Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green Read online

  The golf cart bounces a ton on the potholed driveway of the Selva Lodge. In a bad pirate accent, Ken/Neth keeps saying stuff like, “Aye, we’ll make it yet, mateys, in our trusty craft!” Mom laughs. And because Mom laughs, Roo laughs, but I know they’re not laughing at Ken/Neth’s dumb jokes. They’re laughing with happiness, because we’re about to see Dad.

  There’s a breeze all around us, plus the big, loud, wacky noise of the jungle, so up front Mom and Ken/Neth can’t hear me and Roo too well. And there’s something I need to ask Roo about. Something private. Which for some reason suddenly seems really important.

  “Hey, Roo,” I whisper. “Remember that guy in the Selva Shop?”

  Roo rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I remember him. That happened like an hour ago. Jeez, I couldn’t forget him already. Maybe by tonight.”

  “I mean, did you notice anything in particular about him?”

  “Well,” Roo says, “his binoculars.”

  “His binoculars?”

  “The ones around his neck,” she says, and then adds, “duh.”

  “He was wearing binoculars?” How had I missed that? I’d been staring at him!

  Roo yawns.

  “Well, did you notice anything else?” I ask her.

  “I don’t know. He was kind of spacey, I guess.”

  “Did you notice his eyes?”

  “Uh, yeah, he had eyes.”

  “What color?”

  “Uh, I don’t know, brown? Can we talk about something else? Like SEEING DAD!”

  I guess Roo is just too young. I turn away from her and look out at the walls of jungle, the oversized leaves and thick vines and mossy tree trunks. I’m noticing the good smell of overripe mangoes when Roo lets out a little scream and points upward. Two red-yellow-blue parrot-type birds that look as though they flew right out of a cartoon are passing above us.

  “Are you serious?” Roo says with awe.

  “Hey, check that out!” Ken/Neth says. “Scarlet macaws.”

  “Breathtaking!” Mom whispers. “Unbelievable!”

  It really is pretty unbelievable, like something that would only ever happen in a dream.

  Right then Ken/Neth turns onto the main road, the one the van drove us down just a couple of hours ago. At the Selva Lodge, inside that concrete courtyard, I somehow managed to almost forget that we’re in the jungle next to a volcano. But now I remember all about it. The volcano looks huge and flat against the sky. I’m imagining a bubbling pool of orange lava up there at the top, even though I know that’s not what most volcanoes are really like.

  Then I see something.

  A thread of smoke rising from the volcano. It’s white against the light-blue sky. But still. I can see it.

  “Mom!” I yell.

  “What?” she says happily.

  “The volcano! Look!”

  “Look at what? What is it?” Roo squeals. “I want to see!”

  “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it, sweetie,” Mom says.

  “See the white smoke?” I panic. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “Oh, yeah, I see it!” Roo yelps.

  “I guess you’re—right,” Mom says slowly, gazing upward. Ken/Neth turns back to look at us with that annoying grin, enjoying his golf cart full of damsels in distress. “Relax, fair ladies.” Which drives me crazy. Could he please stop being this way please? Who does he think he is—King Arthur? “The volcano is active.”

  “Active?” I practically scream.

  “Hence the hot springs at La Lava. But it’s totally safe,” he promises.

  “Safe?”

  “The best experts have assured us there’s little to no chance the volcano will blow in the next hundred and fifty years.”

  “Little to no chance?” I repeat.

  “The scientists just have to cover their you-know-whats—pardon my French, girls.”

  I get that feeling again, that feeling of the volcano being a monster.

  “Think about it,” Ken/Neth says. “All sorts of movie stars and socialites and other rich and famous people stay at La Lava. Do you really think those kinds of people would allow themselves to be put in danger?”

  I harrumph. Then Roo harrumphs, imitating me.

  “I’m sure it’s fine, girls,” Mom says, although she doesn’t sound so sure.

  I try to stop staring at the smoking volcano. I guess Ken/Neth maybe does have a point about the movie stars. So I take ten deep breaths while beside me Roo chants “Dad! Daddy! Daddy-o! Dad! Daddy! Daddy-o!” under her breath.

  Ken/Neth turns left onto a smooth—get this—white road! I’ve never seen white pavement before. It shines as though recently polished, and the golf cart glides down it. This is obviously the nicest road we’ve been on since we arrived. I can tell we’re getting close, and my heart starts doing acrobatics.

  “Um, why is this road white?” Roo asks.

  “Better for reflecting the sun,” Ken/Neth explains. “White roads, white roofs—they reflect the sun’s rays more than black does. That’s the kind of thing that could really help prevent global warming. Don’t forget you’re at the World’s Greenest Spa!”

  Thanks, La Lava brochure robot.

  Soon the white road leads us to a pair of tall, gleaming metal doors in a huge stone wall. Ken/Neth raises two fingers in a peace sign to the guy in the booth, and the doors slowly swing open. Roo is the first to gasp once we’re on the other side, but I’m quick to echo her.

  Ahead of us lies a glowing white palace built into the side of the volcano. It reminds me of the palace on the cover of this book of Arabian fairy tales Mom and Dad used to read to us. I’m thinking big ballrooms and courtyards with rose gardens and marble bedrooms in towers.

  But even more amazing than the palace itself are the pools. They seem to be everywhere! Down the hillside from the palace, there are twenty or more pools, all connected by waterfalls and streams. Some are made of white marble like the palace. Others are made of dark volcanic rock. Here and there among the pools are wooden patios holding elegant wooden lounge chairs (I can’t help but think of Mom’s lawn chair at the Selva Lodge, which suddenly seems extremely crummy) and piles of dark green towels in large bamboo baskets. The white road continues past the front gate, alongside the pools, and up toward the palace.

  The water glitters in the sunlight, and I’m surprised to see that it’s a different color in each pool. In some pools it looks almost turquoise, in others dark blue, and in others light yellow, pale purple, even pink.

  And there are people. A good number of them. And they all seem to be moving in slow motion, getting into and out of the water, strolling down steps, lying on lounge chairs, sipping from glass goblets.

  What’s really strange is how quiet it is here. There’s a hush over everything. Even the jungle doesn’t make its usual ruckus. No noises rise over the quiet murmur of the waterfalls. All you can hear is the soft hiss of steaming water.

  And then I notice another strange thing. As we coast toward the palace, I realize that the jungle surrounding the pools isn’t wild jungle. I mean, it looks like wild jungle, but there’s something different about it, different from the jungle around the Selva Lodge. It’s … perfect. Like, there’s no messiness between the trunks of the trees. Vines climb upward in even patterns. Tiger lilies and other poisonous-looking flowers peek out at just the right angles. Nothing looks wilted or chaotic. Or I guess what I mean is, the chaos looks sort of … controlled.

  “Oh my goodness,” Mom is whispering, and Roo keeps letting out these little Oooos of amazement.

  “Nice, right?” Ken/Neth says, delighted to see us all so shocked.

  We pass a woman stepping out of a pool of bright pink water. She has long black curly hair.

  Wait a second. Wait a second!

  I have to do a double take, because no one else on the planet has hair that beautiful.

  I grab Roo’s hand, squeeze it tight, and, hiding my other hand in my lap so I won’t embarrass anyone, point at the woman.r />
  But Roo has already noticed, because she’s squeezing my hand too, and pointing, but she’s not being careful to hide her pointing.

  “Oh. My. Gosh,” Roo breathes. “Oh! My! Gosh!”

  Vivi.

  Our favorite actress.

  The one who played Cleopatra in our Favorite Movie Ever, The Secret Life of Cleopatra. Plus she’s been in a lot of other great movies too. Like Rosa of the Flowers and Knives, where she was a rebellious Guatemalan nun. And the whole Aphrodite superheroine series. And she was the voice of the brave, pretty wolf in Wolf Story, which we loved when we were little. And lots of other movies I can’t think of right now.

  Anyway: Wow. Double wow. Triple wow.

  She’s wrapping one of those thick green towels around herself. A young man in white pajamas approaches her with a green drink in a glass goblet. She takes it from him and then waves him away as she sips the drink and pulls her sunglasses down over her eyes.

  I cry every single time I see the end of The Secret Life of Cleopatra, even though I’ve probably seen it about fifty times. She is so courageous. It is the best. The very, very best.

  Mom is twisting around and looking back at me and Roo with huge, thrilled eyes. She knows how much we love Vivi. She loves Vivi too, because Vivi gives tons of her money away to libraries and children and environmental causes, especially in Latin America, since she grew up in Colombia and Mexico.

  “Don’t stare,” she whispers, even though she’s staring as much as we are.

  Ken/Neth laughs at us as he steers the golf cart toward the front entrance of the palace. But rather than stopping at the wide golden doors—yes, golden doors—he keeps right on going and turns onto a pair of dirt tracks. He pulls the golf cart up alongside a row of thirty or so others.

  “Resort rules,” he explains. “Gotta hide the golf carts. The rich don’t like to see the mechanics.”

  “What mechanics? Where?” Roo says merrily, hopping out.

  “He doesn’t mean mechanics like the guys who work on cars,” I explain, very much the older sister. “Mechanics as in all the things that make a place like this nice.”

  But Roo’s not paying attention to me anymore. Instead, she’s leading us back toward the golden doors of the palace. The air is neither hot nor cold, and it smells like honey, and I kind of want to stay here forever. Roo grabs my right hand and Mom’s left hand. Her hand is small and sweaty in mine. She skips and pulls us along with her, and in her skip I can read her only thought: Dad!—skip—Dad!—skip—Dad!

  A tall man in white pajamas opens the golden doors for us. He starts to bow low—then, recognizing Ken/Neth, he straightens up. Ken/Neth makes a peace sign with his fingers, but the man doesn’t do the sign back to him. This doesn’t seem to bother Ken/Neth, though, because he just looks at us with his goofy grin and gestures us inside as if it’s his own house or something.

  We step into a white marble lobby with an enormous golden block in the middle. It takes me a second to realize that the golden block is actually the front desk.

  Behind the golden block stands the most beautiful woman in the world (aside from Vivi, of course). And I’m not exaggerating. I’m sorry to say it, but Mom looks a little bit old, tired, and shabby compared to this woman. Even Mom’s pretty tulip dress somehow seems silly now. The woman behind the front desk has green eyes and bronze skin. Her skin looks as smooth as metal, as smooth as a mirror, as smooth as I don’t know what. She’s very tall, and she’s wearing a red business suit, and she’s tapping on the golden desk with fingernails that are long and sharp and silver. So long and sharp and silver that they make me think of miniature knives.

  “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?

  “Señorita Patricia 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!”