Jill and Lizbet gaze at themselves in the mirror like a couple of teenagers. It’s true, Jill thinks; she has never looked dewier than she does standing in the bathroom of suite 217.
Then—then!—Lizbet tells Jill about the complimentary minibar. “I can’t count the times I’ve been in a hotel room and just wanted a glass of wine and a salty snack, but being charged seventy dollars for a bottle of chardonnay and sixteen dollars for a pack of peanuts is offensive when I’ve already paid so much for the room. So our minibars will be stocked with a thoughtfully curated selection of Nantucket-sourced products”—she mentions Cisco beers, Triple Eight vodka, and smoked bluefish paté from 167 Raw—“and everything is free, replenished every three days.”
Free minibar! Jill writes in her notes. Nantucket products! Jordan should give her article front-page placement for this announcement alone.
Lizbet leads Jill out back to see the pools. One is a sprawling family affair with cascading waterfalls. (“There will be lemonade and fresh-baked cookies served every day at three,” Lizbet says.) The second pool is an adults-only sanctuary, a teal-blue lozenge surrounded by gray-shingled walls that will be covered with pale pink climbing roses in the height of summer. Around the pool are “the most comfortable chaise longues in the known world, extra-wide and easy to adjust,” and stacks of custom-ordered Turkish cotton towels in hydrangea blue.
Next, it’s off to the yoga studio. Jill has never been to Bali, but she has read Eat, Pray, Love, so she appreciates the aesthetic. The ceiling of the studio is an elaborate teak carving salvaged from a temple in Ubud. (Jill considers how much it must have cost to ship and install such a ceiling…mind-exploding emoji!) There’s a gurgling stone fountain in the form of the somewhat terrifying face of the god Brahma that empties into a trough of river stones. The light from outside is diffused through rice-paper shades, and gamelan music plays over the sound system. All in all, Jill thinks, the new yoga studio will be an idyllic place to find a child’s pose.
But as far as Jill is concerned, the ultimate reveal is the hotel’s bar. It’s a high-concept jewel box, a space painted Farrow and Ball’s Pitch Blue (which falls on the spectrum between sapphire and amethyst) and a blue granite bar. There are domed pendant lights that look like upside-down copper bowls and an accent wall sheathed in bright pennies! There’s also a copper disco ball that will drop from the ceiling every night at nine o’clock. There’s nothing like it anywhere else on the island. Jill is gobsmacked. Can she make a reservation now, please?
Jill races back to her desk at the Standard office. Has she ever been so inspired to write a piece? She types like a fiend, getting all the details down—including the rainbow-hued Annie Selke rugs, the curated selection of novels on the bookshelves of the suites, the pin-tucked velvet stools in the new hotel bar—and then goes back over the piece one sentence at a time, making certain the language is as gracious and rich as the hotel itself.
When she finishes her final edit, she takes the piece to Jordan Randolph’s office. He likes to read each feature article on paper and then mark it up with red pen like he’s Maxwell Perkins editing Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Jill and her colleagues joke about this. Hasn’t he ever heard of Google Docs?
Jill stands in the doorway as he reads, waiting for his usual “Outstanding.” But when he finishes, he tosses the pages onto his desk and says, “Huh.”
Huh? What is huh? Jill has never before heard her extremely articulate boss utter this syllable.
“Is it not okay?” Jill asks. “Is it…the writing?”
“The writing is fine,” Jordan says. “Maybe it’s too polished? This reads like one of those advertisement sections in the middle of Travel and Leisure.”
“Oh,” Jill says. “Okay, so…”
“I was hoping for more of a story,” Jordan says.
“I’m not sure there is more of a story,” Jill tells him. “The hotel was falling to pieces and Xavier Darling bought it. He hired local—”
“Yes, you say that.” Jordan sighs. “I wish there were another angle…” His voice trails off. “I’m not going to run it this week. Let me think on it for a little while.” He smiles at Jill. “Thank you, though, for going to get a ‘behind-the-scenes first look.’” He uses air quotes, which makes him seem like such a boomer. “I appreciate it.”
Privately, Jordan Randolph suspects that the Hotel Nantucket will be like a work of art by Banksy—after it is unveiled, it will shine for one glorious moment and then self-destruct. One person who agrees is a ninety-four-year-old resident of Our Island Home named Mint Benedict. Mint is the only child of Jackson and Dahlia Benedict, the couple who owned the hotel from 1910 to 1922. Mint asks his favorite nurse, Charlene, to push him all the way to Easton Street in his wheelchair so that he can see the spiffy new facade of the hotel.
“They can fix it up but it won’t succeed,” Mint says. “Mark my words: The Hotel Nantucket is haunted, and it’s all my father’s fault.”
Mint is talking nonsense, Charlene thinks, and he definitely needs a nap. She spins his chair toward home.
Haunted? we think.
Half of us are skeptical. (We don’t believe in ghosts.)
Half of us are intrigued. (Just when we thought the story couldn’t get any better!)
2. The Fifth Key
Lizbet Keaton’s Breakup Playlist
“Good 4 U”—Olivia Rodrigo
“All Too Well” (Taylor’s version)—Taylor Swift “If Looks Could Kill”—Heart
“You Oughta Know”—Alanis Morissette “Far Behind”—Social Distortion
“Somebody That I Used to Know”—Gotye “Marvin’s Room”—Drake
“Another You”—Elle King
“Gives You Hell”— The All-American Rejects “Kiss This”—The Struts
“Save It for a Rainy Day”—Kenny Chesney “I Don’t Wanna Be in Love”—Good Charlotte “Best of You”—Foo Fighters
“Rehab”—Rihanna
“Better Now”—Post Malone
“Forget You”—CeeLo Green
“Salt”—Ava Max
“Go Your Own Way”—Fleetwood Mac
“Since U Been Gone”—Kelly Clarkson “Praying”—Kesha
Ever since her devastating breakup with JJ O’Malley, Lizbet has been searching for an inspirational meme that will make her feel better. She spent seventy-seven dollars at Wayfair on a framed quote attributed to Socrates: The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. She hangs it on the wall at the end of her bed so that it’s the first thing she sees when she wakes up and the last thing she sees before she turns off the light.
All your energy. Not on fighting the old. But on building the new. The secret of change.
Easier said than done, she thinks. She spends all her energy fighting the old.
Reliving September 30, the Last Night at the Deck.
Last Night at the Deck is a bittersweet tradition—it marks the end of the summer season. Lizbet and JJ have to say goodbye to the team they poured so much time and energy (and money) into building. Some of the staff will return next spring, but not everyone, so a summer can never be replicated. This, they’ve found, is both good and bad. Last Night is a time of bacchanalian revelry for the staff. Lizbet and JJ throw down an excellent party, opening tins of beluga caviar and bottle after bottle of Laurent-Perrier rosé.
One of the traditions is the staff photograph that Lizbet takes of them all leaning up against the railing with the Monomoy creeks behind them. She frames these photographs and hangs them in the hallway that leads to the restrooms. It’s a record of sorts, an album, a history.
Tonight’s picture will be the fifteenth. She can hardly believe it.