Alicia

by Lisi Harrison

  “Got some more!” Nina shouted from the top of the concrete stairs. Alicia could hear her drop the sack with a thud and kick it. It tumbled loudly down the steps. The peacock pulled back his feathers and squawked, taking off.

  Alicia and Nigel bashed into each other, trying to find cover in the tiny, square room.

  “Sorry,” they giggle-said at the same time. Alicia quickly hurried to grab the bag, which was now lodged in the open doorway.

  “Who’s this?” Nina entered, circling Nigel like a hungry lion.

  “He’s no one,” Alicia snapped. She knew her tone was harsh, but didn’t care. The sooner he left, the faster the image of her in this horrific environment would fade from his British brain.

  Besides, he was sucking the Spanish out of her, and she needed every bit she had.

  “I’m off then.” Nigel backed out of the room. “See you around?”

  Alicia untied the sack, grunt-pulling out towels and pretending she was too involved in her work to respond. When she looked up a minute later, he was gone.

  “It’s so much cooler by the pool.” Nina smirked. Her blond bangs were plastered to her forehead, and blue kohl was smudged above her cheeks. “How ’bout I help you with this next load so you can get some air.”

  “Seriously?” Alicia asked with squinted eyes. Had Nina actually made a kind offer? Or was the temperature causing her to hallucinate?

  “Yeah. Just fill that wash bucket in the sink with water and start dumping it in the machine. Once it’s full, add the towels. I’ll start folding these.” Nina opened the metal door and waved away the heat from the dryer.

  “Wait.” Alicia paused before grabbing the tin bucket. “It seems weird to add water to a dryer.”

  Nina rolled her eyes. “Not when the dryer works off boiler steam.” She pulled out an armload of brittle towels. “Haven’t you ever done laundry before?”

  “Given,” Alicia lied. The closest she’d come to doing laundry was pulling the plastic off her dry cleaning. “We just have different machines at home.” She quickly filled the bucket and dumped it in the empty metal cube.

  “Two more should do it,” Nina said, smoothing her hand over a clean white towel.

  Once she was done, Alicia pulled the heavy wet towels out of the washer and jammed them in the liquid-filled dryer. Water gushed over the top and splashed onto the concrete floor, but Nina assured her that that was completely normal.

  “Now crank on the switch,” she instructed.

  Alicia did what she was told, suddenly finding her jail sentence less taxing now that she and her cousin were working together.

  Within an instant, sparks shot out everywhere. Bluish- white lights flashed from the back of the machine like firecracker burps, and smoke began huffing out the sides.

  “Ahhhhhhhhh!” they screamed, colliding with the peacock as the three of them raced for the exit.

  The machine continued to rattle and hiss. It sounded like someone was trapped inside, punching and kicking against the metal door. The banging got louder, the smoke got thicker, and the sparks flew farther.

  “Clear the way!” shouted a husky female voice.

  The girls turned and saw Esmeralda speed-walking next to two firefighters and three peacocks. The uniformed men hurried by, carrying axes and dragging hoses, their eyes fixed on the smoking cauldron ahead. Rushing in, they swung their blades and disappeared into the light gray cloud.

  When they emerged, the smoke was clearing, and the room smelled like singed hair.

  The men explained something to Esmeralda in Spanish before hurrying off, shaking their heads in disbelief.

  Alicia watched it all from her perch on the concrete stairs. Had her cousin purposely sabotaged her, or was she just more laundry-illiterate than she cared to admit? Alicia side-glanced at Nina, wondering how she was going to explain her way out of the situation.

  “American Cousin, I told you not to add water,” she huffed loud enough for Esmeralda to hear.

  “What?” Alicia squealed, her heart suddenly pounding and smoking like the broken machine.

  “No words!” Esmeralda pulled a tiny gold calculator out of her green leather blazer pocket and tapped away at its mini buttons. “Just numbers.”

  She held up the total, which was now seven hundred dollars more than it had been the previous night. “From now on, you will hang the wet towels on a clothesline and you won’t go home until they are dry.”

  Alicia’s heart stopped pounding all together. She no l onger felt like her perro poo–covered Louis Vuitton suitcase or the broken Juan Belmonte statue.

  Now she felt like the dryer—all washed up.

  HOTEL LINDO

  POOL DECK

  Friday, June 12

  3:12 P.M.

  “¡Piensa rápido!” Nina shouted before chucking a sopping wet towel at Alicia’s face.

  “Uggggh!” Alicia peeled the sangria-soaked shroud off her sweaty head and whipped it into the dirty towel bin. “Why are you so opposite of alpha?” she shouted, her voice capturing the attention of every sunbather on the packed pool deck. Once they’d identified the shouter as a towel girl and not a terrorist, they sigh-shifted their way back to comfort on their green canvas–covered cots and tried their hardest to forget the brash disruption.

  Nina snickered and returned to the white cotton pyramid she had been Jenga-building in the “help yourself” window of the orange adobe towel hut. With a “slip” of her elbow, Alicia knocked the pyramid to the limestone deck.

  “Opposite of lo siento.” She flip-flopped out of the hut with an armload of fresh folded towels and a smile.

  After nearly a week of anger-silence, Alicia could no longer ignore Nina’s attention-seeking jabs. It was one thing to overlook fake fart noises, peacock feathers floating in her ice water, and stolen earrings, but it was quite another to get publicly doused like a burning toaster. Especially when ¡i!’s bling-covered hand was hanging over his suite balcony for the fifth day in row. Clearly, he was assessing his options from an overhead perspective while P, G, and S staked out the deck like ground troops. The triplets frolicked in and out of their private cabana, nudging one another every time a bikini-clad guest padded by. They were obviously homing in on their favorites, even though the audition wasn’t for another couple of days. It was hard to compete when stuck wearing a stiff, mustard-colored yurt that smelled like a frat-house bathroom.

  Nigel was the only guy around who made Alicia feel like a contender. Despite her standoffishness in the laundry room, he’d still wink-wave every time she passed his chaise. He’d compliment her on her deepening leg tan, her caramel-colored highlights (natural, of course), and the cute way she stuffed dirty towels into the gray canvas laundry bag. If she’d been on the other side of the Atlantic, the attention would have fueled her like a triple shot latte. But here, it was like wearing bright vintage Pucci to a winter funeral—the right statement but the wrong occasion. The best she could do under Esmeralda’s watchful eye was unbutton her coarse uniform to give her brick red, C-cup-hugging Ralph Lauren bikini top some much-needed exposure. And each time she leaned down to replace a towel, she let the dress slide off her shoulder a wee bit more.

  Oops.

  By the time she got to the green and white–striped VIP cabana, the embroidered black mop was resting on her narrow hips, and her Westchester-white chest was buzzing with the sun’s invigorating rays.

  “My turn!” Celia called out from somewhere behind the billowing canvas walls.

  Alicia peeked through the luffing door flaps. P—or was it G or S?—was lying on his stomach. Jewel-toned satin pillows had been stripped from the wood daybeds and placed on the grassy floor surrounding his splayed torso. Isobel stood above him squirting olive oil onto his muscular back while the others looked on. Once he was slick and slippery, Celia kicked off her orange and blue Manolo slides and jumped on.

  “¡Uno . . . dos . . . tres!” they shout-counted while Celia teetered forward and backward, trying her ha
rdest to balance on his greasy torso. “Nueve . . . diez . . . once . . .”

  “Ahhhhh!” Celia’s left heel slipped, and she landed butt-first on his legs.

  Alicia closed the flaps and choked back a wave of betrayal-barf while P and Celia scream-laughed in pain.

  After not seeing the twins all morning, she’d hoped they were finally speaking to Esmeralda about bending the rules and making her the third GR Girl. Last night, when they’d asked to borrow her favorite Ralph Lauren denim mini and tangerine short shorts, she’d pleaded with them to use their GR influence to rescue her from towel-torture. But it was nauseatingly obvious that they had other priorities.

  “Whose boobie shadow is on the wall?” one of the entourage boys asked.

  Everyone inside burst out laughing. Before Alicia could step away and cover her cleavage, Celia appeared. Her bright, red-stained lips curled up with a mix of relief and frustration. “What are you doing here?” she whispered, closing the flaps behind her.

  Alicia, over being stung by her queen-bee cousins, decided it was time to speak her mind. “I’m dropping off towels because no one offered me a GR position yet.” She stood firm, studying her reflection in Celia’s mirrored gold aviators, fully hearting her squinty I-mean-business glare.

  “Are those diamond hoops the real deal?” Celia gently finger-flicked one of Alicia’s earrings.

  “Given.” Alicia gazed up at ¡i!’s balcony, hoping his dangling hand was still there and praying he was watching her being admired by a GR Girl.

  “Can I borrow them tonight?” Celia quickly checked over her shoulder, probably hoping the entourage wasn’t listening so she could pass them off as her own.

  “Boobie shadow!” one of them called while everyone else laughed.

  Alicia felt the tremble of angry words marching toward her mouth. How dare Celia treat her with such blatant disregard? Who did she think—

  “Unless, of course, you were planning on wearing them.” Celia twirled her finger around the gold RL chain that dangled off her black bikini and swung in her cleavage.

  “Where? To bed?” Alicia snapped.

  “No, with us, silly.” Celia put her arm around Alicia’s burning shoulders, her fingers brushing up against the diamond earrings once again.

  Accident?

  “We’re going to Danzatoria.” She threw her hands over her head and danced as if she were listening to an iPod under her yellow chiffon headscarf. “P, G, and S are picking us up at the house at eight p.m.—in a limo.”

  “Will ¡i! be there?”

  “You tell me.” Celia knit her brows in confusion.

  Alicia knit hers back. How was she supposed to know if . . . ohhhhhh.

  “Noooo, I mean, will ¡i! the singer be there? Not ¡i! as in I.” She pointed at herself.

  “Oohhhh.” Celia started laughing, and Alicia couldn’t help but join in. Just as they were slowing down to catch their breath, a passing peacock got them going all over again.

  It wasn’t long before several sunbathers were looking at Alicia for the second time that morning. Only now they probably wanted to know what the two bikini-clad hawties were laughing about. And of course how they got so hawt.

  “Get dressed!” Esmeralda snapped.

  Alicia whirled around, coming face-to-air with the miniature manager. Where did she come from?

  Celia kept the smile on her face, knowing full well the hotelier couldn’t possibly be talking to her. She was right.

  Esmeralda waved a wrinkled, hooked finger at Alicia’s sunburned chest. “¡Vamos!”

  Without a word, Alicia lifted her dress and buttoned it back up. It just so happened to match the mustard-colored leather vest Esmeralda was wearing over her ill-fitting white shift. It was ten kinds of wrong.

  “Now back to work!” She stomped her black platform wedge sandal against the dark limestone deck.

  “See you at eight,” Celia said to Alicia’s earrings, then hurried back inside the raucous cabana.

  A blast of up-tempo salsa music spilled through the pool loudspeakers. Had it been there all along? Alicia moved to the thumping beat, grabbing towels, practicing her Spalpha smile, and workshopping outfit ideas in her mind. Her days of mesh tops and open-toed boots were over. Tonight she would show ¡i!, P, G, and S what a real Spanish beauty with real taste looked like. Tonight was going to be all Ralph.

  While Alicia zigzagged through the west-facing rows of green canvas chairs, offering fresh towels, Nina slithered up beside her. “Spritz?” she asked, positioning a can of Evian face mist in a pruning woman’s visage. The woman waved her away like an encephalitis-carrying mosquito. Happily, Nina moved on.

  “Where is Celia taking your clothes tonight?” she asked Alicia through a fake-frozen smile.

  “She is taking me to Danzatoria with ¡i! and the entourage.” It felt so good saying it out loud.

  “That place is good times.” Nina giggle-sprayed a sleeping man’s chiseled chest and quickly turned away when he opened his eyes.

  The secret spritz reminded Alicia of something Massie might have done and she found herself giggling along with her cousin. Was it possible that she was actually starting to warm to Nina’s sense of humor?

  “If you want to leave early to get ready, I’ll cover for you,” Nina offered, spritzing a little Evian on her tongue.

  Alicia froze. Was Nina actually being . . . nice?

  “Seriously.” Nina stuffed the spray can in the deep pocket of her dress.

  “Quítate de en medio.” A supermodel type with deeply oiled skin and long arms lazily waved Nina away.

  “Oops,” Nina giggled, stepping aside and removing her shadow from the woman’s lithe frame. The rich golden light returned, and the woman lowered her arm.

  “I mean it.” Nina pulled her cousin off the crowded deck and onto the grass so they could converse freely. “I’m tired of fighting. And I already got you back for embarrassing me at your OCD school.”

  “And you don’t want anything from me?” Alicia cocked her head in disbelief, silently cursing the no-sunglasses rule.

  “Well, maybe one thing.” Nina grinned.

  Shocker!

  “What?” Alicia rolled her eyes. But if it meant she could leave early, it was worth a listen.

  “Esmeralda asked me to turn on the power generator in fifteen minutes, and I kind of wanted to sneak off and watch my favorite soap opera in room 718. The lock is broken and it’s just sitting there wide open. So if you do that for me, I’ll—”

  “ADM, grassy!” Alicia grabbed Nina’s clammy hand and shook it hard. “Done!”

  “Excellent!” Nina shook back. “All you have to do is push the red button on the side of that metal machine over there.” She pointed to the shiny cylinder by the poolside snack bar. “Just don’t forget or she’ll kill me.”

  “No prob.” Alicia tapped the face of her bronze Marc Jacobs cuff-watch to show she was on top of it.

  Exactly fifteen minutes later, Alicia marched over to the generator and searched for the red button. She found it without a problem and pressed it extra hard.

  Done, done, and done!

  The machine hummed to life. Then it rattled. Then shook. Seconds later, six nozzles rose out of the top and began spinning . . . faster and faster and faster. A massive retching sound, like the kind you make before puking, erupted from its bowels. Seconds later, water began spraying from the nozzles.

  “Ahhhhhhhh!” screamed the diners who had been enjoying their late lunches under a cloudless sky. The clank of cutlery and the screech of chairs drowned out the festive music. French fries floated in water-filled baskets, and now-see-through resort wear stuck to fleeing guests.

  “Tsunami!” someone shouted from the chaise area.

  “Hurricane!” others cried.

  Holding towels over their heads, everyone gathered their Hola! magazines, stuffed them in their designer totes, and scrambled for the lobby.

  Alicia stood and watched in shock, barely noticing the cold w
ater cascading over her as the porous maid’s uniform instantly absorbed it.

  From across the deck, Nigel threw her a supportive thumbs-up as he laugh-scrambled to safety with his two pasty mates. The only people not running for cover were the twins and triplets, who were still inside the cabana—probably covered in enough oil to wick away any water that happened to touch them. High above their heads, ¡i!’s hand still dangled over the suite’s balcony, his chiseled abs probably quaking with laughter.

  And then, the downpour stopped as suddenly as it had started.

  Esmeralda and a gaggle of soggy peacocks appeared by Alicia’s side. The tiny lady began shouting some mighty big words in Spanish. All Alicia understood was that she was in major trouble.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” she pleaded. “Nina asked me to—”

  “Enough!” Esmeralda placed her pruning hand in front of Alicia’s face. “I saw you press that button, not Nina!”

  “Thank you, Esmeralda, for not listening to my lying cousin,” Nina said, crashing their conversation on the deserted pool deck. She stuck out her tongue and playfully caught a drop of water as it dripped off the tip of her pointy nose. “I wasn’t even here when this scary storm happened.”

  “Yeah, but tell her why.” Alicia’s chest pounded.

  Nina just puckered her lips. When it became clear she wasn’t going to confess, Alicia looked at Esmeralda and blurted, “She was in room 718, watching soap operas.”

  “Really?” Esmeralda tightened her sloping hair bun.

  “Yup.” Alicia smirked.

  “Because this hotel only has six floors,” Esmeralda snapped. “Do your homework, America! You just activated the rain machine for ¡i!’s ‘Rain in Spain’ video shoot.”

  Nina snickered into her palms.

  If Alicia had had any idea how to punch someone, Nina would have been on her way to the plastic surgeon. She’d never felt so full of rage in her entire life. She had no idea who to sue first.

  “Since we have no dryer, you will stay here and blow on every one of these canvas chairs until they are crispy-dry,” Esmeralda ordered.