A Trip to the Beach

by Melinda Blanchard

  Picturing me up to my elbows in potting soil, surrounded by flowers, Bob was overwhelmed by the devastation, but the worst was yet to come. When he continued down the path, he saw that the entire dining room was indeed missing.

  Bob stared at the tile floor where the building had been, and his teary eyes slowly scanned the destruction. No roof. No walls. No tall teal shutters. He remembered pushing open the shutters that first night of business, opening the dining room to the lush gardens with beach and sea beyond. The only part of the room still standing was a plywood-covered structure where the glass windows of the wine cellar had been. He realized that the plywood was actually covering the glass doors and saw that there was no roof over them.

  “Me, Shabby, an’ Lowell board that up before the storm,” Clinton said. “Jus’ in case.”

  “Clinton,” Bob said, “you saved the wine cellar! That was brilliant. Is the wine still in there?”

  “Yeah, man. She all there. So, wha’ we gonna do?” Clinton asked.

  “You must have more cleaning up to do at home,” Bob said. “Why don’t you go do that today, and tomorrow be here first thing in the morning with your tools and as many of your brothers as you can round up? I’ll see if I can find the rest of the staff, and we’ll start to clean this mess. We’ve got to get rebuilt so we can open for the season.”

  “So we ain’ closin’?” Clinton asked.

  “Closing?” Bob asked. “No, we’re not closing. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Drop me off at home so that I can get the truck and see what damage I have there. What about the phones?”

  “Cable an’ Wireless got one line goin’, but you gotta go into town an’ use it in their office,” Clinton replied. “They gonna have some more soon.”

  As they drove away Bob looked back at the beach and tried to picture what everything had looked like only three days before. The sky was blue now, and a gentle trade wind had returned from the east. A goat stood on the side of the road, munching a bare branch and watching the minibus drive by. Finding food was going to be a challenge for the animals until some greenery returned. Earning a living was going to be a challenge until the tourists returned.

  Chapter 16

  During the two weeks that followed the storm, I was back in Florida at Home Depot. Bob and Clinton made a list of the materials we needed to rebuild, and we kept in touch through Bob’s nightly calls from the Cable & Wireless office. I rushed around, repeating what I had done only a year before—the same fabric for the chairs, the same printer for the menus, the same glasses and dishes and silver. It felt odd to be doing it again so soon.

  After arranging to have our containers shipped to Anguilla, I filled three suitcases with batteries and flashlights and called American Airlines to get on the next flight back. But getting home was not to be as easy as that.

  American Eagle was not flying any passengers into Anguilla. They were only bringing in emergency supplies for an undetermined period of time and told me I’d have to go through St. Martin. Looting on St. Martin, however, had forced the Dutch and French military to put the island under martial law. A six o’clock curfew was in effect, and airlines were told they could bring in only residents of the island. They didn’t want journalists or tourists seeing the island in such a state. What they hadn’t addressed was how residents from the surrounding islands were to get home; Anguilla, St. Barts, Saba, and St. Eustatius were now cut off from air service. After two days of negotiating with the governor of St. Martin, several phone calls to the chief minister in Anguilla, and dozens of conversations with supervisors at American Airlines, I finally boarded a flight from Miami to St. Martin. It was made very clear, though, that I could not remain there for any time at all. I would not even be permitted to go inside the terminal without an escort from immigration. The ferries were still not running, and I needed a private pilot to meet me on the runway, escort me through immigration, and fly me directly to Anguilla.

  My flight down was eerie. The giant Airbus had only a few scattered passengers and I kept to myself. It was my first chance since the storm to prepare myself for what I might see when I arrived. Bob had described the damage in detail, but I knew seeing it with my own eyes would still be a shock.

  I wasn’t looking forward to the estimated two months without electricity, and not knowing when Cap Juluca would reopen was scary as well. If the hotel didn’t finish its repairs before the season, there wouldn’t be much of a season. But Malliouhana was working around the clock and had set an opening date of November 17, and two new hotels were also opening—Sonesta was planning to open by Christmas, and Cuisinart Resort and Spa was under construction. They were bound to help the economy, I hoped.

  Bob arranged to fly over from Anguilla with Ben Franklin, the pilot who brought in our restaurant food from St. Martin. My plane was scheduled to land at three, and at two-thirty Ben and Bob were on the tarmac in Anguilla, ready to go. They taxied onto the runway, prepared to take off, and stopped. Ben was arguing with someone through his headset, but Bob couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Exasperated, Ben turned the plane around and taxied back to the terminal.

  “What’s going on?” Bob asked, as Ben shut off the engine.

  “They got too mucha style over there,” Ben muttered. He climbed out of the plane and instructed Bob to stay put. “I’m going up to the tower to talk to St. Martin,” he said.

  Bob was sweltering as he sat in the copilot’s seat of the little plane. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he unfastened his shoulder harness, and stepped out onto the tarmac to wait for Ben. It was two-forty-five, and he was getting nervous. If they weren’t there to pick me up, the St. Martin officials would send me right back to Miami. He scanned the sky anxiously, looking for my flight.

  Ten minutes later Ben came out of the tower and sauntered back to his plane. “Leff we go,” he said as he started up the engine.

  “What happened?” Bob asked.

  “The phones aren’t working yet in St. Martin,” Ben explained. “One of the guys in the tower over there has a brother in Tortola, and he hasn’t heard from him since the storm. He wouldn’t give clearance to land until I called his brother from the tower here to say that he’s okay. Too mucha style.”

  The flight took five minutes, and then Ben filled out paperwork in the St. Martin immigration office. As I stepped off my plane an immigration officer greeted the small group of passengers and escorted us inside. Just then Ben and Bob rounded the corner. I was so happy to see Bob that I didn’t want to let go of him, but Ben said immigration couldn’t wait for hugs. He rushed me over to find my luggage and have my passport stamped, and then the three of us ran back out to Ben’s plane.

  I pressed my head against the scratched window, and from the air, Anguilla looked pretty much the same: flat and scrubby, but browner than usual, since there wasn’t a single leaf left on any tree. It looked like the aftermath of a forest fire. The water, however, was still a magnificent blue-green, and I could see the coral reefs as we got closer to shore. The outrageous beauty of Anguilla’s coastline hadn’t changed. The immigration officer in Anguilla smiled as I entered the terminal. “Good afternoon,” she said. “Welcome home.”

  On the way to our apartment, I could hear the sporadic hum of engines as we passed those lucky enough to have generators. We drove by a group of shirtless men gathered around an Anglec truck, and several backhoes nearby were erecting new telephone poles.

  “That’s the British navy,” Bob explained. “They’ve sent in two hundred troops to help restore the power. It’s still going to take about six more weeks.”

  Rugs were draped over porch railings to dry in the sun. An old man was getting a haircut on his front steps, and a herd of goats meandered into the road in front of us, forcing us to stop and wait until they had crossed. “Island time,” I said out loud. “Things don’t really change.”

  But one thing, sadly, had changed. From the top of South Hill I looked out at the tranquil bay where Sandy Island was suppose
d to be. It was gone. Its landmark tuft of palm trees was nowhere to be seen, and the little white island was completely under water.

  “Everybody’s saying that Sandy Island will come back,” Bob reassured me.

  “We’re really lucky nobody got hurt here,” he went on. “I’ve heard stories of several close calls. A lady in Sandy Ground retreated into a back room of her house when the storm chewed away at the front walls. She moved furniture against the doors and the wind just blew it across the room, pushing her back farther and farther. Another woman in Island Harbor was huddled in a closet for over twenty-four hours. All of her windows were blown out, and it was the only place she could find to hide.”

  I could see people everywhere putting their lives back together. Men were cleaning up fallen trees, some with chain saws, most with machetes. Others were still pulling off the plywood that had been nailed over windows before the storm. As we pulled into Christine’s for a cold drink, there was a domino game in full swing under the big tamarind tree in her yard. The tree looked naked without its leaves.

  Inside, Christine was her same jolly self. “Mrs. Blanchard, it is so good to see you, but I’m sorry to hear about your restaurant.” She came out from behind the counter and we squeezed each other hard.

  “At least nobody in Anguilla was hurt,” I said. “Our restaurant can be replaced.”

  Lowell’s mother was hanging laundry on the line as we drove past her house. “All right, all right,” she said, waving and smiling.

  “Okay, okay,” we answered together.

  We drove over the top of the hill, and Long Bay appeared below us. Overlooking the sea, our apartment was as spectacular as I remembered. Bob had cleaned it up pretty well, though it still smelled damp and all the furniture legs were discolored from sitting in water.

  I opened the door to our balcony and stepped onto the shady terra-cotta floor. It was cool and smooth under my bare feet, and I stared at the waves on the beach below. Bob unloaded my luggage and came out to join me.

  “Living here makes up for a lot of the bad stuff,” he said. “Think how awful it would be if we still lived by the gas station.”

  “How have you been taking showers?” I asked, somewhat afraid of the answer.

  “I have a surprise for you.” He smiled. “Follow me.”

  We went back to the driveway and up the steps to the yard. Bob lifted a blue plastic tarp, and there was a brand-new Honda generator, just like the one at the restaurant. He turned the key, pulled the start rope, and it roared into life.

  “It runs the whole apartment,” Bob said proudly. “The hot-water heater, the pump, the lights—everything. I got it in St. Martin. The government issued a moratorium on duty for generators because of the storm. So we also saved twenty-five percent. The only problem is finding gas for it. There has been a shortage, but they say a tanker is on its way and should arrive any day now. And I have six full gas cans at the restaurant.”

  “This is great,” I said. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about it! Now I have a surprise for you too,” I said, pulling out the latest issue of Wine Spectator. Bob flipped open to the page I had marked with a yellow sticky note. The year’s list of recipients of the coveted Award of Excellence included Blanchard’s Restaurant.

  “I can’t believe it,” Bob said. “Look, there are only five other awards for the whole Caribbean.”

  “I’ve known about it for a couple of weeks, but I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Thanks to Clinton, Shabby, and Lowell, we still have a wine cellar,” Bob said.

  “I can’t wait any longer,” I said. “Let’s go see the restaurant.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready? It looks pretty bad.”

  “Let’s go,” I answered.

  We pulled into Blanchard’s and walked around to where the front of the building had been. I had just bought all the materials we would need to rebuild it and had ordered an entire container of plants for the gardens, so I knew in my head what to expect. But the reality of the past two weeks finally hit me. It was just as Bob had described. The white fountains were black with muck, the landscaping was a disaster, and the dining room was simply gone.

  Clinton and Lowell were shoveling wet sheetrock into a wheelbarrow. I ran over and hugged them both.

  “How are you guys doing?” I asked.

  “We jus’ here in a cool, Mel,” Clinton replied, grinning. “We gonna build this right back how she were. Don’ you worry. Ain’ no problem.”

  “Mr. Luis brought too mucha wind,” Lowell said. “We gonna show him that he ain’ gonna destroy Anguilla. He ain’ gonna mash us up like St. Thomas and the rest a them islands. I hear they ain’ even startin’ to fix things up in those places. They waitin’ for government to help. No, sir. Luis ain’ gonna get the best a we.”

  As I looked away so the men wouldn’t see my wet eyes, I noticed three green buds sprouting from what otherwise looked like a dead bougainvillea. Clinton is right, I thought. There ain’ no problem.

  I hugged Lowell and Clinton again, then went in to look at my kitchen. Everything was there, but nothing shone anymore. The stainless-steel tables were coated with a dirty film, there was at least four inches of water on the floor, and the ceiling had been plastered with sand. Bob and I walked down the path to the beach, under what was left of the big sea grape tree. A lizard scampered toward the bushes, its tail swirling an intricate pattern in the sand, reminding me of the hot, sunny days on Meads Bay only a year before. We had watched the lizards dart in and out of the shade while we drew up plans for our restaurant under the blue beach umbrella.

  We stood on the sand, the water washing away our footprints. A wave splashed over our ankles, and we stood perfectly still, mesmerized by the gentle rolling tide. The ocean was so calm—it was barely moving at all. A wisp of a breeze blew from the west. “How could this peaceful place have been such a disaster only a short time ago?” I asked Bob. “It just doesn’t seem possible.” But to our right, the wrath of Luis was evident at Carimar Beach Club, where the sand had completely eroded away and waves now splashed up onto the steps.

  A pelican cruised past, missing the tops of the waves by only inches, its wings steady and unmoving in silent flight. A few flaps and it soared upward. A few more flaps and it circled once, flattened its wings against its body, and dove like a missile into the water. The bird bobbed up to the surface, gulped its catch, and floated contentedly in the bay.

  Puffy white clouds drifted over the horizon, and a sailboat glided toward St. Martin. The shape of the beach had changed from the storm, as had our lives. I dreaded the impending insurance battle and prepared myself for another marathon of building and gardening before the season.

  “Too mucha wind,” I said to Bob, shaking my head as we walked back into the restaurant. “Too mucha wind.”

  “Hey, Lowell. You hear that? Mel sound like she from Anguilla,” Clinton said with admiration. “She one a we, you know.” He emptied his wheelbarrow and shoveled another load of debris. Lowell handed me some pruning shears, and I went to work.

  Afterword

  We lived for seven weeks without full electricity. Our two small generators gave us enough power to rebuild the restaurant and take showers at home. But life became even simpler than before: no television and no going out for lunch. Hotels and restaurants were closed and everyone was busy re-creating their own little world in hopes of reopening for the high season.

  When the two containers of materials arrived from Florida, this time we knew to identify every single item purchased, and customs processed our entry in record time. The Davis brothers worked with Bob to rebuild the restaurant and neighbors from Long Bay came to help remove debris that Luis had dumped in our yard. A large tree had uprooted and crashed down over the front door, and it took six people to stake it back into its upright position. I nursed it with fertilizer and lots of water until it eventually took hold again in the ground.

  Cap Juluca’s beach had eroded badly, but they were
spending a fortune to dredge the sand and get things back to normal. Malliouhana was moving ahead at full speed and the new Sonesta Hotel would open for the season. Cuisinart Resort and Spa still had a way to go, but we saw the plans and knew it would be a great addition to the economy.

  We opened on November 17 and that night, Blanchard’s kitchen was just as it had been before the storm. Bug was up to his elbows in soapsuds, Clinton hummed a little tune to himself, and Ozzie danced as he chopped. Before the first guests arrived, Lowell and Miguel insisted that Bob and I celebrate with a relaxing dinner for two at our most romantic corner table. The newly painted teal shutters framed the garden, which was already starting to bloom in its many shades of pink and blue. Candles flickered, ceiling fans swirled overhead, and the sea breeze ruffled the new white tablecloths. Hughes grilled us two fresh lobsters and we were in heaven.

  We listened to the waves break against the beach and raised our champagne glasses in toast. A little lizard wiggled in the sand, making rings around a newly planted palm tree. “Here’s to dreamy Anguilla,” I said.

  The soft evening light made Bob’s meltaway blue eyes even more entrancing than usual. He smiled and said, “Here’s to living on island time.”

  Copyright © 2000 by Melinda Blanchard and Robert Blanchard

  Illustrations copyright © 2000 by Nicole Kaufman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Three Rivers Press, New York, New York. Member of the Crown Publishing Group.

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