Rain of Gold

by Victor Villaseñor

  Carlota blamed everything on Esabel and swore that all men were pigs and she’d never get married. Lupe, on the other hand, began to pray for María with all her heart and soul. For she now knew deep down inside herself that it was easy for a woman to be in love with two men at the same time. Still, she couldn’t forgive María for what it was doing to her children, especially when she’d seen how strong and confident María had been all through the strike. Why, she’d been a mountain of power, but now she became a wild, mindless, sex-crazy woman every time this man Esabel came near her.

  Lupe truly wondered about this world of sex. Was it really so powerful that it could destroy a woman as strong and good-hearted as her sister, María?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  And so the gates of heaven opened and Saint Peter smiled down upon the earth, giving la gente a whole new season in life, the dream called love— a miracle born only of God.

  That week in Santa Ana, Lupe, Carlota and Victoriano had their first family meeting without their parents, and it was decided that the three of them should now start supporting their parents so that they wouldn’t have to work in the fields anymore.

  At first, when their mother learned of her children’s decision, she protested; but not for long, especially when she and Don Victor saw what a joy the prospect brought to their children.

  Lupe and her brother and sister began going to work alone, working sun up to sun down, and they were so proud to come home and see their parents playing checkers on the front porch, looking more rested than they had in years.

  Victoriano learned to drive, and he drove one of the trucks for the labor contractors who took them to the fields. Lupe began to go to the library on weekends once more. She was more determined than ever to get educated so that she could one day get a year-round office job to help support her family.

  It was on the second weekend that Lupe ran into Mark. He’d just come home from the university, and he’d immediately come looking for her. He only had one year left of college, and this summer he’d be working for his uncle’s architectural office in town.

  “That’s wonderful!” said Lupe.

  “So how have you been?” asked Mark. “With everything proceeding so well, I think we can get engaged sooner than I’d thought.”

  “But, Mark,” said Lupe, “I haven’t said yes. I told you when we left that . . . ”

  “That you’d tell me when you got back. And you’re back,” he added, smiling grandly.

  Seeing him smile, Lupe marveled at his good looks once again. He had such beautiful white teeth and sparkling blue eyes. She realized that he was almost as tall and handsome as her Colonel. A part of her wanted to say “yes,” a thousand times, and yet another part of her remembered Salvador and how angry she was with him because he hadn’t shown up for dinner.

  “Look, Mark,” she said finally, “my brother and sister and I have just made a deal among ourselves to support our parents. They’re too old to be working in the fields anymore. I’m working every day and then I’m studying bookkeeping on weekends so that I can get an office job someday. I can’t be thinking of marriage right now.”

  “Lupe . . . ”

  “No, please, let me finish,” said Lupe. “You must understand what I’ve seen happen with my own sisters. Once they marry, they have so many of their own problems that it’s impossible for them to think of our parents anymore.”

  He laughed. “But Lupe, I’m not arguing. I’m agreeing with you. I’ve thought about this, too, and, well, I spoke to my uncle about you working part time for him, helping him with his bookkeeping.”

  “You did that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said sure, when we’re ready.”

  “When we’re ready,” she said, feeling her heart pounding. What did this mean? That if she said yes to his proposal, then she’d have a job? Oh, she felt she was being deceived. Life was getting crazier by the moment. Especially when it came to love.

  The following day, Lupe and all the women and children were inside the house waiting for the men. Don Victor, Andrés, Francisco and Victoriano had gone with the neighbor across town to the Anglo part of Santa Ana to look at trucks. Ever since the strike, the labor contractors in town didn’t want much to do with Sophia and her extended family. Even Don Manuel didn’t want to help them to get work anymore. Buying their own truck was an important decision. A family with their own truck could follow the crops with ease and didn’t have to pay Don Manuel or any other labor contractor to take them to and from the fields.

  Now Lupe and her mother and sisters waited nervously for the men to return from having looked at trucks once more. They heard the sound of the neighbor’s truck pulling up to their house. Every night for the past month, Sophia and Doña Guadalupe had been getting everyone in the family to pool their monies together so they could buy a truck. The men had been out looking at trucks all month. They didn’t want to get cheated by the gringos, as so often happened to their people.

  “Oh, I hope it’s beautiful!” said Carlota.

  “I hope it runs,” said Sophia.

  Victoriano came rushing into the house. “We finally found a good truck! Come on, Mama! And bring the money!”

  “But, mi hijito,” said Doña Guadalupe, seeing her son’s excitement, “maybe you young people should go on without me. I don’t really know anything about trucks anyway.”

  “Oh, Mama,” said the tall, lanky boy, “you’ve got to come. This is the most important step in all our lives. It just wouldn’t be any good without you!”

  “Victoriano is absolutely right,” said Sophia. “We can’t go without you. And I won’t take no for an answer,” she added, crossing the room and taking her mother by the hand.

  “Oh, all right,” said Doña Guadalupe, accepting Sophia’s hand. “If it pleases you, then I’ll go.”

  So, they all piled into the neighbor’s truck; Victoriano and his father in front with the driver, and the rest of the eight adults, plus the six grandchildren, in back.

  At the car lot, the three Anglo salesmen saw them drive up and they were ready for them, realizing that this was payday, now that they were coming in with the women and children. For no matter how often the men came in, kicking the tires and looking the trucks over, the salesmen knew that the Mexican people never bought anything until they showed up with all their children and women, and their old mama standing over to one side, clutching her purse full of wrinkled bills. Mexicans always paid in cash, no matter how poor they were. The bills were damaged from all the years of hoarding.

  The men, women and children came swarming into the car lot looking with hungry eyes but holding back cautiously, timidly. The Anglo salesmen moved in for the kill, beginning the dance of car lot negotiations, quickly positioning themselves with a gleam in their eyes as they tried to steer everyone away from the better buys over toward the older, cheaper trucks that they’d been trying to dump for months.

  But it didn’t work this time. Victoriano and the men had done their homework well.

  “No,” said Victoriano loudly and clearly, “we already know which truck we want. And it’s way over there!” he added, slipping out of the entanglement of salesmen and taking his people with him over toward the better trucks.

  But, still, the owner of the lot, a thick-necked, bulldog of a man, wasn’t about to be outdone. He just figured that it would take him a little longer to move these simple, ignorant people back to where they belonged.

  It was Sunday and Lupe came home early from the library to tell her family the wonderful news. She’d seen Mark and he’d told her that his uncle had said yes and he’d teach her how to do the bookkeeping for his office now, that it didn’t matter if she and Mark were engaged or not.

  “Mama! Papa!” yelled Lupe, rushing in the front door, “I’m going to get a job in an office!”

  But no one was home. She went out the backdoor to see if they were in the backyard. They weren’t. She went down th
e driveway alongside the house, passing their new truck, to go and see if they were visiting Doña Manza’s family down the street.

  But then she got a gleam in her eyes and turned around and stared at the parked vehicle. She glanced around and saw that no one was home. Lately, she’d become sick and tired of how her brother and all the men were acting so superior just because they knew how to drive.

  She headed back to the shiny black truck. She would teach herself how to drive right now, while no one was home.

  Just then, Salvador came around the corner in his Moon automobile. He caught a glimpse of Lupe going down the side of her house. He could tell that she was up to no good by the way she’d glanced around.

  He started laughing. Why, his angel wasn’t such an angel, after all. She had some devil in her, too.

  He parked across the street and took his .38 out of his coat pocket, slipping it under his seat. He got out of his Moon and started across the street.

  Lupe was in the truck. She’d started the motor, and now she was trying to figure out how to get it going when, suddenly, the vehicle leaped forward but died.

  Salvador laughed. This was so ridiculous. Women didn’t know how to drive. He started toward her, figuring that he’d better stop her before she hurt herself. Before he could get to her, she started the motor again, put the truck in reverse, and came roaring backwards, right at him. Salvador leaped out of the way. Lupe went flying by him out into the street.

  Quickly, he ran after her, wanting to stop her before she killed herself.

  Lupe saw Salvador for the first time, coming toward her, waving his arms for her to stop. She wasn’t about to be stopped once she’d made up her mind, especially not by this awful man who’d sneaked into her heart and then hadn’t come to see her in nearly a month. She put the truck in first and it went jumping forward in a series of leaps, knocking down the fence in front of their house and running over her mother’s flowers, Lupe screamed the whole while, trying to brake, but instead gave it more gas. The Model-T hit the steps of the front porch and charged up the stairs like a wild stallion, shattering her father’s rocker.

  The neighbors came out of their houses. Seeing what she’d done, they laughed hysterically. Lupe put the truck into reverse, trying to get off the porch, but the tires just spun. Angrily, she turned to see Salvador and all the neighbors laughing at her. With great indignation, she opened the door and got out of the truck.

  “Salvador,” she said holding herself as proudly as she could, “will you please put the truck away? I’m through driving for the day.”

  She turned around, not saying another word, and went inside the house. Everyone stopped laughing and stared at her with admiration. She truly was the queen of their barrios.

  Salvador asked a couple of men to help him. They physically lifted the Model-T off the porch. Then, Salvador started the motor and drove it around to the side of the house. He thanked the men for helping him and came back around to the front, picking up the fence and straightening the flowers.

  Going inside, he found Lupe pacing back and forth in the front room like a great, caged jaguar. She was furious. Looking at her carefully, Salvador came to the realization that in some strange way this beautiful creature reminded him of his own mother. She was a woman to be reckoned with.

  “Oh, I made such a fool of myself!” said Lupe, gesturing with her large hands and long, well-muscled arms. “And my mother’s flowers… and the fence! Oh, my God! What will they say when they come home? But, well, I’m glad I did it, anyway. My brother and all the men were making me ill, the way they kept bragging about driving the truck as if only men were meant to be free and come and go as they please.”

  She stopped, giving a nervous little laugh. “It was fun, though, I tell you. And I think I was actually getting the feel of it before I hit the porch.”

  Salvador laughed. “The feel of it! My God, you’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself!”

  “Oh,” she said, squaring off, “then you think a woman can’t learn to drive, too?”

  He saw her stance, her eyes, and quickly backed off. “No,” he said, “I never said that. Hell, if you want to learn to drive, I’ll teach you.”

  “Really? You’d do that?” she asked, recalling the way her brother had just laughed at her when she’d told him she wanted to learn.

  “Sure, why not?”

  She stared at him. She just didn’t know if she could really believe him.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Well, most men, especially mejicanos, don’t want women to know how to read, much less drive.”

  “Well, not me,” he said, smiling, not really needing to lie this time, “I think a woman should be able to read. And driving is fine with me, too. Hey, whose truck is it, anyway?” he asked.

  “Ours,” she said.

  “Really?” he said.

  “Yes, and Victoriano is so proud of it. I hope I didn’t break anything. Oh, he’s going to kill me!”

  “Just a headlight and a little dent,” said Salvador. “But don’t worry, I can get a new headlight for it from my mechanic and the dent fixed, too, if you want.”

  Lupe rubbed her arms, feeling a chill come over her. She hadn’t realized that she’d broken a headlight. This man was being so good. Oh, it just confused her. She’d been getting along so well with Mark. Why did Salvador have to come back into her life now?

  Seeing how pensive she was, Salvador glanced around. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just came from the library and, well, no one was home.” Her heart began to pound. “Maybe they’re down the street visiting our friends. You know, you met them in Carlsbad, Doña Manza and her family from Brawley.”

  “Oh, yes, I met your mother’s friend and her daughters at the beach.”

  Lupe turned red. “Yes, the one you flirted with on the beach,” she said.

  “Hey, I didn’t flirt with anyone, Lupe,” he said. “I only have eyes for you.” “Ha!” she said. “If you only have eyes for me, then why didn’t you come for dinner that next night?”

  His heart exploded. “Oh, Lupe, I’m sorry. I really am, but some unexpected business came up and then one thing led to another. I’ve been working day and night.”

  “You could’ve written or sent a message.”

  “Well, yes,” he said, “I could have, I guess. But, well, you see, I . . . I don’t know how to read or write very well,” he said, feeling like the lowest creature on the face of the earth to admit this.

  She stared at him. “And not being able to read or write very well, you still believe that women should be educated?” she asked.

  His face turned red. But still, he forced himself beyond his embarrassment, pulling himself together, and said, “My own mother went to school in Mexico City during the time of the French occupation. And she’s always told me that to make a home, a woman must be not just smart, but educated.”

  “Your mother said that?” asked Lupe incredulously.

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “In fact, she’s always told me that men who seek out a dumb woman, thinking that they can manipulate her and make a better home in this way, are only stupid fools looking for trouble. To make a home takes great cunning and strength and, above all else, intelligence. Just as the mother deer has to teach her fawn how to survive, so does the human mother have to teach her children the art of survival. Any man whose true interest is in his offspring has the responsibility to find the smartest, most educated women he can find, because the mother is, after all, a child’s first and most important teacher.”

  Lupe stood there mesmerized, listening to Salvador’s words, just as Salvador had always stood in awe of his mother’s. And as Salvador went on talking, telling Lupe of all that his mother had taught him, something magical began to happen between them once again. Sitting together on the old couch in the tiny living room below the picture of the Virgin Mary and a crucifix of Jesus, The Savior, the two of them, the babies
of their families, touched, truly touched and began slipping, sliding into each other’s world.

  It was a truly wonderful time for Lupe. Much like the time she first met her Colonel, only it was better now, for she was no longer a child. And when Salvador stopped talking, the words came pouring out of her, words that Lupe had never thought she’d share with anyone outside of her own immediate family.

  She told Salvador of how she’d been raised in a box canyon full of God and miracles. She told him how she’d learned to read and write and she’d loved to study about faraway places. Then she told him of how she’d gone to school here in the United States and she’d felt so out of place.

  “So, you see,” she concluded, “I now know that I can never become a schoolteacher, as I’d once hoped to be, but maybe I can still learn bookkeeping and become a secretary so I can make good money all year-round and help my parents. My brother, sister and I don’t want our parents working in the fields anymore.”

  “I know just what you mean. The times are hard right now. But, fortunately, I do well enough so my sister Luisa and my mother don’t have to work under the sun anymore. And soon, Luisa’s boys will be big enough to help her. At present, they’re in school, and I tell them that school is work, too, and they must take it seriously or they’ll have to answer to me.”

  Lupe gazed at Salvador. She just couldn’t get over the fact that a Mexican could think like this.

  “Then you want your family to get out of the fields, too?” she asked.

  Salvador laughed. “Of course. The only fields I want my family to slave in is the land we own ourselves. I hate to be pouring sweat for another man’s profit.”

  Lupe laughed, too. “I can certainly agree with that. Why, in the Imperial Valley we work under such a hot sun that I get headaches. Oh, I like the coast so much, especially around Carlsbad with those long, beautiful beaches and the air so cool and clear.”