Lyric shuts the door behind Heidi and runs down the hall to the bathroom, where she vomits up the smoothie. After rinsing her mouth, she goes hunting for her own Chanel cream eye shadow in Pourpre Brun.
The funny thing is, she can’t find it.
Jasper Monroe of Fisher Island, Florida, wakes up in suite 115 of the Hotel Nantucket to a text from his mother: Where are you??? Did you not come home last night??? You know the rules, Jasper!!!
Jasper groans and rolls over. He kisses Winston on the shoulder and says, “I have to get out of here, man. My mom is kerking.”
“Your mom?” Winston says.
“Yeah,” Jasper says. He feels like he’s twelve years old, and he senses that Winston, who was Jasper’s teaching assistant at Trinity, wants to remind him that he’s twenty-two, a grown man, and that he can stay out all night if he wants. But the fact remains that Jasper lives under his parents’ roof and he did break a house rule by not telling his mother that he’d be out all night, and beyond that, his parents don’t know he’s gay. Nobody does.
Jasper puts on his Nantucket Reds and his polo, both rumpled and beer-soaked after a late night at the Chicken Box. He decides to get his mother half a dozen of the infamous morning buns from Wicked Island Bakery as an apology.
“Catch you later, man,” Jasper says.
“When?” Winston asks.
Jasper isn’t sure. Winston came to Nantucket specifically to see Jasper, but Jasper has to be careful. “I’ll snap.”
Winston gets out of bed to see Jasper out, so he can’t be that mad. They do some pretty heavy-duty kissing in the doorway.
“Come back to bed,” Winston murmurs into Jasper’s mouth.
Jasper is actually considering it—his mom isn’t going to be any madder in an hour than she is now—but then he hears a rattling and turns to see the housekeeping cart rounding the corner, and pushing that cart is…Chad Winslow.
What? Chad is wearing khakis and a blue polo, and he’s with some beaten-down-looking chick who smirks at Jasper and shirtless Winston and says, “You gentlemen ready for service?”
“Jasper?” Chad says.
Jasper feels like a coyote with his leg in a trap. “Chad? Are you…working here, man?” Jasper and his buddies Eric and Bryce have all been wondering what’s up with Chad, but him having a job never crossed their minds. A job cleaning rooms at a hotel? It makes no sense.
Chad shrugs and casts his eyes over Jasper’s shoulder at Winston. “Yeah, I’m a maid,” Chad says. “What are you doing here?”
I’m a maid. It must be a joke, right? Except Jasper can tell it isn’t and Chad doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. It’s like Winston is always saying: There is nothing shameful about who we really are.
“Stayed over with my boyfriend, Winston,” Jasper says. And just like that, he’s out. He grins. He can’t believe how easy that was.
Chad nods. “Cool. Nice to meet you, Winston.”
“Nice to meet you,” Winston says.
“Nice, nice, nice,” the chick with Chad says. “So, are you ready for service or what?”
Nancy Twine passes around the offering basket at the Summer Street Church. She tries not to notice how much a person gives; three dollars for some is as much of a sacrifice as thirty dollars for others. But it does catch her attention when Magda English drops several folded hundred-dollar bills into the basket. （Five hundred-dollar bills, Nancy would come to find out when she counts the money after the service.）
Now, where does Magda English, who moved here back in September to care for her poor bereaved brother, William, and her nephew Ezekiel and who is working as head of housekeeping at the haunted hotel on the other side of town, come up with that kind of money? Nancy can’t begin to guess.
10. Last Friday of the Month: June
Lizbet, Edie, Adam, and Alessandra are crowded into Lizbet’s office at 11:55 a.m. on June 24 so they can refresh their Instagram feeds right at noon.
Adam is the first one to see Shelly Carpenter’s post. “It’s the Isthmus in New York City. Four keys.”
“Kind of boring?” Alessandra says. “Although she hasn’t done New York in a while.”
“She reviewed the William Vale in March of last year,” Edie says.
“It’s scary that you know that,” Adam says. He swipes through the pictures while Lizbet, Edie, and Alessandra click on the link. Frankly, Lizbet is relieved that the Hotel Nantucket wasn’t chosen; they’re nowhere near ready.