Gypsy Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

grin refused to be banished.
    “Dare I?” she asked of her bemused mirror image. It replied with an immediate, affirmative nod.
    What harm could there be in attending a matinee? There were dozens—possibly hundreds—of people down there buying tickets. Men, women, even children. It would be perfectly respectable, she decided, not without a slight shudder at the delicious impropriety of it all. Why, she might even see Mateo again!
    She paused before opening the door. What had he meant when he’d told her she didn’t want to see him again—that he could only bring her trouble? Then she shrugged all doubts away and hurried down the hallway.
    “Mateo talks in riddles just like Granny Fate.”
    In spite of her determination to find a job and her pressing need for money, Charlotte wasn’t disappointed in the least when she found the china shop closed for the rest of the afternoon. She promised herself faithfully that her first stop the next morning would be to inquire about the position, then she hurried toward the tents in the distance, fairly bursting with excitement.
    She felt the same elation now that she had experienced as a child back in Kentucky when her father had taken her to the horse fairs. Was there really any difference, after all?
    As she neared the grounds, a swarm of dark, tousle-haired children surrounded her. They were a ragtag lot of barefoot cherubs, all pleading eyes, clutching hands, and wide, white smiles. They engulfed her like a shifting rainbow in their bright, outlandish costumes.
    The tiniest girl, no more than four, gripped Charlotte’s fingers and begged, “Please, gajo lady, a penny is all we ask. Our papa will beat us if we do not bring home something.”
    The little beggar’s eyes, wide and shimmering with tears, struck at Charlotte’s heart for a moment. Then she spied the twitch of a grin just below the surface of that pitifully angelic face. She recognized some of the same mischief in the child’s expression that she had seen in her own face such a short time before. But Charlotte decided to play along with the moppets. She feigned a horrified look.
    “Beat you? You poor little child! What’s your name?”
    “You guessed my name,” the girl said, nodding vigorously. “I am Pesha, but they all call me Poor Little Pesha. Even my papa, who beats me— regularly!”
    “Well, Poor Little Pesha” Charlotte said in a mock stern voice, “I want to know your father’s name, too. I’d like to have a word with him about these beatings.”
    Pesha squinted at her through beautiful, dewy tears and drew herself up with pride. “My papa is the great Prince Mateo!”
    Charlotte was taken aback. Mateo? She hadn’t guessed that he might be married and a father. But why not? He was certainly a handsome, virile man. Women must have thrown themselves at him all his life.
    “Prince Mateo, he is my papa, too!” volunteered a lad of about ten.
    “And mine!”
    “Mine, too!”
    “Yes, all our papas!” they chorused.
    “And he beats us every one!” Poor Little Pesha added in a voice loud enough to silence the others, who were usurping her center-stage position.
    Charlotte felt numb—not because she believed for a moment that Mateo beat his children, but at the alarming thought that he had them. And so many! Were Gypsies allowed more than one wife? She didn’t know. But surely, if Mateo had fathered such a brood, he had shared the magnificent effort with a number of women.
    “Only a penny,” Pesha persisted. “Please, pretty gajo !”
    Anxious to put an end to the scene, Charlotte fished out a copper coin and pressed it into the girl’s tiny palm. The giggling, jostling band of urchins immediately scurried away like tiny fish in a school.
    Charlotte refused to let this incident mar her afternoon. She simply wouldn’t think about Mateo… or his numerous offspring. She hurried to join the crowd, still pondering the man’s prolificacy, in spite of herself.
    The ticket line was long and