En Puerto Rico

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• June 5, 2016

The isle of Puerto Rico, common wealth of United States, home of rain forests, and surf, and my best friend’s Abuela.  Lauren and I have been friends since kindergarten.  I have always been selective with my friends.  I remember first meeting her on the playground at kindergarten.  There was a large seesaw that all the kids used to play on, and I sat and watched.  There was another little girl who always wanted to play with me, but I either wanted to play with Lauren or no one.  Lauren was (and still is) beloved by every one, because she is just a warm and fun person.

As fate would have it, Lauren and I were in the same girl scouts troupe.  I didn’t much care for girl scouts, because it meant more time away from my mom (I had serious separation anxiety with my Mom).  Having Lauren there meant all the difference.  Up to this point, I had two best friends, my cousin Brittany, and my best friend Lisa (whom we had a first grade class together, and then would never have classes together again besides chorus, where she sang like an angel, and I sang like a congested Elmer Fudd).   Lauren actually lived down the street from me, and our life long friendship had begun.  While Lauren is a lot more friendly than I am, she is equally as weird, and enjoys a quirky sense of humor.

Lauren is also one of three, with a younger sister and younger brother.  Her family is the nicest family I had ever met.  For many years, I was convinced they had a secret.  They never yelled.  My family yelled all the time.  We weren’t even mad, that’s just how we communicated.  I would press Lauren, “but when I’m not there, do your parents yell all the time?”
“No.”
“What if you get a bad grade or spill chocolate milk?”
“Nope.”

Surely, my best friend was lying, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.  People weren’t that nice.  For years, I slept over her house, waiting for the moment to catch her parents yelling or being mean, and they never were.  I was both fascinated and could not fathom their lack of yelling.  As years passed, we grew closer, becoming almost inseparable.  We even look alike.  We shared mannerisms, and people often thought we were sisters (they usually thought I was younger because I was very tiny).

(An old and slightly embarrassing picture of Lauren and myself from middle school. My head grew faster than my body.)

Lauren’s family went to Puerto Rico regularly to visit her Abuela (abuela means “grandma” in Spanish, in case you didn’t know), and when we were in middle school, they asked me to join.  Of course I wanted to go.  My family seldom vacationed.  Plus, I was a born beach bum, and Puerto Rico is known for gorgeous beaches.  My folks were slightly reluctant, but they also knew how sweet Lauren’s family was, and couldn’t think of a legitimate reason to say no.  They said if I could pay for the flight, I could go.  Like my parents, I was a saver.  I had, for birthdays and babysitting, saved hundreds of dollars stored in my sock drawer.  I had the money.  I was going to Puerto Rico.

Lauren was the only one of her three siblings who was fluent in Spanish.  Her parents never forced it on their kids (they were way too nice), but Lauren took an interest in learning Spanish from a young age and wanted her Mom and Abuela to speak to her in Spanish so she could learn, because she’s a freak of nature.  I mean, what kid does that?  I had been taking Spanish in school and was horrible at it.  Math and Spanish… always sucked at those two subjects.  Lauren and her mom often helped me with my homework and helped me study for tests.  Had I been more industrious like my best friend, I probably could have become fluent in the language, but I was much more interested in Star Wars.

Puerto Rico, as imagined, is stunning.  The water is clear and warm, and the land is filled with palm trees, colorful flora and lizards.  We would walk onto the porch and pick mangoes right off the tree, which remain the best mangoes I’ve ever eaten.  Abuela lives in Fajardo, on a hill, overlooking the water.  I recall this was also the year “Pirates of the Caribbean” came out, and I was incessantly quoting that movie (having seen it three times already), even though no one else had seen it yet.  Lauren seemed to be related to every one living on the hill, and we went around visiting them, but they mostly only spoke spanish.  I listened, but they spoke too fast.  I couldn’t make out what they were saying.  Maybe a word here or there.  Funny how I could watch a movie three times and remember every line, but study a language, and be totally lost.

At some point, Lauren was talking to her Aunt, she said, “mi amiga, Lori.”
Her Aunt said something, and Lauren replied, “catoroce.”
“Catorce?”
“Catorice.”
And then they all laughed hysterically.  I knew “catorce” meant “fourteen” and they couldn’t believe I was fourteen, because I was such a runt.

Lauren and I returned to Puerto Rico, in high school, this time just us visiting Abuela.  Upon arrival, I lamented not bringing bug spray, and asked Abuela if she had any.  She said she didn’t, which I thought was obscene.  She also said she had never been bitten by a mosquito in Puerto Rico, only when she went to New York. She said the mosquitoes don’t bite her in Puerto Rico, which, to this day, I think is just ridiculous lie.  I happen to be one of those people who are constantly bitten by mosquitoes (just this past Memorial Day weekend, I got eight mosquito bites.  Welcome, summer.  Once, I was bitten by a mosquito in Penn Station in the middle of October.  Another time, I had sex on the beach (not the drink), and I got about a dozen mosquito bites, and the guy I was with didn’t get one.).

Anyway, that first night, I woke up with a mosquito bite on my eye lid.  ON MY EYE LID.  Oh yeah, also, mosquito bites tend to blow up to the size of golf balls on my body.  Sexy, right?  So I woke up with my eye swollen and itchy.  I could barely open my eye.  It was huge.  I was up before Lauren, looking at my face in horror in the bathroom.

“You okay?” Lauren knocked at the door.
“I’m gonna come out… but you have to promise not to laugh.”
“What’s wrong? I’m not gonna laugh, Lor.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
I opened the door, and Lauren burst into hysterical laughter.
“I’m not an animal,” I quoted the Elephant Man.
We went to the kitchen for breakfast, where Abuela was cooking something tasty. She turned, and as soon as she saw my face, Abuela started cracking up.

I wore sunglasses that whole trip.  Even at night.  My eye was so swollen, it was actually pushing up against the sunglasses.  I was mortified by my own face.

Local guy, Ol’ Tito (I’m not sure that was actually his name, I can’t remember), owned this rickety boat, and Lauren and her gringo friend with the swollen eye payed him a cheap $10 per person to take us to a small island off the coast to go snorkeling.  Well, there was a reason his fare was so low.  His boat was old, and wooden, and I’m pretty sure he built it.  I was 90% sure the boat was going to sink on the way over there.  This is how I die, I thought, this boat will sink, and sharks will eat us, and there will be nothing left of me except this swollen fucking eye (which, by the way, was sunburned by day two, and looked even more hideous.  Lauren and her Abuela laughed at it every morning.  It looked like I was budding a new version of me).

We made it to the island, and set a time for Tito to come back to get us, but I was certain he would sink and die before then, so we would probably be stranded on this island for at least a day until Abuela sends help.  We snorkeled for hours and had a jolly good time.  Someone had built a fort out of tree branches, which was dug out, and we claimed it for ourselves.

Some tourists boats showed up (real boats, not Tito’s death trap), and unloaded a bunch of pasty white tourists with their sunscreen and fins.  Lauren and I hid in the fort, giggling and spying on the tourists.  This one family walked by our fort, and I peaked out with my giant eye, and the Dad said, “look, guys, natives!”  Which was retarded because Lauren and I were skinny blond girls.  I’m pretty sure I hissed at them, and they scurried away, and Lauren and I laughed the whole day, until Tito picked us up.  By that point, the water got rough, and I thought, this time, for sure, we are dead.  We didn’t die (obviously), and we tipped him some extra money, hoping he would get a real boat.

Farjardo is home to one of the worlds few bioluminescent lagoons.  What it is, is these tiny organisms that contain bioluminescence, and when they’re disturbed, they glow.  One could easily set up a tour trip to go the the mystical lagoon, but not Lauren and I.  We fancied ourselves island natives, and decided we would borrow a kayak from one of these people Lauren was allegedly related to on the hill, and venture out on our own.  The kayak we were to borrow was in a yard, which was surrounded by a locked fence.  We slipped through the fence, but getting the kayak out was another story.  It was late at night (because you have to go to the glowing lagoon at night, duh).  Like two petty criminals, we hoisted the kayak over the fence, one climbing and passing to the other.  If anyone saw us, surely it would look like we were stealing, but we had no fear.  We dragged the kayak down the hill, near the mouth of the channel that would lead to the lagoon.  Lauren had been there before, but I was stoked.  A glowing lagoon?  Sounds like something out of a fantasy novel.  In many ways it was.  As we got closer, you could see the glow in the wake of the kayak.  We got yelled at my a tour guide for not wearing life vests nor having lights on our sort of stolen kayak.  But we just laughed at him, and continued on our way.  Lauren and I are always laughing.  In the classes we had together in high school, our teachers yelled at us for always giggling.  I’m not even sure what was so funny to us.  We just didn’t take anything seriously, so everything was funny.  We swam in the lagoon, the water a soft blue glow around us.  When you got out, your body was shimmering.  It’s really fucking cool (note to people traveling to Puerto Rico: there’s two bioluminescent lagoons.  The good one is in Fajardo. You can’t swim in the other one and it doesn’t glow as much).

It just so happens that the most posh hotel in Puerto Rico, El Conquistador, was about a ten minute walk from Abuela’s house.  We often went there, acting like we stayed there, taking advantage of their towels and infinity pool.  One morning, we wanted to go up to the infinity pool for a sunrise.  We woke up early, but not quite early enough, so we ran down the hill, and then a pack of wild dogs started chasing us.  Shit, I thought.  I wasn’t sure we could make it to the water in time, but that was my plan.  Run to the water!  I could swim faster than a dog.  Luckily, these local construction workers appeared (seemingly out of nowhere) and threw rocks at the dogs.  We thanked them, then went to the fancy hotel we weren’t staying at to watch the sunrise.

Every time I’ve been to Puerto Rico, there’s a huge celebration for a holiday I’ve never heard of, and the locals are off from work and school and partying near the water.  I’m convinced they don’t get any work done, and that’s why they don’t really want to be a state.  The Puerto Ricans seemed to not take life all that seriously, and thus, were winning at living life.  I’ve very much enjoyed my trips to Puerto Rico, as it’s a place where life is to have fun, much like my friendship with Lauren.