It was no concern of his, but as his eye fell on Miss Emilia’s huddled figure, he couldn’t help but recall the way her face had looked in that brief, unguarded moment. For all that she’d later tried to pretend Mendez’s comment hadn’t rattled her, Ruben could tell it had cut her deeply.
He knew he hadn’t been the picture of amiability himself— as a matter of fact, he had been nothing short of a pretentious ass. The conversation had veered dangerously close to the one thing he’d rather not discuss so he’d pounced on her challenge in order to change the subject. It was that damned paper—he’d been writing and publishing Blanco y Negro for three years and in that time he’d yet to find a graceful way to react whenever it was mentioned in his presence.
In fact, he’d done his best to avoid all discussion of it. Not because he feared he would give himself away, exactly, but because he couldn’t bear to hear his own horrible words quoted back at him. The articles he wrote for Blanco y Negro had a reputation for being quite ruthless and he knew they were far harsher than the ones he wrote under his own name.
It was almost as bad when someone recognized his name. Agreeing to spending the summer in Arroyo Blanco had been less about finding time to write away from the constant social obligations of the city and more about hiding from his publisher, whose weekly inquiries about the state of Ruben’s second book were echoed by the half a dozen pieces that had been written about him in literary magazines. He’d thought precious few people here would know who he was but it was clear the inhabitants of the town were better read than he’d expected. At least Emilia Cruz was.
She was still sitting on the edge of the dock, a few feet away from where he’d been placed.
Impatiently twitching the blanket off his shoulders, Ruben strode to her side, dropping down beside her with a faint groan. It had been a long time since he’d done anything more vigorous than sit at his desk, brooding over papers, and he was starting to feel the afternoon’s exertions.
“Are you all right?” he asked her. Out of the shade, the sun was hot enough to broil. Ruben felt like the crabs and lobsters being arranged on the long wooden tables under the palm trees. No doubt his skin would be just as red if he remained there for longer than a few minutes.
Emilia didn’t seem to be bothered, either by the sun or by what had happened earlier. She glanced at him, her expression perfectly placid, and said, “Never better.”
“About what Mendez said—”
Her pleasant expression vanished and her eyes narrowed into a glare. “If you’ve come to ask if it’s true—”
“I don’t care, one way or another. I just came to tell you I thought it was a deplorable thing to say. Almost as deplorable as your trying to drown me,” he said, trying to elicit a smile out of her.
She obliged him. “I appreciate the sentiment, but we’re quite used to that kind of… constructive criticism in our household.”
It wasn’t difficult to imagine, especially in a small town like this one. “Are you a writer yourself?”
“I dabble in it a bit, but I work mostly as a typist. In Mr. Mendez’s father’s office, in fact—his company distributes American-made sewing machines to the region.”
“Somehow I can’t picture you pecking away at a typewriter.”
“Maybe, Mr. Torres,” she said, in a mock stern voice that made him smile, “you shouldn’t be picturing me at all.”
That, of course, only made him do it in earnest. He was picturing the way her wet dress must have been clinging to her body underneath the ridiculous tablecloth when Luis and Miss Cruz stepped into the dock.
“Luis has very kindly offered to take us home so you can change out of your wet things before you catch cold,” Miss Cruz told her sister, even though it was well over a hundred degrees and so hot even the word cold seemed out of place. She turned to Ruben. “I imagine you’ll want to do the same.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting into some dry clothes,” Ruben admitted, waving aside a cloud of gnats that had wandered too close.
“We’ve made our apologies to Ana Maria and Mrs. Espinosa, so we can leave right away if you want to.”
“I would,” Emilia said.
Luis helped Emilia to her feet and the four of them walked towards Luis’s gleaming Model T, which he’d left by the road along with the other motorcars. They spread Ruben’s tablecloth over the supple leather of the front seat to protect it from his still-damp trousers, then the girls settled themselves at the back and Luis slid behind the wheel.
“Are you girls comfortable back there?” Luis asked, twisting in his seat so he could smile at Miss Cruz, who nodded.
Ruben gave Luis a sidelong look. He had seen the expression on his friend’s face before—all too often, as a matter of fact—and was familiar enough with Luis to know the sappy smile on his face generally preceded one of his legendary infatuations. Luis was, once again, about to make a fool of himself over a girl.
A pretty enough girl, Ruben thought as he studied her reflection in the mirror. There was an easy grace in the way she moved that was a marked contrast to her sister’s barely-contained energy. Emilia was slightly shorter and plumper—and certainly more outspoken. Her face was flushed, her hair disheveled and she was decidedly prickly and yet, damned if he hadn’t wanted to kiss her when he saw the passion in her eyes as she defended those ridiculous stories. Its author, whoever it was--and it was only a matter of time until Ruben found that out— wouldn’t have argued in their favor as hotly as she had.
She had kept the tablecloth around her, for modesty’s sake, and drops of sweat were running in rivulets from her temple. Her skin was a shade or two lighter than her sister’s, her eyebrows very dark and even more expressive than her eyes.
“I have to say, Luis,” Miss Cruz said, “I really appreciate your taking us home. I really don’t know how I should manage if Emilia were to fall ill.”
“Perfectly well, I expect,” Miss Emilia said, giving her sister’s arm an affectionate pat.
“It’s not a bit of trouble,” Luis said. “Your house is only a few streets away from mine.”
“Just the same, it’s awfully considerate of you.”
Luis beamed at her reflection and Ruben found it difficult to keep from groaning. Luis was smitten and fairly glowing with it. This was never good news, at least not where Ruben was concerned, seeing as Luis’s romances usually involved a lot of pining, a great deal of sighing, and some of the most execrable poetry Ruben had ever heard. He had known Luis since university, and in that time Luis had been in love seven times— and so witless with it, Ruben had come perilously close to doing him violence on more than one occasion.
Miss Cruz, at least, didn’t seem like the sort who would take advantage of Luis’s state. Even so, Ruben was glad he would be spending the rest of the summer close enough to keep an eye on things and, if necessary, keep his friend from doing something stupid.
Emilia’s hat was rather the worse for wear after her impromptu bath among the mangroves. It had once been jaunty; now, a day after the boating party, discolored from the water and smelling faintly of damp, it was altogether disreputable.
And unsalvageable, she discovered as she turned it over and saw that it had lost its shape. Emilia groaned under her breath. At the sound, Susana looked up from the book she had been reading. “Ruined, is it?” she asked. The branches of the sprawling jacaranda tree outside the porch where they were sitting cast dappled shadows on her face, obscuring her expression.
Emilia held up the offending article. “I suppose it’s time for a new one,” she said, not completely dismayed by the prospect. “Though I had wanted to make this one last for at least another season.”
“It’s a pity about the hat but it’s no more than you deserve, provoking Mr. Torres like you did. You never will learn how to keep from being sucked into arguments.”
Emilia gave her sister a surprised look. “What else could I have done? Was I supposed to let them eviscerate my stories?”
&nbs
p; “Yes. Do you know what would happen if anyone—anyone at all—found out it’s you who’s writing those things?”
“They’d come after me with torches and pitchforks, no doubt,” Emilia said, trying to sound unconcerned.
Feeling rebellious, she tossed the hat aside and found the notebook she kept under the flowered cushion Susana had made to hide the rip on the cane seat. This one was half filled with the latest of Valeria Del Valle’s wild, wicked adventures. The courtesan was presently occupied with bringing the sultan to his knees…both figuratively and literally, like she’d seen in one of the naughty postcards she’d found tucked inside an encyclopedia in a Ciudad Real bookstore. She’d stuffed the postcards in her handbag, then bought the volume out of guilt. The encyclopedia was now in the bookshelves in the parlor, the postcards inside the pages of her notebook where she could consult them whenever she needed fresh inspiration for Valeria’s escapades.
“Oh, Emilia, don’t. I wish—” Susana cut herself off, then took a deep breath and began again. “I wish you would just try to get along with them. I know Cristobal and Carmen and the others aren’t always the kindest of people—”
“Ha!”
“—but they’re the only friends I’ve got and heaven knows there isn’t much opportunity to make new ones in this town.” She gave Emilia a pleading look. She and Susana were still invited to some events, though less often than before, and now that their working schedules did not allow for mid-morning coffee or sewing socials, they saw far less of their friends than they had before. And Emilia could count the number of people who’d turn up if they decided to host a dance or a garden party— it was far less than number of people who had avoided their house for the past several years, as if there was something contagious about their circumstances. She didn’t mind a bit, but Susana, she knew, had been feeling the lack keenly. It showed on her face now, as she said, “So if they stop inviting me on their frolics—”
“You won’t have a chance to see Luis as much as you want to,” Emilia finished, ignoring her sister’s embarrassed protest, “and life as you know it will be over. I know, I know. I only wish Luis hadn’t brought along that horrid man. He’s insufferable, and not even a very good writer.”
“I thought you liked his work. You read his latest story four times when it came out and I’ve seen you cut out his columns and save them in your blue box. Maybe you ought to dig out your old autograph book.”
Now it was Emilia’s turn to protest. Susana burst into laughter and Emilia leaned forward to swat her upside the head with the notebook. As she did, she spotted a familiar figure walking up the street, partially obscured by the overgrown hibiscus growing beside the front steps. Her laughter died and Susana craned her neck to see who Emilia was looking at.
As he got closer, Emilia realized he wasn’t walking so much as wobbling, so unstable on his feet that a stiff breeze would have knocked him over. Emilia heard Cristobal’s words again and felt her heart squeeze inside her chest. Ten years ago, her father had been considered one of the most brilliant minds of his generation. These days, he could hardly put one foot in front of the other, never mind pen to paper.
Emilia looked at Susana from under her eyelashes. They hadn’t spoken about Cristobal’s snide comment. It was not the first time Emilia had heard someone make a remark about her father’s propensity to indulge in drink, which had grown even more evident in the past few years, but it was the first time she’d heard it said to her face.
It would have served Cristobal right if she’d struck him with the oar. Unfortunately, tumbling out of the boat had made assaulting him impossible and anyway, if she had done it, it would have meant the end of her job at his father’s company. By now, after more than a year of writing The True Accounts and selling short stories here and there under her own name, she was making enough money that she needn’t worry too desperately about keeping her job, which didn’t pay all that well to begin with. But Arroyo Blanco was a small town—though growing swiftly—and people would wonder how she and Susana could support themselves and their father on Susana's school teacher salary. So to keep speculation at bay, she and Susana had agreed Emilia would keep her job as long as possible.
Their father lurched up the steps and with a wheeze and an unintelligible greeting, dropped into the cane armchair across from Susana. He was asleep within moments.
Emilia and Susana exchanged a look. It used to be that he wouldn’t start drinking until after dinnertime, when he’d bring out a bottle of digestif. Their mother would put it away after he’d poured himself a drink or two and he would grumble good-naturedly but follow her to bed without complaining too hard. After she died, the Fernet came out after lunchtime as well, accompanied by rotund bottles of cognac or port or local rum. Now, Emilia had no doubt her father could knock back a bottle of the cheap aguardiente the cane laborers drank without tasting the difference.
After making sure he really was asleep, Emilia leaned back against the cushions and began to write a short description of the contents of the sultan’s trousers. She had never seen a sultan outside of an illustration of a turbaned, bearded man in the library’s set of encyclopedias—she didn’t remember whether he wore trousers or not; she’d have to look up the picture again when she had time to stop at the library— but then, a great deal of the things she wrote about were born from things she’d read in books she’d had to order from Ciudad Real, as the library in Arroyo Blanco lacked most kinds of salacious literature.
Valeria and the sultan exchanged heated whispers for half a page; as she wrote, Emilia’s mind kept drifting back to the day before. What did it matter that Ruben Torres had hated her stories? He hadn’t reviewed them on his column and likely never would, unlike that bastard at Blanco y Negro who gleefully lambasted The True Accounts every week, so no one beyond those who were at the lagoon would know just how much he despised them. As long as she managed to stick to safe subjects whenever she was around him, there was no reason why they couldn’t be perfectly civil to each other.
There was as much of a chance of that happening as there was of the lagoon freezing over. But she would try, if only to please Susana. It was only for the summer after all.
Emilia laid down her pen and began to fan herself with her notebook. As always, Susana looked unperturbed by the heat. Her flower-sprigged shirtwaist was as crisp as if she’d just pressed it, not a strand of hair was out of place, and Emilia—Emilia turned to the side to look at herself in the windowpane and grimaced when she saw her reflection. Her face was an unattractive shade of red and shiny with sweat, there were two blotches of ink on her sleeve and her hair had begun to come down from its pins. Emilia sighed and took out the pins, then combed her hair with her fingers.
As she finished twisting her hair into a braid, a familiar motorcar turned into their street and stopped in front of their house. A moment later, Luis was striding up the walk, calling hello. He was, thankfully, unaccompanied by his guest.
“I came to take you girls out for a drive,” he said when he was in hearing range, just like he used to do.
“I’d like that,” Susana said, smiling at Luis as she closed her book and set it on a nearby table. “Especially if the drive takes us by Mr. Zapata’s.”
Luis, who was as fond as Susana of the confectioner’s treats, smiled back and said, “That can be arranged. Emilia?”
Emilia gave her father a quick look. He was still snoring, his head tipped back on the seat’s woven back. “Far be it for me to say no to a visit to Mr. Zapata’s,” she said, stowing her notebook in its place under the cushion. “Mr. Torres won’t be joining us, will he?”
“Not today. I don’t think he’s quite recovered from yesterday’s, uh, adventures.”
Holding back a smile, Emilia fetched her gloves and handbag from the table right beside the open front door.
“Don’t forget your hat,” Susana said, offering Emilia her own freshly trimmed hat and a pleading look. Emilia was about to protest but before she could
say anything, Susana had clapped Emilia’s ruined hat atop her own head and was halfway to the steps.
Emilia made a mental note to thank her at the nearest opportunity and followed her down the steps and into Luis’s motorcar.
Chapter 2
A knock on the door startled Ruben out of a deep contemplation. He laid down his pen and thought irritably about moving to a different boarding house, one whose owner wasn’t quite so solicitous. Mrs. Herrera was a good woman but she had an uncanny way of interrupting at exactly the most inopportune moment. He’d been trying to finish the first draft of next month’s column for El Diario Nuevo, which was due in only two days, and over the course of the four hours that had passed since lunchtime, Mrs. Herrera had trotted upstairs to ask if he wanted lime juice, tamarind juice, grapefruit juice or a dish of warm fig pudding.
“Mr. Torres? Mr. Torres--”
Ruben dipped his pen into the ink pot. Luis had offered to put him up in one of the numerous bedrooms of his family’s house, but Ruben had preferred the boarding house and the privacy it offered, not suspecting that privacy would be so hard to come by. “I told you I don’t want pudding.”
“Then perhaps it’s a good thing I didn’t bring any,” said a very familiar voice just outside his door.
Ruben’s arm jerked violently to the side, striking both his empty coffee cup and the ink pot. They crashed to the floor and shattered, but he barely noticed, all his attention on the closed door and the voice coming through its thick wood.
It couldn’t be her.
“Did you just break a window?” it said, sounding entirely too cheerful. “If you’re thinking about climbing down it to escape me, I should warn there’s a hired man standing just outside it, with instructions to seize you before you can get away.”
Heedless of the smearing ink, Ruben hurriedly gathered the papers strewn on the table and stuffed them into a drawer. Once the table was clear, he shrugged on a shirt and opened the door to reveal his sister Violeta.
A Summer for Scandal Page 2