Cinderella in Overalls - By Carol Grace Page 0,6

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, Jacinda’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