“You didn’t?” Edie says. “I thought for sure…”
Kimber glances over at Wanda, and Edie gasps. “Did Wanda write it?”
Kimber grins. “No, it was me. You’re one of a kind, Edie Robbins.”
Richie comes down the hall with the luggage trolley. “Zeke is taking Doug out the side entrance.” He looks at Edie. “And my stuff is packed up as well.”
“Great,” Edie says. “My mom says you can move in anytime.” One of the other things that’s changing with the Marshes’ departure is that Richie is coming to live with Edie and Love until the hotel closes for the season. Kimber confessed to Edie that Richie had been living in his car before he moved into suite 114. When Edie told her mother this, Love offered Richie their spare bedroom for a very reasonable rent.
Lizbet appears from the back office as Kimber scans the list of charges. “This all looks good.” She pays the balance in cash, then throws in an extra thousand dollars. “To split among the staff,” she says. Her eyes glass over with tears. “Getting away this summer with the kids was the best decision I’ve made in my life. Thank you.” She takes Richie’s hand. “If we end up getting married, you’re all invited.”
“Come back and see us again,” Lizbet says. She gives Kimber a hug and then, as they planned, Edie brings out two gifts from the back: Nancy Drew mysteries number forty-six through forty-eight for Wanda and the lobby chess set for Louie. Edie gives each of the children a tight squeeze; Louie squirms and Wanda starts to weep, saying, “I don’t want to leave. What about Grace? She’ll be lonely without me.”
Kimber ushers Wanda to the door. “Let’s go take a picture of Adam and Zeke, honey.” She gives Lizbet and Edie a weary smile. “It’s going to be a long ride home.”
“Be safe!” Edie says. She waves as the Marsh family steps out of the lobby into the sun, then turns to Lizbet. “This is the worst part of the job.”
“By far,” Lizbet says, running a finger under each eye. “You know I wanted to kill you when you told me you’d rented them a room without a functioning credit card. And then that you’d upgraded them to a suite for eleven weeks. And then that they had a pit bull. But that was the right call in the end, for so many reasons.”
“Because Wanda wrote an article about the ghost,” Edie says. “Which increased occupancy.”
“More than doubled it.”
“And Louie entertained people with his chess,” Edie says. “So many people mentioned it in their TravelTattler reviews.”
“And Richie was happy and had a place to stay,” Lizbet says. “If he hadn’t met Kimber, he might have quit, and I would have been stuck. He’s such a team player. I haven’t had to worry about billing; he’s taken care of all the financials so that I could focus on the guests and the staff.”
“It all worked out the way it was supposed to,” Edie says.
“But you couldn’t have predicted any of those circumstances. You made a decision based on your understanding of what hospitality means—saying yes rather than no.” Lizbet leans in. “Next year, I want you to be our front-desk manager.”
Edie perks up. “You do?” she says. “What about Alessandra?”
Lizbet shakes her head. “I doubt she’ll come back next year. But if she does…she’ll just have to deal.”
The hotel feels empty in the aftermath of the Marshes’ departure and Edie has to remind herself that they still have a full hotel. She calls Magda to let her know that suite 114 has checked out and is ready for a deep clean; fortunately, they built in a buffer night. No one will check into that room until Saturday.
Just then, Mr. Ianucci from room 307 steps in from the family pool in just his bathing suit with a hydrangea-blue towel draped over his shoulders like a cape. He lifts his sunglasses to the top of his head.
“I hate to bother you,” he says.
Edie would beg to differ on this point. Mr. Ianucci seems to relish being high maintenance. Edie was the one who made the reservation with his secretary right after the ghost story broke. The secretary begged for a two-night stay when Lizbet had instituted a three-night minimum due to high demand. Fine, Edie granted a two-night stay. Yesterday he asked for a reservation at the bar at American Seasons less than an hour before he wanted to dine. Who does that? But Edie handled it. This morning, he showed up in the lobby in his pajama bottoms and a Hanes undershirt and typed on his laptop and drank coffee and ate two of Beatriz’s almond croissants even though a sign encouraged the guests to take only one. He then asked Edie if she could arrange for a surfing lesson for later that morning and Edie smiled and said, “I’ll try,” though what she meant was A little notice would have been nice. However, Zeke was still friends with everyone at the surf school, so he arranged for a private lesson with Liam, the best instructor. Fine, great, Mr. Ianucci was so happy—not happy enough to tip either Edie or Zeke, but that’s not why they do the job. Then Mr. Ianucci called down to the desk to say that the water temperature on the south shore was only 72 degrees. “That’s a bit chilly for me,” he said. “I’m going to stick to the pool.”
Edie called to cancel the surfing lesson with her apologies but feared that the next time she asked for a last-minute favor, she would be turned down.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Ianucci?” Edie says now.
“The nice lady from the kitchen brought out the lemonade and the cookies,” he says.
Edie’s eyes widen. Lemonade and cookies? Is it three o’clock already?
“But the children at the pool snatched up the cookies before I could even get out of my chaise. Could I possibly get some more cookies?”
Edie will have to request another special favor, this time from Beatriz. “No problem. I’ll ask the kitchen for another batch right away.”
Mr. Ianucci holds up prayer hands, but does he actually say “Thank you”? He does not; he slips back through the pool door.
Edie calls the kitchen to ask for more cookies, and when she hangs up, Lizbet steps out of her office. “I’m going home early, Edie. This whole thing with Xavier…and the Marshes leaving…I’m schlumped. I need to recharge my batteries for tomorrow.”
Tomorrow is the last Friday of the month, which means a new Hotel Confidential Instagram post. “No problem,” Edie says. “I’ve got things covered here.”
Lizbet’s brow wrinkles. “Where’s Alessandra?”
“At lunch,” Edie says breezily, as if Alessandra hasn’t been gone for over two hours.
A few minutes later, Beatriz appears with another platter of cookies. She shakes her head at Edie in mock disgust—asking for extra cookies is no bueno because Beatriz is prepping for evening service at the Blue Bar—and Edie says, “You’re going to make one guest in particular very happy.”
“It better be Shelly Carpenter,” Beatriz says, and Edie laughs, but when she steps out onto the patio of the family pool and sees Mr. Ianucci under an umbrella with his laptop out, she thinks, Is Mr. Ianucci actually Shelly Carpenter? He has asked for a lot of special favors, starting with the two-night stay, which means he’ll be checking out by eleven a.m. the following day, conveniently one hour before the post comes out.
“Here you go, Mr. Ianucci,” Edie says, offering him the cookies. She’s so hungry she could eat the entire platter herself. The fresh-from-the-oven cookies are studded with milk chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and toffee bits; they’re crisp at the edges but soft in the center.
“What service!” Mr. Ianucci says, helping himself to two. Again, not quite a “thank you,” Edie thinks. She wants to peek at whatever Mr. Ianucci is writing on his laptop. Is Shelly Carpenter really Bob Ianucci? A man?
Oh, Edie hopes not. That would be such a disappointment.
Edie steps back into the lobby to see a woman heading for the front desk like a blond bullet. She looks at Edie, then at Alessandra’s unmanned computer.
“Where is she?” the woman hisses.
“I’m sorry?” Edie says. “Where is who?” Though Edie fears she knows.