Grace goes a little higher and finds she can check in on other people she knows. Bibi Evans is sitting in her criminal justice class at UMass Dartmouth; she has her hair in a cute ponytail and tied around the elastic is what looks like…a black-and-gold Fendi scarf. (Grace gasps. It’s either the scarf stolen from Mrs. Daley’s suitcase or it’s a knockoff Bibi bought from a vendor on Newbury Street. Grace chooses to believe the latter.)
Grace ascends a little higher, and New York City comes into view. What a hive of activity! But even with all the action, Grace easily homes in on the Upper East Side. She sees Louie in a classic-six prewar apartment on Park Avenue. He’s taking a chess lesson from a grand master. Grace finds Wanda walking Doug around the Reservoir in Central Park. Doug is still sensitive to supernatural disturbances; he stops in his tracks and lifts his bucket head to the sky. Grace can almost read his mind: You again? Here? Kimber is strolling a few paces behind Wanda, talking on her phone, and Grace worries that Kimber has fallen back into her laissez-faire ways of parenting—but then Grace realizes that Kimber is trying to retain an attorney for Richie.
Standing by her man! Grace likes it.
All of these people, her people, glitter and sparkle on their own (especially Wanda, Grace thinks), but from this distance, they also become part of a bigger whole. It’s a mosaic—maybe not as grand and celebrated as the ones Alessandra saw in Ravenna, but a work of art all the same.
Grace is about to go even higher up—into the heavens—when she notices a blank spot in the mosaic, a hole, an absence. It’s her space, she realizes, and now that she’s risen up here, she sees it as glaringly empty. How will the hotel continue without her? She feels a strong pull downward; it’s a force she can’t ignore.
It’s love.
Grace can’t leave yet! Magda and Mr. Winslow are buying the hotel and Lizbet has a list of improvements, including refurbishing the fourth floor. How about incorporating Grace’s storage closet into one of the rooms? They can call it the Grace Hadley Suite.
Grace floats back down until she’s hovering above the island of Nantucket, until she’s directly over the hotel, until she’s safely back inside.
Home.
Oh, fine, Grace thinks, whisking the Twins cap off the counter in the break room and fitting it snugly over her curls. I’ll stay.
One more year couldn’t hurt.
The Blue Book
Time and again I’m asked for recommendations of must-do’s while visiting Nantucket. As Lizbet Keaton says in this novel, “The world needs a Nantucket guidebook written by an island insider.” What follows is not a guidebook—because it is not comprehensive—but a recommendation guide. It is wholly personal, biased, and organic (I am not sponsored by any of the entities I will mention, nor given special treatment—at some of the restaurants, even I can’t get a reservation in the middle of August!). But I feel this Blue Book will be helpful in enhancing any stay on the island, especially if you are an Elin Hilderbrand reader!
Two excellent resources for getting started on your trip planning:
Nantucket Chamber of Commerce, 508-228-1700. Website: nantucketchamber.org; Instagram: @ackchamber.
Town of Nantucket Culture and Tourism (known around town as “Nantucket Visitor Services”), 508-228-0925. Visitor Services keeps a list of available hotel rooms (and, yes, there were nights in the past few summers when the island was completely sold out!). They have a host of helpful practical information for your visit! Website: Nantucket-ma.gov.
Getting Here (and Back Home) Is the Hardest Part
“How much is the toll for the bridge?”
There is no bridge! Nantucket Island is thirty miles out to sea and therefore is accessible only by boat or plane. There are direct flights from New York (JFK), Newark, Washington, DC, and certain other cities in the summer on JetBlue, United, American, and Delta. Cape Air runs a nine-seat Cessna from Boston and JFK year-round. (Warning: these Cessnas are not for the faint of heart, as per the scene in Golden Girl!)
We also have ferries, known on the island as “the fast boat” and “the slow boat.” The slow boat is operated by the Steamship Authority and is the only way to bring a vehicle. If you want to bring your vehicle to Nantucket, you must get a reservation (and these sell out way in advance, starting in early January!).
My preferred mode of travel to and from the island is the fast ferry. From April through December, both the Steamship Authority and Hy-Line Cruises operate ferries throughout the day. The trip takes an hour, and round trip costs around eighty dollars.
Weather often affects travel to and from the island. If the wind is blowing twenty-five miles an hour or stronger, the ferries may cancel (each trip is at the discretion of the captain). If there is fog (which there often is in June and early July), planes are grounded. (Fun fact: Tom Nevers Field was used by the U.S. military in World War II to practice taking off and landing in the fog.)
Once on Nantucket, you can either rent a Jeep (Nantucket Windmill Auto Rental, Nantucket Island Rent a Car) or rent a bike (Young’s Bicycle Shop, Nantucket Bike Shop, Cooks Cycles, and Easy Riders Bicycle Rentals, who will deliver bikes to your lodging!). The island also has Uber, Lyft, and a host of taxis. My favorite taxi company is Roger’s Taxi, 508-228-5779. Cranberry Transportation provides a proper “car service” and they also give private tours of the island.
Where Should I Stay?
You just finished a novel called The Hotel Nantucket, so I’m going to start by recommending the inspiration for the main character in the book, which is The Nantucket Hotel and Resort, located at 77 Easton Street. Although the hotel in the book is a creation of my imagination, the Nantucket Hotel does have certain similarities: It has both rooms and suites, a family pool and an adult pool, a fabulous fitness center, a yoga studio, and a bar and restaurant. The staff is professional and friendly, and like the hotel in the book, the real hotel is located on the edge of town within easy walking distance of not only shopping, restaurants, museums, and galleries but also Children’s Beach, Jetties Beach, and Brant Point Light. Website: Thenantuckethotel.com; Instagram: @thenantucket.
The only accommodation that is directly on the beach is the Cliffside Beach Club, which was the inspiration for my first novel, The Beach Club. Cliffside’s lobby is one of the most spectacular spaces on the island. The hotel has twenty-three rooms (where you step out into sand), a pool and a fitness center, a small private café, and a private beach on Nantucket Sound. (The water is calm and good for swimming.) Cliffside is a splurge—if you can get in! Website: Cliffsidebeach.com; Instagram: @cliffsidebeachclub.
The Greydon House (not to be confused with Graydon, Edie’s creepy ex-boyfriend) used to be a private home and dentist’s office but it has been lavishly remodeled into a cozy boutique hotel with an unbelievably good restaurant, Via Mare. I have stayed at the Greydon House twice myself on a “stay-cation” and found the highlights to be the delicious breakfasts, the tiles in the showers, and the ideal in-town location. Website: Greydonhouse.com; Instagram: @greydonhouse.
When you really want to get away from it all, check out the Wauwinet Inn. It’s nine miles out of town (this is very far by Nantucket standards), but the drive takes you along the beautiful, winding Polpis Road, where you’ll pass farms, ponds, and the Nantucket Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum. The Wauwinet is located on the harbor at the entry to Great Point. The hotel has an expansive deck lined with Adirondack chairs that overlook the harbor. There’s a library, a charming tucked-away bar, and a fine-dining restaurant, Topper’s (which is where Bone Williams takes Alessandra in this book and where Benji and Celeste have a rather emotional meal in The Perfect Couple). Website: Wauwinet.com; Instagram: @thewauwinet.
I Have a Place to Stay and a Way to Get Around;
Now What Do I Do?