“Yeah, I’m gonna need that one.”
Twenty minutes later I blazed out of Boston in my wholly unnecessary, determined to knock this job so far out of the park I might just buy one of these for my cherry-red collection, sweet-ass ride.
A partner deserved something a little special, right?
A partner should also know better than to take a sports car on twisty, windy roads still crusted with salt and ice and potholes. This is why I rarely if ever made spur-of-the-moment decisions, rarely if ever flew by the seat of my pants. I preferred to Keep It Simple, Stupid, and leave the crazytown to my best friend Natalie Grayson, and even to some extent my other best friend Roxie Callahan, who could serve up her own brand of crazy when needed.
Natalie and Roxie. The three of us had met years ago when we all wound up at a culinary school in California, all eighteen and ready for big-time changes. Roxie was the only one who actually had any real culinary skills, and while I’d enjoyed the year I spent in California, I realized early on cooking was never going to be more than a hobby, and hightailed it back to New England. Natalie was similarly disillusioned with cooking as a career, and she also headed back to her home, the island of Manhattan, which she was pretty sure belonged only to her.
Roxie stayed, made her mark in California as a private chef to the stars, and only found herself back in her tiny hometown of Bailey Falls, New York, when her career imploded over an ill-timed whipped cream turning into butter. This very butter is what changed the course of her life and made her truly appreciate her hometown, a hometown that had welcomed Leo Maxwell in the time she’d been gone, the man who was currently rocking her world.
The town’s next victim into its black hole of charm and sweet was Natalie, a city girl if there ever was one. Officially she lived in Manhattan. Unofficially she was fooling no one as she’d recently begun spending weeknights ninety miles north of her island in the company of one Oscar Mendoza, owner of Bailey Falls Creamery and the only man who could make her set one toe north of the Bronx.
And here I was, heading toward that same town, which was also home to Bryant Mountain House, the old hotel I’d been hired to rebrand, reshape, and get back in the black.
Roxie and Natalie were thrilled, convinced that once I spent some time in the quaint town, I’d fall just as in love with it as they did and decide to stay.
I never stayed. Anywhere. I loved being on the road, meeting new people, hanging my hat somewhere just long enough to sink my teeth into something that used to be incredible and needed to be brought back to life. And once that was done, it was off to the next project.
I had an apartment. I had things in it. I had my name on the mail slot.
I did not have a home.
“Keep your bags packed, kid, you’re not gonna be here long . . .”
I blinked up at her, the sunlight behind her turning her head into an eclipse of sorts, unable to make out individual features of her face but knowing somehow that her expression would be one of tired resignation. I was just one more kid in a houseful of others. With their own never-truly-unpacked bags . . .
I shook my head to clear it, squeezing the steering wheel. Partners in shiny convertibles didn’t think about the past, they thought about the future. I pulled over to grab a coffee for the road, thumbed through my travel playlist, and cued up some Fleetwood Mac.
“You can go your own way . . .”
That’s for damn sure.
Three hours later I turned off the interstate and onto the state highway that would take me into Bailey Falls and up to Bryant Mountain House. Turning off the tunes, I began to put my game face on.
This was where I needed to think, to ruminate, to imagine what it must be like to have your entire family’s history potentially subjected to a wrecking ball. When I took on a job, that is what I took on. It wasn’t just a few months of work, it was a way of life. And not just for the family but for all of the employees whose lives were typically just as tied into the history as those whose names were on the letterhead. The Bryant family was small in actual name but large by proxy. And I’d be working to save jobs for more than just the family.
The Bryants had owned this property for almost one hundred and fifty years. And like so many other family-run hotels, they’d relied too much on “but this is how it’s always been done,” which simply doesn’t work anymore in this modern age. With Yelp and TripAdvisor helping everyone make their vacation plans, reviews could make or break a place. And they’d had their share of bad reviews in the last few years. Couple that with the recent economic crisis and belt-tightening across the board for vacationers, and they were in danger of losing their beautiful hotel.
Unless . . .
CUE TRUMPETS
. . . they had me. Which they did. I rolled my neck, cracked my shoulders a bit, and settled in for the final leg.
I had a hotel to save.
CUE A SECOND BUT EQUALLY IMPRESSIVE ROUND OF TRUMPETS
“Melanie Bixby, arriving guest,” I said, leaning out of the driver’s-side window at the guard shack at the edge of the property. I didn’t even blink anymore when I used my pseudonym, it was second nature at this point. When I checked in under my real name, I never got the true sense of what was going on at a hotel. Clara Morgan was given the red-carpet treatment, Clara Morgan was upgraded, complimentary champagne was sent up almost without fail, and literally every single parking attendant/busboy/junior housekeeper went out of their way to bid good morning/afternoon/evening to Clara Morgan.
Melanie Bixby, however, was just your average guest, and always got the real story.
“Bixby, Bixby, oh sure, there you are, Ms. Bixby. Let me just grab your parking slip.” After a moment inside, he returned with a pass that he set just inside on the dashboard for me. “Now you keep that there while you’re with us, that’s how we tell the overnight guests from the ones who are just here on a day pass.”
“Day pass?” I played dumb.
“Yes, ma’am, Bryant Mountain House has some of the best hiking and biking trails around. For thirty-five dollars folks can come spend the entire day in the woods. No access to the main house, but there’s a nice enough snack shack on the edge of the property for refreshments.”
“Do you get many day-passers up here? I mean, in the off-season?”