The Hotel Nantucket (108)

“I understand,” Edie says. “I’ll give her that message.”

Heidi Bick reaches across the desk and grasps Edie’s wrist. “Thank you. Lizbet has a real treasure in you.”

“I didn’t realize you knew Lizbet,” Edie says. The plot thickens.

“We’re friends,” Heidi says. “I considered calling her first and getting the little Jolene fired, but Lizbet has enough going on and it’s hard to find help, and I’m determined to fight my own battles.”

Edie’s spirit flags with “it’s hard to find help” because, as incensed as Edie is, she doesn’t want to see Alessandra fired. What will they do if Alessandra doesn’t come back? The quick fix would be to put Edie’s mother, Love, on the day desk—and sorry, but that’s not an option. (And yet, how will Edie ever be able to express her opposition to this arrangement to either Lizbet or her mother?) “I understand.”

Heidi backs up toward the door. “Tell her to go ruin someone else’s life!”



The instant Heidi Bick disappears, Edie rips open the envelope. Inside is a note—Edie, I’m sorry. This is rightfully yours—and a stack of hundred-dollar bills. Edie counts it: four thousand dollars.

Alessandra’s bonuses.



As soon as Edie’s shift is over and Richie shows up—he wants to talk about how nice Edie and Love’s home is and how grateful, yada-yada, but Edie cuts him off; she doesn’t have time—she hops on one of the hotel bikes and books it over to Hooper Farm Road, where Adam, Raoul, and Alessandra live. Edie rehearses what she’s going to say in her head. She’s going to air her anger first: How could you, you’re a hypocrite, I believed in you! Once that’s out, she’ll grant Alessandra forgiveness. But when Edie pulls into the driveway, she finds Raoul and Alessandra loading Alessandra’s Louis Vuitton duffels into the trunk of Raoul’s car, and Edie forgets the anger part.

“Wait!” she says, skidding to a stop.

Raoul and Alessandra both turn to stare, but neither one of them says a word. Finally, Raoul checks his watch. “I need to get to work. I’m already late and we all know I’ll hear it from Adam.” He looks at Alessandra. “Am I taking you to the boat?”

“I talked to Mrs. Bick,” Edie says. “It’s fine, you don’t have to leave, she isn’t going to say anything to Lizbet, she just wants you to…back off.”

Raoul’s expression remains impassive and Edie wonders if she’s creating a big, dramatic Real Housewives moment, but even if she is, Raoul won’t tell anyone. He’s a vault.

Alessandra nods at Raoul. “You go to work. I’ll stay and talk to Edie.”

“Your boat…” Raoul says.

“I’ll change it,” Alessandra says.



Alessandra leaves her duffels on the front porch and leads Edie inside, which is its own kind of jackpot because who doesn’t want to see the place where her coworkers live, especially when it’s 23 Hooper Farm Road. According to Edie’s mother, this house has been the rental for a colorful cast of Nantucket characters over the years. For a number of summers, servers from the Blue Bistro lived here, and after that, a group of pilots for Cape Air, and after that, girls who worked on a high-end landscaping crew, one of whom was dating the bassist for the Dropkick Murphys.

But if Edie is expecting holes punched in the walls by jealous boyfriends or scorch marks from a fondue party gone bad, she’s disappointed. The living room is dominated by Raoul’s workout equipment, the kitchen has a peeling linoleum floor, and there’s a short, dim hallway that must lead to the bedrooms. Alessandra takes Edie out the back door to a secluded yard, where the kitchen table sits atop a lawn that has just been cut (probably by Raoul). There are white fairy lights strung through the overarching branches of a big shade tree.

Alessandra takes a seat at the table and Edie sits next to her, thinking, I’m going to have to beg her to stay, and how twisted is that?

“You blackmailed that woman’s husband!” Edie says. She’s proud of herself for not completely buckling.

“I did,” Alessandra says. “In my defense—and, honestly, Edie, there is no defense for what I did—Michael told me he and his wife were taking time apart, so I thought it was open season.” She shakes her head. “I figured out he was lying pretty much right away but that was his sin, not mine. And then, when his wife was about to arrive for the summer, I had…bargaining power, and I cashed in on it.”

Edie blinks. “And then you planted stuff from the neighbors’ house?”

Alessandra sighs. “I did. At that point, it was like a game. I took her eye shadow, her shoes…that was probably good enough. I knew Michael would never realize that his wife wore Bobbi Brown and the neighbor wore Chanel or that his wife wore a size eight and the neighbor a size six. But then I found a positive pregnancy test in their bathroom trash, so I threw that gasoline on the fire.”

“Gah!”

Alessandra touches Edie’s arm. “This is why I didn’t want us to be friends. I’m a horrible person. I’m ruined and rotten straight through.”

Now it makes sense. Edie should not be friends with Alessandra. She should not look up to her at all. But even now, at this low moment, Alessandra has effortless style. Her hair is back in a ponytail, her makeup from that morning has faded, the eye crystals have fallen off, but even so, she looks chic in a pair of faded jeans, an old Dave Matthews T-shirt (the Shoreline Amphitheater, 2000, before Edie was even born), and the one gold bangle Edie knows will never come off, the Cartier love bracelet. Someone had once cared enough about Alessandra to give her that.