A Trip to the Beach by Melinda Blanchard Page A

ferry in the loosest sense, was a steel cargo boat fitted with rows of old airplane seats. The cabin was totally enclosed and the windows and doors were shut. I immediately felt claustrophobic, but outside there was no place to sit or even stand. I was trapped. The engines were so loud, neither of us could hear a word the other was saying, and the vibration of the floor and the smell of diesel fuel made the trip very unpleasant. The decorating job, however, kept us smiling. Blinking Christmas lights were strung all over the ceiling, and a VCR hung from the wall, entertaining the passengers with an old Eddie Murphy movie. The sound was completely inaudible over the roar of the engines. The most curious element, though, were the plaid curtains. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to create a certain ambience by covering the windows. To me, the best part of a boat ride is the view. Clearly, the locals saw the trip to St. Martin as no more than a taxi ride and had little interest whatsoever in the spectacular scenery behind the curtains.
    The trip took thirty minutes, and by the time we stepped onto the pier in Marigot, I felt seasick and had a splitting headache. I sat down on a bench to recover while Bob went to locate the car rental agency. The car was a gem. Its front bumper was missing, the windshield was cracked, the passenger side was dented and smashed, and the door handle was gone.
    â€œGreat car,” I said as Bob opened my door from the inside. “Was this Hertz or Avis?”
    Bob smiled. “The contract just says Car Rental Agency.”
    We crept along through the one-lane streets past patisseries and bistros. We passed
la poste,
where lines of people stood holding baguettes they’d purchased earlier, and blocks of duty-free shops selling perfume, cameras, and jewelry.
    It looked more like the French Riviera than the Caribbean—tall, skinny blond women hurried along the sidewalks in tight little dresses revealing as much of their tanned bodies as possible. Sleek-looking men in gauzy shirts and blue jeans also bustled past, many with a cell phone glued to one ear. Not at all like Anguilla. Instead of St. Martin, we could have landed in St. Tropez.
    We plodded out of Marigot’s traffic and were abruptly propelled onto St. Martin’s version of the autobahn: a three-mile stretch of relatively straight country road with one lane traveling in each direction. At seventy miles an hour our mangled Toyota developed a severe wobble, warning us we had reached top speed. Bob felt as though he were in the Indianapolis 500 as other cars passed us in a wild race to some imaginary finish line. As drivers overtook us from behind they would flash their lights and blow their horns, and if they saw just a little bit of open road, they’d fly by as if we weren’t moving.
    â€œHow can this island be so different?” I asked. “We’re only seven miles from Anguilla, and look at this place. The traffic is worse than the New Jersey Turnpike.”
    â€œThank God they all want to stay over here,” Bob answered. His white knuckles gripped the steering wheel as we sailed past the sign welcoming us to the Dutch side of the island. Coming down the hill into town, the traffic slowed to a snail’s pace, and a line of cars disappeared from sight. We parked illegally alongside the road with hundreds of others and walked the rest of the way.
    Unlike Anguilla, St. Martin has no duty on purchases, making it a popular stop for cruise ships. On this particular day Bob and I counted five giant ships anchored in the harbor. A frenzied mob of sunburned shoppers had been shuttled ashore and turned loose. Hordes of tourists equipped with cameras pushed and shoved their way through the grimy streets, determined to find the best price on everything from T-shirts and Cuban cigars to Rolex watches. We fought our way through the crowd, in search of restaurant supplies and building materials.
    We bought