The Expats

Chloe the coroner and Beverly stopped by to see how I was getting along, and also to take a look at Wagner’s, the house across the street, which they’d heard might be coming available for rent. Chloe loves her little two bedroom rental near the beach, but the owner won’t let her spray for bugs, and earlier this week she was stung by a scorpion while grabbing some shorts out of a cupboard, plus she mentioned something about tarantulas. Mostly, though, there’s no pool, and she and Beverly, her friend from Canada who’s just quit her job to move here on a whim, would really love to have a pool. So now they’re weighing their options: pool (move to Wagner’s) vs. view (stay put).

Chloe pays $1,000 a month plus electric now, and the rent would go up to $1,300 at Wagner’s (not including electric), but she’d have Beverly’s help, and Wagner’s has a little one bedroom cottage – no kitchen, but a nice little deck - that she could sublet to a medical school student for $600 or $700 a month, she figures.

St. Elsewhere isn’t Chloe’s first Caribbean residence; she lived on Grand Cayman for years, and in Belize City, too, where she had a 24-hour police escort. I wasn’t connecting the dots on why a coroner would need a 24-hour police escort until she explained how the occasional body would show up riddled with bullet holes. Interested parties would prefer for the case to be labeled an accident, instead of a homicide. It was her job to apply the label.

I invited Chloe and Beverly to join us for a pina colada tonight; I'm guessing they may have a few stories to tell, and I’m taking notes.