“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.”
When Lizbet makes a sympathetic face, Grace groans. She would bet her robe and hat that there had never been an Alberto!
“If you call the hotels directly, they can pull up my performance records.”
“You have the experience I’m looking for,” Lizbet says. “High-end luxury hotels with a discerning clientele.”
“May I ask what kind of pay you’re offering?”
“We pay twenty-five dollars an hour,” Lizbet says. “Though, because of your experience, I can bump you to twenty-seven fifty and make you the front-desk manager.”
No! Grace thinks. She needs to get this little witchy-witch out of here. Grace blows cold air down the back of Alessandra’s neck.
Alessandra doesn’t even blink. Figures.
“The hours are pretty brutal,” Lizbet says. “One and a half days off every two weeks.”
“A day off? What’s that?”
“Ha!” Lizbet says. “You’re too good to be true.”
Grace has a feeling this is precisely the case.
Staff of five, Lizbet thinks as she takes a bite of the apple, bacon, and white cheddar grilled cheese on cranberry-studded sourdough that Alessandra brought her. Alessandra interviewed well, though her résumé has holes in it. There’s a recent year-long period that’s unaccounted for, but it’s possible Alessandra was traveling between jobs; she seems cultured, into art and languages. And she said she’d studied romance languages in Palo Alto—“Palo Alto” is a wink-wink reference to Stanford, but if Alessandra went to Stanford, wouldn’t that be plastered across the top of her résumé? Lizbet decides to overlook these things. Mack Petersen down at the Beach Club basically offered Alessandra a job, but Lizbet snapped her up!
Alessandra seemed to know a great deal about Shelly Carpenter. Alessandra could be their secret weapon.
What an improvement! Grace thinks when she sets eyes on the final candidate of the day. Ezekiel English, twenty-four years old, is, as the kids say, a smoke-show. （It’s another piece of slang Grace doesn’t love, though she can see how it applies now. She’s feeling a little warm in her robe, and she pulls open the collar.）