She misses Mario.
Lizbet and Heidi meet at Bar Yoshi on Old South Wharf. They’re seated at a high-top by the windows that overlook the harbor. The restaurant has a spare, chic vibe with lots of light wood, a floating glass-fronted cabinet that holds the liquor bottles, and excellent woven-basket light fixtures. Lizbet loves this place; she plans to completely overdo it on the sushi.
She feels good. She is out, finally, with a girlfriend.
Lizbet orders sake, Heidi a tequila cocktail, which is unusual for her—she’s a devoted rosé drinker.
“Everything okay?” Lizbet asks.
Heidi’s eyes widen. “You mean to tell me you haven’t heard the rumors?”
“I have no one to hear rumors from,” Lizbet admits. “I’m always at work. I never see anyone from my old life.”
“Well, I heard you were dating Mario Subiaco,” Heidi says. “Someone saw the two of you at the Pearl.”
Their drinks arrive and Lizbet raises her sake glass to Heidi’s highball. “I’m glad we did this.”
They touch glasses and drink. Heidi inhales nearly half her cocktail in one gulp.
“The thing with Mario didn’t work out,” Lizbet says.
“It was a good rebound, though, right?” Heidi says. “He’s so hot. And such a legend.”
Lizbet doesn’t want to talk about how hot or legendary Mario is. “So tell me about the rumors,” she says. “I’m ready.”
But as it turns out, Lizbet is not ready.
“You remember how I told you Michael was up here all spring by himself working on a project? He and this guy from his office, Rafe, want to splinter off and start their own company.”
Lizbet definitely remembers that Michael was here alone. Oh, does she.
“Well, when I showed up in June, I found an eye shadow in my makeup drawer that wasn’t mine.”
“Oh,” Lizbet says. She already doesn’t like where this story is going.
“Then I found a pair of René Caovilla stilettos in my closet. Size six.”
What? Lizbet thinks. There’s only one woman brave enough to wear René Caovilla stilettos here on Nantucket: Lyric Layton, Heidi’s best friend. In her life before husband, children, and yoga, Lyric was a shoe model in New York.
“Lyric?” she says.
“And then I found a positive pregnancy test tucked into the pages of the book on my nightstand.”
“You did not,” Lizbet says.
“As I’m sure you’ve heard, Lyric is newly pregnant with her fourth.”
Lizbet has not heard. The hotel really is a fortress. “So you think there was something going on between Michael and…Lyric?” This is smoking-hot scandalous news. No wonder Heidi is drinking tequila! Along with curiosity, Lizbet feels relief that the mistress wasn’t Alessandra.
“That’s what I thought, yes. That’s how someone wanted to make it look.”
“So it wasn’t Lyric?”
“Lyric swears not. She said if she and Michael were having an affair, there would be no way she would leave those things behind for me to find.”
Right, Lizbet thinks. No way.
Heidi throws back another healthy swallow of her drink. “We have a key to the Laytons’ house labeled on a hook in our mudroom. Michael thinks someone from his company found out that he and Rafe were planning on leaving and set out to sabotage him.”
Lizbet blinks.
“Michael thinks the guy he called to fix our Wi-Fi was actually a spy who saw the key—because, you know, the router is in our mudroom—and this guy burgled the Layton house while they were out and then planted those things in our house.”
“Michael thinks the cable guy did it?”
“Internet guy.”
“Wow,” Lizbet says. She brings her sake to her lips; her guard is back up. There’s no chance a man would know to plant an eye shadow, shoes, and a pregnancy test. “Well, I guess you’re relieved it has nothing to do with Lyric.”
“Yes, definitely,” Heidi says. “Though it did real damage to our friendship. She’s angry that I suspected her.” Heidi leans in. “But you have to admit, it’s a hard story to swallow, that the internet guy set Michael up.”
Lizbet nods. Very hard to swallow, she thinks. Like, a handful-of-steel-screws hard to swallow.
Heidi sighs. “But Michael is in the world of petroleum and you know how ruthless that is.”
Is it the kind of ruthless that would stick someone else’s pregnancy test inside a book on Heidi’s nightstand? Lizbet wonders. Or plant a different brand of eye shadow, a different type of shoe?