Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green (28 page)

Floating candles appear in the pools. The air smells more fragrant by the second, honeysuckle and minerals. There’s some new beautiful thing—a vase of yellow calla lilies, a miniature waterfall—everywhere my eyes land. Enchanting, almost like it’s casting a spell over my brain. I shake my head, clear my mind, and think about Kyle.

By the time I finally find him, standing alone in the shadows on one of the smaller balconies and holding a tall glass of pink liquid, it’s almost time for me to head back to the ladies’ lounge to swap spots with Roo.

“Whatcha drinking?” I ask, trying to sound one hundred percent more casual than I feel.

“Don’t know,” Kyle says, gazing upward, once again not noticing my dress. “Some kind of virgin grapefruit something or other.”

I’m surprised by how calm he sounds. I realize I had this idea that when I found him he’d fling his arms open and thank me for tracking him down and tell me that just the sight of me makes him feel brave. Which is, yes, probably what I would do if our positions were reversed.

Plus, am I the only one who’s terrified about this gala and what we have to do here?

“Where is everyone?” I demand irritably.

“Your mom and Ken are chatting with La Lava yoga people
somewhere around here,” Kyle says, knowing exactly who I meant when I said
everyone
. “And my grandparents wanted to get settled into their seats at the dinner table early.”

Meanwhile, he’s still gazing upward like it’s his job. Annoyed, I follow his gaze.

And who should I see there but Vivi, several balconies above us! So
that
explains Kyle’s staring. My heart speeds up. Of course we knew she’d be here, but somehow actually
seeing
her makes it all feel a little more real. Also, get this: Her dress is pretty much the exact same grassy-green color as mine! There are about fifteen people crowding around her as she throws her head back to let out a low, kind of growling laugh.

“Look!” I whisper to Kyle. “Vivi and I are wearing the same color! That seems like a good sign, right?” This comment is partly meant to be relevant to The Mission and partly meant to see if I can get Kyle to notice what I’m wearing. But he just nods and tips his glass back.

The instant Kyle drains the glass, a silver tray containing two new pink drinks appears practically out of thin air. Man, this place is
unbelievable
. Before we can even thank that waiter, along comes another waiter with a tray of appetizers, some lovely thing I don’t even recognize—yellow and green and white piled on a cracker. We each take a couple. It’s then, when I notice Kyle’s hand shaking as he lifts a cracker to his mouth, that I realize he’s nervous too, no matter how cool he may seem. And frankly, that makes my own hand shake.

“I’ve got to go back and trade spots with Roo,” I inform him. “We decided it’s less suspicious that way. Hopefully
she’ll
come along soon.” I poke my chin upward, at Vivi.

Kyle nods again, barely acknowledging my existence as he stares at Vivi with that familiar Big Thoughts look on his face.

“Hey,
Kyle
,” I say, wanting some kind of reassurance from him before I go, “do you really think this whole bathroom plan is going to work?”

“Absolutely!” Kyle says,
finally
looking at me but still not seeing my dress.

Kyle’s bold
Absolutely!
echoes in my mind for a while, but by my third shift waiting for Vivi, I think he’s very, very wrong. Tons of ladies have come and gone and come and gone while I’ve been waiting in here, but not Vivi. Never Vivi. Meanwhile, whenever Roo’s in the ladies’ lounge and I’m on the outside, I see Vivi on this or that balcony, frowning and drinking and laughing and pronouncing, always surrounded by people. It’s maddening! I’m really starting to wonder how we convinced ourselves we’d definitely cross paths with her in the bathroom. It makes me feel like we’re just three dumb kids in way over our heads.

Suddenly a gong sounds out over all of La Lava—a long, deep, rich note that hovers in your ears for a moment afterward.

“Good lord, what’s that?” a lady washing her hands asks her friend. She’s swaying in a funny way, as though she can’t remember how to stand up straight.

Like most of the women who’ve passed through the lounge while I’ve been waiting, these two don’t actually seem to realize I’m here. Once in a while a lady—usually an older one—will give me a quick smile and compliment my skin. But mainly they just ignore me while I sit at my post on the golden bench. It almost makes me feel as though I have the superpower of invisibility. Or maybe a normal-looking American girl is just no big deal to anybody.

“The dinnertime gong,” the friend says. “At least, that’s what that sexy bartender told me.”

“Dinnertime!” she gulps, clinging to the edge of the sink. “But I am
so
smashed!”

Dinnertime
. The word makes me go cold all over. Already? My heart deflates. What do we do now? I
knew
this wasn’t going to work. Didn’t I say this wasn’t going to work?

For the next ten minutes there’s a big rush of women to the ladies’ lounge, everybody emptying their bladders before going to their tables, and I sit there invisible as ever while the dinner gong sounds a second time, then a third, wondering what I should do—give up, leave the lounge, find our table, make a face at Roo and Kyle to tell them I didn’t manage to get the letter to Vivi, acknowledge that I’ve failed Dad, failed Miss Perfect, failed everyone?

The frosted glass door swings shut on an extra-noisy group of women, leaving the bathroom quiet and empty, and I’m slowly, despairingly standing up from the golden bench, when who should come in but Patricia Chevalier in her wine-red dress … followed by Vivi in her grass-green dress. Vivi!
At last!
But then I freeze. I can’t do or say anything with Patricia Chevalier watching! I panic and dart into the third stall before they notice me.

“Twenty-one,” Vivi is saying in her low voice. “
Twenty-one
, Patricia.” She pronounces
Patricia
the right way, with a Spanish accent, and I decide that Patricia is actually a very beautiful name. “Thirty-eight years old playing a twenty-one-year-old. It’s a fabulous role. But this could be extremely embarrassing.”

“You look exceptionally young for your age.” It must be Patricia Chevalier who’s speaking, but she sounds so timid that I barely recognize her voice.

“Not
twenty-one
young,” Vivi says, “and please, I don’t want your flattery; I just want your treatment.”

“I am very, very sorry,” the nervous version of Patricia Chevalier
says. “There has been a bit of a delay but it will be ready tomorrow by noon. I absolutely promise.”

And I’m going: Wow, how can she be making that promise? As far as Patricia Chevalier knows, there’s not another LTVT on the entire planet!

“I’ve been waiting a
week
,” Vivi says, the growl swelling up in her voice. “
Esperado, y esperado, y esperado,
” she adds, whatever that means. If only Roo were here to translate!

Patricia Chevalier murmurs something I can’t make out, maybe because it’s Spanish or maybe because of her fearful voice or maybe both.

“I don’t wait, okay,” Vivi says, her voice getting deeper. “I don’t wait, Patricia.”

Patricia Chevalier’s response is lost in the sound of them locking the doors of their stalls.

A strange, paralyzed feeling comes over me as I realize that this is my moment. I wish more than anything it were Roo on duty right now. She’d be totally fine. She wouldn’t be standing here suddenly unable to move.

But then I think of Dad. Of that time we talked to him up there in the jungle, when we were in the pit, and I knew how worried he was, even though he was pretending not to be. I just have to pretend I’m not scared. I gather myself up and tell myself,
Here goes!
, exclamation point and all, forcing my legs into motion.

I open my stall and pull the letter out from where I stuck it when Roo and I last swapped. Stepping toe-heel, toe-heel—the quietest way to walk, as Dad taught us when we were little—I go stand across from their stalls and look down at their feet.

And I freeze.

Whose shoes are whose?

One set of feet is in a pair of black stiletto heels. The other set
of feet is in a pair of simpler, lower, tan-colored heels. Both sets of ankles are slender and tanned. Both dresses are pulled up too high for me to see their color.

I have to get this right. It is so insanely important that I get this right.

Okay, okay, stay calm, I tell myself. Let’s think this through. Vivi is a movie star, so wouldn’t she wear super-high, super-fancy stilettos? Isn’t that what movie stars
do
? But then again, Vivi is so famous she can do whatever she wants, and maybe she doesn’t
want
to wear uncomfortable shoes, even if they
are
glamorous. And the tan shoes are pretty, in their own way. Patricia Chevalier, though, seems like the kind of woman who wouldn’t mind being uncomfortable if it meant she got to appear extra glamorous, plus I’ve only seen her in stilettos. But she
is
also more of a normal person who might own more normal tan-colored heels. And she has to do lots of running around and hostessing tonight, so maybe she wouldn’t choose to wear those impractical stilettos.

I don’t know. And I don’t have much time.

My heart is banging, my fingers shaking. My whole body feels terrified and thrilled. I try to ignore the feeling that this isn’t going to work as I reach my hand under the stall with the tan shoes and hold out the letter.

“Ah!” The woman releases a brief, startled gasp. I can’t tell whose voice it is just from that gasp. And I’ve already made my decision anyway—I have to stick with it.

I wiggle the letter, begging Tan Shoes to take it from me.

A hand reaches out to snatch it.

Then, before anyone gets the chance to see me, I dash out the frosted glass door and head down the marble steps toward the dining area, breathing hard, my blood buzzing through me.

I
t takes some searching but eventually I find the table in the outside dining area where Roo, Kyle, Mom, Ken/Neth, Señora V, and Señor V are seated. There’s an empty chair for me between Kyle and Roo. And boy, can I just say that after being stuck alone among all those bizarro rich ladies it is
really
nice to see some familiar faces, even Ken/Neth’s. They’re all looking at me and smiling, and I feel lots of love enveloping me as I sit down. I glance at Kyle and Roo, who are staring at me with these expectant, forced grins, like they’re dying to know if I succeeded but they’ll try to not be totally devastated if I failed. I give them a small victorious nod, a nod so small no one else would notice, and then their smiles relax and become genuine, and in my mind I pretend I
did
hand the letter to Vivi, ignoring the fact that it’s possible I’ve failed big-time, that I’ve done
worse
than the opposite of succeeding—that Patricia Chevalier is reading my letter right this second and learning every single detail of our plan for tonight. I just swallow that thought and smile back at them as if everything is perfect.

“Mad! I didn’t know where you were!” Mom exclaims with a vast Yoga Smile.

“In the bathroom,” I mumble.

“Oh, doesn’t their hand soap have the most
uplifting
fragrance?” Mom says. If she weren’t yogafied, she’d be asking me what took so long and if I’m feeling okay. But I guess it’s just as well, because I don’t know what I’d say to that.

Anyway, the gong saves me from having to respond to Mom’s silly question, and a bunch of waiters deliver avocado and papaya salads all at once. As we unfold our napkins and begin eating, we fall into awkward silence. How can it be this awkward to sit at a dinner table with my sister, my mom, and my best friend (because now it really feels 110 percent true that Kyle is obviously my best friend aside from Roo—who knows if I’m his best friend, but he definitely is mine), not to mention Ken/Neth “I’m Friendly” Candy, plus the most interesting old people I’ve ever met?

I try to just sit there enjoying the sight of all these people I love (well, in one case, only sort of sometimes like). They look so radiant in the candlelight, lifting their forks and buttering their rolls and sipping their drinks, and I tell myself I was right about the tan shoes and everything is going to work out and we aren’t in danger.

And I try not to be mad and sad that Dad isn’t here at this table with us. I wonder where he is right now. Up on the volcano, still searching for a bird? Trapped in that white marble room?

The awkward silence continues, everybody thinking private thoughts, I guess. Señora V and Señor V look wonderful—Señora V in a dark purple dress and an extra-lacy black veil, a golden handkerchief replacing the typical orange one in the pocket of Señor V’s white suit—but they seem distracted, even more anxious than they were yesterday, glancing apprehensively at each other and then
gazing off into the distance. I twist around to see what it is they’re looking at and am struck by what’s there. The volcano. Of course.