With that painting and a little persuasion from Teddy, I was accepted into the Instituto and given a scholarship, which, combined with the strength of the dollar against the peso, would get me through a semester before I ran out of money. Teddy had a plan for that problem too.

Her friends Pancho and Murray lived in Barrio San Antonio, close to the Instituto. San Antonio was just then beginning to be revived by the droves of wealthy gringos who were moving to San Miguel, buying up crumbling houses far from the city center, gutting and demolishing what was left of the villas, and replacing them with homes better suited to their extravagant tastes.

We arrived at an ornate door behind a barred entry gate. Teddy rang the bell, and a few moments later, Pancho appeared in a lemon-colored guayabera and cream-colored muslin slacks. He had pale-blue eyes and a shock of curly red hair that swirled wildly around his forehead and ears. He looked me up and down and smiled.

“Hello, my dear,” he said. “And hello, Charlie. Please, come in. Murray’s on the terrace.”

We followed Pancho into a courtyard lined with columns and arches. An architect in his former life back in the States, Pancho had designed the house himself. A narrow spiral staircase led up to the second floor; balconies overlooked the fountain and the palms between the master bedroom wing and the guest rooms and an art studio on the opposite side. We passed through a great room with a giant fireplace and high vaulted ceilings out to the patio, where Murray sat at a wrought iron table smoking a fragrant Cuban cigarillo. He was barefoot, in jeans and a white T-shirt.

“Welcome, Charlie,” he said.

Murray was around seventy, lean and compact, with a shiny bald pate. He had a familiar air of authority, softened by the languor of retirement. They were a handsome couple, clever and gentle and funny.

Pancho and Murray wanted someone to look after the house, especially when they were traveling. Pancho had brought a decent nest egg to the relationship—he’d inherited a bundle from his father, who had owned a shoe company in eastern Pennsylvania (his real name was Eugene; he’d taken on the Spanish sobriquet to signify the shedding of his closeted life back home)—but Murray had been lead business counsel for Exxon in South America for nearly thirty years.

They offered me the room at the front of the house and use of the kitchen. I was to maintain the gardens, look after repairs when needed, run errands, be their driver.

“How’s your Spanish?” Pancho asked.

“No hablo,” I said.

“We can fix that,” Murray said.