“You’re hired!” I blurted out, when he handed me a remarkably accurate looking off-the-cuff rendering of the space.
“And by the way, where did you get that shirt?”
Frankly, I’ve always had a soft spot for the big top.
☼ ☼ ☼
Despite his sartorial eccentricities, Freddy gave every impression of being a serious craftsman who knew his trade.
And, unlike so many other workmen we’d hired on Vieques, he kept the project moving. We could hardly believe our luck. In no time flat, the old bathroom had been gutted—we joked that it looked better demolished than intact—and soon it was time to start rebuilding it from the ground up.
Leaving nothing to chance, Michael and I had bought the tile for the renovation at the local hardware store and had it delivered to the house, where it was stored in our lock-up downstairs. We’d also bought a new sink console in San Juan and had it shipped over, as well as new hardware for the sink and shower and matching towel bars.
We’d even shelled out for a new toilet.
In other words, everything was ready for action. All Freddy had to supply was adhesive, grout and massive amounts of elbow grease.
“I start tiling today!” he announced by phone one morning.
I was sitting in my office in D.C. trying desperately to impose some semblance of order on my work day, while wishing with all my heart that I could be in Vieques supervising Freddy’s efforts (with the occasional side visit to the beach).
“That’s great!” I enthused, amping up my normal speaking voice in an attempt to match his exuberance.
“It will be beautiful thing!” he almost screamed.
I held the phone away from my ear. But then he dropped his voice a decibel or two.
“And yet the tiles you bought, they no fit.”
I brought the phone in closer.
“Huh?”
“They strange size.”
Was it my imagination, or had Freddy’s grasp of the English language deteriorated appreciably since our last meeting? While I pondered this somewhat metaphysical question, I forced myself to focus on what he was telling me.
“But they’re standard six inch by six inch tiles,” I protested weakly. “I have the packing slip right here on my desk.”
“Not all standard. Some bigger, some smaller.”
This made no sense. We had ripped open one of the boxes the day the tiles were delivered, and all of them had appeared to be exactly the same size.
“So you’re saying that some of the tiles are bigger than six by six, and some smaller?”
“Sí.”
“What do the boxes say?”
We had checked the boxes ourselves, but who knew. A long pause ensued, during which it sounded like Freddy was banging together a cabinet full of pots and pans while simultaneously dragging chains over a metal grating.
“Six by six, all of them,” he huffed.
“So the boxes are mislabeled.”
“Evidentemente.”
“Can you cut the tiles to fit?”
Another long pause followed, punctuated by enough bangs and whistles to constitute a Steve Reich concerto.
“I try,” he said at last. “But it cost more.”
Audible groan from my end.
“How much more?”
A very pregnant pause.
“A little,” he said unconvincingly. “Or maybe a lot.”
☼ ☼ ☼
Okay, folks. When a contractor informs you that your half-completed project is likely to cost “a little more” than he originally quoted, you’d be wise to start refinancing your mortgage; but when he goes so far as to admit that the added costs may be “a lot” more you might as well skip the refinance and head straight for bankruptcy court.
After brooding over this ugly truth for an hour or two I called Freddy back.
“Maybe we should just start over and buy new tiles.”
“¿Qué?” he said, in an unconvincing attempt to pretend he didn’t understand, despite the fact that he’d been jabbering away in reasonably proficient English barely a week earlier.
“New tiles. Let’s just junk the old ones and start over.”
“I already start cutting these.”
“Oh,” I replied, regretting for the first time in my life that I’d hired someone who was borderline efficient. “Well, thanks.”
“De nada.”
Was it possible that Freddy had a sense of humor? I couldn’t tell. But it was clear that I needed to rediscover my own.
“So will this latest development send us to the poor house?”
There was a slight pause.
“What is this poor house?”
Again I had to wonder if he was pulling my leg.
“It’s a very sad place where people end up when their contractors overcharge them.”
This time he actually laughed.
“Don’t worry, is all good.”
I wanted to believe him with all my heart. But in the meantime, I decided to check our credit rating. When Michael got home that night I told him the whole story. He listened patiently.
“Oh c’mon, how bad can it be?” he said.
“Is that a serious question?” I countered, treating him to my own version of his patented Look (clenched jaw, dilated pupils—you get the idea).
“Okay,” he said. “You’re serious, I get it.”
“We need to get a revised written estimate from this guy,” I went on, practically foaming at the mouth.
It was his turn to gaze at me with pity.
“And while we’re at it, we should ask the Tooth Fairy to slip a winning lottery ticket under our pillow tonight.”
Point taken. I called Freddy the next morning to ask how it was going.
“Fabulous,” he replied. “We found out yesterday our little boy needs braces for his tooth. This job will really help pay for them.”
I wish I could have shared his delight. Instead, I was beginning to feel a bit like the Tooth Fairy myself.
☼ ☼ ☼
After an ominous week-long silence from Vieques, I decided to call Freddy for an update.
“Those tiles is still not a good fit,” was his opening salvo.
Gulp.
“But you’re making everything work, right?”
Long silence.
“More or less…”
Oh dear.
“What’s actually going on?”
“Them tiles I don’t like.”
While I wasn’t exactly looking for a love-match between Freddy and our bathroom walls, this didn’t strike me as a particularly helpful development. An unhappy Freddy was likely to be an unproductive Freddy.
“I’m really sorry this has been such a tough project,” I began.
“Is very difficult,” he all but whimpered.
Pretty soon he was sure to start sucking his thumb. Okay, time to ratchet up my game.
“But I know how skilled you are, and I have faith that you can get this job done soon,” I said in my most businesslike voice.
“I dunno…”
I thought for a minute.
“Listen Freddy, do you have a camera?”
“Huh?”
“A camera.”
“No.”
“Okay, but you’ve got a cellphone, right?”
“Sí.”
“Could you take a few photos of the bathroom so we can get a better idea of how it’s looking?”
I could almost hear the creaky wheels turning in his brain.
“Is broken, my phone.”
“Aren’t you using it right now?”
“Eh…”
I waited.
“Yes, but my phone’s camera, she’s busted.”
“We need photos, Freddy,” I repeated.
Three blurry photos of the bathroom showed up in my inbox the next day. To be honest, the tile work didn’t look all that great. Yes, the tiles were square and gorgeously white, but their placement didn’t look par
ticularly even and a couple of edges appeared to be chipped.
Uh oh.
“It’ll look better when it’s grouted,” Michael said, which made me feel better until I remembered he’d used more or less the same words to comfort me about a broad array of past disasters, including (but not limited to) my Aunt Claudia’s latest cosmetic procedure.
I called Jane.
“Could you stop by and make sure Freddy’s work is up to speed?”
“Sure, but what if it’s not? I didn’t hire him, you know, so I don’t have much leverage on this particular job.”
As much as I loved the old girl, she could be a bit of a trial sometimes.
“Just take a look. You know how much I trust your judgment.”
Sheer, unadulterated flattery usually worked with Jane, and sure enough it appeared to do the trick this time. She called back later that evening with a full report.
“Well, it’s not a complete disaster,” she began.
I sat down.
“On the other hand,” she went on, “I’ve seen better tile work.” She paused. “In public bathrooms. In third world countries.”
Gulp.
“Is it fixable?”
She hesitated.
“Of course…but it’s going to cost you some extra dollars.”
How often had we heard some variation on this same statement over the past few years? And yet, as always, we just wanted the nightmare to be over.
“I don’t care,” I said. “Make it work!”
A week later five more photos showed up in my inbox. I held my breath as they downloaded.
Bliss!
Jane had worked her magic again.
The tiles looked perfectly even. The jagged edges were gone. The grouting was immaculate. The whole thing positively gleamed.
“You’re a magician!” I yelled into the phone five minutes later. “A sorceress.”
She laughed with real pleasure.
“It’s true.”
“Was it tough going?”
“You can’t imagine,” she began, sighing dramatically. “I’m absolutely exhausted. And frankly,” she added, dropping her voice an octave or two, “I don’t think Freddy will ever be the same again.”
Poor Freddy.
I felt bad for about five seconds.
Then, as always, I got over it.
Forty-Six
Party Tardy
The party was Michael’s idea.
His theory was that we needed an event, a shindig, something, to celebrate how far we’d come with our dream house renovation.
I had my doubts. Frankly the idea of throwing a party seemed like just another project. But after a few days the idea began to take root, and soon I began to imagine what the evening would be like, who we’d invite, what we’d serve.
In other words, the party had become one of my projects.
☼ ☼ ☼
The guest list was the easiest part. In a nutshell, we’d just invite everyone we felt like inviting.
That was simple.
In our other life back in D.C., however, this type of straightforward approach wouldn’t have worked. There were old allegiances and antagonisms to be honored. Certain people couldn’t be invited if others were coming.
But Vieques was a different story. We were relative newbies there. If we screwed up and invited people who couldn’t stand each other, no one could blame us.
The whole thing reminded me of when I’d first lived on Nantucket, a place absolutely bristling with social alliances and fissures. Although I’d caught fleeting glimpses of the complex social underpinnings of the island early on, I hadn’t paid much attention. When I decided to throw a cocktail party at the end of my first season, I took the easy way out by inviting everyone I liked and hoping for the best.
The resulting get-together, which had made perfect sense at the guest list stage, seemed a tad off-kilter as the party lurched into action.
The first to arrive were the so-called “trade people”—my colleagues from the hotel where I worked as a concierge, the owner of the art gallery on Straight Wharf where I hung out on my afternoons off, the proprietor of the island’s sole Chinese restaurant. These were the people to whom being punctual was a serious matter.
The second, noticeably later, wave of arrivals consisted of people who considered themselves, and each other, beyond such considerations. These were the realtors, attorneys, and physicians I’d gotten to know during my half year on the island. It wasn’t exactly that time was unimportant to this group, it was just that they were used to deciding when it was important and when it wasn’t.
The lawyers, for instance, who billed by the quarter hour for their own time, never seemed to mind keeping others waiting a few minutes. After all, who was going to complain? Not me. Frankly, I couldn’t have cared less.
And yet I must admit that the high point of that memorably surreal evening was the look of undisguised horror on the faces of my snooty doctor from Union Street (first name Septimus, I kid you not) and his wife when they sauntered in at nine o’clock, sweaters draped oh-so-strategically over their shoulders, and encountered the butcher from the local supermarket flirting with their pudgy, seemingly-virginal niece Flora.
They seemed to unbend ever-so-slightly, when I handed them martinis, and by the time they’d made their way across the crowded room to say hello to Flora, they appeared almost human.
But then they noticed that Flora was flirting back.
Determined not to miss anything, I followed close on their heels, and as they gazed with dismay at the spectacle of their niece consorting with the Working Classes, I leaned over.
“Never underestimate a man who can carve up a crown roast, even if he only has eight and a half fingers.” I remarked.
Their smiles would have frozen hell itself.
☼ ☼ ☼
We were determined to be equally egalitarian in the composition of the guest list for our Vieques housewarming party.
Oddly, it was the inviting part that was tough. In D.C. we would’ve simply emailed everyone a casual note of invitation. But we didn’t have email addresses for most of the people we knew in Vieques. We doubted that many of them even had a computer.
So we’d have to call them. No big deal. But wait. We didn’t have phone numbers for most of them either. Or, for that matter, last names.
I realize it may seem strange that we didn’t have contact information for a large percentage of people we were considering inviting to our little shindig, but that was part of island life. You knew lots of people, but you didn’t necessarily know how to reach them, at least through conventional means.
If you needed them, you’d ask a friend of a friend to tell them to give you a call. Or you’d wait a few days and sure enough you’d run into them in the supermarket line or bellied up to the bar in your favorite restaurant in Esperanza, and you’d ask them to stop by the next week to take a look at your hot water heater.
Take Pablo, for instance, the guy who had worked so hard to finish our downstairs when Steve got sick. We couldn’t imagine having the party without him and yet we had no idea how to reach him.
Or the charming Lithuanian waiter who had served us the night Jonah encountered the iguana in his bedroom. We’d heard he no longer worked at the same restaurant. How on earth would we ever track him down?
Jane, of course, was the crucial link (as she so often was) for many of these would-be guests. For the rest, we’d just have to get creative.
☼ ☼ ☼
Since phone conversations with Jane had a way of careening wildly without warning from one topic to another, I had developed the eccentric, but to my mind utterly necessary, habit of composing talking points before I called her.
My notes for this conversation read: Throwing a housewarming party; need help with guest list; phone numbers, followed by a list of people I thought she might have numbers for.
“A party!” she exclaimed, thirty seconds into our call, just as I was prepar
ing to read her my list. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
I gazed wistfully at my talking points, which were losing relevance with every passing moment.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I asked, a note of resignation flattening my voice.
“I’m not saying it isn’t, I’m just asking.”
“But by asking you’re implying it’s not.”
“Hey buddy, don’t put words in my mouth.”
This spoken in her best faux tough-guy voice, followed by a raucous laugh.
“Okay Jane,” I said wearily. “Give me two reasons why we shouldn’t have a party. No, give me three.”
There followed a short pause. Maybe she was the one compiling talking points now.
“Well, I’ll probably end up doing most of the work. That’s number one.”
“Doubtful. But if you do, you’ll be paid handsomely.”
“Okay, scratch that one.”
“Number two?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I just can’t imagine it working out.”
“That’s not a reason. That’s a lack of imagination on your part. Number three?”
Another pause, this one longer.
“I know you won’t believe this, but I’m kind of weird about parties. Basically I don’t like them. And I’ll feel obligated to come to yours.”
“Then I won’t invite you.”
“You don’t invite me, I’ll never speak to you again.”
☼ ☼ ☼
It took us two weeks to get everyone invited to our little celebration. We resorted to everything short of semaphore to reach several of our more obscure invitees.
There was Roger, for instance, the guy who had painted our house. Sure, he’d painted it the wrong color but that wasn’t his fault. It was Daniel’s fault, and he very decidedly was not on our guest list.
I had found Roger’s phone number on a slip of paper Daniel left behind the day he parted company with us and had called him a couple of days later to ask what went wrong with the wall color.
“I kept telling Dan we were using the wrong color,” he said in his charming Southern drawl. “After all, you couldn’t have been more specific about the color you wanted.”
He didn’t seem overly fond of Daniel, which in itself suggested that he was a man of discernment. And then he had offered to repaint everything for half price. We were sorely tempted. But alas we couldn’t afford it.
The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House Page 28