The Hotel Nantucket (17)
“Good morning, Alessandra!” Edie says brightly.
Alessandra does an oh-so-quick-but-still-noticeable up-and-down of Edie, presses her lips together, and says in a tone that is not cold but also not warm, “Good morning.”
Edie wills herself not to take offense; from what Edie observed at training and during the first staff meeting, Alessandra is standoffish. (Maybe not a mean girl, but maybe not not a mean girl.) That, Edie can deal with. She has a harder time accepting that Alessandra is the front-desk manager. Edie doesn’t understand why there has to be a front-desk manager when there are only two desk people hired so far. Edie realizes that Alessandra is older and has more practical job experience and speaks four languages. But something about Alessandra having the title feels wrong. She just walked in off the street; it’s her first summer on Nantucket; Lizbet doesn’t know her and neither does anyone else on this island.
The night before, at dinner, Edie complained about the situation to her mother. Love worked for years as the front-desk manager at the Nantucket Beach Club, and Edie’s father, Vance, had been the night manager.
Love sipped her wine. “I bet the two of you will be best friends by the end of the summer.”
“That’s such a mom thing to say.”
“Sorry,” Love said. “I bet the two of you are going to have a tumultuous summer marked by incidents of envious backstabbing.”
Envious, yes, Edie thinks now. Not only is Alessandra gorgeous and multilingual but she’s a walking, talking Pinterest board. Edie and Alessandra are wearing the same uniform—white pants and a silky hydrangea-blue button-down blouse. Alessandra has accessorized her uniform with a Johnnie-O canvas color-block belt that probably belongs to her boyfriend (but looks so cute!), a pair of taupe wedge sandals, and a collection of gold bangles—among which is a Cartier love bracelet—that make bright jangly sounds every time Alessandra moves her left arm. Her reddish-blond hair is long, tousled, and beachy, yet not a strand is out of place (how is that possible?). She’s wearing white eyeliner and has a tiny crystal pressed under her right eye. (At college, Edie thought eye crystals were trashy, but on Alessandra it looks chic. How is that possible?) Her name tag is upside down, which Edie thinks is a mistake but then realizes must be intentional—a conversation starter—because she can tell that Alessandra doesn’t make mistakes.
Edie, by contrast, has her hair held back in a headband, no belt (she didn’t think to wear a belt), and Skechers on her feet because she was worried about being comfortable. Her name tag is right side up.
“Thank you for setting up the coffee,” Edie says as she logs onto the computer next to the wall. She tries not to feel hemmed in or trapped (she feels both). Alessandra’s bracelets chatter in response and Edie thinks, Fine, whatever. The coffee smells rich and delicious and Edie wonders if she can pour herself a cup; Lizbet didn’t say one way or the other.
But at that moment, Edie sees her mother’s coworker Joan, from Flowers on Chestnut, rolling in a cart laden with the bouquets for the rooms. They have guests for eleven rooms checking in today and they’ve ordered a dozen Surfside Spring arrangements—enormous blue hydrangeas, pink starburst lilies, flame-orange snapdragons, and blush peonies curled up into tight little balls. Joan also has a supersize version of this arrangement for the pedestal table in the lobby.
“Sweet Edie!” Joan cries out. “Look at you on your first day of work! Your mom is so proud of you.”
“Good morning, Joan,” Edie says. She hears Alessandra murmur, “Sweet Edie?” and Edie feels herself flush. That’s the thing about working on your home island, she thinks. Everyone knows you, and they all call you by your mortifying nickname. She has been Sweet Edie since she was small, her father’s fault.
Edie moves the large arrangement to the lobby while Alessandra tasks the short, floppy-haired bellman named Adam with delivering eleven of the arrangements to the rooms. The twelfth arrangement goes back in Lizbet’s office.
Joan reenters the lobby holding a planter of glorious deep purple vanda orchids.
“Those are stunning vandas,” Edie says, showing off her orchid knowledge for Alessandra. “Are they for me?” She’s kidding. That’s at least four hundred dollars’ worth of orchids, and although Edie’s mother is proud of her, they don’t have that kind of money to throw around.
“These are for Magda English,” Joan says. “Seems she has an admirer.”
Magda English! Edie thinks. That’s Zeke English’s aunt, the head of housekeeping.
“I’ll take them to her.” Edie carries the orchids down the hall to the housekeeping office, where she catches Magda just leaving with a blond guy about Edie’s age who’s wearing a pink oxford shirt and a needlepoint belt. He looks like one of the obnoxious summer kids who elbow other people out of the way to throw down their parents’ credit cards at the Gazebo.
“Ms. English, these came for you,” Edie says. “You have an admirer.”
Magda stops in her tracks and stares at the flowers, then tsks and shakes her head. “Put them on my desk, please, dear,” she says. “Chadwick and I have work to do.”
Chadwick, Edie thinks, trying to hide her smile. Chad! She sets the orchids on Magda’s desk and stares at the small envelope gripped in the prongs of the plastic stake. The envelope is sealed, and Edie can’t very well open it, but she’s tempted to hold it up to the sunlight streaming through the window so she can see who has sent Magda English these extravagant flowers.