Paper Moon (17 page)

“That is that,
señores,”
the driver announced, reaching for the handle of the raised baggage compartment door. “All the other bags there are for the orphanage.
Muchas gracias
for your help.”

At least someone had the forethought to keep the baggage for the orphanage separate, so that they wouldn't have to keep loading and unloading it.

Grabbing his own suitcase, Blaine started up the steep embankment toward the stuccoed row of numbered arched doors to the rooms. As usual, he was next to Caroline and the girls, whose door was open. From inside, Blaine could hear chatter and giggling.

Again, he fought down a rise of annoyance as John appeared in the opening, an Edenton T-shirt slung over his arm.

“Need some help, sir?”

And now they were clothing him.

“No, thanks.”

Even though the bag with Caroline's heavy ash tray, dresser dish, or whatever was cutting into his wrists, Blaine would give himself a hernia before he admitted to needing a hand from the new apple of his daughter's eye.

Hogar de Niños was located at the edge of Mexicalli, a picturesque village located on a mountain lake. Like nearby Taxco, it was built over a silver mine, which Diego Ortiz, Mexicalli's first mayor, and his wife, Lucinda, had owned. Unlike its world-renowned neighbor, it had not become a main stop on the tourist route between Mexico City and Acapulco. Instead, it absorbed the overflow of artisans who sold their wares in the other town, but chose to live off the beaten path. Lucinda's granddaughter and namesake donated the land between their hacienda and the small stone church in the village for the orphanage.

“The last Señora Lucinda had no children of her own and enjoyed helping at the orphanage,” Father Juan Menasco told the Edenton visitors as they sat down in a long cafeteria to await the special meal the resident children had prepared.

On the tour the priest had given them upon their arrival, Caroline had a chance to see how the monies collected from various churches over the years had been put to use. The old stucco building that once housed the administrative offices, in addition to the eating and sleeping quarters for a handful of orphans, now served the faculty only. A building with sleeping quarters in one end and the mess hall in the other now provided food and shelter for over ten times as many little ones.

The problem was that it was too small. There was no room for the older children who served the meal to sit with the guests, even though the younger ones had already eaten in an earlier shift. As it was, the tables and benches were pint-sized. Caroline felt as if the tabletop rested on her knees.

“Where do the children play when they aren't at the village school?” one of the parents asked the priest.

“In good weather, they play on the grounds. In bad, we move the tables against the wall in here and make do as best we can. And with the new plastic toddler equipment we just received, we can bring some of it in when the weather is bad.” Dressed in a casual, collarless shirt and trousers, Menasco gave a hapless shrug. “We need a gymnasium, but we need living facilities more.”

“Looks like you have plenty of land to build on,” Randy observed.

“Yes, that's true,” Father Menasco agreed. “I only wish we could afford to purchase the old Ortiz hacienda. It is, how do you say, a fixer-upper? After Señora Lucinda died, the house was sold for taxes and passed from one hand to another with rumors of Señora Lucinda's spirit haunting the place. It is in much need of repair, but it is more than we have now . . . and we would fill it with the Holy Spirit.”

“Cool! I want to go there,” Wally spoke up. His proposal was seconded by most of the students, who until now had had little interest in the Villa Mexicalli or Casa Jacaranda.

“Well, I don't,” Christie declared.

While the youngsters took sides on the issue, Randy addressed the priest. “So who owns it now?” In addition to being president of Edenton's PTA, Randy was also head of the missions ministry at Edenton Memorial Church.

“A businessman from Mexico City by the name of Aquino, I think. Or at least he is handling the property.”

“Carlos Aquino?” Blaine spoke up at Caroline's elbow.

Menasco looked surprised. “You know him, Señor Madison?”

“I've worked with him on several projects in the city. We just saw him last night at the theater.”

“Maybe you could find out how much he or his client is asking for the property,” Randy said. “If it's in need of repair, it might be a doable project for the church cluster ministry.”

“A cluster?” Menasco repeated.

“It's a group of churches located in the same community,”

Randy explained. “Sort of like a minidiocese, within a diocese. We do various projects together. This one might be bigger than we can chew, but it can't hurt to ask.”

Father Menasco opened his hands heavenward. “With God, all things are possible.”

At that moment, a young girl tapped the priest on the arm and whispered something in his ear. Grinning, he clasped his hands together.

“And now,
señoras y señores
, the children of Hogar de Los Niños will serve our meal, prepared by their own hands. But first, let us bow our heads.”

Above the priest's thanksgiving for the blessings of the day, the visitors, their wonderful gift of shoes, and the food, there was a childlike shuffle in the door behind Caroline, filled with excited staccato whispers.

At his “Amen,” the pent-up commotion broke free. Children ranging in ages from six to their teens entered the room in a procession. Dressed in T-shirts with the familiar Edenton orange and green from a previous donation, they deposited trays of food on the tables: sandwich wraps, made with tortillas rather than bread, salsa and fresh tortilla chips, beans, rice, and more tortillas.

“I make
thees,”
announced a young man not much taller than the table as he wedged between Caroline and Blaine to deposit his plate of wraps in front of them.

“You did?” Caroline exclaimed in her most impressed tone.

“What are they?”

The little boy smiled, presenting a mini jack o' lantern display of pearly white teeth. “I make
thees,”
he said again, reaching for the pile of sandwich wraps. Placing one each on Caroline's and Blaine's paper plates, he giggled. “I make
thees.”

Caroline picked hers up and peeked in the open end. There was something dark inside—and squishy soft. She looked expectantly to see if Blaine could tell any more than she could.

He challenged her with a twinkling gaze. “You first.”

The boy watched her with large, beautiful, dark eyes as she took a tentative bite. It was sweet, a grape jam of some type, and nutty.

“It's peanut butter and jelly!”

“I make
thees,”
the little one said brightly.

It was the first time Caroline had ever had peanut butter and jelly in a tortilla. “
Muy delicioso
,” she told him. “
Cómo te llamas?
”

“Berto
.

”

Berto was just the right size to cuddle in her lap, but she resisted the urge to gather him up in her arms and nuzzle the shiny black hair that looked as though it had been cut around a bowl.

Heaven forbid she rob him of his masculine pride by treating him like the baby he was.

“I could just pack him in my extra suitcase and take him home,”

Caroline confided to Blaine.

“Berto doesn't speak English,” Father Menasco informed them, “but he insisted our guests would like his favorite dish. And ten cases of peanut butter were just donated, so we make the best of what we have, no?” The priest pointed at the other end of the table.

“The others have turkey and ham.”

“Cool,” Kurt exclaimed, piling two of each kind on his plate.

Wally followed suit. “Yeah, food we recognize for a change.”

“So this was why Hector insisted we have such a big lunch today,” Blaine chuckled to himself. “He said dinner would be potluck, but peanut butter and jelly tortillas?”

“You kidding?” Caroline gave him a game grin. “I'm right at home—nursery school heaven.”

“Once a kid, always a kid,” he said with a wink.

“I'm taking that as a compliment.” Caroline flushed under his teasing appraisal.

At least she hoped it was a compliment. If she'd been with Frank, he would have chided her to kingdom come about acting like a kid.

She'd never hear the end of her charging up the steps of the Pyramid of the Sun without thought of what it would be like coming down.

“I meant it as one.” A smidgeon of jam wedged in the crack of his smile.

Teacher to the core, Caroline zeroed in on it with a napkin without thinking until he jerked backward, taken by surprise.

“Jelly.” The heat on Caroline's cheeks accelerated from warm to hot as she dabbed off the confection. The napkin snagged on a day's worth of stubble around Blaine's mouth, and she couldn't hold back a giggle. At the questioning rise of his brow, she explained. “I'm not used to wiping jelly off a five o'clock shadow.”

With a look of sheer devilment, Blaine leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Maybe we ought to work on that.”

Caroline stared at him, slack-jawed as a kid watching a highwire act—and her heart was on the line. Had she heard what she thought she heard? She supposed she must have looked as dizzy as she felt, for he rushed to elaborate.

“Don't panic. I'm just pulling your leg.” His color deepened beneath his tan.

That had to go down as the fastest retraction in history.

“You do know that charming gullibility of yours makes you a perfect natural target.”

Caroline pulled a childish face at him in retaliation, but behind it, she was torn between disappointment and relief.

While the children sang “Jesus Loves Me” and the Edenton students joined the orphans for some games afterward, Caroline's thoughts ping-ponged from heaven to earth and back again.

What on earth had he meant by that? He
said
he was teasing. But if he had meant it, why in heaven would he mean anything by it?

And if it did mean anything, why on earth would she be interested? Her thoughts seemingly stuck in a spin-dry cycle, Caroline resisted the urge to hold her head, lest it lift off.

Heaven and earth notwithstanding, the contrary voices in Caroline's head finally agreed upon one staggering fact. She'd invited Blaine to flirt with her when she instinctively wiped his chin, and he had responded in kind. If he was half as befuddled by his actions as she was by hers, they'd both be stark-raving mad by the time this week ended.

Caroline hoped the downhill walk back to the hotel through the meandering streets of the quaint village would clear the fact from fancy in her head. Instead, the moon threw in its two pesos. Never had she seen it so large and golden, so close. Had they been headed uphill, rather than down, they'd surely be able to touch it just over the next rise. As it was, it bathed the street in its soft glow, casting its spell over the entire company.

The teens meandered ahead of the adults in little clusters, whispering as though the enchantment had robbed them of their boisterous nature. Likewise, their elders followed, divided into couples by an unseen matchmaking hand. Even Hector and Señora Marron's rapid exchange of Spanish mellowed in the moonlight.

Although Caroline caught bits and snatches of plans for tomorrow's tour of Cuernavaca, their soft-spoken Spanish sounded romantic.

“That Mexicalli moon is something else, isn't it? It looks like it's resting in the nest of treetops just over the next rise there.” Blaine pointed to the golden globe that hung low, seemingly over the next rise.

“It's too perfect to be real. Like the one in my high school prom picture.”

He couldn't miss the edge in her voice.

“Did you marry your high school sweetheart?”