The Hotel Nantucket — Chapter no 19

19. The Blanket, the Belt, the Burglary

August 1, 2022

From: Xavier Darling ([email protected]) To: Employees of the Hotel Nantucket

Happy August, team! I’m pleased to offer this week’s thousand- dollar bonus to a different staff member: Raoul Wasserman-Ramirez.

Raoul’s excellent service at the bell stand was extolled by a large family who recently stayed with us. He went above and beyond the call of duty to meet their needs and always had a smile. That’s what I like to hear!

I’ll be seeing you all in just a few weeks!

XD

August is the least favorite month of most people who work in the summer service industry—and Lizbet is no exception. July is merely a dress rehearsal for the flat-out theater-of-the-absurd production that is August. That was true at the Deck—every table every night was booked with a VIP. Lizbet once had to say no to Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani requesting a table for eight because she simply couldn’t bump one of her regulars (but it killed her to do it).

At the hotel, August is just as full as July—you can’t get any fuller than full—but the clientele is more demanding. A woman named Diane Brickley insists that Edie rent her “the room you keep vacant for VIP walk-ins.” Edie comes to Lizbet and says, “I need your help.

Alessandra is on lunch.”

“Still?” Lizbet says. Alessandra has been pushing the envelope where lunch is concerned—the day before, she was gone for ninety minutes, and when Lizbet spoke to her about it, Alessandra shrugged and said, “Fire me.”

Which, of course, Lizbet couldn’t do. Not in August.

Lizbet pokes her head out her office door. Diane Brickley is, Lizbet would guess, nearly eighty years old. She looks like one of the ladies who eat lunch every day on the patio of the Field and Oar Club.

She’s wearing a knee-length Nantucket-red skirt that she probably bought at Murray’s Toggery back in the 1960s—it’s faded to pale pink—a yellow slicker, and a rain bonnet (the forecast did call for thunderstorms, but out the front doors of the hotel Lizbet sees golden sunshine). There’s an antique Nantucket Lightship basket hanging from Diane Brickley’s forearm. Lizbet realizes that Diane Brickley is one of the Field and Oar ladies, and she sits on the board of directors at the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum. She lives at 388 Main Street.

“Hello, Mrs. Brickley, it’s Lizbet Keaton.”

Diane waves a hand. “At least somebody here knows me. I have my daughter visiting with her four teenage sons and I can’t handle the noise, the smell, or the mess. Please put me in the room you save for visiting dignitaries.”

Hotels do not keep rooms vacant for VIP walk-ins; that’s a myth.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Brickley,” Lizbet says. “We’re full. We don’t have a single room available.”

“Full?” Mrs. Brickley says. “The White Elephant is full, the Beach Club is full, and the Wauwinet is full, but I thought for sure you’d have a room available. Isn’t this place haunted?”

Guests have been posting their “visits” from the ghost of Grace Hadley all over social media. Nothing that Grace does shows up on anyone’s camera, but these people get likes and follows and reposts anyway. Derek White, a fourth-grade teacher from Shaker Heights, reported seeing a ghost reflected in his dark bedroom window; he claimed she was wearing “one of the hotel bathrobes and a Minnesota Twins cap.” A few days later, guest Elaine Backler was applying eyebrow pencil when she saw a “floating robe and navy baseball hat” in the mirror behind her. (Lizbet is certain Elaine must have heard about Derek’s sighting and was corroborating it to stoke intrigue. The detail about the Twins cap, though, nags at Lizbet. She misplaced her own navy Minnesota Twins baseball cap sometime during her first week of work and it hasn’t turned up.) The Washington Post calls, then USA Today, but all Lizbet can tell them for sure is that a chambermaid was killed in a fire at the hotel a hundred years earlier. Is Grace Hadley now haunting the hotel? “It’s anyone’s guess,” Lizbet says lightly. The phone rings nonstop; people have started booking rooms for the following summer.

Lizbet wants to tell Mario about this—tell him he was wrong that the hotel might be a flash in the pan; Lizbet is half full for next June

already—but she has consciously avoided any situation in which she might see Mario. She hasn’t texted or called. He called her once at midnight, waking her up; it took extreme willpower but she let the call go to voice mail, and he didn’t leave a message. He also sent Beatriz to the front desk with a bakery box—the homemade pizza rolls, the gougères, the doughnuts—and Lizbet brought it directly to the break room for everyone else to enjoy.

She longs for him every second of every day.

Her new obsession is monitoring Yolanda’s trips to and from the Blue Bar kitchen. Yolanda seems to go mostly in the morning and the afternoon, and Lizbet knows that Mario doesn’t arrive until four (or, when he wanted to make out with Lizbet in her office, three thirty). Yolanda also visits the kitchen in the late afternoon right before service starts, so this is when Lizbet watches her most closely. Does she seem ravished? Not really. She’s as serene as always, and she’s never weird or tense around Lizbet. One day, she stops at the desk and gives Lizbet an appraising look, and Lizbet thinks, Here it comes. She’s going to say: I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize, I hope you can forgive, I never meant to hurt… Yolanda says, “You look like a person in need of a yoga class.

How about thirty minutes in savasana pose?”

Lizbet manages a smile. Although Yolanda is right, Lizbet can’t imagine ever practicing with her again, not after all this. “I’m fine, thanks,” she says. “It’s just August.”

Lizbet worries beads along a mental string: Mario, Mario, Yolanda, Mario, Yolanda.

But then something steals her full attention.

It’s eleven o’clock on Thursday, August 4, and the lobby is popping. Louie is playing Mr. Tennant from room 201 in chess and the match is so close, there’s a little crowd around them; it includes Richie and (an exasperated) Kimber Marsh, who are waiting for Louie to finish so they can all go to the 167 Raw food truck for tuna burgers and then to Cisco Beach. Edie is on the phone with the Galley, trying to secure a beachfront lunch reservation for room 110, and Alessandra is calling the Hy-Line to make a reservation for the Keenan family, who somehow neglected to arrange for their transport home.

Lizbet is about to head to the percolator—it will be her eighth cup of coffee, which is a lot, even for her—when she notices a woman enter the lobby. This woman is dressed in the best kind of casual way: cute jeans, a white blouse that’s as crisp as paper, and gladiator sandals. She’s rolling in a hunter-green Away carry-on, which is the exact same bag that Lizbet travels with. Her dark hair is cut in a bob at her jawline and she’s wearing chic glasses. None of this is particularly remarkable, but Lizbet gets a feeling. The woman stops just inside the entrance to the lobby to look around. She whips out her phone and begins to take pictures and type notes. Lizbet hurries over.

“Welcome to the Hotel Nantucket,” she says. (Adam always sings this; it’s a fun touch, but Lizbet can’t pull it off.) “May I help with your bag?”

“Thank you,” the woman says. She follows Lizbet to the desk, where she pulls out her Washington, DC, driver’s license and a Delta

SkyMiles Platinum American Express, both in the name of Claire Underwood.

Claire Underwood. Washington, DC. House of Cards! Lizbet thinks. (Lizbet and JJ watched all six seasons.) Here’s what Lizbet has been waiting for: an inside-joke alias. Lizbet tries to act natural.

She wishes that she could let Edie and Alessandra and Raoul and Adam and Zeke know that Shelly Carpenter is in the house! They should have come up with a secret signal word, like Amsterdam or unicycle. Why did Lizbet not think to do that? They all knew this day would come. Shelly posted her review of the bed-and-breakfast in Hyannis Port only five days earlier. Maybe she popped over to the Vineyard to check out the Winnetu or the Charlotte Inn and now she’s here on Nantucket. She’s purposely arrived at eleven in the morning, which is the most frenetic time of the day because of guests checking out. Lizbet quickly reviews the reservation: three nights in a standard deluxe room, paid in full, booked on July 5 (the day of Lizbet’s first date with Mario, she can’t help thinking). “Claire Underwood” booked long before all the brouhaha about the ghost.

Lizbet says, “It’s so wonderful to have you staying with us, Ms.

Underwood. Are you visiting Nantucket for any special reason?”

Claire/Maybe-Shelly smiles. “Just a quick getaway,” she says. “I was curious about the hotel.”

Lizbet bites her lower lip to keep from giving Claire/Maybe-Shelly an unhinged grin. “There are a few things you should know about our property. Technically, check-in is at three—”

“I understand,” Claire/Maybe-Shelly says.

“But I’ll try to get you into your room as soon as possible.” Lizbet goes on to tell Claire/Maybe-Shelly about the adult pool and the

wellness center, and then she hands Claire/Maybe-Shelly a copy of the Blue Book. “This lists all of our recommendations for shopping, restaurants, beaches, galleries, bars, and nightlife. If you have any requests, please let me know.” Lizbet realizes with horror that she has forgotten to introduce herself. “I’m Lizbet Keaton, the general manager.”

“I do have some requests, actually,” Claire/Maybe-Shelly says, pulling a piece of paper out of her cute woven clutch. “First off, would it be possible for me to get a room upgrade?”

A room upgrade? Lizbet thinks. The hotel is full! But she understands that Claire/Maybe-Shelly has to ask; it’s what savvy travelers (and famous hotel bloggers) do. How will they ever get the fifth key if Lizbet can’t accommodate this request? They won’t is the answer.

Then Lizbet realizes that they do have one free room: Xavier’s suite, which is awaiting his arrival on August 24. Richie has asked Lizbet why she doesn’t rent the room out, since they know Xavier’s dates, and Lizbet said she wouldn’t feel right. Xavier asked her to hold it for him; he’s been paying the nightly rate all summer. Lizbet is certain that the day she agrees to let someone take Xavier’s suite, Xavier will appear out of the blue for a surprise visit.

But Shelly Carpenter is a special case. I bought the hotel to impress two women. If Lizbet doesn’t offer Shelly the owner’s suite, she reasons, Xavier will be furious.

“I can upgrade you to the owner’s suite,” Lizbet says, and she watches Claire/Maybe-Shelly’s eyebrows lift.

“Excellent, thank you,” Claire/Maybe-Shelly says. “I also have these requests.” She slides the piece of paper across the desk.

Thursday 7:30 p.m. Pearl bar seat

Friday 7:00 p.m. Nautilus bar seat Saturday 8:00 p.m. Blue Bar bar seat Four-door Jeep Wrangler hardtop Saturday, please also arrange pickup of charcuterie platter from Petrichor

Stand-up paddle lesson, Friday noon Tour of Cisco Brewers, Friday 5:00 p.m.

Yoga class before 10:00 a.m. Friday through Sunday

“I’ll handle all this right away,” Lizbet says. She’s relieved the Deck isn’t on Claire/Maybe-Shelly’s list. “Do you have any other luggage?

I’ll have Zeke, our bellman, bring it up to you right away.”

“No,” Claire/Maybe-Shelly says. “Just this.”

“Well, then, give me a few minutes to have housekeeping prepare your room and I’ll walk you up myself. We have complimentary Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee in the percolator.”

“Fantastic!” Claire/Maybe-Shelly says. “I missed my coffee this morning. And I love percolated coffee. It’s such a nice touch.” A cheer goes up from the chess match: Louie has beaten Mr. Tennant.

Lizbet takes this as a good omen. The hotel will win Claire/Maybe- Shelly over. They will get the fifth key.

What’s not a good omen is the icy silence on the other end of the telephone line when Lizbet calls Magda to tell her to prepare the owner’s suite, 317, for a guest checking in.

“That’s Xavier’s suite,” Magda says.

“Mr. Darling’s, yes,” Lizbet says. “But since he’s not here…”

“I would strongly advise against putting anyone in Xavier’s suite,”

Magda says. “He’s paying to keep it empty.”

“Shelly Carpenter is here,” Lizbet whispers. “She asked for an upgrade.”

Magda clears her throat. “You’re sure it’s her? Beyond a shadow of a doubt?”

“No one is ever sure. But there’s been more than one indication.”

“Fine. Give us fifteen minutes to stock the minibar, dust, and plump the pillows for Ms. Carpenter.”

“You need to do more than that,” Lizbet says. “You need to run through the checklist. What if there are cobwebs? What if the windows stick? What if the sound system is doing that funny stuttering thing? And make sure the pens work and that the sink drains properly.”

“Perhaps you’d like to come up and do my job for me?” Magda asks, and Lizbet presses her lips together. Lizbet suspects that although she is Magda’s boss, Magda sees it as the other way around.

“Not at all, Magda,” Lizbet says. “Thank you.”

She has quietly informed the staff that the woman posing as Claire Underwood who is staying in suite 317 might very well be Shelly Carpenter. Lizbet has also told the staff not to overdo it. The last thing they want is for Claire/Maybe-Shelly to think her cover is blown and figure out she’s receiving special service. If that happens, she won’t write the review at all.

From the looks of things, Claire/Maybe-Shelly is having a wonderful time. She drinks the percolated coffee in the morning, takes an interest in Louie’s chess matches, raves about her yoga class with Yolanda, rides one of the free bikes into town to shop and get lunch at the Beet; she lounges by the adult pool, takes her tours and lessons, and heads out for her solo dinners stylishly dressed (Lizbet’s favorite look is white jeans, a sleeveless black bodysuit, and leopard-print wedges).

Late on Saturday afternoon, Claire/Maybe-Shelly stops by the front desk and says, “Where did you source those blue cashmere blankets? I’d like to get one to take home.”

“Nantucket Looms,” Lizbet says. She checks the time. “They’re closed now but they open tomorrow at ten.”

“Darn,” Claire/Maybe-Shelly says. “My flight leaves at ten.”

“Let me see what I can do,” Lizbet says. She goes to the second- floor housekeeping storage, where they keep half a dozen extra blue blankets. Lizbet wraps one up in hydrangea-blue tissue. Is she being too obvious, too heavy-handed? Will Claire/Maybe-Shelly see the blanket for what it is—a bribe?

Lizbet takes the risk and presents Claire/Maybe-Shelly with the blanket the next morning when she checks out. Claire/Maybe-Shelly seems genuinely overcome by the gesture—so thoughtful, thank you, her stay at the hotel has been an utter delight.

“I’m a pretty tough customer,” Claire/Maybe-Shelly says. “But I’ve never been as won over by a hotel stay as I have by this one.”

Yes! Lizbet thinks. Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes!

After Claire/Maybe-Shelly walks out the front door, trailing her Away carry-on behind her, Lizbet wants to high-five her staff, but she

exercises restraint. They can all celebrate on the last Friday of the month when the Hotel Nantucket becomes the only property to ever receive five keys. For now, Lizbet will remain…cautiously optimistic.

The next morning, Edie knocks on Lizbet’s office door. Claire Underwood is on the phone and has asked for Lizbet personally.

Something’s up.

In the housekeeping office, Magda assigns Octavia and Neves the first-floor checkouts, but instead of sending Chad and Bibi to the second floor, she closes the office door.

“The two of you were responsible for the checkout of suite three seventeen yesterday, were you not?” Magda asks.

“We were,” Chad says. He was, frankly, amazed that Magda assigned him and Bibi, rather than Octavia and Neves, to the owner’s suite, but he took it as a vote of confidence. They’ve been doing good work—but yesterday, only Chad did good work. Bibi was in a foul mood, and when Chad asked her what was wrong, she said that her “baby-daddy,” some dude named Johnny Quarter, had left the state without a trace, and with him went the five-hundred-dollar- a-month child-support payments. She had her aunt report Johnny Quarter to domestic relations, who issued a summons.

“But doing that doesn’t get me my money,” Bibi said.

She spent most of the time in suite 317 working like a person underwater. The owner’s suite was bigger and grander than the other suites in the hotel. The Nantucket-night-sky mural was painted in finer detail; the library had brass rails and a sliding ladder to reach the upper shelves. There was a separate dressing room, and the

second bedroom was an elegant study complete with a built-in desk; on the walls hung prints of the hotel in the early twentieth century.

There were cream-and-blue Persian carpets instead of rainbow-hued Annie Selke rugs throughout, and the bathroom included a steam sauna. It was very extra.

“Why did they rent out this room?” Bibi asked. “The owner isn’t here.”

“I guess they thought Shelly Carpenter showed up,” Chad said.

“I have no idea who that is,” Bibi said.

“She has this Instagram account and blog called Hotel Confidential,” he said. “Don’t you follow her?”

“Why would I follow something called Hotel Confidential?” Bibi asked, and Chad thought, Because you work in a hotel? But he had to admit, he’d never heard of the Hotel Confidential blog. Chad checked it out and fell down the rabbit hole, scrolling through a bunch of Shelly’s past posts and clicking on her bio to read the reviews. Shelly Carpenter had been everywhere—to the Angama Mara safari camp in Kenya and the Malliouhana in Anguilla and Las Ventanas al Paraiso in Cabo—but she also reviewed more modest places, like motels on Route 66 and beach bungalows in Koh Samui, Thailand. The way she described these places was so detailed and precise that Chad felt like he’d been there too. It was exciting to think that she’d been to their hotel (maybe; no one could be sure). He wondered what she was going to write about the place.

“Well, it’s a thing, she’s internet-famous, and Lizbet offered her this suite as an upgrade.”

“Internet-famous?” Bibi said. She paused. “Why don’t you do the bathroom, Long Shot. I’ll finish the bed.”

Ms. English says, “The guest called to say she left behind a black suede Gucci belt. I went through the suite myself but didn’t find it.”

Ms. English gives them both a death stare. “Did either of you see it?”

“I didn’t see a Gucci belt,” Bibi says. “Or any belt. Have you checked the laundry?”

“Yes, Barbara,” Ms. English says and both Chad and Bibi stiffen.

Has Ms. English ever used Bibi’s real name before? No. They’re in trouble, Chad thinks. Bibi is in trouble. Bibi took the Gucci belt, of course—just like she lifted Mrs. Daley’s Fendi scarf. At some point when Chad was cleaning the bathroom of the owner’s suite, he noticed the door had been closed behind him. He heard the vacuum running and he’d nearly poked his head out to check on Bibi. The reason he hadn’t checked on Bibi, he admits to himself now, was that he hadn’t wanted to know if she was actually vacuuming or just using the noise as a cover. She was upset about money, the loss of five hundred dollars a month, the specter of having to pay a private investigator to track down the baby-daddy. The guest in the room, Claire/Maybe-Shelly, had left a sixty-dollar tip, and as always, Chad told Bibi to just take the whole thing, which she did with her usual attitude of entitlement even though half of it was rightfully his.

But apparently that hadn’t been enough. She had taken Claire/Maybe-Shelly’s Gucci belt.

“What did the belt look like?” Chad asks.

“Black suede with a rose-gold double-G buckle,” Ms. English says.

Bibi probably already has it up on eBay or Craigslist, Chad thinks.

She’ll get six hundred bucks because those belts cost close to eight hundred. Chad knows this because his mother has a Gucci belt and it’s an egregious habit of hers to fake-complain about exactly how much her wardrobe costs.

“This is the second incident I’ve had with you two where something has gone missing.”

Bibi glowers at Ms. English, her eyes like two cold, clear marbles.

“I bet you haven’t asked Octavia and Neves about it, have you?”

“They didn’t clean the room,” Ms. English says.

“But they have a master key!” Bibi says. “I’m telling you, they’re trying to frame me.”

This is the same outrageous claim Bibi made last time; it feels like a little kid pointing a finger at the playground. But her face shines with such indignant anger that Chad entertains that possibility for a second. Octavia and Neves seem like nice girls, but what if they are plotting to get Bibi fired?

Because he fears that’s exactly how this is going to end.

“If it doesn’t turn up by tomorrow,” Chad says, hitting these words hard so Bibi gets the message, “can we just replace it?”

“I’ve already looked online,” Ms. English says. “That particular belt, with the rose-gold buckle, has been discontinued.” She looks from Chad to Bibi and back. “I don’t have to remind you that this was a VIP guest, nor do I have to remind you that if and when a guest accidentally leaves something behind, it does not belong to you. It goes directly to the lost and found.”

Chad bobs his head while Bibi scowls. He can’t believe she isn’t more concerned. If she loses her job, she’s sunk.

“I was crystal clear that this was never to happen again,” Ms.

English says.

“Maybe the ghost disappeared it,” Bibi says. “Did you think of that?”

“If the belt doesn’t turn up by tomorrow, there will be consequences,” Ms. English says. “Do you hear me, Barbara?”

As Chad and Bibi head up to the second floor with their cleaning cart, Bibi says, “Why do you think she said only my name?”

“Bring it back tomorrow, Bibi,” Chad says. “We can hide it down in the laundry.”

“You think I took it too?” Bibi says. “Really, Long Shot?” She looks so wounded that Chad again wonders if maybe he’s wrong. Maybe Bibi didn’t take it. Maybe it was Octavia and Neves. Or possibly Claire/Maybe-Shelly put it in a side pouch of her luggage and she’ll find it next week when she flies to Dubai or Cartagena and she’ll call the hotel to apologize. Or maybe the person pilfering the luxury

goods is…Ms. English.

Ha! he thinks. No, it’s Bibi.

When Chad gets home from work, he finds the driveway of his house lined with cars and, parked in Chad’s usual spot, a van from the Nantucket Catering Company. He tries to recall the date and realizes it’s Monday, August 8. Are his parents having their annual 8/8 cocktail party despite what happened? The answer is obviously yes —but the fact that neither Paul nor Whitney mentioned it to Chad (did they?) means his presence might not be expected, which is a relief. It also makes what Chad has to do far easier.

He enters the house and hears conversation, laughter, strains of Christopher Cross (his mother is having a moment with yacht rock) coming from the deck out back. Chad takes a second to see who’s in attendance—Bryce’s parents from Greenwich, Jasper’s parents from Fisher Island, Paul Winslow’s business partner Holden Miller from the Brandywine Group, and Leith and her friend Divinity, who are wearing matching LoveShackFancy dresses. Chad again racks his brain, but he has no recollection of hearing about this party. He’s offended that his parents are having it. He understands they want to proceed as though nothing has happened, but a party? Really?

Chad hurries up the stairs. He might tell his parents he skipped the party in protest or that he didn’t feel like he deserved to celebrate the eighth of August, considering what he’d done. He heads into his parents’ room, the master suite, which is a universe unto itself.

There’s the actual bedroom, then there’s his mother’s sitting room, his father’s upstairs study, the palatial marble bathroom complete with Jacuzzi tub for two, and his-and-her walk-in closets. Chad goes to his mother’s closet—he hasn’t set foot in here since he was eight years old, when they moved in—and tries to guess where Whitney keeps her belts. Her hanging clothes take up three walls of the room, and the fourth wall is floor-to-ceiling cubbies for shoes. There are… sixty-four pairs of shoes, here, on Nantucket, where a woman could make it through the summer with sneakers, flip-flops, and one pair of

sandals.

He tries not to think about Paddy.

In the center of the walk-in is a free-form structure of drawers and shelves where Whitney keeps folded things—light sweaters, pashminas, T-shirts, her yoga clothes. There’s also a tall, slender

dresser by the door. Chad avoids the two top drawers, assuming they hold his mother’s underwear, and opens the third drawer. It’s socks and stockings. The fourth drawer holds clutch purses; there are half a dozen. Chad gets on his knees and opens the fifth drawer, which holds—bingo!—belts. They’re coiled up like sleeping snakes and Chad pulls them out, one by one: Hermès, Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, and—yes, he just can’t believe his luck, he really can’t believe it—a black suede Gucci belt with a rose-gold double-G buckle. He doesn’t have to think twice; he takes it.

On his way out, he gazes down at the party from his parents’ picture window. The sun is setting, making all of the vivacious, well- dressed guests look like they’ve been dipped in rose gold. He thinks about how easy it would be for him to change into madras shorts and a pink oxford and slip through the crowd, shaking hands, making eye contact, saying, Yes, sir, good to see you, sir, definitely looking forward to working with my father in September. I can’t wait to dive into the world of venture capital.

Chad knows he could quit his job tomorrow and be finished with Bibi’s kleptomania and her complaining; he would never have to scrub another toilet, fold another towel, or see another hair wrapped around a bar of soap. He could golf all day, then drink a Mount Gay and tonic and eat mini–crab cakes with people who talk only about Wimbledon and their stock portfolios. But he can’t pretend May 22 never happened. He has to do penance. That’s what his job at the hotel is all about—it’s an atonement. Maybe Paddy will never learn about Chad’s job, or if he does, maybe he won’t care. But Chad is going to keep at it anyway. He likes living a life of purpose.

He wraps his mother’s belt around his fingers like brass knuckles and heads down the hall to hide in his room.

The next morning, Chad leaves for work an hour early. No one notices; his parents and Leith are all still asleep. (They were rocking out to Bob Seger and Madonna until almost midnight, and when his mother inevitably knocked on his bedroom door and asked him to “come down and make an appearance, please, Chaddy, people are asking about you,” he said he’d be down in a minute, knowing his mother would forget—and she did.) Chad arrives at the hotel at seven and uses the service entrance, the belt inside an old L. L. Bean backpack of Leith’s that he found in the mudroom. He waits until Joseph, who runs the laundry, goes on a cigarette break, then he buries the belt in one of the big rolling baskets of dirty linens.

Not all superheroes wear capes, he thinks. He’s always wanted to say that about himself, but of course, he never had a reason. Until now.

At the start of his shift fifty-five minutes later, Ms. English announces that the Gucci belt has been located in the laundry.

“It has?” Bibi says.

“You sound surprised, Barbara,” Ms. English says.

“Not surprised at all,” Bibi says. She’s a liar and a thief, Chad thinks. But he admires her audacity and he hopes she got a good price for Claire/Maybe-Shelly’s belt. “I knew it would turn up.”

Lizbet finally connects with Heidi Bick, who suggests they go to the Blue Bar for dinner. Lizbet says, “I will eat literally anywhere else. I

have to get out of this building.”

“But not the Deck?” Heidi says.

“Not the Deck either, I’m sorry.” Lizbet could return to the Deck now that Christina is gone. In a weak moment, Lizbet texted JJ to ask how he was doing and he replied, I miss you. Lizbet had stared at that text long and hard but she didn’t feel angry, she didn’t feel

sad, and she didn’t miss him back.

She misses Mario.

Lizbet and Heidi meet at Bar Yoshi on Old South Wharf. They’re seated at a high-top by the windows that overlook the harbor. The restaurant has a spare, chic vibe with lots of light wood, a floating glass-fronted cabinet that holds the liquor bottles, and excellent woven-basket light fixtures. Lizbet loves this place; she plans to completely overdo it on the sushi.

She feels good. She is out, finally, with a girlfriend.

Lizbet orders sake, Heidi a tequila cocktail, which is unusual for

her—she’s a devoted rosé drinker.

“Everything okay?” Lizbet asks.

Heidi’s eyes widen. “You mean to tell me you haven’t heard the rumors?”

“I have no one to hear rumors from,” Lizbet admits. “I’m always at work. I never see anyone from my old life.”

“Well, I heard you were dating Mario Subiaco,” Heidi says.

“Someone saw the two of you at the Pearl.”

Their drinks arrive and Lizbet raises her sake glass to Heidi’s highball. “I’m glad we did this.”

They touch glasses and drink. Heidi inhales nearly half her cocktail in one gulp.

“The thing with Mario didn’t work out,” Lizbet says.

“It was a good rebound, though, right?” Heidi says. “He’s so hot.

And such a legend.”

Lizbet doesn’t want to talk about how hot or legendary Mario is.

“So tell me about the rumors,” she says. “I’m ready.”

But as it turns out, Lizbet is not ready.

“You remember how I told you Michael was up here all spring by himself working on a project? He and this guy from his office, Rafe, want to splinter off and start their own company.”

Lizbet definitely remembers that Michael was here alone. Oh, does she.

“Well, when I showed up in June, I found an eye shadow in my makeup drawer that wasn’t mine.”

“Oh,” Lizbet says. She already doesn’t like where this story is going.

“Then I found a pair of René Caovilla stilettos in my closet. Size six.”

What? Lizbet thinks. There’s only one woman brave enough to wear René Caovilla stilettos here on Nantucket: Lyric Layton, Heidi’s best friend. In her life before husband, children, and yoga, Lyric was

a shoe model in New York.

“Lyric?” she says.

“And then I found a positive pregnancy test tucked into the pages of the book on my nightstand.”

“You did not,” Lizbet says.

“As I’m sure you’ve heard, Lyric is newly pregnant with her fourth.”

Lizbet has not heard. The hotel really is a fortress. “So you think there was something going on between Michael and…Lyric?” This is smoking-hot scandalous news. No wonder Heidi is drinking tequila!

Along with curiosity, Lizbet feels relief that the mistress wasn’t Alessandra.

“That’s what I thought, yes. That’s how someone wanted to make

it look.”

“So it wasn’t Lyric?”

“Lyric swears not. She said if she and Michael were having an affair, there would be no way she would leave those things behind

for me to find.”

Right, Lizbet thinks. No way.

Heidi throws back another healthy swallow of her drink. “We have a key to the Laytons’ house labeled on a hook in our mudroom.

Michael thinks someone from his company found out that he and Rafe were planning on leaving and set out to sabotage him.”

Lizbet blinks.

“Michael thinks the guy he called to fix our Wi-Fi was actually a spy who saw the key—because, you know, the router is in our mudroom—and this guy burgled the Layton house while they were out and then planted those things in our house.”

“Michael thinks the cable guy did it?”

“Internet guy.”

“Wow,” Lizbet says. She brings her sake to her lips; her guard is back up. There’s no chance a man would know to plant an eye

shadow, shoes, and a pregnancy test. “Well, I guess you’re relieved it has nothing to do with Lyric.”

“Yes, definitely,” Heidi says. “Though it did real damage to our friendship. She’s angry that I suspected her.” Heidi leans in. “But you have to admit, it’s a hard story to swallow, that the internet guy set Michael up.”

Lizbet nods. Very hard to swallow, she thinks. Like, a handful-of- steel-screws hard to swallow.

Heidi sighs. “But Michael is in the world of petroleum and you know how ruthless that is.”

Is it the kind of ruthless that would stick someone else’s pregnancy test inside a book on Heidi’s nightstand? Lizbet wonders.

Or plant a different brand of eye shadow, a different type of shoe?

No, Lizbet thinks. It wasn’t the internet guy and it wasn’t Lyric. It could have been some woman that Michael was sleeping with, a woman he met on the ferry and decided to let stay awhile because it was raw, chilly spring on Nantucket and he was always up for a little action with a beautiful woman and because Michael essentially gambled for a living and because this other woman was wily and had no morals. Alessandra saw the key to the Laytons’ house and she’d probably gathered through eavesdropping or casual conversation that the Laytons next door were close friends, and she burgled the Laytons’ house so that when she vacated the premises, Heidi would think Michael was sleeping with Lyric.

“I’m having the ramen,” Heidi says. “What about you?”

“I haven’t even looked. I want sushi.” But Lizbet can’t think about sushi. She isn’t sure what to do. Should she tell Heidi what Alessandra said about meeting a “friend” on the Hy-Line back in April

and staying with him on Hulbert Avenue? Should she describe following Alessandra by bike and being caught by Alessandra right in front of Heidi’s house? Should she then mention how Alessandra is a casual liar who showed up with sketchy references (all of them European, like she’s the Talented Ms. Ripley)? Should she tell Heidi how Alessandra is so startlingly beautiful that she’s managed to overwhelm the hotel’s male guests?

It’s a proper quandary, one meant for an advice column. If I suspect a friend’s husband was cheating on her with someone I know, do I tell her? Or do I let her believe that it wasn’t a mistress but rather a revenge plotted by her husband’s nefarious work colleagues?

The affair, Lizbet reasons, is over. Heidi and Michael are settling back into their summertime routine of beach and tennis and driving the kids to camp and going out to dinner. Who is Lizbet to disrupt their lives on a hunch? She has no actual proof it was Alessandra.

But one thing is for sure: Lizbet is going to start watching Alessandra more closely.

“The spicy tuna roll looks good,” Lizbet says. “And let’s get some sashimi.”

August 8, 2022

From: Xavier Darling ([email protected])

To: Employees of the Hotel Nantucket

Good morning, all—

This week on TravelTattler I noted a lovely review of our hotel that expressly mentioned bellman Ezekiel English. This guest praised Ezekiel’s intimate knowledge of the island, including the recommendation of Stubby’s to satisfy our guest’s late-night case of the “munchies.” Outstanding job, Ezekiel!

XD

Edie and Zeke are, once again, eating ice cream together in the break room when Raoul pops his head in and says, “Congrats, Zeke.

You won the bonus this week.”

“I did?” Zeke says, and Edie thinks, He did?

They check their phones, and sure enough, there’s the letter from Xavier.

Zeke laughs. “Those guests were plastered; they’d just gotten back from the Chicken Box and the dude was starving. I guess he assumed there would be chicken at the Chicken Box—”

Edie offers a lame smile that Zeke doesn’t seem to notice.

“But since we all know there is not one piece of chicken at the Chicken Box, I sent them to Stubby’s. And he wrote about it. Ha!”

Ha, Edie thinks. Her crush on Zeke has only grown more excruciating with each passing day, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling bitter that he won the money for recommending Stubby’s, which is essentially Nantucket’s version of a McDonald’s drive- through.

“Why were you even working night bell?” she asks. “Where was Adam?”

“It was the night he and Raoul went to the White Heron to see that play,” Zeke says. “I covered Adam’s shift.”

He deserves the money, Edie thinks. He worked a double so Adam and Raoul could have a date night. She feels resentful that she can’t even be properly resentful.

Zeke tosses his nearly full bowl of ice cream into the trash. “I’m going to run to Indian Summer and see about a new longboard,” he says. He gives Edie’s shoulders a squeeze. “Your boy is hyped!”

Edie would normally be glowing from the half-hug and the use of the term your boy, but once Zeke leaves, Edie feels bereft.

Then something on her phone catches her attention.

August 8, 2022 Abigail Rashishe—Cornell School of Hotel Administration Alumni Facebook Page

Warning to my fellow hotelies and especially to anyone who shares my obsession with Shelly Carpenter (I assume this means everyone): There’s a woman at large who is imitating Shelly Carpenter. She shows up solo and presents IDs in various obvious aliases. When she checked into the Woodstock Inn (where I’ve recently been promoted to FDM!), her ID said Diana Spencer. She asked for a room upgrade, presented a written list of requests, and did that thing of trying to subtly take photos and type notes into her phone. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was completely fooled. I bent over backward to get “Diana Spencer” a room upgrade and I even gifted her a bathrobe after she asked where we sourced them. I was aghast when “Diana Spencer” called the next day to say that she’d left a Prada raffia tote behind.

We couldn’t find the tote—our housekeeping staff hadn’t seen it— but nevertheless, we offered to replace it, which cost us over a

thousand dollars. (Of course we replaced it—we were dealing with Shelly Carpenter, or so we thought!) THEN a couple days later I heard from classmate Chayci Peck (’21), who’s the concierge at Round Pond in Kennebunkport, Maine. Chayci had a woman come in with an ID that said Miranda Priestly and who went through the same motions with room upgrade, list of requests, and sourcing questions in order to get free merch. A day after “Miranda Priestly” checked out, she called Round Pond claiming to have left behind a gold Tiffany-T bangle, and when the housekeeping staff couldn’t find it, they too replaced it, free of charge.

This woman is NOT SHELLY CARPENTER! She’s a con artist!

I’m posting this so that no other hotel falls for her ploy. Shelly Carpenter has the dubious distinction of becoming such a phenom that she now has an imitator.

Could this day get any worse? Edie wonders. She too tosses her ice cream and goes to knock on Lizbet’s office door.

Lizbet reads the Facebook post and groans. “Are you kidding me?”

When Chad hears the news, he can’t wait to tell Bibi: Claire/Maybe- Shelly, the woman who stayed in the owner’s suite, was an impostor and there was no missing Gucci belt, it was a scam.

“So now you believe I didn’t take it?” Bibi says.

“I’m sorry,” Chad says. “I just couldn’t figure out…and I know you like nice things…”

“I’m not a thief, Long Shot,” Bibi says. “I have a daughter. I need to set an example.”

“I thought maybe you did it because you needed the money.”

“I do need the money,” Bibi says. She narrows her eyes at him. “If it was a scam, then where did the belt that Ms. English found in the laundry come from?”

Chad is tempted to say, Must have belonged to someone else, but instead, he blurts out the truth. “That belt was my mom’s. I took it from her and planted it in the laundry because I didn’t want you to get in trouble.”

Chad isn’t sure what kind of response he’s expecting—maybe a thank-you, maybe “Aren’t you sweet”—but Bibi just barks out a hard, one-syllable laugh. “Who’s the thief now?” she says.