He doesn’t say I love you and that is, perhaps, why she stays. She becomes determined in that moment to make him fall in love with her.
Remaining in a relationship with Matthew while he is married isn’t a strong moral choice; this she knows. She tries to rationalize it: She’s not the one who’s cheating, Matthew is. But when Gigi finds out later that night—once she’s processed her fury and is able to ask questions like What is your wife’s name?—that Matthew is married to Hollis Shaw, Gigi thinks, You have got to be kidding me. The flight attendants whom Gigi works with chatter about Hollis Shaw nonstop. They love her recipes, they love her blouses, they love her Serbian sheepdog, they love her preppy-boho vibe. She’s a greatest hits of American womanhood and they just love her so much! Up until this moment, Gigi has had only a polite, passing interest in Hollis Shaw. I’ll have to check her out. Now that Gigi and Hollis are… connected, Gigi frequently visits the website and sets out to make Hollis notice her.
How will Gigi attract Hollis’s attention when she’s one of millions? Well, she has inside information. Matthew tells her that Hollis lost her mother when she was a baby—and as it happens, Gigi’s mother died when she was only twelve. Gigi gets on the Corkboard and messages Hollis that she’s grateful for the cooking demos because my own mum passed away before she could teach me her favorite Cantonese dishes. Hollis writes back immediately: I’m self-taught, my mother died when I was very young. Gigi is in! She responds to Hollis’s other posts in the most intelligent and interesting way possible. So many of the other comments are fawning, nearly obsequious: You’re my queen, Hollis! Or quotidian, like Yum! Looks delicious (sometimes shortened to delish). Or they ask irritating questions about measurements and substitutions. Gigi notices that Hollis is replying to her comments more and more frequently, and soon they’re private messaging about restaurants and books and their favorite shows and podcasts. It turns out they have a lot in common.
Gigi digs into her paella. Tim and Santi are the only people she’s confided in about her relationship with Matthew. (If Gigi had broken down and told the flight attendants, it would have been all over the company in twenty-four hours.) They comforted her when she found out—from the post on Hollis’s website—that Matthew was dead. But there’s a situation they don’t know about and she isn’t about to tell them tonight.
“I know it’s crazy that I’m going,” Gigi says. Not only has Gigi befriended her dead lover’s wife, she has become the wife’s confidante, and the wife has invited her to a girls’ weekend. “But I have to meet her.”
“For closure?” Tim asks.
Gigi isn’t sure she believes in closure. “For something,” she says. “Besides, it’s Nantucket.”
Santi raises his wineglass. “To Nantucket,” he says. “May you make it back in one piece.”
9. The Itinerary
Friday
4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.: Arrivals
6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.: Cocktail hour/hors d’oeuvres
7:00 p.m.: Dinner on the deck
Saturday
8:00 a.m.: Yoga by the pool/continental breakfast
10:00 a.m. to noon: Shopping in town
Noon to 5:00 p.m.: Beach, lunch, pool
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.: Get ready for dinner; cocktails and snacks
7:30 p.m.: Dinner at Nautilus (suggested colors: black and/or white)
10:00 p.m.: Maxxtone at the Chicken Box!
Sunday
Free morning, continental breakfast
Noon: Lunch at Galley Beach (suggested colors: hot pink or orange)
2:00 p.m.: Sail aboard Endeavor
7:00 p.m.: Pizza party
8:30 p.m.: Ice cream truck and fireworks on the beach
Monday
Departures
Hollis sends her newsletter subscribers an e-mail that includes the weekend’s itinerary—and oh, do they have opinions. A weekend studded with shopping, sailing, dancing to live music, and incredible meals at Hollis’s beautiful beach home and elsewhere?
Yes, please!
They yearn for more details. The Corkboard messages flood in: Please post menu for “dinner on the deck”! How did you manage to get a reservation at Nautilus? Which hors d’oeuvres will you serve? What will the continental breakfast include? Will there be vegan options? Is the pizza at the pizza party takeout or homemade (I’m guessing homemade!)? Will you post recipes, recipes, recipes?
The free spirits among them feel the weekend is too scheduled. They picture Hollis shepherding her friends from one event to the next, tapping on bedroom doors, hurrying the other four stars along if they’re running late for the cocktail hour. Why not just let the weekend unfold organically without so many places they have to be?
A virtual skirmish breaks out over the “suggested colors.” Aileen Blankenship of Dubuque, Iowa, thinks it’s juvenile and silly. Why do grown women have to match?
But Molly Beardsley of Twain Harte, California, says: What’s wrong with a little fun? Besides, the pictures will look so much better.
It’s a grab for attention, Aileen says. Hollis will inadvertently turn her friends into a circus sideshow.
Circus sideshow seems a bit mean-spirited, some of Hollis’s followers think, but then Bailey Ruckert of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, chimes in with a deeper concern. This is a pretty jolly itinerary for a woman who just lost her husband. It feels like dancing on his grave.
Womp-womp-womp. The comments grind to a halt as Hollis’s fans consider this point. Hollis lost her husband in December, seven months ago. There are some people who question the curated aspects of the weekend, including but not limited to the frivolity of matching colors. Others can’t imagine Hollis hosting a weekend that isn’t curated; delicious food and gracious surroundings define Hollis Shaw’s brand. But hasn’t the death of her husband changed her? Hasn’t she stopped being so concerned about appearances?
Bailey Ruckert presses her point. I just think there should be time built in for introspection, she says. For honoring the deceased.
Molly Beardsley disagrees. Hollis is circling her wagons. She’s gathering the best friends she’s ever had as a way of celebrating life. If we criticize her for making delicious food and treating her friends to meals at fancy restaurants, aren’t we the ones too focused on appearances? I’m sure there will be a lot of meaningful moments that we’ll never know about, nor should we. I’m prepared to die on this hill; Hollis has been through a tragedy and she should be free to throw exactly the kind of weekend she wants without being judged by us.
Bailey writes: She should wait a year. Let some time pass.
Molly comments: Are you kidding me right now? Who made you the grief police?
Bailey doesn’t respond.
A woman from Tallahassee, Paige Sweezey, posts this: My best friend from my Florida State days, Moira Sullivan, invented the Five-Star Weekend!!! She invited us all to Destin six months after her husband died, and it lifted her right out of her funk. It was life-affirming not only for Moira but for all of us. Paige adds the link to the Motherlode article about Moira Sullivan’s weekend in Destin.
It does seem that Moira Sullivan originated the idea of the Five-Star Weekend. Hollis must have read the article and adapted it for her own purposes. Some of her followers think Hollis should come clean about this and give credit where credit is due. (Paige muses that Moira ought to have copyrighted the idea, but how would that work, exactly?)
The wonderful thing about the Hungry with Hollis website, they all agree, is that every thoughtful, carefully considered opinion is valid.
Hollis leaves a message on the Corkboard a short while later. It’s pretty clear she hasn’t read any of the comments, or if she has, she’s chosen not to engage.
It says: Because I want to give Tatum, Dru-Ann, Brooke, and Gigi my undivided attention, I won’t be posting until the weekend is over. I’ll provide a full recap next week—and yes, I’ll post recipes.
A collective gasp rises from the ether. Gigi? Did Hollis invite Gigi Ling, a frequent visitor on the website, to her Five-Star Weekend? Gigi Ling is always commenting on Hollis’s posts, and (they can’t help noticing) Hollis responds as though she finds Gigi the most fascinating creature on earth. They can only presume that Hollis did invite Gigi.
Now they’re all a little jealous.
Still, it seems risky, doesn’t it, inviting someone you met through a website to a weekend like this. How will that go?
They can’t wait to find out.
10. Night Changes I
Caroline paces in front of Nantucket Memorial Airport. Her mother is late.
What the actual F? Caroline rose with the pigeons and got her ass to JFK with all of Isaac’s bulky filming equipment, and now she’s rotting on the curb while everyone else on her flight gets a Lyft or a taxi. Caroline texts her mother: I’m here. Where r u?