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Michael rounded the corner of the house as Francisco spoke.
“If you're so honest then prove it,” he said.
Francisco looked puzzled.
“Fix our garden.”
A bubbly sigh escaped Francisco's puffy lips.
“Okay,” he said, dangerously close to tears. “I fix.”
☼ ☼ ☼
We never saw him again.
We called his cell phone several times but he didn't pick up. We left messages but he
didn't return them. We considered sending carrier pigeons but figured he'd just shoot them.
So we gave up.
Several thousand bucks down the drain, and our garden looked worse than it had before
we started. Not quite the triumph we'd hoped for.
But it was time to move on.
Standing on the balcony early one morning, a couple of days before our return to D.C.,
I began formulating a new plan. First order of business: we desperately needed some sort
of privacy screen between our property and the house below.
Francisco's bougainvillea hedge was supposed to have served this purpose, but frankly
the desiccated bonsai shrubs he'd ended up planting wouldn't have shielded an ant colony
from a band of leprechauns.
I tried to shift my brain into creative mode, but it wasn't cooperating. I went inside and
poured myself a jolt of caffeine. Okay, now focus. How about a trellis fence?
Hey, not bad. I've always liked trellis. It's attractive and inexpensive and you can easily
train vines to grow up around and over it. And a trellis fence would provide just enough
privacy between our properties without seeming unfriendly.
To create an even more informal effect, how about two sections, I asked myself, one set
back slightly from the other? Now I was cooking.
When Michael joined me on the balcony an hour later I'd already made a rough sketch
of the fence, which I later translated into a more detailed drawing. Chances were we
wouldn't be on Vieques when the fence was built, so I wanted to be as specific as possible
about what we wanted.
Michael seemed to like my idea. Now all we had to do was find someone to build it.
In the meantime, to satisfy our more immediate horticultural urges, we decided to re-
plant the sections of the driveway area Francisco had decimated.
Off we went to the nursery, and twenty-four hours later the garden looked almost as
good as new.
Francisco was already a distant memory.
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