can a frustrated single mom and failed big city journalist save her family and salvage her career by returning to a town run by a gang of bungling thugs?


“The Resurrection of Puerto Cielo” is a novella published in serial form, 43 posts.




29


Sam had insisted that Manny drive as the family piled into Barbara and rode to M&M Motors. 

Now, standing inside the garage, they watch Mitch slide a grey tarpaulin off a hidden vehicle.

“Wow!” gasped Manny.

“Super wow!” Gabe shouted.

Unveiled in front of them, gleaming in the garages bright lights, was a sky blue microbus wrapped with dozens of bright gold, dancing sunflowers.

Manny’s mind flashed, the same sunflowers that waved from the wall inside the Star office.

She looked over at Sam, tears streamed down his face.

Lucy and Espy knew the story. this was Sophia’s bus. Ynes, the bus that once drew Sam to her, the bus in which Sophie and Sam and then young Esperanza had shared so many road adventures.

Espy remembered the wild and wonderful places they’d explored. And then she’d grown up, and other things became more important and family adventuring with Ynes faded away.

Manny saw the name painted on the side.

“Ynes. What does it mean?”

Sam shared Sophia’s fascination with Ynes Mexia and her love of plants.

With his white cane, he navigated around the front of the vehicle and opened the driver’s door.

“Come here, Manny.”

Manny followed. 

“Jump in.”

Manny climbed into the driver’s seat. Sam closed the door. Then he moved to the passenger side and hoisted himself in.

He spoke to Manny, “I know you can drive, you did quite well with Barbara. But have you ever driven a stick shift?”

“No,” was the anxious answer.

He smiled, “Time to learn.”

She put both hands on the steering wheel and hesitated. Something was strange. What was it?

Her nose answered.

Sophia’s perfume.

Her grandmother’s scent filled the car. After all the time Sophia had been gone, the comforting memory of her perfume still lingered in Manny’s memory.

She relaxed. Gran’s here.

There were a few quick instructions, then Sam said, “Turn the key.”

Ynes came to life, engine purring like a contented cat.

Mitch rolled up the garage door and waved them outside.

“Let’s go for a ride,” said the blind driving instructor, and he showed Manny how to put the bus in reverse.

***

“I heard a clever idea for protesting against corruption,” Sam said, as gears ground and Ynes jerked and sputtered through the streets of Puerto Cielo.

“Take a deep breath,” he soothed, sensing Manny was getting frustrated, “there’s no hurry, slow and easy does it.”

He continued, “Some kids in the city created a new way to put the crooks on the public stage. They started the ‘Corruption Tour,’ a bus ride taking people to the most infamous sites of criminal profiteering throughout the town.”

Manny’s eyes lit up and she turned to Sam. Then she saw it, she saw how she could fight the thugs in Puerto Cielo.

“Yes!” she shouted, banging on Ynes’s horn as passersby on the sidewalk looked out at a bright blue bus covered with sunflowers lurching down the street.

By the time Manny parked the bus behind Barbara at the Star office, the stick shifting was so natural she’d forgotten about it. She had bigger things on her mind.

***

Gathered around the courtyard table, the family eagerly shared ideas about the soon to be launched Puerto Cielo “Corruption Tour.”

The bell on the Star office door jingled.

Heads turned.

A familiar face appeared in the doorway to the courtyard. they all looked at the girl in the wheelchair.

She simply said, “I want to help.”

***