by K C Ames
Dana didn’t know if this was a friendly visit, but she had Felicia pegged as all business. Making things worse, Dana hadn’t had her much-needed morning coffee because she didn’t have any in the house, and her body was punishing such an egregious oversight with a painful caffeine-deprived headache.
Dana had had enough. “I’m afraid I have little time this morning, my friend and I are expecting my lawyer to go over some paperwork and then we’re going out to breakfast,” Dana said.
“Oh, I won’t be long. I know Benny well. Very well,” she said with a reminiscent grin.
Okay, ew. Dana thought over the insinuation. It angered her, then she stopped herself from going there.
“Yes, he’s my attorney,” is all Dana could say in reply.
“As I mentioned in my email, this is a very hot property you have here…” There we go, Dana thought as Felicia droned on, “It’s such a lovely home in a very desirable part of town that would fetch a nice sum for you if you sell or keep it and rent it out. Short-term rentals are like a license to print money,” Felicia said.
“I’m not interested in selling or dealing with the headaches of being a landlord,” Dana said.
“Oh, I would take care of all that for you. The listing, collecting the money, home cleaning, dealing with the renters, I deal with it all, you just sit back in San Francisco and collect the money.”
“I appreciate you coming out here and all, and I’m sorry I didn’t have time to email you back, but I’m not going back to San Francisco, I’m moving into the house. I’m staying down here, full time,” Dana said.
Felicia’s face and body language went from friendly to mean girl in about two-and-a-half seconds.
“Oh. Well, that’s too bad,” Felicia said. Dana looked at her cross.
“Well, most expats don’t last the year, so when you’re ready to go back home, call me,” Banks said, handing Dana her business card. How rude, Dana thought, but she was too annoyed and caffeine deprived to say anything, so she nodded and accepted the business card as Felicia gave her a dismissive toodle-oo wave, then turned and jumped back into her Audi.
She peeled out, kicking gravel as Dana stood there eating dust.
“What a piece of work,” she said out loud to herself.
“Everything okay, Doña Dana?” Ramón asked in Spanish as he walked towards her. He was wearing his coveralls and had a machete dangling from his belt.
“Yes, she’s just a realtor,” Dana said, switching to Spanish.
“I know her. She was also after Don Blake to sell, and after he got sick, she would always try to get information from me about the property so she could sell or rent it,” Ramón said. He could not hide his dislike for Felicia Banks, and Dana was feeling the same way.
Just at that moment, Carmen came up to her with a white thermal coffee server and two empty cups.
“Do you drink coffee?” she asked with a smile.
“Carmen, I love you.”
Back inside the house, Dana poured herself a cup of coffee and splashed it with warm milk that Carmen had given her. She was just about to take a sip when Courtney walked in.
“Yes! Is that coffee? Gimme!” Courtney said all at once as she grabbed the other cup and greedily filled it. She took a deep breath of it and smiled. “Mmm, how did you score the good stuff?” she asked.
“From Carmen. She and Ramón are just sweethearts.”
“Sugar?” Courtney asked.
“They offered, but I said no. I forgot you like sugar with your coffee. Sorry,” Dana said.
“It’s okay, this will do, but we have to hit the grocery store,” she said. Courtney took a sip of coffee and asked, “So, who was the Lululemon Barbie out there?”
“A realtor. She’s been after this house for years.”
“You tell her that’s not happening?”
“I did.”
“I got that feeling from the way she peeled on out of here,” Courtney said, laughing.
“Well, she showed up unannounced before eight a.m. and before I had coffee. It could have gotten a lot uglier than that.”
"Question for you. I heard Ramón calling you Donna Dana. And he called Benny Don Benny. What’s up with that?"
“It’s old school formality. It's like saying mister or madam. And remember in The Godfather? Don Corleone. It's a sign of respect that's very common in Latin America,” Dana explained.
“Ah, I was wondering about that.”
“And there’s a tilde over the N, so it’s Doña, not Donna for females,” Dana said, laughing.
“Okay, Doña Dana.” She bobbed a curtsy to her.
They were just finishing their coffee when the front door buzzer went off again, and this time Dana pressed the intercom button.
“Yes,” she said, holding the button down and speaking into it. She released the button and a man’s voice crackled over the radio.
“Good morning, it’s Benny.”
“Come on in,” Dana said, pressing the button to open the gate.
“Come on in,” Courtney repeated teasingly in a sexy voice.
“Zip it, you.”
Seven
Dana, Benny, and Courtney made their way down the footpath towards town.
On their way, Benny stopped and pointed at several black howler monkeys high on a tree. Dana looked up at them. They were big and moved slowly to gawk back at them. Some of them hung from branches from their long tails. They began to grunt and howl loudly.
“So you’re the buggers that kept me awake most of the night,” Courtney said, glaring at her newly minted enemies of sleep.
“Oh, but they’re so cute,” Dana said.
“Yes, God made them cute so we don’t wring their necks,” Courtney replied.
The smallest monkey of the group flung forward on a branch as if to inspect the three weird-looking humans looking back at them. The sudden movement startled Dana and Courtney, and the monkey seemed to enjoy that very much, as it started hooting and howling and shaking from the edge of the tree’s branch.
“Oh, that’s him, the little guy is the loudest one!” Courtney said.
The little creature seemed to smile and darted back up the tree to join the others.
“I think that one there has a Napoleon complex,” Dana said.
“Yeah, keep it up, Napoleon, and I will exile you to the island of Elba too,” Courtney yelled up at the tree as they laughed and continued on their way into town.
As they reached the edge of town, they saw a large iguana that was lying out on a rock to catch a blast of the morning sun.
“He looks like Godzilla,” Courtney said as she dug out her iPhone and took a picture.
“Remind me to bring back a banana. Iguanas love to munch on fruit,” Benny said.
“Really? I thought they ate bugs, like a frog,” Dana said.
“Iguanas are not meat eaters, they’re herbivorous. They mostly eat plants. But they like fruits, as well.”
“Well, I’ll be, I didn’t realize Godzilla over there was a vegetarian,” Courtney said.
“They just look scary, but they’re little sweethearts,” Benny said.
They were just about to spill out onto Main Street when Dana told Benny about Felicia’s visit earlier that morning.
“She’s very good at her job, but she appears way too pushy, which can be good if she’s working on your behalf, trying to sell or rent your property, but very annoying when you’re on the other side of that transaction,” Benny explained. “And when she’s zeroed in onto something, hide your feet, because she’ll step all over your toes to get what she wants.”
“She mentioned that she knew you well,” Dana said.
“It’s a small community here. We all know each other well.”
“She said she knew you very well, with a hard emphasis on the very,” Dana said. She smiled at watching him blush.
“Oh, that…We dated a few times. But that was well over a year ago. It didn’t work out.”
“Sorry,
I didn’t mean to pry,” Dana said, feeling guilty about snooping into his personal life.
“I’m not sorry, so spill the beans, Benny. What happened there? Who ended it?” Courtney chimed in.
“Courtney!” Dana said.
“What? We’re all adults,” Courtney replied.
Benny laughed and said, “It’s okay. I ended it, but we really didn’t have a big relationship. We dated for about a month. I didn’t see it blossoming into anything serious, and with me spending most of my time in San José, it just made little sense to continue dating. She agreed. So nothing too juicy about it, sorry.”
The trio made their way down the footpath until they spilled out to an unpaved road which connected to the town’s Main Street, which was an inside joke with the locals since it was the only street through town.
“Only Street,” Benny said, chuckling. He explained that was the name many of the locals used to mock the Ark Row merchants’ attempt to give tourists a Main Street USA vibe to Mariposa Beach’s only thoroughfare.
They walked to the Qué Vista Restaurant. Qué Vista was Spanish for what a view, and the name was spot-on. The restaurant was on the beach with its tables on a wooden deck right on the sand with a direct view of the water.
They enjoyed their breakfast and drank more coffee with the sounds of the waves crashing onto the shore. Afterwards, Benny said, “I hate to switch gears from such a lovely morning, but we need to talk about some legal matters.”
“The dreaded L-word,” Dana said jokingly.
“There have been updates we need to discuss, so why don’t we walk back to Casa Verde? I have some documents in my truck, and we’ll sit down and have a chat.”
“Okay, okay,” Dana said, smiling.
The three of them were walking down Main Street by Ark Row as they were heading back to the footpath when a passing car slammed on the brakes right as it drove past them.
The car’s sudden stop was jarring, so all three of them were looking at the darkly tinted windows of the vehicle as it began to back up towards them.
“Dana,” a man’s voice called out from inside the car. Hearing her name startled her, since she had only met a few people in the day since she arrived.
Dana looked down into the passenger window which was being rolled down. She was wondering who was inside, then, when she saw who it was, she felt like she would deposit her breakfast right there on Main Street.
Glaring back at her was Skylar Kirkpatrick, wife of Dana’s cousin, Roy Kirkpatrick, the only son of her Uncle Blake.
Roy was behind the wheel. Unlike Skylar, he seemed more sad than mad at seeing Dana. But the negative energy coming from the car was palpable for Dana as she stood up stiffly and glanced over at Courtney and Benny.
“It’s my cousin and his wife.”
“Hey, Dana, I heard you were coming to town,” Roy said. He got out of the car and came around to where Dana was standing. Skylar stayed in the car with a scowl on her face as she checked her fingernails.
“Hi, Roy,” Dana said unenthusiastically.
Roy was ten years older than Dana. He had always been plump and stocky. Even though their fathers didn’t get along, she and Roy had been close as kids, despite the age difference.
But as they became adults, they began to see less and less of each other. It didn’t help that he became estranged from not just his father, but the whole family, and that he had moved to another state.
She hadn’t seen him in person in over ten years. Their only interactions over the years had been on Facebook, where they exchanged a few likes here and there, but even that felt awkward for Dana.
He smiled at her and he seemed embarrassed, since they were involved in a legal dispute over Casa Verde.
There was no contrition or hint of regret from his wife, Skylar. She was abrasive and nasty, and since they became entangled in a legal dispute over the Casa Verde property, Skylar had gone to Defcon 2, and Defcon 1 seemed imminent to Dana.
Dana felt weird; after not seeing Roy in person for so long, to run into him in tiny Mariposa Beach was surreal.
“What are you doing here, Roy?” Dana asked innocently. She didn’t mean to come off defensive or confrontational, but Skylar jumped out of the car and charged towards her like a road-raging fool. She might as well have told Roy to get lost.
“Oh, that’s rich, Dana. No, no, no! You don’t get to ask him that question. We’re the ones who should ask you, what are you doing here?” She stood there with both hands on her hips.
Dana sighed. It was a silly argument to get into.
“I meant nothing by it, I was just surprised to run into you guys, that’s all.”
“You have some nerve. That’s our house you moved into…” Skylar shoved her thumb into her chest as if to drive home the point further, and then continued getting louder. “You’re squatting in our house. It doesn’t belong to you,” Skylar barked as loud as the howler monkeys.
Roy looked down at the ground, looking for dirt to kick in an aw-shucks way.
Skylar had always run roughshod over him.
Benny and Courtney both stepped forward towards Dana so they were standing side-by-side in protective mode.
“I’m not getting into that with you again, Skylar. Uncle Blake left me that property. I’m sorry, but that was his decision. It was in black and white in his will,” Dana reminded her.
“Yeah, well, it’s not over, squatter, not by a long shot.”
“It’s not fair, Dana, he was my father,” Roy said, sounding more hurt than angry.
"Roy—" Dana tried to talk to her cousin, but Skylar interrupted.
“See you in court, squatter,” she said.
“Okay, that’s enough, we will see you in court,” Benny interjected.
“Sorry, Dana, but I was his only son. It’s not right,” Roy said, before looking back at the ground looking for that dirt to kick.
“Don’t apologize to her, dummy!” Skylar screeched. “Come on, Roy, lets go, now.” She got back into the car, slamming the door shut so hard that Dana expected it to fall off its hinges.
Roy was making his way back around the car to the driver's side, but he must have been too slow for Skylar, who yelled out, “Can you move any slower? Come on, today. I swear you move slower than a sloth. It’s like one hundred degrees out here, I need the AC turned on now!”
Roy started the car, and as he drove away, Dana could still hear Skylar berating him. “I swear, you’re as dumb as a bag of hair.” That was the last thing she heard her say before the car drove off.
“Don’t you just love family reunions?” Dana asked, tears welling in her eyes.
“Wow. She’s a peach, isn’t she?” Courtney replied. During the whole confrontation, she stood there dumbfounded, and in a rare instance for her, speechless.
Dana turned to Benny. “She said she would see me in court. I guess that’s what we were going to discuss when we got back to Casa Verde?”
Benny blushed and cleared his throat. “Yes, that’s the legal matter that I have been meaning to talk to you about. I didn’t know they were in town. I would have discussed this with you right away if I knew that. I’m really sorry about that.”
“It’s okay. I’ll find out soon enough what’s going on.”
Dana sighed as she looked up towards the Ark Row shops, where a small crowd of onlookers had gathered to see what was going on with the commotion.
Dana could feel their judging eyes upon her after witnessing her family dysfunction on full display on Main Street.
Way to make a great first impression in front of your new neighbors, Dana thought, feeling embarrassed.
“Well, Benny, let's get back home so you can tell me what all that was about.”
Eight
Back at Casa Verde, Dana, Benny, and Courtney sat on stools around the kitchen’s center island. It had been over twenty minutes after her confrontation with Skylar and Roy, but it felt like twenty seconds to her.
Benny looked at her w
ith sympathetic eyes and a thin smile.
“Roy is contesting the will,” he said.
“I know, but that was all taken care of in San Francisco. It took months, but the judge ruled in my favor,” Dana said.
“Yes, but that was in the States. Roy’s hired an attorney in Costa Rica and he’s contesting the will here,” Benny explained.
“He can do that?” Courtney asked.
“Yes. We're dealing with two separate jurisdictions, so even though the will was written in California and your uncle was still a U.S. citizen, the property is on Costa Rican soil. I was hoping the Costa Rican court would squash it because of the San Francisco ruling, but the judge agreed that since the property is in this country and that your uncle had been a legal resident of Costa Rica for over twenty years, that it was their right to also contest the will here,” Benny explained.
Dana took in the information quietly. The last thing she wanted to do was get immersed in yet another legal dispute about Casa Verde. But she had that Kirkpatrick stubbornness in her.
“I beat Roy in California, I can beat him here,” she said, trying to sound resolute. As soon as she said that, she began to feel less confident about it. “Right?” she asked Benny.
Benny smiled. “Roy’s American lawyers tried to poke holes into your uncle’s will, but thankfully for you and in honor of your uncle’s final wishes, the will was excellently drafted. It's as ironclad as they come. The fact that it was upheld and the courts in California ruled in your favor will help us here in the long run. So I like our chances, but one can never be one hundred percent certain when it comes to the legal system,” Benny said.
“How long will all this take?” Dana asked.
“Like all legal processes, it’s slow.”
Dana sighed loudly.
“I’m curious,” Benny said, tapping his fingers on the countertop, “how can Roy afford all these legal fees? I looked at the legal documents filed in the California courts, and they were in a financial pickle when they contested the will. Neither him nor Skylar had high-paying jobs. Yet, they had decent lawyers up there, and they just hired one of the best lawyers in Costa Rica to handle their case here.”
