The Hotel Nantucket (44)

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 you think this?”

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 not Heidi’s color, but it is Lyric’s color—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.”

“Your mom?” 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.

“When?” Winston asks.

Jasper isn’t sure. Winston came to Nantucket specifically to see Jasper, but Jasper has to be careful. “I’ll snap.”

Winston gets out of bed to see Jasper out, so he can’t be that mad. They do some pretty heavy-duty kissing in the doorway.

“Come back to bed,” Winston murmurs into Jasper’s mouth.

Jasper is actually considering it—his mom isn’t going to be any madder in an hour than she is now—but then he hears a rattling and turns to see the housekeeping cart rounding the corner, and pushing that cart is…Chad Winslow.

What? Chad is wearing khakis and a blue polo, and he’s with some beaten-down-looking chick who smirks at Jasper and shirtless Winston and says, “You gentlemen ready for service?”

“Jasper?” Chad says.

Jasper feels like a coyote with his leg in a trap. “Chad? Are you…working here, man?” Jasper and his buddies Eric and Bryce have all been wondering what’s up with Chad, but him having a job never crossed their minds. A job cleaning rooms at a hotel? It makes no sense.

Chad shrugs and casts his eyes over Jasper’s shoulder at Winston. “Yeah, I’m a maid,” Chad says. “What are you doing here?”

I’m a maid. It must be a joke, right? Except Jasper can tell it isn’t and Chad doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. It’s like Winston is always saying: There is nothing shameful about who we really are.

“Stayed over with my boyfriend, Winston,” Jasper says. And just like that, he’s out. He grins. He can’t believe how easy that was.

Chad nods. “Cool. Nice to meet you, Winston.”

“Nice to meet you,” Winston says.

“Nice, nice, nice,” the chick with Chad says. “So, are you ready for service or what?”



Nancy Twine passes around the offering basket at the Summer Street Church. She tries not to notice how much a person gives; three dollars for some is as much of a sacrifice as thirty dollars for others. But it does catch her attention when Magda English drops several folded hundred-dollar bills into the basket. (Five hundred-dollar bills, Nancy would come to find out when she counts the money after the service.)