“I was glad to have your company,” she said, and found she actually meant it.
“Likewise,” he said, putting on his hat. He lingered for a second, as if there was something else he wanted to say, then touched the hat’s brim and strode off.
Emilia tightened her grip on her capacious handbag and went the other way, toward the doors that led out to Avenida San José, where the offices of the gentlemen who published La Rosa Carmesí were located. Their press was small, but they published a handful of books a year and perhaps this year, one of them would be Emilia’s. As she pushed open the brass and glass doors of the train station, she pictured a row of hard-bound books, all bearing her name on the spine, and her heart started to beat just a little bit faster.
Moments after meeting her, it became clear to Ruben that the woman was nothing short of a fame hound and had written the tip herself, hoping to pass as the author of The True Accounts for the notoriety it would bring her.
“I’m sorry, Miss Rodriguez, but I don’t think you’re the person I was looking for,” he told her, glad he’d managed to hold onto his hat, as she seemed disinclined to let him leave without extracting a promise to put her name in lights.
“But I could be,” she cooed, trailing a hand down the front of his shirt. She was dark-haired and very pretty, and obviously confident she would get her own way. “After all, who would know other than you and I?”
“I’m sorry. That’s not how we do business at Blanco y Negro.”
“I could make it worth your while,” she told him. Without looking down, he could tell she was fingering one of his buttons.
“I’ve no doubt,” he said, prying himself away from Miss Rodriguez’s surprisingly strong grip before she could unbutton his shirt.
She frowned, but allowed him to back away and put her hands on her hips. “What have you got to lose? You’d get your story and I’d get my name in the papers and the real Miss Del Valle would get to keep her anonymity. It’s advantageous business all around.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Rodriguez,” he said again. “Maybe you could find another way to get your name in the papers.”
“You mean like rob a bank or get caught in bed with someone famous?” She shook her head. “I’m not sure I’m prepared to go to such lengths yet, Mr. Fernandez.”
He was so unused to being referred to by his pseudonym, that for a moment Ruben hadn’t realized she was speaking to him, even though he was the only other person in the room.
“Won’t the publicity ruin your reputation?” he asked when he’d recovered. Though it wasn’t lavish, the townhouse she’d invited him to was furnished with a taste and an eye toward comfort, which suggested to Ruben a good income and some degree of respectability. It was the same impression he’d gotten from Miss Rodriguez herself, when he overlooked the fact that she had been trying to undress him.
“I don’t particularly care.” Having given up her attempt at seduction, she sat on a silk-covered settee and tapped her fingers against the arm. “Most of the time it’s more a burden than an asset, I find. And anyway, nobody cares about your reputation when you’re famous.”
It sounded like something Emilia would say. Despite himself, Ruben took a seat across from her.
“Take up acting,” he suggested. “You could be in one of those plays put on in the theaters of Calle de Las Palmas. That’ll bring you some attention right enough.”
Finding Miss Rodriguez something scandalous to do took him longer than expected but it was still early when he left the townhouse, so he settled into a cafe two streets away to ponder his next move.
Aside from the rumor—which he believed to be unfounded—that Miss Del Valle was from Arroyo Blanco, there was precious little information available about the woman he was seeking. One of the junior editors of La Rosa Carmesí, whom he’d met several months before at a party, had told him the magazine kept her identity a closely guarded secret, so Ruben had relied on gossip and tips to try and find her. But if the women he’d been pointed to weren’t fame hounds like Miss Rodriguez, they were the victims of a prank or friends’ suspicions.
Ruben drummed his fingers on the table. Even if the people at the magazine wouldn’t give out any information, there might be something in their offices—an envelope with a return address, perhaps— that would give Ruben an idea of where to search next.
He finished his cup of coffee and checked his watch as he dropped some coins on the saucer. It was nearly lunchtime. If his perusal of the office failed, then perhaps a long meal and a bottle of rum would be enough to loosen the junior editor’s sense of discretion.
The magazine headquarters was on the third floor of a brick building that used to house a cigar factory before the city grew around it and it was converted into offices. Some advertisements remained painted on the walls, as well as a lingering odor of tobacco Ruben found strangely pleasant.
He was a few steps away from the third floor when he was brought to a sudden stop by the sound of Emilia’s voice in the hall.
“I’ll have it ready by the end of next week,” she was saying. “I’ll send it the usual way. And I know this new piece is not in my usual style but I think it’s one of the best I’ve written. If you happen to change your mind about reading it…”
There was laughter, then a male voice that sounded halfway between amused and admiring. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Oh, I can badger for days on end. Tell that to Mr. Ortiz—maybe that’ll make him reconsider.”
A moment later, he heard the door to the elevator creak open. Peering carefully through the balustrades to make sure she had gotten on it, Ruben waited until it had made its laborious way to the second floor, then continued upstairs. According to a small sign, the only door in the hallway belonged to the offices of La Rosa Carmesí. There were any number of reasons why Emilia would be visiting that particular publication but only one of those reasons made Ruben’s heart pound inside his chest.
The magazine published plenty of other things besides The True Accounts, though equally as salacious in nature. There was every chance Emilia wasn’t there about the serial at all.
But maybe he had been right after all, when he’d thought whoever had written that article had a similar voice to the author of The True Accounts. Maybe Emilia was the one he’d been looking for all along.
He loitered at the train station, half hoping he would run into Emilia, but she must have left before he’d arrived. When she didn’t appear by the time the five o’clock train was ready to depart, he was obliged to get on it.
The return journey seemed to take twice as long. Ruben fidgeted in his seat, attracting disapproving looks from the elderly man sitting across from him. Shifting his gaze to the window, he stared sightlessly at the passing palm trees.
The more he thought about it, the more likely he thought it could be her. Not only had she defended the serial, but she’d been equally enthusiastic when she’d spoken about the suffrage movement and that abysmal play they’d attended. She was passionate, and just bold enough to capture that passion on paper, and send it out into the world.
The train arrived at Arroyo Blanco at half past five. Fighting the urge to pound on Emilia’s door and demand answers, Ruben turned instead toward the boarding house.
Luis was waiting on the doorstep, Mrs. Herrera at his elbow, most likely, Ruben thought, offering refreshments. At a word from Luis, she turned and went inside the house. Luis trotted down the steps and met Ruben on the sidewalk.
“There you are. Where have you been all day?” Ruben opened his mouth to lie, but Luis continued without waiting for his answer. “Never mind that—I need you to come with me to the Cruzes’. I want to take Susana for a drive and I’ll need you to see to her sister.”
“I don’t know if I dare,” Ruben said.
He could think of more enjoyable ways to spend the rest of what had been a thoroughly unproductive day than watching his friend moon over a girl he would forget in approximately three week
s but the thought of seeing Emilia again was appealing enough to make him agree to Luis’s proposition.
“Emilia’s harmless,” Luis protested. “And a perfectly nice girl.”
“I’ve no objection to her,” Ruben said, adding, so as not to sound too enthusiastic, “as long as she doesn’t try to drown me again. There are only so many attempted murders a fellow can stand.”
Chapter 4
Emilia’s arms were laden with bags and bundles when she returned home. She had stopped at the corner store on her way back from the train station and had bought all the sugar she needed to make jelly out of the guavas that kept dropping from their tree. It was late afternoon now and the mid-summer sun was bearing down with such strength that she was grateful for her new hat.
She found Susana seated at the kitchen table, mending the ripped hem of one of Emilia’s skirts and humming something under her breath.
“Did Papa go out?” Emilia asked as she dropped her parcels by the stove and glanced at the wooden hatstand beside the door. “His hat is gone.”
“He went out a little earlier.” From the expression on her sister’s face, Emilia could guess where he’d gone. Before she had a chance to confirm her suspicion, Susana said quickly, “But never mind that. What did they say?”
“They said no,” Emilia admitted. She took off her hat and laid it on a chair, then eased out some of the pins that held her hair in place and sighed in relief. “Not now, anyway. But they’ll consider my proposal so I suppose that’s something.”
“I know they’ll fall in love with your book once they read it, and then they’ll be foaming at the mouth to publish it.”
Emilia shook her head. “Mr. Ortiz wants me to write more of the same kind of thing, since it sells so well. I don’t know if they’d take a risk on something so different.”
“Even if it’s genius?”
“It’s hardly genius!” Emilia protested. “Though I will allow it’s very good. At least we won’t starve quite yet—La Rosa ordered five more installments of The True Accounts.” It wasn’t the offer she’d been hoping for, but Emilia wasn’t inclined to be particular, not when each installment was sure to fetch her at least forty pesos— a far cry from the eight pesos a story she had started out on. “I can’t think of what could happen next—I think I exhausted my ingenuity on the last fourteen parts. After all, how many times can Valeria be trapped in crypts or dungeons by her jealous lovers before deciding to get into a new line of business?”
“Have Valeria fall in love,” Susana suggested.
“I don’t know if she would.” Emilia pulled out a chair and sank into it. “She enjoys her trysts with the sultan and the duke’s intrigues, but I have always made it perfectly clear her relationship with both is nothing but a business arrangement. On her part, anyway.”
“Not with the duke, or even the sultan. With a young, handsome poet— or maybe a painter commissioned by the duke to paint her portrait,” Susana said dreamily.
Emilia gave her sister an amused glance. “Should I tell Luis that a change of profession might be required? Or should I put an advertisement in the paper for an artistically inclined beau?”
If Susana's skin had been a little lighter, Emilia was sure it would have been bright red. She laughed and, taking pity on her sister, changed the subject. “I spoke to Mrs. Espinosa yesterday and she said we could have a booth at the fair. I thought we could make a nice big batch of guava jelly, like Mama used to, and sell it along with the books. I even bought two dozen glass jars.”
Susana put the last few stitches into the hem, her embarrassed expression melting into a doubtful one. “Jelly? Isn’t that rather complicated?”
“I used to watch her all the time. There’s nothing to it,” Emilia said confidently.
“Nothing to it?” Susana raised an eyebrow, snipping the thread and sticking the needle into her tomato-shaped pincushion. “Isn’t that what you told Mrs. Espinosa when she asked if you could handle a boat on your own last summer? And what you said to Luis when he said you couldn’t possibly ride his bicycle?”
Emilia laughed. “I rode that thing for two whole streets before I crashed into Don Octavio’s fence. Are you going to help me make the jelly?”
“It’s too hot to cook.”
“It’s too hot to live, but we keep doing it, don’t we?” Emilia put the pincushion and scissors back into the sewing basket as Susana shook out the skirt and folded it deftly. “We can always make an extra jar for Luis and deliver it in the evening.”
“Oh, all right. But you had better change out of that walking suit or I’ll spend the rest of my life getting jelly out of it.”
Emilia obliged her, and before long she was standing in front of the stove in her threadbare housedress and a wildly ruffled apron she’d made from scraps of different-colored fabric when she was twelve, frowning at a pot full of bubbling sludge.
Guavas were pink inside and the jelly made out of them, a deep red. Emilia’s concoction was neither pink nor red and nothing about its texture resembled jelly. “Should it look so…?”
“I’m not sure.” Susana tried a spoonful and nearly choked. “But I am sure it isn’t supposed to taste like that.”
Emilia dipped her own spoon into the mixture and blew on it before popping it into her mouth. The taste made her mouth pucker. “Oh, that’s foul. Angelica must have given me salt instead of sugar. She was distracted when I came in—the boys had got into the bean barrel and were shooting them like marbles in the shop floor.”
“There’s no saving it, I’m afraid.” Susana set down her spoon and went to examine the parcels Emilia had brought. She licked a finger and dipped it into the white powder, then tasted it, nodding. “Salt.”
Suddenly, she lifted her head and sniffed, hard. “Is something burning?”
A plume of smoke rising from Emilia’s apron was her answer. “I am!” she gasped, slapping the fire out of her skirts.
She had put out the fire but was still hopping a little when she became aware she and Susana were not alone.
Luis and Torres were standing in the doorway, smartly dressed and looking extremely out of place in their shabby kitchen.
“We apologize for the intrusion,” said Torres, looking more amused than the situation warranted, “but we’ve been knocking at the front door for a quarter of an hour at least.”
Luis was silent as he gazed at Susana, a white box of what Emilia could tell was candied pineapple by the illustration on the side forgotten in his hand. Wrapped in a crisp white apron and looking as fresh as if she’d just emerged from a bath, Susana was the picture of domesticity. Without looking at herself, Emilia knew her face was probably dusted with salt, her hair frizzed by the steam, and the ugliness of her apron increased tenfold with the addition of the massive scorch mark. She stifled a sigh. It was just as well there was no one she needed to impress.
“Please come in—if you dare,” she added, making a gesture that encompassed the chaos the kitchen had become.
The pot had just begun to smoke. Hastily removing it from the fire, Emilia spared a moment to thank whatever deity was responsible for getting her father out of the house that day, then said, with what she hoped was a pleasant smile, “Mr. Torres, I didn’t think you’d return so soon. I expect your visit to the city was agreeable?”
“Tolerably so,” he replied, without further comment, though the look he gave her made a wave of heat roll over her face and neck.
Susana tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What brings you around here this afternoon?”
“We thought we’d take you for another drive,” Luis said.
“I suppose you might as well, before we burn the house down,” Emilia said, keeping her eyes firmly away from Mr. Torres. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a few minutes while we put the kitchen to rights—not to mention ourselves,” she added as she remembered what she was wearing.
“We can clean up the kitchen for you while you ladies freshen up,” Luis said qu
ickly, and Emilia didn’t miss the glare Torres shot him.
“Oh, we couldn’t possibly ask you to,” Susana said. Emilia was rather shrewdly thinking she could and, thankfully, neither of the men listened to Susana's protests.
Luis shrugged out of his jacket and laid it over a chair, then began to roll up his shirtsleeves as Torres followed his example. “You’re not asking. We’re offering. Go on— pretend we’re your housemaids. We’ll have everything tidied up by the time you’re ready. And if you should need some help fastening your buttons…”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Susana said, smiling warmly despite the flush in her cheeks.
Both she and Luis looked like they’d be happy to stand and smile at each other until the jelly somehow evaporated from the countertops, but Emilia yanked Susana out of the kitchen before the men had a chance to change their minds. They hurried to their bedroom at the back of the house, Emilia sighing with relief as she stripped down to her undergarments and reached for a clean washcloth. The water in the pitcher was tepid but even that felt lovely against her overheated skin.
Susana pulled a clean dress from the wooden wardrobe. “I know it’s a waste of breath, but will you please try to behave around Mr. Torres this time?”
Hurriedly taking the pins out of her hair, Emilia brushed it out and coiled it up again as neatly as possible. “You’ll be glad to know that I intend to be a paragon of respectability, sorely tempted though I might be to smack Mr. Torres upside the head if he starts to sneer at my stories again. Honestly, he’s almost as bad as the fellow in Blanco y Negro.”
Susana had no such illusions about her sister’s sudden reform. “I suppose that means you’re going make a spectacle of yourself. Can’t you just…be nice and pleasant?”
A Summer for Scandal Page 5
