Paper Moon (15 page)

“Blaine, you shouldn't have.” Caroline withdrew the boxed doll wearing a replica of the bright dresses with the full circle skirts that she'd oohed and aahed over during the show, marveling how they reminded her of giant, graceful butterflies. “These were too expensive.”

He'd seen her examining the doll and putting it back when she saw the sticker price. After she'd moved on, he'd asked Dana to buy it for him.

“It's for your school,” he explained, as if that justified the cost.

No, that wasn't why he'd bought it . . . and cost was not an issue.

“It's the least I could do after what you did for Karen—”

Distracted by his own uncharacteristic babbling, Blaine hastily regrouped his thoughts. “It's for what you did for my daughter today . . . and for me.”

He watched mild admonition melt to a glaze of emotion that seemed to erode another layer of the grief and disillusionment constricting his chest. He took a breath.

“I knew Karen grieved,” he went on. “But I thought her anger was directed at me . . . because I couldn't make things right with Ellie.”

“The Holy Spirit orchestrated all that.” Genuine modesty colored his companion's face, camouflaging the freckles sprinkled around her nose. “I just played a part in the script.” Were she any more wholesome, she'd have
Made in the U.S.A.
stamped on her forehead and smell like apple pie.

Was that what had moved inside him, before Karen bolted out?

The Holy Spirit? Or was he merely infected by the collective sense of reverence surrounding him? “Whatever it was, I'm grateful that you had the heart and courage to speak to a stranger on its behalf.

I'm glad you were there.”

“So were the pigeons.”

Blaine chuckled. “You're not very comfortable with compliments, are you?”

She averted her sheepish gaze to the window where, beyond the city skyline, a dappled-gold moon hung so close to the mountains that it almost touched.

“I guess they're like woolen underwear,” she said with a little laugh. “They're warm, but the itch takes some getting used to.”

“We'll have to work on that. Someone like you deserves every compliment that comes your way,” he said, backing away as the waiter placed two lattes topped with whipped cream on the table.

Was it his comment or the waiter's sudden appearance that caused the lady's brief startled look? Regardless, it was charming . . . charming as the little mustache her first sip of the concoction left on her lip.

CHAPTER
11

“Woolen underwear?” Dana looked at Caroline as if she'd lost her the last brain cell. “He compliments you, and you compare it to wearing woolen underwear?”

Just as mortified by her idiotic response the night before, Caroline focused on the heavy quartz wares spread on a faded woolen blanket in the morning sun. Beyond the thrown-together market of plywood on sawhorse tables and spread blankets on the ground sprawled the remains of Teotihuacan, the ancient city of the Aztec Empire that attracted both sellers and tourists. The moment the Edenton group disembarked from the bus, they'd been surrounded by Mexicanos of all ages hawking their wares— jewelry, dishes, simple musical instruments, woven items.

“You like
thees?
” Smiling from under the brim of her straw hat, a woman with leathery skin and graying black hair pointed to a dish about ten inches square, made of the pink marble similar to that of the Bellas Artes theater. “Or
thees
one?” Her eyes were as dark as the obsidian ash she pointed to.

“Honey, he is definitely interested. He can't take his eyes off you.” Dana reached past Caroline. “I like the first dish better.”

Picking up a similar one, she examined it. “I just can't fathom what I'd use it for.”

“I'm thinking a jewelry dish. It'd go perfectly with my bedroom.”

“So would a husband.”

“Thees
one,” the vendor decided, taking up the one Caroline originally admired. “I will wrap it for you, no?”

“How much?” she asked.

“Twenty dollars.”

“Offer her fifteen,” Dana whispered aside. “They always start high.”

Caroline glanced at the ragged-clothed children playing behind the woman.
Okay, so I'm a sucker,
she thought, digging into her hip purse. But this lady looked like she needed every penny to feed and clothe her family. Caroline would skip dessert tonight to make up for the extra five bucks she was probably overpaying.

“Do you have a bag?” Caroline asked, handing her a twenty-dollar bill.

“Muchas gracias, señora,
” the vendor replied as a doll-like little girl peeked out at them from the folds of her mother's voluminous skirt.
“Uno momento, niña.

”

“I don't blame you,” Dana said, sighing in resignation as the woman produced a used plastic grocery bag from a stash under the table. “But that reinforces my point.”

“What point?”

“Your heart is too big to ignore that poor man,” Dana told her.

“God knows he needs a wife and Karen needs a mom. She adores you. Everyone is saying how you four would make an ideal family.

Maybe his mom's accident was no accident. Maybe God has His hand in this.”

“Everyone?” Great, now it was more than her friend looking for cartoon hearts fluttering out from under her eyelashes. It was
everyone.
“What, do I look that needy? As for God, a man hasn't been on my prayer list for years.”

Although yesterday at the cathedral, Caroline had felt father and daughter's pain, guilt, and frustration. They'd been drawn into the oneness of the Spirit, closer than she'd ever been with Frank. Could it be—?

Nah
. Caroline took the bag with her newspaper-wrapped dish.

Its weight took her by surprise.

“Whoa! I should have waited until I was on my way out to get this.” The thought of hauling her purchase to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun made her arm ache.

“Maybe someone else was praying . . . like your daughter.”

Caroline cut a sharp glance at her friend. “Ooh, that was a low blow. Just for that, you can hold my two-ton jewelry dish while I climb the Pyramid of the Sun.”

“I'll bet Blaine will hold it for you.”

Caroline rolled her eyes heavenward in exasperation. “Give it a rest, Dana.” Easier said than done, Caroline realized as she tried to dismiss the idea of Annie wanting a father. It was easier for Caroline to ignore her own wants or needs than those of her daughter.

“Okay,
amigos y amigas
,” Hector called from his perch on a large flat stone nearby. “Let's went!”

Gradually the group reassembled around the fan-waving tour guide. Ahead of them the ruins reminded Caroline of a monumental ghost town of stone and dust, maybe a high-altitude Egypt with mountains surrounding it instead of great sand dunes.

Cutting a north-south swath between the pyramids of assorted size was a wide road that Hector identified as the Avenue of the Dead.

“It's dead all right,” Wally quipped, wrinkling his nose to raise his glasses as he studied the giant pyramid dwarfing the others.

“Not a car in sight. Just old stone.”

Kurt gave his buddy the elbow. “You're a real riot, Einstein.”

Unfazed, Wally pointed at the largest structure in sight. “That the sun pyramid?”

Hector nodded. “And I promise, all of you kiddies will have plenty of time to climb it, if you wish. But first, we must do our homework.”

“All the kiddies and one slightly romance-impaired adult,”

Dana mumbled in Caroline's ear.

“You going to climb?” Blaine asked, coming up on Caroline's blind side.

“Why not?” Caroline wished the sand would open up and one of those giant worms from the sci-fi channel would put an end to her misery. Or maybe Blaine hadn't heard Dana's comment.

Dana peered around her. “I guess when you work with kids all day, you never grow up.”

Caroline wanted the worm to take Dana too.

“Once a kid, always a kid, eh?”

Blaine's wink knocked the temperature of the sun on her face up a few degrees. Or maybe she'd just melt away from humiliation.

“Come on, I want to hear what Hector's saying,” Caroline announced, taking off as though someone had fired a starting pistol.

“Over two millenia ago, the Toltec peoples reigned supreme.

Around AD 750 the city was ravaged by fire in some sort of rebellion,” Hector informed his energy-overdosed audience. “It continued to be used for ceremonial purposes as the alleged birthplace of the gods.”

“I thought you called the ancient Indians Aztecs,” Randy said.

“The Aztecs were made up of many ethnic groups. Among them all were healers and artists, kind of like the professionals of today— doctors, lawyers . . .”

“Like Indian druids, Dad,” Kurt ventured. “Right, Hector?”

Hector's forehead knitted, his dark eyebrows almost touching.

“I don't know much about your druids. All I know is that the Indian peoples were divided around AD 750 in a clash of good and evil. The good went south, following the Path of Freedom, while the others migrated north toward Tula, today's Hidalgo area. They were thought to have black magic.”

“Now,
that
is interesting,” Ron Butler spoke up. “The coming of Christianity to Ireland divided the druids in a similar way.” He glanced at Randy. “You suppose there is something to the idea of Irish monks like St. Brendan making it over here with the Word?”

“Faith and begorra,” Randy teased in his best Irish brogue.

“Next thing you know, you Irish will be wantin' to paint the pyramids green.”

“It's still amazing,” Caroline mused aloud as they moved on through the ancient ruins.

“What's that?” Blaine asked.

The man didn't have ears. He had radar. And Dana had somehow disappeared—not an accident, if Caroline knew her matchmaking friend. “How ancient man could build something so complex . . . so huge.”

“I went to school for years to learn the formulas and physics behind such projects, and some still mystify me. It all originated from the study of the preexisting earth and stars.”

“God isn't called the Great Architect for nothing.” Caroline stopped with the group to study an early painting of a jungle cat recessed in the rock of some catacombs.

“I don't know that I'd confuse science with religion,” Blaine cautioned.

“Oh, no,” Annie broke in, groaning as she stared at the wall painting— another mural. “Don't tell me that Diego guy was here, too!”

The atmosphere of awe and wonder Hector had created with his dialogue regarding the Aztec past dissolved in laughter throughout the group. It did seem as if wherever one turned, there was a Rivera painting.

“Someone has her mother's sense of humor,” Blaine whispered to Caroline.

“No, Annie,” their good-natured guide assured the teen. “Diego Rivera painted everywhere else, but he did not make it to Teotihuacan.” Hector went on to explain how the durable dyes the Indians used in the paint on the ancient picture became a major industry after the obsidian gave out.

While he was talking, Blaine took the heavy bag off Caroline's arm, where the handles had cut a little red ridge on her wrist. “You didn't buy one of those pyramids, did you?”

“Thanks, it's a jewelry dish.” She gave him a rueful smile. “I should have bought it on the way out. You really don't have to play the pack mule. I'm used to the role.”

“Not while I'm around.”

She picked up the conversation they'd been having when Annie interrupted. “I'm not confusing science with religion,” she said. “I think they complement each other.”

Blaine cut her a sideways glance. “Oh?”

What on earth do you think you are doing, debating someone like
Blaine Madison?
a voice demanded from within. He was a big wheel in an engineering firm, and she was a big wheel in alphabet and diapers. Caroline could champion her faith, but could she defend it on his level?

Well, Lord, I've jumped in, so I guess I have to swim. Feel free to
toss me a life jacket anytime.

“The way I see it, God created heaven and earth. That's faith,” she said with confidence. “And man has spent his lifetime trying to figure out how creation works. That's science.”

“I never thought of it in quite that way,” Blaine said, as though he considered her words to at least merit thought.

Maybe she should just shut up while she was still ahead and fall in behind the others. But she hadn't quite reached the shore of her conviction.

“Just think—” Caroline spread lifted hands up as if to envelop the heavens. “When He created the heavens and hung the stars, He gave ignorant man the first calendar-clock to measure time and know when food would grow and when to put food away to survive winter.” She tapped the bag her companion held in his arms.