Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Having lived in apartments most of our adult lives, we'd gotten used to lots of furniture in
small spaces. Sometimes too much.
But in Vieques we had the opposite problem—the house didn't seem quite furnished
enough
. Despite our best efforts to wrangle sofas, chairs and dressers out of the hands of un-
willing Fate and into the cavernous, high-ceilinged rooms of our vacation retreat, the place
still seemed rather sparsely decorated.
At least to me.
So when I read online that
Martineau Bay
, the island's boom-or-bust resort that had
changed hands twice in the past four years, was liquidating its furnishings to make way for
its next incarnation (a
W Hotel
), I felt more than a shiver of excitement. But when was the
sale to begin? No one seemed to know, not even Jane.
I called the hotel's main number. Although the man who answered the phone was pleas-
ant enough, the information I managed to extract from him was on the distinctly meager
side.
Was there going to be a sale?
Yes.
When?
Don't know.
How long will it last?
Until everything's gone.
For one brief, crazy moment I thought about calling Daniel—he was sure to know all
about the sale—but almost immediately nixed the idea.
So I called the police. This was a trick I had learned growing up in a small town. My
friends and I thought nothing of calling the police station to ask what was showing at the
movie theater, what time the bowling alley closed, the name of the fire chief's dog.
Our theory was that if the police were doing their jobs even reasonably well, they should
know just about everything that was going on. And as odd as it seems nowadays, they never
let us down.
So I called the Vieques police. The chief wasn't available but his bilingual deputy was,
and he knew all about the sale. It had begun the weekend before and was likely to go on for
months. There were hundreds of pieces of furniture. He was certain I'd find lots of bargains
when I came to the island in three weeks. He even provided directions to the warehouse
where the sale was being held.
I couldn't wait.
Twenty-two days later—the morning of our first full day back on the island—Michael
and I were standing in the middle of a huge warehouse crammed full of hotel furnishings.
There were hundreds of everything—pictures (the same print of a seashell over and over
again,
ad infinitum
), upholstered benches, lamps, candlesticks, and (occupying most of the
space) row upon row of very large armoires in two distinct styles.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search