Free Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson

with the zeal of a curator. It was her favorite thing until Chip’s friend Boonz made a snide comment about the repetitive wearings, questioning whether or not Lola owned any other clothes. The weight of dealing with much wealthier people must have been pressing on Lola for some time, though she had never really shown it. But when Boonz did that, something inside of Lola snapped. She ran away from the party and from Chip, escaping from society types and a competition she could never win.
    “I guess I thought that stuff was over,” Lola said. “Chip’s up in Boston in school. He doesn’t see a lot of these people anymore. But she came into the spa this afternoon, she and some other girl. I was restocking some shelves. They followed me around, asking me stupid questions about the products. It was all just to mock me for working there. I even lost a sale, a big sale, because they wouldn’t leave me alone. You can’t get away when you work there.”
    Her humiliation was so clear, Scarlett couldn’t think of anything that would make it better.
    “Sorry,” Scarlett said.
    “It’s fine,” Lola said. But she didn’t look fine. She reached to her dresser for a shirt. The drawer stuck. She jiggled it once, but it only gave another inch or two. She rattled it even harder until Scarlett heard a tiny crack and the drawer stopped moving completely.
    “It’s their problem, not yours,” Scarlett said. “There’s nothing weird about having a job.”
    Scarlett knew this was a pointless thing to say. It was true , but it was pointless.
    “They make it my problem!” Lola yelled. “I can’t get away from them. How do they make me feel so bad…about everything? Everything in my life?”
    She tried to squeeze her hand into the opening to get a shirt, but she obviously couldn’t reach. She grabbed the drawer on either side and pulled it hard.
    “Damn it!” Lola mumbled. “Damn it, damn it, damn it !”
    Each word increased in volume and brought a more fervent shake and pull. The entire front piece of the drawer came off in Lola’s hands, leaving the contents exposed. Lola dropped it in disgust, reached into the naked, half-extended shelf and yanked the first shirt from the stack. She sat on the end of her bed and looked at the hole she had just created. It was all too symbolic.

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ACT III
    NEW YORK MOURNS SONNY
    The New York Bulletin
    Last night, television history was made when Detective Sonny Lavinski (played by Donald Purchase) was shot dead on the season premiere of police drama Crime and Punishment. Lavinski’s death came as a major surprise to millions of viewers who had tuned in for the start of Lavinski’s 16th season. What began as a fairly ordinary case involving the murder of an NYU student ended with a shooting at the foot of the courthouse steps, with Lavinski dying in the arms of his partner, Mike Benzo.
    Reaction across the city, the country, and the Internet was immediate. News of Lavinski’s murder trumped coverage of real-life murders, instantly becoming one of the top news stories. The headline rippled across news tickers around Manhattan, causing crowds of people in Times Square to stop and point. The Crime and Punishment online fan site, which boasts more than two hundred thousand members, immediately crashed.
    Sources from the set report that Lavinski’s departure was long in planning, and that much work had gone into keeping the story line under wraps.
    “It was just time,” said one staff writer who asked to go unnamed. “Donald’s been great to work with. We were all crushed when he said he had to go. He didn’t want it dragged out. He said that would hurt the fans who were really attached to his character. He wanted it to be quick. So that’s how we wrote it.”
    Lavinski’s killer, David Frieze, is played by cast newcomer Spencer Martin, 19.
    “Yeah,” another on-set source confirmed, “that story line is going to be a big part of this season. David Frieze