The Espionage Effect
Kat Bastion & Stone Bastion
To all those seeking their place in this world…
The darkest lie was the one I conned myself into believing…
Cool shadows cloaked me with the soothing comfort of a familiar enemy-turned-friend.
On either side of us, lush vegetation covered the ground, broad-leafed vines snaked up palm trunks, and the eerie roots of banyan trees hung from horizontal limbs, as if probing to snag an unsuspecting passerby. We walked near a pale blue-gray palm, unique amid all the glossy emerald, as we negotiated down an uneven limestone path which threatened to turn an ankle even in the sturdy wedge thongs I’d worn.
The manmade trail was an average width of forty-two inches. Between our hotel suite’s small building and our current position grew thirty-seven distinct species of flora, thirty-eight…thirty-nine. I paused in my mental tallying to glance up at a large tree’s canopy that spanned directly overhead. A quick scan from left to right calculated that one thousand four hundred and twenty-eight leaves quivered above us in the slight breeze, plus or minus an acceptable margin of error.
“Well, Dev?” Anna, my college roommate and fellow vacationer, nudged a hip into me, knocking me off-balance. “What d’ya think?”
Startled at her rowdy interruption, I blinked back to reality, then shot her a deadpan look. “I think it’s a damn good thing you didn’t wear your Choos or Blahniks.” Designer shoes were her weakness, to the point of impracticality.
In the middle of the manicured jungle of a swank boutique resort we’d arrived at only hours ago, the closest friend I had struck a defiant pose, hands propped on her hips, lips plumped into an impressive pout.
If a male had been around? The poor guy would’ve stumbled. Passing cars would’ve crashed. With sleek black hair, wide-set green eyes, flawless olive skin, and graceful legs accompanying perfectly proportioned curves, she wandered effortlessly through the world looking like an exotic supermodel.
“Don’t dis designer, Devin. And you knew what I meant. Is Maroma Beach the ultimate, or what?”
“Nice alliteration.” I struggled to restrain an eye roll.
And yeah, I’d known what she’d meant. But we’d only been on the ground in the purported tropical paradise for a short time, and she knew what ailed me couldn’t be instantly cured by the pretty veneer of a beach locale.
My last-minute decision to go on my first vacation ever had been driven by a desperate need to escape: from a colorless preordained life, from expectations of those who’d held court over my destiny, from the suffocating knowledge in the deepest parts of me that screamed for more…
More justice. More choices. More control…
Maybe the climate would be conducive to soul searching. Then instead of running from a future that fit me wrong in every way, I could chase something that would make me as whole as one could reasonably expect.
“It’s amazing, Anna.” The easy lie rolled off my tongue slow and soft, a skill I’d sharpened over the years, long before I’d met her.
Her eyes twitched, subtly narrowing before she outright glared at me.
It seemed she hadn’t bought into my subterfuge. Although she didn’t fully grasp the extent of all that plagued me, she understood that I desperately needed a break from an abysmal reality before I cracked.
“Devin Hill. You are here on vacation.” She clicked closer in her jeweled flip flops, her menacing expression intensifying. “Blend with the natives. Be a tourist.” She spread her arms wide, raising them as she closed the distance between us. “Embrace the happiness and serenity.” She stopped when we stood toe-to-toe, voice lowering, “If you can’t enjoy yourself for the seven days we have here, will you at least fake it for me?”
I tilted my head and beamed her my typical smile. “Absolutely.”
“Good. Now can we eat? I’m famished.” The matter apparently settled to her satisfaction, she looped an arm through mine and tugged me forward, unrelenting as usual.
Both almost twenty, with birthdays only three weeks apart in February, we’d met at the student union two years ago when I’d needed a body to fill a spare condo bedroom. She’d hovered over my shoulder as I depressed a pushpin into a ROOMMATE NEEDED flyer. But instead of pulling off one of the dozen slim phone-number tabs at the bottom, she’d ripped the entire page out from under the pushpin and declared herself as the roommate I needed.
Matter-of-fact, succinct, efficient, and confident? I hadn’t argued.
“Me too.” I matched her strides step for step, if not to fully embrace the spirit of a Christmas holiday in the brightly painted tropics, then to at least act like it. Having her as a determined cheerleader at my side couldn’t hurt matters.
We stepped beneath a stone archway carved with historical Mayan reliefs, through an entry building, and into a courtyard garden shaded by a dense canopy of trees. Turning right, we picked our way over stepping stones edged with lush green moss, passed a blue-and-yellow macaw preening a wing from a perch on a terra-cotta birdhouse, then continued down the narrow path alongside a two-story white stucco building with spacious balcony terraces. To our left, water arced from circular stone spouts built within a blue-tiled wall, then lazily splashed into a crystal-clear pool surrounded by unoccupied chaise lounges.