The motorcars—Luis’s Model T and the Espinosa’s brand-new Packard— rolled to a stop in the shade underneath a cluster of trees and the seven of them tumbled out. The moment she saw it, Violeta went into raptures over the deep, clear blue of the water and immediately asked if they couldn’t rent a pair of boats to go out into it.
Emilia declined to join the group, pleading a headache, and arranged herself on the blanket she had spread over a deserted stretch of sand.
It was a scorching day, and though it was probably cooler among the mangroves, the prospect of spending some uninterrupted time with Emilia far outweighed the chance of encountering a stray breeze over the water.
“I had better stay far away from the water,” Ruben told the group, with a significant glance in Emilia’s direction. There was a general laugh from those who had been at the other picnic. Ruben’s saw Violeta raise an eyebrow, but she followed the group as they set out toward the boat shed. And then, finally, Ruben and Emilia were alone.
“Here,” she said, producing a painted fan from one of the baskets she and her sister had brought. “Make yourself useful.”
He fanned her as she paged through a slim newspaper, idly wondering if she would object to indulging in a kiss or two. Probably not. Their encounter in Mrs. Herrera’s best parlor had been followed by two more, and both times she had given him the impression of being very much in agreement with spending their time in that employment.
It had been a long time since a girl had stirred him up in this way. Even in university, he had been the sort to stand back while men like Luis rushed headlong into one flirtation or another.
Emilia was looking particularly kissable that day. She wore blue, the color bright against her dark brown hair, and her lips were parted slightly as she read. He wanted to kiss her and much more besides, and after he laid down the fan and sat up, he proposed to do just that.
The short brim of her hat cast a shadow over her eyes, so he didn’t realize she was frowning until he lifted it with his finger and peered underneath.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Another story about The True Accounts— or rather, their author,” she said, in what Ruben had come to know as a deceptively unconcerned tone.
The paper she was holding, Ruben noticed with a twinge of guilt, was the last edition of Blanco y Negro. It was strange to think it had only been a handful of days since he’d written that vicious piece. So many things had changed since then, not the least of which was the way he felt about her, that it seemed like a lifetime had passed since that day. “Don’t pay it any mind,” he said.
She shook her head. “ ‘It is this humble writer’s belief that the authors of thrilling tales like the one in question, though a force to be reckoned with in these God-forsaken days,’ ” she read, “ ‘are no more belonging to the literary class than a resident of the local zoo who somehow finds itself in possession of a typewriter. Miss Del Valle in particular contrives to set her tales apart from popular potboilers of the moment by relying on the subject most calculated to inflame passions but her ingenuity, which does not seem to have been exhausted after fourteen installments of her outrageous tales, can boast no claim to originality. In the end, The True Accounts of a Former Courtesan is just another sensational tale and its author just like any other writer who indulges in the overemotional and piles on the murders, mayhem and general wretchedness to distract from her lack of talent.’ ”
Ruben’s heart was sinking when she lifted her gaze from the page. “I can’t help thinking maybe he’s right. Maybe that is all I can write.” The corners of her mouth pulled down. “Even Mr. Ortiz seems to think so.”
“It isn’t,” Ruben told her. “I’ve read some of the other stories you’ve sold and it’s clear you have a strong voice. You shouldn’t take these things seriously. They’re trash. The fellow who writes them doesn’t even mean half he says.”
“How would you know?”
Ruben fell silent. She had confided in him without his having done anything to earn her trust. He owed it to her to give her the truth, even if it meant driving her away. “I don’t,” he said finally. “Not for certain. But I do know you’ve got talent. I won’t tell you your writing is ‘infused with a grace like that of angels’ like Guido tells the cursed novelist in Agostini’s play, but it is good. You are good.”
She smiled, briefly, but he could tell she was unconvinced. She continued to fold and unfold the edge of the paper, her gaze cast downward, her lips tight. Before he could say anything to drive away her melancholy, she got to her feet and said, “I think I’ll join the others after all.”
By the time he caught up with her, she was at the boat shed, thrusting some coins into the attendant’s hand. The boy helped her into one of the boats tied to the short dock, then unwound the rope that tethered the small craft to the others. Ruben watched her as she settled herself by the oars, thinking he should have told her about Blanco y Negro the moment she’d confided in him.
Now, it might just be too late.
He sighed and went to join her.
Emilia didn’t relinquish possession of the oars when Torres climbed into the boat. For a second it looked as though he would protest, but then he took off his jacket and leaned back, bracing his arms behind him, as she began to pull away from the dock.
She, Susana, and Luis used to row in the lagoon all the time when they were younger, as well as in the small river that gave the town its name, and she was used to navigating around the lush foliage. It had been years since she’d rowed and though the exertion made her hotter, the pulling in her muscles felt pleasant.
The air in here, aside from hot, felt almost as wet as the water itself. Droplets beaded on the large, glossy leaves and in Emilia’s hair, making it crinkle, and dampened her cotton dress. The two of them sat in silence for a long while as Emilia guided the boat towards one of her favorite spots in the lagoon, a place where poor man’s orchids bloomed on an overhang and dropped their petals into the water.
Emilia couldn’t remember if it was the right time of year for poor man’s orchids to bloom but she knew Torres would appreciate the view. A character in one of his stories had painted a portrait of the woman he loved while she sat underneath one of those trees and caught the bright blooms in her hair. Torres’s short stories, she reflected, were far more romantic than hers. Instead of critical reviews, he probably got love letters in the mail, from all the women infatuated with his dreamy protagonists.
And no one had ever accused him of being overemotional.
“I hate cruel reviewers,” she said quietly. “But not only for my sake. I’m sure you remember what Cristobal said on the day of the boating party, about my father. It wasn’t altogether untrue. My father drinks. He drinks a great deal, more than he used to when my mother was still alive. Back then, he would shut himself up in his study with a bottle or two whenever he got a bad review, in a mood so foul only my mother could coax him back to normal. Now, all he can do is make himself insensible. Susana and I try to shield him from the worst of it, but sometimes a piece of correspondence or a careless line in an article gets through and then…well.”
Torres looked stricken, whether from hearing about her father’s decline or her belief that it had been prompted by negative criticism, she didn’t know. “You really think it was the reviews that drove him to drink?” he asked.
“Partly. I’m sure his ego had a lot to do with it. He hasn’t worked in years.” Emilia bit her lip then said, in what was almost a whisper, something she hadn’t given voice to before then. “I don’t think he ever will write anything else.” It felt like a confession and perhaps, in a way, it was—a confession of her lack of faith in her father.
Ruben had told her a little about his relationship with his own father. It was conflicted enough that Emilia knew he understood perfectly well the mixture of sorrow and resentment and anger that shadowed her affection for Papa. In a way, both their fathers suffered from the same problem— overi
ndulgence. One in drink, the other in women, but in the end it all amounted to the same thing.
“It’s not easy to work under the weight of expectation,” was all Ruben said.
“Is that what’s keeping you from working on your next book?”
“Not entirely.” Ruben drummed his fingers on his thigh. “To tell you the truth, I did write it. And it was awful—so awful I couldn’t show anyone, not even my editor. It was easier to say I hadn’t even begun it. They put me up on a pedestal after one success and I can’t imagine what they’d say if I didn’t meet their expectations. It’s a savage business and yet you find a way to stand it, month after month. I admire you for it, Emilia.”
“If you think I’m never upset about the things people say and write about me, you might want to think again. Sometimes it’s all I can do to read a bad review without wanting to chase after whoever wrote it with a rolling pin in one hand and a broom in the other.” She saw his inquiring look and said, “Both are blunt instruments that can be applied to a reviewer’s skull with varying degrees of force.”
“I should like to see that,” he said, eyes crinkling.
“Maybe you will,” she returned. “Or maybe you’ll find yourself the recipient of such a treatment if I don’t like what you write about me for El Diario Nuevo.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you to bludgeon me to death. You have tried to drown me on two separate occasions, after all.”
“And here I have the means to do it a third time,” she said, gesturing at the shallow waters that surrounded them.
He grinned. “Here’s an idea—what do you say I make it easier for you?”
“What is that supposed to—Ruben! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
It was. He was stripping.
He’d already gotten his shirt off and dropped it on the bottom of the boat, alongside his shoes. His trousers were next. Emilia couldn’t hide her frank interest as he quickly lowered them past his slim but well-defined thighs, the athletic underwear he wore thin enough that it afforded her a very good view of his bottom as he stepped out of his trousers and cast them aside.
Turning toward her, he caught her looking, and smiled. And then he dove into the lagoon.
“The water feels great!” he called when he resurfaced. “Won’t you join me?”
“It’s shockingly improper, Mr. Torres,” she told him sternly.
“Luckily, Modern People such as ourselves are not easily shocked.”
“Well, then, the others could come along any moment.”
The tangle of roots and leaves would conceal them and give them enough time to dress if they heard anyone approach. Here, in the cool shadows of the mangroves, it was easy to believe that only the birds would witness their impropriety.
“Why Miss Del Valle,” he said, treading water. “I thought you enjoyed flouting conventionalism.”
“You must have me confused with someone else,” she said, in a good approximation of prim. But she was wavering, and he could see it.
She was tempted. Her dress was periwinkle cotton with buttons in front, easy enough to get on and off, and her corset was the modern kind that hooked in front. It was pretty, besides, trimmed with pale green ribbon and lace, as were her camisole and knickers.
The thought of taking off her dress in front of Torres made a rush of heat sweep over her body.
“It’ll take us ages to dry off,” she said, licking her lips.
“We can tell them you overturned us again.” He swam closer and leaned his arms on the side of the boat, making it dip slightly to one side. “You want to come in here. You know you do.”
The lagoon was alive with dozens of little movements—that of the ferns as they dipped their leaves into the water, the mosquitos and dragonflies that alighted briefly on its surface, making miniature ripples, the creatures that swam just beyond sight… and that of Torres as he clung to the wood, blue flakes of paint sticking to his fingers, droplets of water sliding over his skin and falling on her hem, a drop at a time.
Emilia looked at him, looked at the lagoon, and thought she had never wanted to a part of something as much as she wanted to be a part of that moment.
She took her clothes off slowly, feeling his hungry gaze on her. Unpinning her hat first and laying it aside, she unbuttoned the straps on her shoes and toed them off. Then she began to work on her dress, one button at a time, slipping it from her shoulders and leaving it puddled on the bottom of the boat. Then came her ribbed cotton stockings, fastened to the garters on her corset with green ribbons. Easing them down her legs, her skin almost burning from the heat of his gaze, she let them fall and stood up to loosen her corset.
He reached into the boat and drew a line over her bare ankle with his wet hand. Despite the oppressive heat, she shivered.
“What are you thinking?” she asked him.
“That I wish I were helping you undress,” he told her with a crooked smile.
She didn’t know how to answer that. Letting her corset fall to the bottom of the boat and standing there in her camisole and knickers—her white cotton camisole and knickers that would become transparent when soaked—she allowed him to look at her for a long moment and then, when she felt like she couldn’t stand the heat of his gaze for another second, she awkwardly stepped out into the rising roots of a mangrove and shimmered down into the water.
It was barely cooler than the sultry air and even his hands felt warm when he pulled her toward him and pressed his mouth against hers.
He held her around the waist as he kissed her, the water lapping just below his arms. After a while, she was aware of his hands roving further down, until they were cupping her bottom and drawing her closer and closer to him.
Their underclothes were plastered to their skin. They might as well have been wearing nothing, and the thought made her writhe against him. She could feel every inch of his body; the heat and hardness between his thighs was impossible to ignore. There was heat between her legs, too, and the feeling that she was about to combust grew when he bent his head and traced the edge of her neckline with his tongue.
She threw her head back, wondering if it was possible to burst out of her own skin. Instead of dipping lower, his lips moved along her neck until they found the hollow behind her ear and pressed a kiss there.
“I’ve never felt more like Miss Del Valle than I do right now,” she said. “I may become a courtesan yet, if it means doing this sort of thing on a regular basis.”
“I like Miss Del Valle,” he said, teeth grazing her earlobe, “but I like Emilia much better.”
“Even though my bottom is the size of a small country?”
“Precisely because your bottom is the size of a small country,” he said, giving the object in question a squeeze.
Emilia couldn’t help the smile that stole over her face. She was wondering if she should do something more adventurous with her own hands when the sound of voices in the distance had them scrambling back into the boat, half breathless with laughter and exhilaration.
Emilia had finished fastening every other hook in her corset and was pulling her dress over her head when he pulled her in for a quick but thorough kiss.
“I want you,” he told her in a low voice. “And one of these days, I mean to have you.”
She smiled, and began to do up the cloth-covered buttons on her dress, not bothering to tell him he already had her.
Chapter 12
The next day was Sunday, and though Ruben wanted to bolt to the Cruzes’ house the moment he tumbled out of bed, he forced himself to wait until early afternoon before heading out.
When he arrived at their house, however, he was dismayed to discover he may have waited too long. The porch was empty and so was the house.
Ruben stepped off the porch and was about to try Luis’s house when a familiar laugh made him glance across the street, at their neighbor’s front porch. There they sat, the two of them and Luis, chatting with an eld
erly lady and sipping from glasses of what looked like lime juice. Ruben looked at Luis, who seemed to be more at ease than Ruben had ever seen him. It was easy to picture him whiling away his Sunday afternoons in one porch or another, making conversation with the neighbors— he looked like he belonged.
Luis and Susana were engrossed in whatever they were discussing, but Emilia spotted him.
Ruben waved and Emilia said something to her companions and put down her glass. A moment later, she had crossed the street and was leading him into her own porch, where they sat on a dilapidated wicker settee.
There was a lump underneath the thin cushion; ignoring it as best he could, Ruben held out the bulky parcel he’d been carrying. “I brought you the manuscript you asked me to look over,” he said, unnecessarily. “And I brought you mine as well. I thought you might want to return the favor.”
“Your second book?”
He nodded. “I could use your help with it. I’ve read it so often I can’t tell anymore what works and what doesn’t.”
Her hands closed around the bundle. He’d wrapped it in brown paper, a little clumsily, to keep the pages from smudging. She began to unpick the knot he’d made in the string, biting her lower lip in concentration.
“I have something else for you.”
“My, Mr. Torres, but you are generous today,” she said, smiling, and Ruben was struck with the impulse to capture her lips between his own.
He didn’t.
They were in full view of the other houses in the street, for one, despite the best efforts of a bush growing by the steps, and for another, he wasn’t altogether sure he could stop at a single kiss. Not after what had happened the day before.
Not after he had felt the softness of her body through that flimsy scrap of fabric she’d been wearing and caught her moans with his mouth.
He burned to do it again, but properly, starting by unpinning that wild hair of hers and letting it tumble over her shoulders before he removed every stitch of clothing she wore—save, perhaps, that fetching camisole with its green ribbons. The stockings, too. And nothing else.
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