Page 35 of The Hotel Nantucket
“I’m not your baby, Michael. I’m a grown woman whom you’ve treated like a concubine.”
“You knew what you were getting into,” Michael said. “You can’t tell me you didn’t understand what this was.”
He got everything backward.Hewas the one who didn’t understand what this was.
“I’ll go quietly the day before your family arrives,” Alessandra said. “On one condition.”
Alessandra walks from Michael’s house to the hotel with a knockoff Louis Vuitton bag in each hand. It’s a stylish walk of shame—or it would be if Alessandra felt any shame. What she feels most is regret. Michael Bick is the complete package. He has looks, money, intelligence, humor, and even a basic decency (if you ignore the obvious). He asks questions; he listens to the answers; he’s generous and curious and thoughtful. The sex was mind-blowing; Michael is the only man Alessandra ever met who didn’t need to learn a thing or two in bed. And they are so compatible. Oh, well. It has been Alessandra’s experience that men like Michael Bick get scooped up early, in college or the first years of living as an adult in the city.
She also feels triumphant. In her suede Bruno Magli clutch is a cashier’s check for fifty thousand dollars. Michael asked her to name her price and she did so judiciously, unsure of what she could get away with, but now she wonders if she could have asked for double. She won’t worry about it. During their first week of sinful bliss, Alessandra watched Michael punch in the passcode to his phone, and later, while he was sleeping, Alessandra copied Heidi Bick’s number. She also took pictures of herself in different spots throughout the house—in the pool, weighing herself on Heidi’s scale (a trim 105), cooking in the kitchen, even sprawled across the master bed (although they’d never had sex in that room, Michael’s one nod to fidelity).
If Alessandra doesn’t find another situation, she’ll simply text Michael the pictures and ask for more money.
As Heidi Bick is checking things off her packing list in Greenwich—Colby’s inhaler, Hayford’s putter, her Wüsthof tomato knife—Alessandra will be paying for a 1980 CJ-7 in “mint condition” that she found listed in theNantucket Standardclassifieds. The Jeep costs twenty grand; Alessandra will pay cash, then she’ll write the bellman Adam a check for twelve grand, which is her share of the summer’s rent now that she’s moving in with him and Raoul on Hooper Farm Road. She’ll throw ten grand at her credit card bills and still have a bit of a financial cushion.
Alessandra is growing weary of seducing men, then extorting them; she would far prefer to find a permanent provider.
She marches up the front steps of the hotel, trying to carry herself like a hotel guest checking in. Except she’s wearing her uniform, and Adam says, from his spot behind the lectern, “You look like a high-class hobo.”
Alessandra doesn’t respond. She pictures Michael frantically cleaning the house, sweeping up every strand of her hair, wiping her fingerprints off the wineglasses, checking the drawers for an errant pair of panties. But will he notice the Chanel eye shadow that Alessandra left in Heidi’s makeup drawer in the bathroom? (Heidi wears Bobbi Brown.) Will he check the shoe tree in Heidi’s closet, where Alessandra has left a pair of size 6 crystal-studded René Caovilla stilettos winking coyly among the size 8 Jack Rogers sandals and Tory Burch ballet flats? Will he find the positive pregnancy test that Alessandra tucked into the copy of Jennifer Weiner’sGood in Bedthat sits atop the stack of novels on Heidi Bick’s nightstand?
He will not, Alessandra guesses, because men don’t pay attention to the way women live, not really. Michael will suffer for this, and for his hubris. He thought he was making a clean (if somewhat costly) getaway.
She wonders if Michael misses her. After handing over the check, he kissed her deeply, and when she pulled away, she saw tears glittering in the corners of his eyes.Torn between two lovers,she sang in her head,feeling like a fool.
“Raoul says he’ll swing by around noon to get your bags,” Adam says now.
“Kind of him, thank you,” Alessandra says, though she wishes Raoul would come right away so she could avoid the inevitable questions.
Alessandra steps into the lobby and smells the deep roast of the Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee that Edie has percolating (they use a vintage percolator and the guests rave about the flavor). She hears Mandy Patinkin singing a Gershwin song: “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”
She’s late due to the check, the kiss, the walk with the bags. She likes to arrive before Edie because she feels it gives her the upper hand, and now, when Edie looks up and sees Alessandra and notices the luggage, she looks confused and just a bit superior.
“Good morning, Alessandra,” she says. “Taking a trip?” Edie’s voice is light and easy despite the fact that Alessandra is always chilly with her.
“Good morning, Edie.” It’s not that Alessandra doesn’tlikeEdie; she does. Edie is smart, self-effacing, and excellent with the Marsh children. (Both Wanda and Louie are terrified of Alessandra.)
But Edie is also young, and the last thing Alessandra wants is for Edie to look up to her. Alessandra doesn’t want to lie to Edie about her past or her present, and hence, friendship between them is impossible. Alessandra has to push Edie away.
It’s for your own good!Alessandra wants to say, because she can see her brusqueness hurts Edie.
Alessandra drops the bags behind the desk and logs on to her computer.
Lizbet pops out of the back office for what’s probably her fourth cup of coffee; she drinks so much caffeine, Alessandra is surprised she doesn’t flap her arms and fly away.
Lizbet notices the bags because she notices everything. “What’s going on here?” she asks with an arched eyebrow.
Alessandra meets Lizbet’s gaze. “My housing fell through, so I’m moving in with Adam and Raoul.”
Lizbet moves for the percolator. “What happened to the place on Hulbert?”
Alessandra tries not to care if Lizbet has figured it out. Lizbet can’t fire her for what goes on in her personal life, though it might invite scrutiny later on, something Alessandra wants to avoid. She smiles despite the bitter, nearly chemical taste in her mouth. “Oh,” she says, “that was just temporary.”
Chad has been assigned a cleaning partner named Bibi Evans who treats every room like it’s a crime scene. This might be because Bibi aspires to be a forensic scientist, or it might be because Bibi is what Chad’s mother would call a “nosy parker,” or it might be because Bibi is a thief. Chad doesn’t like thinking this last thing, but that’s what his gut tells him, because Bibi touches every single item in any room that might be worth stealing. She touches the things that Ms. English has expressly asked themnotto touch, such as watches, jewelry, cash, and pills.
They’ve been working together for two weeks when Bibi lifts a diamond tennis bracelet out of a travel jewelry case andtries it on. Chad is freaked out (and also somewhat impressed) at Bibi’s moxie; she doesn’t seem to be intimidated by Ms. English or the rules. Bibi holds her hand out so that the diamonds catch the sunlight coming in through the picture window overlooking Easton Street. “I was meant for the finer things.”
“You should probably put that back,” Chad says.
