A Lifetime for Love

By Lydia San Andres

This short story is a companion to A Summer for Scandal recounts the events of that summer from Susana and Luis's perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lydia San Andres
• Release date: Aug 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463537602

Lydia San Andres

Lydia San Andres lives and writes in the tropics, where she can be found reading and making excuses to stay out of the heat. A Summer for Scandal is her first novel.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Arroyo Blanco, 1911

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Susana Cruz was deathly afraid of green lizards. She was wary of all kinds of lizards as a matter of course, even the tiny brown ones everyone knew were harmless, but the green ones were by far the most horrifying. When they weren’t lurking, invisible, among the glossy leaves of the philodendrons growing outside her bedroom window, they were making their way inside the house and burrowing into dark corners where they might spring out at her if she dared disturb their peace.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, Susana, Emilia said, coming to the rescue after Susana’s scream of surprise had startled her away from her typewriter. Lizards are harmless—not only that, they’re useful to have around. They eat roaches.

Susana had been hearing variations of that for most of her twenty-five years and it didn’t make her more kindly disposed toward the creatures. I’d just as soon not have reptiles taking up residence inside my vanity, she told her sister with a shudder.

Disagreeable as it was to have lizards appearing among your hairpins, it was even worse when they leapt from their branches and landed right on your lap—exactly what happened the very next weekend as Susana and her friends had coffee in the patio of Rosa Castillo’s house.

They had arranged themselves under the shade of the mango tree in wicker chairs brought out from the porch, heedless of the minuscule flowers and stems that occasionally drifted down. Susana had just set down the pretty flowered demitasse on its saucer and rested it against her knee and was leaning forward to inspect the embroidery on Carmen Vidal’s new handbag when something heavier than a flower plopped onto the brim of her hat. She hardly had time to be startled before the intrepid lizard decided to seek a more comfortable spot and ventured down onto her cup with another leap.

It was virulently green and as long as her hand, with a tail that tapered to a thin point and swept unpleasantly over her wrist.

Several things happened at once—coffee sloshed down the pale peach skirt of her dress, Susana jumped to her feet and threw up her hands, causing the cup to go flying, the lizard scurried off to safety as the other girls echoed her cry and spilled more than one cup in their surprise…and Susana, her skirt now stained and her hat knocked askew, lifted her gaze in time to see Luis Rojas come around the mango tree.

His expression was grave as he surveyed the gathering, which had devolved into chaos, though Susana knew him well enough to see the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. A lizard, I take it? he asked, raising his eyebrow at her and, with that tiny gesture, making her heart shudder to a complete stop.

Emilia would have tossed off some absurd line about having just battled a dragon. Susana, who wasn’t as quick with words, gathered the tattered remains of her dignity around her.

That’s right, she said calmly, as if seeing Luis was an everyday occurrence and not something that hadn’t happened in at least a year.

"In that case, I’m surprised the house is still