Baggage

The Nizar family - Rafael, Diana, and Balei - ignored the crystal clear ocean lapping at the manicured white beaches of a sun-kissed island of greenery and a lone, imposing mountain from the windows of their descending private jet. The magical paradise halo lost its effect on the fifth exotic vacation thirteen years ago. Balei still ensured her due fun, however. After their flight attendant asked to turn on her airplane mode for the third time, Balei looked away from her phone - for the first time since departing Portugal - to catch her parents stiff and dazed. 

Her father's ability to emote didn't exceed a straight spine and a droopy but unblinking stare, so this didn't phase her all too much, but nothing ever shook her mother. Made of elbow grease and coy confidence, Diana Nizar boasted an unsettlingly savvy mind that helped propel her husband's hole-in-the-wall business to a publishing empire that even Bezos tipped his chrome dome to. 

The plane's tires screeched on the runway, and when Balei's stomach stopped fluttering, she waved for her parent's attention, "Hey, did you guys take some bad Xanex again?" She slowly and carefully checked that her stash of 'fun' pills remained undisturbed in her purse without anyone's notice.

Balei's parents looked at her, between each other, and back at her. Her mother spoke, her tone not believing her own words, "Your father and I's overnight plans were just canceled."

Disbelief struck Balei before the disappointment. The Nizar family vacations meant her parents dropping her off at a safe, luxurious resort until they wrapped up whatever business deal they needed to close. Then Balei recalled how she wanted to leave whatever villa they left her in to explore, crash a rager, maybe meet a cute local guy - or girl, depending on how she mixed her alcohol - and try to top 2018's spontaneous midnight running of the bulls through Pamplona, Spain. 

"Oh, um," Balei wondered how she would evade her parents, but unconscious curiosity guided her. "Like, so what are you going to do now?"

"Well, we should try enjoying our vacation for a change, shouldn't we, sweetiebun?" Balei's mother's voice drawled into a coo at one of the many pet names for her father.

"Yes, dear," Balei's father replied.

The plane slowed on the runway, and her mother turned back to Balei, "Can your boring ol' parents accompany the youngster to whatever excitement she planned for today?"

Balei intrusively thought how more did not always mean better. But for appearance's sake, she smiled and answered, "Of course, but I gotta warn you, I was planning on going on some quiet nature walks, so I don't know if that's something-"

"Oh, Ruta-Raf!" her mother shook her father's forearm. "The Troodos Botanical Gardens! And the Artemis Trail! It leads to Mount Olympos!" Balei silently thanked Allah that no one could see how obnoxiously engrossed her parents' love manifested. "Doesn't that sound fun?"

"Yes, dear," her father replied. Balei nearly interrupted, but her father continued in something a hint above monotone, "I ache with desire to enthrall myself in the Earth's bounty - be it flora or avian and trailing the terra. My soul yearns for a merry fellowship with my beloved wife and daughter."

Stroking her father's cheek, her mother doted, "I agree, well said, honeyed-cake."

"Thank you, dear," her father replied.

Accepting she couldn't evade her parents, Balei's fingers waggled to abracadabra an 'aha' idea into her mind. The magic failed her, and she huffed, holding on out on a miracle. She didn't mind spending time with her parents; a scenic tour of Cyprus with them sounded like an enjoyable family adventure. But when the sun went down, Balei wanted her parents in another country so she could revel in local and detestable attractions. 

The Nizars deboarded onto the runway, and two cars awaited them to take them to their villa - one a comfortable four-seat cab and another to haul their sizeable luggage. Balei's mother relayed to Balei, "Here's a chance to practice your Greek, Balei. Have the luggage driver deliver our bags to the villa ahead of us." 

The 'aha' moment sparked a mental lightbulb at such an innocent opportunity. Balei's parents stressed over their luggage in the airport as if the suitcases held a bomb. A simple slip-up in a foreign language could result in misplacing their bags, forcing them to split up and hunt them down. Yes, this could work. 

Without her parents noticing, Balei instructed the driver to deliver the bags to the local embassy and departed with her parents. She lost herself to enjoying the botanical gardens as her mother shook Balei's shoulders, pointing out every vibrant but toxic plant she knew by scientific name, and her father watching, in as much awe as a stoic would permit, the birds glide on the breeze. On the Artemis trail, Balei purchased a few delicious halloumi cheese wedges for their walk. With each step toward the towering mountain, Balei further understood why this island's forbears thought their gods lived atop its majesty. The Nizars tailed a tour and listened to the guide's stories before running away from the upset tourists who paid for the experience.

With the sun calling it a day, the private villa the Nizars booked welcomed them with a soft ember glow from the lights hanging over the patio terrace. It overlooked their little mossy yard and trickling pond, fabricating life as the owners intended. With her mood sailing on its high, Balei didn't complain about the modest accommodations of four fully furbished master bedrooms and three sauna-like baths. She froze, however, recalling her earlier stunt when her mother called out.

"Rafy-taffy?" Balei's mother echoed, "Is the luggage in one of these walk-in closets?"

"No, dear," Balei faintly heard her father's reply. She began tiptoeing for the back door. 

"Balei?" her legs stuck to the floor, hearing her mother, but the rest of her body hunched over, her shoulders folding into her neck and her arms retracted inwards, leaving her as helpless as a t-rex. "Where did you tell that driver to put our things?"

"Um," Balei drawled, shimmying towards the door, "Did you check all our bedrooms?"

"Yes, yes." Both Balei's parents emerged from the rooms they respectively checked. Her mother pressed, "Are you sure your fluency was up to par for this chore, dear?"

"Ugh! Yes, Mom, he understood me clearly."

"The driver of our luggage was female," her father corrected. A bypasser would find Balei recoiling into a mantis-like pose. 

"Well, at the very least, I gave her very specific instructions on where to take our bags." 

"All right, what did you tell her, Balei?" Balei's mother cocked her head at an uncomfortable angle.

"Okay, um," Balei flashed an apologetic smile. Her body danced to the white lie she came up with on the fly, "Like, don't be mad, but I told the driver not to deliver our bags here." Her hand pretentiously extended to her parents. "I told her to take them to the embassy for safe keeping-"

"What?!" Balei never heard her mother's voice reverberate so sharply before. She flinched and began waving her hands and circles.

"Oh my God, what is the big deal? I buy us new wardrobes every vacation anyway!"

"Balei, our tools are in our luggage!" 

Her head swiveled, and looking around exasperatedly, Balei questioned, "What tools?"

"Your father and I's arsenal of assassin instruments, Balei!" Balei surely misheard, but wide-eyed and stunned, she couldn't ask her mother to clarify. Thankfully, her father stepped in.

"Your mother and I weave death when darkness beckons, Balei." Balei's father let that sink in, "And when we're paid. Obviously." Balei knew every child experienced some parent-reveal rite of passage: 'You were adopted,' 'your uncle is actually,' etc. But at this revelationBalei guffawed with a loose jaw. 

Stepping forward, Balei's mother asserted, "We have to get those bags back - we're all going." Before able to get in another word, her parents promptly vacated their vacation and underwent their urgent escapade, leaving Balei little choice but to follow. But only to learn more, of course. Despite their apparent murderous occupation, Balei's parents walked down the dirt path to the embassy, arms locked and at a semi-leisurely pace. Balei would not let them walk away without getting answers.

"So, um, hi - yeah, hi," Balei waved, "I'm gonna need more than just 'we kill people for money.'"

"I'm afraid there's not much more to it than that, Balei. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't pick up on it sooner." Her mother sounded so laissez-faire, almost condescending. 

"What does that mean?"

"Well, where do you think we got all this lucrative money?"

"From dad's publishing business - are you telling me that's fake? There's no way, I've seen some of the books-"

Nodding, her mother hummed, "Oh, the business is quite real, gumdrop." She smiled at a pair of locals, oblivious to the conversation of a trio speaking a different language. "We've ensured that our spy romances are genuine." Balei's skin prickled at the sensual tone at the tail end. But then she stopped walking, her breathing turned shallow, and she felt her pores opening.

"How genuine?" Balei asked, to which her mother hummed a question for more. "I mean, they're fiction - you advertise them as romantic fiction." Her mother laughed an 'oh-ho-ho,' and her father let slip a small smile.

"Technically, they are fiction as we are not spies, dear." 

"YOU are Beladona and Ace Lively?!"

"More accurately," her mother giggled, "They are us!"

Balei coughed, hoping to vomit out this new feeling. Like having her parents watch every time she played out a scene for a boyfriend who couldn't get enough of the smut novels. Shaking her head, Balei couldn't believe it, not with how busy they worked, "How? I mean, when do you have the time? The business? Killing people and writing, like, three books a year?"

Turning the corner onto a populated cobbled street, her mother spoke more quietly, "It isn't too hard when everyone thinks we're doing one thing when we're doing two completely different tasks. Take this vacation - our 'business venture'? We would pull a quick job, 'brainstorm' for our next book, and hand off the idea to a new and up-and-coming author. Only the author is really Rogier's cousin who writes all of our books, just under a new name once in a while."

"Rogier is in on this too- I have so many questions..." Balei needed to sit down, but assuming embassy security thoroughly checked their luggage, she needed to keep moving. 

Balei's mother explained, "Oh, Rogier and Palo have been in on our little scheme for years - why do you think we always charter a private plane through him?"

"Because Dad hates seeing everyone watch the same movies on commerical!"

Humming an affirmative, her father conjected, "Mass market cinema ravages the storytelling experience. A recording cannot emulate the exhilaration of the amphitheater. Repetition stales. I relish dynamic but fleeting art forms."

Her mother swooned, "His voice gravels, but all I taste is honey." Balei plugged her ears and quietly mumbled 'la-la-la-la' to herself. "It's a shame, my latex lover, that we won't be able to be frivolous on this particular vacation."

Balei ignored that visual image and sputtered, "About that - who were you supposed to kill on this vacation? And how do you all seem so calm about it - don't you ever worry about being caught?"

"We were tasked with killing the Syrian president, and we were paid before we did anything during our plane's descent. As it turns out, he already died of natural causes. And that brings me to your second question - we always make it look like natural causes. We evaluate our target's most frequent health and safety concern and, well, we call it 'lethally exasperate the problem.'"

"Jesus! For real?!" Balei would later reflect on how remarkably accepting she was of learning her parents were assassins and how morally cold they were. 

"For real - the Syrian president had a predisposition for heart conditions on his father's side; he had a high cholesterol and a stressful job, and so we thought inducing a heart attack would do it."

"Coincidentally enough," her father mused, "He suffered heart failure. Our client mistook this for our handiwork." He bid his wife and daughter halt with a hand when they came upon the embassy gates, its lights dark and walls worn. He patted his wife's hand and scoped out the building alone. Balei and her mother watched him go, remaining silent for a while. Truthfully, Balei felt a little hurt over her parents living a double life but then thought it hypocritical, given that she strutted around their homes like a model citizen. Granted, she never murdered anyone, but she'd bankrupted a few unsuspecting card players when they thought a few cheating cards up their sleeve would save them. As if, Balei thought. She didn't need any cards to win; she only needed to cut the dealer on the pot.

Her father returned; he gestured to the embassy, "The political establishment lays before us decrepit and deserted for some time. 'Renovations,' the faded sign hanging on the entrance prefaces." He held up his phone, "Rogier messaged me his assurances that he was in possession of our luggage - apparently Balei told the driver to 'Move forward in unpacking her emotional baggage,' and she took that to mean that she should look for a new therapist.

Balei mouthed 'Fuck' and started running her fingers through her hair. "Okay, well, like, good for her, I guess." Her face felt warm under the snarking stare of her mother. "Okay, I'm sorry, so I slipped up a little bit."

"Compared to some of your other escapades, I'd say this is minor, yes," her mother winked. "What, you took your parents for fools? Not with that chip in your head, we're not."