Page 68 of The Hotel Nantucket
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 calledHotel Confidential,” he said. “Don’t you follow her?”
“Why would I follow something calledHotel Confidential?” Bibi asked, and Chad thought,Because you work in a hotel?But he had to admit, he’d never heard of theHotel Confidentialblog. 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 beeneverywhere—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 hehadn’tchecked 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 theyareplotting 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 ofthat?”
