One of the fun things about not having very much money is that simple pleasures loom large. (Although, this is a lesson that I’ve nourished even during more flush times; being able to enjoy simple pleasures means that you’re pretty much always satisfied.) As Richard and I were driving home to California from Colorado, we stayed overnight at a Day’s Inn that had just opened outside of Salt Lake City. And because they were brand new, they were offering a terrific rate on the room as well as a free breakfast—not one of those half-assed breakfasts, either, where you get a choice of some sugary cereal, a crappy bagel, or some sugary yogurt. We were comped a tasty, filling breakfast of eggs, toast, bacon, and orange juice. This, in addition to the fact that the quality of the room was much nicer than we could normally afford, had us feeling pretty chipper, especially since I was still recovering from almost succumbing to hypothermia in Canyonlands.

 

 

 

I would know, right?

 

At any rate, after their wedding, Paul and Valerie had moved to a suburb outside of NYC, where Paul had started this antiques business with a family friend, someone we had met in Costa Rica, as a matter of fact, and liked a lot. San Francisco had a high-profile antique show in October, with a lot of well-heeled buyers, so Paul hired Richard to help him get the show set up and staff the booth. I got to come along, too, of course, and Paul had rented us all rooms in a charming hotel in downtown San Francisco near the Civic Center. So while Richard, Paul, and Cynthia were at the antique show, I got to write in the mornings; then in the afternoons, I would go browse titles in the legendary bookstore, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books, or check out an art film at a nearby movie theater. I also attended the opening gala for the antique show, the catering of which, for someone who had spent a fair amount of time in her lean years eating tuna glop over mashed potatoes, represented a deeply nirvanic experience : plump, giant prawns to dip in tangy cocktail sauce, petite lamb chops cooked to perfection with an accompanying mint sauce, spanakopita squares, fresh raspberries, grilled asparagus, the best miniature cream puffs in the entire world that you could just pop into your mouth … creamy, dark chocolate truffles, and exquisitely delicious strawberry tarts, just to mention a few of the delectable items I was free to gorge on. The other nights, we went out to fun restaurants in the Bay Area, although, surprisingly, at this time (1986), there were not many restaurants serving after 9 PM, which limited our choices. That’s changed considerably since then, fortunately.

 

We also met two of Paul and Cynthia’s European contacts, one a French viscount whose family owned the estate where they filmed one of the Pink Panther movies, the one where a car ends up in the swimming pool, and an earl from England. They were both extremely nice, and the earl, an avid fly-fisher, ended up visiting our rustic abode in northern California and staying for a couple of days. He loved the funky guest house and the surrounding area, and was heartwarmingly cute about appreciating our hospitality, especially considering the level of luxury he must have been used to in the rest of his life.

 

This gig gave Richard and me enough money, along with the money we’d saved from the summer, to coast until the beginning of next year, and also made it possible for us to accept the generous invitation that Richard’s dad and stepmom extended, to treat us to a cruise along the Mexican Riveria. Those who read “Crazy Good Fortune Out of the Blue” might remember that Richard’s mother died unexpectedly while we were living in Costa Rica. Richard’s dad, a handsome, erudite, and principled Presbyterian minister (he had risked his life marching with Martin Luther King in Selma during the Civil Rights Movement), had remarried a lovely woman from his church, Carolyn. In fact, Carolyn had taught Richard Sunday School when he was a little tyke, so they already had a nice relationship. At any rate, we’d never been on a cruise, and so had no idea what to expect. It ended up being very interesting.

 

For one thing, I didn’t realize that the food trip was going to be like that gala antique show reception at every meal. That was fun at first. Especially considering the aforementioned tuna glop situation. But after a few days, it started to acquire the horror of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Okay, maybe that’s overstating it. But we were probably consuming 6000 calories a day—of lobster, prime rib, baked Alaska, scampi, chocolate mousse, filet mignon, Ceasar salad, potatoes au gratin, steak tartare, and eggs Benedict—and there was no way to burn all of those calories while tootling along in a cruise ship. We honestly had a blast, and we’ll be forever grateful to Richard’s parents for treating us to this luxury, but it was pretty funny that this cruise was billed as a “Fitness Cruise,” which basically meant that six anorexic young women had been hired to give a rubber band aerobics class in the pool twice a day.

 

There was a running track on one of the top decks of the ship, highly touted in the literature, but it turned out to be open only between the hours of 5:30 and 7:30 AM, after which it was turned into a shuffleboard court. There was a gym that was composed of one set of weights and three exercycles looking onto a cloudy, water-stained plexiglass window and smelling like an unwashed jock strap. This, and the rubber band aerobics, comprised the extent of the fitness motif. Most of the people on the cruise smoked, which meant that there was nowhere on the ship to go to where it wasn’t reeking of cigarette smoke, except on the outside decks, where the wind was blowing 8 grillion knots and you risked either getting blown off the ship entirely, or having all the hair removed from your head. And a lot of the passengers, no doubt well aware of the culinary excess offered by the experience, were too overweight to be interested in exercise.

 

If you’re in the right kind of shape, I imagine you can consume 6000 calories a day for a week without feeling like the top of your head is going to explode like the spring-loaded lid of a trash can, with all your brains and every meal that you’ve eaten for the past four days erupting like Krakatoa. But we were not in shape in this way. By the end of the cruise, I thought that I was going to vomit if I ate any more fat or protein.

 

During the middle of the cruise, various activities were offered on land for interested passengers. We had taken advantage, with Richard’s dad and stepmom, of a couple fun outings: one, Puerto Vallarta, where we got to drink a shot of tequila out of a miniature ceramic mug that we wore around our necks on a necklace of yarn, and then enjoyed a lovely lunch in a thatched-roof hut (the best handmade corn tortillas I’ve ever eaten, expertly grilled over a wood fire); and another, in Mazatlan, when we hung out by the pool at a Sheraton and drank piña coladas. The last day that excursions to port were offered, Richard’s dad was feeling like he wanted to stay on the ship, but Richard and I decided to take one of the tenders to Cabo San Lucas and wander around town, not do an organized activity. We were also hoping to find a light breakfast.

 

 

We found out after we got back to the ship that Richard’s dad, poor guy, had decided he wanted to join us after all and so took a later tender onto shore. There he followed the crowd to the market and never did find us. Unless we had all had cell phones, there was practically no way that he would have found us, actually. It’s pretty amazing how much the world has changed since the introduction of cell phones.

 

After we got home, we had another treat awaiting us. As a bonus for working so hard over the summer, Ted had convinced his grandfather to give him and Elizabeth and Richard and me plane tickets to Costa Rica over the Christmas holidays. We had never spent Christmas there, since we had come home to the U.S. for the holidays when we lived there. As you might imagine, we were stoked!

 

But you know that old saying, “You can never go back?” The truth behind this statement became clear during our return trip to Costa Rica. As much fun as we had—and we did have a ball—it felt odd to be returning as tourists, not residents. Phone service in Costa Rica was still funky enough at this time that we weren’t able to get in touch with most of our old friends—I was particularly sad to miss my tutor, Otto—and as family-oriented as the Ticos are, especially during religious holidays, most of them were busy and unavailable during the time we were there. Jane and Horace were no longer in Costa Rica; neither was Paul. And the servants had the holidays off, though Lijia kindly made up a bunch of food for us to nosh on while we were there. This turned out to be quite helpful as almost everything was closed during Christmas, except tourist hotels and a handful of touristy restaurants. Banks were also closed, so we had to carefully keep track of the money we had changed at the airport so that we wouldn’t run out. The new guard at los Kelton was a surly, hulking asshole who would ensconce himself in the room with the television and VCR and refuse to come out. It felt different and sad. Probably the best time we had was over at La Mariposa, with Garth, David, and Waldon who showed us a great time. We saw tons of monkeys and spent lots of time body surfing and hanging out around the pool, drinking ice cold beer and piña coladas. And we really enjoyed the time with Ted and Elizabeth.

 

But soon our time there was over and we were heading home. And once we got there, Richard and I needed to get busy and start earning some money.