Cinderella in Overalls

by Carol Grace

  Prologue

  The sun was merciless in the Central Valley of California in July. Even Catherine Logan, who had spent every summer of her twenty-six years there, felt the dry heat sear through her cotton shirt and shorts. She walked quickly to a seat in the shade under a temporary awning the auctioneers had set up. There were familiar faces in the crowd, but she avoided them as they’d avoided her out of embarrassment or pity for the past six months. It didn’t matter.

  She would never be able to look them in the eye again. Her parents had sold out. The drought drove people to desperate measures. There were divorces; there had even been a suicide in the next county. Her parents had only sold out. And they weren’t the only ones.

  For the past three years Catherine had watched the fields she worked being baked dry and saw the worry lines etched in her father’s face as he borrowed more and sunk deeper into debt. When the foreclosure notice came, she went to the bank herself, pleading with them to extend the loan, to give them a chance, one year, one growing season to turn the farm around. But the answer had been no.

  She swiveled around on the plastic seat of her folding chair. There he was leaning against the barn, conspicuous in a pinstriped suit. The man who had turned her down, old Cyrus Grant, loosened his tie and met her eyes with discomfort.

  She turned around abruptly, unable to conceal her anger with him and his bank. It was his decision that had forced her off the land that had been in her family for three generations.

  A few minutes later the pharmacist’s son and successor, Donny, slid into the seat next to hers. She felt his eyes on her, but she was determined not to let it bother her. If there was anything worse than being ignored, it was being pitied.

  “Catherine,” he said, mopping his round face with a handkerchief, “why did you come? It’s just going to hurt more to see the old place broken up and sold off.”

  She glanced briefly at his red face, the blue eyes round and curious. “The hurt’s gone, Don,” she assured him coolly. Replaced by resentment and shame, she thought, the shame of failure. The local girl who had “gone on” and earned a degree couldn’t save her parents’ farm.

  “I had to come today,” she continued, “to see it for the last time. My roots are here. Were here.” She looked out across the dry fields, where stalks of wheat withered in the shimmering heat.

  “I just thought it would be easier not to face everybody again.”

  “I’m not interested in the easy way,” she said, her dark eyes blazing. “If I were, I wouldn’t have gone into farming.”

  He nodded and glanced away. Catherine noticed it was that way with everyone these days. Either they stared or they looked away.

  “Looks like a good crowd, though. With what the land brought...” He paused uneasily. “Your folks’ll be able to retire.”

  Catherine didn’t tell him that they’d already retired, had bought a duplex in Sacramento six miles from her sister and her children. He must realize that as tired and discouraged as her parents were, they didn’t want to retire. Or did they? Had it been relief or regret on their faces the day they had signed the papers?

  The auctioneer stepped up to a makeshift podium, adjusted the microphone and began his familiar spiel. The land had already been sold to a developer. Catherine didn’t dare look in the direction of the white frame house.

  “The livestock brought a fair price,” Donny noted, “over in Fresno the other day.”

  Catherine nodded. The last thing she needed was to think about the calves she had helped bring into the world, the pigs she had named and fed being sold off at the county fairgrounds. It was bad enough to hear the auctioneer describe the combine and the bailer and to hear voices behind her offer half what they were worth. Were the bankers disappointed? Probably not. For them it was just another foreclosure, just another auction, just another family driven off the farm.

  She’d never forget Mr. Grant’s flat voice, dry as the land itself, as he’d explained why he couldn’t lend them any more money. She could still taste the humiliation as he’d explained it to her as if she were a child instead of an adult with a degree from the best university in the state.

  She wiped the perspiration from her forehead as the auctioneer directed the buyers’ attention to the giant tractor standing in the field behind him, just where her father had left it after he plowed the field for the last time.

  “What do I hear for Old Yellow?” the man called out, and Catherine’s heart sank. How many times had she sat next to her father on Old Yellow until she was old enough to drive the tractor herself? The metal treads were shiny from years of wear. Even from where she sat she could see the rust spots on the sides. Maybe no one would buy it.

  “Don’t make ‘em like that anymore,” Donny said under his breath, and Catherine had to agree. The tractor was one of a kind, and she loved that machine. How she longed to climb up and take the wheel again and smell the rich, damp earth and watch the plow behind her scatter the clumps of dirt.

  Someone did buy it, of course, but she didn’t turn around to see who it was. Her eyes were fastened on the next item—the flatbed truck. Next to her Donny smiled.

  “Now that brings back memories, doesn’t it? I remember seeing you hauling fertilizer from the feed and fuel in town. Everybody said your daddy was crazy to let you drive it.”

  “My father wasn’t crazy,” she explained softly. “He wanted me to know how to run a farm. Driving a truck or a tractor was part of the education.” The rest she’d gotten at the university, the part about hybrids and grain futures. She’d been ready. As prepared as anyone could be to run a farm. But she couldn’t fight the drought and the disease, and she couldn’t sit by any longer and watch the disintegration of her past and future.

  She swallowed hard and stood up, turned and walked past friends and strangers without seeing them, her chin held high and her eyes dry. Let them stare, let them whisper. She could imagine what they were saying. “Poor Catherine... nothing left... where will she go? What will she do?”

  She walked faster as the auctioneer’s voice rose to a crescendo. “Going, going, gone,” he called as she rounded the empty barn. He could have been talking to her as well as the flatbed. They were both going, but where? She only knew she had to get as far away from Tranquility as she could.

  Catherine leaned against the front fence and gave in to the pent-up emotions she had suppressed all morning. Her eyes blinded with tears, she heard the voice echo through the air once more. “Going, going, gone.”

  Chapter One

  The diesel truck bounced up and down on the rocky dirt road, and Catherine Logan gripped the edge of the passenger seat to keep from hitting her head on the roof. Behind her in the long flatbed, where she usually sat, a dozen Mamara Indian women were wedged between burlap sacks bulging with lettuce, parsley and mangoes. She was proud of the harvest, proud of what they’d accomplished with no machinery, and proud of the Aruacan women who worked so hard for so little. So little that at the end of a grueling market day they ended up with no more than a few pesos to show for it. The money the women earned went right through their hands and into the pockets of the workers they depended on to bring the crops to market. Catherine smoothed her layered skirts and turned to face the driver.

  “Tomas,” she shouted over the roar of the diesel engine, “can’t you lower your price for us? These are poor women who can’t afford your fees.”

  Hunched over the wheel, he spoke without looking at her. “And what about me?” he asked. “Do I not have to make a living, too? Do you know the price of a truck these days?”

  Catherine shook her head. She had no idea of the price of a truck in Aruaca. She had been a Peace Corps volunteer for eighteen months and she knew the p
rices of potatoes and bread and shoes, but not trucks. She tapped the driver on the shoulder. “How much,” she asked, “for a truck like this?”

  “Too much,” he replied with a glance over his shoulder, “for them. But for a rich American like you...” He shrugged. “Maybe not.”

  She grimaced. Despite the fact that she lived in a small house as the other farmers did, dressed like the women in a fringed shawl and wore her hair in a long braid, there were still some local people who thought she must be rich. They didn’t know that except for the living allowance the Peace Corps gave her she would be penniless.

  As they bumped along the road, Catherine was convinced the village would never rise out of its cycle of unending poverty unless the villagers owned their own truck. But how? Borrowing the money was out of the question. Or was it? The truck swayed as they rounded a narrow curve, and Catherine braced her feet against the floorboard and looked out the window into the steep ravine below. She had never driven on mountain roads like these, but if they had their own truck, she would do it. She would do anything to help these people.

  Her eyelids drooped and she stifled a yawn. The women had been up since 3:00 a.m. and only now were they approaching the outskirts of La Luz. By the time the truck rumbled up the hilly streets of the capital, it was six o’clock and the Rodriguez Market was teeming with activity. As soon as Tomas parked the truck, the women trudged from the street to the market, doubled over by the weight of the produce on their backs. Catherine, with her colorful ahuayo filled with lettuce, wove her way through the crowds to their stall, a structure of vertical two-by-fours that supported a patched roof of corrugated tin and plastic.

  Doña Jacinda, her small face browned and wrinkled from the years in the fields, surveyed the young woman from California and sighed. “Ah, la Catalina.” She shook her head in mock despair. “What is to become of you buried here among the burlap sacks with only farmers for company? When I was your age, I was married and the mother of six already.”

  Catherine straightened her bowler hat and smiled. “But, Jacinda, it was you who taught me that ‘Women’s faults are many, but men have only two. Everything they say and everything they do.’”

  A shopper arrived and silenced the unspoken retort in Jacinda’s throat. While Catherine watched her haggle over the price of parsley, she surveyed the early-morning bargain hunters. She seldom saw tourists at the market, but over the babble of Spanish came the sound of English, of Americans speaking English. She leaned over the wooden crates to see a small group of men approaching, wearing suits and ties. She hadn’t heard a word of English for weeks, not since the last Peace Corps meeting in La Luz. The man in the middle of the group seemed to be the center of attention.

  He would be the center of attention anywhere, she decided, with his dark, close-cropped hair and rangy good looks. He moved easily through the throngs of morning shoppers, his suit coat slung over his shoulder. His blue eyes swept the stalls as if he were looking for something special. Guava? Papaya? Hand-woven baskets? As he drew closer, he caught Catherine’s eye, and she looked away quickly, embarrassed to be caught staring.

  Jacinda nudged Catherine with her elbow. A woman wrapped in a tattered shawl with a baby on her back was asking the price of mangoes. Catherine had been so busy watching the man that she hadn’t noticed her.

  “Do not go lower than three pesos a piece,” Jacinda whispered urgently.

  Catherine flushed and bit her lip. “Three pesos,” she said softly. She could plant, she could plow and she could pick, but she couldn’t bargain. For months she had tried to learn, but she always came down too low too fast, or stayed too high too long until her customers shook their heads and went elsewhere. Maybe today, with Jacinda at her side, she could finally get it right.

  The customer complained loudly that she couldn’t afford to pay that much for a mango, and then her baby started crying.

  Out of the corner of her eye Catherine saw the man with the blue eyes at the edge of the crowd regarding her intently. She wiped her damp palms against her skirt and cleared her throat, but no sound came out.

  Jacinda, weighing fruit with one hand and making change with the other, was at Catherine’s elbow. In a flash she closed the deal, grabbed the mangoes and wrapped them up. The customer paid and walked away grumbling, but Jacinda’s black eyes gleamed.

  “Did you see that, chica?” she asked Catherine. “There was nothing to it. It was a fair price and she knew it. Start high so you have room to come down.”

  Tiny worry lines etched themselves in Catherine’s forehead. The man was now leaning against the stall across from them and still watching her. She looked down at Jacinda. “But she looked so poor, and she has a baby to feed.”

  Jacinda snorted. “That is not her baby. And she wears those old clothes on market day. I see her every week. Harden your soft heart, Catalina. We will make a bargainer out of you yet.”

  Catherine nodded. “I just need a little practice.” When she glanced up, the man was standing in front of her holding a half-dozen mangoes in his hands, so close she caught the masculine scent of pine soap.

  “How much?” he asked in careful Spanish, and Catherine slanted a desperate look in Jacinda’s direction. She wasn’t ready for another customer yet. And she definitely wasn’t ready for the man in front of her whose broad forehead and wide, generous mouth made her heart skip a beat.

  Jacinda took in the situation with a flash of her dark eyes and opened her palm as if she were handing the man over to her. This one is for you, she seemed to say. Don’t blow it this time.

  Catherine took a deep breath and looked up into dazzling blue eyes. “Six pesos each,” she said firmly. The sights and the sounds of the market faded except for the beating of Catherine’s heart. Start at six and come down to three, she repeated to herself. But the man didn’t say anything. How could she come down to three if he didn’t speak? He just stood there, holding the mangoes and staring at her until she felt her knees weaken, and she swayed back against a wooden crate.

  The man’s eyes widened in alarm, and he dropped the mangoes in an effort to steady her. His friends picked up the fruit and advised him to offer two instead of six.

  Just as loudly and just as firmly every one of the vendors in Catherine’s stall began shouting reasons why the mangoes were worth more. They may not have understood the Americans, but they knew how to keep the bargaining alive. There was a glimmer deep in the man’s eyes, and the corner of his mouth twitched. Catherine thought that if he laughed she wouldn’t be able to control herself, and then her career as a vendor would be over. Bargaining was serious business, and she knew she was being tested. Right here and right now.

  “Six pesos each,” she repeated over the hubbub.

  Suddenly the stall fell silent. He reached into his pocket for a handful of silver and counted the coins one by one as he placed them in her outstretched palms. His fingers were cool, and she felt the current flow from his hand into hers. Then he carefully closed her hand around the money and held it tightly for a long moment.

  There was no amusement in his eyes this time. There was something else, something that caught and held her for longer than the transaction required. His companions were incredulous.

  “What is it with you, Bentley? The first woman you see and you lose it.”

  “Come on, boss. We’ve got to get you the hell out of here and back to the bank before this woman talks you into a crate of potatoes and we have to store them in the vault.”

  The women surrounded Catherine to congratulate her. The noise level rose, and when she looked again he was gone. He and his friends had been swallowed up by the crowd. But she had held firm and made a big profit. She had passed the test. She was one of them.

  To celebrate, Jacinda took her to the tiny bar-styled cafe late in the afternoon when the shadows fell over the stall and the other women were packing their empty bags and counting the money. The cafe was warmly lighted and inviting with the aroma of strong coffee. Jacinda
patted a bar stool and motioned for Catherine to sit next to her.

  “It was a good day,” Jacinda remarked as the proprietor set small cups of black coffee in front of them. “Do you know I have worked in the stalls since I was fourteen years old and I have never seen anyone pay full price for anything? It was most amazing.”

  “Amazing,” Catherine agreed, wrapping her hands around the cup to feel the warmth. “But I can’t take full credit, amiga mia. The man was North American. Unaccustomed to bargaining. Like me. I’m afraid I won’t be able to take advantage of anyone again.”

  Jacinda picked up her cup and stared thoughtfully at Catherine. “Unless he comes back.”

  Catherine shook her head. “He’s not coming back. Why should he?”

  Don Panchito leaned across the counter. “The norteamericanos were here also this morning.”

  Catherine leaned forward on her tall stool. “Is it true they’re bankers?”

  The old man nodded and refilled Catherine’s cup. “The big bank in the middle of town.”

  Catherine set her cup down on the counter. She swore she would never set foot in another bank again, never speak to another banker. But a loan for a truck would make all the difference to the village. If fate had sent her a banker, could she refuse to go and see Mr. Bentley in his big bank in the middle of town?

  Joshua Bentley stood at the window of his office on the twelfth floor of the International Bank Building. Before him lay the city of La Luz spread out like a tapestry woven of poverty and riches. He had only been in the city for two weeks, but it called to him, tempting him to come down out of his lofty tower and rub elbows with the people—people like the woman with the dark eyes and pink cheeks. His eyes sought out the corrugated roofs of the Rodriguez Market, barely visible in the haze. Was she sitting there today with her bowler hat tilted tone side, taking advantage of newcomers again? She hadn’t been there yesterday or the day before.

  He hadn’t minded being taken or laughed at. Maybe it was the altitude that made him feel this way. At twelve thousand feet hallucinations and faulty judgment were common. But women who ignited sparks with a glance weren’t common, not in Josh’s experience. The phones on his desk rang, the fax machines poured out messages with the prices of gold and silver and yet he stood at the window, wondering where she was and what she was doing.