The Hotel Nantucket — Chapter no 5

5. Opening Day

June 6, 2022

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

The day has come! We’re finally opening our doors to the public to show them our living work of art. The thing that makes it “living” is all of you. What do hammered-silver basins in the bathroom matter if the staff is harried and distracted when you check in? What does the Swedish sauna in the wellness center matter if the bellman delivers the wrong bags to your room? Hotels are only as good as their staff.

I will be personally reading every review of our hotel on the TravelTattler website, and based on the content of that feedback, I’ll be awarding a cash prize of one thousand dollars to the most outstanding employee each week. I hope each one of you wins, though be warned, this isn’t a participation trophy. It’s entirely possible, for example, that the same employee will win all eighteen weeks of the season.

It’s my goal to make the Hotel Nantucket the undisputed best in the world. But I can’t do it without you.

Thank you for your dedication and hard work.

XD

Lizbet pulls her cherry-red Mini Cooper into the space that says RESERVED FOR GENERAL MANAGER and throws back what’s left of her double espresso. She’s livid about the e-mail that Xavier sent out that morning. Xavier is going to award weekly cash prizes to her staff as though they’re contestants on a reality show. Lizbet has spent the past two weeks training the front of the house, and she was crystal clear that putting forth one’s best effort every single day should be a matter of personal pride and integrity. She also stressed teamwork, a concept that awarding individual cash prizes will unravel.

Two days ago, Lizbet stayed at the hotel as a guest. The staff was instructed to use Lizbet’s visit as a full dress rehearsal. Front-desk manager Alessandra checked Lizbet in, and Alessandra presented her with the Blue Book, a compilation of Nantucket’s best beaches, outings, museums, sights, restaurants, galleries, shopping, bars, and nightlife that Lizbet herself had spent countless hours curating, writing, and refining. Alessandra asked if she could make Lizbet any dinner reservations. No, thank you, Lizbet said, though she would like a Reuben from Walter’s delivered to her room between seven fifteen and seven thirty. Alessandra said she’d take care of it, no problem. A few moments after Lizbet stepped into the room—only long enough for her to admire the view of Easton Street from the picture window—Zeke arrived with Lizbet’s luggage.

Lizbet flung herself across the emperor-size bed. She wasn’t at the Deck anymore, and she certainly wasn’t at the Rising Sun Retirement Community in Minnetonka. She was the general

manager of the new and improved Hotel Nantucket. The sheets were soft under Lizbet’s cheek and they smelled vaguely, though not overwhelmingly, floral. The mattress was so comfortable that Lizbet closed her eyes and took one of the most delightful naps of her life.

The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

She left a few tests for the housekeeping crew—a crumpled tissue kicked to the far back corner under the bed, a cake of the Nantucket Looms wildflower soap tucked incongruously behind the (complimentary) smoked bluefish pâté in the minibar. She even went so far as to empty the matches from the box by the bathtub into her suitcase. Would Magda’s crew actually use their hundred-point checklist?

Yes, they would. When Lizbet investigated the room the following day, everything had been cleaned, replaced, refilled.

She had been eager to see what was happening down at the hotel bar—it was subcontracted out, so Lizbet had no say in how it was run—but she found the door locked and the glass front papered over. She could hear voices and movement inside but when she knocked, nobody answered. Lizbet had repeatedly asked Xavier who would be running the bar and he said he wanted it to be a “grand surprise.” Apparently, he’d signed a “swoon-worthy” chef to prepare the bar menu, but he was keeping the announcement under wraps until opening day, which felt very cloak-and-dagger to Lizbet. She sneaked around to the outside door and noticed that orders had been delivered. A young woman popped out, startling Lizbet. She said her name was Beatriz, and when Lizbet asked who she worked

for, Beatriz said, “Chef.” And when Lizbet said, “Chef who?” Beatriz shook her head and said, “No puedo decirte hasta mañana.”

Lizbet took a yoga class with Yolanda in the Balinese-inspired studio, and although it sounded trite, she emerged feeling centered and at peace…or as centered and at peace as she could feel with the hotel opening the next day.

When Lizbet checked out of her room, Zeke tucked her suitcase into the back of her Mini for the long drive home to her cottage on Bear Street, which was 1.2 miles away. Along with her bill, Lizbet was presented with a parting gift: a very cold bar of Nantucket Looms wildflower soap.

Lizbet knew it sounded ridiculous, but she wished she could stay.

It had been luxurious, even though she was technically working. And she was pleased to report that there had been no scary noises, no cold blasts, no ethereal visions, no signs of any ghost.

The hotel sparkles in the June sun with its fresh cedar shingles and crisp white trim. The hotel’s landscaper, Anastasia, placed lavish pots overflowing with snapdragons, bluebells, lavender, and ivy on each step of the staircase leading up to the hotel entrance. The wide front porch of the hotel is set up with wide rockers with cushions in hydrangea blue and cocktail tables that can be turned into firepits. (The front desk sells a s’mores kit for eight dollars.) The porch will also be the site of the complimentary wine-and-cheese hour each evening. Lizbet has seen to it that they will serve excellent wine and a selection of imported cheeses garnished with ripe berries and plump, glistening olives.

Lizbet checks for mascara on her eyelids and lipstick on her teeth.

She stayed up way too late last night trying on outfits. It’s a new job and she wants a new style. At the Deck, she always wore muumuus because they were forgiving (she averaged eight glasses of rosé and fourteen pieces of bacon daily). Now her closet is filled with things that are fitted and a bit more professional. Today she’s wearing a navy halter dress, nude stiletto sandals, and a Minnesota Golden Gophers charm on a chain around her neck.

She steps out of the car, so excited she could levitate. She feels like a living, breathing inspirational meme. She has stopped fighting the old and started building the new! She’s weathered the storm by adjusting her sails! She is a pineapple: standing tall, wearing a crown, and sweet on the inside!

Lizbet slips her phone into her navy-and-white-striped clutch and looks up to find her ex-boyfriend JJ O’Malley standing in the white- shell-covered parking lot with his hands behind his back.

This is not happening, she thinks. Lizbet hasn’t actually seen JJ since the awful day in late October when he moved the last of his belongings out of their cottage. He told Lizbet he was spending the off-season in upstate New York with his parents; he’d gotten a part- time gig cooking at the Hasbrouck House. By that time, Lizbet had already accepted the job at the hotel, but she didn’t tell JJ that. But clearly he’s heard the news. The Cobblestone Telegraph is real.

“What are you doing here, JJ?” Lizbet asks. He’s wearing cargo shorts, his Black Dog T-shirt, chef’s clogs, and a green bandanna around his neck. A thought occurs to Lizbet that’s so horrible, she nearly drops her clutch: the chef of the new hotel bar has been kept

“a grand surprise” because, in the world’s most hideous twist, Xavier

has hired JJ.

Lizbet will quit.

No, she won’t quit. She’ll make JJ quit. But one thing is for damn sure: she and JJ O’Malley are not working in the same building.

“Are you running the bar here?” she asks.

“What?” JJ says. “No. I wasn’t even approached. Why?”

Sweet lightning, Lizbet thinks.

JJ brings his hands out from behind his back. He’s holding a dozen long-stemmed pink roses wrapped in butcher paper. He gives her what she used to call his puppy-dog look—big eyes and protruding lower lip. In happier days, this would spur Lizbet to squeeze him tight and pepper his face with kisses, but now she thinks, Wow, he looks awful. It was normal for JJ to let his hair and beard grow out over the winter, but has it ever been this unruly? His beard straggles across his face like creeper vines on a brick wall.

“First of all, I came to wish you good luck for opening day.”

A text would have sufficed (though Lizbet blocked his number months ago). “You betcha. And I’m not taking those flowers. What else?”

He drops the roses to the ground, reaches into the deep flapped pocket of his cargo shorts, and pulls out a ring box.

“Don’t you dare,” Lizbet says.

JJ sinks to one knee on the crushed shells and Lizbet winces— but no, sorry, she’s finished empathizing with this guy’s pain.

He opens the box.

Don’t look at the ring! she thinks.

But come on, she’s only human. She crunches through the shells in her stilettos and studies the ring; it’s a dazzler. It’s either fake or JJ took out an enormous line of credit on the restaurant—a move she would have absolutely vetoed if they were still together. It’s over two carats, maybe even two and a half, and it’s a marquise cut, which is what she’s always wanted.

“I had a lot of time to think over the winter,” JJ says. “I love you, Libby. Marry me. Be my wife.”

Lizbet is standing close enough to see a hole in the shoulder of JJ’s Black Dog T-shirt, a shirt she knows he’s had since the summer of 2002. It was his first cooking job, over on the Vineyard.

“The answer is no. And you know why.”

He gets to his feet; his knee is encrusted with shells. “You can’t stay mad forever.”

“I’m not mad,” Lizbet says. “And I’m also not going to marry you.

You cheated on me.”

“I didn’t touch Christina,” JJ says. “Not once did I touch her.”

“That may be so,” Lizbet says. “But clearly there was enough electricity or chemistry between the two of you that the mere idea of her gave you a hard-on that you then went to the trouble of photographing and sending to her along with one hundred and eighty-seven texts describing what you would like to do with her if you ever got her alone in the wine cellar.” The espresso Lizbet just finished asserts itself; it’s liquid anger coursing through her bloodstream. “You’re a cheater, JJ. I will not marry you and all the forgive-me flowers in the world won’t change my mind. You’re a jerk for showing up here.”

“What do I have to do to get you to forgive me? I can’t run the

restaurant without you.”

“Hire Christina.”

“I don’t want Christina. I want you.”

“I’m guessing what you really mean is that Christina was blackballed by every restaurant on this island—as she should have been—so she moved to Jackson Hole.” Lizbet can only hope this is true.

“Libby, please, I’m desperate. I’m lost. And look at you, baby, you’re a hundred times hotter than you’ve ever been.”

For one vainglorious second, JJ snags Lizbet’s attention. She has spent the months since they split running and riding the damn Peloton and taking private barre classes with Yolanda. She has lost thirty-two pounds, carved out the sides of her thighs, and scooped out her ass cheeks. She can wall-sit for two and a half minutes and plank for three; she can hold a crow pose in yoga; she has triceps!

And today, she has freed her hair from the usual braids; she’s wearing it sleek and long, parted down the middle.

Lizbet has been chasing something, and that something is revenge. She has been waiting for the moment when JJ would acknowledge her change in appearance. A hundred times hotter. It’s a start. Far more important than how Lizbet looks is how she feels, which is strong, healthy, motivated! She’s not going to drink eight glasses of rosé every night this summer, she’s not going to share JJ’s cigarettes or stay up until three in the morning. She’s finished with that lifestyle.

“I need to get to work,” Lizbet says. “Please leave and take back the ring.”

“So you’re saying you don’t love me?” JJ reaches into his pocket again, and Lizbet suddenly feels panicky, afraid that he’s going to pull out a gun and…shoot her? Himself? Is he that unhinged? She takes a step back but then sees it’s just his phone in his hand.

“You’re telling me you can listen to this and not feel anything?” He plays “White Flag” by Dido. But I will go down with this ship. How many times did Lizbet and JJ sing this at the top of their lungs in JJ’s truck as they rode to the beach at two in the morning so they could see the moonlight on the ocean? How many times did they dance to the song in their kitchen? I’m in love and always will be.

Playing it now is unfair.

“What I feel is sad and disappointed,” Lizbet says. “You betrayed my trust. You tossed fifteen years of my love down the drain because you couldn’t stop yourself from telling Christina that you wanted to

tongue her nipples.”

JJ winces. “I never said that.”

“Oh, but you did. Get out of here, JJ, before I have one of my bellmen physically remove you.”

JJ puts the ring box in his pocket and straightens up to his full height. He’s six foot five and weighs two hundred and eighty pounds.

In the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, where Lizbet was raised, that’s called a Paul Bunyan.

“Or I’ll get a restraining order,” Lizbet says.

“Libby—” He grabs her arm and she wrenches it away.

“Is there a problem?” A man in a white jacket and houndstooth pants steps out of the entrance to the new hotel bar and strides over to JJ and Lizbet.

Who is this? Lizbet thinks. The script on his jacket reads CHEF MARIO SUBIACO.

Lizbet fights to keep her composure. Mario Subiaco? Almost involuntarily, Lizbet looks over at JJ. His mouth has fallen open a bit.

“I’m Mario Subiaco,” Mario Subiaco says, offering Lizbet his hand.

“The chef of the Blue Bar.”

The Blue Bar. Of course—Mario Subiaco used to be the pastry chef at the Blue Bistro, which was Nantucket’s best restaurant before it closed in 2005. Mario Subiaco is the OG Nantucket celebrity chef.

JJ keeps Mario’s picture—clipped from a profile of him in Vanity Fair that was written just after the Blue Bistro shut its doors—taped to his office wall! Lizbet thought Mario Subiaco was in Los Angeles working as a private chef for Dwayne Johnson. But apparently he’s here now.

Holy buckets, Xavier, she thinks. Good job.

“Lizbet Keaton,” Lizbet says, shaking his hand. “I’m the general

manager of the hotel.”

“Yes,” he says. “I know.”

“You’re Mario Subiaco!” JJ sounds like a nine-year-old Pop Warner quarterback who’s meeting Tom Brady. “You’re a legend, man!”

Mario nods. “Thanks, that makes me feel really old. Who are you?”

“JJ O’Malley,” he says. “I’m the chef/owner of the Deck.”

Mario shrugs. “Never heard of it. But as a fellow chef, I’m going to ask you to let Lizbet here get to work.” Mario checks with Lizbet. “If that’s what you want?”

Suddenly, Lizbet is mortified that her messy personal life is on display in the parking lot like this, JJ with his serial-killer beard in his

clogs, holding his phone (playing Dido), a dozen roses on the ground by his feet.

Lizbet smiles at JJ. “So good to see you again.” Making a clean exit, she turns on her heel and follows Mario into the building. She hears the Dido song cut off. When she looks back, she catches a glimpse of JJ staring forlornly after her. Revenge—check, she thinks, and she feels a little sorry for him.

When Lizbet and Mario reach the service kitchen—which will be used for the complimentary continental breakfast and lunch by the pool—Lizbet says, “Thank you, but you didn’t have to step in.”

“I saw him grab you,” Mario says. “I thought maybe you needed saving.”

Immediately, Lizbet’s starstruck awe diminishes. “I can take care of myself,” Lizbet says. “And a lot of other people besides.”

Mario has the gall to wink at her. “I’m guessing that was your ex- boyfriend, showing up to propose?”

It’s none of Mario Subiaco’s business who it was, but Lizbet doesn’t need a feud between the hotel and the bar on the first day; there’s plenty of time for that later.

“I should probably get upstairs,” Lizbet says.

“I lied to him, you know,” Mario says.

“Excuse me?”

“I told him I’d never heard of the Deck. I’ve been away from the island, sure, but I haven’t been living on Mars. You two did some real stuff at that place, huh? A rosé fountain? Wish I’d thought of that seventeen years ago. And I heard the food was banging.”

“‘Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end,’”

Lizbet says. “Oh, but end they did. I left the Deck and I left him. We’ll

see what happens this summer.”

Mario smirks. “This summer, I steal all his customers.”

God, you’re cocky, Lizbet thinks—or maybe in her caffeine mania she actually whispers it, because Mario bursts out laughing. “I know you need to be upstairs to start your very important general managing, but can I ask your quick opinion on something?” He waves her into the gleaming white-and-stainless-steel kitchen of the Blue Bar. Lizbet watches him for a second, thinking she’d like to put her stiletto right up his ass. It’s only seven thirty in the morning and she’s already had enough of chefs for one day.

But she follows him anyway.

“I was just back here doing a little mixology,” Mario says. “Come see.” He leads Lizbet over to a wide butcher block made of zebrawood—they spared no expense down here—that’s crowded with fruit. There are tiny wild strawberries, kaffir limes, watermelons, blood oranges, kiwis, dragon fruits, rambutans, mangoes, two kinds of cherries (bing and golden Rainier), guavas, blackberries, coconuts, grapefruits, and something that looks like—yes, it is—a pink pineapple. It’s a fruit festival, a fruit jamboree, a fruit rave. Down the counter is the alcohol, all top-shelf: Plymouth gin, Finlandia vodka, Casa Dragones tequila. Lizbet is impressed from a cost standpoint alone.

“I just need one more cocktail for my list. What do you think of this?” Mario reaches for a beaker filled with a liquid the color of a deep red sunset. He pours it into a stemless wineglass and tops it with champagne. It’s Dom Pérignon, Lizbet realizes. Mario is doing his mixology experiments with Dom. That’s quite a flex.

She shouldn’t drink before eight a.m. on her first day of work, but Lizbet’s focus is stretched out like a Slinky and she needs something to combat the aggressiveness of the espresso.

She takes a sip. Gah! So good. Another sip, in the interest of figuring out what’s in the drink. Vodka. Strawberries. Ginger? Yes, there’s a knob of ginger on the board. And some of the blood-orange

juice.

She shrugs. “It’s fine, I guess.”

A slow smile crosses Mario’s face and Lizbet takes a close look at him. In the magazine picture that hangs on JJ’s office wall, Mario is much younger: smooth olive skin, thick dark hair, and a Let me take you to bed look in his eyes. He’s older now; his hair and goatee are flecked with silver. He has lines cut deep into his forehead and radiating from the corners of his eyes. But he still has the swagger— and he knows this cocktail is the best thing Lizbet has ever tasted, that she would swim in it if she could.

“Well, then,” he says. “We’ll name that one for you. The Heartbreaker.”

Magda English might be middle-aged, but her nephew Zeke has taught her some things. She knows that the rapper Pop Smoke is dead and that Wednesdays are called “Woo Back Wednesdays” in his honor. She knows about Polo G, House of Highlights, the Shade Room, and all things Barstool. She knows the modern meanings of bet, sneaky link, bop, dip, bussin’, and full send. And Magda knows what a Chad is—it’s a young man who embodies a certain stereotype of wealth and privilege: boarding school, college, trust

fund, pastel polo shirts worn with the collar flipped up, golf, ski house, summer house, “vodka soda close it,” and a river of money flowing from his adoring parents.

Therefore, Magda finds it amusing that the young man she’s about to interview is actually named Chad. Chadwick Winslow of Radnor, Pennsylvania, the résumé on fine ivory stock announces.

His appearance doesn’t disappoint: He has shown up to the housekeeping office in khakis, pink shirt, a tie printed with starfish holding martinis, and a navy blazer. Boat shoes without socks. He has thick blond hair and the smooth cheeks of a child. His résumé also tells Magda that he’s twenty-two, graduated from Bucknell with a major in “general humanities,” and was in the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. His previous work experience was as a counselor at a golf camp.

Although Magda has no idea what this child is doing in her office, she’s not unhappy to see him. One of her four staff cleaners called to back out yesterday, the day before the hotel opened. When Magda informed Lizbet of this, Lizbet pulled young Master Winslow’s résumé out of a folder that she jokingly (or maybe not) called “the Last Resort file.”

“This kid stopped by the other day, insisting he wanted to clean.

Honestly, I thought it was a prank. But feel free to call him and see if he was serious.”

When Magda called, Chad sounded eager to come for an interview, and he showed up on time today—first hurdle cleared. But it could still be a prank, a bet, a dare, or a simple misunderstanding.

Magda says, “You realize, son, that I’m looking for cleaning staff?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re twenty-two, a college graduate. I could see you wanting to work the bell stand. But I don’t understand why you’d want to clean hotel rooms.”

Chad clears his throat. “I messed up. Badly.”

“You won’t get rich cleaning rooms,” Magda says. “Have you

asked about a job at the Blue Bar?”

“I want to clean rooms, ma’am.”

But why? Magda thinks. This makes no sense. “Do you have any cleaning experience?” she asks.

“I help my mom around the house from time to time. And I was the social chair for my fraternity, so I was in charge of setting up for parties and cleaning up afterward.”

Magda shakes her head, perplexed; she thought for sure he’d applied for the wrong job. From the looks of his clothes, he has plenty of money. And yet, she can see the earnestness on his face; for some reason, he wants this job. She studies the résumé. The local address he gave is Eel Point Road, which Magda has recently learned is high-roller real estate.

“Did your parents make you apply for this job? Are they trying to

teach you some kind of lesson?”

“No, ma’am, it was my idea.”

Young Chadwick Winslow sounds like he’s telling the truth. Magda is intrigued.

“You would be the fourth and final member of our cleaning team, and as…the lacrosse coach at the Episcopal School might have informed you, there is no I in team. You won’t get special treatment because you’re male or because you have a college degree, and there will be no exceptions made because you went to the Chicken

Box and are feeling too hungover to clean toilets. I need you here on time and ready to work. This isn’t golf camp, Chadwick. It’s stripping sheets and picking up wet towels and scrubbing shower stalls until they gleam. It’s dealing with other people’s excrement and urine and vomit and blood and semen and hair. I hope you have a strong

stomach.”

“I do.”

Well, let’s hope so, Magda thinks, because I need someone today.

“I’m going to gamble and offer you the job,” she says. She can’t believe she’s doing this. There’s a 99 percent chance the kid won’t last two weeks. He might not even last two days.

But Magda loves a long shot.

“Thank you,” Chad says. “I won’t let you down.”

“You’ll start right now,” Magda says. “It’s opening day, the rooms are all clean, and that will give me a chance to train you.”

“Now is great!” Chad says. He has at least enough sense to take his blazer off and roll up his sleeves.

“So what did you do?” she asks. “When you messed up?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not say.”

“It’s none of my business,” Magda says. “I was just curious. I happen to believe, Chadwick, that even the biggest disasters can be cleaned up, and I’ll teach you to believe it too.”

Edie Robbins wakes up on the morning of her first day of work on the front desk, checks her phone, and sees the e-mail from Xavier Darling. Yes! she thinks. Yes-yes-yes! Xavier is offering a thousand-

dollar bonus per week! And it isn’t a participation trophy! The same employee might win all eighteen weeks of the season!

Edie smells bacon frying. Just like every year on Edie’s first day of school, there will be bacon and eggs for breakfast and Tater Tot Hotdish for dinner. Edie’s mother, Love, is trying to keep everything in their lives the same—even though nothing has been the same since Edie’s father, Vance Robbins, died of a heart attack. Although Love says she’s “doing okay”—she has taken a full-time job at Flowers on Chestnut to “keep busy”—Edie can sense she’s still grieving. This is why Edie decided to spend the summer at home.

Also, she had to get away from her ex-boyfriend Graydon.

Edie’s plan is to save as much money as she can over the summer and apply for a job out in the “real world”—New York, São Paulo, London, Sydney, Shanghai—in the fall. She has a crippling student-loan payment (the Ivy League wasn’t cheap), so although her hourly pay is more than she anticipated, an extra thousand dollars would really help.

She will win it, she decides. She’ll win it every week. She is ready to slay!

Edie’s fiercest competition for the prize money will be her partner on the front desk, Alessandra Powell. When Edie arrives at work— nearly ten minutes early—Alessandra is already there, and she has nabbed the more desirable computer, the one closest to the open end of the desk (Edie will have to scoot by Alessandra every time she comes or goes).

“Good morning, Alessandra!” Edie says brightly.

Alessandra does an oh-so-quick-but-still-noticeable up-and-down of Edie, presses her lips together, and says in a tone that is not cold but also not warm, “Good morning.”

Edie wills herself not to take offense; from what Edie observed at training and during the first staff meeting, Alessandra is standoffish. (Maybe not a mean girl, but maybe not not a mean girl.) That, Edie can deal with. She has a harder time accepting that Alessandra is the front-desk manager. Edie doesn’t understand why there has to be a front-desk manager when there are only two desk people hired so far. Edie realizes that Alessandra is older and has more practical job experience and speaks four languages. But something about Alessandra having the title feels wrong. She just walked in off the street; it’s her first summer on Nantucket; Lizbet doesn’t know her and neither does anyone else on this island.

The night before, at dinner, Edie complained about the situation to her mother. Love worked for years as the front-desk manager at the Nantucket Beach Club, and Edie’s father, Vance, had been the night manager.

Love sipped her wine. “I bet the two of you will be best friends by

the end of the summer.”

“That’s such a mom thing to say.”

“Sorry,” Love said. “I bet the two of you are going to have a tumultuous summer marked by incidents of envious backstabbing.”

Envious, yes, Edie thinks now. Not only is Alessandra gorgeous and multilingual but she’s a walking, talking Pinterest board. Edie and Alessandra are wearing the same uniform—white pants and a silky hydrangea-blue button-down blouse. Alessandra has accessorized her uniform with a Johnnie-O canvas color-block belt

that probably belongs to her boyfriend (but looks so cute!), a pair of taupe wedge sandals, and a collection of gold bangles—among which is a Cartier love bracelet—that make bright jangly sounds every time Alessandra moves her left arm. Her reddish-blond hair is long, tousled, and beachy, yet not a strand is out of place (how is that possible?). She’s wearing white eyeliner and has a tiny crystal pressed under her right eye. (At college, Edie thought eye crystals were trashy, but on Alessandra it looks chic. How is that possible?) Her name tag is upside down, which Edie thinks is a mistake but then realizes must be intentional—a conversation starter—because she can tell that Alessandra doesn’t make mistakes.

Edie, by contrast, has her hair held back in a headband, no belt (she didn’t think to wear a belt), and Skechers on her feet because she was worried about being comfortable. Her name tag is right side up.

“Thank you for setting up the coffee,” Edie says as she logs onto the computer next to the wall. She tries not to feel hemmed in or trapped (she feels both). Alessandra’s bracelets chatter in response and Edie thinks, Fine, whatever. The coffee smells rich and delicious and Edie wonders if she can pour herself a cup; Lizbet didn’t say one way or the other.

But at that moment, Edie sees her mother’s coworker Joan, from Flowers on Chestnut, rolling in a cart laden with the bouquets for the rooms. They have guests for eleven rooms checking in today and they’ve ordered a dozen Surfside Spring arrangements—enormous blue hydrangeas, pink starburst lilies, flame-orange snapdragons, and blush peonies curled up into tight little balls. Joan also has a

supersize version of this arrangement for the pedestal table in the lobby.

“Sweet Edie!” Joan cries out. “Look at you on your first day of work! Your mom is so proud of you.”

“Good morning, Joan,” Edie says. She hears Alessandra murmur, “Sweet Edie?” and Edie feels herself flush. That’s the thing about working on your home island, she thinks. Everyone knows you, and they all call you by your mortifying nickname. She has been Sweet Edie since she was small, her father’s fault.

Edie moves the large arrangement to the lobby while Alessandra tasks the short, floppy-haired bellman named Adam with delivering eleven of the arrangements to the rooms. The twelfth arrangement goes back in Lizbet’s office.

Joan reenters the lobby holding a planter of glorious deep purple vanda orchids.

“Those are stunning vandas,” Edie says, showing off her orchid knowledge for Alessandra. “Are they for me?” She’s kidding. That’s at least four hundred dollars’ worth of orchids, and although Edie’s mother is proud of her, they don’t have that kind of money to throw around.

“These are for Magda English,” Joan says. “Seems she has an admirer.”

Magda English! Edie thinks. That’s Zeke English’s aunt, the head of housekeeping.

“I’ll take them to her.” Edie carries the orchids down the hall to the housekeeping office, where she catches Magda just leaving with a blond guy about Edie’s age who’s wearing a pink oxford shirt and a needlepoint belt. He looks like one of the obnoxious summer kids

who elbow other people out of the way to throw down their parents’ credit cards at the Gazebo.

“Ms. English, these came for you,” Edie says. “You have an admirer.”

Magda stops in her tracks and stares at the flowers, then tsks and shakes her head. “Put them on my desk, please, dear,” she says.

“Chadwick and I have work to do.”

Chadwick, Edie thinks, trying to hide her smile. Chad! She sets the orchids on Magda’s desk and stares at the small envelope gripped in the prongs of the plastic stake. The envelope is sealed, and Edie can’t very well open it, but she’s tempted to hold it up to the sunlight streaming through the window so she can see who has sent Magda English these extravagant flowers.

Edie has successfully checked guests into two rooms and one suite when a family bursts into the lobby. It’s a mother and two children, one girl, one boy. The mother is tall and supermodel-thin—she’s all flat chest and protruding hip bones—and she has what Edie can only describe as “peacock hair,” dyed ombré streaks of green and blue.

She’s either way cooler than your average mother, Edie thinks, or going through a midlife crisis.

Edie is on hold with Cru, attempting to secure a dinner reservation for the Katzens in room 103. She watches the little boy make a mad dash for one of the chess sets. When he picks up a knight and moves it, Edie hangs up.

“Louie!” the mother says. “Get back here this instant.”

“They have chess!” Louie shouts. He goes to the opposite side of the board and moves a pawn.

Next to Edie, Alessandra snaps to attention and gives the family her radiant (and phony) smile. “Welcome—”

“Welcome to the Hotel Nantucket!” Edie calls out, stepping on Alessandra’s words.

Without removing her sunglasses, the peacock-haired mother looks from Edie to Alessandra as though she’s arrived at a fork in the road. She seems inclined to go to Alessandra, and Edie wonders if she will be forced to suffer this rejection check-in after check-in, day after day, all summer long. Given the choice between Edie and Alessandra, people will always choose Alessandra, either because she’s beautiful or because she radiates the mesmerizing self- confidence of a Kardashian.

Edie waves the woman over so there can be no mistake. “I’ll check you in!”

Alessandra’s bracelets clinkety-clank. It’s the passive-aggressive sound of her discontent. Thankfully, the phone rings and Alessandra answers it. Edie splinters her attention long enough to realize that it’s the hostess from Cru calling back. Alessandra can handle the Katzens’ dinner reservation.

“Okay?” the peacock-haired woman says. She approaches with her children now firmly in hand. Both have white-blond hair and are wearing little round spectacles with thick lenses that make their eyes look like pale blue fish swimming behind glass; they’re so odd- looking, they’re cute. “My name is Kimber Marsh and this is Wanda and Louie. We’d like to book a room.”

“I can certainly help you with that,” Edie says. Their first walk-in!

Lizbet will be thrilled; she confided to Edie that she’s concerned about their low occupancy. “What kind of room would best suit your needs?”

“I’d say we need a room with two queens. I can’t very well get them their own room, they’re too young.”

“For how many nights?”

“I’d like to stay for the entire summer.”

The entire summer? Edie thinks. She starts vibrating with excitement. This is what Lizbet has been hoping for: people hearing about the hotel and walking in off the street to book rooms.

“The rate on our deluxe guest room with two queen beds is three twenty-five,” Edie says. “With tax and fees, that room is four hundred dollars.”

“That’s fine,” Kimber says. “Please book us until…” She pulls up the calendar on her phone. “The kids have to be back in school then…add a few days to get ready…let’s say August twenty-fifth.”

Edie checks her availability, glances at Alessandra, who is just hanging up with Cru, and says, “Tell you what, I’m going to give you a free upgrade to one of our family suites.” The hotel has twelve suites and only one of them has been booked, so Edie feels fine about upgrading Kimber Marsh. The suites are divine and, in Edie’s opinion, should not be left languishing. Suite 114, which is the one Edie is giving the Marsh family, has a big living area with a full wall of brand-new hardcover books, all for the guests’ reading pleasure, and there’s a window seat overlooking Easton Street. This particular suite has a master bedroom and a whimsical room for kids with four wide bunk beds connected by tunnels and rope bridges; there are

hidden reading nooks, and there’s even a swing. It’s very extra.

Wanda and Louie will love it.

“You’re upgrading us?” Kimber says. She raises her sunglasses to the top of her head so she can read Edie’s name tag. “Edie Robbins, you’re an angel fallen to earth.”

Edie studies Kimber’s face. She has bleary-looking blue eyes with brownish-purple rings beneath them; she reminds Edie of a beleaguered mom in a laundry-detergent commercial. Edie fills with joy at being able to offer this nice blue-and-green-haired woman an upgrade. “It’s my enormous and whole-hearted pleasure,” she says.

She’s overcome with a sense of professional pride and fulfillment.

This is what hospitality is about—offering the guests something extra, something that makes them feel special, singled out and tended to. “I’ll just need to run a credit card.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Kimber says. She glances at the children, who are as still as sentinels beside her. “Kids, go play chess, please.

But only one game.”

“I don’t want to play chess,” Wanda says. “I want to read.” She holds up a book that Edie recognizes—a vintage Nancy Drew mystery with the canary-yellow back cover. The Secret of Shadow Ranch. Edie read the same edition when she was Wanda’s age.

“Please, Wanda?” Louie says. “I’ll let you win.”

Edie laughs and Kimber rolls her eyes. “He’s obsessed. He brought a travel chess set with him, of course, but he accidentally left it at the Connecticut welcome center and it was a river of tears all the way up I-95. I hope you like children, because we’ll never get him out of here. He’ll sit at that chessboard all summer.”

Edie laughs again, though a little less enthusiastically. Louie is able to drag Wanda over to the chessboard while Edie waits to hear what “thing” Kimber is talking about.

When the children are out of earshot, Kimber says, “I was hoping I could pay cash.”

“Cash?” Edie says. The woman is booking a room for four hundred dollars a night for eighty-one nights and she wants to pay cash?

Kimber drops her voice to a whisper. “I’m in the midst of a divorce, so both of my cards have been frozen because they draw on joint accounts, yada-yada. I have cash, but I won’t be able to give you a card, I’m afraid.”

Edie blinks. Who in the year 2022 is crazy enough to think she could check into a luxury hotel without a credit card?

“The charge won’t go through,” Edie says. “We just put a minimum hold on it, fifty dollars per night.”

Kimber Marsh says, “What I’m telling you is that it’s not going to work, the card will be declined.” She clears her throat. “We tried this already at the Faraway.”

“Ah,” Edie says. The Faraway is a fairly new boutique hotel in the center of town. If the Faraway didn’t let Kimber Marsh check in without a credit card, then Edie obviously shouldn’t either. But…she knows it’s the hotel’s mission to distinguish itself from the other luxury hotels on the island. Why shouldn’t they accept cash? Cash is money. But then Edie recalls the unspoken-but-understood reality of the hotel business: Guests lie. Their relationship with you—meaning the hotel staff—is temporary, so they feel they can say whatever they want. How many case studies did Edie read at Cornell about

handling sticky situations with guests? Dozens—and yet none exactly like this. Her ex-boyfriend Graydon would probably say that Kimber Marsh was trying to pull a con, using her children as a smoke screen. She says she has cash, but what if she doesn’t? And even if she does, is she just going to hand over a stack of bills?

Edie needs to speak to Lizbet.

“I’ll just be one second,” Edie says. She pops into the back office and calls Lizbet’s cell, but it goes straight to voice mail. Ugh. She remembers that Lizbet is giving a tour of the property to the couple from Syracuse checking into room 303 and shouldn’t be interrupted.

Every guest is a potential influencer.

Alessandra comes back into the office. “You’re letting those guests wither.”

Wither, really? Edie thinks. She’s been gone less than sixty seconds. “I need to speak to Lizbet.”

“Why don’t you let me take over their check-in since you’re not comfortable doing it.”

“I’m comfortable,” Edie says. She brushes past Alessandra, goes back out to the desk where Kimber Marsh waits. Edie hears Louie say, “Checkmate.” He starts setting the board up again while Wanda sinks back into the armchair and opens her book. “I really need to speak to my GM before I okay this,” Edie says.

Kimber Marsh leans in. “My soon-to-be-ex-husband left me for my nanny.” She emits a short, bitter laugh. “It’s such a cliché, but the reality is, I lost my spouse and my help. Craig and Jenny are spending the summer together in the Hamptons—Jenny just found out she’s pregnant—so I wanted to take my kids away rather than let them stew in the cauldron that is New York City. But not having a

functioning credit card is an issue, I realize this.” She pauses. “What if I give you the first week in cash with an extra five hundred dollars thrown on top for incidentals?” She sighs. “Can you work with me?

Please?”

Left her for the nanny? Edie thinks. Who’s pregnant? Of course Edie can work with her. This poor woman needs her help. Kimber Marsh wants her kids to have a fun summer, and Edie is going to make that happen (and maybe win the thousand-dollar bonus for her superlative service!).

She hears Alessandra’s bracelets but she doesn’t look over. She slides two key cards across the desk. “I’ll discuss your payment options with my GM, but for now, let’s get you settled in your suite.”

Alessandra clears her throat.

“Do you have luggage?” Edie asks.

“Yes, the gentlemen out front…” Kimber checks behind her.

“There’s quite a lot of stuff. I think they’re just unpacking the car.”

“And they have Doug!” Wanda reappears, though Louie has made himself comfortable over at the chessboard.

“Excellent,” Edie says. She has no idea who Doug is; maybe a stuffed animal, maybe an imaginary friend. “I can’t wait to meet him.

Since the bellmen are busy with your luggage, I’ll show you the way.”

At this point, Edie has no choice but to turn to Alessandra. “I’m just showing the Marsh family to their suite, I’ll be back in a moment.”

Alessandra’s smile is glacial. “Of course.” And then to Kimber: “Enjoy your stay and let us know if there’s anything we can do for you.”

No sooner does Edie emerge from behind the desk than Adam walks in with the luggage trolley, filled to the tippy-top with bags.

Adam catches Edie’s eye and says something under his breath that Edie doesn’t hear and, based on his tone and facial expression, probably doesn’t want to hear. A second later, Zeke English, who graduated from Nantucket High School two years ahead of Edie and who is so smoking hot he makes Edie feel kind of dizzy, comes into the lobby with a dog on a leash—a lean and muscled blue-brindled pit bull. Edie knows the breed because Graydon, her ex, had a pit bull named Portia. This dog, who is wearing a black muzzle, pulls Zeke along, its nails skating across the rare wormy chestnut floors of the lobby.

Edie’s mouth drops open and she looks at Zeke and then Adam— but it’s clear they’re both expecting her to handle this. “Is this Doug?”

Edie chirps.

Kimber’s expression brightens. “Yes. I put the muzzle on him in the minivan, which he was not happy about. He’s a sweet couch hippo, but he can act up around strangers.”

He can act up around strangers, so why not bring him to a resort where there will be strangers around constantly? Edie starts to sweat. When you want to spend the summer on Nantucket with your children and your dog, you rent a house. Why didn’t Kimber Marsh rent a house? It’s possible she couldn’t find a suitable rental at the last minute. Or maybe she didn’t want the upkeep. Maybe she wanted a pool, a wellness center, and room service. There could be lots of reasons, but one thing has become clear: Edie needs to speak to Lizbet. She’s too anxious to gauge Alessandra’s reaction.

“Will you take Ms. Marsh and the children to their suite?” Edie says to Adam. “I’m going to call Lizbet.”

“What about the dog?” Zeke asks. “Take him?”

All Edie can picture is Doug jumping up on the sumptuous white bed, chewing on the rope and driftwood frame, clawing at the white sheers, peeing on the Annie Selke rug. She gets the shivers. She figures the Faraway turned the Marshes down not because of the cash but because of the dog. “Would you and Doug wait outside for two seconds until I speak to Lizbet?”

Zeke looks put out; the dog quite obviously wants to follow the rest of the family but Zeke shepherds him back outside. Edie glances at Alessandra, who offers ice-cap eyes. She’s not going to help.

Okay, fine. Edie pops into the back office and tries Lizbet again, and this time Lizbet answers.

“Lizbet?” Edie says. “We’ve had our first walk-ins! It’s a woman named Kimber Marsh and her two children. They want to stay for the entire summer and they’re paying cash.”

“Please tell me you got a credit card, Edie,” Lizbet says.

“She’s going through a divorce, so both her cards are frozen. She said she’ll give us the first week plus five hundred for incidentals—”

“Oh no, Edie!”

Only now does Edie realize how absurd this sounds, and she’s barely started. “I upgraded her to suite one fourteen because it was empty.”

“You upgraded her,” Lizbet says. “For the entire summer? Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Those family suites are just sitting vacant.”

“They’ll fill up,” Lizbet says. “And when they do, we’ll lose room revenue on your eleven-week upgrade.”

Edie has messed this whole thing up. If this were role-playing back in college, she would get nothing but “feedback for

improvement.” Here in the real world, she might get fired, and she hasn’t even told Lizbet the worst part.

“Also,” Edie says, “she has a pit bull. His name is Doug.”

“What?” Lizbet says.

Edie kisses her dream of this week’s thousand-dollar bonus goodbye.