Do Not Disturb

by Tilly Bagshawe

  Taneesha sighed. Sian had been obsessed with becoming a reporter ever since watching Superman at the age of eight. In fact, the two girls had seen the movie together, having been inseparable best friends since second grade. Competitive as hell, in everything from sports to academic studies to boys, they remained closer than close. If it hadn’t been for their all-too-obvious physical differences (Taneesha was black, with the body of a sprinter and beaded plaits streaming down her back like the jeweled tail of a kite, while Sian was so pale she was practically translucent) they might almost have been sisters. “You know, you’re not gonna have time to read half that shit,” said Taneesha, who couldn’t see the point of taking a semester’s worth of reading material on a working vacation to the Hamptons. “Hotel work is hard. Trust me, I know. I’ve been there.”

  Sian rolled her eyes. “Three weekends washing dishes at the W hardly makes you the world’s expert.”

  Ignoring her, Taneesha began reading aloud from Lucas’s interview.

  “Listen to this: With his movie-star good looks, Anton Tisch’s achingly hip Spanish protégé is shaking up the stuffy denizens of East Hampton. As the manager of the newest and coolest Tischen hotel, the Herrick, I met him in midpreparation for the much-hyped June tenth opening party. Hey, June tenth, that’s tonight. Too bad you won’t be there in time.”

  “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?

  Turning back to the clothes littering the bed, she settled on a gray brushed-silk, high-necked midi dress and suede kitten heels. Pulling them on, she moved over to her dressing table, where her very basic makeup kit—concealer, powder, and a swipe of bronzer for the cheeks—was laid out waiting. Thank God Devon would be there tonight for moral support. For once he’d be without Karis, who’d begged off this morning with a migraine, so she might actually be able to talk to him. The early, unsettled days of their relationship were over now, and Honor felt quietly confident in his love and much more able to bear the long separations that she had been so distraught about in the beginning. She still occasionally daydreamed about marriage and children, but it had ceased to be an active topic of conversation between them, and they’d settled into the comfortable, cautious routine of long-term lovers.

  She knew he wouldn’t be demonstrative with her tonight at the Herrick or anywhere in public. But she’d learned to read his briefly flashed smiles or winks of encouragement and to cherish these little signals of their secret bond without pushing him for more. Just knowing he was there this evening would help make Lucas’s arrogance and constant baiting more bearable.

  Ugh. Lucas. Dabbing a blob of Vaseline onto her lips and eyelids, she tried to push the image of his self-satisfied, handsome face from her mind. She was used to him taking potshots at her in the press, but that last Vogue piece had really pissed her off. Palmers had been in business in East Hampton for the better part of a century. Who the fuck was he, two months after opening his doors, to imply that they were finished? Over the past year, the personal animosity between Honor and Lucas had grown like a p
articularly virulent cancer, fueled by the public PR battle and the social tensions locally. Although the official line was that everybody in the Hamptons hated Lucas and his ghastly hotel and sided with Honor, at least half of the local population (the female half) were unwilling to erase him completely from their address books. You didn’t tell Brad Pitt you were washing your hair, however appallingly he may have treated poor Jennifer Aniston. Lucas was quite simply too sexy to be blackballed, which meant he and Honor still ran into each other occasionally at dinner parties and events. More often than not, such meetings resulted in fireworks.

  But tonight would have to be different. However much she loathed him, this was a very public event, and Honor knew she must keep a lid on her temper. Hopefully Devon could help her with that as well.

  Over at the Herrick, Anton Tisch carefully unwrapped another Rococo Belgian chocolate and, leaning down, placed it lovingly into the open mouth of his Great Dane, Mitzi.

  “Good girl,” he cooed, bending his face low over the dog’s like a doting parent. “Who’s my precious baby girl, hmmm?” He was sprawled out on the daybed in the newly finished Daria suite (named after his mother), watching one of the homemade pornos he’d brought with him from Geneva. One of the many advantages of having one’s own plane was being able to bring sensitive items of baggage—including tapes from the library that he liked to think of as a sort of virtual harem—without some underling from airport security rifling through them.

  Out in the grounds, the launch party was already in full swing. Anton had flown out to the States especially to be here, and soon he’d have to put in an appearance. Not yet, though. Not until he’d come. Petting his beloved dog with his left hand, his right was thrust down his suit pants, rhythmically rubbing his throbbing erection.