In the nearby trailer, Isabel Ochoa Dreyfus disappears into a new identity: Marina Lomas. Somewhere in Iowa her businessman husband sits in the dark, staring at his drink, promising never to hit her again, if only he can track her down.

Despite herself, Marina finds companionship at Mac anti Gil's annual Casa Diva fashion show. As glamorous inch stride up and down a poolside runway, Yo awakens Marina's sleeping desire.

Elsewhere in Coachella, Yo's father Crescencio, a gardener, soothes Eliana Townsend, his secret love, by coaxing life from the earth outside her window. Site is dying, most likely from AIDS, but no one will tell her the truth. And through it all Crescencio's sister, Tia Josie, keeps the family steady with wisdom from the Rockford Files and her dead Cahuilla husband.

Truths surge to the surface in this community of false fronts and deep roots as readers are whisked toward the deafening conclusion of Coachella -- the latest from one of Chicano literature's finest writers.