The Hotel Nantucket (85)

Edie picks up the spoon just so she’ll have something to do with her hands. “My ex-boyfriend is blackmailing me with videos I let him take of us when we were still together,” Edie says. “He sent me a Venmo request for a thousand dollars and told me if I don’t pay him, he’ll send the videos to my prospective employers. Before that, he threatened to send them to my mother.”

Alessandra nods ever so slightly. “Ah.” She doesn’t seem shocked or appalled—but then, she hasn’t seen the videos. She hasn’t heard the things Edie said into the camera; she hasn’t watched the acts. No one can see those things, Edie thinks. No one! She has to pay him the thousand dollars, even though that’s forty hours of work. “I have to pay him.”

Alessandra scoffs. “You do not have to pay him. You realize that posting revenge porn is a crime, right? A class-four felony? You can call the police.”

Edie thinks about calling the Nantucket Police and speaking to Chief Kapenash. There is no way. And that’s why women don’t turn in their abusers, she thinks. It’s humiliating—and the possibility of victim-shaming is very real.

“I can’t call the police,” Edie whispers. “He’s out in Arizona.”

“Phoenix?”

“Marana,” Edie says.

Alessandra’s eyebrows shoot up. “He works at Dove Mountain? I know the property. I’m sure the GM there would find his behavior very problematic.”

“I don’t want to…I’m not going to call his GM.”

“He’s threatening to post videos without your consent, is that right?”

Edie nods.

“And he’s blackmailing you. How much money have you sent him so far?”

Edie bows her head.

“Edie?”

“Fifteen hundred,” she says.

“What?” Alessandra jumps to her feet. “We’re getting that money back. Just give me his phone number and let me take care of it.”

“I can’t,” Edie says.

“Edie,” Alessandra says. “I’m going to scare the hell out of him. I’m going to pretend to be someone else. Now, I know I’ve given you no reason to trust me. But surely you have faith that I can be a convincing bitch on the phone and I can get this guy…what’s his name?”

“Graydon Spires.”

“I can get Graydon Spires to do exactly what I say. You believe that, right?”

Edie considers this. Can Alessandra be a total bitch? Yes. Can she get men to do whatever she wants? Also yes. She gives Alessandra the number, then squeezes her eyes shut. She overhears fragments of the conversation:

Mr. Spires, this is Alessandra Powell with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department…Report of threats against…class-four felony before you even get to the blackmail…understand you work at Dove…We can either come round you up…Venmo the amount of fifteen hundred dollars back to the victim…internet fraud, identity theft…prosecute to full…

There’s a pause. Edie can hear Graydon’s voice on the other end of the line. Does he have just the right words for Alessandra now? Is he hitting the correct emotional note—contrite but charming? He was only kidding…he would never dream of posting…

Alessandra says, “I don’t want to hear your bullshit, Mr. Spires. Venmo Ms. Robbins what you owe her immediately and leave her alone, otherwise we will file an electronic restraining order. If you ever threaten to post those videos again, we’ll arrest you immediately. Am I understood?” The crystal under Alessandra’s right eye seems to wink at Edie. “Am. I. Understood?” She pauses. “Well, I hope so. I won’t trumpet my own accolades, Mr. Spires, but I’ve created quite a reputation wiping the floor with little men like you.”

She ends the call and tells Edie, “If he doesn’t Venmo you what he owes you immediately, I’m going to fly out to Arizona and put his balls in a vise grip until he turns it over. But you are getting that money back.”

Edie looks at Alessandra. “Thank you.”

Alessandra smiles—not the cold, plastic smile Edie has grown used to but a warm, genuine one that illuminates her face and makes her look like a completely different person. “You’re welcome, Edie,” she says.

Edie’s phone dings. A Venmo payment has just come in from Graydon Spires for fifteen hundred dollars.



Richie and Kimber are having the kind of summer romance that people write songs about—songs like “Summertime,” by Cole Porter, “A Summer Song,” by Chad and Jeremy, “Summer,” by Calvin Harris—and Grace isn’t sure how she feels about it. On the one hand, she can tell it won’t end well—they aren’t being honest with each other!—but on the other hand, they both seem so…happy, and how can that be a bad thing? Now that they’ve—Grace will say it, even though they haven’t—fallen in love, Kimber’s insomnia has disappeared and she lets Richie work the night desk undisturbed. She goes to bed after tucking in the children and doesn’t stir until Richie joins her at two a.m. Then there is some spirited adult time. Kimber and Richie sleep intertwined (always in pajamas because of the children) until seven o’clock, which is when Louie heads out to the lobby to play chess and Wanda asks the hotel guests if they’ve heard the “Mystery of the Haunted Hotel.” (Wanda is Grace’s own little PR person.) Kimber goes down with them and then brings two cups of coffee—light and sweet for her, splash of milk for Richie—back to the suite. The children eat the complimentary breakfast in the lobby—they’re both partial to the croissants filled with almond marzipan that Beatriz makes—and Richie and Kimber skip breakfast for more alone time. Then they shower and embark on their day. Kimber seems to have abandoned writing her memoirs for the time being; she hasn’t been on her computer in nearly two weeks.