Cinderella in Overalls

by Carol Grace

  The next thing she knew she was sleeping on Josh’s shoulder for the second time that day. She forced her eyes open and looked up at the sky. The stars glowed faintly. She turned to tell him she understood why he couldn’t see the constellations in town, but his eyes were closed. His breathing was even and his legs angled off to one side.

  She studied his face. Were those worry lines there the last time she looked? Maybe this loan was causing him more concern than he let on. Was he going out on a limb for her and the villagers just to humor her? She wondered what kind of a name he would make for himself if they didn’t pay it back. What would happen to his future in the bank if the program failed?

  The taxi hit a bump in the road and his briefcase slipped out from under his arm. She set it on the floor, then folded his suit coat and laid it over the front seat. Finally she leaned back and closed her eyes. But at the next steep turn his body swayed across the seat and his head landed on her shoulder. Her eyes flew open. His stayed shut.

  She took his shoulders in her hands and firmly edged him back on his side. He groaned. She wedged herself in the corner and resolutely closed her eyes once more. But the next turn saw him careening toward her again.

  She sighed. She couldn’t wake him and ask him to move when he only had five hours of sleep in the past two days. She couldn’t wake him when he felt so right where he was. She liked the way he smelled of American soap. And the way his chin rubbed against her cheek, slightly scratchy and smelling of after-shave, American after-shave.

  Familiar, comfortable smells, and yet like nothing she’d ever known before. Like no one she’d ever known before. Was America full of men like this and she just hadn’t noticed? Was Josh Bentley an ordinary man who seemed extraordinary because she’d been buried on the farm? That must be it. Her shaking hands, the banging of her heart, these were the reactions of someone who’d been out of touch.

  She told Jacinda she hadn’t known any men in America, only boys. And it was true. She had to come all this way to meet a man. Josh Bentley was all man. She was achingly aware of that fact for the next hundred miles as the taxi bounced along the narrow highway.

  Josh felt himself sinking into the soft wool of her sweater. It wasn’t day and it wasn’t night. He wasn’t asleep and he wasn’t awake. He was somewhere in between, and Catherine was there with him, riding through the darkness. Her hair tumbled over her shoulder and caressed his cheek. He inhaled the fragrance of sunshine and flowers, ordinary homegrown flowers, but like nothing he’d ever smelled before.

  He didn’t want the ride to end, but the taxi jolted to a stop in front of Catherine’s house. He sat up straight and paid the driver. With his briefcase in his hand and his suit jacket over his arm he stood in the road, wishing he could put his arms around her and feel her body melt into his. But she was looking around at her house, at her garden, everywhere but at him.

  He felt strange, empty, disoriented. He managed a half smile in the darkness. “Good night. I’ll be off just as soon as I fix the car.” He opened his briefcase on his knee and took the new hose out.

  “I see.” She hesitated. He imagined her inviting him in for a cup of coffee or an early breakfast or a nap in the hammock. He could almost smell the coffee, taste the food and feel the hammock sway.

  She spoke. “Do you know what to do?”

  “Of course. It’s just a matter of replacing the hose. They explained it to me at the garage. How hard can it be? I’ll be out of here in ten minutes.”

  She turned toward her house. “Well, thanks for the dinner. .. and the ride... and the loan.”

  He watched her go. “You’re welcome.” It wasn’t the way he’d hoped the evening would end, standing there watching her disappear into her house. He stayed for a moment in the warm night air, waiting to see if the gas light he’d seen last night would go on in her bedroom, but the house was dark and quiet.

  Maybe she’d taken her nightgown from the hook on the wall and undressed in the kitchen. He pictured the pink sweater coming off over her head. And then her bra.

  He looked down, and the ground seemed to rise up to meet him. He was losing it. He had to get out of there. The sooner the better. His car was just where he’d left it. Removing the old hose was easy. He tossed it onto the ground. Fastening the new one in its place was no problem with the screwdriver from the glove compartment. His eyes were getting used to the dark.

  He tightened the clamp and cinched it down. One final twist and he’d be heading back down the road to civilization. But the clamp sprang up and snapped in two. He bent over and picked up the useless pieces. Then, very carefully, he closed the hood of the car. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry. Most of all he wanted to sleep.

  He didn’t look back at her house. He didn’t think about the hammock. Even if she came out and begged him to come in, he wouldn’t go. He had his pride. And he had his car. It didn’t run, but he had it. He climbed into the back seat. Out of his jacket he made a pillow. He folded his legs like a jackknife and closed his eyes. What he would do in the morning he didn’t know. Right now he didn’t care.

  When Catherine woke, the sun was streaming through the window, making a rectangular pattern on her bed. She sat up with a guilty start. She’d fallen asleep so fast she hadn’t heard Josh’s car start up. She imagined him driving through the night, stopping at his apartment and going to the office, while she slept through the raucous rooster’s crowing.

  After dressing quickly, she walked out through the kitchen to the back of the house. She inhaled deeply the clean air fragrant with sage and rosemary that grew along the fence. It was good to be home. She felt unsettled and anxious in the city. Especially this last time.

  There were goats to milk, eggs to collect and melons to pick, but first she had to find Jacinda and tell her the good news.

  She walked around the front of her house and stopped dead in her tracks. Josh’s car was exactly where he’d left it. She dropped her wicker basket and ran to peer in the back window. He was folded in the back seat, sleeping soundly. She rapped on the window. He raised his head and blinked at her. Her mouth curved into a reluctant smile at the sight of his rumpled, sleepy appearance.

  She heard herself asking the obvious question. “What are you doing here?”

  He sat up and rubbed his head. She opened the door and stared down at him. “The clamp broke,” he said, holding up the two metal pieces.

  She took them out of his hand to examine them. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He got out of the car and ran his hand through his hair, feeling like an idiot, his last words still ringing in his ears, and probably in hers, too. “How hard can it be?” And “Out of here in ten minutes.” She must be wondering if he was creating these problems as an excuse to hang around.

  “What would you have done?” he asked irritably. “Made a new one out of bailing wire?” He paused, regaining control. “Sorry, but it’s just a damn inconvenience being so far from... from...”

  “Civilization? Go ahead and say it. We’re in the sticks, the boonies. Away from tall buildings and polluted air.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry if I sounded critical. I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself. I want to get out of here, and I’m sure you want me out of here as soon as possible so you can go back to your prize potatoes and I can go back to reducing the national debt.” He raised the hood of the car. “That’s the new hose. But it’s no good without the clamp.”

  She rubbed the broken pieces together thoughtfully in the palm of her hand. “We could try Old Pedro,” she said after a moment.

  “Old Pedro? Who’s Old Pedro? You said all the men were working the tin mines.’’

  “He’s too old and crippled. He hurt his leg in a mining accident years ago. Now he makes drain gutters and fixes things.”

  “What kind of things? Metal things?” he asked. She nodded and he grabbed her arm. “Let’s go see him.”

  With the new hose under his arm and the broken c
lamp in his pocket, Josh followed Catherine over the same rutted road the taxi had taken last night, past fields of tiny green onion shoots and brilliant tomatoes. He wanted to apologize for being irritable, but the silence had gone on for too long and stretched between them like the road to Old Pedro’s shed across the footbridge. He wanted to talk to her about the loan program, but his throat was dry and the walls of his stomach were knocking together.

  Yesterday he was on a high. Anything seemed possible. The loan. The truck. Catherine. His career. Today he was racked with doubts. The program was too big, too ambitious. He wanted to absorb some of her confidence. He wanted to run his hands over her cool skin and bury his face in her dark hair. But she had work to do and so did he.

  At the end of the path was a small shed with a misshapen figure of a man bent over a piece of corrugated metal with a pair of tin snips. He looked up from his work. A lantern hung from the ceiling and illuminated his lined face. Catherine introduced Old Pedro to Josh, and Pedro peered into his face for a long moment.

  Josh brought out the hose and the clamp and Catherine explained what had happened. Old Pedro merely nodded. While they watched he cut and hammered and bent the scrap metal until he had fashioned a rough copy of the broken clamp. Josh breathed a sigh of relief and reached into his wallet, but the old man shook his head with a rush of words in Spanish.

  “He says he has done it for a favor,” Catherine said. “It is too small a job to accept money.’’

  “But I have nothing else to offer,” Josh protested.

  “He says not to worry. The gringos have always treated him well. Back in the old days when he worked the mines.”

  Josh studied the man’s wrinkled face and watched him hobble across the dirt floor to see them to the door. “You mean the tin mines,” he said.

  Catherine translated and Pedro shook his head. “Plata,” he said. “Silver.”

  “Where?” Josh asked.

  Old Pedro waved his hand in the general direction of the mountains to the south. “Out there.”

  “If I wanted to go there, if I wanted to see them, could he show me?”

  The eagerness in Josh’s voice, the intensity of his gaze, startled her. “I don’t think so. He’s old as you see, and lame.”

  “Maybe he could show me on a map. Or tell me how to get there.” Josh felt a surge of excitement rush through his veins.

  Catherine asked, but the old man shook his head. “He says he couldn’t tell you. And he couldn’t take you because the God of Thunder closed the entrance and put a curse on the mine before even one piece of silver could be extracted.”

  Josh stared at the old man. It was just as he had heard. His father and the Tochabamba silver mine. His hopes to strike it rich, to find his fortune. But as usual it slipped away. This time it was an avalanche. It was always something—a natural disaster or unscrupulous partners, but all his life the Tochabamba stood as a symbol of hope and riches and loss.

  For a moment Josh felt what his father must have felt on the brink of a discovery, the excitement and the anticipation. And then, just as surely, the disappointment. Outside the entrance in the bright sunshine, Josh hesitated. He had to know, whether he ever got there or not.

  “The mine, was it the Tochabamba?”

  Without waiting for the translation the old man’s eyes widened in surprise. He spoke rapidly in Spanish, gesturing with his short, muscular arms while Josh watched and strained to understand. ,

  “What’s he saying?” he demanded.

  Catherine’s eyebrows drew together. “He says he’s surprised you know that name. He’s the only one left who remembers around here. The others were killed when the God of Thunder shook the earth.”

  “Everyone?”

  She shook her head. “Everyone but Pedro and the padrón. The padrón paid off the workers with shares in the mine. Pedro still has his.”

  “Who was the padrón? Where can I find him?”

  “He went away for good. Far away. It wasn’t safe to stay. It isn’t safe to go.”

  Old Pedro shuffled impatiently, and they thanked him again and left. Josh had one more question, but he already knew the answer. The padrón was his father. Escaping death by the skin of his teeth. And coming that close to finding his fortune.

  They walked back to the car, the new, improvised clamp in Josh’s pocket, thoughts of avalanches and falling rock and silver flooding his mind. Catherine watched silently while he raised the hood, inserted the new hose and tightened the new damp. He held his breath, but the clamp stayed in place.

  He turned to say goodbye, his eyes the clear blue of the sky. But there were lines of fatigue around his mouth, and the shadow of a beard along his jaw. She felt a stab of guilt. She’d slept comfortably in her bed while he was doubled up in the back seat of his car. He’d taken her to dinner. He’d gotten than the loan. She owed him something. She owed him a lot. Besides, she wanted to ask him more about the mine. She touched the sleeve of his wrinkled shirt.

  “Come and have breakfast before you go.” He looked surprised, and that made her feel guiltier. “It isn’t a big deal. Just some coffee and bread. You must be hungry.”

  “I am,” he said, and they walked into the house where it was dark and cool. While she watched he ate four slices of bread spread thickly with sweet butter and strawberry jam. She refilled his coffee cup and sat down across from him at the rough-hewn pine table.

  “How did you know about the Tochabamba Mine?” she asked.

  “From my father.”

  She set her coffee on the table. “Was he the padrón?”

  “Yes. I don’t know why, but I’m sure he was. So I’m not the only one holding shares to a worthless silver mine.”

  “You said your father had incredible stories to tell.” A vision of a small boy, his blue eyes round with wonder, filled her mind.

  He nodded. “That was one of them. The one I liked best.” He rubbed his hand across his chin. “It had everything—danger, treasure and excitement. It was such a good story that when I grew up I wondered if it was true.” His gaze drifted over her shoulder to the window, to the fields, to the faint outline of the mountains beyond. There was a longing there she couldn’t ignore. She put her hand on his.

  “I’ll talk to him again. I’ll ask him where the mine was. We’ll get a map and go look for it,” she said impulsively, catching the excitement, sensing that there was more than silver at stake.

  His gaze turned from the horizon back to the room. Back to reality. “No, don’t bother him. It’s not important. There’s probably nothing there.”

  Puzzled by his sudden change of mood, she shrugged. “Whatever you want.’’

  Abruptly he stood and pulled her up from the chair with him, his hands holding hers tightly. “This is what I want,” he said. Her heart pounded so loudly that he heard it. He’d shared his secret with her, and now he wanted to share even more. How much more he wasn’t sure.

  He kissed her forehead, and she lifted her face to his. The look in her eyes told him she wanted this as much as he did, that she’d been waiting for this moment for days, for weeks, forever. A voice in his head told him he couldn’t afford this kind of distraction, that already he’d let her influence him too much. More than she should.

  He could still stop. It wasn’t too late, the voice in his head told him. But whatever the voice said, his brain chose not to hear. Instead his lips chose to brush against hers, testing her response. Just one kiss, he thought, one kiss after all this time. But when she buried her fingers in his hair his control snapped. He covered her mouth with his and kissed her over and over with all the force of his pent-up desire.

  Her arms tightened around his neck. Her kisses were sweeter than the jam she had made, warmer than the freshly baked bread. And he couldn’t get enough. The more she gave the more he wanted. Finally they pulled apart, breathless and panting. His heart banged against his ribs. It was excitement; it was panic. He had to get out of there while he still knew what he was d
oing. Before he picked her up and headed for a hayloft somewhere. Before they did something they’d both regret.

  He jerked himself back to the present. Unsteadily he walked to the open door. She followed him. “Thanks for the breakfast.” His voice was like gravel. He paused and ran his hand lightly over her dark hair. He was sorry. Not sorry he’d kissed her, but sorry he didn’t have room in his life for a woman like this. His goals lay ahead of him almost within reach: his promotion and security. He couldn’t afford any distractions. No women, no silver mines.

  Breathless and shaken, she followed him to the car, wondering what it all meant. She stood there, making a dent in the dirt with the heel of her shoe while he started the engine. She leaned down and looked through the window. “When will I see you again?” she asked.

  “Friday,” he answered. “Can you bring your group to the bank in the morning?”

  “Yes, sure.” She clenched her hands tightly at her sides. Her stomach churned. She told herself it meant nothing to him. It was just a kiss or two, that was all. She forced herself to think about the loan. It was really going to happen. He’d made it happen. She was grateful for that. He reached for her, holding her face in his hands, mesmerizing her with his eyes. Then he kissed her again, slowly and thoroughly. Trembling, she pulled away. Without a word he drove off into the dust.

  She watched until his car was out of sight Long after it was gone she stayed rooted to the ground, staring straight ahead to the horizon. Thinking about the distance between them, she felt an overwhelming sense of loss. But there was more than the miles separating them. Much more. He was obviously a man with a dream. What business was it of hers if he refused to follow it?

  She had other things to worry about. At the sound of a bleating goat she turned and faced the chores she had to do every day. She couldn’t let thoughts of Josh and his father’s mine interfere with her own life. She coaxed the goat into the yard and brought a clean bucket from the shed. She tried to think about making goat cheese and how to sell it, but in her mind she traveled across mountains to a distant mine, where a man could find his dream and a woman could make it come true.