the four flights from her room (the elevator was much too loud to use in the middle of the night) and paced the set. She would not, would not, would not look at the pictures of Eric on her phone. Or the saved messages. She would do none of these things, because it was over.

Probably.

Most likely.