Cinderella in Overalls

by Carol Grace

  He pulled her close. She had a glimpse of longing in his eyes, the same longing that threatened to engulf her. Added to the steam and the smoke in the air there was desire. She stood still, afraid to move, afraid to break the spell. It was the oven timer that did it with its shrill ring, and they broke apart.

  “We’ll eat on the balcony,” he said, taking a bottle of wine from a rack on the counter and two glasses from the cupboard. She followed him with plates of food. Dusk was falling and the lights of the city sparkled below. He saw the sight every night, and yet he felt as if he’d never seen it before. He stole a look at Catherine, her profile so perfect that he felt a lump in his throat.

  They ate in silence, watching the sky change from navy to blue-black. He left her there while he made coffee, and when he returned, she had her head tilted back against the wrought-iron chair.

  “You’re right,” she said, taking the cup from him. “You can’t make out the constellations from here.”

  “No,” he agreed. “Your hammock’s the best place to be.”

  She didn’t answer. It was clear neither of them would ever forget that night. “I’ve forgotten where the Southern Cross is.”

  He set his cup down. “I should get my telescope.”

  “Where is it?” she asked lazily. She felt her bones turn to jelly. She was totally relaxed, totally happy gazing out at the city below with Josh at her side, saying nothing, just knowing he was there. It was odd. Here she was far from home under an unfamiliar sky with a man she scarcely knew, and yet she felt a strange sense of belonging that caught her by surprise.

  She, who hated the city, felt uneasy in crowds and detested bankers, had come to a high rise in the middle of a big city with a bona fide banker, kicked off her shoes and cooked dinner for him. And was having the best time she’d had in years. She reminded herself that all it was play. They were both playing a game, knowing that everything here was temporary. They were in a different hemisphere, everything was turned upside down and anything seemed possible. Only it wasn’t, not really. One day he’d go away and she would, too. But not yet. Not quite yet.

  Reluctantly she left the dark balcony and followed Josh to the living room where he snapped on the lights and ripped open the top of the first carton. She knelt next to him, looking at the clothes on top and the books on the bottom. Books on economics and books on banking, but no telescope.

  Wrapped in felt was a framed diploma from a university outside Boston. Catherine whistled under her breath. “No wonder you’re such a good banker. You have all the right credentials. And you read all the right books.” She leaned back against the wall, sinking into the soft, thick carpet.

  “I don’t know why I brought that diploma along. I thought I’d hang it in my office.”

  She drew her knees to her chin, her long skirt covering her legs. Undoing her braid, she shook her hair loose. “Where did you get the funds to go to that school if your father blew all his money chasing rainbows?”

  “Scholarship.” He opened the next box. More clothes and a can of baked beans and a tin of brown bread. He looked up with a sheepish grin. “Emergency rations.”

  At the bottom he found a framed photograph wrapped in cotton batting. As he unwrapped it, she moved to his side and rested her chin on his shoulder. It was an old black-and-white picture taken at the entrance to a cave. A group of Indians leaned on shovels and stared seriously at the camera. In the center was a young man smiling proudly, binoculars around his neck and a pick in one hand.

  “My father,” he explained after a long silence. “At the Tochabamba Mine.”

  She exhaled softly. “So it really does exist.”

  He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. It’s a dream.”

  She pointed to the picture. “Then how...?”

  “The mine was real. The silver wasn’t. It was low-grade ore from what I can figure. Fool’s silver. And right there is one of the biggest fools who ever spent his last dollar on shares in a silver mine.” He clamped his lips together and shook his head. “So even if there hadn’t been an avalanche, it wasn’t worth the effort.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go there, just to see—”

  “Yes. Old Pedro is right. If the God of Thunder closed the mine, he must have had a good reason. We have no right to disturb it”

  She thought for a long moment, then ran her finger around the frame of the picture. “You should hang it on the wall, as a reminder...”

  “A reminder of what not to do with your life? I don’t think so. Growing up without money is bad enough. Growing up without a father is even worse.”

  “Then why did you bring it with you?”

  He lay flat on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, his arms folded under his head, the telescope forgotten. “I don’t know.”

  She studied the photograph. “There’s a resemblance there, something in the eyes...”

  “Between him and me? Uh-uh. We couldn’t be more different.”

  Catherine studied Josh’s face. The overhead light emphasized the tight muscles in his neck and the lines in his forehead. Maybe he didn’t know why he’d brought the picture. Maybe he didn’t recognize the dreamer in himself. But she saw it in his eyes and heard it in his voice.

  “Catherine.” He didn’t move from his prone position on the floor, but there was a note of urgency in his voice. “What do you want? What are you looking for?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I’m not looking for anything. I’ve found it. My life is helping farmers help themselves. The fates and the weather and the bank took my farm away from me, but they gave me a chance to use what I learned in other ways. It’s taken me a long time to see it that way, but now I think this was my destiny all along.”

  “You believe in fate?”

  “Yes, but I also believe in making plans. Right now I have a five-year plan.”

  He rolled over onto his side and squinted up at her. “Tell me about it.”

  “Well, after I finish out my term here, I’m going to re-up. I want to stay in South America, since I’ve spent all this time learning Spanish, and I want to go someplace where they’re having problems, where they need me.”

  “You need to be needed, don’t you?”

  “Even more than that I need to be successful, to see some tangible results of my work. But there’s nothing new about that. Everyone feels that way.” She stretched her legs out in front of her. It was time to stop talking about herself. It was time to leave. She had to go before it was too late. While she still had the will to break the spell of this evening. “Enough about me. I really have to go.” She said it, but she didn’t move. What was wrong with her?

  He propped his chin on his elbow. “You can’t leave yet. You haven’t seen the rest of the apartment.”

  “You mean the bedroom.”

  “Yes, it’s got a great big bed and a view, too.”

  “I’m sure it’s spectacular.”

  “It is,” he assured her. “Especially in the morning.”

  “Maybe some other time,” she said, ignoring the unspoken invitation. Move, she told herself. Get up off the floor and go, but still she stayed.

  “When will that be?”

  “I don’t know. We wouldn’t want to make this a habit.” A habit of coming home and cooking dinner and going to bed in the big bed down the hall and waking up to a spectacular view and Josh. She wrapped her arms around her waist to keep from trembling.

  “I understand. Too much work. Next time I’ll do the dinner.”

  “I didn’t know you could cook. Besides your favorite restaurant would start to miss you.”

  “They’ll have to get along without me sooner or later.”

  And so would she, she thought. So would she. And just when she finally summoned the courage to stand up, he reached for her and pulled her into his arms. She shouldn’t have let him mold her body to his. She shouldn’t have returned his kisses, but his lips were soft and his kisses so achingly sweet that she couldn’t stop.<
br />
  He took her face in his hands and brushed her cheeks with his strong, warm fingers. His eyes were full of wonder and his voice was unsteady. “I can’t let you go.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. If she didn’t go now, she never would. She stood, her knees threatening to give way.

  He got to his feet and put his arms around her. He couldn’t let her go, but he had to. Just one more kiss, he told himself. One more chance to lose himself in the depths of those dark eyes. Eyes that could be so earnest one moment and so dreamy the next She thought he looked like his father. She thought he should go to the mine. She couldn’t be more wrong. Didn’t she know it was ridiculous to spend time and money searching for a worthless hole in the ground hidden God knows where?

  Her lips were soft, as red and ripe and irresistible as the berries that grew in her garden. He lowered his mouth to hers. Her hands clung to his shoulders as he held her tightly against his chest. Unable to stop, unable to resist one more taste, one more kiss. He felt his caution dissolve. If he allowed himself a dream, it would be to hold her like this, to bury himself in the warmth of her body, to make her his for one night. But he fought it off, the dream and the desire and the longing.

  He dropped his arms, and she looked up in surprise. Hadn’t he said that he couldn’t let her go? Hadn’t he kissed her as though there were no tomorrow? Bewildered, she stepped back and found her shawl draped over the kitchen counter. “I really must be going,” she said, and this time he didn’t protest.

  They stood in front of the apartment building waiting for a taxi, and when it came, he closed the door and watched her go.

  Catherine closed her eyes in the taxi, but she couldn’t sleep. She’d get over Josh, but it wasn’t going to be easy. She had to start now. She couldn’t wait until he left. It would hurt too much. She liked him. She liked him too much. She saw that under his caution and conservative good judgment there was the soul of a dreamer. He’d never admit it, but it was there. It might surface one day, but she wouldn’t be around to see it.

  She told herself theirs was a case of opposites attracting. And how they attracted, she thought, still feeling the aching longing in her body. This was a case of two people who never should have met and never should have given in to their feelings. She was looking to help people and he was looking for a promotion. They both knew it. It was time to taper off gradually until she hardly noticed she wasn’t seeing him anymore.

  Maybe it would be best to quit cold turkey. But the thought of never seeing him again made her head pound. She pressed her hand against her head, but the pounding wouldn’t stop. And the dreams of Josh made her sleep restless.

  The next morning she leaned out her bedroom window, trying to decide what to do, when she saw Old Pedro looking up at her, his burro tethered to a tree.

  Rubbing her eyes, she told him she’d be right down. She dressed quickly in her old jeans and work shirt and hurried to the door. He tipped his hat, declined her invitation to come in for coffee, but sat on the chair on her front porch and slowly looked around. Then he patted the tool belt Josh had given him, which he was wearing around his waist.

  She nodded. She sat in the other chair and asked Pedro if he thought it would rain. He shook his head, tilted his sombrero and looked around. It occurred to Catherine that he might be looking for Josh.

  “The señor isn’t here,” she said. “The one who wanted to go to the mine. He lives in La Luz.”

  “If you see him, tell him I have changed my mind.”

  Catherine’s eyes widened. “But why?”

  “I had a dream,” he explained. “I dreamed the padrón came to me and asked me to take el señor banker to the mine.”

  Catherine leaned forward. “Are you no longer afraid?”

  He nodded. “I am afraid. But the padrón said to me the danger is over. The God of Thunder has moved elsewhere, but the treasure remains. He told me to divide the treasure among the children and grandchildren of those who perished in the mine, and the señor, of course. For than I will go one last time.”

  Catherine bit her hp. How could she tell him Josh didn’t want to go to the mine? She couldn’t explain that Josh wasn’t interested in taking risks. So she promised Pedro she would give Josh the message and watched him ride away on his burro until he disappeared in the dust. She promised to give him the message, but she didn’t say when.

  Chapter Eight

  On the next market day Catherine was behind the wheel once more. The men had gone back to the mines and the women were subdued. In the back of the truck they were feeling their own post-wedding blues. Still they did a good business and at the end of the day packed their cash in cloth bags. Catherine took Jacinda aside and told her she was going to wait for them in the truck.

  Jacinda’s eyes narrowed. “It is not safe to wait alone at this time of day,” she warned.

  “Then I’ll wait in Don Panchito’s coffee shop. Is that safe enough?”

  Jacinda folded her arms across her blue apron. “Why do you not come with us? Señor Bentley will be disappointed.”

  “No, he won’t,” she said firmly. “Señor Bentley doesn’t care who brings the money. This is business. Besides, I’m tired.”

  Jacinda snorted. “What is wrong with you, Catalina? I see sadness, not tiredness in your face. And now you will not come to the bank. What am I to tell Señor Bentley?”

  Catherine threw her hands into the air. “Tell him I have a strange disease. I don’t care what you tell him.”

  Jacinda’s mouth fell open in surprise at this outburst. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the women had gone ahead, and she lifted her skirts and hurried after them without another word to Catherine. Heaving a sigh, Catherine walked to the coffee shop, relieved to be out from under the scrutiny of Jacinda’s sharp eyes.

  She slid onto a stool at the counter, and Don Panchito filled a small cup of hot coffee for her. Gratefully she sipped her coffee, satisfied that she had avoided a meeting with Josh. But her satisfaction didn’t last long. Someone scraped the legs of the stool next to her across the concrete floor.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Josh sit down next to her and order an espresso. He didn’t say anything, so they sat there drinking their coffee, acutely aware of each other, without speaking.

  Finally he broke the silence. “I hear you’re suffering from a rare disease,” he remarked.

  “Don’t worry. It’s not contagious,” she assured him.

  “Good. Let’s have dinner. I need to talk to you.”

  “I can’t. This doesn’t make sense, you know.”

  He turned to face her. “What?”

  “Us seeing each other. We’re far from home. We’re lonely, even homesick. It’s natural that we seek out each other’s company, but...” Funny how she had it all worked out in her mind, and now that he was here, sitting next to her, she couldn’t remember what she was going to say.

  “Very natural,” he said smoothly.

  “But not very professional. I’d feel better if we had a business relationship.” Yes, that was it, a business relationship. How could he argue with that?

  “So would I,” he agreed. “In fact, that’s why I’m here.”

  She blinked. “It is?” His agreeing with her so readily disarmed her.

  “Yes, I need some help with a loan application.”

  “But I thought you didn’t handle loans except...”

  “Except on rare occasions. That’s right. But this is a cousin of Duran’s who’s a fisherman on Lake Cordillera. He heard we were making small loans to small businesses. They want a motorboat to improve their catch. Duran would handle it, but that’s a conflict of interest, so I volunteered. It’s his cousin, after all. He shouldn’t be discriminated against just because Duran works in the bank.”

  Other customers paid for their coffee and left. Catherine looked at Josh. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Nothing, except I need a translator and somebody to give a frank opinion of t
he situation.”

  “I can tell you right now I’m in favor of their getting the loan.”

  He set his cup down. “Without even seeing the operation?”

  “Well... I suppose it would help.”

  “Then you’ll come with me, as a favor to the bank, as a favor to the fishermen.”

  She smiled. “If you put it that way.”

  “Have you ever been there before?”

  “To the highest lake in the world and the center of the Inca civilization? No, I’ve never been there before.” And she really shouldn’t go now, business or not. Yet those fishermen needed a spokesperson, someone who would understand and sympathize with their situation. She imagined standing on the shore of the lake, watching the sun reenact the Inca legend. A shiver ran down her spine at the thought. But was it the thought of the lake or sharing the experience with Josh that made her skin tingle in anticipation?

  She dragged her eyes from his and stared into her coffee. “How would we get there?” she asked, knowing she’d already made up her mind.

  “Take the train from Castillo.”

  Her heart leaped. A train ride through the high Andes. A trip she’d always wanted to take with a man who could make sharing a cup of coffee exciting. She wrapped her hands around her cup. “I suppose I could get away for a few days,” she said slowly.

  “Good.” His eyes gleamed as he took her hand and they walked out the door together. They walked through the darkness toward the truck without speaking. When they reached the truck, he trailed his hand along her shoulder in a caress.

  “Drive carefully,” he said. “I’ll pick you up next Wednesday morning at your house.”

  The days seemed to drag until Wednesday. Josh didn’t come to the market and she didn’t go to the bank. She hadn’t told Josh about Old Pedro changing his mind yet. She was afraid he’d say no again, even though deep down he wanted to go to the mine. Even more important, he needed to go there. But she knew he had to make that decision himself. Even as she paced back and forth on her front porch Wednesday morning while a light rain fell around her, she debated with herself the wisdom of telling him about Old Pedro.