The Hotel Nantucket (78)

“Shelly Carpenter is here,” Lizbet whispers. “She asked for an upgrade.”

Magda clears her throat. “You’re sure it’s her? Beyond a shadow of a doubt?”

“No one is ever sure. But there’s been more than one indication.”

“Fine. Give us fifteen minutes to stock the minibar, dust, and plump the pillows for Ms. Carpenter.”

“You need to do more than that,” Lizbet says. “You need to run through the checklist. What if there are cobwebs? What if the windows stick? What if the sound system is doing that funny stuttering thing? And make sure the pens work and that the sink drains properly.”

“Perhaps you’d like to come up and do my job for me?” Magda asks, and Lizbet presses her lips together. Lizbet suspects that although she is Magda’s boss, Magda sees it as the other way around.

“Not at all, Magda,” Lizbet says. “Thank you.”



She has quietly informed the staff that the woman posing as Claire Underwood who is staying in suite 317 might very well be Shelly Carpenter. Lizbet has also told the staff not to overdo it. The last thing they want is for Claire/Maybe-Shelly to think her cover is blown and figure out she’s receiving special service. If that happens, she won’t write the review at all.

From the looks of things, Claire/Maybe-Shelly is having a wonderful time. She drinks the percolated coffee in the morning, takes an interest in Louie’s chess matches, raves about her yoga class with Yolanda, rides one of the free bikes into town to shop and get lunch at the Beet; she lounges by the adult pool, takes her tours and lessons, and heads out for her solo dinners stylishly dressed (Lizbet’s favorite look is white jeans, a sleeveless black bodysuit, and leopard-print wedges).

Late on Saturday afternoon, Claire/Maybe-Shelly stops by the front desk and says, “Where did you source those blue cashmere blankets? I’d like to get one to take home.”

“Nantucket Looms,” Lizbet says. She checks the time. “They’re closed now but they open tomorrow at ten.”

“Darn,” Claire/Maybe-Shelly says. “My flight leaves at ten.”

“Let me see what I can do,” Lizbet says. She goes to the second-floor housekeeping storage, where they keep half a dozen extra blue blankets. Lizbet wraps one up in hydrangea-blue tissue. Is she being too obvious, too heavy-handed? Will Claire/Maybe-Shelly see the blanket for what it is—a bribe?

Lizbet takes the risk and presents Claire/Maybe-Shelly with the blanket the next morning when she checks out. Claire/Maybe-Shelly seems genuinely overcome by the gesture—so thoughtful, thank you, her stay at the hotel has been an utter delight.

“I’m a pretty tough customer,” Claire/Maybe-Shelly says. “But I’ve never been as won over by a hotel stay as I have by this one.”

Yes! Lizbet thinks. Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes!

After Claire/Maybe-Shelly walks out the front door, trailing her Away carry-on behind her, Lizbet wants to high-five her staff, but she exercises restraint. They can all celebrate on the last Friday of the month when the Hotel Nantucket becomes the only property to ever receive five keys. For now, Lizbet will remain…cautiously optimistic.

The next morning, Edie knocks on Lizbet’s office door. Claire Underwood is on the phone and has asked for Lizbet personally. Something’s up.



In the housekeeping office, Magda assigns Octavia and Neves the first-floor checkouts, but instead of sending Chad and Bibi to the second floor, she closes the office door.

“The two of you were responsible for the checkout of suite three seventeen yesterday, were you not?” Magda asks.

“We were,” Chad says. He was, frankly, amazed that Magda assigned him and Bibi, rather than Octavia and Neves, to the owner’s suite, but he took it as a vote of confidence. They’ve been doing good work—but yesterday, only Chad did good work. Bibi was in a foul mood, and when Chad asked her what was wrong, she said that her “baby-daddy,” some dude named Johnny Quarter, had left the state without a trace, and with him went the five-hundred-dollar-a-month child-support payments. She had her aunt report Johnny Quarter to domestic relations, who issued a summons.

“But doing that doesn’t get me my money,” Bibi said.

She spent most of the time in suite 317 working like a person underwater. The owner’s suite was bigger and grander than the other suites in the hotel. The Nantucket-night-sky mural was painted in finer detail; the library had brass rails and a sliding ladder to reach the upper shelves. There was a separate dressing room, and the second bedroom was an elegant study complete with a built-in desk; on the walls hung prints of the hotel in the early twentieth century. There were cream-and-blue Persian carpets instead of rainbow-hued Annie Selke rugs throughout, and the bathroom included a steam sauna. It was very extra.

“Why did they rent out this room?” Bibi asked. “The owner isn’t here.”

“I guess they thought Shelly Carpenter showed up,” Chad said.

“I have no idea who that is,” Bibi said.

“She has this Instagram account and blog called Hotel Confidential,” he said. “Don’t you follow her?”

“Why would I follow something called Hotel Confidential?” Bibi asked, and Chad thought, Because you work in a hotel? But he had to admit, he’d never heard of the Hotel Confidential blog. Chad checked it out and fell down the rabbit hole, scrolling through a bunch of Shelly’s past posts and clicking on her bio to read the reviews. Shelly Carpenter had been everywhere—to the Angama Mara safari camp in Kenya and the Malliouhana in Anguilla and Las Ventanas al Paraiso in Cabo—but she also reviewed more modest places, like motels on Route 66 and beach bungalows in Koh Samui, Thailand. The way she described these places was so detailed and precise that Chad felt like he’d been there too. It was exciting to think that she’d been to their hotel (maybe; no one could be sure). He wondered what she was going to write about the place.