CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Author's Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Thanks for reading!
About the Author
A Season for Wishes
Lydia San Andrés
Copyright (C) 2015 by Lydia San Andrés
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Lydia San Andrés
Author’s Note
Arroyo Blanco, the town in which this story takes place, is located in a fictional island in the Spanish Caribbean, neighbor to Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. It shares those islands’ hispanic heritage as well as some of their customs and is populated, as they are, with a multicultural and multiracial amalgamation of people descended from Africans, from the Spanish, and from other various european and middle eastern people.
CHAPTER ONE
ARROYO BLANCO
DECEMBER 1910
It was almost three weeks until Christmas and a light December breeze was moving through the trees, cool enough that some of the girls had wrapped silk shawls around their shoulders as they sat in Maria Teresa’s veranda. Alba Reyes was glad enough for hers; it was soft and warm and its pale cafe-au-lait color, only a shade or two lighter than her own skin and embroidered in ivory to match her shirtwaist, made her brown hair look darker and her pearls more lustrous.
Or so Maria Teresa had told her when she’d persuaded Alba to purchase it the day before. “It’s been almost three years since your father died,” she’d said as she held up the silky material. “It’s about time you came out of mourning. You can wear this to the musicale I’m hosting tomorrow—it’ll make a nice change from so much black.”
Though she still missed her father dreadfully, Alba's reasons for wearing black after the six-month mourning period was over had more to do with practicality than grief. She’d fingered the embroidered shawl, thinking it had been a long time since she’d worn lighter colors and her things were a trifle shabby. So she’d bought the shawl as well as a lace-trimmed shirtwaist, wincing slightly as she always did whenever she parted with the money she’d earned during five years of keeping books for an importer in Ciudad Real. As it turned out, she was happy to have something nice to wear when she realized Maria Teresa’s cousin Marcos had been invited to the musicale.
Six years had passed since they’d last seen each other. During that time, Alba had visited Arroyo Blanco every few months, but Marcos, who had gone away to university first, and then to work with his uncle in Chile, hadn’t returned to town. Until now.
She’d thought about this moment so often she could hardly believe it was really happening. But there he was, clasping Maria Teresa’s hand and saying something that made her reach out to grasp him into an affectionate hug.
Alba’s palms were damp and there was a strange flutter in her chest. She would be lying if she said her anticipation hadn’t been colored by anxiety. After what had happened when they’d last seen each other, he had every right to refuse to talk to her or even see her. And as embarrassing as it would be if he were to cut her, it would be far more painful.
Seized with a sudden impulse to flee, Alba made herself remain where she was and watched him as he approached.
Marcos walked into the veranda, tall and lean in his pale linen suit. Alba was struck by how little he had changed. He looked a little older, of course, his features a little more chiseled and his shoulders broader, but he still parted his dark brown hair on the left and he still smiled the same half-smile that didn’t match the mischief in his eyes…and he still had a way of looking at her that made her stomach clench.
Alba drank in the sight of him, then realized there was a woman standing beside him. Her hand was tucked into his arm and she was smiling at Maria Teresa as Marcos introduced them. Alba's heart sank but she managed a coherent reply to something Miguel Fung said before excusing herself from the group with the pretext of getting a glass of mandarin juice from the housemaid who had just come out of the house. She helped herself, then retreated to a corner near the steps.
In the years they’d been apart she’d imagined, time and time again, what it would be like to see him again. She’d gone through every possible scenario, but never had she imagined he would return with a wife.
And why wouldn’t he have made an attachment? Six years was a very long time.
Despite the fact that she was doing her best to look as though she hadn’t noticed him, and despite the half a dozen people who stood between them, he managed to catch her eye. She swallowed a sliver of ice and felt the cold spread through her chest as Marcos came over to where she was standing, his wife—or fiancee—in tow.
“Alba,” he said, flashing her a smile that made her heart ache, “how delightful it is to see you. I didn’t know you’d be here— I thought you lived in Ciudad Real.”
She greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, like she would any acquaintance. “I did, until recently,” she said. To her surprise, her voice was steady. “I moved back three weeks ago.”
He laid a hand on her arm. If he felt any resentment about what had happened the last time they’d seen each other, it didn’t show. “I was very sorry to hear about your father. I wanted to write, but—to be honest, nothing I could put down in paper could express how sorry I was.”
The compassion and sorrow in his eyes was too much for Alba to bear. She shifted her gaze from Marcos to the woman, and gave her what she hoped was a welcoming smile.
Marcos followed her gaze. “Leonor, this is my oldest friend, Miss Reyes. Alba, Miss Bustamante.”
Not his wife, then. Alba stifled the wave of relief sweeping through her—after all, she could be his fiancee—and smiled at Miss Bustamante.
She was small and delicate and had dark eyes and hair the color of honey. “It’s such a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance,” Miss Bustamante said. “Marcos speaks wonderfully of you.”
Alba had only time to murmur something vaguely agreeable when Maria Teresa swooped in and pulled Miss Bustamante away, saying she was dying to introduce her to the rest of the guests. With Miss Bustamante whisked into the crowd, Alba and Marcos were left looking at each other. Just what did one say to somebody years after breaking his heart?
She cleared her throat, finding it tight with an emotion she hoped did not show in her face, and wondered, not for the first time, if she could just step into his arms and pretend the past six years hadn’t happened. Instead, she said, as stiffly as if she were talking to an acquaintance and not the boy she’d known since he was eight years old and fond of putting lizards down her dress, “Will you be in town for long?”
“I’m here to stay,” he said, leaning against the railing and looking out at Maria Teresa’s garden where her nine-month-old son, Julian, was playing in the grass with his nanny. “And you? Are you back for good?”
“I don’t know. I’lll stay for as long as I’m needed, I suppose. Mamá hasn’t been well—not since Papá died, really, but lately Cristina has found it difficult to manage on her own, not when she has the running of her own household.” They’d tried hiring nurses. But her mother, who’d always been patient and sweet-tempered, had managed to drive every single one of them away. She was only fifty-two years old but the shaking palsy had made an old woman of her. The illness had progressed quickly
since Alba’s father’s death. Three years ago, Alba’s mother had been able to attend to his every need; now, she could hardly shuffle from the bed to her rocking chair.
Alba pushed away thoughts of her mother and the faint uneasiness curdling inside her stomach whenever she thought about her mother’s growing feebleness, and switched the subject, nodding towards Miss Bustamante, who was speaking with Miguel Fung. “Are congratulations in order?”
“Am I going to marry Leonor, you mean?” Marcos asked. He had always been frightfully plain-spoken, almost blunt, and Alba had once been accustomed to it. Now, her skin was tingling with shock at his directness. Shock, and also recognition.
His gaze flickered over to Miss Bustamante, then returned to rest on Alba. “She’s a very good friend but only that—a friend.”
Alba hadn’t been aware of the tension collecting between her shoulder blades until she felt it ebb away. Marcos must have seen her expression change, because shifted a fraction closer—close enough for his sleeve to brush hers— saying, “She came to help me establish a new textile factory. We’ve been learning the business from her father and my uncle these past few years and, with their blessing, decided that it was time to strike out on our own.”
“That sounds like quite an undertaking,” Alba said.
“It is. It’ll be years before everything runs smoothly.” Marcos moved even closer and Alba's heart skipped a beat. “You see, Alba, I plan to stay in Arroyo Blanco for a very long time.”
*
A tray of coconut macaroons had been demolished--mostly by Alejandro Cáceres and Miguel Fung, who were insatiable when it came to food—and Nicolas Suarez had begun to strum softly on his guitar, when Maria Teresa proposed having an angelito.
“Aren’t we too late?” asked Alba. She was sitting in a wicker armchair next to Maria Teresa, holding the glass of mandarine juice as it dripped condensation on her skirt and trying not to look too often at the rocking chair where Marcos sat. “It’s less than a month until Christmas.”
“We can do three gifts instead of four if we start next week. Amusements have been scarce around here since the last fair—I’m positively dying for a frolic. Do you play angelitos in Chile, Miss Bustamante?”
“I don’t believe so,” Miss Bustamante said.
“It’s a Christmas tradition here. We exchange gifts anonymously, once a week until Christmas, and then have a party to reveal our identities. It can be a lot of fun, if everyone behaves.” This last was said with a pointed look at Alejandro and Miguel, who affected to look innocent and almost succeeded.
“You’ll join us, won’t you?” Miguel asked Miss Bustamante He was sitting as close to her as propriety allowed, which was making Alejandro look rather thunderous. Amparo Robles, who had been in love with Alejandro for half their lives, glared at him with murder in her eyes.
“I think I will.” Miss Bustamante raised an eyebrow in Miguel’s direction and he retreated, looking sheepish. Alba hid a smile.
“We’ll all play,” Maria Teresa said, and everyone knew better than to argue. “We’ll meet here every Saturday until Christmas Eve. We’ll hold the last exchange then, at the stroke of midnight, and reveal the identities of the angelitos. I’ll personally strangle anyone who ruins the surprise.”
“She’s capable of it, too,” remarked Carlos Del Villar, Maria Teresa’s husband.
“I’ve no doubt,” said Nicolas, giving Maria Teresa an appraising glance, which earned him a smack on the back of the head, courtesy of Mr. Del Villar.
Studiously ignoring this unseemly display—decorum tended to fly out the window whenever those two were in each other’s company—Maria Teresa vanished into the house for a moment and returned with a sheet of paper and a pen, then proceeded to cut the paper into strips and write down all their names. Once the strips were neatly folded and tossed into Miguel’s hat and the hat thoroughly shaken, It was passed around. As everyone reached in and pretended to either groan or cheer, Alba snuck another glance at Marcos. He was reading the name on his scrap of paper, lips curling into a smile.
"Oh!" said Maria Teresa, in a voice just loud enough for Alba to hear, "What a bother--I drew myself!”
Alba looked down at her own paper but before she could read the name she had drawn, Maria Teresa had snatched it from her hand and replaced it with her own. Instead of Maria’s name, the name Marcos Ramirez was scrawled across it.
Giving her friend a grateful look, Alba tucked the scrap into her beaded purse and smiled when Maria Teresa moved closer and whispered, “Consider it my Christmas gift to you.”
CHAPTER TWO
MARCOS RAMIREZ STOOD in the ladies’ section of the new department store, completely flummoxed. La Gran Via had been open for two months, or so Maria Teresa had told him when he’d asked her where to go, and it was swarming with people. Half of them were admiring the extravagant decorations—there was an enormous tree in the middle of the main room, tiny angels dangling from red and green ribbons tied to the branches—while the rest were gaping at the merchandise.
All sorts of delicacies had been imported for the Christmas season— everything from stuffed dates to tea from India and Spanish turrón—and were arranged in tempting displays around the food hall. It was enough to drive anyone to distraction. Marcos had examined and discarded every single item he’d passed and was now looking at an arrangement of gloves, wondering if they were more unromantic than the furled umbrellas on an adjacent table.
He must have looked as lost as he felt, because before long a girl in a trim black suit approached him, saying, “Can I help you with anything, sir?”
“I’m looking for an angelito for a young lady of my acquaintance and I haven’t a single idea of what I ought to get her. Have you any suggestions?”
“It all depends on what message you’d like to send.” This was said by someone standing to his right. Marcos turned, and realized with a jolt it was Alba herself. He had been absurdly nervous the other day when he’d spotted her in Maria Teresa’s veranda, and he could feel a familiar flutter in his stomach as he watched her select one of the gloves and study the stitching at the wrist.
“I wasn’t aware that an angelito was expected to relay a message,” he said when he had recovered his power of speech. “What, pray tell, would these gloves convey?” He nodded at a small gray pair in a corner of the display.
“That you are the lady’s great aunt,” Alba said. The corner of her lips turned upwards, suddenly, and Marcos found it impossible to suppress his own smile. “Who happens to be blind.”
“That won’t do at all.”
“Do you know the young lady well?” she asked, her lashes lowered as she looked at the display.
“Not as well as I should like,” he confessed.
“So if you’d like to know her better, why not something that inspires conversation? Like a book, or a drawing. Did you know that Mr. Lara draws splendid maps from places all around the world?”
“Does he?” Marcos asked. “What would you think if someone gave you a map for Christmas?”
“Nothing very flattering, seeing as I’m awful at geography,” she said, and laughed. Marcos, who had heard her talking about the Norwegian dessert and the steppes of Peru, laughed as well. He was about to remind her she had been better at mathematics than everyone else in their class when he caught her gaze.
She was tall enough that he could look directly into her eyes. They were a dark, fathomless brown, darker even than her hair, and there was something in their warm depths that made him want to close the distance between them until nothing—not even the smallest particle of air—stood between them. Unfortunately, an entire department store’s worth of people milled only steps away, preventing him from doing anything more than smile at her and feel as his insides kindled.
He had been away for so long he’d half-expected to find her married or taking on the world with her swift mathematical mind. Instead, she was paler than he was used to see
ing her, solemn, with hollows in her cheeks and a darkness in her eyes he’d never seen there before. His heart ached for the girl she’d been even as he felt a burgeoning curiosity about the woman she’d become. For what seemed like the millionth time, Marcos cursed his uncle for keeping him in Chile, tangled in one business affair after another, when all he’d wanted was to rush home the moment he’d heard about her father’s illness.
What he’d told her about coming home to start a new business was true; he had, however, neglected to tell her she had played just as big a part in his return— he’d loved her for years and years and he would be damned if he’d wait so much as one more before letting her know just how much she meant to him.
Despite their talk of books and maps, Marcos wanted to get her a present that would thrill her, and convey the depths of his feelings, besides. He didn’t know what it could be, but he knew one thing for certain—whatever it was, he wasn’t going to find it in a store.
*
Alba had always considered herself reasonably skilled in the art of selecting presents. When it came to choosing one for the first gift exchange, however, she was completely flummoxed.
After much consideration, she had settled on an illustrated copy of the book Marcos had liked best as a boy, The Pirates of Skeleton Island, only to change her mind at the last minute, when she found a figurine of a horse that reminded her of Principe, his childhood pony. It was neither costly nor clever but it reminded her of the good times they’d shared and she knew he would appreciate it.
She placed the parcel—which she’d carried to Maria Teresa’s inside her marketing basket, as per the hostess’ instructions—among the other gifts in the dining room, then followed a housemaid to the terrace.
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