Lounge Chair Empire
LOUNGE CHAIR EMPIRE – June 2, 2024 – Montego Bay, Jamaica
The airport shuttle van pulled through the resort’s circular driveway and stopped under the columned entryway. As the Matthews family emerged from the van, resort staff scurried to fetch luggage and direct them to a hostess for check-in. A woman with bright white teeth and piles of black curly hair waved from behind a reception counter.
“May I have your names and passports?”
“The reservation’s under Matthews,” Fraser answered and handed over passports for himself, his wife, and two sons, ages eight and ten.
“Ah yes, Matthews. Staying with us until Saturday,” the hostess said, after tapping at a computer. “We have you in a suite.”
“Let me ask you, is the property safe and well-guarded?”
“Oh, very safe. We are surrounded by other resorts. Do you have plans to leave our property during your stay?”
“No. We’ll stay right here. We’re here to swim and eat.”
“Then you came to the right place.”
After more chatter, the hostess tried to lure Fraser into making an appointment for a timeshare presentation. Fraser saw through the scheme and claimed he was not allowed to schedule any of his time. “I promised my wife I wouldn’t think about work or any timetables. No deals or commitments while we’re here.”
The hostess gave up on the timeshare pitch and attached wristbands to all members of the family. “Don’t lose these. They get you into your room and all the restaurants. You’ll have access to all the food and drinks you want.”
As the family walked to their room, they caught views of the ocean and the setting sun in a pink sky. The resort’s pathways were lined with palm trees and flowering bushes that smelled sweet in the evening air.
Their suite was split into separate living areas for parents and kids. Tile covered the floor. The furniture and ceiling fans were made from matching dark wood. Framed black-and-white seashell prints hung on the walls. Fraser liked the clean and simple layout and how it smelled like the beach.
“We should eat dinner so we get our money’s worth,” he said to the family.
He hurried them out of the room and into one of the buffet restaurants. While they ate, he studied a resort map.
“I think I’ll walk around a little and get my bearings,” Fraser announced when they were done. “Anyone want to come with me?”
“I think the rest of us are tired,” his wife replied. “You go explore and we’ll go back to the room. But remember, we’re only here to relax.”
Fraser did not say so, but he was happy to go alone so that none of them slowed him down. He headed in the opposite direction of his family with the resort map showing on his phone.
The Caribbean trip was his wife’s idea. While Fraser had always been tightly strung, she worried that his strings seemed ready to burst. “You need a reset more than anyone on earth,” she told her husband. “Just one week of relaxing. No thinking about work. No plans and schedules. Nothing to accomplish.”
Fraser did not see a problem with his frantically structured lifestyle. He had important things to do. He was a builder and a winner. Winners ate stress for every meal and grew stronger. But he also wanted to keep peace and be a great husband. If his wife demanded a week of sitting around, he would play along. In fact, he would sit around better than anyone.
Fraser returned from his evening property tour to find his wife and boys already asleep. He laid in bed holding the vacation novel he intended to read, a thick creative non-fiction account of Alexander the Great. He nodded off on page 4.
Fraser’s biological alarm clock woke him up at 5:30 the next morning. He tried for a minute to fall back to sleep and then decided he should complete his usual workout routine. He hustled to the resort’s gym and briskly rode a bike, treadmill, and elliptical machine for eight minutes each.
The breakfast buffet was not open until 7 am, but he found a place to get coffee and a copy of the Wall Street Journal. He tucked the paper under his arm and decided to inspect the interconnected swimming pools in the morning light. The pools were built next to the beach and designed with many clover-shaped sections to maximize deck space. A labyrinth of stone paths, hedges, and bridges encircled and intersected the complex. Dozens of tan umbrellas rose above the water and landscaping. Strategically planted palm trees towered over the umbrellas, their slender trunks stripped smooth like the legs of sunbathing guests.
Resort staffers in white uniforms busily strained the pool’s turquoise waters of floating debris. Others stacked clean towels and wiped down lounge chairs. Fraser counted just over 200 total chairs before locating the ideal lounging spot, a round section of pool which extended into an isolated alcove. A semicircular deck surrounded half of the water’s edge while the other half ended at a wall overlooking the ocean.
Of the twenty lounge chairs belonging to the hidden sanctuary, sixteen already appeared claimed by bottles of sunscreen, hats, towels, and blowup toys. Fraser ran for fresh towels and draped them on the backs of the remaining four chairs. He removed his flipflops and UConn cap and placed them on the chairs’ fabric sitting surface. Then he added sections from his Wall Street Journal. Fraser checked the time. 6:30 am.
Fraser traced the path of the sun across the sky and was not happy with the shade provided by a single umbrella between his four chairs. He hurried to a different section of the pool and dragged back an umbrella stand and its heavy base. Then he found additional short tables to put next to the umbrellas. He was not sure if his stash of personal items was sufficient to claim his space so he raced to his room to grab sunscreen bottles, a swimming mask, and two blowup beachballs. With everything in place, he sat next to the deserted pool and smiled with approval as he watched a bird building a nest under the eaves of the resort’s beachside restaurant.
“Let’s go! Breakfast is ready,” Fraser called when he returned to his family’s room.
His wife and sons moved slowly and before Fraser allowed them to visit the buffet, he insisted they visit his saved spot next to the pool.
“Isn’t this perfect?” he gushed with satisfaction. “Great view, hidden but still close to everything. You can slide right into the water. Those poor suckers who aren’t awake yet will be sitting on the sand or way back by the lawn.”
Fraser’s wife and sons agreed it was a great location. They returned after breakfast and alternated between sitting, swimming in the pool, and bobbing in the ocean waves. When it was time for lunch, they left their stuff on the lounge chairs and visited the beachside restaurant.
With stomachs stuffed, the Matthews’ returned to the alcove. Lying on two of their chairs was a skinny young couple. Both the man and woman were covered in tattoos and holding cocktails. Fraser’s cap and Wall Street Journal sections had been pushed to the ground.
“Hey! Those are our chairs!” Fraser shouted. “We left our things on them.”
“We didn’t think you were still using them,” the female half of the couple replied.
“Well, we are. We need them right now.”
The couple huffed and sighed but they stood up and walked away.
“Can you believe the nerve of some people?” Fraser said to his wife. “No respect for boundaries.”
Whenever he returned that afternoon to their alcove chair camp to attack more pages in his book, Fraser warily watched the people surrounding him. He did not care for the family with pre-school kids who splashed on their floating tubes and made lots of noise. He also disliked the trashy partiers who floated over, drinks in hand, from the swim up bar. They were loud and crude and corrupted the paradise he envisioned. He felt obligated to act.
On Tuesday morning at 5:45, Fraser walked down to the pool with a Wall Street Journal and armfuls of personal items. A few chairs around his favorite alcove were already marked, but he was able to claim what he thought were the best four. He also claimed a buffer of four chairs on either side and spread around spray bottles, swimming accessories, towels, and newspaper sections. He dragged three umbrellas and extra tables from the far end of the pool. By the time he was done, his section of the deck looked well spoken for.
As Fraser pushed his family through the breakfast buffet, he spotted a quiet looking family with kids around the same ages as his sons. Fraser told the Spagnolas he was saving some chairs in a great section of the pool and invited them to join him. They happily accepted. On the way to the water, Fraser met another family, the Lins, who met his desirability profile. He made them the same offer and when they reached the alcove, he positioned the Spagnolas and Lins on both sides of his own four lounge chairs.
No one tried sneaking into a spot and the number of undesirables in the water dropped. Still, the remaining eight uncontrolled chairs bothered Fraser. He set an alarm on Wednesday morning. He was at the pool by 5:00 scattering his things around his secluded kingdom. He claimed all twenty chars and dragged umbrellas and tables until breakfast. By 9 am, he recruited two more respectable families, the Goldthorpes and Shitakes, into the alcove. With the return of the Spagnolas and Lins, he now had full control. He possessively called their group the five families.
By Thursday, Fraser set rotations for the families so they could hand off the resort’s available kayaks and paddleboards and retain access to a pickleball net. At least one family always stood guard over the alcove to ensure no intruders tried to displace them. Fraser’s optimized paradise was finally achieved. He felt the same kind of satisfaction he did back home on a more normal Thursday.
The five families returned to their stations on Friday. By the afternoon, Fraser began to think about returning home and he became nostalgic over what he had built. What a shame to let it dissolve. It would soon only be a memory as group members left one by one. The Lins had already said goodbye to pack up their things.
And then Fraser spied an entirely new family arriving at the resort and inspecting the pool for the first time. They looked like they fit the five families profile. The dad wore a New York Yankees cap and carried a Wall Street Journal and a thick book. When they got close, Fraser waved them over.
“You looking for a spot?”
“Sure are. We just got here.”
“The four chairs next to us are available. How long are you staying?”
“A week. I’m not supposed to do anything but read and sit by the pool.”
A smile crept over Fraser’s face as he sized up the apprentice who could carry on his legacy. He let him sit down before adding, “This is the best spot in the place. But I’m sure you know that great relaxation doesn’t just happen on its own. Let me share a few secrets about how to keep it nice and quiet and chase away the riffraff. Let’s start with your wake-up time and how to move the umbrellas.”
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