A Trip to the Beach

by Melinda Blanchard

  “Are you looking for any waiters, or am I too late?” Lowell asked.

  He helped me load the wheelbarrow with some smaller plants. “Actually, we don’t have any waiters. We’ve hired a few people to help in the kitchen, but so far that’s it. Have you worked as a waiter before?” I asked, hoping he wasn’t going to tell me about his last job in New York.

  Lowell smiled. There was an honest, accomplished look in his eyes. “I work at Coccoloba Hotel since I sixteen, but I ready to make a switch.”

  “Are you having some sort of problem there?”

  Lowell paused for a minute, assessing my dirty hands and torn T-shirt. The sun was hot, and I could feel the sweat streaking my face with dirt.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. You never stop, do you?” he asked.

  “No. I like to work. Are you sure you want to get tangled up with me? I guarantee I’ll be working just as hard in the restaurant as I am out here, and I’ll expect everyone to do the same.” Then I realized he hadn’t answered my question. “So, is there a problem at Coccoloba?”

  “No, not really. I just have a good feeling about this place. I think you’re going to be real busy.”

  Surprised that he had such a positive opinion about our project, I asked why he thought we were going to be busy.

  “Everyone talkin’ about you guys. You put this place up fast, and you workin’ so hard. My brother a waiter up Malliouhana and they all talkin’ about it. Everyone I see at Christine shop talkin’ about it too. Just wait till the season. You gonna be packed.”

  “And you want to be here when we are.”

  “I a good waiter. You’ll see. Give me a chance.”

  I liked this young man. When I said he was hired, he offered to be at our disposal until the opening. Both of us, now equally covered with dirt, went inside to see Bob.

  Lowell introduced himself with confidence. “Hey, Bob, I Lowell. The place looks great.” They shook hands, and after just a few short words I knew Bob agreed we were lucky to have Lowell on our team.

  Every morning for the next few weeks Lowell and I worked side by side. The barren, sandy yard continued to transform into an enchanted garden. Bob and Clinton sometimes came outside to help. We built two oval-shaped fountains out of rocks outside the dining room, visible from almost every table. In each a series of water jets was installed along with underwater lights to illuminate them. The winding stone path to the beach meandered alongside one of the fountains. It continued through the dappled shade of the big, gnarled sea grape tree and then down to the sea.

  I wouldn’t have blamed Charles the plumber had he wanted to strangle me. I wanted a trickle, not a splash, in the fountains, and it took countless attempts to adjust the spray of water. First he had five-foot-high jets that gushed into the air. Then came short, fat, foamy bubbles, barely visible from the restaurant. “No problem,” Charles assured me. “We gonna get this water just the way you wannit.” We settled on something that looked like a mushroom or bell on one side and a multitude of fine sprays on the other.

  Our only source of disagreement was aesthetic. Charles really wanted colored lights in the fountains, thinking this would make it more spectacular. He was disappointed when I said I wasn’t looking for spectacular—just a calming sense of peace and serenity. “Whatever you want,” he conceded.

  My mom always called me a tomboy, and I guess I’ve never changed. The only way I could seem to mix the dirt with the fertilizer was with my hands. I dumped the dirt in the wheelbarrow, added some fertilizer, and gathered up armloads at a time from underneath, blending it thoroughly. Lowell hosed in enough water to make a thick, muddy concoction—perfect, I declared, for filling in the holes around the plants. Not wanting to ruin my sandals, I did the entire job barefoot, and by the end of each day I was coated with black mud between my toes, under my fingernails, in my hair, and basically all over my entire body. “Pigpen Mel,” Bob called me.

  Lowell and I painted the shutters, along with several trees and anything else that got in our way. We used teal paint to match the deepest part of the sea. I had bought a Wagner paint sprayer just for that purpose and was surprised at the excitement it created. Shabby called down from the roof, “Is that a Wagner?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Have you ever used one?”

  Before I knew it, Shabby, Clinton, and Little Joe had gathered around watching me spray the shutters. For some reason they loved the paint sprayer. “Clinton,” Shabby said, “I see the Wagner on TV, and man, it can paint a whole house in a day. It the best.” From the roof, Bob asked if anyone was coming back up to help him finish the shingles. They oohed and ahhed at the Wagner one more time before reluctantly going back to work.

  Lowell brought over his friend Miguel, whom he introduced as a lunchtime waiter at Cap Juluca. His black beret tipped stylishly to the left, Miguel seemed a bit of a lady’s man. Keeping his shades on, he wandered inside to speak with Bob.

  “Hey, Lo said you might need another waiter.”

  “We might,” Bob said, not wanting to commit himself.

  “Cool,” Miguel answered softly.

  Bob stepped down from his ladder and shook Miguel’s hand. “Do you have any experience?”

  “I work Cap Juluca for lunch. You don’t recognize me, man?”

  “Sorry, maybe it’s the hat and the shades.”

  “That cool. That cool,” said Miguel. “I see you at lunch. Swordfish sandwich and Carib beer.”

  “Do you know anything about wine?”

  “No, but I’d like to learn. So many guests over Cap Juluca ask me questions about wine, and I have to fake my way around it. It’d be nice to know what I talkin’ about.”

  By the end of their talk, Miguel had joined the Blanchard’s team. Bob explained that he didn’t have time now, but once we were up and running, they’d spend time together tasting and evaluating the wines on our list. “Maybe you could come help organize the wine cellar before we open,” I suggested.

  “Cool.”

  “Cool,” I said, and waved goodbye.

  Lowell and I were cleaning the kitchen floor with muriatic acid and steel wool when I noticed a skinny pair of legs rising out of the bulkiest pair of Nikes I’d ever seen. “I work for you?”

  Still focused on the big sneakers, I asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Marcus,” he said. “I could work for you?”

  Marcus was a sixteen-year-old beanpole of a kid who didn’t see the point in tying his shoes. Hoping he wasn’t looking for a waitering job, I said, “What exactly did you have in mind?”

  He sat up on a table and thought for a while. “I wash the dishes,” he concluded.

  His accent sounded unusual to me, and I asked if he was from Anguilla.

  “I from St. Kitts but my mudda from here. Don’t need papers.”

  “You mean you don’t need a work permit?”

  “No. My mudda from here so I okay.”

  “Are you in school?”

  “No. I can work anytime.”

  “Okay, how about if you work mornings with me and Bob? You can help peel and slice vegetables and do the dishes from the prep work.”

  “Irie. That cool,” Marcus said.

  “Give me your phone number so I can call you when we’re ready.”

  Awkwardly he said, “No phone.”

  “Why don’t you stop by in a couple of weeks, then, and we’ll take it from there?”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Construction continued day after day, and everyone was enjoying the challenge. Our crew was proud of our progress and bragged to taxi drivers who stopped by. “Check us out,” they’d say. “Blanchard’s going to be the best restaurant on the island.” The buzz was spreading.

  We hired Alwyn as a waiter, who had worked at Malliouhana and was ready for a change. We decided only two more people were needed, a dishwasher and one more person to prep in the kitchen.

  The dishwasher position filled quickly. Clinton and Shabby introduced
us to their friend Renford. “Call me Bug,” he said.

  “Bug?”

  He smiled, and his voice went up several octaves. “Yeah, call me Bug. I loves to wash dishes.”

  Last but certainly not least came Ozzie. Ozzie pulled up in a bright purple jeep and hopped out with a lively bounce in his step. Barely more than five feet tall, he came dressed in old shorts and wore rubber thongs that prominently displayed his blue-painted toenails. He said his girlfriend, Sweenda, had done the handiwork.

  “Sweenda?” I said. “Is that Cora Lee’s daughter?”

  “Yeah, man. That who toll me ’bout you. Would you be willing to give me a do?”

  Ozzie, it turned out, had been working in the Malliouhana kitchen and, like Alwyn, was ready for a change. He was a particularly industrious young man and worked for his uncle during the day in a startling number of family businesses. Uncle Moran had a funeral home, car rental agency, septic pumping truck, garbage removal business, and flower shop. Ozzie helped with them all. We decided to “give him a do,” as he said, and that completed our hiring process. No advertisements, no applications, no references, and we had a staff of eight.

  Bob and I were making frantic trips to St. Martin to get last-minute odds and ends for the building and line up food suppliers. Stops at our favorite patisserie were routine now, as was lunch at Tropicana. We had located wine vendors, suppliers for meat, fish, and produce, and a little French distributor for dairy products. We rarely needed a map over there anymore, and my high school French was improving all the time. The suppliers were accustomed to shipping things to Anguilla and made regular deliveries to the Lady Odessa. Getting ingredients no longer seemed overwhelming—a little cumbersome, perhaps, but at least we could get what we needed.

  By the end of September I had sprayed and rolled on over two hundred gallons of paint. Even though a significant portion of that was washed from my body each day, most of it was where it was supposed to be. The lumber pile was gone, and we were down to the final touches. Bob was sanding and finishing the mahogany bar he and Jesse had built, and the Davis boys were getting ready to go on to a new job.

  We were all moving kitchen equipment around on a particularly hot day, and I had just returned from Christine’s with a load of cold drinks. “Aya, Lawd,” Clinton said, staring at the huge stove we were about to move. I knew what he meant was “Oh, my God.”

  “What’s the matter, Clinton?”

  “Aya, Lawd,” he exclaimed again.

  “Bubby”—that’s what he called Bob—“we ain’ got no gas.”

  “What do you mean, we don’t have any gas? Wasn’t there gas here before?”

  “Yeah, man, but they took the tanks.”

  “Well, what do we do?”

  “Jeremiah Gumbs.”

  “What?”

  “Go see Jerry Gumbs,” Clinton said.

  “Who’s Jerry Gumbs and where do I find him? Is he related to Joshua Gumbs?”

  “All them Gumbs related, Mel. He live near we.”

  “In Blowing Point?”

  “Yeah. Follow signs down to Rendezvous Bay Hotel and ask for Jerry. We need Jerry before we can hook up this stove.”

  Leaving behind instructions on how to arrange the new stainless-steel tables and various pieces of equipment, Bob and I drove to Blowing Point. Rounding the salt pond in West End, we spotted a white hearse—about a 1969 vintage—parked in front of Gee Wee’s Bakery. The driver’s-side door was open, and Ozzie was nonchalantly leaning on the door eating a sandwich. “Only in Anguilla,” Bob said as we drove by the hearse and waved. Ozzie was thrilled to see us and tooted his horn. “Only in Anguilla,” I repeated. “Do you think there’s a body in there?”

  Unlike Malliouhana and Cap Juluca, Rendezvous Bay Hotel had an old-world charm that took us back to another era. The word luxury did not come to mind as we studied the camplike main building, with a huge veranda stretching from one end to another. Worn rocking chairs made of wicker faced the sea, and a long picnic table was set for twelve with mismatched tableware. Across the driveway were two motel-like buildings that we guessed housed the rooms.

  At one end of the veranda a man was napping on a lounge chair, and as we walked closer we were certain he was the Anguillian Santa Claus. His bare belly rounded upward as he dozed, and his long, bushy white beard came halfway down his chest.

  Sensing we were hovering over him, he opened an eye. “May I help you?” he said in a deep, deep voice, not unlike Joshua’s. Baritones, apparently, ran in the Gumbs family.

  “Are you by any chance Jerry Gumbs?” Bob started.

  “I am.”

  “I’m Melinda and this is Bob. We’re opening a restaurant on Meads Bay, and we were told you’re the gas man.”

  “Well, you come to the right place. It’s hot today. Would you like something to drink?”

  Surprised at the hospitality, we took a minute to answer yes.

  “How about a Ting? Ting the best drink.”

  “What is it? Does it have alcohol?”

  “No, no, no. Ting is a grapefruit drink from St. Kitts. Come with me and we all have a Ting.”

  Jerry slowly got up from the lounge chair, slipped on a pair of well-worn Birkenstocks, and led us down the veranda into a kitchen. There were no doors on the way—everything just opened to the outside. The refrigerator was from the fifties, with rounded corners and a latch handle. Jerry pulled out three green bottles with a yellow label.

  “Let’s sit,” Jerry said.

  Bob and I followed him back to the lounge chair and sat down at a nearby card table. There was something curious about Jerry Gumbs, almost magical. We wanted to know him.

  The three of us drank our Tings and talked for hours. Bob and I were riveted by his tales. The son of a fisherman, Jerry was born in 1913, and in his youth he had been the only tailor in Anguilla. He made uniforms for the boys on the racing boats and suits for people from other islands. I conjured up images of men arriving in tattered clothes on small, handmade fishing boats, leaving a week later with a three-piece suit ready to propose marriage to a loved one at home.

  He opened Rendezvous Bay in 1959 as the first hotel in Anguilla, but before choosing to live a cloistered life in a cabin on the hotel property, Jerry Gumbs had been around. At age twenty-five he had emigrated to Brooklyn and studied at the Metropolitan Vocational High School, following which he won a scholarship to City College of New York. In 1941, after Pearl Harbor, Jerry joined the United States Army and was granted American citizenship. He studied accounting at the New York Academy of Business and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1951, he proudly told us, he built the first ranch house in Edison, New Jersey.

  And on August 14, 1967, Jeremiah Gumbs was the New York Times “Man in the News” as a leader of the Anguilla Revolution. This upheaval was what had allowed Anguilla to grow to what it is today. Up until then, the islanders were relatively poor and at the mercy of outsiders. The British Colony of Anguilla, St. Kitts, and Nevis was administered in St. Kitts, where the legislative council allowed one vote to Anguilla, two to Nevis, and seven to St. Kitts. Anguilla had little in the way of health and education facilities; there were no paved roads, no electricity, and no industry; and people were forced to leave the island to earn a living.

  Jerry, along with eleven other determined Anguillians, formed the vanguard of the Anguilla Revolution and won the island’s position as a British Dependent Territory, successfully separated from St. Kitts and Nevis. The newly acquired direct link to Britain gave birth to the development and progress of Anguilla.

  But Jerry had other stories to tell.

  “In 1957,” he said, “Castro’s people came to my house in New Jersey all the time.”

  “Castro? What on earth for?” I asked.

  “He wanted to buy Dog Island from me for a base. You know Dog Island?”

  Bob answered, “Isn’t that the flat island we can see from Meads Bay?”

  “That’s right,” Jerry said.
<
br />   “Are you saying Fidel Castro was trying to make Anguilla another Cuba?”

  “They offered me a penthouse at the Cuban embassy in New York in exchange for Dog Island.” He paused and continued with pride. “I never took a dollar from anyone. Not me.”

  Bob asked if he had ever actually met Castro.

  With a laugh, Jerry said, “We were both staying at the Theresa Hotel in New York, and he brought in a live chicken to cook at the hotel. He walked into the lobby with a live, squawking chicken. Yes, all of us at the hotel knew Castro.”

  We finally got around to asking Jerry about the gas again.

  “Oh, that no problem. I’ll have two full tanks delivered first thing in the morning. Is that fast enough?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “That’s great. Will you come eat at the restaurant? We’d love to have you as our guest.”

  “Sure. I’ll get down there sometime,” he said, accepting our thanks for the Tings. By the time we returned to work everyone had gone home, and we decided to do the same. Bob made us an omelet, and I did some paperwork. Before sleep, I wrote a letter home.

  Dear Nina,

  It’s after midnight and I’m exhausted. I’m so sorry I couldn’t talk when you called. There just aren’t enough hours in each day.

  Remember when we used to fantasize about living on an island? I had images of sitting on my patio under a palm tree, rum punch in my hand, looking out at the sea. Bob and Jesse would go for an early morning beach walk while I baked banana bread and arranged platters of fresh pineapple and mango for breakfast.

  You’d come visit with Michael and the kids and we’d go to the beach all day. Then for dinner, as the sun set over the water, we’d grill a giant red snapper after stuffing it with fresh herbs from the garden and lemons picked in our backyard.

  So far, life hasn’t been exactly like that dream. Customs is a major hassle, our house faces a gas station, and the pineapples come from Santo Domingo. Not to worry, though—Anguilla is turning into a different sort of dream. It’s as much about the people as the beach and the views. When you come down, you’ll meet Clinton, Lowell, Ozzie, and the others and you’ll see what I mean.