She tarried longer than planned, and returned to find Robert asleep on his back, sunglasses shading his eyes, but with his unprotected forehead, belly, and legs exposed to the searing rays. Nancy roused him, saying “I’m getting you back to the hotel.”
***
The next morning, Robert’s front side was sunburnt red. He resisted budging but Nancy urged him to get up and have breakfast. They paused in the lobby while he checked the CNN ticker. The market slide had continued, and the pay phone remained out-of-order.
At Café Felipe the man from the black-hulled boat was again seated on the patio, reading The New York Times.
He looked up and nodded as the couple sat at an adjacent table. Robert squirmed to extract his cell phone from his pants pocket, dialed his broker, but the phone remained silent. He looked at the man, grumbled, “Doesn’t anything work around here?”
“Last fall a hurricane toppled the communications tower on Cabo Rojo,” the man explained, indicating the hills to the south.
“Last fall, and it’s still defunct?” Robert growled.
“Cabo Rojo — doesn’t that mean Red Cape?” Nancy asked. “Those hills are like emeralds.”
“From here,” the man agreed, “but from the other side, from the ocean, you see steep, red cliffs that drop down to the sea. They’re incredibly beautiful when they catch the first rays of sunrise”
He gestured toward the harbor. “You folks have a boat?”
“No,” Nancy replied. “We flew to San Juan and rented a car.”
“You did well to find Boqueron,” the man said. “Few gringos come here.” He described the town as a popular summer destination for Puerto Ricans, when the densely-populated island swelters under the blazing sun, and “they pour into town.”
“The beach is beautiful,” she said.
“In the winter, it’s surprisingly quiet,” he remarked.
“I know why,” Robert interjected. “Say, can I borrow that Times when you’re done? Haven’t found a newspaper in English since we arrived.”
Robert scowled. “No thanks.”
“Sorry,” the man said. “There’s a grocery store that way,” he indicated the direction, “that carries a San Juan paper. Might not have today’s edition yet.”
“Did I see you rowing out to a sailboat yesterday?” Nancy asked. “The black one?”
The man smiled. “The Caribe Dream. She’s nothing fancy — wooden hull, twenty-five years young. I’m heading out tomorrow.”
“Oh? May I ask where you’re going — sailing — to?”
