Life and Other Near-Death Experiences(24)

I peered down at my filthy T-shirt and frowned. “Is that my only option?”

“Afraid so.”

“Okay.” I was reaching for my phone to find the address to the beach house when it began to ring. Blech. “Cripes, Tom,” I muttered.

“Tom’s your boyfriend?” Shiloh asked.

I flushed, embarrassed that I’d been overheard. “Um, no. He’s not.” I caught his eye, but this time, I looked away quickly. Because this guy—the one who almost just killed me? He was very attractive—if you liked the sinewy, weathered type. And the expression on my face just informed him that I did.

It was a good thing I’d never see him again.





THIRTEEN


“This your first time in Vieques?” the police officer asked.

“How can you tell?” I shouted, my head half out the window, like a dog coming home after a week at the kennel. Vieques was verdant, beautiful, and largely untouched by humans. There were cinderblock houses scattered among the rolling hills and dotting the roads, and we passed the occasional grocer and restaurant. On the whole, though, it was miles of solitude hedged by sea. Heaven.

“Good luck,” the officer said when he dropped me off at the car rental place.

“Gracias!” I responded.

I rented a Jeep because I’d read that a vehicle with four-wheel drive and the ability to withstand a pothole or thirty was the only way to get around here. I almost never drove; Tom liked to, so I let him and took public transportation or a cab when I was on my own. Now I realized I’d done myself a terrible disservice. As I puttered along, the other drivers whizzed by at what seemed to be eighty miles an hour. Nerves got the better of me, and my hands began to shake again. With no navigator and only a paper map for reference, I made one wrong turn after another. I was about to drive myself into a ditch and call it a day when I spotted the street sign.

It was hand-painted on a panel of wood, sort of like the type people like to post in front of their vacation homes—Retirement Road; Had Her Way. This sign read Calle Rosa. It was a long dirt path canopied by trees and vines. Half a mile down, I located the driveway and turned in. Then I saw it in the distance: the stretch of beach I’d been waiting for.

I parked the Jeep at the foot of the driveway and climbed out, not bothering to grab my bags. My feet crunched on the gravel as I strode toward the pale pink stucco house where I’d be staying.

“Took you long enough.”

I jumped as an older woman emerged from behind one of the large fronded palms in front of the house.

Her laugh was broken glass on concrete. “I’m kee-ding! You’re Libby, no?”

“Yes,” I said, extending my hand. “You’re Milagros?”

Her skin was soft and crepey beneath my fingers. “Ay, gringa,” she trilled. “Mee-lah-grohs.”

“Milagros,” I corrected myself, trying not to frown at the woman who would be my landlady for the next month.

She gave me a toothy smile. “Muy bien! You’ll be just fine, mija. Come on,” she said, waving for me to follow her farther down the drive.

“So that’s not where I’m staying?” I said, pointing at the house.

“No. That’s mi casa.” She led me to the back of her house and down a winding path, until we hit a similar but markedly smaller pink house (which, judging from the crumbling stucco and the wavy metal roof, could more accurately be described as a fancy shack). “This,” she said, unlocking the wrought iron door, “is yours.” She handed the key to me and motioned for me to step in.

There was a small living room, a tiny bedroom, and an eat-in kitchen. But off the back of the kitchen, a large glass-walled porch opened directly onto the beach. It was the entire reason I’d chosen this property, and unlike the rest of the house, it looked exactly as the online photos depicted it.

Milagros crossed her arms and regarded me. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s perfect.”

She beamed. “Good. Because you already paid for it, and I don’t do refunds.”

I inquired about the bathroom, which I hadn’t seen yet, and she directed me to a small door next to the bedroom. I looked in and tried not to gasp. It was a glorified broom closet with a sink and a toilet better suited for a preschool.

“Um . . .”

“No bath,” Milagros said.

I sighed, catching an unfortunate whiff of eau de B.O. on the inhale. I could always bathe in the sea.

Milagros hooted. “You are too easy, Libby!” she said, slapping her thigh. “The shower’s the best part. Follow me.”

She unlocked a door off the end of the kitchen, which led to a garden surrounded by a stucco wall as high as the house itself. Though tiny, the garden was filled with birds of paradise, orchids, and dozens of other tropical plants I’d never seen before. At the end nearest to the beach, there was a cement stall. I stepped inside to find an expansive outdoor shower lined with vivid blue tiles and—just in case I needed to be reminded that I was newly single—two enormous shower heads.

“Is it safe?” I asked Milagros.

She pursed her lips. “Nothing in this world is safe, mija. But it would take a lot of effort for someone to get over the wall and into this garden. I’ve lived alone for forty-one years now. When you’re a single woman, you’ve got to use your head. Hell,” she said with that jangled laugh of hers, “when you’re any kind of woman, you’ve got to use your head. Don’t leave your purse on the back of your chair, don’t wear your jewelry to the beach, and don’t flash your money around.” She examined me. “You okay?”