“Chef wanted to be sure you ate something delicious today,” Beatriz says, and she vanishes through the door that leads back into the bar. Lizbet hears laughter and chatter and Nat King Cole singing “Unforgettable.” It sounds…fun. And lively. Lizbet feels a pang; despite her bravado, she misses the restaurant business.
She isn’t sure where to start—she wants to inhale the whole box of goodies, but she picks up one of the two glistening, golden-brown doughnuts because she has heard stories about them. Gah! The doughnut is so good that Lizbet’s eyelids flutter closed and she has to keep herself from moaning. Next, she nibbles the end of one of the flaky triangular pizza rolls and finds it chock-full of crumbled sausage and pepperoni in a sauce that’s slightly spicy. It’s so insanely delicious that she feels guilty. She casts a glance at Raoul and Louie. Raoul stands up and announces, “I should get back to my post.” Louie returns the pieces to their home squares. Raoul swings by the desk and says, “That kid is something else. I thought I would let him win and he killed me.”
Oh so reluctantly, Lizbet offers Raoul the box. “Would you like a doughnut or some pretzel bread?” She dearly hopes he doesn’t take a gougère, because there are only three.
Raoul waves the box away. “Thank you, but I don’t eat carbs.”
Ha! Brilliant! Raoul heads back to the bell stand and Lizbet absconds with her box of treasure to her office but keeps an eye on Louie through the doorway. He starts another game against himself, but then Wanda appears, holding a notebook and a pencil, and says, “Mom wants you back in the suite, Louie, come on.”
“In a minute,” Louie says. “I’m playing.”
Wanda puts her hands on her hips like an aggrieved mother. “You have a board in the room.” Louie sighs, then follows his sister down the hall.
Lizbet pops a gougère into her mouth and it explodes with creamy béchamel. Not bad, Subiaco, she thinks. She remembers the night fifteen years earlier when JJ asked her to help him with some recipe development. He was trying to perfect an oyster pan roast, and Lizbet sat on a high stool in the kitchen at the Deck while JJ hand-fed her a plump, briny raw oyster, then a spoonful of the pan sauce （cream, bacon, thyme）。 This led to their first kiss, which led to them dating, then sleeping together, then, at the end of the summer, living together, and then to them buying the cottage on Bear Street and running the restaurant side by side until she discovered the pornographic texts on his phone. If anyone knows the dangers of being seduced by food, it’s Lizbet Keaton.
And yet…she tears off a hunk of pretzel bread and swipes it lavishly through the honey mustard. She can’t stop.
She decides to take a picture of the bakery box and send it to JJ; he’ll be jealous and think she’s gloating （she is）。 But when Lizbet picks up her phone, she sees a text from Heidi Bick.
Hey, girl, sorry, I was scooping Hayford from jiu-jitsu practice. I’m still in Greenwich, I leave for the island a week from Friday after the kids finish school. Michael has been up there for a couple months already working on a top secret project that requires complete silence, which cannot, of course, be found at home. I’m free any night after the eighteenth—it will def be Michael’s turn to hang with the kids! Maybe you can get us into the Blue Bar? I heard it’s going to be the new hot spot! Love u xoxo
Lizbet blinks. Heidi is back in Connecticut with the kids, and Michael has been on the island for a couple of months “working on a top secret project”？ That doesn’t mean he’s sleeping with her front-desk manager, Lizbet tells herself. Being cheated on has destroyed Lizbet’s faith in humanity; she automatically thinks the worst of everyone. It wasn’t clear that Alessandra was pulling into the Bicks’ house; that was just where she stopped to confront Lizbet. It was as if she had eyes in the back of her head. It was a little scary, to be honest.
Lizbet said she wanted to know everyone’s secrets, but she understands now that she doesn’t. She pops another gougère into her mouth. She doesn’t at all.
7. Bad Reviews
June 15, 2022
From: Xavier Darling （[email protected]）
To: Employees of the Hotel Nantucket
Good day, team. We have a sticky situation on our hands, I’m afraid. The reviews of our property on TravelTattler for the first week were primarily negative. Now, I understand that people are more likely to leave a review when they have a problem and that it’s highly likely that all the guests who didn’t leave a review left the hotel feeling perfectly content and satisfied with their stay. However, I will not be awarding the thousand-dollar bonus this week.