Cinderella in Overalls

by Carol Grace

  “It looks as if you’re not going to fail. Duran tells me your receipts are high. You’re keeping up with your payments. If this continues, it would be possible to make other loans to the rest of the market, formers and artisans, too.”

  “Really?” She walked forward until they were only inches apart. He nodded. The scent of flowers was everywhere. In her hair, on her skin and in the air. He’d never seen her in a dress. A dress with tiny buttons up the front he couldn’t keep his eyes off.

  A side door opened and the priest from the next village appeared in a brown robe tied with a cord at the waist. He began lighting candles, and the glow filled the church. Catherine looked at her watch. “You’d better go,” she said softly. “I have to finish my work.” She broke off the stem of a red rose and leaned forward to put it in his buttonhole. He caught her fingers with his hand. There was a tiny pinprick, a spot of blood on her finger. His touch was so gentle, her eyes misted over.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  She shook her head and gave him a watery anile. “I always cry at weddings.”

  “It hasn’t even started,” he noted.

  She bit her lip. “I know.” She turned abruptly and went back to the flowers.

  He stared at her for a long moment, taking in the curve of her hips in the pale dress, the cloud of her dark hair spilling over her shoulders. Then he left and went to stand in front of the church.

  Soon they came, by twos and threes, on horseback, in carts and on foot. All the women he knew and the men he didn’t know, stiff and formal in their Sunday best. Even Old Pedro, arriving on his burro, was wearing a suit jacket over a white shirt, the cuffs covering his gnarled hands. He nodded to Josh but didn’t approach.

  The women greeted Josh with cries of delight and proudly introduced him to their husbands, home from the mine for the occasion. They spoke slowly so he could understand how happy they were to see him, and a warm feeling filled his heart, a strange feeling of belonging.

  Josh hardly recognized Jacinda as she alighted from her horse-drawn cart with ribbons twined around the reins and flowers twisted over the horse’s ears. Splendid in her long dress, with silver hoops dangling from her ears, she beamed at Josh and presented her son, the bridegroom.

  When the church doors opened, Josh followed the crowd and took a seat at the back, saving a place for Catherine. She slid in next to him just as the music began and put her hand in his. His heart thudded against his chest.

  “A last-minute problem with the veil,” she whispered. “The flower girl stepped on it and I had to sew it up.”

  Now the guests were on their feet, craning their necks for a glimpse of the bride. First came the flower girls in short white dresses with rings of daisies on their heads. Then the ring bearer, Magdalena’s little cousin. And finally Magdalena, her veil firmly in place, her eyes on the bouquet of sunflowers in her hands.

  “A symbol of fertility,” Catherine whispered.

  Jacinda’s son stood waiting at the altar, wearing a starched white shirt and a solemn expression. When the bride approached, a look of awe stole over his face, and Catherine gave Josh a sideways glance. He turned her hand over in his and held it tightly.

  The ceremony lasted a long time, but Josh didn’t mind. There was something about the ebb and flow of the words in Spanish, the feeling of Catherine’s hand in his, the glow of candles and the scent of roses that made him want it to go on forever.

  But finally the young couple turned and came down the aisle, and the bells rang out from the steeple across the countryside. The guests stood in front of the church armed with handfuls of tiny grains of wheat to throw. Josh examined the wheat in the palm of his hand.

  “Another fertility symbol?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Flowers, seeds, shells, horns. All the decorations are symbols of strength or fertility. Not that they need them,” she said under her breath. “Magdalena is... uh.. .expecting. It’s not a shotgun wedding,” she assured him. “It’s just with the men away it’s hard to find a time to get married. They’ve been engaged forever. Jacinda and Doña Blanca arranged it long ago, at birth probably. Jacinda’s a great believer in arranged marriages.” She sighed. “If only she’d forget about arranging mine.”

  “It must be a real challenge finding someone good enough for you.”

  “She was about to give up when you came along in your three-piece suit.”

  “Me?”

  “We’re the only North Americans she knows, so naturally she thinks it would be a great match.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I don’t think it’s enough that we come from the same country. I think two people ought to have something more in common.” She looked up at him from under the brim of her hat, and suddenly the sun came out. Before he could answer the crowd oohed and ahhed. “It’s a good sign,” she explained, looking up at the sky. “Happy is the bride the sun shines on.”

  Just before the couple pulled away Magdalena leaned across her new husband and threw her bouquet of sunflowers into Catherine’s arms. The women crowded around her to offer congratulations, and she blushed and looked helplessly at Josh. See, see what they’re doing to me? she asked silently.

  She told the women it meant nothing, but they insisted. Magdalena had caught the bouquet at the last wedding, and look what happened. Catherine joined in the merriment, but she couldn’t believe she’d be the next to marry. How could she when she had no one to marry? It had all been planned and orchestrated, no doubt by Jacinda.

  Soon the guests dispersed into carts or onto horses for the ride to Doña Blanca’s for the reception. Catherine invited as many villagers as could fit to ride with her in the truck. Old Pedro had brought his burro. Josh drove his car.

  Next to Catherine sitting on the front seat was her neighbor Doña Maritza, holding Catherine’s flowers in her lap. The back was filled with men from the mine, bunched together in their Sunday suits.

  The talk was of the weather. Would it rain or would it not? If so, would it spoil the party? They needn’t have worried. By the time the overloaded truck reached the large farmhouse, the skies were clearing and the sound of a brass band warming up filled the air.

  Josh slowed to a stop in front of the farmhouse and got out to join the party. After jumping down from the front seat, Catherine straightened her hat. She stood for a moment, watching the bright colors of the dresses and the dark suits as the guests mingled on the patio.

  From the edge of the crowd Jacinda beckoned to both of them. “Today is a day to forget about work,” she called, and ran to meet them. Taking Josh by one hand and Catherine by the other, she pulled them down the path to join the party. “It is a day to dance and eat and celebrate. You saw who caught the wedding bouquet,” she confided to Josh with a wink. “We all know who will be the next to marry.”

  Josh nodded emphatically as if he agreed with her, and Catherine gave Jacinda a stern look.

  “Tell her what you told me. That we don’t have enough in common,” Josh suggested.

  “It won’t do any good. She has her mind made up.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe we ought to do it their way. After all, they don’t have as many divorces as we do”

  “That’s just what she told me the other day. Do you mean you’d be willing to marry someone Jacinda chose for you?”

  He grinned. “Only because I know who she’d choose. You must admit she has good taste.”

  Catherine’s head spun. “Good taste in choosing me or you?”

  “Both of us. Maybe we deserve each other.”

  Jacinda’s head turned from Josh to Catherine, trying to figure out if they were arguing or flirting. Finally she joined their hands together and took her place in the circle. The brass band began to play in earnest, a four-measure tune that was repeated over and over. Soon the whole group was holding hands and swaying to the music, a whirl of vibrant color, their pounding feet beating a rhythm that echoed inside Cat
herine’s head.

  When the dance was over, she was dizzy. Josh put his arm around her, and she relaxed against his side, fitting perfectly, the curve of her hip against his thigh. Jacinda appeared with cups of chaca, the fermented corn drink reserved for special occasions, then she waltzed away, her silver beads bouncing up and down on her chest. Catherine coughed as the drink burned a path down her throat. She sat down on a small bench.

  “I should have known better,” she said. “I’ve had it before. But not on an empty stomach.”

  “I’ll get you something to eat,” Josh said.

  She nodded gratefully. “They’re cooking a whole lamb around back. I’ll wait here. That’s men’s territory.”

  Josh followed a cloud of smoke that billowed from the pit behind the house. One of the men, now in shirtsleeves, was turning the spit, the others watching and waiting their turn.

  “If you marry for love and not money,” Paco was saying, “you’ll have good nights and bad days.”

  “In my opinion,” one of the others said, “love is a ghost. Everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.”

  They all turned when Josh ambled up to survey the savory meat.

  “Here is a banker,” the groom said, his black tie slightly askew. “Let us ask his opinion. Is marriage the tomb of love?”

  Josh shrugged. “I have never been married,” he said slowly, “but I have heard that he who does not find love, finds nothing.”

  The men cheered loudly. Whether it was for the sentiment or that he’d constructed a whole sentence in Spanish, he didn’t know. They cut him a slice of meat to try and he carried it in a napkin back to Catherine. But instead of Catherine Old Pedro was sitting on the bench.

  Josh signaled to Pedro to wait while he went to his car to get the leather tool belt. He handed him the box as casually as he could. Pedro didn’t speak when he saw the belt, but his eyes widened with surprise and pleasure. He buckled the belt around his waist and stood up to show Josh.

  Just then Jacinda came up to admire Pedro’s belt and the red rose in Josh’s buttonhole. When he told her it came from Catharine, she smiled. “I believe,” she said slowly, “that this is a match made in heaven.”

  Josh didn’t tell Jacinda that he’d already heard all about it or that it was wishful thinking on her part. Weddings made people feel sentimental. It was the music, the flowers, and it was the chaca. He reached for his glass. Maybe a drink of chaca would make him a believer. He wanted to believe. He wanted to think there was room in his life for the luxury of falling in love, but he knew there wasn’t. Not now. Not yet. Not until he was financially secure. Not until the fear of poverty had been erased from his mind.

  When Josh didn’t answer, Jacinda’s face wrinkled into a hundred disappointed lines. She dusted off her skirt and headed for the long wooden table set up under the apple tree, taking Pedro with her. The bride and groom squeezed together at one end, and he saw Catherine beckon to him from the other side.

  “Where were you?” he asked, taking his place next to her.

  “In the kitchen helping the women. Where were you?”

  “Talking with the men around the fire.” He rested his hand lightly on the small of her back, feeling the heat from her skin through the thin fabric.

  “About what?”

  “You know. What men talk about.” Laugh lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” she insisted, taking a piece of bread from a round basket.

  He ran his hand up her spine. “Love and marriage.”

  “In Spanish?” she asked, suddenly breathless.

  “Of course.” He poured sparkling white wine into her glass. “What were you talking about in the kitchen?”

  “Love and marriage.”

  “What did you hear?” he asked.

  “The women think it’s better for a woman to many a man who loves her rather than a man she loves.”

  “That sounds like Jacinda,” he said under his breath.

  She shook her head. “Jacinda says to keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterward.”

  At the far end of the table the groom stood and raised his glass to his new wife.

  “Now everyone makes a toast,” Catherine explained, touching her glass to Josh’s.

  “I don’t know any toasts, especially in Spanish,” he said, a look of panic in his dark eyes. But when it was his turn he asked Catherine if she’d translate for him a poem he’d heard once. The guests leaned forward, hushed and expectant. His brain was clear despite the chaca, but his lips were numb and he wasn’t sure they’d move.

  “For those who love, time is eternity, hours fly, flowers die, new days, new ways, pass by. Love stays.”

  It didn’t rhyme in Spanish, but they liked it, anyway. At least he thought they did. Jacinda came around behind him and kissed him on the cheek. Catherine looked thoughtful.

  After dinner Doña Blanca asked Josh to lower the pinata from the cottonwood tree so the children could reach it. Catherine tied a bandanna over their eyes and put a stick in their hands. One by one they swung wildly, but no one was able to do more than graze it slightly. A ripple of laughter went through the crowd when Jacinda tied the bandanna over Catherine’s eyes.

  “Let’s see if the gringa has any better luck,” she said. Then she spun Catherine around until she reeled dizzily, her stick at her side, unable to get her bearings. Cautiously she raised her arm and completely by chance hit the papier-mâché donkey.

  A resounding crack echoed through the air, and she felt the candy fall on her head and shower all around her. She could hear the excited cries of the children as they scrambled for the covered almonds. Fumbling with the knot on the bandanna, she felt someone else’s fingers cover hers and untie it for her. The clean scent of his skin, the touch of his fingers gave him away.

  Still dizzy, she put her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. When the bandanna fell away, she looked into his blue eyes, brimming with laughter.

  “You did good, gringa. Surprised everybody.”

  “Including myself.” The world continued to turn, and she hung on to Josh, the only constant in the crazy, spinning world. The shrieks of the children, the laughter of the adults and the music of the band all faded into the background and left them alone, just the two of them. They might have stood there forever in a trance if Jacinda hadn’t tapped Catherine on the shoulder.

  “I have spoken to him a little earlier,” she said with a glance at Josh, “but I fear he did not understand my meaning. You must tell him that I believe you and he are meant for each other. And I am not the only one in this village who says that. Ask anyone.”

  Catherine stared at her. “You must be joking. I can’t tell him that.”

  Jacinda tapped her toe impatiently. “What else must the man do? He dances, he recites poetry, he loans money. What more do you want?’’

  Catherine was speechless. It was a good question. What more did she want?

  Josh smiled knowingly at Jacinda and put his arm around Catherine. When thunder rumbled in the distance, he looked up at the darkening sky. “I have to get back to town before the storm.”

  Jacinda shook her head disapprovingly. “It isn’t safe for Señor Bentley to drive back tonight. And since it would not be proper for him to stay at your house un-chaperoned, he can spend the night in my hayloft.”

  Josh stifled a groan. He understood the part about not driving back that night, and instantly his mind was filled with thoughts of spending the night with Catherine, either in her hammock or her bed. But Jacinda, who was usually on his side, had ruined that plan. And a good thing, too. All he needed was another test of his self-control.

  “Tell her thanks for the invitation,” he said. “But first I’ll drive you home whenever the party’s over.”

  Catherine smiled at a guitarist with ribbons hanging from his hat who strolled by. “The party won’t be over until everyone falls into a stupor or tomorrow morning. Whichever comes firs
t. I’ll leave the truck here. I’m ready to go.”

  Before they left they gave their gifts to the newlyweds and thanked Jacinda, who gave Catherine a piece of the wedding cake to put under her pillow. “You will dream of the man you will marry,” she promised with an elaborate wink.

  Josh piloted Catherine to his car, and when Catherine glanced over her shoulder, she saw Jacinda at the edge of the patio, her hands on her hips, watching them.

  Catherine sighed. “She’s unbelievable. She’s used this wedding to put pressure on me to get married. Honestly, it almost makes me want to go back to the land of the brave and the free. Where women can live beyond twenty-eight without getting hassled about being single.”

  He started the car. “You mean back to Tranquility?”

  She leaned back. “No, no, not Tranquility. I couldn’t bear to face the sight of condos and shopping centers on our land.” The thought of her failure to keep the farm going made her flush with shame. She was glad it was too dark for him to see her face.

  “Where will you go when your tour is up?” He drove slowly down the hill and turned up her road.

  She pressed her hands to her cheeks to cool them. “I’m not sure. Wherever the Peace Corps sends me. Peru, Chile... Argentina. Wherever they need me. Coming here has been good for me. To see them succeed, to be a part of their success ... It’s almost as if it never happened.”

  “You mean losing the farm.” He pulled up in front of her house and turned off the engine. “It must have been terrible.”

  “Not for everybody. My sister could hardly wait to leave the farm. And my parents have adjusted.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how.”

  “How they could adjust or how they could sell the farm?”

  “Both.” She paused. “I know, I know. They had no choice. But I... I...” She swallowed hard and a tear slid down her cheek. She turned her face to the window, but he took her by the shoulders to face him. She managed a half smile. “Sorry. It’s not the farm. I’m over that. It must be the wedding.”