Sometimes there’s just no substitute for having walked the walk.
So we set the wheels in motion. To start the bidding process, Hal made a Tuesday morning appointment for all of us with the contractor who had built Corinne’s and Mark’s house. This seemed as good a place as any to begin the bidding process. He was a known quantity, after all, and did good work.
His name was Falco, and he was due at nine-thirty but showed up at eight forty-five. Corinne and Mark were still asleep. We were awake but grumpy and it was raining.
We had never actually taken a good look at our property from our neighbors’ yard. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Sure, our house itself looked great, but the dirt embankment separating our yards was scraggly and overgrown and about ready to give way, just as Hal had said.
Poor Corinne and Mark.
Falco paced up and down for what seemed like hours.
“How many tall here?” he asked, pointing to the front section.
“Six feet,” I suggested.
Hal translated.
“And this many same here?” Falco continued, pointing to a section that needed much less support.
“No, medio,” Michael said, preening slightly.
“¡Ah, medio!” Falco exclaimed, proud of Michael for knowing the Spanish word for “half,” which was endearing in itself.
Let’s hire him, the unscientific portion of my brain told me. Calm down, my more rational lobe replied. Not so fast.
This somewhat cutesy conversation went on for what seemed like eons, but by the time I had become eligible for Social Security, Falco finished his measurements. Now he needed to write up his bid.
“I come back at four and a half,” he declared.
I had never heard four-thirty in the afternoon so charmingly described.
☼ ☼ ☼
We later admitted to each other that we had hoped for a bid in the range of $6,000 to $8,000. Falco’s bid, not delivered as promised at four and a half, but the following morning at ten and a quarter, was $16,500.
Yikes.
Michael suggested that we get Humberto, the guy who had smooth-coated the side of our house a few months earlier, to come by and take a look. I called Corinne, who appeared to be the point-person on their end of the project, to see if this was okay.
“Of course,” she said. “Obviously we need to get at least two or three bids before we make a decision.”
“I think you’ll be surprised by how low his prices are.”
“Sounds great to me.”
“By the way, what did you think of Falco’s bid?”
“We thought it was reasonable.”
She wasn’t giving much away. It was hard to know if she was hesitant to say more because he was her brother’s “guy,” or if she really thought his estimate was competitive.
“How about you?”
“We thought it was a tad high.”
A slight pause.
“Okay, well let’s see what your fellow comes up with.”
Let’s do.
☼ ☼ ☼
Humberto arrived in his falling-to-pieces truck (the mere fact that it was still running defied credulity, not to mention gravity) with his usual posse of assistants, including his translator-cousin Roberto. Maybe he’d forgotten that we were aware he spoke fluent English.
Five minutes into his United Nations routine I sidled up to him.
“I think you overcharged us on our last deal.”
“No way!” he yelped.
I smiled knowingly.
“Gotcha.”
For a moment he looked slightly deflated. Then he unleashed a volley of perfectly-constructed English sentences in my direction, a smile flitting across his features.
“You’re a funny one. I noticed you watching me from the beginning. It’s hard to fool you.”
“Oh, not so hard, trust me,” I said. “You’re just not a particularly talented con artist.”
I thought he might be offended (or at least pretend to be), but instead he wagged his finger at me and laughed again.
“So tell me about this project.”
I described what we wanted.
He scratched his stubble and nodded thoughtfully.
Corinne, having observed this exchange silently, spoke up.
“Can you handle it?”
He furrowed his brow as she spoke, glancing towards Roberto, until he remembered himself (old habits die hard).
“Yes. And no. It is big, but not too big for Humberto. And we’ll give you a bottom of the rock price because of Mr. Patrick and Mr. Michael.”
“That’s good to hear,” Corinne smiled.
He called the next morning with his bid. $29,000.
I thought I’d misheard. Maybe he meant $2,900.
I asked him to say each digit separately. “Okay,” he began, “two, nine, zero, zero.” I knew it—$2,900!
“Zero,” he added.
“Um, is that three zeroes?”
“Sí.”
Awkward pause.
“It’s a good price,” he continued.
“It’s not a good price,” I said. “The other bid is $16,500.”
He whistled softly through his teeth. “This man is trying to cheat you.”
“He’s cheating me by charging one-half the price you’re asking?”
“He won’t do a good job.”
“He built Corinne’s house. It’s perfect.”
“I’ll do $25,000. Just for you.”
“That’s still almost $10,000 more than the other bid.”
“Alright, I’m going into the hole here, but how about $24,000?”
“Goodbye, Humberto.”
I tried to make a joke of it when I called Corinne.
“I’m calling to tell you Humberto’s bottom of the rock price.”
“Oooh,” she said excitedly.
“It’s $24,000.”
“Whew.”
“I know.”
“What’s he planning to use, platinum?”
I laughed.
“I’m sorry. I feel like a fool.”
“Sixteen five’s beginning to sound pretty good, huh?”
I deserved it.
“Very good.”
But she wasn’t one to dwell on things.
“Know anyone else who could bid?”
“I’ll ask our property manager. Sorry again.”
“Island life,” she said. “Don’t sweat it.”
We got a third bid, for $19,000. The guy swore he was losing money on the deal.
We haggled with Falco and got him down to $15,000. He started work the next week and finished two months later.
Our new retaining wall
We painted it yellow to match Corinne’s house.
It looks great.
All things considered, we’re delighted that the foundation of our house is no longer washing down the hill.
Forty-Two
Plantasia
When we returned to the island that May we were struck by how scraggly our garden had become. Worse yet, several of our trees appeared to be dying.
The biggest worry was our avocado tree, which had stood for years in isolated splendor in the middle of the side yard and had looked perfectly healthy the last time we’d seen it. But now it was leafless and gaunt.
We couldn’t imagine what had happened. How could such a large, seemingly robust tree suddenly bite the dust?
Our neighbor, Feliz, red-nosed and cheerful as ever, diagnosed termites, which struck us as highly unlikely until we walked around to the side of the tree he was pointing to and were treated to the sight of a massive termite nest perched high in its ghostly branches.
Further investigation revealed an almost hollow trunk. Goodbye to our avocado tree—and adios to homemade guacamole.
Next, our small but attractive papaya tree near the driveway began looking frayed around the edges and soon it had to be removed too. The place was a mess.
Clearly it was time for action.
And yet, a gardener? Really?
It sounded so lah-ti-dah, so unlike our lives in D.C., where we cleaned our own apartments, washed our own cars and tended our own little balcony gardens without any assistance.
But the house in Vieques was a business, we told ourselves, a business whose success depended on things like curb appeal. Okay, now that we had convinced ourselves we needed a gardener, how to find one?
As always we asked Jane first but she had no suggestions for us. So we called Corinne. She didn’t have any ideas either but after calling around she found someone who absolutely swore by a guy named Francisco.
According to Corinne’s friend, Francisco was a professional gardener who had been trained in Florida. At Disney World no less.
That should have been our first clue.
☼ ☼ ☼
Our relationship with Francisco started off with a bang.
Literally.
Michael and I were lounging in bed one morning, drinking iced coffee and watching an old movie, when we heard a deafening crash from the general vicinity of our driveway, followed by a volley of Spanish curse words.
Throwing on T-shirts and shorts we dashed to the balcony where we were greeted by the sight of an enormous white mega-truck cozying its dented nose up to our prized mango tree. Tiny puffs of smoke seeped from under the truck’s hood and curled upwards into the tree’s lush foliage.
Beside the truck teetered a portly middle-aged man in a faded red t-shirt and voluminous cut-off shorts that reached down almost to the tops of his bright blue socks.
Spitting out yet another choice profanity, he removed his baseball cap and flung it to the ground.
A damp silence followed.
“¿Hola?” I hazarded. The man looked up at me in bemused wonder.
“Your tree, it hit my car.”
“Uh huh,” I murmured, awestruck by the speed and efficiency with which he had removed himself from the blame equation in this little mishap.
Clearly I could learn a thing or two from this guy.
“I’m sorry,” I said, apologizing for our tree.
Michael gave me a Look.
“No problem,” Francisco replied with a shrug, tossing his fender into the back of the truck.
Five minutes later we were face to face.
Unfortunately.
I’ve driven past distilleries that smelled less like alcohol than our new gardener. His breath was sour almost to the point of sweetness; his body smelled like small animals had burrowed into his armpits and expired.
“¡Mucho gusto!” he beamed, grabbing our hands in his big sticky paw. “Your garden, I will make it like a paradise.”
This sounded promising. I nodded enthusiastically. Maybe he didn’t smell so unpleasant after all.
“Come,” he urged, swinging open the monolithic door of his truck. “I show you my work.”
The truck’s cab was crammed so full of empty beer cans and tequila bottles we could barely excavate a place to sit. It was also occupied by two fairly large dogs who didn’t seem completely thrilled to share their space.
Noticing my concerned expression, Francisco declared the dogs “crazy friendly” which would have been a lot more convincing if one of them hadn’t growled ominously every time my leg got within an inch of his drooling snout.
Whistling merrily, Francisco gunned the truck into life and before you could say “gag reflex” we were on our way, bouncing along to God knew where.
Our destination, it turned out, was a bright blue house whose garden Francisco had apparently designed.
I must say it was pretty impressive. Everything looked healthy, orderly, logically-placed.
In brief, it looked like a significantly-upgraded version of our own garden.
And soon after we arrived back at our house we struck a deal. In essence, Francisco promised, for a hefty sum, to transform our garden (starting with the small, underpopulated patches near the driveway) from tawdry to terrific over the next year or two.
During the quick walk-through that followed Michael and I pointed out the plants we wanted Francisco to replace—and, very emphatically, the ones we wanted him to keep.
“Don’t you want to take a few notes?” I couldn’t help asking, reflecting on how little I trust my own faulty memory nowadays.
“No need,” he replied. “It’s all in here!” and with that he tapped his bald, sweaty pate.
“Make it beautiful,” I said, drawing as close to his face as I dared.
He smiled blissfully.
“You won’t recognize, I promise.”
This forecast proved tragically accurate.
And then Francisco enveloped us in moist, rancid hugs and climbed back into his truck, which he proceeded to wrangle to and fro in our driveway until at least half our gravel had been relocated.
Happily our tree chose not to leap into his path this time around.
And with a cheery wave he was gone.
☼ ☼ ☼
Back in D.C. we couldn’t help wondering how our little garden project was coming along.
Ever since the major construction phase of our house was completed, we’d gotten used to receiving very little information about what was going on in our little corner of paradise when we weren’t there (in other words, most of the time), and although we knew we weren’t being deliberately kept in the dark, it had led to some frustrating moments. Sometimes we asked the same question three times and got no answer; other times we got three different answers. Most days we felt like our most important job was to keep sending money, no questions please.
But since Francisco was new to our team we decided to test his communication skills. After all, he had allegedly worked at Disney World, where the level of accountability was surely higher than your typical Vieques construction site. As I recall, Snow White ran a pretty tight ship.
Who knew, he might even throw a scrap or two of information our way. Luckily he had a cell phone (unlike many people we’d hired in Vieques through the years), and on occasion he even answered it.
And yet despite the fact that our Spanish had improved a bit over time, we weren’t up to the task of framing detailed horticultural questions. And alas, Francisco’s English wasn’t nearly good enough to make up the difference.
In desperation we emailed him several drawings we’d made of our garden ideas (yes, he had a computer too). He called me at work the next day.
“Your drawings I like.”
This sounded promising.
“Great!”
“But too many plants you want.”
“Excuse me?”
In the background I could hear loud, brassy music and assorted sounds of revelry.
“To make this much plants, I need more checks.”
Oh God.
“More money?”
“Sí.”
“How much?”
He named an amount almost exactly twice what we had originally agreed on.
“Seriously?”
“Sí. The plants on this island is no good. I bring truck to Fajardo and buy plants in Puerto Rico.”
He’d already lost me with his request for “more checks” and now he was asking me to believe he couldn’t buy perfectly acceptable plants in Vieques.
“How about Arte Tropicale?” I asked.
“They is crap.”
“No, they is not,” I said in measured, if ungrammatical, tones.
I was definitely losing this battle. The music on his end seemed to swell just as our call began to break up.
“Okay, but make it beautiful!” I screamed.
“Beautiful, sí,” he said, chuckling slightly.
Uh oh.
☼ ☼ ☼
Did I mention that every time we go back to Vieq
ues, particularly after being away for a couple of months, we experience excitement and nervousness in approximately equal measures?
The “excitement” part is a no-brainer—it’s a gorgeous place and we love our house. So why the nerves?
Well, we never know what to expect.
Ever.
No matter how many times we make the journey, we invariably get a sinking feeling when we round that last corner and head up the hill towards our little casa. Almost instinctively, our eyes scan the house’s façade for signs of disaster, never quite knowing what we’ll encounter.
Our return this time was no different. And doubling our usual anxiety was our uneasiness about Francisco. We had no idea what to expect from his costly garden renovations. As we turned into the driveway our hearts sank. And then they sank some more.
Our garden was more or less gone.
The funky mixture of mature shrubs and weedy undergrowth that had constituted an ad hoc screen between our driveway and Corinne’s house below had been pretty much wiped out. One paltry banana tree remained.
Nearby Francisco had planted a row of the most microscopic bougainvilleas I’ve ever seen. As promised, he had installed a row of hibiscus plants, but (in a move that seemed to defy all logic) he had positioned them against a wall tucked almost completely out of sight behind our garbage cans.
Much more disastrously, Michael’s beloved triangular garden at the intersection of the driveway and the staircase, leading to the downstairs level, had been almost completely decimated. Even the big plants we had told Francisco not to touch—including a palm tree we had recently bought and planted ourselves—were no more. In their place were small variegated plants and wilted ground cover that looked like a bad toupée.
And then, just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, we walked down the steps to the lower level and—it got worse. The breezeway, formerly screened by tall seagrape plants, was now almost completely exposed. The dense, mature bushes that had provided such a lush blind between our house and Corinne’s below had been hacked down and replaced with small, sickly-looking yellow shrubs laid out in an uneven, gap-toothed row.
We felt like crying.
Instead, we cursed and repaired inside for cocktails.
Forty-Three
Lattice Entertain You
The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House Page 25