A few tears dribbled down Lola’s cheeks.

“I barely know her. There was no reason for her to do that. She just had to make a point of the fact that I wear this one dress a lot, because they get rid of them after they’ve worn them one or two times. I was trying not to cry, and I looked up at the dinosaur skeleton, and all of a sudden, I just had this horrifying image of…forever. Being around these people for the rest of my life. I put down my drink and walked out.”

“Good,” Scarlett said. “You should have. Did Chip leave, too?”

“He followed me out,” she said. “He tried to make me feel better. He said that he would get me a new dress. And that’s the problem. The solution is always going to be ‘buy another one.’ The people are always going to be the same. They’re so smug, and most of them are so stupid, and they think they deserve everything they have. They’ll never have to work, never have to do anything they don’t want to do. They can’t understand not having money. They see it as a flaw. Chip doesn’t…but I just realized he’ll never, ever get it. He would never get that, to most people, getting a dress like this is a huge deal.”

She looked at the once-beloved dress, now lying limply on the bureau.

“He wanted to take me out somewhere else. Go downtown to a club, or over to the boat, and I just wanted to come home. We pulled up, and I broke up with him. Just like that. I always thought that was what I wanted. I always thought that’s where I wanted to be—with the people who really lived that life. And then I didn’t anymore.”

There was a knock at the door, and Spencer let himself in, slightly more subtly than normal. He dropped down next to Lola and leaned low over his knees to look up at her downturned face.

“You must be thrilled,” she said. “You don’t have to lie.”

“I wouldn’t. But I’m not saying a word. I was nice to him. And I will be even nicer to you, and your weird underwear sandwich.”

“Thank you.” Lola set the pile of perfectly folded panties on her bedside stand, then reached over and gave his hand a little squeeze. “I appreciate it.”

Both of them sat there watching Lola, waiting for something dramatic to happen, but nothing did. She sniffed a little, straightened the underwear pile, then stood.

“I should go tell Marlene,” she said. “And then I’ll tell Mom and Dad. About this, about the job. Might as well. I just broke up. They aren’t going to kick me when I’m down. I’ll be back in a minute.”

She floated off, closing the door quietly behind her.

“Did you see that?” Spencer said in a low voice. “That’s not what you look like when you break up with someone you really like. Remember when Gillian broke up with me last year, during our final production?”