<< Go Back

FIESTA MOON, Moonstruck Series

By Linda Windsor

Order Now!

The sun rising above the Sierra Madres glared in Mark Madison’s eyes, despite his costly designer sunglasses, as if to punish the habitual night owl for daring to emerge before it reached the high point of its day. It reminded him of the receptionist at Madison Engineering Corporation, who welcomed him for a rare early morning appointment with a cheer-veiled sarcasm that said, Good morning, Mr. Madison, when it meant, That’s what you get for staying out on the town when the rest of us working stiffs have to get up early to make a living.
Mark’s lips pulled into a righteous grimace as he gripped the wheel of his rental car. He did a lot more than those nine-to-five-ers thought--–especially big brother Blaine--and they’d realize it, now that he was temporarily on leave..
“Three strikes and you’re out,” he’d said after Mark’s most recent DUI hearing. “You’ve got to pull your life together, Mark. I’m tired of bailing you out of trouble and making excuses for you to Mother.” Mouth thinned with disapproval, Blaine handed over Mark’s license. “If you are pulled over for anything unrelated to the project, kiss this goodbye, because you won’t need it where you’ll wind up. As it is, your performance at the mission will determine whether you have a job when you return.”
Blaine’s condescension fanned the fires of Mark’s shame into rebellion. “I never asked you make excuses for me, big brother. I never asked for you to bail me out of this DUI either. I’m my own man, whether you believe it or not.” At least Mark was as much a man as he could be, with a big brother who filled their ambitious father’s shoes to the brim and a baby sister who had earned a doctorate in marine archeology before her twenty-sixth birthday. With ambition and brains taken, all that was left for Mark was charm.
Blaine ran his fingers through the silver salting his dark hair at the temples. “When are you going to get it through that thick head of yours that I’m trying to help you aspire to something beyond liver failure?”
Mark bristled. Here came the lecture. “I’m a social drinker.”
“You’re becoming more than that, Mark.”
“I can quit any time, if I want.”
Blaine drilled him with a challenging look. “Want to bet?”
Mark knew he was being suckered in, but for some reason beyond him he bit. “You name it.”
“If you keep the hacienda project on target and stay sober while you’re doing it, I’ll step down as outside consultant and let you do the traveling as Vice President.”
Mark practically salivated. He never minded the work, but hated working in the office, filling in the pieces of projects that Blaine had already designed. More so, he envied his brother’s travel. What a waste for someone like Blaine to see the world, when he was just as happy to stay in the box with his wife and kids.
A faint light glimmered at the edge of big brother’s shadow. Only a fool wouldn’t try to reach it. “You got a deal, bro.”
“Now, I can’t watch you, Mark, but God will know if you value honor more than a good time.” Blaine had been on a God kick since he’d met Caroline.
While it made Mark a little uncomfortable sometimes, Mark had to admit his older brother seemed to be happier. And when big brother was happy, it made life easier on Mark.
So Mark got a get out of jail free card. Blaine and his church used their pull to get Mark’s jail time shifted to community service at some God-forsaken mission in Mexico. That practically elevated Blaine to godly status in their mother, Neta’s, eyes. Blaine had saved Mark from ruin again. Her precious prodigal was spared and had, yet another lesson to learn from his big brother’s munificence.
Like living in a nice neighborhood and having a wife and two-point-five kids was all there was to aspire to in life, Mark thought, gearing down the sweet sports car as the incline became more steep. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like Blaine’s wife and kids. What was not to like? Caroline loved everybody. Mark belonged to a mutual admiration society with his teen nieces. And he supposed the newest member of the Madison family, little Berto, might amount to a point-five status by his next birthday.
Family was nice, but that wasn’t living in Mark’s estimation. That was squeezing into a box of conformity and pulling down the lid, when there was a world to see and experiences to try before a man got too old to enjoy them. Then, maybe, he’d settle for life in the box.
As a busload of tourists passed him, two young ladies, their long blonde hair tossed by the breeze, waved at him. Mark beeped the horn of the Jaguar XK8 convertible he’d leased in Acapulco and brandished a dazzling smile.
Mark gunned the engine and soared around the bus, affording the girls, who’d hastily switched sides, a rakish wink. Blaine would have a hissy fit if he knew that Mark switched his ticket destination from Mexico City to Acapulco, much less that he’d leased a car more suitable to his lifestyle in lieu of taking the bus.
“Well worth the trip, ladies,” Mark said in a wistful tone, wishing he was still there, sipping a frozen drink–regrettably without the alcohol he’d promised to abstain from--and watching the long, leggy beach beauties strut their stuff against the sun-splashed blue of Acapulco Bay. Instead he was headed over the season-parched Sierra Madres to do penance in a kid-infested purgatory.
His new nephew was smart, cute, and funny, but the idea of a mission full of Bertos made Mark feel as though he were about to be exposed to a life-threatening plague. Kids were germ carriers. Someone always has some kind of sniffle or gripe at Blaine’s house. In Mark’s estimation, the government ought to be taking some of the money spent on warning singles about the dangers of their lifestyle and put it toward warning prospective parents what was in store for them.
As the distance between his sports car and a truck bulging with produce closed, Mark eased up on the accelerator. The truck groaned and shifted gears as it took the steep incline, its faded plank rails wobbling with strain of its load. Glancing past the bend to the left, Mark spied Mexican women and children in a ravine cut by time into the worn mountains. It was dry and rocky for the most part, except for remnant of river running through it. The children played in the water, while their mothers washed laundry at its edge in the same manner as their ancestors. It was a glimpse of the life that lay in store, just as the blondes on the bus were a reminder of what he was leaving behind.
Licking dry lips, Mark reached for the bottled water in the walnut and leather trimmed console as the truck ahead finally breached the crest and leveled off. To Mark’s increasing annoyance, it slowed even more. Impatient, he took a swig of water, and nosed around the vehicle. Seeing his way clear, he shot forward, when something in the periphery of his vision caught his eye–something moving out from under the truck. By the time Mark realized it was the wheel of the vehicle, it was too late.
The wheel shot into the backside of the Jaguar, sending it perilously close to the edge of the road where it dropped down into the ravine. Like a teetering giant, the truck veered toward the ledge, the bare axle gnashing at the road in a trail of sparks. Mark gunned the engine, streaking out of its path and swerving back in front of it. The truck ground to a stop, but Mark’s over-compensation gave way to a teeth-jarring ride, reducing the vehicles’ high performance features to those of a donkey cart–much like the upended one that Mark stared at through the settling dust across the hood of the now still Jag.
Dipped over it was a collapsed corner of a construction blue tarp. The other three corners still supported by poles provided shelter from the sun for a rustic, roadside fruit stand. From the shouts of Ai de mí, barking, and braying emanating from the underside, it was inhabited by Mexicans, dogs, and a disgruntled donkey. Leery of his sensory report, Mark fingered his throbbing forehead when a wet, cool sensation spreading between his legs drew his attention to the water bottle emptying in his lap. Also in his lap, on the seat next to him, and scattered on the floor was an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables that had evidently relocated from the capsized cart.
Just when Mark registered that it couldn’t get worse, the air bag decided to release.
#
Can things get any worse? Corinne Diaz wondered as she worked her way through the crowds of the village zocolo, searching the square for a pint-sized French soldier. Not that Mexicalli was that large. Its few cobbled streets snaked their way through the cluster of homes and businesses growing from the lake on which the town had been built. Criss-crossing the streets at whatever angles the landscape would allow, occasional dirt and stone alleys led to orchards or gardens that fringed the settlement landward.
But then, Corinne’s soldier was only seven–a very proud seven. And all of Mexicalli had turned out for the Cinco de Mayo fiesta, along with their relatives from across the lake or up the mountain.
“Ai de mí, Señorita Corina, that boy ‘Tonio makes no good.”
Corinne stopped, waiting for her portly housekeeper to catch up with her. Built into the side of the mountain, the steep winding streets of the town were a a challenge to Corinne’s lungs, but poor Caridad was puffing like a tuba player.
“Caridad, why don’t you sit here in the square and keep an eye out for Antonio?” Corinne unclipped the cell phone from the scarlet sash of her embroidered red and green skirt. Everyone sported the colors of the Mexican flag in honor of the day. “Here,” she said, handing it to the older woman. “Call the school if you find Antonio and tell him to wait here until the rest of the cast catches up with him.”
The orphans at Hogar de los Niños were scheduled to put on a play re-enacting the 1862 Battle of Puebla, where a few Mexican militia men under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin turned back French troops sent by Napoleon to occupy the country. Antonio was the general of the French army. The young boy was so impressed with his red, white, and blue uniform of crepe paper, with its gold foil epaulets, that Corinne suspected him of coming into the village prematurely to show it off.
“No, no, no” Caridad shoved the phone back her. “I will catch the culprit by his ear and drag him back to the escuela. I don’t comprehend this equipment much.”
Touch-tone hadn’t quite taken over some of the more remote villages. Caridad knew her heavy, black teléfono. Buttons were for clothes, not equipment, which was her word for anything she didn’t understand.
“It’s like the computer,” Corinne explained. Caridad marveled at Corinne’s wireless laptop, mostly for the photo albums stored in it, but marveling was as close to the equipment as the Indio woman cared to get. “You just push ocho-eight–and the call button. Then it’s just like your teléfono, no?”
Caridad arched half of a continuous black hedge of brow that separated her dark gaze from a low, copper-bronze forehead. Her skeptical nature had permanently etched a furrow on that one side. “It serves me well,” the indignant Indio replied. Just as the old Ma Bell phone did. As frustrating as this general attitude was, it was also part of the village’s charm.
With a sigh, Corinne re-attached the phone to her sash. “Bueno,” Corinne conceded. “But if you see him, just keep him here.”
She didn’t want Caridad to have to climb the hill to the orphanage at the outskirts of the village. It was supposed to be her day off, but nothing went down in Mexicalli without Caridad’s involvement–or at least her knowledge. Despite the lack of a phone in every home, news blanketed the town rather than spread through it. Who needed telephone lines, when a network of neighboring clotheslines was far more efficient?
“Feed him a churrito from the butcher’s food stand. I will gather the rest of the troops at the school as soon as they’ve finished their dinner and bring them over for the show.”

If only Antonio’s older brother Carlos hadn’t disappeared without a trace two months earlier, right after Corinne’s arrival. The authorities concluded the boy had run away, but the orphanage staff found that hard to believe. Carlos appeared to be as happy as any child could be after losing both parents in a house fire. And neither of the boys wanted to live with their uncle, who’d only wanted the older brother.. God forbid that Antonio—
“Do not fret so. ‘Tonio will show himself when the fun begins.” Caridad reached up to tuck a loose strand that had escaped Corinne’s dark upswept hair behind her ear. “I wonder that you have one hair left on your head.” In addition to cook and housekeeper at the orphanage, Caridad had also assumed the role of Corinne’s dueña. A proper young lady did not live unchaperoned. “You are the nurse, you are the teacher, you are the nanny.”
“Administrators’ wear many hats.” Corinne wore those hats and many more as assistant to the priest who ran the orphanage. This morning, it had been that of a janitor when the toilet had backed up at the dormitory. Would the little ones ever learn to flush after one use, rather than after the capacity to hold paper had been reached? “Besides, I love what I’m doing.”
And she loved Mexicalli. Corinne scanned the shaded plaza once more for the errant commander de jour. The butcher, the baker, even the candle maker, had set up makeshift booths on the plaza for the event. Along the adjacent side of the square were a number of Indios selling handmade crafts from petates, or woven mats of split palm. The Cantina Roja, Mexicalli’s only eat-in restaurant and bar, and gathering place moved its tables across the cobbled street so that guests might partake of its food and drink and have a front row seat for the festivities. Even now, a visiting group of mariachis from the village on the other side of the lake, tuned their instruments near a stage across from the town center under an
umbrella of jacaranda trees.
“If I were your mama, I would say you should be making your own babies, not chasing after someone else’s. It isn’t like you need the money, no?”
Corinne turned, a wistful smile settling on her lips. “No, Caridad. I’ve been very blessed. Although, if the ladies at the orphanage where I was left as a niño had not chased after me and found me a good home, it might have been very different. I might be begging on the streets of Mexico City or worse. Now, maybe I can make a difference in another orphan’s life.”
It was a God thing. Of that Corinne was certain. Originally, she had come to the village with her parents in search of her biological mother, a woman called Maria who had listed Mexicalli as her daughter’s birthplace. All that was known of Corinne’s father, was that he’d been an American artist named John Smith. Since Corinne had blue eyes and a lighter complexion than the cocoa or copper tones of Maria’s people, the chances were good that he’d been fair.
The search was initiated, not out of Corinne’s longing to find her roots, but because of a tumor found during an annual physical. It was benign, but it led to a precautionary quest for her biological parents’ medical history. The orphanage records led the Diaz family to Mexicalli, but Maria Sanchez was a popular name–if the birth mother had even given her real name.
As for John Smith, the name on record for Corinne’s biological father, it was noted in the margin that Maria revealed that he was an artist and alcoholic who left after one summer.
“At that time,” the director of the establishment explained, “there was a saying that it was difficult to tell if the artists came to the mountains to drink, or the drinkers came to paint.”
So, instead of finding the parents who’d given her up for adoption some twenty-six years ago, Corinne had found a charming village, seemingly frozen in time. It felt like home. The place and the people so enchanted her, that she felt led to give back some of the blessings she’d received, as well as support the overworked priest who’d tried to help Corinne with her quest.
When she broached the subject in the posh West Chester home her father Dr. Daniel Diaz had treated her as though she’d lost her mind.
“I absolutely forbid it. This is insanity.” He’d slammed his fork down, rattling the turn-of-the century china dessert plate. “What if you get sick? The nearest decent hospital is three hours in either direction, if you are lucky. And I use the word decent loosely.”
“Daddy, I’m healthy as the proverbial horse. The lump was fibrous. It’s gone,” Corinne assured him. “But the coincidences are too much to be anything less than God’s calling. He led us to Hogar de Los Niños and Father Menasco at a time when my training is exactly what is needed. It’s a mission, to show these impoverished people what God’s love is all about.”
“You talk to her,” Daniel Diaz implored his wife.
“Talk to him, mom,” Corinne joined in, seeking her mother’s alliance as well.
Kathleen Butler Diaz chewed her bottom lip, glancing with apprehension from her husband to her daughter. “I don’t want her to go away any more than you do, Daniel, but she is twenty-eight and, with the investments she made with the money my mother left her, she doesn’t have to work.”
“She doesn’t have to work period.” Lips pressed into a hard line, Daniel stared at his untouched flan hard enough to melt it. “First she wants to become a nurse. Two years later, she decides to become a teacher. Now she is to be a social worker. What next?” He shifted his gaze to Corinne. “An astronaut, maybe?”
“Daddy,” Corinne covered his clenched hand with hers. “Can’t you see that it was no accident that my medical scare led me to Father Menasco and Hogar de Los Niños?”
“What about the position you accepted at Edenton Christian Academy?” her mother reminded her.
“Exactly,” Corinne agreed, but not for the reason her mother hoped. “How coincidental is it that the academy happens to be sponsoring a mission right in Mexicalli? It’s got to be God.”
Her parents’ silence was the first indication that she was making headway.
“I know that you would rather I remain around Philadelphia, but what if the ones who placed me in your care had ignored their calling?”
Her mother closed her eyes. One down, one to go.
“And it’s not forever,” Corinne went on.
Daniel Diaz cocked his head at her. “For how long?”
“Until the orphanage is relocated. Then I’ll come home and...” She grinned, mischief lighting in her gaze. “And then we’ll talk about this astronaut idea--”
“Aha,” Caridad exclaimed, drawing Corinne back to the present. The housekeeper pointed across the zocolo to where a crepe paper bedecked runaway bowed in front of Mexicalli’s wealthy patroness. The setting sunlight crept under the jacaranda trees and glanced off the foil epaulets on Antonio’s shoulders as he brandished his wooden sword against an invisible opponent. “Better we hurry before he annoys Doña Violeta and she ceases to help Hogar de Los Niños forever. That one can be eccentric.”
Eccentric was an understatement for an eighty-three year old woman who rode around town in an upholstered donkey carññt. Her burro always wore a straw hat with a band to match its mistresses’ somber dress. The color of the day was navy blue.
Corinne stayed the housekeeper with her hand as the lady started to her feet. “I’ll take care of Antonio. You enjoy the rest of your afternoon.”
“Pues,” Caridad said, easing back down on the park bench without much protest. “Perhaps I should untire myself.”
Smiling at the woman’s unique grasp of English, Corinne set out through the picnicking clusters of family and friends gathering around the stage. Her full skirt swished about her calves as she passed by so many familiar faces. Even if she did not know their names, Mexicalli was a small town and she had seen or dealt with most of the villagers in the past two months since her arrival. Finally, she reached the opposite side of the plaza, where Antonio regaled Doña Violeta with the importance of his role. It had now advanced in rank from general to none other than Archduke Maximillian himself.
“I am second, only to the great Napoleon, who could have conquered even the conquistadores,” the boy boasted, assuming a proud stance, hand on the hilt of his wooden sword.
At that moment, a thunderous clap erupted from the edge of the plaza where the road entered the city at its southern tip. The high-strung Antonio fumbled his sword. Doña Violetta clutched her purse to her chest as though it had been her heart that made the noise.
Corinne looked in the direction of the noise where a rusty yellow livestock truck belched gray exhaust and hiccoughed to a squeaky stop.
With the entire population of the zocolo watching, Captain Nolla–Mexicalli’s only policeman–and mayor Rafael Quintana, swaggered over to the truck as its passengers streamed out of the cab like clowns from a Volkswagon Beetle. But Corinne’s attention was sidetracked by the lone figure who hopped down from the company of grunting swine in the back of the vehicle.

Order Now!

<< Go Back