“Where did you live?” she asked.

“On the floor of an apartment on Thirteenth Street and Sixth Avenue with a ballerina named Suzie. She was a freak. A good dancer, but she lived entirely on milk and hard pretzels. I never saw her eat anything else, even when I brought home food from the diner. She had this loser drug-dealer boyfriend. Drug dealers had some glamour then, but not this guy. Used to come over and sit in the corner, put on a wizard’s hat, and meditate loudly. He made a sound like this.”

Mrs. Amberson made a loud, grating mmmmmmmmm noise. Scarlett considered making a note of this, then opted against it.

“I only stayed there because it was cheap. Then they both went off to form a macrobiotic commune upstate, and I got kicked out. Then I moved to Second Avenue…”

She leaned backward a bit and stared at something below her.

“Your sister is here with her boy,” she said. “What’s his name?”

“Chip,” Scarlett said, without enthusiasm. Why was Lola home? She was supposed to be doing a long shift at the store today.

“Of course. Chip. Nice enough looking, but he’s never going to split an atom, is he?”

“I doubt it.”

“You look unimpressed. Not your type of boy? I’ll bet you like them a little more swift on the uptake, don’t you, O’Hara?”

Scarlett decided to let the question drop in the hopes that she would forget it. But that didn’t happen.

“What is your type?” Mrs. Amberson asked, leaning in from her perch. “You’ve never told me about your love life, Scarlett. You’re a very pretty girl. You must have a boy shacked up somewhere for your personal delights. I’d bet it’s a booky one, with overtones of Harry Potter and a lot of black T-shirts. Come on. What’s he like?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Scarlett said. “I’ve just…some guys at my school, a few times.”

“You left out the verb in that,” Mrs. Amberson said. “I love verbs.”

Scarlett glared over the laptop, but Mrs. Amberson did not look even slightly deterred.

“I have great hopes for you this summer, O’Hara,” she said. “I don’t buy this stern, determined exterior of yours. There’s a romantic underneath. I’m sure of it.”

Scarlett had no idea she had a stern, determined exterior.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“You almost never smile,” Mrs. Amberson said. “Not a real smile. I know smiles. I was in several toothpaste commercials. I know all the varieties of smile.”

She turned back and tried to squeeze her head between the rails to get a better look at what was going on in the street below.

“Well,” she said, “it looks like your sister isn’t making out too badly. If they don’t bulge in the brain or anywhere else of interest, the wallet is a good alternate location. And I should know.”

Something in Mrs. Amberson had detached and floated away. This effort that Scarlett had put her through had exhausted her.