Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green (6 page)

“Hey, Pat,” Ken/Neth says. His tone seems far too casual for speaking to a person like her in a lobby like this.

She must agree with me, because as she comes out from behind the desk she responds very formally: “
Buenas tardes, Señor Candy.
” Her voice is perfect, like an extension of her face. Also: her voice reminds me of something, but I can’t think of what.

“Um,
buenas tardes
,” he says. “Girls, go ahead and say hello to Señora Pat Chevalier, otherwise known as the manager of this fine spa.”

Why does he have to talk to us that way, as though he’s our dad?

“
Señor
ita
Pat
ricia
Chevalier,
” the woman corrects with a cool smile.

“Oh, my bad, sorry,” says Ken/Neth. Which actually makes me feel the tiniest bit sorry for him. He can’t help it that he’s always saying the exact wrong thing.

Then Señorita Patricia Chevalier turns a very warm smile on me and Roo.

“
Hola,
” Roo says, grinning her most dazzling grin. She loves beautiful things.

“
Hola,
” I say.

“So you must be Madeline and Ruby,” Patricia Chevalier says to us in that over-friendly way some women talk to kids. To be honest, I don’t like it much, even though she
is
basically the most beautiful woman ever.

“Well, I’m Roo,” Roo says, “and she’s Mad.” Roo loves grown-up women who are nice to her.

“But you can call us Ruby and Madeline,” I say quickly.

“Well, Ruby and Madeline.” Patricia Chevalier pauses for a fraction of a second, as though she can’t think of another word to say to us. “What splendid names,” she murmurs. I notice that her English is slightly accented. She turns to Mom. “And you must be Mrs. Wade?”

I can’t believe it, but Mom is blushing. I worry that she’s feeling shabby.

“Actually,” Mom says, “I’m Sylvia Flynn. I kept my maiden name. Very nice to meet you, Patricia. We’re so looking forward to the gala. Thanks so much for the invitation.”

“I hear you will also be joining us for Relaxation and Rejuvenation this week,” Patricia Chevalier says. “We are delighted. Our yoga program was recently ranked number one in the world.”

“Oh goodness,” Mom says graciously to Patricia while glaring over at Ken/Neth. “I actually haven’t decided yet. I may want to spend the time with my family instead. But thank you so very much for the invitation.”

Patricia Chevalier glances at Ken/Neth and raises one of her sculpted eyebrows.

“To be decided,” Ken/Neth says awkwardly.

Then Patricia Chevalier looks at Mom in a strange way. She cocks her head and narrows her eyes and presses her lips together, as though she’s trying to figure out something about Mom, like how much she weighs or how old she is or what makes her tick or something. Mom doesn’t seem to notice, though—she’s busy pulling a leaf or bug or crumb out of Roo’s hair.

Anyway, Patricia Chevalier gives Mom a radiant smile before turning to Ken/Neth and saying a bunch of words at him in Spanish. He listens hard. At the end of it, he says, “Uh, Señorita Patricia, I’m afraid you lost me a ways back.”

“Where exactly did I lose you?” she says politely, as though Ken/Neth isn’t irritating her.

“Well,” Ken/Neth says, chipper as ever, “frankly, I didn’t catch much of it.”

“I said that Dr. Wade will be ready to see you in ten minutes, as you arrived somewhat earlier than the arranged time; perhaps you would like to swing by the viewing balcony while you wait?”

She lifts one silver fingernail to point toward the balcony. The marble lobby is now blindingly white from the afternoon sun burning across the marble, pouring in from the open archways at the other end of the huge room.

“Thank you kindly,” Ken/Neth says, not even a bit embarrassed that Patricia Chevalier had to repeat herself in English. “
Gracias
. We’ll check out the balcony. The kids’ll love it.”

“I am sure they will,” Patricia Chevalier says. “Our Gold Circle Investors’ Gala dinner will take place in our outdoor dining area, which lies below the viewing balcony, so you can get a sense of what awaits you Saturday evening. I am sure you girls have beautiful new dresses to wear to the gala?”

Roo and I look at each other. The dresses we bought for the gala, which seemed so amazing back in Denver, probably won’t seem very amazing here.

“Yes, thank you,” Mom says to Patricia Chevalier. “Move along,” she whispers to us, as though we’re in a church. I try to remember the way Mom looked so glamorous this morning, there on the lawn chair by the pool with her big hat and umbrella drink, but now that I’ve been looking at Patricia Chevalier, it’s very hard to picture.

Ken/Neth leads us out of the lobby and into a white marble hallway that has numbered golden doors on the left-hand side and a bunch of open-air archways on the right-hand side, so you can see the grounds of La Lava. We follow him through an archway draped with honeysuckle onto the viewing balcony. The balcony is a large, white marble oval extending out from the side of the palace. Roo runs to the very tip of the oval and stands there sighing so loudly that I worry Patricia Chevalier will hear it and think we’re all unsophisticated and know that they’re right not to allow kids to stay here.

“So pretty!” she says. “So so so so sooo pretty!”

Sometimes I wish I could express myself the way Roo does. It’s true, seeing this place
does
make you want to go “So so so so sooo.”

“Oh my gosh!” Roo says, pointing. “Look! Now Vivi’s getting a
red
drink!”

I look down to see Vivi taking a drink off a tray held by the young man in white pajamas. She gestures him away with a rude flick of her hand, as though he’s a mosquito or some other pesky thing, before sinking onto a lounge chair to sip at her dark red drink.

Jeez. I really wish I hadn’t seen that. I want to keep believing that Vivi is the kind of lady who’s good to every single person she meets, no matter if it’s a president or a waiter. She’s always seemed that way to me. Plus all those charities she supports!

“Hey, Mad, see Vivi’s red drink?” Roo says.

“Uh-huh,” I reply flatly.

“Oh my gosh,” Roo sighs, craning her neck over the banister. “I
love
her!”

“Who knows if she’s even nice,” I say, which comes out sounding meaner than I meant it, but Roo is already on to the next thing.

“Hey, check out the outdoor dining room! Oh wow. Look how all the chairs are
gold
and all the tables have
floating lily pads
in the middle!”

I crane my neck over the banister, like Roo, and gaze at the tables glimmering with crystal and silver—and yes, floating lily pads in glass bowls.

“Man, why aren’t we staying here?” Roo whines. “I wanna stay here! I thought La Lava was paying for our whole trip.”

Mom gives Roo her You’re-Being-a-Brat face. “We’ve already discussed this, Ruby. You know kids can’t stay here.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Roo says, “but what’s their problem with kids?”

“You want to know what their problem with kids is?” Mom says.

“Yes,” Roo says, putting her hands on her hips.

“You really want to know?”

“Uh-huh,” Roo says, tossing her head.

“Kids are loud and lively and a tad bit crazy,” Mom says, “and when people are paying thirty thousand dollars a week to stay somewhere, they’re buying utter and complete freedom from loud and lively and a tad bit crazy, okay? In fact, you’re lucky they even let your little tushie on these grounds in the first place.”

“
Thirty thousand dollars a week?
” I echo.

“Well,” Roo harrumphs, ignoring me, “can’t we at least eat here tonight?”

Ken/Neth just stands there grinning, apparently finding all of this extremely amusing.

“Tonight we’re going to get fried bananas at the Selva Café!” Mom says, trying to make the silly old Selva Café sound like something special.

“I want to stay here,” Roo mutters sadly into the marble banister.

“This place is for
obnoxious rich people
,” I inform her.

But the truth is I agree with her one hundred percent. More than one hundred percent. La Lava Resort and Spa is my favorite place. Of the places I’ve been. Which isn’t that many. But still.

Right then Patricia Chevalier appears behind us, and I have a little freak-out inside myself, hoping she didn’t hear what I just said.

“This way, please,” she says in her gorgeous voice, leading us off the viewing balcony, through the honeysuckle archway, and down the long white marble hallway. Her stiletto heels make mini gunshot sounds on the marble. Once we get about halfway down the hallway, there are no more open-air archways—instead, there are numbered golden doors on both sides.

Two old ladies wearing sunglasses, lipstick, and silk robes come strolling toward us.

“
Madame
,
Madame
,” Patricia Chevalier greets them, bowing slightly to each and saying a few words to them in what I think is French. But they look up at her in this weird, angry way, like they think she’s a phony or something.

Suddenly I find my chin in the fingers of one of the
madames
, who has a tight grip like an eagle claw, and she’s saying something in (I’m pretty sure) French and showing me her big bloody teeth (I guess it’s
just the red lipstick). I’m stuck there for a moment with my face in her hand, and then she lets go and continues onward.

I’m going
Huh?
and looking back down the hallway after them, when Mom, who speaks French, says, “You should be honored, Mad. Those French women think you have great skin. She just said, ‘
This
is the skin I want! This exact skin! And I can’t wait another second!’ You know the French are the best judges of female beauty.”

Patricia Chevalier glances over at me. Is it just me or are her eyes sort of cold? But her mouth is set in a brilliant smile.

“Youth,” she says. “Right, Mrs. Flynn?”

“Sylvia, please,” Mom says. “Just Sylvia.”

Patricia Chevalier stops at the end of the white marble hallway. I wonder if Dad is behind the door to the left or the door to the right, and my heart starts doing jumping jacks.

My dad is So Great. It has been So Hard without him.

But rather than opening either door, Patricia Chevalier looks up at this little device thingy on the ceiling and the wall itself starts to slide away (!!!), making a gap just large enough for one person at a time to step through.

Roo squeals and yanks on my hand. A secret door! Secret doors are one of her top favorite things. Not that she’s ever seen one in real life.

Ken/Neth steps through first, followed by Patricia Chevalier. I peek around them to see what’s on the other side of the wall. It’s a small, windowless white marble room. A man is sitting on a metal chair at a glass table, hunched over, holding his head in his hands. This man is much skinnier than Dad, and his hair is almost entirely gray, and he’s wearing those white pajama-type things like all the employees here, and I wonder when the heck we’re going to be able to see
Dad
.

Then the man looks up, and my heart trips over itself.

The man
is
Dad.

“KEN!” Dad cries out in this excited, desperate way, standing up from the chair and raising his arms, looking like he’s about to leap across the room and hug Ken/Neth.

Before I can figure out why Dad is so excited to see Ken/Neth, Patricia Chevalier steps in front of Ken/Neth and the brightness drains from Dad’s face, and his arms fall back down to his sides. He still hasn’t seen us, since we’re hidden behind Ken/Neth and Patricia Chevalier in the dim, narrow opening, and it’s driving Roo crazy, so she pushes through them and bombs her way across the room toward Dad. I’m stuck just standing there watching Dad’s face when he sees Roo.

Nothing has ever upset me as much as this:

When Dad sees Roo, his face fills with fury. I had no idea Dad could make a face like that. He’s never in my entire life ever made that face.

He doesn’t open his arms to the hot little cannonball of Roo the way he always used to. Instead, she just crashes into his legs and stands there looking up at him.

“Um, Dad, hello?” she says. Then, “Dad! Hi! We love you!”

He’s staring at the doorway, where Mom and I are stepping out from behind the others.

“Sylvia,” Dad says, and his voice gets a little funny, like he might cry, but when I look back at his face it’s still furious. “Why are you here?”

It sounds more like an accusation than a question. Mom stares at him, shocked, her tulip dress hanging limply.

Excuse me, but didn’t Ken/Neth say that Dad was “Very, very excited” to see us?

And now Dad is acting like we’ve done some big terrible thing by coming here?

Also, why did he call her
Sylvia
? Dad always calls Mom
Via
, as in short for Sylvia, “my road to good things,” he liked to say, because
via
I guess means “road” in Italian.

“Hug your wife,” Patricia Chevalier says, her voice smooth and sweet, and I’m grateful that at least someone around here is trying to make this go the way it should. “She came all this way to see you.”

Dad glances at Patricia Chevalier, who nods at him, and then he takes five mechanical steps toward Mom. She grabs hold of his waist and pulls him toward her and nuzzles into his chest. This is the way my parents hug whenever they see each other at the end of the day, and I’ve always liked to watch them, because it makes everything seem safe and cozy and good, and for a second I feel all those lovely feelings, until I notice that this is just a weird version of that normal hug, because Dad isn’t smiling down at Mom the way he usually would, and his face is still furious, and it starts to really freak me out.

Mom pulls back just a bit and looks up at Dad.

“Jimbo,” she whispers, her oldest nickname for him. “What’s going on?”

But Dad just shakes his head silently, maybe even sadly, as he gazes down at her.

Mom lets go of him and I can see that she’s crying quietly. And it’s awful.

Inside I’m going,
What the
heck? Maybe I didn’t expect it to be perfect, but I sure didn’t expect it to be this bad. This is So Much Worse than I ever could have imagined.