Cinderella in Overalls

by Carol Grace

  Finally he could ignore the insistent ring of the telephone no longer. It was the receptionist in the lobby.

  “There’s an American woman who wants to see you.”

  “What about?” He shifted impatiently. He had work to do. Never mind that he wasn’t doing it.

  “She says it’s about a loan.”

  “Send her to the loan department.”

  “I tried, but she asked for you specifically.”

  He sighed. Probably the wife of a businessman who had overdrawn her checking account. “Okay, send her up.”

  In a few minutes his secretary, in her high heels and tailored suit, knocked on his door and gave him a puzzled look. “A woman is here to see you...” she began.

  He nodded. “I know.” The words died in his throat as she walked into his office. The same woman he’d been thinking about nonstop for the past five days. How in hell had she passed herself off as an American? She was still wearing her ridiculous bowler hat above dark eyes that stared boldly into his.

  He was trying to construct a sentence in Spanish, any sentence just to break the silence, but the words wouldn’t come and all he could do was point to the chair that faced his desk.

  She nodded slightly and carefully folded her long skirt underneath her. Then she pressed her palms together. “I’ve come to ask for a loan,” she said, her unwavering gaze locked with his.

  He leaned back against his desk so that he wouldn’t fall over. It was the shock of hearing her speak perfect English. If only she hadn’t asked for something he couldn’t give her.

  “Have I come to the right place?” she asked when he didn’t say anything.

  “Not really,” he answered reluctantly. “But no matter where you go the answer is no.”

  Startled, she stood up. “No? But you haven’t even asked me how much I want or what I want it for.”

  “All right,” he agreed. “Tell me how much you want and what you want it for. But first tell me how you happen to speak such good English.”

  She tossed her long braid over her shoulder, and he thought he saw a glint of amusement in her dark eyes. But when he smiled back it was gone and he was disappointed.

  “I’m an American,” she said. “In the Peace Corps in Palomar, over in the valley.”

  Josh’s eyes swept down her body from the hat to the black flat-heeled shoes. So the woman who caught his eye in the market wasn’t a Mamara Indian; she was a Peace Corps volunteer gone native who wanted to borrow money for silver jewelry or a ticket home. He didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

  She held out her hand. “Catherine Logan, agricultural specialist.”

  He shook her hand and felt the calluses on her palm. He thought he could smell fresh fruit, ripening on the trees, but it was the clean scent of her hair and her skin reminding him of summer days and country roads.

  He was still holding her hand, and she looked up inquiringly until he realized she was waiting for him to introduce himself.

  “Josh Bentley, assistant vice president.”

  She nodded. “Then I have come to the right place.” She sat down again, as if she hadn’t heard him say that the answer was no. “I’m working with the villagers to develop a new strain of potatoes, one that takes up less space and produces a higher yield in a shorter time.’’

  Her eyes glowed, and he felt light-headed again. They said it took months before the altitude sickness disappeared for good. He folded his arms across his chest. “How is it working out?” he asked, watching her lips move as she spoke, still in semi-shock to find she was an American.

  “Fine. Wonderful. Better than I hoped. I’d only done it on the experimental plot at the university, never on a big scale. I’m very excited about it.”

  He smiled. “I can see that.”

  She leaned forward and drew her eyebrows together. “Can you? Do you mean I’ve stumbled across the one banker in the world who understands why we need to borrow money to buy a truck to haul our own produce to market?”

  Josh rubbed his forehead. He didn’t seem to be able to think straight. He didn’t know how to explain that he couldn’t lend her the money, although he understood why she needed it. But he’d been sent here specifically to put a lid on lending, to put a stop to the making of bad loans.

  “Look, Catherine Logan, understanding your need and being able to do something about it are two different things.’’

  She stood up and stared at him. “You mean the answer is still no?”

  He put his hand on her arm. “Do you know there’s an international debt crisis and that inflation in Aruaca is running about two hundred percent? Have you heard that every time a borrower defaults on a loan the rate goes up and then poor peasants can’t buy shoes or potatoes or—”

  She pulled back and squared her shoulders. “Thanks for the lecture. I won’t waste any more of your time, since I see your mind was made up before I got here.” She pressed her lips together. “I should have known. You bankers have an answer for everything. And the answer is always no.”

  Josh watched helplessly while she blinked back tears and walked to the door.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, following her across the roam. “That’s not a fair assessment.”

  She grasped the doorknob tightly. “That’s not fair? I’ll tell you what’s not fair. Foreclosing on a family farm after a lifetime of planting and living and—” She pushed the door open without finishing her sentence and walked out through the reception area to the elevator while he watched.

  He stared at the open door. What had set her off like that? He could understand why she would be disappointed, but to cry over the plight of the family farm seemed like an overreaction. But she wasn’t the only one to overreact. Why did he feel such a sense of loss as he stared out the window into the street below, trying to catch a glimpse of a bowler hat and a tear-streaked face?

  Dusk fell over the city and lights began to appear across town. The telephone finally stopped ringing. If he hadn’t turned the Logan woman down, she would still be sitting in the chair across from his desk, her dark eyes brimming with warmth instead of tears. She would have leaned back and told him in her lilting voice why she had joined the Peace Corps and how she had learned to speak perfect Spanish.

  But he’d had no choice. The Aruacan economy was in terrible shape. He was there to tell the people to tighten their belts, not to buy new equipment. But if he couldn’t even explain it to a woman with a degree in agriculture, how could he get it across to the man in the street, the people down there hurrying home from work to a meager dinner of beans and rice?

  Actually beans and rice didn’t sound so bad, he thought, if you had someone to share it with. He wondered where Catherine Logan was right now. How would she get back to Palomar at this time of day? Or was she still down there in the city alone somewhere, carrying a grudge against him as she carried the ahuayo on her back?

  There was a knock on his door, and his secretary stuck her head in to remind him he had a meeting at 5:00. He walked down the hall to the conference room, and soon he was describing his plan to reduce imports. But his mind continued down another track, a track that led to a farm in a valley where a woman grew potatoes but had no way to get them to town.

  There was enough money represented in that room to fund a whole fleet of trucks. If he asked, they would probably agree to make a charitable donation to the agricultural sector. He wouldn’t ask them until he asked her if she’d take a truck as a gift. He could picture the look on her face. Joy, wonder, gratitude. He smiled with satisfaction, and the meeting was adjourned.

  * * *

  Catherine didn’t tell the women of the village she didn’t get the loan. They didn’t even know she had gone to ask for it. That way they wouldn’t have to share her disappointment. Or her anger. Or her humiliation at being turned down.

  Doña Jacinda took her aside one day as they walked in from the fields, the golden sunshine at their backs, baskets of parsley on their heads, Jacind
a’s grandchildren trailing behind, munching on carrots. ‘“Tell me, chiquita, what is troubling you? You have not been yourself since you returned from La Luz last week.”

  Catherine steadied the basket on her head. “I’m a country girl,” she said. “The city doesn’t agree with me. And...” She sighed. “I must go again next week for a meeting and a party to celebrate our Independence Day.”

  Doña Jacinda clapped her hands together. “A party is just what you need to cheer you up. On our Independence Day there is dancing in the streets. When I was your age, I could dance all night and still work in the fields all day.”

  Catherine turned to look at the older woman.” How did you manage to do that? When you were my age, you were married with half a dozen children.”

  Jacinda chewed thoughtfully on a stalk of parsley. “Did I say that?”

  Catherine smiled. “I’ll never be half the woman you are, Donacita.” They reached the small house of Doña Jacinda and set their baskets on a shelf in the hut behind the house.

  “How is it that you are not married, Catalina? What is wrong with the men in your country?” The wrinkles in her forehead deepened as her dark eyes probed for the answer.

  Catherine leaned against the rack used for drying herbs and fruits. “I don’t know any men, Jacinda. I only know boys. And I feel too old for them. Sometimes I feel about one hundred years old.”

  Jacinda tilted her head to one side and surveyed Catherine carefully. “You are old, that is true, though not quite one hundred. But I am older still and experienced in the ways of the heart. Have I not outlived three husbands already? I saw the look in your eye at the market the other day, and I felt the electricity in the air when you sold the tall man the mangoes. Do you deny you felt something?”

  Catherine felt a flush creep up her face and bent over the baskets of parsley to inspect them. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, Doña.”

  Jacinda smiled knowingly. “Of course not. There have been so many men buying mangoes, how could you remember this one? But I tell you if I had been thirty years younger, I wouldn’t have let him get away. You heard that he works in a bank. I have never been in a bank, but I think they may have more money than I have ever seen.”

  Catherine looked up. “Never been in a bank? Never cashed a check or had a bank book?”

  Jacinda shrugged. “No.”

  Catherine looked at her thoughtfully. “You’re a farmer, yes. But you’re a businesswoman, too, and you need a bank. One day you and I will go together.”

  Jacinda’s eyes flashed. “And we will find the man in the suit, the one you don’t remember.”

  Catherine smiled and ducked under the hanging bouquets of sage and rosemary and waved goodbye. The woman was uncanny. Matchmaker, homemaker, mother and farmer and businesswoman. How could she have felt the vibrations in the air when Catherine herself was doing her best to ignore them? Thank God she hadn’t confided in Jacinda about the truck. Let her think the tall stranger was a rich, generous banker. She would never know that the man who caused the electricity in the air was the one who stood between than and the truck they needed.

  Let Jacinda hang on to her illusions. Catherine had none left.

  Chapter Two

  On the Fourth of July the American flag fluttered against a clear blue sky high above the embassy. By the time Catherine arrived, a softball game was in progress behind the main residence and cheers filled the air. The smell of hot dogs sizzling on an outdoor grill led her through the crowd toward tables festooned with red, white and blue streamers and laden with crisp salads and fresh fruit. She accepted a glass of champagne from a waiter and stepped back to admire an enormous ice sculpture of a swan in the middle of the table.

  “Just like home,” a deep voice observed dryly from over Catherine’s shoulder. She tightened the grip on her glass. She didn’t have to turn around to know that the voice belonged to Josh Bentley. She could pretend she didn’t hear him and walk away, but she turned and looked. He wasn’t wearing his three-piece banker’s suit. He was wearing tan slacks and a blue polo shirt that somehow erased the image of the stuffy banker she’d been harboring in her mind. It didn’t change the fact that he was a stuffy banker, she reminded herself sternly; he just didn’t look like one.

  So much for avoiding the one person she had come here to avoid. She’d barely arrived and here she was staring at him, wondering if it was just the clothes that made him look more accessible, or the atmosphere or the way his eyes darkened to match the color of his shirt. Like a chameleon.

  She was working up her nerve to ask him again for a loan. She would have to humble herself, but for a truck, for the village ... it was worth it.

  “Not like my home,” she said lightly. “We don’t go in for ice sculptures in Tranquility. Especially on the Fourth of July. It’s about a hundred degrees this time of year.”

  “Tranquility,” he repeated, his eyes taking in her sandals, her denim skirt and the contours of her T-shirt.

  “Have you heard of it?” she asked incredulously.

  He shook his head and rocked back on his heels, then reached for a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. “Could we sit down somewhere and talk? I had an idea after you left my office the other day.” He was rewarded with a tentative smile that encouraged him all out of proportion to the situation. He didn’t tell her that he had a lot of ideas after she left his office, and most of them had nothing to do with the truck.

  With his hand resting lightly on her back they threaded their way through crowds of American expatriates in bright shirts and shorts to a table under a drooping willow tree. She sat in a white lawn chair and looked up at him, her lips parted slightly, her eyes wide and curious. She had unbraided her hair today, and it curled and waved around her face in a dark cloud.

  “Is it about the truck?” she asked. “Did you change your mind? Did you decide that one small loan to a group of farm women wouldn’t raise the rate of inflation significantly?”

  “No. But I think I can get the money for you in another way. In the form of a contribution. It’s better than a loan. You won’t have to pay it back. It would be a gift.”

  “A gift? They don’t need a gift. They need a loan. They want to be part of the real world. Where people borrow money and pay it back. I want them to feel comfortable walking into a bank and knowing what to do. Writing checks and balancing an account. I know they can do it if someone will give them a chance. A small loan, just enough to buy a truck. They need the truck, but even more they need to be a part of the system.”

  He was startled. He’d expected a smile that would light up the embassy grounds, or tears of gratitude. But she sat stiffly in her chair, her hands in her lap.

  “It seemed like a good idea... at the time,” he said evenly.

  “It was kind of you to think of it, or whoever thought of it, but the women would never accept such a gift. They’re too proud. Once I gave them a pair of old tennis shoes and they gave me a beautiful hand-woven shawl. How could they reciprocate if someone gave them a truck?”

  He stood and crossed his arms. “They wouldn’t have to reciprocate. I can’t believe they’re too proud to accept something they need so badly.”

  She nodded firmly. “The worst thing for a Mamara Indian is to feel destitute, and that’s what charity does to them. It sends a message that they can’t provide for themselves. They begin to lose their self-esteem. The people here are proud, and I have no intention of seeing their pride destroyed by some well-meaning charity. As much as they need a truck, they need their self-respect more. So thanks but no thanks.” She stood and glanced around as if she were looking for a place to escape his misguided attempt at philanthropy.

  Josh couldn’t move. He felt as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him. He was angry. If he’d acted wrongly, it was because he was trying to help. She had no right to make him feel guilty. What right did this do-gooder have to give him a lesson in psychology?

  “Wait just a minute,” he sai
d, getting out of his chair.

  She looked startled, as if a statue had spoken. She obviously thought the conversation was over, but Josh was having none of it. He took her arm to keep her from walking away.

  “Look, Ms. Logan, you may be the world’s potato expert, and I’ll grant you you’ve been here longer than I have, but I don’t think you have a lock on the ethics of the Mamara Indians. I came to Aruaca not only because they requested some help straightening out things at the bank, but because I was interested in the country and the people. It’s not an easy job because of the economic problems and the poverty and the inflation, but I’m doing my best.”

  Her dark eyes widened, her lips pressed together tightly. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. He didn’t tell her he’d been requested by banks in Panama and Colombia, but that he’d held out for Aruaca in order to look for a lost silver mine. He hadn’t told anyone. They’d think he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had.

  “Don’t worry,” he continued. “I’m not going to bore you with the facts again. I know you think your case is different. Everybody does. Maybe you can grow enough potatoes to pay back your loan. But I don’t think so. And over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting.”

  “So that’s why you’re here. Because you’re good at saying no.”

  He dropped his hand from her arm. “That’s not the only reason. I’ve been thinking about coming here long before I was even a banker.”

  She gave him a thoughtful look from under her dark lashes. “Have you ever made a mistake?”

  “Of course I’ve made mistakes. Bankers are human, too.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve never heard one admit it before.”