The Price of Paradise

by Susana López Rubio

Everyone goes through difficulties in life. Health problems, money troubles, struggles with love—all of them more or less serious. Not even royalty is immune to misfortune. For example, the woman in the green dress, the one standing, hypnotized, in front of the Revlon lipstick display, could very well have been taking care of her old, infirm mother. The gentleman trying on the Italian Borsalinos might have worked at a job that made his life miserable. Every customer who walked through the door was carrying his or her personal torments: from a chipped nail or an incurable disease to a love betrayed or any other kind of heartbreak. But as long as they were at El Encanto—whether they were buying a suit priced at thousands of pesos or a little trinket or simply strolling through the store—they’d forget their cares, if even just for a while. That was the magic of El Encanto.