Travel Reference
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Clara laughed good-naturedly.
“That's where the owner lives now. He wants to stay close by.”
“So, he's planning to continue living on the property after he sells it?” Michael asked.
“Right,” said Clara. “This is a pretty common thing in Puerto Rico. He was born in this
house, and although his financial situation is forcing him to sell it, he doesn't want to leave
the property.”
After a quick tour of Clara's third choice (“see, it has a taco stand right out front”), I
decided to take her aside for a one-on-one.
“I'm afraid these houses aren't really what we're looking for.”
She stared at me uncomprehendingly.
“No?”
“Not really.”
Her tone turned on a dime from incredulous to vaguely sinister.
“Not good enough for you?”
“Exactly.”
On the way back to her office she offered us free yoga classes.
We declined.
☼ ☼ ☼
Melinda was waiting for us later that day.
Well, not exactly waiting, not the way a realtor typically waits for a client (i.e., decked
out in a nice outfit, clipboard in hand, unctuous smile plastered across her face).
In fact, she was repairing a flat on her truck.
But at least she was there.
And she seemed marginally pleased to see us. Okay, let's not get carried away, but she
wasn't openly hostile either.
She told us she had moved to Vieques in 1990 from Steamboat Springs, Colorado,
where she'd been a “professional bartender and drunk,” as she put it. Now she sold houses,
was teetotal and hadn't had sex in fourteen years. The phrase too much information beat
like a drum across my brain as she rattled on. Having provided this rather exhaustive auto-
biography, Melinda told us that her colleague Armando was going to show us around today.
Huh?
Ten minutes later Armando arrived at the office. A tall green-eyed stunner, he actually
seemed like a salesman. In other words, he gave every indication that he'd enjoy shifting
some cash out of our bank account into his. We could hardly believe it.
And though he was a native Puerto Rican, his English was nearly perfect.
After a few preliminaries, he whisked us off in his SUV to Villa Borinquen, the site
of our first rental eighteen months earlier. The views were even more spectacular than we
remembered.
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