But at least one friend immediately recognized the brilliance of our choice.
“Oh my God, I’ve always wanted to visit Puerto Rico. Do you have a guest room?”
☼ ☼ ☼
In fact, we got lots of puzzling questions from family and friends during those first few months. The most common, of course, was why we’d bought a house on a tropical island we’d visited only once before.
Our responses ran the gamut from “we were bored” to “it seemed like a good investment,” depending on our mood.
Unfortunately, in the end, this barrage of questions made us wonder about our actual motives.
Hmm.
Let’s do the positives first.
There comes a point in your life when all the big issues seem resolved (yes, I realize this may be an illusion, but humor me here) and the vast store of energy you devoted to resolving them needs a new focus.
A second home, though hardly the most commendable preoccupation of middle age, is a surprisingly invigorating one.
I won’t go so far as to say we were in a slump when we bought the house but we were definitely at loose ends. Our careers were stable. We had invested early and well in the D.C. real estate market. Our relationship, as far as we both could tell, was in fine fettle.
Maybe our streak of good luck had made us a tiny bit complacent.
The house in Vieques brought some leavening to the mix. It kept us busy and engaged and gave us something to think about every day. It presented us with an almost infinite number of challenges which, while taxing in the short term, could fairly easily be overcome. It made us talk to each other more than we had in years.
Let’s not forget the fact that the house also represented the realization of a dream. Although we’d never really discussed the possibility of living in a tropical setting in our declining years, once the opportunity of buying a house in Vieques presented itself, we learned that we’d been creating independent fantasies of tropical retirement for years.
Not that there weren’t moments when we questioned our sanity.
It’s certainly no exaggeration to say that we pushed far beyond our financial comfort zone to buy and renovate the house. Michael, who tends to be the more responsible partner in such matters, worried a lot in those early days. Particularly when construction delays pushed the date for putting the property on the rental market further and further into the future.
A few months after we bought the house, Michael, clutching yet another completely unanticipated bill, said, “It’s like having a child.”
I smiled happily.
“Except that our house will never poop on us or say ‘I hate you.’”
“Or go to college,” he added, reluctantly returning my smile.
I worried, too, though the whole undertaking felt so right I never seriously entertained the notion that it wouldn’t work out in the end. In fact, despite the vast resources of time and money we put into the project in those first years, it felt like a down-payment on our old age.
And I can honestly say that my dread of growing older has been softened appreciably by the very existence of our little slice of paradise. I’d much rather spend my final, arthritic days sitting on a Vieques beach than whiling away the months in a rocking chair in D.C. waiting for spring to crawl its way around again.
In the meantime the very thought of the house soothes me. When I’m having a bad day at work I glance at the photos of Vieques, positioned strategically around my office, and suddenly I feel calmer.
I know that if things ever fall apart for us in D.C., Michael and I have the very real option of simply folding our tents and repairing to our island home.
That, in itself, is worth everything we’ve put into it—and more.
☼ ☼ ☼
Despite the mixed feedback we received from friends, it was clearly time to begin spreading the word about our island retreat. But we’d never advertised a property before and didn’t know where to begin. For inspiration, we scoured the web pages of other vacation houses in Vieques.
The ads ranged from unimaginative to hyperactive. Some were completely over the top. Paradise Found! one screamed, as if John Milton himself had co-signed the mortgage.
Others took a more feng shui approach, rambling on about tranquility and connectedness and the true light.
Yes, yes, but does it have a dishwasher? I wanted to ask.
We decided to go for the middle ground. Good clear photos, moderately lyrical text, reasonable prices.
Michael was particularly insistent about keeping our prices low. As we conducted more research it became clear that we faced stiff competition. Even in the somewhat limited one-bedroom category on several of the more obvious “Rental by Owner” websites, there were at least thirty to forty Vieques listings.
As for the narrative, we kept to the facts, though here and there we allowed ourselves to wax a tiny bit lyrical: we mentioned the trade winds, which are truly wonderful in the winter months, blowing a warm, fragrant breeze through the house from front to back; and we alluded to the large number of fruit trees in the yard, urging potential guests to “pick and eat what you please.” We added a line about the wild horses and the lovely little chirping frogs called coquis. We even mentioned the island’s lusty rooster population. Anyone who couldn’t deal with crowing roosters had no business on Vieques anyhow.
As for the name of the house, we couldn’t make up our minds. Even at that relatively early date in the island’s real estate boom there were lots of houses on the rental market with names so cute they induced a gag reflex. We decided to go for something a bit more forthright. At first I suggested Casa Miguel, because, well, I’m crazy about my partner and thought he might like to have a house named after him. We bounced this idea around a few days until it deflated of its own accord.
Back to basics.
We finally decided on a name that evoked the spirit of our neighborhood, while offering—for those who cared—an inside joke about Michael and me: Casa Dos Chivos, the House of the Two Goats.
That would do.
We went live online in late September, just before our next visit. We couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
Sixteen
Flight of Fancy
When we touched down at the Vieques airport in early October it was misting rain and much of the remainder of our visit was humid and overcast. Not ideal but we coped. In fact we made it to the beach every day except one, which was a total wash-out.
In between, we spent hours wandering the aisles of the inventory-challenged hardware stores of the island.
Each was disappointing in its own way but there were a few pleasant surprises. In a tiny store tucked away on a back street in the Floridà barrio of the island, we found a charming inexpensive set of blue-and-white dishes, including dinner and salad plates, bowls, cups and saucers, all for $30. In another we stumbled across a tablecloth in a vibrant tropical stripe.
These items were welcome additions to our new kitchen, which was shaping up nicely. We took a slew of pictures and then, for maximum impact, split-screen them next to “before” shots and sent the results to our friends and families.
Yes, we had become kitchen bores.
In our absence, Steve had been busy upgrading the bathroom, which was next on his list of projects after the kitchen. Gone was the freaky brick-platform elevating the toilet.
A bright new vanity stood where the chipped pedestal sink had once tottered and a new medicine cabinet, and a pair of handsome light fixtures, hung above.
The room’s original floor-to-ceiling tile job—each tile adorned with a dainty pink flower—would have to remain until we’d benefited from a few seasons of rental income. In the meantime we spiffed up the trim and ceiling with our trusty gloss white paint, hung a couple of pictures and buffed the faux-marble tile floor.
In the great room and bedroom we arranged and re-arranged the furniture until our backs ached. I’ve always been a firm believer in the theory that living
spaces, given enough time, will tell you where their furnishings belong. But these rooms weren’t talking and after several tries we gave up.
Later that day, Jane stopped by and, after a quick walk-through, put the rooms in perfect order in ten minutes flat.
With minor adjustments, they’ve stayed that way ever since.
☼ ☼ ☼
The place was looking great.
All that was missing now was a big splash of color. I had sent down several yards of striped awning fabric a couple of months earlier with the vague notion of reupholstering the cushions of the wicker armchairs we’d bought at Pier 1, and it occurred to me that this fabric could be stitched up into valances for the many windows in the great room and bedroom. This would soften the harsh rectangular lines while leaving the stunning ocean views unobstructed.
But hand-stitching the valances was out of the question. Not only were my sewing skills non-existent, it would take far too long—we had just two days left.
Then I remembered a product called Stitch Witchery I’d seen at the little dime store in Isabel on our last trip. You just ironed the tape into the fabric, essentially gluing the pieces together. Unless I was mistaken, my grandmother had used this same product in the ’60s and ’70s when skirt lengths were plunging up and down like the stock market in a recession.
After a quick trip to town and three or four hours of steam-ironing, our windows boasted valances to die for.
To paraphrase Jane, it was beginning to look like home.
☼ ☼ ☼
It was during this short visit to the island that we began to learn more about its history.
In spite of Vieques’ natural beauty—or maybe because of it—a sense of the past was somehow missing.
At least at first glance.
Sure, there was the turreted fort dating from the 1830s perched high on the hill above Isabel, and a handful of other historic buildings, like City Hall in Isabel, dotted around the island.
City Hall (Casa Alcaldia)
But history, as a palpable force, seemed strangely absent. And yet, as we were slowly learning, the island was chock full of history, though much of it had been marginalized to the point of being almost obliterated.
We had heard stories, for instance, about a long-deserted sugar mill settlement in the western interior of the island just north of Playa Grande beach; armed with bottles of water, a camera, and a rough map printed from the Internet, we set out to try to find the abandoned site the last afternoon of our stay.
Unfortunately the terrain was considerably more rugged than we expected. Also, we were wearing shorts and flip-flops, hardly the ideal garb for jungle exploration. After maybe a hundred yards we questioned the wisdom of going any further. Our legs, lashed by the thick prickly vegetation, were bleeding; we had been attacked by swarms of both fire ants and mosquitoes; and one of my flip-flops had lost its toe-piece—in other words my left foot was bare. We hobbled back to the beach in a sad state of disarray.
A few days later we found photos of the “lost city” on a Vieques history site.
As we studied the accompanying map it became clear that we’d approached the sugar mill from the wrong side (duh). A year later we launched a better-planned expedition from the north and got through easily.
As we made our way back to the beach that day I tried to imagine scores of workers toiling in the thick Vieques humidity, chopping sugar cane on a twelve-hour shift, then staggering back to the barrack-like dormitories that served as their home during off-hours.
I wondered if they ever had a chance to visit Playa Grande, our favorite beach on the island.
Not often, I felt sure.
☼ ☼ ☼
We woke up to torrential rains the day of our return to D.C.
I always dreaded the puddle-jumper flight, from Vieques to San Juan, and rain never failed to ratchet up my anxiety level another notch or two. Yes, I’d come a long way from my hyperventilating, white-knuckle days of two-and-a-half years earlier, but I was still haunted by a horror-fantasy involving:
•the pilot choking on a wad of gum
•a long and heroic struggle on my part to keep the plane aloft, followed by
•the inevitable spiral to a fiery death
My only consolation was that the view on the way down would be truly spectacular.
By noon, the rain had tapered off slightly, which wasn’t saying much—it was still bucketing down at an alarming rate.
“There’s no way they’ll fly in this,” Michael stated matter-of-factly.
“I hope not,” I chirped in an anxious, squeaky voice, appalled at the thought that they might even consider launching a tiny, single-engine plane into this churning maelstrom.
He called the airport to confirm his doubts.
“Come on out!” the man answered cheerfully. “It looks like the storm might break up a little. If it does, we’ll give it a try.”
Michael repeated this conversation.
“Give it a try?” I asked, my stomach turning back-flips. “What are they, stunt pilots?”
We closed down the house in record time.
Rain lashed the windshield on the way to the rental office but, by the time we checked in the car, it had slowed to a steady drizzle and as we approached the airport, the rain stopped.
Pandemonium reigned at the terminal. Flights were called and then canceled. Airline employees with clipboards bustled (at least by Puerto Rican standards) up and down the airport’s curving central staircase. The rain returned with a vengeance, giant raindrops pounding the tin roof.
Our flight was scheduled to depart at eleven-thirty. At eleven-twenty, during a barely discernible lull in the storm, they herded us together (there were only five of us) and led us through the rain to the plane, thirty feet away out on the tarmac. Then they sorted us by weight, as they always did, and seated us according to some unfathomable and vaguely insulting equation.
Michael was instructed to take a seat two rows behind the pilot. Everyone else was seated next to or right behind him while I was plopped down in the last row by the exit (known to me as the “certain death” door).
Oh goody.
The pilot was the last to board. As usual he was disconcertingly young. And chipper. And he didn’t seem remotely nervous.
This probably should have made me feel better but it had the opposite effect.
My God, I thought, he’s not even taking this seriously. Maybe he has a death wish. Maybe he’s so young he has no concept of death.
I studied the back of Michael’s head. It was clear that he wasn’t nervous either. Where were all the grown-ups on this flight?
Then I spotted a kindred spirit.
The man two rows in front of me held himself very erect, darting nervous glances out the window, punctuated by sheepish grins tossed towards the man beside him. As far as I could tell, his friend was completely ignoring him. It was obvious that Michael and my fellow-sufferer’s companion were cut from the same bolt of heartless cloth. I could barely stop myself from rushing up to clutch the nervous man’s undoubtedly sweaty palm.
The takeoff was sensationally bumpy. At least, that’s how it seemed to me. Michael later professed not to notice, which made me dislike him intensely for at least five minutes.
Soon we were airborne although it felt more like air-buffeted. The word “turbulence,” bandied about so freely by pilots and flight attendants, barely did our situation justice. We not only dipped up and down dramatically, we also shuddered from side to side.
We were beside ourselves, both literally and figuratively.
Flying over water is the least stressful part of any flight for me. Yes, I know it’s illogical but, in the back of my mind, I always believe the plane can ditch into the sea without anyone suffering injuries that a reasonably competent plastic surgeon can’t tidy up in an afternoon or two.
But once we reach land over Fajardo (the port town on the eastern end of the big island) I’m on red alert.
An
d sure enough, about halfway between Fajardo and San Juan (a fifteen minute trip), we hit turbulence so violent it made me nostalgic for the summer breeze I’d naively characterized as turbulence a few minutes before.
Suddenly a very loud alarm went off. My fellow sufferer whimpered like a puppy. Michael even deigned to lift his gaze from his magazine. The radio crackled with emphatic instructions. The pilot shouted a few words in response, then banked the plane very sharply to the right. The luggage in the back of the plane slid sideways with an ominous growl, then slammed into the wall with a crash.
I practiced my breathing techniques so hard I’m sure I fractured a couple of ribs.
“What’s going on?” Michael asked the pilot.
No response.
“¿Qué pasa?” he tried again.
The pilot answered in Spanish. It was obvious that Michael didn’t understand.
“He said they won’t let us land in San Juan,” the nervous man more or less screamed. “We’re going back to Fajardo.”
I loved this guy—compared to him, I deserved a Purple Heart.
Seven minutes later we were on a very shaky approach to the elongated driveway that passes for the Fajardo airstrip.
Even so, it looked like heaven to me. At least it qualified as terra firma.
The touchdown was sporadic, meaning that we bounced up and down two or three times before actually remaining earthbound.
Rain pounded the roof of the plane. A drop actually landed on my forehead as we taxied to the miniscule terminal.
We stumbled off the plane and ran into the building. “Where’s the bar?” I asked.
“There isn’t one,” the nervous man said.
“Got any drugs?”
“I did,” he admitted through a crumpled smile, “but I took them all.”
Seventeen
Water the Chances
We had three rental inquiries the first day we posted our house online. After a brief exchange of emails we booked our first guests ever.
The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House Page 10