Duffy stops by the desk a while later with Cabot, who’s wearing a tiny bucket hat and a little bathing suit printed with sharks. “We’re taking him to the family pool,” Duffy says. “I’ll put him down for a nap around one and then I’ll come chat.”
“Whatever works!” Alessandra says. She doesn’t want to chat with Duffy. She doesn’t want to talk about high school or hear about Drew and Mary Lou (from Duffy’s Facebook, Alessandra knows that they’ve both put on forty pounds and turned gray) and she doesn’t want to learn about Duffy’s fabulous San Francisco life with her successful husband and adorable baby. But what she really doesn’t want is to be asked questions about herself. What were her years abroad like? Well, some of them were better than others. Alessandra held a string of jobs in beautiful hotels and she’d dated different men, all of them wealthy, most of them married, one of them—the one Alessandra thought would be her husband—a financial criminal, none of them appropriate. And what is her life like here on Nantucket? Last night, she slipped into Dr. Romano’s room; they ordered room service (Alessandra hid in the bathroom while it was delivered) and had (completely mediocre) sex, and Alessandra left at two in the morning, emotionally numb.
When Duffy swings by on her way back up to her room, she says, “I’ll be back down in a little while. Jamie will stay in the room with Cabot so that we can talk.”
“Great!” Alessandra says.
Once Duffy is on the elevator, Alessandra releases a low moan and Edie says, “Why don’t you take lunch now? You can go for as long as you want, it’s okay with me.”
Alessandra blinks. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“I grew up on this island,” she says. “I check the cars in the parking lot of the Stop and Shop before I go inside. There are old friends I would do anything to avoid.”
Oh my God, Alessandra thinks. Edie does understand.
She takes one of the hotel bikes, goes to Something Natural, and sits at a picnic table for two hours, reading the new Elena Ferrante novel. When she arrives back at the hotel, Edie says, “You’re safe. They went to the Oystercatcher for a late lunch and they’re staying through sunset.”
“Thank you,” Alessandra says.
Once Alessandra learns Cabot’s schedule, she’s able to avoid a conversation with Duffy on day two and day three as well. She owes Edie big-time because she takes some seriously long-ass lunches, telling Duffy she has a doctor’s appointment and then a Zoom meeting she can’t miss. She blows Dr. Romano off on night two—she needs sleep—but she visits him late on night three, and after they’ve had more mediocre sex, Alessandra finds herself weeping uncontrollably. Dr. Romano—his name is Mark—thinks she’s crying because she’s become emotionally attached and he’s leaving in the morning. Gently, he wipes her tears away with the pad of his thumb. He has lovely hands and even lovelier fingers; he’s a surgeon.
“Please don’t cry,” he says. “We had a nice time together and that’s what matters, right?”
Yes, of course Alessandra will never see him again—he has a wife and two little girls in Kansas City—but that’s not why she’s crying. She shrugs.
“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”
“Just hold me,” she says, snuggling into him. “And if you could write a review on TravelTattler and mention me by name, that really helps. Just say I was exceptional on the desk or whatever.”
He tickles her ribs. “You were exceptional on the desk.” He reaches for the remote control and turns on the TV. Caddyshack has just started. “Have you ever seen this movie? It’s a laugh riot.”
Is there a man alive who doesn’t think Caddyshack is a laugh riot? If so, Alessandra hasn’t met him. “I’ve never seen it,” she lies. “Is it about golf?”
“Oh, just wait, just wait,” he says. “That’s the judge…” Alessandra closes her eyes. “You’re going to love it.”
When Alessandra awakens, it’s very late, nearly three a.m. The doctor is snoring beside her and Alessandra slips from the bed and gets dressed. She needs to get home. The good news is she can leave through the front doors rather than sneaking down to the lower level and going out the back because both Richie and Raoul will be gone. But when Alessandra enters the lobby, she sees Raoul just heading out. She comes to an immediate halt and ducks behind the corner but he must sense something because he turns and sees her. She’s caught.
“Hey,” he says. “What are you doing still here?”
She cocks an eyebrow. “What are you doing still here?”
He shakes his head. “There was a domestic issue in suite two sixteen. I had to call the police.”
Alessandra says, “Suite two sixteen? Did someone complain about the baby crying?”
“The baby was fine, it was the parents. They had dinner at the Galley tonight, then I guess they had drinks at Lola, whatever, they were all lit up, and they had a fight that got loud and suite two fourteen called down and I went up first but it was above my pay grade, so then Richie came up. The wife was crying and calling the husband a bastard, and he was calling her a psycho, and she said she didn’t want him in their room…it was a mess. They pulled it together a bit when the cops showed up. It’s fine now and they’re checking out in the morning, thank God.”
“You’re sure the wife is okay?” Alessandra says. “He wasn’t hitting her, was he?”
“The husband took me aside and said she’s not really supposed to be drinking since she’s nursing, but she made an exception because she’s on vacation, and then she bumped into an old friend who really triggered her.”
“‘Triggered’ her?”
“That’s what he said, yeah. And don’t ask me to clarify. I’m forty-two years old, I don’t even know what that word means.” Raoul musses Alessandra’s hair, which she’s sure is already pretty mussed. Raoul is the only person on planet Earth she would allow to do this. “What are you doing here again?” he asks.
“Oh, you know me,” Alessandra says. “I can’t get enough of this place.”
Later that morning, Alessandra places the folio for the Chung family in an envelope and hands it over with a smile. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to catch up…Me too, so busy…The baby…This stupid thing called work, only get a day off every two weeks…So much fun, thank you for hooking us up with the suite, here’s my number, call if you ever get back to San Fran, and hey, friend me on Facebook!
“I will!” Alessandra says. She won’t. “Bye!” Jamie and Duffy stroll cute baby Cabot right out the door. And that, Alessandra thinks, is that.
Except it’s not. A few days later, Alessandra and Edie are powering up their computers and getting ready to start the day when Richie suddenly pops out of the back office, terrifying them both.
“Whoa!” Edie says. “I thought there really was a ghost!”
Richie doesn’t seem amused, which is strange because normally he’s happy-go-lucky and always has a dad joke ready. But he’s clearly been here all night. Alessandra worked the graveyard shift her first few months in Lake Como; she understands how it splinters your nerves.
He shakes a piece of paper at Alessandra. “You comped a night in a suite for a guest named Chung? No code, no explanation, and no sign-off!”