Luxury Link 1

                                                 Luxury Link
                                                      Tahiti




  “Pain does not create a long-lasting memory, but the memory of luxury
   exerts itself for ever.”
                                                   Paul Theroux, The Happy Isles of Oceania


The last white orchid dropped onto my office carpet. I was ready. Robyn had been all over the Southern Sea with me, but never here.
There had been many reasons. Tahiti was, above all else, expensive. I don’t mean costly; I mean first born limb amputation exorbitantly expensive.
Second, it was French. Robyn, as a true blue Kiwi, ever since the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor, and her near starvation for calories and cordial communication on a Parisian tour, had considered all Gauls intolerably arrogant, hirsute, and ‘smelly.’
Third, Tahiti was a bit off the direct flight route from Vancouver Island, and required a diversion through Los Angeles, which, since the World Trade Center tragedy, had become apocalyptically paranoid.
But it was my intention to show her the other side and, during the global financial meltdown of 2008, Tahiti reappeared over our horizon with a random click on a website I would never have otherwise thought to visit.
I typed it into the search engine of Luxury Link. What appeared was astounding, and I began to tick off the boxes in my head. Bora Bora. Check. Right time. Check. Amazing reviews on travel websites. Check. Auction, with no minimum. Check. Enough time to bid strategically, but not too much to become discouraging. Check. Enter bid now. No. Wait.
Three days later, three minutes before the close of the auction, there had been fifteen lowball bids. Two minutes later there was at least one more. A minute after that, an email appeared in my inbox.
It began with ‘Congratulations,’ and ended with ‘Conditions.’ I read the conditions, and paid the amount shown. For less than a third of what would normally cost, in a contest with a tribe of other vacation vultures from around the world, I had won four days and nights of paradise at the Bora Bora Lagoon Resort & Spa, located on Motu Toopua, a small island in the middle of the Bora Bora Lagoon, and surrounded by clear tri-color blue waters and views of the enchanted emerald peaks of Mt. Otemanu.
It was still expensive, first born limb amputation exorbitantly expensive. But I thought I had it covered, until I told Robyn the good news.
“How much?” She asked, with what might have been misconstrued as incredulity, if you had watched the subsequent contractions. And then, she did what any other woman would have done, when faced with the reality of how much love her husband had brought to the table.
“Well.” She said. “I’ve never been to Tahiti.” And so it was.
There followed a car trip and a ferry and a bus and a sky train and two planes and, near the end of the ordeal, two old Tahitian garland heads playing the ukulele and guitar in Pape'ete’s Faa'a Airport. As we waited for the puddle jumper to Bora Bora, our two-liter bottle of Barcardi began to tumble like a shinbone in a space odyssey. Its touchdown turned every set of ears in the terminal, and their eyes formed a common pool of empathy with the one on the floor.