Do Not Disturb (24 page)

“Yeah,” laughed Sian, deciding on the blue bikini and flinging it into her bag. “If only I were in town, I’m sure I’d be top of their guest list.”

“
Lucas Ruiz has some fighting words for his local rival, Honor Palmer, owner/manager of the legendary Palmers
,” Taneesha winked at Sian, “
which has itself undergone a dramatic revival over the past year. ‘I’ve chosen not to respond to the many false,
malicious, and in some cases outright libelous claims that Miss Palmer has made about me personally, Mr. Tisch, and our hotel over the past few months,’ Lucas tells me. ‘I have the privilege to be the manager of what I truly believe to be the greatest hotel, not just in America, but in the world. That’s been a tough reality for Honor Palmer to accept, especially given the murky circumstances surrounding her takeover of Palmers.’
What murky circumstances?”

“Some people say she pulled a fast one on her father,” said Sian, who’d followed the story vaguely but without much interest. “I’m not sure exactly.”

“
‘A broken family is a heavy price to pay if your business then doesn’t make it,’
” read Taneesha, finishing Lucas’s quote. “
‘Palmers is doing better now than in recent years, but obviously our presence here is challenging for them, and Miss Palmer has chosen to take that challenge personally. In my view, that’s a reflection of her lack of experience in the industry. The market will dictate which of us succeeds. I certainly know who my money’s on.’
”

“Well,” said Sian firmly. “I don’t care if Honor strangled her old man with a clothesline. Palmers has a great guest list this summer, whatever Mr. Herrick Hot Shot says. And I’m going to be there, mingling with the stars.”

As far Sian was concerned, spending a whole summer working at Palmers was the opportunity of a lifetime. For one thing, it would enable her to save enough money to prove to her dad that she was serious about going to college next year to take some media studies courses. Her parents were good people, and Sian loved them both, but they were small-town, blue-collar stock to the core. Her mom’s idea of an exotic getaway was a trip to the Jersey Shore, and her dad couldn’t see the point in getting educated beyond high school, especially not for a girl.

“There’s plenty of jobs going right here in Lymington,” he was fond of reminding his daughter whenever the subject of college came up.

“Whaddaya wanna go and land yourself with ten tons of debt for, when you could be saving right now?”

It didn’t help Sian’s cause that her older brother, Seamus, had left school last year and gone straight to work in a local bar.

“Making great money, I might add,” as her dad liked to say. “And he’s a man. You’re a girl, Siany, and a beautiful one at that. You’ll be married before you can say kiss-my-ass, so what’s the difference with all this ‘media studies,’ you know?”

Sian tried not to take it personally. For her, a career as a reporter meant a passport to an exciting, adventurous life and an escape from Bergen County. But, as no one else in her family felt the slightest need or desire to escape Bergen County, this was a tough concept for them to grasp.

That was the second wonderful thing about her summer job. Working at Palmers would bring her into contact with people who
did
grasp that concept, with both hands. Successful, traveled, educated, connected people. East Hampton might be less than fifty miles away from Bergen County. But it was a different world, and one in which Sian, at least, could see a raft of possibilities.

“You know,” said Taneesha at last, putting down the magazine and examining the chosen blue bikini more closely. “You ain’t gonna have much time for sunbathing, girl. You do realize that?”

“Whatever. You’re just jealous,” said Sian, sticking her tongue out playfully as she chucked book after book into the case. Not having time to sunbathe might be a blessing anyway. Despite her father’s assurances to the contrary, Sian was by no means sure she was pretty, and the idea of baring her figure on a public beach made her flesh creep. Very tall and skinny, with long, deerlike legs but no breasts to speak of and the sort of white-girl’s butt that could slip into a pair of jeans without undoing them at the waist, she was extremely self-conscious about her body. Her face she grudgingly deemed OK, with its long, slender nose and huge,
widely set brown eyes. But as for the rest of her, she was more than happy to keep it covered.

Deciding that her toenails were dry enough to risk a gingerly walk across the carpet, Taneesha hobbled over to the bedroom window. Outside, a warm wind was blowing, and though it was only early June, summer was already in full swing. Groups of kids eight to ten strong were loitering on the street corners, the boys wannabe gangstas with their pants hanging off them and hoodies pulled low, while the girls looked like extras from a Jay-Z video. Trainee hookers, basically.

It was good that Sian wanted something better for herself. Secretly, Taneesha wanted it too.

“I’ll tell you when I will be jealous,” she said, pulling her head back into the room. “When you land yourself a rich sugar daddy boyfriend from one of the stuck-up Palmers guests.”

“I don’t want a boyfriend, Neesh,” said Sian seriously. “I want to network.”

“Oh, yeah, I can picture you networking right now,” Taneesha teased her. “There you are in your skimpy little maid’s uniform, just happen to be bending over the bed while you’re changing some billionaire music producer’s sheets…”

“Taneesha!”

“…and then wham, bam, you network that sucker till he can’t walk no more!”

Taneesha laughed as a barrage of missiles—bras and panties mostly—came flying at her from the bed.

“If I did get with anyone up there,” said Sian, once she’d run out of ammo, “and I’m not saying I’m going to, it wouldn’t be a guest at Palmers.”

“Oh? Who would it be, then? Lucas, the Herrick Hunk?”

“Not my type,” said Sian haughtily.

“Please,” said Taneesha. “He’s everybody’s type.”

“Not mine,” said Sian, adding jokingly, “not rich enough.”

Taneesha shrugged her shoulders. “You’re gonna be too tired to date, anyway. Hot guys like that don’t usually go for exhausted hotel maids with big bags under their eyes.”

“Is that so?” said Sian, her ears pricking up as always at this hint of a challenge. “Well, a hundred dollars says by the time I get home in September I’ll have at least one millionaire notch on my bedpost. How’s that?”

“
Soooo
competitive.” Taneesha shook her head in mock disapproval.

“You know it.” Sian grinned back. “So what, do we have a bet? Or are you scared to put your money where your mouth is?”

“Oh, we have a bet, girl.” Laughing, Taneesha shook her hand. “We have a bet all right.”

Meanwhile, at Palmers, Honor was also sitting on her bed surrounded by a sea of clothes, as she tried to settle on an outfit for tonight’s party at the Herrick.

Naturally uncomfortable in dresses and skirts, she longed to wear a pantsuit, but she didn’t want to be the only person dressed for a business meeting if everyone else was in full-on party gear. Lucas’s VIP guest list remained shrouded in secrecy, but if the hotel’s clientele since April was anything to go by—tonight was the official launch party, but the hotel had in fact been up and running for two months—there would be enough Young Hollywood and MTV types in hot pants and tassels to make her Armani suit look ridiculous.

Not that she was contemplating the hot-pants-and-tassels look. As much as she wanted to wow the hateful Lucas and his guests, she had her own guests to think about. Lucas had once bitchily referred to Palmers’ clientele as the wheelchair set, and while that might not be strictly true, they were certainly a lot
older and more conservative than the racy Herrick crowd. If Palmers was to survive the onslaught from the new Tischen, their only hope was to play to their core strengths and keep sweet with the old-money families. And that meant dressing demurely, whatever P. Diddy and his entourage might be doing.

Turning away from the depressing pile of clothes, she took a moment to look at the pictures lining the wall of her bedroom suite and felt her spirits lifting. Directly above the headboard was a series of old black-and-white shots of Palmers in the twenties and thirties, at the beginning of its heyday. Her grandfather was in most of them, looking young and dapper in his dark suit and waistcoat, with the polished orb of his signature gold pocket watch hanging from a chain at his chest. The shots were almost always of groups, formally dressed men and women with daringly short hair and long strings of pearls, lounging around on the croquet lawn or ambling down the graveled paths of the rose walk. Behind them rose Palmers like a great white ship, her doors and windows flung welcomingly open in what seemed to be a permanent summer. The rocking chairs and love-seat swing on the porch were still there today—Honor had had them restored the first month she arrived—but the couples sitting in them in those old pictures came from an era so totally and utterly gone they were as alien as Martians. Occasionally, Honor spotted her grandmother in some of the shots, dark-haired and tiny, just like she was, invariably hiding toward the back of these jolly groups, content to let Tertius shine. Or perhaps she wasn’t content? Perhaps she hated playing second fiddle to his larger-than-life personality and all the long nights he spent away from her, entertaining guests, throwing himself heart and soul and body into his beloved hotel? It was never easy for the partners.

To the right of the bed, another wall was devoted to before and after shots of Honor’s own brief tenure. The week she arrived and fired the useless Whit Hammond, she’d taken hundreds of photographs as evidence of his negligence, and the surveyors had taken thousands more: broken windows, leaking pipes,
crumbling plaster, gardens so full of mess and rust and debris they looked more like a mad old lady’s backyard than the grounds of a great hotel. But lovingly, piece by piece, Honor had put the only true home she’d ever known back together. Rotten boards were replaced by new ones, but all in the same reclaimed oak of the originals, and limed in the age-old way before being whitewashed. She could have saved a fortune using newer, cheaper materials, but Honor looked on restoring Palmers as akin to life-saving surgery. Better to wait and do the job right than patch it up with half measures. To Honor, the “after” pictures on her bedroom wall—of the painstakingly crafted new roof, the riotously flowering gardens, the restored sash windows sparkling anew in the ocean-reflected sunlight—were all the vindication she needed that her policy had been the right one, however her accountants might bitch about it.

She’d already confounded both them and her critics by pulling Palmers back from the brink of bankruptcy against all the odds. Even
Vogue
, whose reporter was clearly in Lucas’s pocket, not to mention his bed, had conceded that Honor had worked wonders with the hotel. Despite Lucas’s barbed comments, most people had now forgiven her for “stealing” the place from Trey when they saw what a great job she’d done of restoring it to the jewel in East Hampton’s crown. Its formerly faded, crumbling walls and weatherboarding now gleamed white like a sunbaked bone, and the tangled mess of weeds in the rose garden and lavender walk had been ruthlessly stripped away, transforming the grounds into a riot of color and scent in white and pink and deep, bruised purple. Inside, the new staff kept the hotel silently running like a well-oiled machine, as unobtrusive and low-key as civil servants, and the decor, though still a little dated, was now more chic than shabby. Staying at Palmers felt like staying at the comfortable but well-appointed home of one’s very smartest friends, which was exactly the ambience of welcoming luxury that Honor had been aiming for.

Thanks to these improvements and her dogged behind-the-scenes wooing of guests old and new, she’d achieved excellent occupancy rates. Though not as flash or media-friendly as Lucas’s, her summer bookings were nevertheless very impressive and included a smattering of European royalty as well as a number of senators, Fortune 500 CEOs, and heavyweight opinion makers. As for the locals, confronted first by the vast, incongruous steel-and-glass reality of the Herrick, and then by its rowdy, vulgar rap-star guests, they had practically stampeded to align themselves with Honor and the Palmers camp, welcoming her back into the fold and vowing to help in any way they could to drive the unwanted foreign newcomer out of business.

But for all the good news—her return as East Hampton’s prodigal daughter, her overbooked summer and Christmas seasons, her pride in the physical transformation she’d wrought at Palmers—Honor knew how fragile the hotel’s revival really was. She’d need at least another year as good as this one if she was going to be able to afford to finish the vital electrical work and other refurbishments she hoped for. And with Lucas baying like a bloodhound at her heels, backed by apparently limitless money from Anton Tisch and beloved by all media, that was by no means a certainty. Palmers had class and charm, but the Herrick had four swimming pools, a movie theater, a helipad, a state-of-the-art gym, and a three-Michelin-starred chef for starters. Maybe that was what the new, shallow, celebrity-obsessed America really wanted? All mod cons, hold the tradition?