The Hotel Nantucket (72)

Lizbet teases him about it and he says, “I played beer die on the beach with some of the kids from the kitchen. It was a good day. And man, Yolanda can really surf.”

“Oh,” Lizbet says. “Yolanda was there?”

“She was shredding like Alana Blanchard.”

“I don’t know who that is,” Lizbet snaps.

Mario doesn’t notice her tone because they have entered the tranquil garden setting of the Pearl chef’s table. It seats ten but Mario has reserved it for just the two of them, a lavish gesture. Lizbet has sat at this table before with JJ and some of the staff of the Deck and she’s eager to replace those memories. Mario pulls out her chair. He’s here with her, she reminds herself. Not Yolanda. She orders a passion-fruit cosmo.

The magic of the chef’s table is that dishes just appear—lobster rangoons, tuna martinis with wasabi crème fra?che, the sixty-second steak topped with a quail egg, the wok-fried salt-and-pepper lobster. Because Mario is, in this world, Super Mario, each course comes with a pitch-perfect wine pairing. Lizbet drinks a little more robustly than she probably should, but who can blame her? Yolanda made it clear when the hotel opened that she wanted Tuesdays off. Is that merely a coincidence? Yolanda is only twenty-nine years old, nearly ten years younger than Lizbet, nearly twenty years younger than Mario. She’s not only beautiful with a perfect body but she has the kind of luminous personality that draws people in. Why wouldn’t Mario be attracted to Yolanda?

When dessert is set down—glistening chunks of fresh mango served with coconut sticky rice, Lizbet’s absolute favorite—she can only stare at it and think, Don’t say it. But she has held the topic at bay throughout dinner and the wine has done nothing but nourish her fears.

“You know what I was thinking?” Mario says. “You should add caramels to your s’mores kits. Take it up a notch.”

Don’t say it, she thinks.

“I don’t mean to overstep. I know the hotel amenities aren’t mine to tweak, but you have to admit, a caramel s’more? That sounds pretty damn good.”

“Mario?” she says. “Are you dating other people?”

Mario’s eyes jump up from the dessert plate to meet hers. “Why are you asking me that?”

She holds his gaze. Their relationship is still so new that she’s made a little dizzy by how attractive he is—those bedroom eyes, the sly smile—but she realizes she doesn’t know him well enough to tell if he’s been hiding something.

She shakes her head. “Never mind. I’m drunk, I think.”

“Okay,” Mario says. “I’ll get the check.” He turns around, the check appears; Lizbet tries to give him her credit card but he hands it back without saying anything. Is he upset? Has she ruined the evening? There’s no way Yolanda’s myriad daily visits to the kitchen and her presence with the Blue Bar staff on their day off is a coincidence. Something is going on. Hey, the text said, indicating a previous conversation, a context, can you help me with a thing later? The help is sexual, the thing is Yolanda’s desire for him, and later is after service at the restaurant. The smutty emoji speaks for itself. Why doesn’t Mario ever ask to come to Lizbet’s cottage after work? Because he’s dating Yolanda as well. He has Lizbet for lunch and Yolanda for a midnight snack. Why are you asking me that? That answer isn’t a firm no—it isn’t any kind of no. Lizbet wants to press him, but she’s not sure she’ll believe him if he says he’s not seeing anyone else and she won’t be able to bear it if he says yes, he is dating other people, because they never explicitly stated that they were exclusive.

Mario warned Lizbet to be careful but she dove headlong into a new relationship. As if her previous relationship hadn’t hurt her badly enough. She’s such an idiot. She hasn’t learned a thing. And she hasn’t changed.

Lizbet makes it out of the restaurant and down to Mario’s pickup. Once they’re both sitting in the dark truck, he looks at her. “What’s going on, Heartbreaker?”

“Don’t call me that,” she says, though she loves the nickname.

“Do you want to come back to my place so we can talk this through? Or would you like me to take you home?”

Lizbet stares into her lap. Talk this through. That seems to indicate there’s something to talk through. Of course there is. All Lizbet can see when she closes her eyes is Yolanda jumping into Mario’s arms at home plate, Yolanda kissing him right on the lips. And the blasted text: Hey, can you help me with a thing later? That hideous emoji face (it’s the emoji that bothers her the most). “Home, please.”

They drive in silence to Bear Street and Lizbet can feel the cab of the truck filling with his confusion, but he says nothing and she’s grateful. When they pull into her driveway, she knows she can still salvage things—invite him in, hope he stays the night. But instead she says, “I haven’t been careful. I let myself feel too much too soon. And because of what happened with JJ, I need to take a step back. It’s for my own mental well-being.”

Mario covers her hand with his. “I’m feeling a lot of things too, Lizbet.”

Lizbet shakes her head. “You’re not feeling the same things I’m feeling.”

Mario laughs. “You don’t know that. Why did you ask if I was seeing other people?”