Page 13 of The Hotel Nantucket
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 hethatunhinged? 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 readsCHEF MARIO SUBIACO.
Lizbet fights to keep her composure. MarioSubiaco?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 istheOG Nantucket celebrity chef. JJ keeps Mario’s picture—clipped from a profile of him inVanity Fairthat 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 MarioSubiaco!” JJ sounds like a nine-year-old Pop Warner quarterback who’s meeting Tom Brady. “You’re alegend,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.
