The Hotel Nantucket — Chapter no 2

2. The Fifth Key

Lizbet Keaton’s Breakup Playlist

“Good 4 U”—Olivia Rodrigo “All Too Well” (Taylor’s version)—Taylor Swift

“If Looks Could Kill”—Heart

“You Oughta Know”—Alanis Morissette

“Far Behind”—Social Distortion

“Somebody That I Used to Know”—Gotye

“Marvin’s Room”—Drake “Another You”—Elle King “Gives You Hell”— The All-American Rejects

“Kiss This”—The Struts “Save It for a Rainy Day”—Kenny Chesney “I Don’t Wanna Be in Love”—Good Charlotte

“Best of You”—Foo Fighters

“Rehab”—Rihanna

“Better Now”—Post Malone

“Forget You”—CeeLo Green

“Salt”—Ava Max

“Go Your Own Way”—Fleetwood Mac

“Since U Been Gone”—Kelly Clarkson “Praying”—Kesha

Ever since her devastating breakup with JJ O’Malley, Lizbet has been searching for an inspirational meme that will make her feel better. She spent seventy-seven dollars at Wayfair on a framed quote attributed to Socrates: The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. She hangs it on the wall at the end of her bed so that it’s the first thing she sees when she wakes up and the last thing she sees before she turns off the light.

All your energy. Not on fighting the old. But on building the new.

The secret of change.

Easier said than done, she thinks. She spends all her energy fighting the old.

Reliving September 30, the Last Night at the Deck.

Last Night at the Deck is a bittersweet tradition—it marks the end of the summer season. Lizbet and JJ have to say goodbye to the team they poured so much time and energy (and money) into building.

Some of the staff will return next spring, but not everyone, so a summer can never be replicated. This, they’ve found, is both good and bad. Last Night is a time of bacchanalian revelry for the staff.

Lizbet and JJ throw down an excellent party, opening tins of beluga caviar and bottle after bottle of Laurent-Perrier rosé.

One of the traditions is the staff photograph that Lizbet takes of them all leaning up against the railing with the Monomoy creeks behind them. She frames these photographs and hangs them in the hallway that leads to the restrooms. It’s a record of sorts, an album, a history.

Tonight’s picture will be the fifteenth. She can hardly believe it.

Lizbet calls for everyone to gather, and they configure themselves into a creative and cozy pose. Shorties up front! Goose, the sommelier, and Wavy, the head server, pick up Peyton, who is everyone’s favorite (and quite petite besides), and hold her lengthwise. Christopher and Marcus reach for each other’s hands, their first public acknowledgment that they’ve become a couple this summer. Ekash and Ibo and all the prep chefs, dishwashers, and food runners fill in, finding their places.

Lizbet uses JJ’s phone to take the picture because it’s sitting right there on table 10 in front of her. She punches in JJ’s passcode— 0311, her birthday—and his text messages pop up, all of them in an amusingly large font (JJ won’t admit that he needs readers). Lizbet is about to click out of the texts when something catches her eye: I want you so badly. This is followed by Tell me what you want me to do to you. Lizbet freezes, but then she thinks, Wait, this isn’t JJ’s phone after all. It must be someone else’s iPhone 13 Pro Max with an electric-blue cover and a photo of Anthony Bourdain on the back and her birthday as its passcode. A split second later—it’s incredible how fast the brain processes even counterintuitive information—she understands that this is JJ’s phone. These texts—she scrolls back until she finds pictures of a woman’s breasts and what she knows to be JJ’s erect penis—are being sent to and received from Christina Cross, their wine rep.

Goose calls out, “Take the picture already, Libby. This bitch is getting heavy!”

Lizbet’s hands are shaking. What has she found? Is it real? Is this happening? Somehow she manages to play through (later, she will

consider this a show of superhuman strength). She takes the pictures. They’re good. They’re the best ever. Then Lizbet takes JJ’s phone and hurries to the ladies’ room, where, sitting in a stall, she reads through the pornographic text messages—187 by Lizbet’s count—that JJ and Christina have sent each other over the past three months, the most recent of which was earlier that night. Lizbet wants to flush the phone but she doesn’t; she has the wherewithal to take screenshots of the messages and text them to herself.

Then Lizbet returns to the party. It’s in full swing—Polo G is singing “Martin and Gina” at top volume, and Christopher, Marcus, and Peyton are dancing. Lizbet finds JJ in the corner at table number 1, the most sought-after in the restaurant, drinking a beer with a couple of guys from the kitchen.

“There’s my queen,” JJ says when he sees her. He places a hand on Lizbet’s waist and tries to draw her in for a kiss, but she stiff-arms

him, pushing his phone into his chest.

“I’m going home,” she says.

“What?” JJ says. He takes his phone, and the texts from Christina brighten on the screen. “Oh God, no. Wait, Libby—”

Lizbet doesn’t wait. She walks away, pushing past Wavy, who senses something is wrong and tries to stop her.

“It’s not what it looks like!” JJ says.

Oh, but it is what it looks like, Lizbet thinks once she gets back to the Bear Street cottage she owns with JJ and reads through the texts one by one. It’s exactly what it looks like.

The Hotel Nantucket is perhaps the only place on the island where Lizbet doesn’t have any history or memories with Jonathan James O’Malley, so when Lizbet hears that Xavier Darling has bought the hotel and is looking to hire a general manager, she drives straight to Bayberry Properties to see Fast Eddie.

“What can I do for you, Lizbet?” Eddie asks as she sits down across from him. She has caught him during a rare moment in the office. Eddie prefers to be out buzzing around the island in his Porsche Cayenne, wearing his panama hat, doing deals. “I hope you’re not here to list your cottage? Though if you are, I can get you an excellent price—”

“What?” Lizbet says. “No!” She tilts her head. “Why? What have you heard?”

Eddie clears his throat and seems uncharacteristically reserved. “I

heard that you and JJ parted ways…”

“And?”

“And that you’re eager to put him in your rearview mirror,” Eddie says. “For good. So I thought maybe you were leaving island.”

“Absolutely not.” If anyone should leave island, Lizbet thinks, it’s JJ! But she won’t drag Eddie into their drama; anything she says will be mangled by the Cobblestone Telegraph. “I’m here because I’d like Xavier Darling’s contact information.” She sits up straighter and flips her braids behind her. “I want to apply for the general-manager position at the new Hotel Nantucket.”

“You must have heard about the salary,” Eddie says.

“No. I haven’t even thought about the salary.”

“It’s a hundred and twenty-five thousand a year,” Eddie says.

“Plus full benefits.”

Lizbet pulls back a few inches. Her mind lands fancifully on a trip to the dentist when she wouldn’t have to worry when Janice, the hygienist, tells her it’s time for a full set of X-rays. “Wow.”

“I’m happy to give you Xavier’s e-mail.” Eddie snaps his fingers.

“Didn’t you tell me your father owns a hotel in Wisconsin?”

Lizbet’s father manages a retirement community in Minnetonka, Minnesota. As a teenager, Lizbet used to pull numbers for the bingo games and escort the residents to their hair appointments at the salon. One year, she judged the butter-sculpture contest.

“Something like that,” Lizbet says.

Eddie nods slowly. “Xavier wants someone with a background in luxury hotels.”

Lizbet blinks. There is no way she can make the Rising Sun Retirement Community sound like the Four Seasons.

“But he also wants someone who has dealt with the Historic District Commission and the Nantucket selectmen.”

“Me,” Lizbet says.

“And who can charm the chamber of commerce.”

“Also me,” Lizbet says.

“The hotel has quite a tattered reputation to repair.”

“Agreed,” Lizbet says. “I assume you’ve heard the rumors about the ghost?”

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Eddie says. “And I never listen to rumors.”

Ha-ha-ha! Lizbet thinks. At least one of those statements is a flat- out lie.

“Xavier has his work cut out for him,” Eddie says. “There’s a lot of competition at the high end—the Beach Club, the White Elephant,

the Wauwinet. I told him I wasn’t sure there was another seat at the table, but he was adamant, and he does have deep pockets. The hotel will open in June, and according to Xavier, it’s going to be the finest lodging this island has ever seen. But he needs the right person at the helm.”

Lizbet nearly leaps out of her chair, she wants this job so much.

“I’ll send Mr. Darling my résumé tonight. Do you think you might…put in a good word for me?”

Eddie presses his fingers together in a way that seems contemplative, and Lizbet hopes he’s remembering all the times he called the Deck at the last minute and Lizbet found him a table, even when they were crazy full with a wait list. Eddie always requested table number 1 and Lizbet granted that wish when she could (that David Ortiz was sitting there one night and Ina Garten another wasn’t Lizbet’s fault!).

“I won’t put in a good word,” Eddie says. “I’ll put in a great word.”

The next week, Lizbet interviews with Xavier Darling over Zoom.

Although she thought she crushed it—dropping the name of the chairman of the zoning board to underscore her local connections— Xavier’s demeanor gave nothing away. Lizbet figured someone like Xavier Darling would have a short list for the position that included people like the GMs from Wynn Las Vegas and the XV Beacon Hotel in Boston. However, only two days later, Xavier Zoom-called Lizbet and offered her the job. She was calm and composed as she accepted, but the instant she pressed the Leave Meeting button, she

jumped up and down, victorious fists raised over her head. Then she collapsed in her chair and wept tears of gratitude.

The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the

old, but on building the new.

Lizbet had a proverbial clean slate.

She visualized a Hollywood production assistant snapping shut the clapper board as the director shouted: Take two!

On the morning of April 12, Lizbet is, unfortunately, back to fighting the old—specifically, she’s remembering how it was Christina who called her to explain away the sexting (Those texts are nothing, Libby, JJ and I were only kidding around)—when she gets a message from Xavier Darling; he’s requesting a meeting. It’s six thirty a.m.—Xavier, in England, is oblivious to the time difference— and Lizbet sighs. She was planning to get on the Peloton. But she has agreed to be at Xavier’s beck and call, so she pulls a blouse on over her workout tank, drapes her braids over her shoulders, and

fluffs her bangs.

Join meeting with video.

“Good morning, Elizabeth.” (Xavier refuses to call her Lizbet, even though she has asked him to twice, telling him that the only person who called her Elizabeth was her late grandmother.) Behind Xavier, Lizbet sees Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, a view so iconically London, it might as well be a Zoom background.

“Good morning, sir.” Lizbet tries not to worry about his stern tone of voice, though she briefly wonders if today is the day the hammer

drops and the hopes she has invested in the hotel will collapse, the whole thing a belated April Fools’ joke.

“I’m calling to shed some light on things that might have been unclear.”

Lizbet steels herself. What is Xavier going to tell her?

“You’ve never asked me—in fact, no one has asked me—why I bought this hotel. After all, I live in London and I’ve never visited Nantucket.” He pauses. “Have you wondered about this?”

Lizbet has, in fact, wondered, but she chalked it up to her understanding of the very wealthy: They buy things because they can.

“I bought this particular hotel,” Xavier says, “because I’m trying to impress two women.”

Whoa! Lizbet pinches her thigh to keep from gasping. This is probably the only answer worth sacrificing her thirty-minute hip-hop ride with Alex Toussaint for.

“Two women?” Lizbet says. She checks her image on her laptop screen; she’s maintaining a sort of straight face. Lizbet has, naturally, googled Xavier Darling. According to an article in the Times (London), he never married and has no children. The internet showed pictures of him at the Royal Ascot and the Cartier Queen’s Cup with young, combatively beautiful women on his arm, but never the same one twice. Who are the lucky two, and will they both be coming to Nantucket? Because that will get the island talking! She would love to remark that buying each woman a private plane or a minor van Gogh might have been cheaper.

“Yes,” Xavier says. “I’m going to share with you now who one of the women is.”

“Wonderful, sir.”

“One of the women I’m trying to impress is Shelly Carpenter.”

Shelly Carpenter, Lizbet thinks. Of course.

“Do you know who Shelly Carpenter is?” Xavier asks.

“‘Stay well, friends,’” Lizbet quotes. “‘And do good.’”

“Precisely,” Xavier says. “Elizabeth, I want a five-key review from Hotel Confidential.”

Again, Lizbet checks her image. Does she look incredulous? Yes —yes, she does. Along with eighteen million other people, Lizbet follows Shelly Carpenter on Instagram. Her account @hotelconfidentialbySC has become a national obsession. Shelly Carpenter posts at noon eastern time on the last Friday of every month—a ten-picture carousel of each property (she’s rumored to take these photos with her iPhone)—and the link in her bio takes you to her blog Hotel Confidential, where she awards properties anywhere from one to five keys. The secret to her success is her witty, brilliant writing, her razor-sharp intelligence, and her refined sense of what works and what doesn’t where hotels are concerned— but there’s also mystery involved. Nobody knows who she is. The internet agrees on only one thing: Shelly Carpenter is a pseudonym.

Whatever her real name is, she travels the globe, reviewing the Hampton Inn in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, with the same critical eye that she does the Belmond Cap Juluca in Anguilla. (Both received four keys out of five.) It’s well known that Shelly has never given a five-key review. She claims to be on a quest for that elusive five-key property, but Lizbet thinks this is a feint. Shelly will never give a five-key review; withholding it is her currency.

“Well, sir, we’ll try our best,” Lizbet says.

“That’s not going to cut it, Elizabeth,” Xavier says. “We are going to do what it takes to be the only hotel in the world that woman deems worthy of the fifth key. We are going to leave no doubt in her

mind. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir, you’re understood.”

“So we will get five keys from Hotel Confidential by summer’s end?”

A competitive spirit that Lizbet hasn’t felt since she raced her brothers swimming across Serpent Lake in Crosby, Minnesota, surfaces.

Building the new! she thinks. In that moment, Lizbet believes she can achieve the (highly) improbable—no matter what obstacles she

encounters.

“We will get the fifth key,” she says.