Cinderella in Overalls (15 page)

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 Catherine’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 first. 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.”