Alicia

by Lisi Harrison

  “Lo siento,” he muttered, then shimmied back to a girl in a black Versace one-piece holding an umbrella drink the size of her gold bangle–covered arm.

  “Maybe we should get this over with before we break something else.” Alicia stepped aside just to be safe. “What’s your big plan? What do I have to do?”

  “Mire y aprende, Cousin. Watch. And. Learn.”

  Nina began shoving her way through the crowd, and Alicia followed her. It was the opposite of Spalpha to go along with someone else’s revenge plot, but it was hard for her to think like a leader while she was wearing a bile-colored polyester dress with an embroidered mop above the boob. Maybe once the twins were out of the picture she’d be less distracted and would have more time to think of ways to—

  “’Ello again.” Nigel appeared before Alicia and shoved a fizzing glass of limeade under her chin. “A limey from a Limey.” He chuckled. “Lovely to see you up and about and not stuck in that dreadful—” He stopped himself. “I mean, it’s good to see you.”

  Nina was waiting impatiently behind him, crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out at the back of his blond head. But still, Alicia felt compelled to clear something up.

  “I’m nawt poor, you know,” she told his navy blue eyes. He blinked several times, as if his lids were trying to explain the things his lips couldn’t seem to articulate.

  “Never said you were.” He tittered nervously.

  “I’m rich.” She took the limeade and helped herself to a long, entitled swig. “I’m only doing this towel girl thing because I half-broke the Juan Belmonte statue andsomeotherthings, and my parents are trying to teach me a lesson. Which, by the way, I refuse to learn.”

  A light breeze blew Nigel’s unbuttoned denim shirt wide open like he was in some sort of boy-band video, revealing his slightly tanned chest. It was a definite improvement but still a blatant reminder that he was British. And peacock duty be damned, Alicia was determined to find a way to audition tomorrow. And when she did, the last thing she needed was a melatonin-deprived bloke cheering her on from the sidelines, reminding everyone that English was not her second language.

  “¡Vamos!” Nina clapped twice like a saucy flamenco dancer.

  “I better go.” Alicia tried to squeeze past him.

  “Why are you always running away from me?” he shouted just as the song was changing. Everyone turned to see who the desperate guy with the accent was pleading with.

  Thankfully, “Low” by Flo Rida began blaring, and everyone turned away, hoping to get an upgrade on their dance partners.

  “Gawd, will you puh-lease stop talking English!” she whisper-hissed. “I don’t need everyone knowing I’m Fannish. What if ¡i! can hear you? Then I won’t qualify for the video and—”

  “Fannish?” He crinkled his light eyebrows and half-smiled in anticipation.

  “Fake Spanish.”

  “So that’s what this is all about? A stupid video shoot?”

  “¡Va-MOS!” Nina pointed to an invisible watch on her wrist.

  “It’s not stupid,” Alicia pouted, suddenly feeling very . . . stupid. “In Westchester everyone’s all American-ish, and here everyone’s all Spain-ish, and I’m not all anything. I’m a mutt.”

  “What’s wrong with being both?” Nigel lowered his eyes, like he was asking himself just as much as he was asking her.

  “Both means I don’t know what box to check when I’m filling out a skin survey at the makeup counter. It means I don’t belong anywhere.”

  “Maybe it means you’re lucky enough to belong in two places.”

  “Whatevs.” Alicia rolled her moist eyes. This was starting to feel a little too Dr. Phil for a summer afternoon in Spain. “Grassy for the drink, but I have to go.” Even though the Fannish part of her wanted to stay, Nigel couldn’t do anything to further her Spalpha status. And, like a beautiful pair of Jimmy Choo heels that were too high to walk in, she would simply have to settle for something more useful.

  “Por fah-vor, let’s go!”

  Suddenly, Alicia was being wrist-pulled through the crowd and away from Nigel’s sad blue eyes.

  The twins were still bobbing when Nina stopped behind them. “Follow my lead.” She brushed by Celia, who had a red Fendi feather clutch swaying from the crook of her elbow.

  In one fluid motion, Nina opened her palm and dropped ¡i!’s glittering necklace inside.

  “ADM!” Alicia mouthed once they passed.

  “Framing is an art intended for more than just pictures, Cousin.”

  “Point!” Alicia lifted her finger and smiled.

  “Now watch this.” Nina opened Alicia’s shell-covered purse and pulled out the crumpled sign. She made her rounds, showing the photo of the necklace to as many guests as possible. And then she picked her mark.

  “Him.” She pointed at a pregnant-looking man with a glass of sangria in each hand and the kind of wobble reserved for those walking on an airplane during turbulence.

  “Uno . . . dos . . .” On tres, Nina shoved him straight into Celia and G—or was it P?

  “ADM!” Celia called, as she swayed left, then right. She managed to steady herself on Isobel’s narrow shoulders, but her bag crashed to the ground and spilled open.

  “Perfecto!” Nina clapped as she and Alicia quickly backed away from the scene of the crime.

  “Perfecto times ten!” Alicia high-fived her cousin. Delete the whole thieving thing and the blond Dora bob, and her cousin would have definite Spalpha potential.

  “Is that ¡i!’s missing necklace?” Nina began whispering in various people’s ears. Finally, a long-haired sleepy-eyed blonde in a black knit cap and a blue and orange tie-dyed bikini pointed at the shimmering clump. She began shouting something in Spanish. Whatever she said was enough to make the music stop. A crowd gathered around the twins.

  Alicia and Nina stood on the edge of the commotion and watched with nail-biting enthusiasm.

  S bent to receive the necklace before lifting the precious pendant to his full lips and kissing it. Hard. “¡Celia, ya lo he encontrado! ¡Ya lo he encontrado!”

  “Yes!” Alicia turned to Nina, ready to rejoice. But her cousin’s bug eyes and slack jaw told her to hold off on celebrating just yet.

  “Ya lo ha encontrado,” Nina sighed. “They think she found it!”

  The entourage surrounded Celia and enveloped her in a massive relief-hug, like she was a child who’d gone missing at Disney World.

  It was difficult to understand what Celia was saying amid the celebratory double-cheek kisses, but it was clear from her proud smile that she was taking full credit for the bling retrieval.

  “Looks like someone just scored a spot in the video,” a bitter redhead in a white string bikini and mirrored Diors told her sunburned BFF.

  “You’re right about that.” Sunburn squinted at ¡i!’s balcony. His hand was still hanging over the railing, but this time he was making a thumbs-up sign. He must have seen the whole thing.

  Alicia sighed. “How did Celia pull that off?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that same question for the last thirteen years.” Nina crumpled up her sign and threw it on the ground.

  The familiar thunderclap that kicked off ¡i!’s “Rain in Spain” remix distracted everyone from the mini jewelry drama and revved up the party once more. But for Alicia, it was a bitter reminder that the audition was only one day away and she was doomed to watch from the peacock pen.

  And then the song’s rain sounds came. Plinkkkk. Pluunck.

  The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain!

  Plinkkkk. Plinkkkk. Pluunck. Plinkkkk. Pluunck.

  At first they song’s chorus reminded her of the terrible night she’d spent hand-fanning the sopping deck. Then came the image of everyone scream-shouting their way to the lobby. And that image sparked an idea, which, if executed properly, could keep the twins from the audition. And earn her a spot in the Spalpha hall of fame.

  THE CALLAS ESTATE

  NINA�
�S ROOM

  Sunday, June 14

  3 A.M.

  Boo-woop. Boo-woop. Boo-woop.

  Even Spanish alarm clocks had accents.

  Alicia slapped her palm against the OFF button and cracked open the thin can of Red Bull she had chilled in a silver champagne cooler by her bed. After a long swig and dainty burp, she padded over to Nina’s half of the room to nudge her awake.

  “Drink.” Alicia offered her the frosty can.

  “Grassy,” grumbled her cousin before sitting up and guzzling the cherry medicine–flavored energy drink.

  Alicia sat on the edge of Nina’s lumpy cot. The rusty coils cried out loudly in pain, and she quickly jumped up.

  “Don’t worry, the twins sleep with a sound machine in their room. They can’t hear a thing.” Nina tossed the empty silver can on her floor and bounded out of bed like a superhero ready for battle. “Let’s do this!”

  “What do you want? Roof or room?” Alicia pulled out a gold fifty-cent euro.

  “Room,” Nina blurted, stating the obvious choice. “Heads.”

  Alicia thumb-tossed the coin, caught it, and slapped it on the back of her hand with muy Spalpha attitude. She lifted her hand and sighed with relief. “Tails. Roof.”

  “ADM.” Nina sighed, then crossed her chest in prayer.

  Quickly, while Alicia hummed the theme song to Mission: Impossible, the girls changed into black-on-black sweats. They smudged Kimora Lee Simmons’s Noir eye shadow on their faces and stuffed Nina’s Day-Glo hair in the shower cap Alicia had colored with a black Sharpie. She looked like a giant blush brush.

  “Be safe.” Alicia grabbed the CD she’d burned after work and crept toward the hall.

  “Ten cuidado,” Nina whispered back, then hurried outside to the garden shed.

  Alicia stood outside the red sliding barn door to the twins’ suite, her ear pressed against the wood. The only things that seized her senses were the smell of lavender bathwater and the muffled crash of waves beating against the virtual shore of their soothing sleep machine. Other than that, all was still.

  Slowly and cautiously, Alicia slid open the door. She tiptoed inside. A long corridor dimly lit by a cast-iron candelabrum guided her to the twins’ sleeping chamber.

  The semicircular room was shaped like a giant lemon wedge and carpeted with clothes. Leather boots, metallic sandals, platform flip-flops, and candy-colored jellies lay like rubble after an earthquake. Swimsuits, sarongs, gowns, tanks, shorts, hats, and a wrinkled heap of “borrowed” Ralphs had been tossed Ikea area rug–style.

  “Ow!” Alicia whisper-shouted when one of her black-stockinged feet landed on something hard and cold . . . and gold! It was the RL charm on the scrunched-up GR bathing suit top. Once again it seemed to be mocking her, reminding her of what she had come to Spain for and what she had failed to get. It took all of Alicia’s strength not to lift up the twins’ red satin sleep masks and gouge their eyes out with the silver conchas on her RL Blue Label Mexican belt.

  Suddenly, the muted shuffling sound of Nina dragging the garden hose across the roof made Isobel turn over in her carved wood canopy bed. And when Isobel turned, Celia turned. It must have been a psychic twin thing, because their matching kings were at least ten feet apart. Regardless, Alicia crouched down behind the burnt orange velvet chaise and held her breath, as if that might somehow reduce Nina’s lumbering impact on the tiles above.

  Figuring she was only seconds away from reaching her target, Alicia had no choice but to make her move. She hurried over to the bookless bookshelf and pressed EJECT on the twins’ Sony stereo. The black machine, which was covered in makeup dust and gum wrappers, slide-offered its CD tray. Gently, Alicia placed the disc inside, grabbed the remote, and hurried to the door to wait for her cue.

  All of a sudden, a rush of water trickled down the windowpane. Even though Alicia knew it was coming, the sight made her giggle. It looked so real! With renewed Spalpha confidence, she hit PLAY on the remote and speed-walked down the corridor, victory-punching the sky to the booming sound of thunder. She’d taken it off the beginning of ¡i!’s track and looped it over and over again—it seemed only fitting that the twins miss their Rain in Spain audition because of . . . the rain.

  Mission accomplished!

  THE CALLAS ESTATE

  NINA’S ROOM

  Sunday, June 14

  7:25 A.M.

  Boo-woop. Boo-woop. Boo-woop.

  Alicia didn’t need Red Bull this time. Adrenaline—and her throbbing foot—had kept her up the rest of the night. Outside Alicia and Nina’s bedroom windows, the morning sky was clear and the temperature was seventy-six degrees. But Celia and Isobel’s windows would tell a very different story. . . .

  “¡Va-mos!” She tossed a beaded green pillow at her cousin’s head. “It’s time. Good luck.”

  Nina leaped out of bed and bolted for the door.

  “Wait! Aren’t you going to wash the eye shadow off your face?” Alicia giggle-asked.

  “Were they wearing their sleeping masks?”

  Alicia nodded.

  “Then they won’t even notice.”

  Two minutes later Alicia heard the sound of Nina crawling back into her squeaky cot.

  “Did it work?” she asked, rolling over to look at Nina.

  “Perfecto!” Nina yawned and rubbed her eyes, leaving two skin-colored patches in the middle of her black- shadowed face. She looked like the opposite of a raccoon.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told them the auditions were postponed because of rain.”

  “And?” Alicia pushed, hoping her cousin hadn’t forgotten the most important part.

  “Aaaand they could take the day off because the guests were staying in their rooms.” Nina fluffed one of her jewel-colored pillows and pulled her comforter over her double-Ds.

  “Puuur-fecto!” Alicia kicked her legs in the air like a girl who had just outsmarted twin Spalphas. Her matador red–pedi’d toes seemed to be smiling back, congratulating her on a job well done. So did everything else in the room.

  HOTEL LINDO

  PEACOCK PEN

  Sunday, June 14

  10:18 A.M.

  By Sunday morning, hundreds of wannabe video starlets with numbers pinned to their skimpy tops had lined up on the Lindo’s back lawn, waiting to enter the audition tent. Apparently ¡i! had been asked to appear on Spain’s highest-rated morning show—Olé Mañana—and couldn’t be there, so he was leaving the decision in the hands of his trusted entourage. The preening girls were opposite of happy to learn of his absence but reassured themselves that they’d meet him when they won.

  At least that was what Alicia heard when she and Nina passed by them on their way to the stinky bird pen behind the kitchen.

  Esmeralda was waiting for them inside the mesh chain–enclosed sty, wearing bright yellow rain boots over black jeans and a khaki smock.

  “Where’s the leather?” Alicia teased, feeling particularly giddy thanks to the success of her Spalpha mission.

  “It’s bad luck to wear animal hide in an animal pen,” Esmeralda said, like everyone already knew that. Then she reached into the pocket of her smock and scattered what appeared to be dead grasshoppers on the dirt. The birds flocked en masse, beaks at the ready. “As you can see, we have peacocks, peahens, and peachicks—”

  “And pea-ew!” Alicia pinched her perky nose.

  Nina burst out laughing. Then she pointed at a wet patch in the mud. “Look. Pea-pea!”

  Alicia cracked up.

  “Be serious!” Esmeralda squawked, wiping her dusty hands on her jeans.

  Ay-ahhhhhh! Ay-ahhhhhh!

  The male peacocks snapped their jewel-toned feathers shut while the peahens and peachicks scurried under their straw palapa for safety.

  “I’m sorrrrrry I yelled,” Esmeralda cooed at her beloved birds, then tossed them another handful of bugs.

  Slowly they returned, pecking at the insects with their pointy beaks.

  “After
you feed the birds, please rake the pen clean of feces and—”

  “Poo-cocks,” Alicia whispered just loud enough for Nina to hear.

  Their shoulders shook with suppressed laughter, but Esmeralda didn’t notice. She was too busy reading a message on her pager, which had just buzzed loudly.

  “They still make those?” Alicia whisper-asked her cousin.

  Nina shook her head no.

  “I must leave you now.” Esmeralda took off her apron and tried to hook it over Alicia’s neck.

  “Ew, no way!” Alicia jumped back, swatting at the bug-filled pockets.

  “I’ll wear it,” Nina volunteered a little too eagerly. Once the khaki ties were fastened around her neck and waist, the peacocks hurried toward her.

  “I believe that once you get to know these lovable creatures, you will treat them kindly and feel shame for what you did to Bolero.” Her eyes wandered to the far corner of the pen, where the peacock Nina had hit with ¡i!’s rubber jewelry hand was slumped against the wood fence, a white bandage around his tiny skull.

  “Are you sure you trust us in here alone?” Alicia asked, hoping against all hope for a chance to audition. “Maybe we should come back when you have time to super vise.”

  “Esmeralda doesn’t need to be here to supervise,” the troll-like lady snickered, talking about herself in the third person. She plucked a fallen feather off the ground and hurried out of the pen as fast as her stumpy little legs would allow. “I always know what my chicks are up to,” she added, before closing the gate behind her.

  “I’ll feed, you rake.” Nina grabbed two fistfuls of dead bugs and threw them in the mud. “All done. Can we go now?”

  “I wish.” Alicia drew sad faces in the mud with the rusty rake. In the distance, “The Rain in Spain” was starting up again for the billionth time. Someone was auditioning. Someone other than her.

  “ADM, come quick!” Nina shouted, surrounded by feasting peacocks. “This one’s third eye is about to fall off.”

  “What?” Alicia dropped the rake and hurried to the center of the pen. Her sudden arrival did nothing to scare off the flock, thanks to the hundreds of dead insects scattered around their talons.