by Cecilia Gray
“You fancy yourself in need of money?” Smacker says from behind me.
Viviane points to a uniformed officer at the other end of the square who is barreling toward us. “Let’s fancy our asses running.”
We take off, away from the crowd, which has formed a convenient barrier for us. We dodge through a maze of narrow alleys. Tinkling door chimes from corner stores. Pungent cheese. A busload of students in white button-up shirts. The sounds, smells, and sights blur, but the rush sharpens.
I’ve already gotten him to do one thing I wanted. Now I want more.
~~~~~
Rue du Midi, Brussels, Belgium
Once I’m convinced we’ve lost the police, I stop in front of a little café, which isn’t too hard since Brussels has a café every two feet. I turn around and see that Smacker and Viviane are still a block behind me. I wonder if he’s deliberately being slow so he can run next to her.
I take a seat and shiver as the chilling breeze caresses my neck. I have to fight for balance as the chair legs wobble on the cobblestones.
Weapon—pepper for an improvised disarming device.
Smacker settles in next to me, breathing hard. “Lungs made of steel, you have there,” he notes, taking a few deep breaths.
Seconds later, Viviane collapses onto the third chair and throws her body over the table.
“That.” Breathe in. “Was.” Breathe in. “Awesome.” She drops her head onto her arms and feigns sleep.
Mission time. Step one. Work the asset’s ego. “Smacker, you were so fast going up and down the tower.”
“Seb’s custom rope rig helped.”
“Have you tried a free climb?” I fish. “Like how Kid Aert made the top of Trango Tower in Pakistan?”
“Ha,” Smacker laughs. “Free climb my ass. That was a rig, too, and everyone knows it.”
Was it now? I don’t remember reading that the Trango Tower job used a rig, so it must be inside information only the real Kid Aert would know. But Chelsea would say confirm and double confirm, so I do. “How do you know it was a rig?”
“Because I designed it.”
Smacker blanches at his answer—Goose! He shakes it off quickly with a chuckle and refocuses on me. Viviane smacks his arm hard. My heartbeat feels like a hollow drumbeat in my chest. It was practically a confession.
Smacker rubs his arm where Viviane hit him. “Ouch, lovely.”
“So you know him, then?” I press. “Kid Aert? He sounds cool. I’d like to meet him.”
“Oh ho ho,” Smacker says. “You fancy yourself a Kid Aert fan, do you?”
A tricky answer. “Don’t you?”
“One day in the biz and you think you can go straight to the top? Why don’t you start a little lower on the ladder? Maybe try for a meetup with Assassin? He’s the bloke that puts bullet holes in the heads of all them models on the billboards.”
“I’ll take both. You want to introduce us?”
“Why can’t you mind your own business?” Viviane scowls before the expression slides off her face to be replaced by surprise. “Oh, Sasha, I didn’t mean that—I—” She looks at me helplessly.
The sting is sharper than I expect, a slash in my gut. I shouldn’t feel that way because this isn’t personal, this is business, but there it is, the clench of betrayal.
I hadn’t expected that. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t for Viviane to be the one saying no.
VIII
Port of Ostend, Belgium
Watchful parents herd their carefree children between the white fences bordering the beach promenade. A few brave souls have climbed over the picket barrier and stormed the dunes of sand. Most amble beside dogs or fly neon-colored kites in the boisterous wind. Braver still are the ones tossed by frigid waves that collide against the shore with a spray of optimism.
Watching Porter, Rachel, and Viviane heft the picnic cooler out of the trunk, Porter on one end and the two of them on the other, it’s easy to see how they’d blend. The beach comes with no instructions, but they know to carry the cooler between them, they know how fast to make their steps so they are side by side. They dodge left and right to avoid errant children and eager puppies off leash. They walk away from the beach toward the main harbor, which is dotted with sails.
With nothing to carry, I scan the boats moored at the dock. The Continental Fisheries logo, a green marlin jetting out of the water, flaps in the wind on a monohull sailboat a few hundred feet away. Nice perk for a cover job.
I reach the side of the sailboat before they do and balance on the wooden dock swaying with the breath of the tide. My hands itch for something, for some way to be useful. I uncoil the heavy rope from the cleat as they pile onto the deck, and leap after them. My weight seesaws the boat. I bend my knees and adjust to the back and forth until my feet are firm beneath me.
I push off the dock, check the tie-offs. The only exit from this thing will soon be a dive into the water.
“Someone taught you well,” Porter says.
It’s almost as good as being told that I am the one who is well educated. I make my way towards the aft and Viviane follows me there. “Who taught you?” She cocks her head. “A boy?”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Whenever Chelsea’s mom would turn her head, she’d urge me to take the tiller.
“How about you give it a go?” Porter asks. “Take her out.”
Take the reins is how Chelsea would have said it. “I’d like that.”
“But, Dad.” Viviane’s eyes are as round as moons. “It’s a company boat.”
“Come, Vivi. Let’s make the picnic.” Rachel grabs a few plastic bags from the cooler and beckons Viviane with a hurried hand that disappears as she goes down the stairs.
“But I want to—”
He stops her with nothing more than a tone. “Viviane.”
She storms off in a huff, kicking the cooler along the way. Even as a strange urge to comfort her wells inside, it’s a small blip compared to the relief of being separated. A strange awkwardness has crept between us. Had it always been there, I wouldn’t care. I would barely notice. But I don’t know how to go back to how things felt before, and instead of trying to, it’s like I’m running farther away, kicking and screaming. This is more familiar to me than kites and dancing in the waves. At least with Viviane, Rachel and Porter dispersed across the boat, now I don’t feel like they’re a flock of birds moving in tune to a song I can’t hear.
I’m the one who knows this dance. I angle the main sheet so the sail unfurls with a flap in the wind. The wind is southwesterly, maybe nine knots. Getting a sailboat out of harbor is the hardest part of the process, because you have to propel the boat forward and turn simultaneously. Each slap of the waves bounces me up and down, hard on my knees, but the boat is well balanced, so adjusting the rudder is a simple pull.
I used to think sailboats functioned by getting wind behind the boat to push it forward. That’ll work for an initial shove to get out of the harbor. But the boat moves forward because wind pushes against it from both sides, so it spurts ahead like a bar of soap compressed between two slippery hands. The trick is balancing the force of the wind against the pressure of the waves without getting the bounce-bounce-bounce of smacking against the current.
My knees buckle as we slap into the sea. We pick up speed and my curls riot in the wind as I navigate us past a row of moored boats and into open water.
Porter sits back in the captain’s seat, content to watch the receding shoreline. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. Your emancipation was approved this morning. Congratulations.”
“I…thank you.” That’s what one says to these things, right? Thank you. Even though I’m the one who put the request through, not him. But he didn’t protest it.
Which means that as of right now, I am standing on the deck of this boat because I want to be here, and no one can tell me any different. I feel a strange urge to leap into the water, spread my arms wide, and dive under. Swim away like a mermaid. No o
ne could stop me. My accounts are being split off to be my own. I can sign my own lease if I want. I can pick my own assignments or none at all. I can quit school. Quit life.
The boat hits a rough patch that sends us into another series of bounces. I move to shorten the aft canvas.
“Now that you’re an adult, you should know to submit your status updates on time.” He pins me with a stare. “Do you have a plan?”
“Yes.” I wrap the excess rope from my palm to my elbow. “There’s…an obstacle I’m considering.”
“Considering or handling?”
Can Viviane be handled? She so easily drapes her arms around me and speaks in run-on sentences and smiles so easily…except when it comes to Kid Aert aka Smacker. Maybe she’s jealous. Thinks I’m trying for him. “It won’t be a problem.”
“Good. Because we have a hard target. The company wants your asset to hit the M—— embassy in Brussels. Can you deliver?”
“Yes.” Porter isn’t interested in no. He isn’t interested in how I haven’t confirmed whether Smacker can or will do it. How I don’t have his identity nailed as Kid Aert. And he is especially not interested in the distance between me and Viviane.
He leans back in his chair and tilts his face up to the sun. “Take a load off.”
I drop the rope in a neat pile next to the mast. I glance around the deck, looking for something else to do. Another way to occupy my time. Porter’s eyes have drifted shut and he seems like a father on vacation. Which makes me what? Not his friend, not his colleague exactly.
I go below. Even if I don’t know what to do on the boat, I know what I have to do in my job, and step one is convincing Viviane to let me in with Smacker. I could try another setup between them. Maybe another art project. She hasn’t brought up hitting Cochon headquarters again despite her initial enthusiasm about my multiple pig sketch. I need to up the stakes. Maybe a date? A double date with Sebastien? I go hot at the thought.
Viviane and Rachel are seated at a table in the galley making sandwiches, but when Rachel sees me she tells me to help myself to a bite before she heads upstairs with a small picnic for her and Porter. I slip into the booth and take a crispy bite of baguette with bean sprouts and cucumbers and glance sideways at Viviane, who is staring straight ahead and taking crunchy bites of her sandwich.
I could ask, “Is Smacker Kid Aert?” She’ll say something and she’ll say the truth. It could be so easy, only it won’t be…not afterward, when she stresses over why she did it.
“Where did you learn to sail?” Viviane picks breadcrumbs off the Formica-covered table and flicks them to the floor.
“Lake Lanier in Georgia.”
“Dad won’t let me learn. Mom either. Did your mom teach you?”
I ignore the M word. “Chelsea did, yeah.”
“I wish Dad would teach me.”
“Have you asked?”
“I wish Dad wanted to teach me.”
I wish Chelsea had taken me to self-defense classes or weapons training.
“Are you mad?” she asks.
I stop halfway into a bite of my sandwich. “Me?”
“You’re acting mad.”
“I thought you… You’re the one acting mad.”
“Why would I be mad? I’m the one who was a total ass. Telling you to mind your own business with Smacker.”
“Oh.” It makes no sense to me. I take another bite, chewing thoughtfully. “I was worried you were mad.”
“I was having an off day,” she says.
I grin—I don’t know why. I’m closer to my mission, sure, but that’s not it, not why.
Viviane scoots onto my side of the booth and hugs me. I hug her back. I’ve never felt lighter. She pulls away and wipes a tear from her eye, then resumes her seat on a laugh. “I’m soooo glad we’re okay. I know it sounds lame, but you’re part of my life now. I can’t even remember what things were like before you moved in.”
My smile freezes solid on my face with a pang of yearning. I can remember—and I can also guess what things will be like when I move on. Because my life here isn’t about playing friendsies with my handler’s daughter. It’s about nailing my assignment—doing right by my country—being a hero.
Viviane is already an asset. Possibly also a liability. I don’t have the capacity to think of her as a friend, too. The more I pretend otherwise, the worse it will be. I should ask. I do ask. “Can Smacker introduce me to Kid Aert?”
She opens her mouth to say something. I almost want to clap my hand over her mouth to stop her, to take it back. Before I can, the sailboat jibes. We jerk to the side. I grip the table with rigid knuckles.
Viviane and I lock surprised eyes as the sailboat tacks to speed back toward shore.
Rachel climbs downstairs into the cabin and begins putting cold cuts back into plastic bags.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
“We have to get back. Your father got a call.” Rachel meets my eyes with a steady gaze. “Chelsea Tanner is in town.”
~~~~~
Jennings residence, Brussels, Belgium
The breath whooshes out of my body as we pull up to the house. Chelsea waits, ramrod straight. Sleek blond locks. Piercing blue eyes. Holding a wrapped gift in her hand. It wasn’t a misunderstanding or a miscommunication. She’s here.
“Ms. Tanner.” Rachel exits the car and smooths the front of her button-down shirt. “We’re so sorry to make you wait. We weren’t expecting you.”
We jump out of the car. Porter and Viviane grab the tote bags from the trunk and greet her with handshakes by the front door.
I stand rooted to the sidewalk because every fiber in me, every hair on my body, every blood cell, feels like barreling into her arms. Unexpected, and definitely unprofessional. Which raises the question—why is she here? Did I mess something up? I knew it—I’ve let myself get distracted.
“I’m sorry for the sudden visit,” she says. “It’s Sasha’s birthday. I should have called.”
“It’s your birthday?” Viviane’s eyes light up.
“It’s no problem.” Rachel graciously motions everyone into the hall. We cluster there in an awkward huddle as she closes the front door.
For a moment, we face each other with stiff arms and tight smiles. She’s here for my birthday?
Porter breaks the silence. “I need to finish some business, but I’ll join you later.”
Viviane pinches my arm. “Why didn’t you tell us about your birthday, lame-o?”
I’ve never really thought of my birthday as real. No birth certificate equals no birthday. That’s how it goes. Chelsea christened today as my birthday because that’s the day I was first assigned to her. The first year, when we celebrated with a cake at work, we were ordered to counseling to make sure we weren’t confusing our roles. “I forgot.”
I’ve been more concerned with my emancipation than anything. Is that why she’s here?
Viviane elbows me in the side and whispers, “Who forgets their birthday, freak?” Then to the room at large, “We need a party.”
“A cake,” Rachel offers. “I’ll bake a cake.”
“A vegan cake,” Viviane amends as she follows Rachel into the kitchen.
Chelsea lays a hand on my arm. I place my hand over it. She squeezes.
“Come now, everyone into the kitchen,” Rachel calls.
I have to step away so I shuffle into the kitchen behind Viviane. I can’t lose my composure, not here. Not with Rachel pulling flour and sugar from the cupboard and telling Viviane to grab soymilk from the fridge. Porter won’t want a crybaby on staff.
Rachel peers into the depths of her cupboard. “I’m afraid I’m low on cocoa. I hope you like plain vanilla cake?”
“That would be great.”
Viviane says, “I used to make Mom bake a Barbie cake when I was a kid. The funnel is Barbie’s skirt and you stick the top half of the doll into it and then I would love it so much I wouldn’t let anyone eat it.”
“I always had to ma
ke a second cake,” Rachel says with a gentle roll of her eyes at Chelsea.
There’s a pause, as if she is waiting for Chelsea to say something about us and our cakes and as much as I want to know what she would say I’m scared she won’t say anything, so I speak up first. “I always had a red velvet cake. They’re my favorite.” Chelsea’s mom would serve it with tea when we visited.
“I remember,” Chelsea says softly.
I swallow hard. “Yeah, your mom’s chef makes the best one.”
“A chef.” Viviane perks up as Rachel wedges the metal mixing bowl under her arm and whisks soymilk and sugar. “You guys have a chef?”
“My mom has a chef,” Chelsea corrects.
“And a driver,” I add. “Like for real—someone who lives on the property to drive her around whenever she wants to go somewhere. She lives in this gorgeous old plantation in Savannah. I think technically it’s an estate more than a house.”
“The kind where it takes ten minutes to get from your bedroom to the toilet?”
“Yes,” I say.
“That is sweet.”
“Not if you really have to pee.”
Viviane laughs. I laugh, too, and glance over to Chelsea. Her expression stops me short. I can’t describe it. It’s almost like she’s been punched in the gut. I hope she doesn’t think I’m making fun of her mom. I must sound so ungrateful. No matter how I feel about how she let me go, she also gave me a home, a place to sleep and feel safe—and here I am making fun of her.
Chelsea clears her throat. “Well,” she says, “if you get desperate on your way to the toilet, you can always pee in one of the marble planters.”
I laugh nervously, relieved she isn’t mad at me.
Viviane eyes grow wide. “Did you ever do that?”
“No,” I say quickly. “Never.”
Chelsea clears her throat and shrugs demurely. “A southern belle doesn’t pee and tell.”
~~~~~
