After Magda departs, Lizbet considers going for a lunchtime run or grabbing one of the mountain bikes from the hotel’s brand-new fleet and powering out a quick ride. This morning she finally felt a thaw in the air, but as tempting as it is to go outside, Lizbet decides to stay at her laptop. First, she checks the references of a married couple—Adam and Raoul Wasserman-Ramirez—who have both applied for bellman positions. They currently work at the Four Seasons in Punta Mita, Mexico, and want to come to New England for the summer. Lizbet has been putting off deciding about Adam and Raoul because she isn’t sure hiring a married couple for the same job is a good idea, even though they both interviewed well over the phone. What if they bicker? What if one far outperforms the other?
The e-mail from the GM at the Four Seasons is glowing. It mentions that Adam has a “beautiful singing voice.” (How is this relevant? Lizbet wonders. He’s going to be schlepping bags.) The letter ends with We at the Four Seasons Punta Mita have determined it’s best if the Wasserman-Ramirezes are scheduled separately.
Ha! Lizbet’s instincts were correct—but the reality remains that she needs three bellmen, and her options are limited. She’ll hire Adam and Raoul.
Next, although she has cautioned herself not to, she checks to see if there are any new reservations for opening week.
There’s one, a booking for four nights made by a couple from Syracuse. This is heartening, but the fact that the hotel’s overall occupancy is hovering at just above 25 percent a full week after the website went live is not. They placed banner ads on all the major travel websites, and Lizbet wrote what she felt was an excellent press release, but there have been very few takers. When Lizbet called Jill Tananbaum at the Nantucket Standard to see what had become of her piece, Jill said, “Jordan told me he might run it at some point but he can’t say when.”
Lizbet hung up, discouraged. The reputation of the hotel was, admittedly, abominable, and Xavier’s interest in it was somewhat perplexing, but it had undergone a remarkable metamorphosis.
Building the new! she thinks. But only an instant later, she wonders if she’s in over her head. It had been far easier to sell herself to Xavier than she’d anticipated (considering she had no actual hotel experience)—and only now does Lizbet wonder how much competition she had. Is it possible she was the only person who applied for this job?
Xavier has asked Lizbet to book him suite 317—historically, the hotel owner’s suite—from August 24 to August 28. It feels a little strange that Xavier isn’t coming until the end of August, but Lizbet is relieved. By then, she might know what she’s doing.
Lizbet isn’t sure where all this self-doubt is coming from; she’s probably just hungry. She’s tempted to run over to Born and Bread for a sandwich, but there isn’t time. Her next interview is here.
The third résumé is quite impressive, Grace thinks. Alessandra Powell, age thirty-three, applying for a front-desk position. The very first line announces (in boldface) that Alessandra is fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, and English. She has worked at hotels in Ibiza, Monaco, and, most recently, Tremezzina, Italy. This draws Grace back in time. When Dahlia Benedict was being “nice” to Grace, she would gab about her and Jack’s travels abroad. She told Grace that she and Jack had sailed to Europe aboard the Mauretania, and when Grace murmured sarcastically under her breath that it sure was a good thing the Mauretania hadn’t hit an iceberg like the Titanic, Dahlia slapped her soundly.
It was a slap Grace deserved. By that point, Grace was so deep into the affair with Jack, she saw no way out. She very dearly wished the Mauretania had sunk with both Jack and Dahlia aboard.
Grace is yanked back to the present moment when a young woman with long, wavy apricot-colored hair steps into Lizbet’s office.
No, Grace thinks. No! There’s a stench coming off the woman that means only one thing: a rotten soul.
The woman, Alessandra, holds out a white paper bag. “I brought you an ABC grilled cheese from Born and Bread on the off chance you’ve been so busy interviewing that you skipped lunch.”
Lizbet’s blue eyes widen. “Thank you! That was so…intuitive. I did skip lunch, and the ABC is my favorite sandwich.” She accepts the bag. “Please, sit. So, Alessandra, your résumé is nothing short of remarkable—Italy, Spain, Monaco. And you speak so many languages! What brings you to our little island?”
“It was time to come home. To the States, that is, though I’m originally a West Coast girl. I studied romance languages in Palo Alto—”
“Were you at Stanford?” Lizbet checks the résumé. “It doesn’t say that here—”
“And then I did the whole backpacking-through-Europe thing—the train, the hostels—and I found myself flat broke in Ravenna. I went there especially to see the mosaics in the Basilica of St. Vitale.”
“Mosaics?”
“They’re the finest examples of Byzantine mosaics outside of Istanbul. They’re magnificent. Have you seen them?”
Oh, please, Grace thinks. How pretentious.
“I haven’t.”
Alessandra says, “Well, when I say flat broke, I mean I gave my last euro as a donation to enter the church. Fortunately, I struck up a conversation with a gentleman who was also viewing the mosaics, and it turned out he owned a pensione in town. He let me stay for free in exchange for working on the front desk—and my career in hotels was born.”
“So you were in Europe for…eight years, give or take? I notice there are some gaps on this résumé—”
“I wanted to leave Italy while I still felt fondly toward it. And I chose Nantucket because it seems like the most exclusive of the New England summer-resort spots.”
“I’m curious…did Shelly Carpenter from Hotel Confidential review any of the hotels on your résumé?”
Alessandra nods. “She apparently stayed at Aguas de Ibiza while I was working there. Her piece was positive, but she gave us only four keys. She had a couple of legitimate complaints. The first was that the bellman took fifteen minutes to deliver her luggage to her room, which was ten minutes too long by her standards—”
“Oh yes, I know.”
“And there was no salt and pepper on her room-service tray even though she’d specifically requested it.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, people got fired. You know that she wears disguises and uses aliases and always shows up at the busiest times, when the staff can’t pay as close attention to every guest as they might otherwise. And sometimes she creates extraordinary circumstances to see how the staff reacts. Rumor has it that when she visited the Pickering House Inn in Wolfeboro, she slashed the tire of her rental car to see how quickly the staff would change it.”
“I did not know that,” Lizbet says, slumping a little.
“My advice would be to train the bellmen in basic auto repair, because I’m sure once Shelly Carpenter gets wind of this place opening, she’ll make an appearance.”
“You think so?”
“I can almost guarantee it. She seems to like Nantucket. She reviewed the White Elephant—”
“She gave it four keys.”
“And she reviewed the Nantucket Beach Club and Hotel, which is where I’m interviewing next.”
“You’re interviewing with Mack Petersen?”
“I…am, yes. Mack has basically offered me a position already, but I told him I wanted to keep my options open.”
Oh, come on, Lizbet! Grace thinks. She’s bluffing!
Lizbet runs her finger down the résumé. “These references have only the main numbers for the hotels. Can you provide any names or extensions?”
“As I’m sure you’re aware, there’s a lot of turnover in the hospitality business. My GM in Ibiza retired and bought an olive orchard. My GM in Monaco got throat cancer and died.” She pauses, milking the moment for all its worth. “Alberto. He smoked a pipe.”