Page 38 of The Hotel Nantucket
“I work the front desk,” Decameron says.
Dixon nods. Nothing about this guy screams predator or even vagrant. He seems like a regular guy—a Huskies basketball fan, the father of an honor student.
“So tell me something,” Dixon says. “Have you seen the ghost?”
“Not yet,” Decameron says. “She’s playing hard to get.”
Dixon chuckles and slaps the roof of the car. “All right, I’m not going to issue a ticket. Tomorrow, though, you’d better find a different beach.”
“Will do, Officer,” Decameron says. “Thank you.”
Lyric Layton is in her kitchen at seven a.m. making a beet-and-blueberry smoothie after doing yoga on her private beach when she hears a light rapping on her front door. Anne Boleyn, Lyric’s chocolate British shorthair, rises and places her paws on Lyric’s shin, which is something she does only when she’s anxious. Lyric scoops up the cat and goes to see who on earth is knocking at this hour.
It’s Heidi Bick from next door. The Laytons and the Bicks have plans to go to Galley Beach for dinner that night. Lyric wonders if Heidi has somehow heard her news; Lyric was planning on telling Heidi at dinner if Heidi didn’t guess when Lyric ordered sparkling water instead of champagne. But then she sees the stricken look on Heidi’s face.
“Are you the only one up?” Heidi whispers. “I need to talk.”
“Yes, of course,” Lyric says. Her husband, Ari, and the three boys would sleep until noon every day of the summer if she’d let them. “Come on in.”
Lyric leads Heidi into the kitchen, offers her a smoothie—no, thank you, she can’t manage any—and then Lyric opens the slider so they can sit out on the deck. The rising sun spangles the water of Nantucket Sound; the early-morning ferry is gliding past Brant Point Light and out of the harbor.
“I think Michael is having an affair,” Heidi says. She gives a strangled little laugh. “I can’t believe I just said those words. I sound like someone on Netflix. I mean, it’sMichael.We’re Michael and HeidiBick. This isn’t supposed to happen.”
Well, well, well,Lyric thinks. “Whoa, honey, start at the beginning. What gives you this idea?”
“I’m so stupid!” Heidi says. “Michael has been living up here since April. He told me he and his coworker Rafe were making moves to splinter off and start their own company. He chose to work remotely so he had the necessary privacy. Did I ask any questions? No! I took him at his word—and I was happy for some time to myself. Meanwhile, he was up here with someone else!”
To anyone other than Lyric Layton, this news about Michael might have come as a jaw-dropping surprise. Michael and Heidi Bick were widely considered to be “the perfect couple”—everyone said it here on Nantucket and back in Greenwich as well. But Lyric has gotten certain…vibes from Michael. Last summer when Lyric and Ari and Michael and Heidi were at dinner at the Deck, Lyric caught Michael staring at her from across the table. She thought she was imagining it—a lot of rosé had been consumed—but then he touched her leg with his foot. Lyric had quickly tucked her legs under her chair. She said nothing to Ari or to Heidi because she was sure Michael was just being a naughty drunk. Lyric considers herself an excellent friend—she remembers birthdays, she takes extra carpool shifts, she polishes other queens’ crowns—so she would never,everentertain the notion of an affair with Michael. But…if she’s painfully honest, she would admit that there have been times when she was practicing yoga on the beach and wondered if Michael Bick was in his master bathroom, fresh out of the shower, watching her from the window.
Lyric arranges her facial expression into one of both skepticism and concern. “Oh, Heidi, I doubt that.”
“So you haven’t heard any rumors about Michael running around the island with some other woman?” Heidi presses the heels of her palms into her eye sockets. “I had this horrible idea that everyone knew but me and everyone was talking about it…”
“I’ve heard nothing,” Lyric says. “And I had lunch with Blond Sharon at the Field and Oar Club yesterday. She didn’t say a word. What makes youthinkthis?”
Heidi pulls a Chanel eye shadow out of the pocket of her jeans jacket. It’s a half-used cream shadow in Pourpre Brun. “This was in my makeup drawer.”
Lyric takes the eye shadow. “Not your color,” she says. She’s trying to make a joke, but inside, Lyric is shrieking. It’s notHeidi’scolor, but it isLyric’scolor—and Lyric wears only Chanel eye shadow, as Heidi well knows. Lyric wonders if Heidi is accusing Lyric of having an affair with Michael. This is getting extremely sticky. Has Michael been sleeping with someone who wears Chanel eye shadow in one of Lyric’s go-to shades? He must be. Why else would the shadow be in Heidi’s makeup drawer? Lyric feels a little jealous herself—which is insane, of course. She’s happily married and pregnant with her fourth child. “Have you asked Michael about it?” Lyric says.
“No,” Heidi says. “I’m going to wait and see if I find anything else.”
Lyric agrees this is a good idea. It’s probably nothing; maybe it was the cleaning lady’s (this makes no sense) or it belongs to Colby, Heidi’s daughter (she’s only eleven, but kids are precocious these days). She says she’s certain there’s a reasonable explanation. Lyric shepherds Heidi to the door in something of a rush because she feels morning sickness wash over her (the beet-and-blueberry smoothie, ick; what had made her think that would be a good combo?). “Try to relax, Michael loves you, see you tonight at dinner.” Lyric might not tell Heidi she’s pregnant tonight, because how awful to share happy news when her friend is suffering.
Lyric shuts the door behind Heidi and runs down the hall to the bathroom, where she vomits up the smoothie. After rinsing her mouth, she goes hunting for her own Chanel cream eye shadow in Pourpre Brun.
The funny thing is, she can’t find it.
Jasper Monroe of Fisher Island, Florida, wakes up in suite 115 of the Hotel Nantucket to a text from his mother:Where are you??? Did you not come home last night??? You know the rules, Jasper!!!
Jasper groans and rolls over. He kisses Winston on the shoulder and says, “I have to get out of here, man. My mom is kerking.”
“Yourmom?” Winston says.
“Yeah,” Jasper says. He feels like he’s twelve years old, and he senses that Winston, who was Jasper’s teaching assistant at Trinity, wants to remind him that he’s twenty-two, a grown man, and that he can stay out all night if he wants. But the fact remains that Jasper lives under his parents’ roof and he did break a house rule by not telling his mother that he’d be out all night, and beyond that, his parents don’t know he’s gay. Nobody does.
Jasper puts on his Nantucket Reds and his polo, both rumpled and beer-soaked after a late night at the Chicken Box. He decides to get his mother half a dozen of the infamous morning buns from Wicked Island Bakery as an apology.
“Catch you later, man,” Jasper says.
