Page 106 of Summers at the Saint
The hostess showed her to her usual table, and Garrett appeared immediately with water and menus.
“Mrs. E! Great to see you.”
“Hi, Garrett. How’s business?”
“Really good. A lot of folks from that bankers’ conference came in early. We’ve been slammed this afternoon and I know we’re fully booked over the weekend too.”
She was about to order her usual, but changed her mind.
“What’s the seafood special today?”
“We’ve got a great mahi sandwich. You can get it blackened or grilled. If you want something lighter, I know you usually like the lobster Cobb, but we’ve got a shrimp salad today, or grouper fingers.”
“Is the fish locally caught?”
He shrugged. “I assume so.”
“You know what? I’ll try all three.”
He laughed. “Really? All three?”
She patted her flat abdomen. “I’m starving, and you made everything sound too tempting to pass up.”
He brought the mahi first. She looked around to make sure nobody was watching and took a small, delicate sniff. It smelled fine. The flesh was firm and it was perfectly cooked. The brioche bun, which she knew was baked in-house, was lightly toasted, and the “secret sauce” was both sweet and briny. A perfect one-two punch.
The shrimp salad was arrayed on top of a bed of microgreens, and Traci was dismayed that the greens were slightly wilted, perhaps a day older than they should have been. But the shrimp were sweet and plump and the aioli dressing was tangy with lemon zest and a great complement to the shrimp.
Garrett brought the grouper fingers last. He gestured to the other barely touched dishes. “Do you want me to clear these away, or should I bring the grouper back later?”
“You can box these up,” she told him. He loaded the other dishes on his tray and placed the plate with the grouper in front of her.
The grouper fingers were lightly breaded and served with an Asian-inspired dipping sauce, with a side of juicy red tomatoes. The dish looked promising. She took a bite, chewed, and pushed the plate away. The fish had definitely been frozen.
When Garrett reappeared at the table with a large pink shopping bag with the Saint logo, she pointed at the plate with the grouper fingers. “Don’t bother packing that one up.”
“No? Everybody else was crazy about it. I think we only have two portions left.”
“I didn’t care for it,” she said succinctly. “In fact, when you get back to the kitchen, would you please tell Felice I’d like the rest of the grouper eighty-sixed?”
“Ohh-kay. Was there a problem with it that I need to know about?”
“I’ll discuss it with Felice later this afternoon. I’m going to come back and order takeout for dinner tonight.”
Traci took the leftovers back to the cottage and stashed them in her fridge. She was still puzzling over Charlie’s annoyance with Felice and Olivia, and decided more research was needed.
But she’d need to be incognito. She shed her work uniform; the skirt, blouse, blazer, and pumps. A more casual look was called for.
Back when she and Hoke were newlyweds, he’d tried to convince her that playing golf together would be “fun.” He bought her clubs, cute golf outfits, shoes. She rode along on the golf cart with him for six months before finally confessing she found the game boring and pointless.
Now, she dug in the back of her closet and brought out a bin containing the long-abandoned outfits. She chose a white knit skort and pink-and-white-striped Saint golf shirt. Then she fastened her hair in a ponytail and donned a straw hat that would shade—and hopefully obstruct—her face. Spotless white tennis shoes and a pair of polarized sunglasses finished the ensemble.
Back in the hotel lobby she folded herself into a high-backed wing chair strategically placed within earshot of the guest relations desk. She pulled the brim of her hat low over her face and pretended to be absorbed in the latest issue ofGarden & Gun,which, auspiciously, contained a favorable feature about the hotel.
Guests were checking in to the hotel in waves now, and Livvy was suddenly inundated with guests wanting to book their children into day camp at the last minute, guests wanting sailing lessons, tee times, and coaching from the Saint’s tennis pro.
There was a family of four who were distraught that they hadn’t been given adjoining rooms with their teenagers, and somehow, with a sold-out house, Livvy managed to move them into rooms across the hall from each other.
Then there was a middle-aged banker (he was still wearing his registration tag on a lanyard around his neck) who berated Livvy for her inability to secure a seven-thirty dinner reservation for his party of seven.
