Eureka! - The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House - page 33

Next, I tried a realtor named Clara we'd heard about from a friend of a friend. She
answered the phone herself.
“I'd be happy to show you around,” she said politely. “I'll see you next Wednesday.”
Encouraging, but we weren't quite ready to put all of our house-hunting eggs in one
basket.
For giggles we decided to try Melinda again. Yes, I know she'd stood us up before but
we needed at least one more option and frankly I was out of ideas.
“ Sí , I remember,” said her assistant. “The men who wasn't here when Melinda come.”
I pondered this minor masterpiece of revisionist history.
“Right, that's us. Can we make an appointment for next Wednesday at two?”
“Okay,” she said “I tell her.”
“Two sharp?”
A long silence, punctuated by chewing sounds. Finally, “ ¿Qué? ”
Oh, never mind.
Game on.
☼ ☼ ☼
Clara's office was on Route 997, about halfway between Isabel and Esperanza. She was
working with another set of clients when we walked in the following week. And when I
say working with I don't mean showing them brochures. She was teaching a yoga class.
She looked up from her gyrations and flashed us a brilliant smile.
“Yoga or real estate?”
We couldn't help laughing.
“How about both?”
A half-hour later she dismissed her limbered-up acolytes and loaded us into her un-air
conditioned Volvo.
“I've chosen three properties to show you. All of them are pretty perfect for you guys,
I think.”
The first was a mildew-infested hovel with no view of anything except the hovel next
door. In an excess of politeness we let her show us around, picking our way gingerly
through the stuffy, over-furnished rooms.
“You like it?” she asked as we climbed over the owner's dirt-smeared clothes piled on
the kitchen floor. “It's a good buy.”
“It isn't quite what we had in mind,” I said quickly, thinking that what I really had in
mind was a bar of lye soap, a wire brush, and a scalding shower.
The next place was marginally better. It was trim and clean and even boasted an ocean
view. Unfortunately, it also featured a panoramic view of a house trailer standing in the
middle of the front yard.
“What's that?” I asked.