Summertime Guests Page 5

  But never has the Seafarer experienced anything like what occurred today—a deceased guest, her body strewn out on the premises for all to see. According to Oliver, only a handful of travelers staying at the hotel have passed away on-site, and all of those were due to natural causes. “There were a few heart attacks, a couple of strokes, I seem to recall,” Oliver says while he debriefs Jean-Paul (Oliver has been kind enough to stay on for the day shift given recent events). Now that the ambulance has taken the body away and some semblance of order has been restored, Jean-Paul is trying desperately to reach the hotel’s PR manager, Julie Morgan. Because the story must be controlled at all costs, spun the right way before the press swoops in and gets ahold of it. “Though, come to think of it, one of those might have been a drug overdose. Rumor had it someone in Housekeeping found the dude curled up in bed, a needle hanging from his arm. But that was probably ten years ago,” says Oliver.

  Jean-Paul hits the redial button on his phone repeatedly (it keeps going to voice mail) and simultaneously tries sending his PR manager a text: NEED TO SPEAK WITH YOU IMMEDIATELY. Julie will know how to handle such a debacle, how to stomp down any speculation, not to mention calling in a hazmat crew to clean up the area once the police are finished with their investigation. It unnerves Jean-Paul that his night manager seems calmer than he is, that the scene that occurred half an hour ago beyond their dining-room window doesn’t appear to faze him. How is this possible? Jean-Paul decides it must be because Oliver never actually saw the woman’s face when Jean-Paul brushed her hair away, a face that was, for lack of a better word, unrecognizable. And when the image of it pops back into his mind, Jean-Paul quickly pivots toward the wastebasket and vomits.

  “Whoa, boss,” Oliver says behind him. “You okay?”

  Jean-Paul holds up a hand while still bent over the trash can, making sure nothing else is about to come up. The sour taste of this morning’s coffee and Danish coat his mouth. He allows himself a moment before straightening, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Thankfully, a travel-size tube of toothpaste and mouthwash are housed in his bottom desk drawer, items he’d purchased in case he ever needed to spend the night at the hotel for an emergency. So far, this hasn’t happened. Tonight, however, may be the first. He frowns, remembering Marie and his earlier idea—that he’d surprise her with NannyTime over dinner—and realizes it will probably have to wait.

  “Thanks, I’ll be all right,” he says, covering his mouth with his hand. “If you wouldn’t mind checking in on the guests in the dining room—see if they need more water, anything at all—that would be appreciated. I’ll just take a minute here to wash up.”

  “You got it, boss.” He watches the door close behind Oliver, retrieves his toiletries and hurries to the private bathroom abutting his office. In the bathroom mirror, his skin appears jaundiced, his eyes rimmed with red. His usually impeccable hair sticks up at odd angles. He quickly dabs some water on it and smooths it down. Then he brushes his teeth and swishes the mouthwash around. Holding it together for his staff today is of the utmost importance.

  Back in his office, he pulls the blinds closed to ensure a few more precious minutes of privacy before true chaos descends. Already, he can sense the hotel staff buzzing to answer questions from the guests who’ve come downstairs late, wondering why an ambulance was pulling away from the hotel. Jean-Paul paces his office, twenty steps across, twenty steps back, and reminds himself that a few casualties are to be expected when you’re running one of the premier hotels in a major city. But something so categorically awful—a death that guests have witnessed firsthand? No, nothing has prepared him for this.

  It’s going to be one hell of a publicity ride, that’s for sure. Already, on his short trip from the dining room, where he’d been running triage with Oliver and the cops, to his office, the hallways were humming with concern. He’d overheard a woman in Housekeeping speculating that the hotel might need to close after such an awful tragedy, which had prompted an immediate call to his head of staff. “Please remind your staff that we’re not in the business of fueling rumors. As unfortunate as this accident is—” and, yes, he’d been very careful to call it an accident, knowing all too well how quickly one misspoken word could ignite a legal firestorm “—the Seafarer will remain open and continue to serve its guests in the stylish manner they’re accustomed to.” Shortly after that, his head chef had pulled him aside to say that his crew was running around like “birds beat out of a bush,” uncertain if the dining hall would be closed indefinitely.

  Jean-Paul stretches out his arms and cracks his knuckles, a nasty habit that Marie has been trying to break him of. He’ll need to call a staff meeting to debrief everyone—to warn them not to talk to the press under any circumstances. But not until he speaks to Julie in PR and gets his marching orders. He suspects they’ll be issuing a statement along the lines of There’s been an unfortunate, unexpected incident at the hotel. Our condolences go out to the family who’ve lost a loved one, and right now the proper authorities are handling the investigation. We’ll update you as we know more. It’s only a matter of time before the television crews start showing up on the front lawn.

  He thinks uncomfortably of the conversation he’d overheard among the officers at the watercooler, who were speculating about whether they could be dealing with a possible homicide. The last thing the hotel needs is a witch hunt during the rush of summertime guests. And then he remembers: they’ve got a wedding this weekend! How on earth will they manage to handle all the guests arriving within a few short hours? On his notepad, he scribbles Talk to Gillian!

  A sharp dart of pain shoots through his chest, right beneath his rib cage, and he rubs at it with his palm while considering the logistical nightmare that awaits him. Even if, as he suspects, it’s a suicide, this unfortunate event cannot be quietly swept under the rug, as much as he’s tempted to do precisely that. There are witnesses, a potential crime scene. What if it was a lovers’ spat? A slip off the balcony? What if, God forbid, somehow the railing on the balcony had cracked and gave way? When was the last time they’d had the balconies inspected for safety?

  His mind spins with the possibilities, none of them good. The police will want the room number of the guest who fell. They’ll probably need to cordon off the area, perhaps the entire hallway. He’ll need to double-check that none of this weekend’s wedding guests are booked for that floor. Slowly, the domino effect begins to settle in. Without asking, he already knows that the hotel is fully booked for the weekend. Two hundred and fifty-two guests. Where can he move people? He’ll have to call in a favor, maybe his pal, Frederick, over at the Four Seasons, see if he can walk the guests over, as they say in the business, to his hotel.

  But first things first. He needs to figure out who their mysterious guest is. Already officers are knocking on doors, checking rooms one by one with Housekeeping. Any room on the side of the building facing the harbor. Above the fifth floor. That leaves five floors, up to floor ten. Because about one thing there is no question: that woman fell from a considerable height.

  It feels, Jean-Paul thinks as he bravely opens the door to his office, like waiting to hear which guest drew the shortest straw upon checking in.

  Earlier that week

  SEVEN

  “Daisies or lilies of the valley?” Riley asks.

  “Lilies of the valley.” Tom probably doesn’t have the faintest idea what the flower, a delicate chain of tiny white bells strung along a green stem, looks like. “What?” he says when Riley shoots him a look. “I like the sound of them,” he says. “Daisies seem kind of, I don’t know, boring.”

  They’re jogging along the Charles River, the narrow ribbon of blue-green water unspooling to their right. On this Sunday morning, June 6, a few early rowers skim the water in their shells, attempting to get a head start on the heat forecasted for later in the day. Already the morning air is thick, swollen with humidity. Sweat beads on Ril
ey’s forehead, and she regrets having forgotten to grab her baseball cap before heading out. At the very least, she could have slathered sunscreen on her face, which will, in all likelihood, explode into a million freckles this afternoon. Riley’s fair Irish skin is no match for Boston summers.

  “Good choice,” she huffs, her breathing growing more labored now that they’ve passed the mile-and-a-half marker. Her footfalls try to match Tom’s, whose stride is about twice as long as hers. Yesterday, she’d been debating which white flower would complement the pink peonies in the bridesmaids’ bouquets, and lilies of the valley, she agrees, are the best choice. Although she suspects Tom could care less about the flower selection, bouncing the random wedding detail off him every now and then is important. Not only so that he feels involved but also so that Riley can assure her mother-in-law, who’s certain to ask, that Tom has been consulted on every detail.

  Riley had always assumed it was the bride’s mother, not the groom’s, who would be interested in all the details. And the very fact that her own mom isn’t around to help her with dress-shopping or picking music for the church or choosing her bridesmaids’ dresses only underscores that—no matter how fantastic her wedding day might be—it will always be somehow less than. Less than all she’d hoped for. Less than what her mother would have wanted for her. Less than because her mom won’t be there to walk her down the aisle with her dad, which is how she’d always imagined it.

  It’s a fact that Riley keeps trying to ignore because there’s nothing in her pink wedding handbook or her oversize binder filled with fliers and pamphlets (mostly from Marilyn) that advises a bride on how to proceed when her mother has died. She supposes Marilyn is only trying her best to fill that huge void, but it’s almost laughable. Because no one else can come close to filling the shoes of Libby Thorton, world’s biggest hugger, easiest laugher, most loving mother ever. If her mom were still here, Riley would be having an engagement party with all her friends and neighbors back in Michigan. There would be an announcement in the local Lansing paper. There would be darling little gifts her mom would be sending to her bridesmaids, saying what special friends they were and how much she loved them, even thought of them as her own daughters. If Libby Thorton were around, this wedding would be about love in all its forms, and the planning part—the logistics of it all—would take a back seat.

  But there’s no way to explain this to Tom or his parents. To make them understand. They never had the opportunity to meet Riley’s mom, so they only know what Riley has told them and what they’ve seen in pictures, usually her mom’s arms wrapped around Riley or her dad. There’s no way to capture the bigger-than-life essence of her. That ebullience. The gift she had for making everyone feel as if they were the most interesting person in the world while she was talking to them. No, trying to capture Libby Thorton for someone who has never met her is the equivalent of trying to explain the rush of skydiving to someone who has never tried it.

  So, alternatively, Riley has been pushing any thoughts of her mom further away, to a place where she can guard them like precious heirlooms, where they’ll be accessible to her when she needs them most. In the back of her mind.

  When a handful of runners heading in the opposite direction approaches them, Riley and Tom have to jump out of the way before hopping back onto the asphalt path. Now that the weather has turned warmer, the running route along the river fills up quickly. It’s annoying, especially when she and Tom have grown accustomed to having it mostly to themselves in the early mornings. She thinks back to over a year ago, to the jam-packed road race where they first met near this very spot. The weekend of the Earth Day festival. The race had wrapped up at the Hatch Shell, and all the sweaty runners suddenly found themselves rubbing elbows with the horde of environmentalists gathered on the grassy lawn. They were easy enough to spot in their hemp shorts, their Birkenstock sandals, a Save a Tree or Save the Whales sticker affixed to their T-shirts. Everyone was waiting to see which band would take the stage next.

  Riley and her best friend, Hannah, were part of a larger runners’ group that had signed up for the race, and after crossing the finish line, they’d steered their way over to the white beer tent nestled among the row of environmental booths. Dotting the way were kiosks highlighting the merits of solar panels and wind energy. An Adopt-a-Turtle tent and companies promoting environmentally conscious products, like reusable silicone straws and socks made from recycled plastic. At another tent you could sign a petition protesting elephant poaching and alligator skinning. There were gorgeous, luxuriously soft blankets fashioned from bamboo.

  Riley was probably a little bit drunk by the time Tom bumped into her. A race number was safety-pinned to the back of his T-shirt, and when he spun around in Riley’s direction, his entire cup of beer splashed over her front. He’d been ridiculously apologetic as he tried to mop up the mess with napkins, which had required a fair amount of dabbing at her boobs. Riley tried not to laugh at his earnest efforts. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m such an idiot. I didn’t even see you there,” he said.

  After a few minutes of casual chitchat, Hannah pulled Riley aside and said, “If you leave here without that guy’s number, I will never forgive you.” Duly warned, she’d marched back in and found Tom, who’d just returned with fresh beers for them both. She asked for his number.

  “Why do you need my number? Are you going to make me reimburse you for that shirt?” he said jokingly while Riley tapped the digits into her phone and Hannah excused herself to go investigate other booths. While they talked, Riley discovered that they both lived in Cambridge (convenient). A Boston College grad, Tom worked in a homeless shelter downtown (i.e., he had scruples) and had grown up around Boston. She teased him about his accent.

  “He’s hot,” Hannah said later on the subway ride home. “You know, in a Hugh Grant kind of way with that floppy hair and toothy grin and comical eyes.” And Riley had burst out laughing because what did Hannah mean by comical eyes, exactly? But on some level, subconsciously perhaps, she understood what her friend was driving at—and Tom did have nice hazel eyes, framed by thick, dark lashes. If they weren’t comical exactly, they were mischievous. Riley wanted to learn more about those eyes—and everything behind them.

  The very next day, he’d called (she’d given him her number as well) and asked if she wanted to grab a bite to eat. The chance to redeem herself, to see him when her body wasn’t drenched in sweat, when she was wearing a little makeup even, was tempting. That he’d still called after having glimpsed her at her most unattractive seemed promising. She assumed things could only go up.

  He was waiting for her in front of the Border Cafe, and even though Riley was five minutes early, Tom was earlier. A case of nerves suddenly seized her. Maybe this was all a huge mistake. Why hadn’t she suggested a double date, something where the stakes weren’t quite so high? They’d both consumed a lot of beer yesterday (a disastrous decision for work the next day), and it was possible, even likely, that her radar had been off. By this point, she’d gone on enough online matchups to know that the person you thought you were meeting was usually a few steps removed from the actual guy, a rough facsimile.

  But Tom had broken the three-day rule and texted her the day after the run, which she took as a good sign. By the time she’d walked down the block to the Border, she’d convinced herself there was no harm in sharing dinner with him.

  “Hey, there. Look at you. You’re even prettier when you’re showered,” he said, and she laughed, the earlier tension draining from her body as swiftly as water down a drain. The rest of the night turned out to be the most fun Riley had had in months. They devoured way too many enchiladas, drank three margaritas each. Tom told her about his work at the shelter, which involved checking men in and ensuring they had a cot and a freshly laundered blanket for the night. Somehow she’d assumed he was on the administrative side of things. That his work was hands-on helping impressed her.

  Unlike s
o many other guys she’d met, Tom didn’t seem obsessed with making boatloads of money, a fact that Hannah later pointed out (correctly) probably meant his family was loaded. But that didn’t render his work any less noble in Riley’s eyes. Tom loved that she grew up in Michigan and quizzed her on things like whether she’d ever tipped a cow (no) and if she was a Wolverines fan (of course). Each question she considered seriously, lobbing her answers thoughtfully across the table like a well-aimed Ping-Pong ball.

  Much later, when he asked if he could walk her back to her apartment, Riley felt a drunken swell of infatuation. Since Tom lived entirely in the other direction, Porter Square would be a trek. But she’d said yes only too gladly. If she’d been expecting him to spend the night, however, it soon became apparent that his intentions were different. Up the stairs, he helped her to her attic apartment, looked the other way when she changed into her sweats and brushed her teeth, and tucked her into bed.

  All she got was a cool kiss on the forehead.

  That night she dreamed of Tom strolling into her flower shop and handing her a dozen pink peonies. The following morning, a cup of coffee in hand, she’d called her father in Michigan. “So, Daddy, I’m pretty sure I met the man I’m going to marry.”

  That she’d met Tom at a time when she’d been considering a move back to Michigan was slightly ironic. With her mom gone, she sometimes worried that her dad sounded lonely when she called. It seemed he might benefit from some company, especially since Riley didn’t have any particularly compelling reason to stay in Boston, aside from her job and Hannah, who kept threatening to move back to Michigan, anyway. And there were dozens of floral shops in Lansing where Riley could land.