Let's Buy a House Today

March, 1992.  Vancouver, Washington.  It was bitter cold.  Bitter as a betrayed lover.  We’d already endured five months of rain and it wouldn’t stop for three more months.  So Alex did what any sane man would do.  He went fishing.

Alex came home from work wearing a drenched raincoat and a big smile.  He and his co-worker were going fishing.  In Cabo.  For a week.  I asked, “What’s Cabo”?  He showed me a fishing magazine.  I tried to ignore the man-sized fish hanging from a scaffold.  Instead, I focused on the blue ocean and the sunny sky.  I forced my lip to quiver.   I quickly developed abandonment issues.  It didn’t matter that I abhor fishing (I feel guilty about killing cockroaches).  My “abandoner” was going to sunny Mexico and leaving me in soggy Washington.  No way!

 I looked for a hook:  “You deserve a vacation, Alex.” I threw out the bait: “Alex, why don’t you and John go to Mexico, fish for a week, then John can return and I’ll join you in Cabo?”  I trolled guilt in front of him: “It will be like the honeymoon we never had.”

Two weeks later we landed in San Jose del Cabo. By Portland standards, the Cabo terminal was a mini-airport but there was nothing insignificant about the periwinkle Baja sky or the ochre dessert.  After two nights in Cabo, we rented a car and drove to La Paz looking for a more laid-back town and calmer beaches.  

Balandra Beach

We checked into a bay-front room at the Los Arcos Hotel, strolled on the Malecon, gawked at the sunset, and fell asleep to a symphony of Mexican music emanating from cars cruising by our window.   The next morning we grabbed our towels and headed toward Balandra beach.  The parking lot was empty and the beach deserted. We dropped our clothes on the sand and waded far out into the clean shallow bay.  Sargent majors nibbled our toes. We were living a scene from a movie.  Then, Alex turned and hurried toward shore.

“Where are you going?”  I yelled.   He yelled back, “I hid my wallet under a rock.  And there was a person jogging on the beach.”  Alex lifted the rock and – his wallet was still there.   I told him a dozen times he’d worried for nothing.

On our drive back toward La Paz we noticed a palapa restaurant. Our stomachs growled in time to the Mexican music that lured us in:  sand floor, wooden tables and chairs painted Aegean blue.  And the aroma of garlic and butter.  We ordered, and then went swimming.  The waiter waved us back to shore.   Our grilled red snappers hung over his large tray.  When only the skeletons remained we asked for the bill.  I was thinking, “This is paradise.”  Then I heard a crash.  The table leapt.  I looked at Alex and knew our honeymoon was over. His wallet was empty. More than $800.  Gone.   We considered returning home early.  To cold rainy Washington.  Instead, we bought a house.

But first we spent an entire day at the police station filling out reports in the hope that they’d find the thief.  Next, American Express loaned us $200. If we were going to stretch $200 until our departure date, we needed to be creative and find very inexpensive entertainment.

“Alex, let’s call a real estate agent who’ll show us the city.  I’d love to peek into some authentic Mexican houses.  It’ll be fun.  Maybe she’ll buy us lunch (she didn’t).” We frequently reminded each other that this was a lark.  We walked through houses larger than the Cabo airport.  And derelict houses.  And weed-filled lots barricaded by tall walls. But on Saturday, the day before our flight home, we parked in front of a small house one block from the Malecon.  It was well-maintained and well-priced but it was the Mexican fountain that hooked Alex.

That night we argued until the exhausted moon sank into the bay.

I pleaded my case: “Alex, I’m only 48; I can’t retire for 17 years.  We can’t afford a second home.  This was supposed to be a lark.”  I repeatedly insisted that his logic was flawed.

Alex’s logic: Judy, La Paz is warm and sunny.  It will be an adventure.  And I can fish all year.

The next morning, rummy from lack of sleep, we wrote a check as a down payment on the house. That afternoon we flew back to our normal life in Vancouver.  But six months later our lives changed.

Alex was diagnosed with lymphoma.  He endured months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. We shifted priorities and reconsidered our retirement schedule.   We made double mortgage payments, sold our Vancouver house, and in March of 1996, four years after discovering the empty wallet, we drove away from the rainy Northwest and headed to La Paz.

Today, if the police apprehended the person who stole our $800 nineteen years ago, I would thank the thief for the gift he inadvertently gave us – a journey that began when Alex said, “La Paz is warm and sunny.  It’ll be an adventure.” Alex was right.

     Let's buy a house today!