The Summer We Came to Life by Deborah Cloyed

society women from an early age. In fact, as early as ten, Cesar understood that manhood would bring him to side with his father. But Cesar felt sure he would never lose empathy for his mother and sisters. Once, a teenage Cesar home on holiday break comforted his mother when media scandals forced her into shuttered rooms in their Paitilla Point mansion. He left a daring message with the head butler at their vacation home in El Valle de Anton, where Alfredo Guerra brought all his mistresses. “Tell him that I hate him. That I will take care of my mother now, so he should never come back to Punta Paitilla.”
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    â€œDo you remember your grandfather, Isabel?” Jesse asked her daughter.
    Isabel shook her head. She’d always told me she only had vague impressions of her father and grandparents, of dolls and sweets in a fancy house.
    â€œWell, he was—he was something of a character. Dashing looks, impossibly white teeth. A smile that charmed and disarmed you for reasons you couldn’t explain. His presence in a room was like the arrival of the Rolling Stones, everybody whispering and poking and tripping over themselves to serve. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s meet your daddy first, huh?” Jesse took a long gulp of her drink.
    â€œLet’s see. Ah, yes. All the rich and famous were smooshed down in the basement. I don’t recall who rallied, probablyme, but we all got ready to reemerge as a group. When we waltzed back into the club, it was like something out of a movie. People parted and then swarmed around us. It was one of those moments that stick—the ones that move in slow motion with a soaring soundtrack like Gone with the Wind. Your soul just spills out in every direction, soaking up the sensation. Well, naturally, that was when Cesar caught my eye. He had this look. Where do they learn that look, huh? Some Latin lover handbook somewhere, I imagine. With plenty of your father’s footnotes. Anyway, could’ve been the drugs, the booze, the lights. But time stood still when Cesar Guerra looked at me.” Jesse took another swallow and smiled to herself.
    â€œSo, of course, I pretended I hadn’t noticed. I made a point of dancing through the crowd, kissing every celebrity on the lips. We played a little game that way. I showed him who he was dealing with, and he indulged me. I thought I was so smart, so clever. Forcing him to fall madly in love with me.” Jesse snorted. Then she lifted her chin. “He did, though, and it was real, I think,” she said to herself. Then, more firmly, she continued, “It was real. Cesar said he had never met anybody like me. And I imagine he’d done a pretty wide survey of the female species.”
    â€œWell, there isn’t anybody like you, Mom.”
    â€œWorld wouldn’t fit more than one,” Lynette said drily.
    â€œWhy, thank you, darlings,” Jesse said, blowing us kisses. “I never would have made it without the support of my fans!” Jesse laughed and I laughed, too.
    â€œOkay, go on,” I prompted. “Did you guys do it that first night, or what?”
    â€œNone of your beeswax!” Jesse protested and then laughed. “It was the seventies. Of course we did it. In his penthouse hotel suite. I didn’t wear clothes for three days.”
    I gasped, pretending to be shocked.
    â€œOh hush. It wasn’t just sex. He extended his stay and Ipostponed Paris and we just lay in bed and told each other our whole damn life stories. And—whew!”
    Jesse smacked a hand to her forehead. “Our stories could not have been more different. Quickly, I became his American Dream and he my exotic prince.”
    Jesse chewed on her lip, pondered the thought. “On the fourth day, an angry all-Spanish phone call came from his father. Cesar left immediately. I holed myself up in the hotel and refused all calls. Cesar, with his two degrees in economics and