“Here’s my idea,” Sofi said, sitting down, with a hand on her comadre’s arm, certain that her plan was going to excite her friend as much as it did her. “I have decided to run for mayor …!”

La comadre stared at Sofi, not comprehending. “Mayor?” She blinked.

Sofi nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, comadre, mayor of Tome!”

Now the comadre really didn’t get it. She especially didn’t get it because Tome never had no mayor. She didn’t know much about those kinds of government things (the one and only time she had gone out to vote in fact was for Kennedy in 1960), but could one just decide to become a mayor of an area? After all, Tome wasn’t even an incorporated village like Los Lunas or Belen. That much she knew!

Then why stop at mayor? Why not elect herself la juez de paz or la comandante of Tome as they had had in the old days? Why not be Queen of Tome for that matter? Who would care as long as she didn’t try to tell no one what to do.

La comadre frowned. As the reader might well imagine, she was among those doubting Tomasas who were never convinced of the things Sofi and her family were capable of doing. “I don’t know, Sofi,” she said, staring into her cup. She couldn’t bear to look at Sofi in the eyes, now that she thought the poor woman had lost her mind, which surely had to do with all the worrying about her daughter disappearing so far away in the Arabian desert …

Sofi, undaunted, jumped out of her chair. “Ay, comadre!” she said, running her fingers through the front of her hair, which was still mostly black. “You have always been like this, ever since we were girls!”

“Me?” the comadre said, pointing to herself. “Like what? How have I always been? You’re the one who’s always …”

“Always what?” Sofi asked.

“Always had a lot of … imagination,” the comadre answered timidly, looking back into her cup.

“Imagination? I don’t know what that means, but I can tell you this. I have been living in Tome all my life and I have only seen it get worse and worse off and it’s about time somebody goes out and tries to do something about it! And maybe I don’t know nothing about those kinds of things, but I’m sure willing to work for community improvement!”

“‘Community improvement’? And what does that mean? You are starting to sound like your daughter, the revolutionary!” The comadre stopped herself. She had not meant to bring up la Esperanza at such a bad time, especially not in that way either, although everyone had always known what a mitotera that troublemaker girl was. “Anyway, there has never been no mayor of Tome!”