Bravado's House of Blues Read Online Free PDF

his fat little hand. The usual “excúseme” she received in such situations did not appear.
    “Hmmmph,” she sniffed, wrinkling her nose. “Rude and odiferous.”
    Then an ancient woman, dressed from head to toe in black, shawl wrapped over her thin graying hair, stumbled forward, nearly knocking Agnes to the ground. Agnes spun around, confused. The crowd swelled, and more and more people began to push toward the cathedral.
    Agnes, tall and thin, moved along the edge of the crowd, like a small twig rolling along the crashing waves. Just as she felt she would fall under the swelling onslaught of bodies, a firm hand appeared, an offering in the growing madness. She took the hand and found herself lifted out of the tide of bodies and raised onto one of the tall, flat tables that surrounded one of the ministerial buildings like barriers.
    The hand belonged to a man, an Anglo, by all signs.
    He stood above the crowd, his clothing disheveled and his fingers stained yellow from nicotine. Agnes looked up into his face, strong chin covered in a thick black beard. Several curly locks flowed down the sides of his face, escaping the twisting braid which lay across the back of his neck. She stared into his piercing gray eyes, marveling at the gold flecks that seemed to draw the light around her, focusing her attention into the depth and concern.
    “Are you quite alright?” he asked, still holding onto her hand.
    The breath caught in her throat. Something in his touch, in the splash of blue that lay across his left cheek, and the seriousness of his gaze broke something inside her. She giggled. Not a demure, proper little laugh, but an outright trill of released tension and pent-up annoyance that escaped her like the effervescent bubbles in a fine champagne.
    Bemusement painted his features.
    “I’m fine, thanks to you.” She smiled at him, feeling the muscles in her face tugging upward.
    She looked down at her hand, still clasped in his. His eyes followed, and he released her suddenly, a rosy flush creeping up through unkempt whiskers.
    Agnes noticed then, his left hand held a palette. To his left, facing the cathedral stood an easel.
    “Oh, you’re a painter?” she asked.
    “Yes, I pretend to be,” he said, nodding his head slightly.
    She looked at the painting. The brush strokes were quite delicate, the colors blending pleasantly. The starkness of the cathedral’s spire shone against the inexplicably chartreuse sky. “It is lovely.”
    He blinked at her for a moment. “You think so? You don’t find the sky off-putting?”
    “I find it a wonderful compliment to the gold and tan of the cathedral.”
    His blush deepened. “Most people find my color choices too unrealistic, unnatural.”
    “Most people are boors.”
    They stood in silence then, looking at one another in wonder.
    “Quite a day, eh?” he said, finally.
    She turned to see the square awash in a human sea. The crowd moved in a great swirling circle out one end of the square and back in the other, all revolving around the nearly completed cathedral. “What is happening?”
    “Oh, haven’t you heard?” he asked. “They’ve had a visitation.”
    “A what?”
    “Apparently a young boy fell. He had been delivering supplies to those who worked at the top of the scaffolding. He would have most assuredly died from his injuries, but the foreman, a burly Romanian fellow, began yelling for the men around him to fetch a doctor. Then, out of the sky a lady descended. She came in a cloak of roses, alighted near the boy’s cracked and bleeding form. The men fell to their knees, making the sign of the cross. The chant went up, spreading through the city, Virgen de Guadalupe.”
    She turned, taking in the scene, watching the swell of humanity surge forward, hearing the murmuring of the prayers and the chants. How had she missed this washing through the city? “And you were here when it happened?”
    He shook his head, a wry smile slipping from his face. “Alas,