“I’d love it, Paul, thank you,” Magda says.
Paul claps Chad on the shoulder. “Show Magda to my study, please, bud. I’ll be back in a second with the drinks.”
Paul heads to the kitchen and Chad stares at Ms. English for a second. Is this another one of those moments, like when she told him what happened to Bibi, where nothing is what it seems? Maybe Paul is interviewing Magda—not for a job cleaning their house but for a job at the Brandywine Group. If Ms. English works there, will that make Chad’s position there any more palatable?
No, Chad thinks. Not really.
“The study, Long Shot?” she says.
“Oh, right.” Chad shows Ms. English into the study. She sits in one of the butterscotch suede club chairs and crosses her legs. She pulls her phone and a legal pad out of her bag.
“Okay,” Chad says. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t you want to stay?” Ms. English asks.
“Stay?” Chad says. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s going on? Why are you here?”
Ms. English laughs. “Oh, Long Shot, you should see your face, it’s priceless.” She leans forward and whispers, “Your father and I are forming a partnership. We’re going to buy the hotel.”
28. The Cobblestone Telegraph
When we next see Fast Eddie, he’s seated at the big front table at Cru, where he has ordered a magnum of Dom Pérignon, which is attended by two servers and three live sparklers.
Well, it’s no wonder. It has taken a mere three days for him to secure a twenty-million-dollar offer on the Hotel Nantucket. The buyer is known only as the Long Shot Trust, but because Eddie can’t keep his mouth shut （something his sister, Barbie, scolds him for nonstop）， someone among us discovered that the property was purchased in equal parts by two entities. One was Paul Winslow, a principal at the Brandywine Group who owns a home on Eel Point Road, and the other was Magda English, the head of housekeeping at the Hotel Nantucket.
“I knew Magda was hiding something,” Nancy Twine of the Summer Street Church said. “I used to wonder about her putting so much in the collection plate on Sundays and now I find out she could have put in ten times more. She has millions!”
Yes, Magda English’s net worth hovers around twenty-four million dollars. The （unconfirmed） story is that she caught the eye of Xavier Darling thirty years earlier when she was working on one of his cruise ships. He wined and dined her in Monte Carlo and they ended up at a casino where she placed a five-hundred-dollar bet （her own money, she would be quick to point out） and rolled the dice at the craps table for nearly two hours, going all in each time and walking away with two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. She invested this money with Xavier Darling’s bankers, where it grew at a steady rate. Then, in 2012, Xavier approached Magda with a dark-horse opportunity: he was investing in a company that was developing a new kind of personal security software. After reading the company’s prospectus, Magda told Xavier she wanted in. The company went public in July of 2021 and Magda’s small fortune became a big fortune. The following month, her sister-in-law, Charlotte English, died suddenly in her sleep and Magda moved to Nantucket to be with her brother, William, and her nephew Zeke. She had been looking at property with Fast Eddie, including homes on Eel Point Road, but hadn’t found anything to her liking. She took the job as head of housekeeping at the hotel because she was always happiest when she was busy.
“At least that’s what I’ve gathered from our chats,” said Brian, the bartender at the Brant Point Grill. Brian was the one who’d spilled the beans about Magda and Xavier. “They were definitely having a thing,” he said. “She told me he was an ‘old friend,’ but I was getting a vibe of ‘old friend with benefits.’”
This makes Magda’s decision to buy the hotel even more intriguing. Apparently, when Eddie told her that Xavier already had a private offer of sixteen million, Magda said, “I’m going to call Xavier’s bluff. His friend who wants to turn the hotel into a satellite office is probably only half serious—who puts a satellite office thirty miles out to sea?—but my partner and I will give Xavier the benefit of the doubt and offer eighteen million.”
“He’ll close at twenty.”
“Done,” Magda said.
As for Magda’s partner, Paul Winslow, he was overheard saying, “I’m sure I’ll be accused of buying the hotel for my son, but in reality, I was presented with a smart business proposition by Magda English. The Hotel Nantucket is a piece of Nantucket history but it’s also poised to be the most gracious accommodations on this island for generations to come. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that, given the choice? As for my son, Chad, I hope this deal shows him firsthand what kind of positive opportunities my firm can create. I hope he ultimately decides to come work with me. But if he stays on at the hotel, I respect that decision. The important thing is that the Hotel Nantucket is back in business.”