Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green

by Helen Phillips

  “Funtastic!” Roo yells as Ken/Neth steers out of the parking lot.

  “Isn’t this just fabulous?” Mom’s in a great mood. A creepily great mood, otherwise known as her yoga mood, which is the mood she’s always in nowadays. She simply adores going to La Lava, she tells us.

  The golf cart picks up speed until we’re sailing along in the warm golden wind. I’m shocked by the sudden flash of excitement that jolts through me—excitement at the thought of being at La Lava again … the way it smells of flowers and minerals … such a perfect place … paradise. I’m ashamed about feeling this way—I know it’s crazy, I know La Lava is evil—yet somehow I can’t help but look forward to every last detail that awaits us. I’m imagining candles and lilies and bubbly drinks and moonlight on marble.

  I’m so far gone in picturing it all that when Kyle leans over to whisper something to me I don’t catch it.

  “What?”

  He repeats it, and I realize he’s speaking Spanish. Whatever he may be saying, it makes Roo giggle. My earlier magical moment of understanding Spanish has definitely passed.

  “No,” I beg. “Say it in English. Please. I don’t understand you.”

  “Sólo español.” He grins at me, looking devilish, his tuxedo-inspired awkwardness already vanished.

  “¡Por favor!” I insist. I wonder why he’s playing this old game right now.

  He refuses. Roo does her friendly wink/blink thing at him. The little brat! Then she giggles again and I realize he must be making fun of me.

  “Tell me what he said, Roo! Tell me, please!”

  But Kyle and Roo just grin at each other and I know nobody’s going to tell me anything. So I sit back and try to enjoy the golden afternoon and pretend that whatever Kyle said to me was exactly what I’d want to hear.

  La Lava seems more magnificent than before, and also less magnificent. The silken white pavement of the private drive and the gleaming doors by the guard station still make me feel as though we’re entering a magical world—but compared to the magical world of the jungle, La Lava seems like just the weak imitation of magic.

  Even so, passing through that shining gate and entering the heart of La Lava just as the sky is turning from gold to red, I can’t help but catch my breath at the gorgeousness of it. Scary-gorgeous. The interlocking pools are ablaze with pink light, reflecting the sky above. The slight mist in the air gives shape to the sunbeams passing through the trees. Already people are beginning to gather, men in tuxedos and women in glimmering evening gowns strolling among pools and leaning over marble balconies. It looks like a scene from a very long time ago, like ancient Greece or something, when there were gods and goddesses roaming around, or maybe not even from a long time ago but instead from a time and place that never existed on this planet, from some kind of parallel universe where everything is always absolutely lovely.

  “Look at the orchids! See? See?” Roo shouts, pointing at the enormous golden vases placed here and there on the balconies and paths, palm fronds stretching high and elegant out of them, orchids spilling over the sides. “Hey! Didja see? I’ve never seen black orchids before!”

  “Awesome, right?” Ken/Neth sounds almost as excited as Roo. He steers the golf cart past the golden doors of the lobby and pulls into the hidden golf-cart parking lot.

  As the others stroll toward the lobby, I hang back, suddenly overwhelmed by a bad thought.

  The thought is: We’re walking into a trap.

  It’s not what I want to think, but it’s what I think.

  We’re walking into a trap.

  These people want to harm us, and here we are, on their turf, in this creepily beautiful place, exactly where they want us to be.

  Secretly, in my heart of hearts—I’m scared to even put it into words—I know that our plan isn’t going to work, that we won’t find Vivi, that if we do find her she won’t want to help us anyway, that we are headed into true danger.

  Right then Kyle looks back at me and smiles. Just like that, out of the blue. The sunset pink across his face. And something inside me calms down at the sight of his golden eyes.

  “Why so slow, mi chica?” He says it in a casual way. He could just as easily have been talking to Roo or to anyone. But he said mi chica—my girl—and he said it to me!

  Roo (wiggling uncomfortably to adjust Miss Perfect) turns back to look at me too. After checking to make sure that Mom and Ken/Neth are up ahead a ways and out of earshot, she whispers, “Wow, guys, we are so brave!”

  Okay, okay, okay. At this point, I guess I don’t have much choice but to just hope our plot might maybe possibly work out. I jog up to join them, Kyle and Roo, and there’s something about the way it feels here now, so brilliant yet so quiet, that makes us all naturally move in a graceful, courageous way as we approach the golden doorway.

  Patricia Chevalier is standing in the middle of the lobby in a wine-red dress, looking like the beautiful devil sister to Mom’s beautiful angel sister, and her perfect beauty suddenly seems terrifying to me. It’s the kind of beauty that could mask a lot of evil. The kind of beauty that could inspire people to do things they wouldn’t do otherwise. She’s not the sort of woman you want as your enemy, and fear chokes me all over again.

  “Hola, bien, gracias,” Mom is saying to Patricia Chevalier, her three words of Spanish. The way she speaks Spanish the syllables sound just as flat as English. It’s embarrassing, and I’m relieved when she switches back to English. “Yes, thank you, I’m sure they’d love to check it out,” she says. “Ah, there you are, kids! Señorita Chevalier has just suggested we go to the balcony to get a good view of the whole scene.”

  “Don’t you look splendid,” Patricia Chevalier says, smiling radiantly at me and Roo, as though she was never the least bit angry with us for embarrassing her in front of Vivi. As though she thinks we’re the most delightful young ladies in the world. It’s very, very hard not to smile back at her, but I don’t. Roo, on the other hand, does—she just can’t help it.

  Then it occurs to me: Maybe Roo thinks we’re better off if Patricia Chevalier believes we adore her. I decide I should probably smile at Patricia Chevalier too, but by the time I get my smile going, she’s already spun away from us and is vanishing down a marble staircase.

  “To the balcony then, milady?” Ken/Neth says (what’s up with this whole milady thing?), showily putting his arm out for Mom. Mom hesitates (and I’m going, Yay! Ten points for remembering your beloved husband!), but then she giggles softly and places her hand in the crook of Ken/Neth’s elbow. Gag plus automatic stomachache. The slight warm feeling I had toward Ken/Neth back in the parking lot of the Selva Lodge dissolves completely.

  Still, we have to follow behind as Ken/Neth swoops Mom a few steps down the hallway and then through the honeysuckle-draped archway and out onto the white marble balcony. We all stroll to the end of the balcony and look out over La Lava. I can’t believe we stood at this exact same spot less than a week ago—it feels like decades if not centuries have passed.

  I thought this view was perfect when we saw it the first time, but it’s far more perfect now. I guess this is what they mean by breathtaking: something so enchanting that it’s actually hard to breathe when you see it. Even Kyle is speechless. The tables set with golden plates, the ginormous bouquets, the shiny dance floor reflecting the sunset, the stage where men in white tuxedos are just now picking up their brass instruments, the linking pools, the manicured jungle—and high above it all, Volcán Pájaro de Lava releasing an elegant, twisting strand of yellowish smoke, as though La Lava has made sure that even the volcano will be on its best behavior tonight. The volcano looks calmer than it’s been in a while, aside from the odd, intense color of that smoke.

  “Whoa, mad styles!” Roo gasps, pointing at a man in a bright yellow sequined tuxedo strolling alongside a woman in a matching bright yellow sequined ball gown.

  “Don’t point!” I mutter, pulling her hand down.

  “Banana split,” Roo jokes to herself
under her breath.

  “Stunning!” Mom sighs. “Absolutely stunning! Girls, what do you think of this?”

  “I have to pee,” Roo says, hopping back and forth, imitating so well a little girl who can’t hold it anymore that it takes me a second to realize what she’s doing. Of course! We need to get to the ladies’ room ASAP to wait for Vivi. How did I manage to get distracted from that?

  “Well …,” Mom says, still wanting to talk about how stunning it all is rather than about Roo having to pee, “first things first, I suppose. Your hair could use a comb too.”

  It’s true—Roo’s ponytail is already slipping and her hair is starting to frizz. I don’t mind her frizz, not at all. Roo’s hair has always been just as disobedient as she is.

  “Where’s the main ladies’ room?” Roo says.

  “Mad, you’ll go with her, yes? On the right-hand side of the lobby, down the hallway.”

  “Okay, but is that the main ladies’ room?” Roo asks.

  Mom looks at her strangely, pulling a comb out of her beaded purse and handing it to me. I try to give Roo a don’t-ask-weird-suspicious-questions glare, but she doesn’t notice.

  “It’s a ladies’ room, Roo,” Mom says. “There will be toilets, I promise.”

  Ken/Neth giggles. I didn’t realize grown men could giggle.

  “Okay,” Roo grumbles, playing the spoiled brat, “I just really want to use the main one that all the fancy ladies will be using.”

  Mom rolls her eyes. “I’m sure plenty of fancy ladies will be using it,” she says. “Why don’t you go and establish the precedent?”

  I’m not positive what establish the precedent means, but anyway, Roo takes off running, slightly lopsided from the weight of Miss Perfect.

  Before following her I whisper “Bye” to Kyle, who’s still leaning against the balcony, gazing out over La Lava, speechless. Or maybe not speechless—knowing Kyle, he very well may be refining our plan in his head based on the layout below.

  “See you by the pools,” Kyle murmurs back at me with careful casualness, as though he’s not giving me an instruction. I give a quick nod and rush off after Roo.

  “Don’t run!” Mom calls out to Roo, but Roo’s far enough away that she can ignore her.

  I catch up with Roo just as she passes beneath the honeysuckle archway. We hurry through the white marble lobby, past the golden block of the front desk, and down the hallway to the right, as Mom instructed.

  On the other side of the frosted glass door where golden letters spell out LADIES’ LOUNGE, there are golden toilets and the sink is a long, shallow rectangle filled with black stones and more orchids. The floor is glass, and beneath the glass there’s this collage of pressed jungle leaves and flowers, and there are silky red cloths for drying your hands.

  In other words, it’s the most wonderful bathroom I’ve ever been in. And at least for now, we have it to ourselves.

  “Um, hello, can we live in this bathroom, please?” Roo says, leaning against the golden wall and lifting her skirt way up high.

  “Roo, what are you doing?” I scold her before I realize that of course she’s checking on Miss Perfect, who’s there in her pouch, limp, eyes closed.

  My heart actually skips a beat when I see her. Is she—? I panic for a half a second before the bird slowly opens her eyes and gazes at me.

  “How’s she doing?” Roo asks, pawing at the fabric of her skirt and trying to crane her neck around it. It’s hard for her to get a good look at the bird, what with all the layers of taffeta.

  “Hey, Roo, why don’t you at least go in a stall. People could be—”

  “How are you doing, Mademoiselle Perfect?” Roo interrupts, ignoring me.

  The bird doesn’t even have the energy to hiss at me right now. Instead, she stares up from her hiding place with this exhausted yet calm look. I wonder why she seems so weak. Is she thirsty? Or hungry? Or scared? Or stressing about her eggs? Or all of the above?

  “She needs water,” I tell Roo confidently, as though I know what’s what.

  But right then the frosted glass door of the bathroom starts to swing open. Roo swiftly drops her skirt, and by the time the newcomers see us, the taffeta has fallen back into place.

  “Why, hello,” the rich ladies say to us. They’re wearing so many diamonds it’s hard to look at them—it almost burns your eyes.

  For an instant I think one of them is Vivi, but that’s just because I’m hoping for her. They’re definitely not Vivi. They’re all blond, for one thing. Or, at least, dyed blond. I feel suddenly nervous, standing there in the bathroom. What if the rich ladies get suspicious of me and Roo, hanging out in the ladies’ lounge for no apparent reason?

  But: “If you two aren’t ever adorable!” the ladies say on their way out. “Imagine! That skin!” “Youth, youth, youth!”

  “Thanks,” Roo and I say awkwardly.

  The second they’re gone we work fast. Roo pulls her skirt up again and I fill my hands with water from one of the automatic golden sink spigots, squeezing my fingers tightly together so only a bit of water leaks through. Then I kneel down and hold the water up to Miss Perfect. She sticks her beak through the netting of the pouch and sips from my hands. It feels surprisingly great to have a bird (a bird that can hardly stand me, no less) drinking from my palms. The light touch of her beak reminds me of that pleasant sensation when Mom put lipstick on me.

  The water revives Miss Perfect somewhat, but she still seems fragile.

  “Oh, Miss Perfect!” Roo murmurs worriedly, gazing over the bunched layers of her skirt.

  “Better drop your skirt before anyone else comes in,” I warn her, as much as I too wish we could keep an eye on Miss Perfect. If Miss Perfect is too weak to do what we need her to do … well, let’s not even go there.

  Grudgingly, Roo lets her dress fall back into place.

  “So, what’s next?” I say.

  Roo, who I can tell is still fretting about Miss Perfect, doesn’t respond.

  “Listen,” I say, “we can’t both hang out here this whole time. Two girls in the bathroom are a lot more noticeable than one. And if Mom and Ken catch a glimpse of at least one of us out there, they won’t get suspicious. So let’s trade off, okay? Every fifteen minutes or so, okay? Kyle told me to meet him by the pools, so how about I head out there now?” I pull the letter for Vivi out of my bodice and pass it to Roo. “I’ll come back to trade spots with you really soon. Just … wait here and act normal and be ready to give this to Vivi.”

  I’m shocked, absolutely shocked, that I can talk this way right now, that I can make a plan and give orders and boss Roo. I’m even more astounded that she nods obediently and sinks down onto the golden bench.

  “Sounds good,” she says softly. “I’ll just sit here with Miss Perfect. The peace and quiet will be nice for her anyway.”

  I feel lonely, leaving the ladies’ lounge without Roo. I wish we could stick together through everything. But I think this is the best way to do it. Now we’ve just got to trust that Vivi will have to use the bathroom at some point before everyone gets seated for dinner.

  It’s the cocktail part of the evening, which means people are sipping from crystal goblets as they stroll among pools and balconies, up and down marble steps, laughing and talking in carefree voices, everyone as beautiful as movie stars.

  But instead of noticing the gorgeousness, I focus my energy on finding Kyle. It seems like it shouldn’t be so hard to spot a teenage boy among all these grown men—the one guy whose tuxedo isn’t tailored to him. I resist the urge to run as I look for Kyle in the crowd. I hurry down staircases, past tuxedoed waiters swirling by with bright drinks on silver trays, past a woman almost falling backward into a pool as she snaps at her tall-dark-and-handsome date, through clusters of ladies and gentlemen clinking champagne glasses, all of them blurring into nothing more than hurdles to navigate in my search for Kyle. I’m desperate to touch base with him about the plan. But I’m even more desperate just to see him, to gain c
onfidence from his confidence that we can do this.

  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.