The Hotel Nantucket (31)

Grace is embarrassed for them. She has seen fourteen-year-olds with more composure.

“Zeke is a barre virgin!” Daniella cries out. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you, Zeke, admiring your form.”

“Me too,” Alison says. She’s wearing leggings printed with rainbows and peace signs.

“I’m moving closer,” Claire says. She has on a T-shirt that reads I DATE EVERYBODY.

Yolanda starts the music. “Ladies, let’s try to focus.” She lifts her leg while crossing her arms in front of her chest. Zeke follows suit; he can’t lift his leg very high at all, or maybe he can but he’s simply too enraptured by Yolanda, in her white leggings and her hydrangea-blue tank, with her hair in a thick braid hanging over one shoulder, to try very hard.

Leg lifts transition to planks on the yoga mats, followed by push-ups. Grace watches Zeke do all this with ease. When the class moves to the barre, Yolanda says, “Who’s ready for a thigh party?”

Daniella hoots and raises her arms over her head, giving Zeke an unimpeded view of her chest; Grace notices that she has removed the pads from her yoga top so that Zeke can see her nipples protruding.

“Heels together, toes apart,” Yolanda says. “Now sink down six inches and find your high diamond.”

Zeke tries to approximate the position but his heels lift only an inch off the ground; when he sinks down, he winces. “Up an inch,” Yolanda says, “and down an inch. Remember, an inch is the size of a paper clip.” When they “press down to finish,” Zeke’s legs shake uncontrollably; it’s the funniest thing Grace has seen in a long time.

“End of the first set,” Yolanda says. “Two to go.”

Zeke looks longingly at the door.

“Everyone grab your balls,” Yolanda says.

Daniella rolls her tongue. “Now you’re talking,” she says.



When barre class ends, there’s a standoff. Zeke seems to want to chat up Yolanda, but Daniella, Alison, and Claire are clearly lingering in order to talk to Zeke.

Yolanda says, “Thanks for coming, everyone. I’m going to run to the restaurant for an acai bowl before I teach yoga. Ta!”

Daniella, Alison, and Claire close in on Zeke, who has his back up against the barre.

“Tonight’s my birthday dinner at Ventuno,” Daniella says. “Then we’re going to the Club Car to sing and hopefully to the Pearl for a nightcap.”

“Guess what we’re giving Daniella for a present?” Claire says.

Zeke tells the ladies he can’t begin to guess.

“You!” Alison says. “Please join us. We’ll pay for everything.”

“Wish I could, ladies,” Zeke says. “But I have to work tonight.”

“That’s okay,” Daniella says. “There’s always the after-party.”



Zeke is a sitting duck when the ladies from suite 117 enter the lobby that evening in a flurry of high-pitched cackling and waves of perfume. The three of them are dressed in sequins and feathers and high heels with red soles. Daniella is wearing a tiara.

Zeke takes a visible breath. He’s such a good sport, Grace thinks. “Here’s my birthday queen!” Zeke says, taking Daniella’s hand and allowing her to twirl. “Love the Louboutins.”

The ladies scream. “He knows about Louboutins!”

Alison says, “Let’s get a selfie. Daniella, you stand next to Zeke.”

Daniella crushes herself against one side of Zeke, and Claire does the same on the other side while Alison, on the far side of Claire, holds her phone out in front of them. “Everyone say, ‘Duck…duck…goose!’” She presses the button at the same time that both Daniella and Claire squeeze Zeke’s butt cheeks.

“Whoa!” Zeke says, raising his arms and stepping back.

What? Grace thinks. It might be time for her to show her resting-bitch face on Claire’s phone screen. These ladies are Out. Of. Line!

At that moment, Roger’s Taxi pulls up and the ladies pile in; as the car pulls away, they wave at Zeke out the open window.

Grace dearly hopes that by the time Daniella, Alison, and Claire return, Zeke will be off work and safely home in bed. But at just a couple of minutes to midnight, Daniella stumbles up the stairs in her heels. Claire, behind her, is holding her shoes in her hand, and Alison is still down on the sidewalk doing some kind of psychedelic dance to music apparently only she can hear.

They’re drunk, Grace thinks. As blotto as Dahlia Benedict used to get, back in the good old days.

“Hey, ladies,” Zeke says. His voice is weary. “How was the birthday?”

Daniella snakes an arm around Zeke’s waist and snuggles against him. “We have a proposition for you.”

The church bells in town toll midnight. “All propositions will have to wait until tomorrow, ladies. I’m getting off my shift and I’m beat. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Oh no, you don’t!” Daniella says, her tone of voice serrated now. “We’re calling in that rain check. Come upstairs and have champagne with us,” she says, pulling him out of the lobby.

“Don’t be afraid,” Alison says. “We don’t bite.”

“Speak for yourself,” Claire says.