Tile N All - The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House - page 134

Maybe it was the Grey Goose , but I felt better already.
☼ ☼ ☼
We must have traipsed through every kitchen and bath store in the greater San Juan area.
Okay, maybe not every last one, but at least seven or eight.
It was raining—my God, it was raining—and we were tired. We'd been up since four-
thirty that morning and we were booked on the six forty-five flight to Vieques.
It was nearly five now and we were running out of time.
Our last stop was a high-end place called Astoria's , only a couple of miles from the air-
port. The woman who greeted us was friendly and helpful, although she looked (and spoke)
like a street walker who had smoked at least five packs a day since birth.
“Yes, I think we have,” she rasped when we showed her our sample.
She led us to a display containing a variety of tiles that bore absolutely no resemblance
whatsoever to the one I held in my hand.
“Okay…” I said, embarrassed for some strange reason to admit that I didn't get her
drift.
At all.
“Umm,” I dithered. “Which one?”
She pointed an inch-long crimson nail towards a tile that was several shades darker and
a completely different texture from ours.
“Thees one,” she said. “Ees perfect.”
Michael cleared his throat.
“Right!” I responded cheerfully, completely at a loss. “That's definitely an option.”
“How about this?” Michael asked, holding up a sample further down the aisle.
It was a near-perfect match.
“Oh my God,” I said, laying our tile on top. You could barely tell them apart.
The saleswoman looked baffled. “You like thees ?”
“Absolutely. This is it !” I exclaimed.
She seemed not only skeptical but mildly alarmed. No doubt I took my tiles more seri-
ously than most of her customers.
“How much you need?” she asked.
Michael had the numbers written down.
“Two hundred and twenty square feet,” he quoted.
“I dunno,” she muttered, ambling towards the back of the store.
We waited fifteen minutes.
“We have to go or we'll miss our flight,” Michael said.
I literally wrung my hands.
She came back.
“We have,” she said simply.