Alicia Read online

  The office had a cold feel to it, even though it was nauseatingly humid and had the soggy-cereal smell of fish food. A gold plaque on the woman’s otherwise empty desk took care of the introductions. It said ESMERALDA BELMONTE.

  Once the girls were seated, Esmeralda slammed the door behind them. “¡Esto es un desastre!” she barked. Her voice was low and scratchy, like she had been swallowing Swarovskis since birth.

  Alicia turned to make sure the door was shut and they were alone. Apart from an iridescent-blue peacock that was pecking insects out of a purple-lighted aquarium, they were.

  “Do you speak English?” she asked sweetly. “It’s not that I don’t understand Spanish, it’s just that—”

  “She’s American.” Nina rolled her eyes.

  “My mother’s Span—”

  “Enough!” Esmeralda roared. Her hair bun shook like a car teetering on the edge of a cliff. “Do you realize you destroyed the statue of my great-great-great-grandpapa Juan?”

  Alicia glanced at the ESMERALDA BELMONTE nameplate on her desk. Well, that explained why she was so attached to a statue.

  Esmeralda pulled a scuffed wood footstool out from under her desk and stepped on it in order to hoist herself into her tall, blue feather–covered chair. A ruby red crystal was lodged in a groove in her rubber soles, which barely hung off the edge of the seat.

  The discovery would have made the Pretty Committee shake with laughter, but Alicia found it impossible to squeak out even the smallest of giggles. The twins had left her for dead, and ¡i! probably had a cabana full of “real Spanish beauties” by now. Her Spalpha days were done. D-O-N-E, done.

  The hot sting of tears welled up behind her eyes again. Who was she kidding? She was too pathetic to pull off the alpha thing off at home. What had made her think she could do it abroad? Suddenly, Alicia wanted to make a “Beta Blues” playlist, hide under the covers, and cry her mascara off.

  Esmeralda gripped the rough edges of the concrete-slab-turned-desk and pulled herself closer. With a grunt, she leaned forward and grabbed a wafer-size gold calculator out of a gold metal caddy. The calculator was so small it looked like it had come out of a bubble gum machine, but her baby fingers power-punched it like it was NASA-tough.

  “The damage in America currency”—she glared at Alicia with tiny, piglike black eyes—“is twenty-nine thousand, eight hundred dollars.”

  Alicia breathed a sigh of relief. “Nina, you said it was worth millions,” she whisper-hissed.

  Nina shrugged, looking just as shocked.

  “Do you think I am loco enough to keep the real one here?” Esmeralda slapped the metal desk with her tiny hand. The peacock in the corner pulled his long neck out of the aquarium.

  “The one you destroyed is a copy.” Esmeralda slid off her chair and stood. For a second, all they could see was her sloppy bun making its way around the desk. She finally appeared and faced them. “But you will still have to pay me back.”

  Esmeralda scuttled over to the tall stainless-steel file cabinet against the wall, opened the drawer, and pulled out two dresses, folded into stiff squares. They looked like giant dinner napkins. She tossed them on the girls’ laps. “You start tomorrow.”

  “GR Girls?” Alicia squealed. She couldn’t unfold her gown fast enough.

  “Doncellas,” Nina said flatly, holding up her black, boxy, knee-length polyester dress with the white M above the left boob. “Maids,” she translated.

  “More like towel girls.” Esmeralda grinned, showing off a row of tiny gray teeth. “You will wash them, fold them, and fluff them. You will place them on the chairs by the pool and replace them when they are soiled.”

  Ew!

  Suddenly, Alicia was very motivated to delete her Beta Blues playlist and become a Spalpha again. It was her only hope of escaping this Cinderella story.

  Unless . . .

  “Um, is there somewhere private I can go to use the phone?” Alicia smiled politely. “I think I can get this whole thing taken care of immediatamente.”

  “Make your call from here.” Esmeralda placed her small hand on the cast-iron door handle. “Don’t bother escaping. I charge roaming fees.” She snort-laughed at her threat-joke, then left.

  “Why is that thing staring at us?” Nina stuck out her red lollipop–stained tongue and wagged it at the peacock. Alicia ignored her as she dialed America.

  “Is everything okay?” Nadia answered after the first ring.

  The bing-bong of the Riveras’ OnStar played in the background, and Alicia knew her mom was in the Lexus.

  “Totally,” Alicia said with a fake smile. “It’s just that, well, Nina and I—but mostly Nina—kind of knocked over some stupid fake statue at a hotel and now the ew-ner want us to be maids to pay for it. But if you wire a check for, like, twenty-nine thousand dollars, we can all get on with our lives and—”

  “What?” Nadia shrieked, and lowered the volume on her Jordin Sparks CD. “How much?”

  Alicia cleavage started to itch. Why was her mother making such a big deal about this?

  “It’s twenty-nine thousand eight hundred dollars,” Nina shouted in the background. “Not twenty-nine thousand even.”

  Alicia covered the mouthpiece. “Can’t you even contribute a little?”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Nina insisted.

  “Ugh!” Alicia turned her back on her infuriating cousin and refocused her attention on the distress call. “So if you could just wire the—”

  “Was it your fault?” Nadia interrupted. Alicia heard the GPS navigator instruct her mom to take the next left.

  “Just a little bit, but—”

  “Didn’t you tell us you were responsible enough to travel on your own this summer?”

  “Yeah.” Alicia scoffed in a what-does-that-have-to-do-with-anything sort of way.

  “Then you should be re-spon-si-ble for getting yourself out of trouble.”

  The peacock plodded across the room, vilifying Alicia with his condescending bird-glare.

  Alicia rolled her eyes. “Is Dad there?”

  “He’s still at the office,” Nadia sighed. “This lipo case is sucking the life out of him.”

  Pun intended?

  “I’ll call—”

  “Don’t bother,” Nadia grumbled. “He hasn’t picked up his phone in days.”

  “Can’t you just overnight a check and we’ll talk about it when I get home?” Alicia pleaded, her hands sweating as if they already knew the answer.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. But you’re going to have to handle this on your own. Like an adult.”

  “But I’m going to have to do laundry and wipe off oily chairs and—”

  “I love youuu,” Nadia cooed.

  “Well, you have a funny way of showing it.” Alicia stabbed the END button with her sharp thumbnail.

  Faster than Alicia could utter, “She’s dead to me,” Esmeralda reentered the room.

  “So?” She held out her palm. “Do you have the money?”

  “Um, yeah, it’s on the way.” She stood. “I’ll drop it off as soon as it arrives.”

  “Nice lie, America.” She popped the stiff collar of her white leather jacket.

  How did she know?

  “Both of you will report for work—in your uniforms—tomorrow morning at six a.m. Your debt goes up ten dollars every minute you are late. Failure to comply means I call the police and have you arrested for vandalism.” She held the door open for her newest staff members, snickering as they passed.

  “How am I going to get cast in ‘The Rain in Spain’ now? I’m an SLBR minus fifty,” Alicia whined aloud as she clicked down the marble hall in her open-toe boots. She balled up her uniform in case ¡i! happened to be strolling through the lobby.

  “Who knows?” Nina put her and on Alicia’s rounded shoulder. “Maybe his next remix will be ‘It’s a Hard-Knock Life’ from Annie. You’d be perfect for that.”

  Alicia rolled her eyes. She didn’t feel like her poo- covered sui
tcase anymore. Now she felt like the Juan Belmonte statue—a broken, shattered fake.

  HOTEL LINDO

  POOL DECK

  Tuesday, June 9

  11:15 A.M.

  “ADM!” Celia squealed flapping her freshly manicured nails like a baby bird in flight. “We just saw ¡i!!”

  Alicia immediately stopped fake-drying an oily Lindo chaise and lifted her sweaty brow. She blocked the mid-morning sun with her hand but still teared up from the stinging rays that managed to penetrate her skin-visor. Esmeralda had banned the use of sunglasses for all staff members—excluding GR Girls—because they came off as “aloof and superior.” Apparently, adolescent blindness was the lesser of two evils.

  “Liar!” Nina pinch-dropped another Hawaiian Tropic–soaked towel into the gray canvas sack they’d been dragging around the pool deck for the last forty-five minutes. Alicia would have called in sick this morning if she’d thought anyone Spanish—or anyone above a seven-point-five—would have gone for a dip or a tan before noon. But clearly the only people sunning themselves this early had been fast asleep during last night’s casting party. And thus, they were ELBRs—European LBRs—and not worth the stress.

  “It’s true!” Isobel scurried along behind her sister. “We saw ¡i!’”

  Alicia had no idea how to react:

  Beg for details?

  Scold them for leaving her in the bull-dust last night?

  Ask why they hadn’t begged Esmeralda to make her a GR Girl yet?

  But first things first.

  “Ralph Lauren didn’t offer those in his summer collection,” Alicia noted, staring at the gold RL charms that dangled from the tops of their black string bikinis and swung above their perfect innie belly buttons.

  “No, Cousin, the RL is for ‘Resort Lindo.’” Celia twirled her chain around her deeply tanned finger.

  No one back home would ever know that. The sooner Alicia could get her hands on one of those bikinis, the sooner she could pass it off as a limited-edition Ralph. She had to have something to show for this summer. And after getting publicly booted from ¡i!’s party, snagging an RL knockoff seemed like her best, and only, option.

  “The blogs said he didn’t go to the party because he was mourning the fallen statue,” Nina offered, like it was the final piece of evidence needed to solve a murder case.

  “Not last night,” Isobel whisper-hissed while maintaining a lighthearted smile so the poolside pervs would still find her fetching. After all, that was her job. “N-owwww!”

  “What?” Nina dropped the gray sack and fanned her flushed cheeks.

  “Where?” Alicia pulled a tube of MAC Lipglass in Lust out of her itchy side pocket.

  “On his balcony.” Celia adjusted the pink carnation behind her ear. “His arm was hanging over the side like this.” She let her hand fall at the wrist, as if some chivalrous gentleman were about to lead her to the ballroom dance floor. “And we totally saw it.”

  “How do you know it was his?” Alicia pressed.

  “It was tanned and gorgeous and covered in diamond ¡i! rings.” Isobel bobbed up and down in her gold snakeskin Manolo slides, looking like a mocha-colored pogo stick.

  Alicia glanced around the L-shaped pool to hide the disappointment in her eyes. There was no chance ¡i! would ever consider her a beauty now, Spanish or otherwise. Her forehead was slick with sweat, and her feet were starting to swell from the heat. Not even the ELBRs around the pool with their sagging pink bellies and salsa-stained sarongs were giving her a second look.

  Except for one.

  The pasty Brit who’d gotten in her way the night before was drumming his pale thigh to the beat of whatever was playing on his blue ¡i!Pod Nano with one hand and waving at Alicia with the other.

  She whip-turned away. He wasn’t Spanish, but he was decent looking. And she was in a boxy poly-blend maid uniform, looking opposite of cute.

  A gaggle of peacocks meandered by. They glared at Alicia and Nina, practically telling them to get back to work. But when they passed the twins, they simply fluttered their spectacular wings like some secret beautiful-people club handshake.

  “We better go.” Celia gripped Isobel’s wrist as a barefoot production assistant in a black T-shirt and turquoise board shorts pushed a handcart filled with stage lights and wires past the girls. “The video crew is setting up today.” She tipped her gold Chanel aviators and followed the buff lackey with her almond-shaped eyes. “These are people we should definitely get to know. They’ll lead us right to the source.”

  “Good point, sister.” Isobel hooked her finger around her tiny bikini bottom and pulled it out of her butt.

  The twins scurried off without another word. It was official. Alicia envy-hated them more than all the times she’d ever envy-hated Massie put together.

  “Why aren’t you working?”

  The girls turned toward the voice, but had to look down to see where it was coming from. Esmeralda had sneaked up behind them. She was wearing a green leather miniskirt and matching blazer with the same white canvas stilettos from the night before. Despite her heat-doesn’t-affect-me leather ensemble, her wrinkled forehead was beading like a Vera Wang wedding gown.

  “America,” she snapped her fingers. “I’m moving you inside. You are too distracted out here.”

  “Grassy!” Alicia beamed. Air-conditioning and a break from worrying about being spotted by P, G, S, or ¡i! seemed like the perfect solution to this far-from-perfect morning.

  “Oh, and I made a terrible error with your uniforms,” Esmeralda said, handing them each a white iridescent Hotel Lindo bag.

  Finally!

  Alicia couldn’t wait to get out of her itchy sack and put on something worthy of a Spalpha.

  “I’m sure you will find these more flattering.” Esmeralda folded her short arms across her flat chest and waited with pride while the girls tore into their bags.

  “ADM.” Nina pretended to barf in her mouth, a gesture Alicia would have found funny if the situation weren’t so dire.

  “Ewww-niform.” Alicia winced as she held up a mustard-colored starched cotton dress. The skirt ballooned out like an umbrella, the sleeves were stiff triangles, and there was a black mop embroidered over the left breast. “I’ll pay you double if I don’t have to wear this.”

  Esmeralda ignored the comment. “You may change in the broom hut and then make your way down to the laundry room. Nina, you will deliver dirty towels, and America will wash them.”

  She clapped her hands twice before hobbling off to sprinkle peacock food on the grass. The plumed birds flocked to her side, and she tittered with giddy delight.

  After squeezing herself into the abrasive and ugly-times-a-million dress, Alicia stomped down the concrete staircase and through a door that read EMPLOYEES ONLY. Her pert nose followed the smell of fabric softener to a room marked LAVANDERíA.

  The air inside was so humid it felt like she was breathing into a massive, detergent–soaked cotton ball, and she couldn’t help wondering about the effect it would have on her wavy hair.

  Looking around, she saw two giant silver machines pushed up against a wall covered in chipped yellow paint—a flash-forward to Alicia’s manicure if she didn’t get some “me” time soon. In the far corner a peacock was nibbling on a pile of sunscreen-stained towels.

  “Shoo!” Alicia waved him away like a pesky fly, but he just fanned his feathers and continued pecking.

  “Ugh!” She angrily grabbed the towels away from the bird while cursing out:

  Her insensitive mother . . .

  The Pretty Committee, for having fun when she wasn’t . . .

  The twins, for snagging GR jobs . . .

  The machines, for having Spanish instructions, and . . .

  Nina, for being allowed to stay by the pool, where oxygen was still available.

  The minute her father won his lipo case, she was going to sue them all.

  “’Ello.” A familiar voice echoed off the bare walls. “Me again,”
the male voice said in a singsongy accent. “Nigel’s the name.”

  Alicia wiped her slick forehead on a gazpacho-stained towel before turning to face him. His pale chest was hidden by a tattered vintage concert tee showing two cornrowed guys named Milli Vanilli.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked in English, no longer caring if he knew she was half American. Her chances of being in ¡i!’s video were the same as Nigel’s being a judge: zero minus diez.

  “I thought you were Spanish when we met,” he tra-la-la-ed. “But I ’eard you tawkin’ at the pool, and you sound American.” He smiled, revealing his crooked tooth once again. “That means we can hang out.”

  “Wait, you thought I was Spanish?” Alicia felt renewed hope as she pushed a towel tower into one of the machines and slammed the door shut. “I heart that!”

  “Yeah, you look Spanish.” His blush revealed that, by his standards, looking Spanish was a good thing.

  “I’m half,” she admitted.

  Nigel’s blue eyes illuminated, like Alicia had somehow gotten behind them and flicked the on switch.

  “I imagine you’ll be trying out for that video contest, royt?” He pinched his tee and pulled it away from his sweaty torso.

  Alicia looked at Nigel closely for the first time. She had never been attracted to the fair-complected, but he was undeniably ah-dorable.

  His dark blue eyes, short-cropped blond hair, toned abs, foreign accent, zitless skin, and whiskerless chin would make him an indisputable ten in Westchester. But he was British, and Alicia was on a Spalpha mission, not a Balpha mission. And that made him an unfortunate waste of time. Pity.

  “We’ll see.” Alicia shrugged, cutting the conversation off like a chunk of split ends. It was time for him to leave. Time for him to stop looking at her in that crusty maid’s uniform in the humid laundry room, surrounded by other people’s stains.

  She had considered explaining her situation, but decided that would be too complicated for someone who was a non-crush. Especially the part about her parents not bailing her out. Even she was having a hard time understanding that one.

  “You better go.” Alicia dumped half a bottle of something blue in the machine and cranked it on.