A Trip to the Beach (6 page)

The high point of St. Martin was lunch. Though the Dutch may be excellent merchants, there was no doubt in our minds that the French side was the place to eat. We drove back over the hill, then raced down the autobahn and back to Marigot.

Walking along the narrow streets, we wandered into a marina filled with sailboats and powerboats. Their gangplanks rested on the dock, affording their owners easy access to the dozens of restaurants and shops along the water. Menus were posted on easels, and we moved from one to the next, pausing at a small café called Tropicana. All twelve of its little cloth-covered tables were full, but the charming maître d' assured us that his best table in front was about to become vacant; if we could wait five minutes, he would get it ready. Just being around this tanned, gorgeous young Frenchman made us feel exotic and foreign. We turned and leaned on the railing to watch the boats. Our stomachs growled.

A bronzed boy with shoulder-length straw-colored hair climbed down from the pier into a rubber dinghy. No more than twelve or thirteen years old, he untied his little boat, started the engine, and sped out of the marina. As we watched, I thought how different Jesse's life of ski racing would have been had he grown up by the sea instead of in the mountains.

“I wonder if that boy goes to school or just lives on a boat,” I contemplated out loud.

“Madame, monsieur, s'il vous plaît,”
we heard from behind, and gratefully settled in at the promised front table.

We shared a salad of well-chilled baby greens topped with warm, slightly melted rounds of goat cheese; the contrast of temperatures elevated the word
salad
to a new level. The sun glistened on the white sailboats and the heat blazed on the sidewalk just beyond our table, but we remained cool under our little awning. As we mopped up the last crumbles of cheese and drizzles of vinaigrette, our host presented us each with a daily special. The roast chicken was an entire half a bird, brown, crispy, and smothered with shallots sautéed in red wine. A huge bowl of
pommes frites
was placed in the center of the table, and to this day, I believe Tropicana makes the best in the universe. Deep golden brown and slightly crispy on the outside, they have a center of velvety potato that tastes as earthy as the ground from which they were dug. They were perfect.

“I feel like we're living in heaven,” I replied. “Let's come for lunch once a week.”

“I hope we find some restaurant equipment at PDG,” Bob said, remembering we weren't on vacation. “We also need to buy a bed so we can move out of the hotel.” We shared a
tarte tatin
piping hot from the oven for dessert, the apples rich with fragrance, their perfume almost ethereal. Ready for a nap, we reluctantly went in search of PDG.

The directions were a little sketchy. We had a map of St. Martin, but Cole Bay is a maze of roads that wind their way between warehouses and auto dealerships, around boatyards and little houses. Agatha and Rosalind had tried to tell us how to find PDG, but Anguillians have their own terminology for direction. The word
above
means east and
below
means west. So our directions read something like this: “Drive below till you reach an upstairs building with motorcycles. Turn and go up to the bakery. Go above at the bakery, then below where the old tamarind tree was. PDG right there.”

We found the motorcycle building (a Harley-Davidson dealership with two stories—hence, an upstairs building) and turned to the right. That was easy because there was no left, but finding the bakery and a tree that was no longer there proved hopeless. Around and around, all roads led back to the motorcycles. Eventually we turned down a new street and triumphantly spotted PDG boldly marked on the side of a warehouse.

Jon, the owner and a transplant from Holland, was knowledgeable about outfitting a kitchen, but his inventory was too casual for what we had in mind. We examined his dinnerware selection, looking at sturdy dishes like those you might see in a diner and thick-rimmed wineglasses not at all suitable for the Lafite Rothschild Bob intended to serve. We looked at plastic ashtrays, blenders, bus tubs, and poultry shears. Most of the things we liked were in catalogs and needed to be special-ordered from the States.

“You want to check the flights to Miami or should I?” Bob said back in the car.

“I think that's a good idea,” I said. “It's risky to order everything from catalogs.”

We had spotted a furniture store called La Casa near the Harley-Davidson dealership and on the way back stopped to look at beds. I hated to spend the $1,000 on a mattress and box spring with no brand name, but we needed to check out of the hotel.

“How can we get it to Anguilla?” I asked the stout saleswoman.

“No problem,” she said. “We'll deliver it to the
Lady Odessa.
”

“What's the
Lady Odessa
?”Bob asked, curious.

“It's the freight boat that go to Anguilla. We deliver things to it all the time. It come over to Marigot every morning and waits at the dock until 'round two o'clock. Anything you need from St. Martin can be delivered to them. You does pay the cap'n once he reach Anguilla—it probably twenty-five or thirty dollars for a bed.”

“Is that the boat I've seen loaded with goats and cases of Heineken at the ferry dock?” Bob asked.

“That's the one,” she said.

We thanked her and drove back to Marigot, not looking forward to another ferry ride.

The trip back was nothing like
Tabitha.
We sat outside on the top deck of the
Deluxe,
and the glorious day caressed us from all around. Transported from St. Martin's lush, green mountains back to our own island paradise, we watched three Anguillian fishing boats race each other on either side of our ferry. The small, open boats were flying over the sea, each maneuvering from the top of one wave to the top of the next in an exhilarating splash of blue. The wind tore through our hair, and salt spray occasionally blew over the boat, sprinkling us and forming rainbows against the backdrop of St. Martin. As we approached Anguilla I could see the pristine white domes of Cap Juluca, the long white stretch of Rendezvous Bay, and the three West Indian cottage-style peaks of the ferry terminal. A thick grove of palm trees lined the beach to the right, and the water looked more green than blue as we neared the shore. I took in the beauty of the harbor and wondered why more people didn't live here. Why would anyone choose to live surrounded by concrete and traffic rather than fishing boats, water, and palm trees?

Back at the hotel, our island advisors were all behind the front desk. We reported the day's events and Bernice, Joshua's daughter, confirmed Miami as our next course of action.

“Dada brings in containers from there all the time,” she said. “Why you don't go call and ask him how to do it?”

While Bob made notes of Joshua's instructions, I sat on the balcony and summarized our position. We were thousands of miles from home, investing our life savings into reconstructing a building on someone else's land. We had not yet been granted our license and work permits from the government, and money would be tight. We were being impulsive, and I knew it. But Anguilla's allure was so seductive, we would do whatever it took to make it work.

Bob joined me on the balcony and recapped Joshua's conversation. “They load everything in Miami into tractor-trailer bodies, called containers, and stack them on a boat. We have to call Sheila Haskins, the Tropical Shipping agent, to make the arrangements. He also gave me prices on freight, and it's not inexpensive; a twenty-foot container from Miami to Anguilla is twenty-seven hundred dollars, and a forty-footer is forty-two hundred dollars.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I'll go to Vermont, pack up our things, and call the movers. Then I'll go to Miami, buy everything we need, and ship it down. You can stay here and keep pushing for our work permits and alien land-holding license.”

“You can't do all that yourself,” Bob said.

But I was determined. “Look, if we both go, I think everything here will stop. Out of sight, out of mind. Bennie means well, but he's a busy guy, and if somebody doesn't stay on top of this, I've got a feeling it won't go any further.”

“You think you can buy the lumber?” Bob was giving in a little.

“I'll just take your list into Home Depot—they'll price it all and deliver it. It's easy. Besides, they do have phones in Miami, you know. Also, what if you need to measure something else on the building or make a change to the plans? Wouldn't it be better if you were here?” I knew that would cinch it.

“Okay,” Bob conceded. “But if you can't do it alone, I'll come up to help.”

“We'll save on plane fare this way,” I added. “Also, if I get everything in Vermont shipped quickly, maybe you can unpack and organize the house before I get back.”

We stood on the balcony, holding on to each other, staring out at the sea for a very long time.

At the airport the next morning, I was bluntly reminded of my status here by a small sign:

DEPARTURE TAX

Belongers: $10.00 E.C.

Non-Belongers: $25.00 E.C.

I said goodbye to Bob after reviewing the lists a final time, and caught one last glimpse of him waving as the plane lumbered onto the runway. I stared out the window as we took off, picking out Joshua's house and then the sleepy harbor at Sandy Ground. Spotting the restaurant, I mashed my head against the window trying to see it for as long as possible. The color of the water looked like a painter's palette—blues and greens mingled with white where the waves broke over the reefs or hit the shore. When Anguilla disappeared from view, I pulled out a pad and pen and made a list of things to do in Vermont.

I packed our house in record time. After three eighteen-hour days, a forty-foot tractor-trailer loaded with everything we owned pulled out of our yard, destined to become a container in Miami. I stood for a minute in our empty living room and looked out at the view. Our spring green fields rolled away from the house to the edge of the woods. Across the valley, the historic white clock tower at Dartmouth College was nestled in the hills. In the distance, Mt. Ascutney rose majestically over the Connecticut River. I listed the house with a broker, said goodbye to several neighbors, and drove down our hill for the last time, trying not to look back.

With a generous bag of Chinese food, I drove to Betsy and Gary's house for a farewell feast. Over the years Betsy had become my food ally. Together we had baked pies, canned peaches, and put every restaurant within a hundred miles through its paces.

They were in rare form. Over a dinner of ginger chicken with string beans and soft-shell crab with black bean sauce, Gary bitched about taxes and Betsy, perpetually stuck in the sixties with her long black hair, rumpled sweatshirt, and fuzzy clogs, rolled her eyes. I was going to miss them. I caught myself staring out the window of their old farmhouse at the herd of Black Angus cattle and realized it was the end of an era.

“I may ask you to ship me one of those cows if I can't find a source for beef down there,” I said to Gary.

“No problem,” he said through a mouthful of noodles. “I'll deliver it.”

We parted tearfully, and I drove to my friend Pat's house to spend the night. It was almost midnight by the time I pulled into the yard, and Pat was waiting up for me. I had so much to tell her about Anguilla, but I was falling asleep. We would talk in the morning.

“Can you believe I'm doing this?” I said the next day as we drove south to Logan Airport.

“No, but you do a lot of things I can't believe.”

“I hope you can visit soon. It really is beautiful. Our house is a little odd, but there is an extra bedroom. I can't wait to show you the beaches. They're pure white powder, and there's never anyone on them. The ocean is the most amazing shade of turquoise, and the water is so warm, it's like swimming in a bathtub. There's this one beach that not too many people know about called Captain's Bay—it's way up at the eastern tip of the island, far away from any of the hotels. You drive on this bumpy dirt road, which is really more like a goat path, and when you get there, it's totally deserted—no houses, not a building in sight. Only this perfect beach. The waves are a little rougher, and on either side are these craggy rocks that look like craters on the moon. They go right down to the water. The waves crash against the rocks and roll up onto the beach, and you feel like you're a million miles from anywhere.”

We drove in silence for a while, and I remembered Bob was getting the bed that afternoon from St. Martin. I pictured him unloading it from the funny green freight boat, the
Lady Odessa.
I wondered how many goats were napping on my bed.

Chapter 3

The
Lady Odessa
was tied up alongside the dock in Blowing Point, and Bob spotted the bed leaning against a sizeable wall of Heineken boxes that had apparently been unloaded from the boat. Mac was standing among a group of taxi drivers who congregate, while waiting for a fare, in the shade of a loblolly tree just outside the ferry terminal.

“You goin' south?” Mac asked.

“No, I'm here to get that bed.” Bob pointed toward the dock. “Do I have to pay duty on a bed?”

Several of the taxi drivers chuckled, and one said, “You gotta pay duty on everything in Anguilla.”

“Customs is right there,” Mac said. “Go see those boys. They'll take your money.”

“Bed has to go in the warehouse,” said the customs officer.

“But I need to sleep on it tonight,” Bob explained. “I've checked out of my hotel. I thought I could just pay the duty and get the bed.”

“No, man,” the officer said sternly. “You gotta put the bed in the warehouse and do an entry. It'll take two or three days to process the paperwork.”

“Look.” Bob was trying to remain calm. “If I don't get the bed now, I'll have to sleep on the floor.”

“Give the man he bed,” said a voice from behind. It was Bennie, and after several minutes of playful arguing and idle threats, he convinced the customs officer to release the bed to Bob.

“Nex' time it go in the warehouse,” said the officer as he completed the necessary forms, rubber-stamping every page. Then he told Bob that the duty was $537.64.

“That's over half the cost of the bed,” Bob said, shocked at the amount.

“No, man. That E.C. dollars. You wanna pay in U.S., it two hundred dollars.”

Two hundred dollars was certainly better than $537.64, but it still seemed like a lot. Bob was nonetheless grateful for something to sleep on.

The late-afternoon sun reflected off the tin roof of the terminal, and Bob squinted as he walked down onto the dock toward the
Lady Odessa.
The boat's light green hull was nearly camouflaged by the aquamarine water, and it looked like something you might come across in the South China Sea or cruising up the Amazon. Its wooden bow scooped up high to a point, and a boxy cabin covered the rear of the boat. From under the deck, soggy cases of raw chicken parts were being passed up to a man who tossed them to another on the pier, where they were stacked in a dripping pile.

Bob tried to shake the word
salmonella
from his mind. The cartons of chicken sat defrosting in the sun, surrounded by a growing puddle of water, and were marked KEEP FROZEN.

He waited for someone to stop tossing chicken, but they ignored him. “I'm looking for the captain,” Bob said finally. “I'm here to pick up that bed.”

“Cap'n down in the hole.” The man stacking the chicken pointed to an opening in the deck. “Jus' wait till he finish countin' the chicken.”

So Bob sat down on the Heineken boxes and waited.
Island time,
he told himself. He looked at the ferryboats anchored in the harbor and tried to picture the dugout canoes used by the Arawak Indians who had lived here before the island became a British colony. He envisioned the boatloads of slaves brought in by the English settlers.

The
Lady Odessa
rose and fell with the waves, softly thudding against the rubber tires that cushioned it from the pier. As it rocked, the bowline creaked like a squeaky floorboard, tightening, falling slack, then tightening again. It was clear how Blowing Point got its name. The soft trade winds from the east funneled down the channel between St. Martin and Anguilla and blew steadily over the small protrusion of land. One of the ferryboats roared into the quiet harbor, leaving a frothy white trail behind. The
Lady Odessa
rocked wildly in the wake, and Bob watched as the waves calmed and turned into gentle ripples against the shore.

Observing a stream of passengers pour out of the ferry, Bob felt very much a part of Anguilla. Tourists would come and go, but he and I would stay. We were no longer visitors here, but locals.
I wonder where we'll go on vacation,
he thought.

A snorkeler swam past the boat and in toward shore, his air tube bobbing above the waves. Once in shallow water, he stood up, holding his bag proudly for Bob to see.

“Lobsters,” he said as Bob got up to take a closer look.

“How'd you catch them?”

“Caught 'em with my lasso.” He held up a stick about four feet long with a piece of wire tied in a loop at one end. “I dives down an' looks under the rocks where the lobsters live. Then I take my lasso like this.” He held his stick out as if to touch an imaginary lobster. “I slip the noose over his head and then . . . gotcha.” He yanked the stick back, demonstrating how it was done, and handed it to Bob for closer examination.

Bob admired the tool, paying particular attention to the wire at the end.

“How many lobsters do you have in there?” he asked.

“About twenty-five or so, and I shot this snapper with my spear gun.” The lobsters snapped their tails violently, making the bag shake. “Whatcha' doin' down here on the freight dock?”

“I'm trying to pick up a bed I bought in St. Martin. I can't seem to find out how much to pay the captain. He's busy unloading chicken.”

“Lemme see if I can help.” The man tossed his bag of lobsters onto the pier and pulled himself up out of the water. He was wearing a black wet suit and was built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, his narrow waist expanding upward into a huge chest and massive shoulders. His biceps were bigger than Bob's legs, and his thighs bulged with muscle, presumably from a life of swimming around the bottom of the sea.

He walked toward the
Lady Odessa,
leaving a wet trail behind him, and Bob followed, feeling very small.

“Yo, Rupert,” he yelled to the man unloading the chicken. “The man come for he bed. Stop now. How much it tis?”

“Fifty dollar,” came a reply from below as another case of chicken was handed up.

“Fifty too mucha money, man,” he said, jumping down onto the deck of the
Lady Odessa
and kneeling next to the opening to negotiate the freight bill. “The man say twenty-five.”

“Forty. Nuttin' less,” the captain answered.

“Come.” The snorkeler motioned for Bob to come aboard. “Pay the cap'n. Leff we go with the bed.”

Bob pulled out two twenties, offering them to the captain.

“No, man,” Bob's new friend said. “Forty E.C.”

Bob sheepishly put the money back in his wallet and pulled out two E.C. twenties (about $15 U.S.). He wondered how to determine if someone was quoting U.S. dollars or Eastern Caribbean dollars, and would be sure to ask in the future.

“Thanks a lot,” Bob said as the two went for the mattress and box spring. “My name's Bob.”

“I Shabby,” he replied, offering a strong, wet handshake.

Shabby picked up the box spring as if it were a feather, balanced it on his head, and carried it to the roof of the rented jeep. Bob dragged the mattress along behind, but before he got too far, Shabby returned, lifted it to his head, and carried it off effortlessly.

They tied the bed onto the roof, and Bob offered to give Shabby a ride home.

“You wanna learn how to dive for lobsters?” Shabby asked with a killer white smile.

“I'd love to,” said Bob.

“Meet me here tomorrow afternoon at one o'clock. I got extra snorkeling gear at home, and I'll make you a lasso tonight.” Bob dropped Shabby at his house and drove away, anxious to tell me he was going to a tropical rodeo the next day to lasso lobsters.

The following afternoon Shabby was sitting in the shade of the taxi driver tree with the usual group, and he sprang up as Bob approached. The two walked down to the beach where Shabby had put the snorkeling gear.

“Leff we go,” Shabby said, and disappeared under the waves, towing the nylon lobster bag by one foot and carrying his spear gun and lasso stick. Bob followed, armed with his new lasso, awed by the silent, colorful world he had just entered. On the way into deeper water, the sandy bottom gradually gave way to outcroppings of coral. Shabby motioned repeatedly for Bob to resurface so he could identify the innumerable kinds of fish. A bright blue and yellow angelfish, a luminous yellow grunt with blue stripes, red hind, needlefish, grouper, parrot fish, and oldwife. A large stingray drifted over Bob's head, and schools of fish scooted away in unison, darting in and out of the strange and exotic-looking coral. Patches of sea grass danced in the currents, and Shabby swam gracefully through it, gliding along the bottom like a big black fish. He was clearly at home under water and seemed able to hold his breath forever as he peered under every crevice in the reef. He would slip his lasso over a lobster, snap it out in a flurry of sand and bubbles, and add it to his bag.

A decent swimmer and a respectable athlete, Bob tried to keep up. Actually, the hardest part was keeping
down.
The incredible buoyancy of the salt water made him feel as though he had on a life jacket. He'd fight his way down toward Shabby but often would bounce back to the surface like a submerged beach ball.

After two hours Shabby had filled the lobster bag and Bob had caught one. He was exhausted, and as he stumbled out of the water back by the ferry dock his arms and legs felt like lead. Even the air felt heavy. He collapsed on the beach, wishing he'd put more lotion on the backs of his legs, which were beet red with sunburn.

“You got lobster for dinner tonight,” Shabby said, holding up Bob's catch.

“I'm not sure I have the energy to cook it.” Bob struggled to his feet.

On the way back Bob told Shabby about the restaurant.

“My brothers and me, we does construction work if you need help,” Shabby offered.

“We definitely need help,” Bob replied.

“Jus' leave me know and we be down there when you ready.”

The next morning, Cable & Wireless, a British version of AT&T, came to the house to hook up our phone. Anguilla, Bob learned from the installers, has only had telephones since 1971. They had obviously come a long way. Before leaving, they reviewed the available services: call waiting, call forwarding, three-way conference calling, speed dialing, ring back when free, calling name delivery, automatic busy callback, and instant recall. As soon as they drove away, Bob left a message at my hotel saying we might have to attend night school to learn how to run the phones.

My first day in Miami was a fiasco. I wasted five hours in traffic, witnessed a shooting, saw three accidents on I-95, and was rear-ended in a parking lot. Cranes and jackhammers made it impossible to maneuver the city streets, and that night I moved to Boca Raton. It was more civilized, and I quickly learned my way around.

My schedule became routine. I arrived at Home Depot by six-thirty each morning, and after spending several hours with the men in orange aprons, I zoomed up and down the highway, systematically checking off everything on my list: a day designing menu covers, three days working with a plant broker who gave me a crash course in tropical gardening, almost a week scrounging through acres of restaurant equipment (which included the search for Cora Lee's stove), and repeated visits to Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma.

Dining chairs were the biggest challenge. Finding fifty chairs in stock was difficult. Most required a special order, which would take twelve weeks, but I needed them immediately; on a tight budget, this appeared impossible. I covered every inch of South Florida and finally lucked out with forty-eight chairs someone had ordered and never picked up. They were a very tropical-looking white rattan, sturdy enough to take abuse, and best of all, 30 percent off.

Each night around eight I'd call Bob, who always had changes to make to the list, and then go to the local bookstore until midnight for study time. I spent hundreds of dollars on cookbooks for menu ideas.

Days turned into weeks, and at long last our permits were approved. Bob left a message on my voice mail at the hotel saying we were officially licensed aliens. Our furniture from Vermont had passed through Miami and was on its way to Anguilla. There was no turning back now.

Shabby and his three brothers began demolition with Bob. They arrived daily with sledgehammers and crowbars, gutting the bathrooms and ripping out walls. The old boat that had previously been the bar was removed easily, thanks to the termites and Shabby's bulk and strength. One kick with his size-fourteen shoe, and it was reduced to a pile of sawdust and rotten boards.

Clinton, the youngest of the brothers, had music in his blood—everything from reggae to gospel. He couldn't stop humming and singing, and his body had a way of swiveling as if made of rubber. Always eager to jump into any task, he would pay close attention to Bob's instructions and then dance his way through the project.

At four o'clock each day Clinton prepared his dilapidated minibus for the drive home. He inspected all four bald tires, adding air to at least one with a bicycle pump. His thirsty radiator usually needed some water, and a gentle push started the engine, since the battery often wouldn't. The little bus appeared to be an extension of Clinton and was blessed with a similar sense of rhythm as it danced and wobbled down the road.