Fiesta Moon Read Free

sent by Napoleon to occupy the country.
    Antonio was playing the part of a 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.
    â€œNo, no, no.” Soledad shoved the phone back at 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. Buttons were for clothes, not equipment, which was Soledad’s word for anything she didn’t understand. She only knew her heavy, black teléfono .
    â€œIt’s like the computer,” Corinne explained. “You just push ocho and the call button. Then it’s just like your teléfono, no?”
    Soledad arched half of the continuous black hedge of brow that separated her dark gaze from a low, copper-bronze forehead. She marveled at Corinne’s wireless laptop, mostly for the photo albums stored in it, but marveling was as close to equipment as the Indio woman cared to get.
    â€œMy teléfono serves me well enough,” she replied.
    As frustrating as this general attitude was, it was also part of the village’s charm.
    With a sigh, Corinne reattached the cell phone to her sash. “Bueno,” she conceded. “But if you see Antonio, just keep him here.”
    She didn’t want Soledad 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 Soledad’s 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?
    â€œFeed him a churrito from the butcher’s stand. I’ll gather the rest of the troops at the school as soon as they’ve finished their dinner, and bring them over for the show.”
    â€œDo not fret so. ’Tonio will show himself when the fun begins.” Soledad reached up to tuck a loose strand of dark hair behind Corinne’s ear that had escaped her upsweep. In addition to being cook and housekeeper at the orphanage, Soledad had also assumed the role of Corinne’s dueña . A proper young lady did not live unchaperoned.
    â€œI wonder that you have one hair left on your head. You are the nurse; you are the teacher; you are the nanny.”
    â€œAdministrators 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 janitor. Would the little ones ever learn to put the paper in the designated receptacle, rather than in the toilet, which was not designed to accomodate paper products? “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 candlestick 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, bar, and gathering place, had 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 were tuning their instruments near the stage.
    â€œIf 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, Soledad. I’ve been very blessed. Although if the ladies at the orphanage where I was left as a niña had not chased