Please read Chapter 1 of Revenge, and this will make more sense.
Special thanks to kenjisato for the editing, whom I cannot recommend enough.
**
"Are you ready, little one?"
"Yes, Grandma," Maria grinned.
"Cheeky bitch," Esmy smiled.
Their observation and stalking studies always started this way, Maria knowing she hated this reminder of her age. It was their little joke, yes, but for Maria, it was accurate. Both Mama and Papa's parents were dead and, as an only child, she had long ago 'adopted' people she met to be part of her wider family.
The students who lived with them over the years were her big sisters and the people who worked in Mama's firm were her aunts and uncles. Esmy was her first grandma, though, and the two were thick as thieves.
Maria had had a happy childhood, she supposed, though she was sometimes lonely. She had many friends, but only one she was really close to, Andrea. She was very smart, Mama and Papa sacrificed so she could attend the second-most exclusive private academy in the country, alongside the children of doctors, lawyers, and mid-level government employees, plus paying for a private tutor to teach her English.
Living with one 'big sister' after another, she was mature for her age, but very anxious to be an adult, like them. She was good at keeping secrets, having never told anyone about the sleeping habits that took place in her home, not even Andrea. Her parents had told her how important it was and that was enough, mostly.
But what also helped was that her first big sister, who lived with them when she was eight years old, had become a therapist. Steffie was almost thirty now, and Maria had been seeing her once a week since she had first moved in as a student, when Steffie would use her as a guinea pig to practice her studies. Some ten years later, they still got together every week, and Maria was comfortable unloading all of her problems on her 'big sis'.
When she turned sixteen, Mama and Papa sat her down and told her about Sofia and Raul, her real parents and Mama's sister, and what had happened to them some fourteen years earlier.
Maria absorbed the news, not knowing how to react; mostly, it bothered her to see Mama so
upset. Maria told her she needed some time to think, went to her room, and called Steffie, making plans to see her the next day.
Lying in bed that night, she tried hard to remember her real parents, but try as she might, there just wasn't anything there...and the first faint embers of anger ignited.
"Thanks for seeing me," Maria said, embracing Steffie in a tight hug and settling on the couch.
"Of course. You sounded pretty upset, is everything okay?" Steffie replied, sitting down next to her.
Steffie had stayed with Bertie and Jose for her senior year at university, and what an education that had been! She had answered an ad for a nanny position five minutes from campus, and during the interview, Bertie had asked her a long series of leading questions that got more and more personal. So much so that, when the beautiful older woman took her hand and told her what else she would be required to do, the closeted bisexual woman was nodding her head.
"Mama told me last night that she's really my aunt," Maria started, laying out everything she had been told. As she talked, she found herself getting more and more upset, wiping away angry tears as she finished her story.
Steffie hugged her tightly while she cried.
"That's horrible, honey," Steffie said, handing her a tissue.
"What are you feeling?"
"Pissed," Maria fired back, immediately.
"Those white people knew they would be killed, and sent them back, anyway. For something that teenage bitch did. I mean, how do you do that to another person, much less the parents of a baby!?"
An hour later, Maria was her usual, calm self, but the more she and Steffie talked over the next several months, the more her anger took hold deep within her, despite Steffie's best efforts to help her work through it.
**
Three weeks later, Esmy entered her world.
"And you must be Maria," the old lady said to her, squeezing her hands.
"Hello, ma'am," she replied, respectfully.
"Esmy, honey, call me Esmy. You're beautiful, just like Bertie was at your age, except for your eyes, of course. Although yours are just as striking," she said.
Esmy wasn't the first person to tell her how much they looked alike. Five-six and thin like her Mama, it was her caramel-colored eyes that made her stand out and had started attracting the attention of boys at school, and creepy Mr. Garcia, her literature professor.
"You knew Mama way back then?"
"Yes, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Remember, Bunny?"
Bertie laughed and Maria blushed. "Sorry, ma'am."
"Esmy, child, and it's okay, I am getting old, I suppose."
'Suppose?' Maria thought, but wisely kept her mouth shut.
"Esmy and I worked together when I was just a little older than you, honey, at the embassy parties I told you about. I invited her here to teach you how to observe people, learn their secrets, and befriend them," Bertie said.
"Okaaay," Maria replied, confused.
"There may come a day when you will need to get close to this woman who destroyed your family, Maria, to learn her secrets, so that you may destroy her. You may need to hide in the shadows and watch, but you may also need to pretend to be her friend. To do this and not arouse suspicion takes patience and practice, and I will teach you, as I taught Bertie," Esmy said.
"Oh, okay. What do we do?"
**
Maria would have never believed how much her life would change when Esmy had showed up almost two years ago now. On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, she felt much older and more mature than her classmates.
For one thing, the anger at this Debra woman festered inside her, and no matter how much Steffie tried to help her past it, she just couldn't shake it, and eventually gave up trying.
She knew it wasn't healthy, knew she wasn't the same carefree Maria she had been before. Still, there was a woman in Virginia living a life of luxury on a big estate, mother to beautiful three-year-old twins, who had robbed her of ever knowing her real mom and dad, and had paid no price for it. She had to DO something!
So, while her friends partied and made plans to attend university, she and Esmy prowled shopping malls, restaurants, and soccer stadiums, playing their spy games.
After Ali moved on at the end of the school year, Esmy moved some clothes into her bedroom and had been there ever since.
Maria thought she was a hoot. She swore all the time and smoked weed, 'for the pain', she'd say to Mama and Papa with a gleam in her eye and a wink in her direction; Maria had even taken a puff or two when Papa wasn't around.
Maria and Grandma were at Plaza Fontabella today, an upscale shopping center in the city, drinking iced coffee, and Maria was ready for her assignment.
"Are you ready, little one?"
