Page 59 of The Hotel Nantucket
Edie Robbins comes into the office with an article written by an eight-year-old girl, a guest at the hotel. This child, Wanda Marsh, claims to have heard from a ghost living in the hotel’s fourth-floor storage closet. Jordan reads the piece and chuckles—it’s not bad; maybe he should hire this Wanda Marsh—and then Edie hands over the supporting document, an article published in theStandarda hundred years ago.
“I never knew about this,” Jordan admits. There are, of course, ghost stories all over downtown Nantucket, just as there are in any historic place with creaky old houses. But this one grabs Jordan’s interest. It’s the combination of the hundred-year-anniversary angle, the little girl, and Edie herself, a young woman Jordan has known since birth. Jordan was friends with Edie’s father, Vance Robbins; they served on the Rotary Club scholarship committee together for years, and Jordan was saddened by his passing.
He gives the little girl’s story and the old article to Jill and asks her to write a new piece about the hotel. “Describe the renovation from the point of view of the ghost who has lived there for the past hundred years,” he says. “People will love it.”
And they do! Jill Tananbaum’s article “Hotel Nantucket Haunted by Hadley” appears in the Thursday, July 21, edition of theNantucket Standardand garners more reader response than any other article they’ve run this year. Summer visitor Donna Fenton, who stayed in the hotel with her family in the 1980s,knewthere was something spooky about the place. Blond Sharon is intrigued not by the ghost but by the Matouk linens, the oyster-shell-tiled showers, and the blue cashmere throws from Nantucket Looms. Also, Sharon (who likes to know everything) had no idea there was a new adult pool out back. How can she get an invitation? She decides to book a room at the end of August for her sister, Heather, who is a world traveler andverydiscerning.
It just so happens that Yeong-Ja Park, a writer for the Associated Press, is staying on the island at her parents’ home in Shimmo, and after she reads the article in theStandard,she writes an article about the haunted hotel as well. She tracks down half a dozen people who have stayed at the hotel over the past three decades, three of whom claim to have heard and seen things they couldn’t explain. Yeong-Ja’s article gets picked up by forty-seven newspapers across the country, from theIdaho Statesmanto theSt. Louis Post-Dispatchto theTampa Bay Times. Some of the papers run the article right away; some save it for a slow news day.
Here on Nantucket, the excitement about the haunted hotel lasts only a scant twenty-four hours—because we have other gossip to discuss.
Somethingveryscandalous has transpired on Hulbert Avenue. Rumor has it that Michael Bick, husband of Heidi Bick and the father of four, had an affair with their next-door neighbor Lyric Layton, and Lyric is now pregnant. This story is so salacious that Blond Sharon will be able to dine out on it all summer long. Apparently, Heidi Bick found Lyric’s eye shadow in her makeup drawer, Lyric’s René Caovilla stilettos in her closet, and Lyric’s positive pregnancy test inside the Jennifer Weiner novelGood in Bed. (Is there symbolism in this choice of book? There must be!) Heidi invited the Laytons over for dinner on the deck, faking normality, but as soon as the first cocktail was poured, she confronted Michael and Lyric. It was a surprise attack so they couldn’t confer and get their stories straight. Whoa, did this cause an uproar—mostly from Ari Layton, who had been mentally keeping track of how many times Michael checked out his wife these past few years. Ari had always suspected a flirtation between his wife and Michael but he was enraged to find out it was something far more. Ari had been so happy about Lyric’s pregnancy (he was hoping for a little girl after three boys), but what if it turned out it wasn’t his baby? Ari stood up, fists at the ready.
Both Michael and Lyric vehemently denied the accusation. They had never been together in any capacity, nor would they ever. Lyric wasappalledthat Heidi thought so little of her. She wasn’t sure what her eye shadow, shoes, and pregnancy test were doing in the Bicks’ house, but for the record, if shewerehaving an affair with Michael, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave those things behind!
Here, we had to admit, she had a point.
Michael claimed he was being set up. It was probably someone from his office who had found out he and Rafe were starting their own company. They’d sent a spy into the house. The guy who came to fix the internet, perhaps?
Ari said, “But how would anyone from your company get intoourhouse? How would he know to take the eye shadow, shoes, and pregnancy test, which he must have found in our trash?”
Right, we thought. It made no sense.
Lyric was, by all accounts, calm but emphatic. She was happy to have the paternity of the baby tested as soon as that was an option. Michael, however, kept spewing conspiracy theories and generally acting like a man with a guilty conscience.
This made us wonder.
There has also been a shake-up at the Deck, one so disruptive that the restaurant announces a temporary emergency closing on Sunday, July 17. The Deck hasn’t closed on a summer Sunday in fifteen years of operation. What is goingon?
Romeo down at the Steamship Authority reports that he saw Christina Cross driving her bright orange Jeep onto the ferry, her belongings packed to within inches of the roof. It’s Romeo’s job to regulate that kind of thing—drivers are supposed to have a foot of visual clearance out the back window—but when Romeo approaches the car, he sees Christina is sobbing, so he waves her on. He has been doing this job for decades and knows a heartbroken woman leaving the island for good when he sees one.
Christina has left the Deck. Is that why they closed? Yes and no. Christina could easily be replaced by Peyton as hostess and Goose as sommelier. But Goose, who is JJ’s closest confidant, tells his sister Janice, the dental hygienist, that JJ closed the Deck so that he could take a “personal day”—which involved a case of Cisco beer, a couple of three-way sandwiches from Yezzi’s food truck, and a ride with Goose out to Great Point to fish. He told Goose that Christina had left, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem, JJ said, was that he had gotten mixed up with Christina in the first place.
“I had the best woman I could have asked for,” JJ said. “Lizbet was my friend, my confidante, someone I knew I could spend the rest of my life with. And I blew it.”
“You blew it,” Goose agreed.
17. Hot-Girl Summer
Business at the Hotel Nantucket has picked up considerably! Grace notes this with delight, and although it feels immodest to say, she knows it’s all thanks to her. By the end of July, every room at the hotel is booked. Word has gotten out that the hotel is haunted by the ghost of Grace Hadley and everyone wants to experience the phenomenon. This is Grace’s fifteen minutes of fame, and she can’t afford to squander it. She’s very busy in the nighttime hours making benign room visits. She knocks on walls, flickers the lights, messes with the electric shades (this is so much fun), and plays the guests’ favorite songs out of nowhere.
These shenanigans delight the guests, but Grace begins to worry that cheap stunts will dilute her brand. Can she put her powers to better use? Yes! For example, seventeen-year-old Juliana Plumb wants to come out to her parents. They’re staying in suite 314 and they’ve just had a lovely dinner at the Languedoc Bistro. As they were walking down the hallway toward their suite, Mr. Plumb teased Juliana about the cute busboy who had been flirting with her at dinner. Juliana looked uncomfortable, and Grace knows exactly why.
She watches Juliana stare at herself for a long time in the bathroom mirror after brushing her teeth. Grace marvels at how wonderful it is that one can just state one’s sexual orientation and preferences in 2022. Back in 1922, well…Grace had a feeling that the hotel’s GM, Mr. Leroy Noonan, preferred gentlemen, but he could never have said it. He was more “closeted” than Grace was!
Grace follows Juliana as she knocks on her parents’ bedroom door.
“Come in,” Mrs. Plumb says.
Juliana and Grace enter. Grace hovers close to Juliana, providing as much warmth and support as she can muster.
“I’m gay,” Juliana says.
The Plumbs seem…taken aback. Mr. Plumb clears his throat; he exchanges glances with Mrs. Plumb. Grace nudges Mr. Plumb toward his daughter, and Mr. Plumb gets the hint and holds out his arms. “Juliana,” he says. “We love you, sweetie.”
“Thank you for trusting us enough to tell us,” Mrs. Plumb says. “We’ll support you any way we can.”
My work here is done,Grace thinks, leaving the Plumbs to a group hug.
