Osprey Island

“I know,” Bud went on, “that no one here’s much in a holiday spirit right now. Lots of sadness.” He fumbled for a lead-in. “But our guests are going to be here on vacation, they’re coming to enjoy themselves. Fourth of July weekend we’re booked full. It’s important for our guests to enjoy themselves, and it’s also important that we set a tone for the rest of the season to come. Show our guests what kind of an establishment we run here, and send them home with great memories to tell their friends about the Lodge at Osprey Island.” This part of Bud’s speech was canned. He’d given it so many times. “Fourth of July weekend is important for us: we do well on opening weekend, we do well for the season.” Bud paused. He looked around. “Already . . .” He didn’t know how to go on. “Already this . . . accident . . . is going to make things difficult for us here, as a business. We’ve got a lot to overcome.” He spoke quickly now. He spoke to the floor. “In proper honor, of Mrs. Squire, we’ll cancel our Fourth of July celebration— bus the guests over to Wickham Beach for the fireworks there. For those of us who knew Lorna, this will not be a time for celebration. But our guests, they didn’t know Mrs. Squire. This is their vacation, and they don’t want our worries laid on top of what they already got. Not while they’re on vacation.”

Bud was in business mode: The maintenance shop off the rear parking lot would become the new home of the laundry facilities— equipment would be arriving the next day; he’d made the necessary arrangements with great speed and efficiency—and a new maintenance building would go up on the site of the old laundry shed. A demolition crew would begin in the morning, construction immediately following, and everything would be finished—We’ll cross our fingers, Bud said—in the next week and a half before the guests started showing up.

One of the Irish girls raised her palm in the air like a schoolchild. Bud looked at her uncertainly. She took his stare as a sign to speak.

“What should we do when people—guests—when they ask about it?” Her voice was riding as though she might quake and dissolve into tears. “What should we tell them?” She was whining now. “What exactly should we say?” She slumped back then, deflated.

“Well,” Bud began, “I think we say as little as possible. I think if anyone asks, you send them to me so I can tell them what’s going on and we don’t have to get into a game of telephone, with wrong stories, exaggerating . . .”

“What do you mean?” someone asked.

“I mean,” Bud said sternly, “anything other than the plain truth: there was a fire in the laundry room late last night, a fire started by a cigarette when Lorna Squire, our head housekeeper, was smoking and fell asleep. The laundry burned down. Lorna died in the fire. That’s the real story. That’s the story I will tell our guests if they ask.” He was almost pleased by it, pleased at how a story like that could work like a campaign: Don’t Smoke in Bed. “And please,” he added, “please just don’t be discussing all this—these events—around the Lodge, around the guests. Of course, they’ll find out. I’m sure we couldn’t keep that from happening. But we can keep it simple. Keep things clean. Keep it from bothering them the way it’ll be bothering us.”

From the archway, Suzy piped up, acting as though Bud himself had finally succeeded in doing Lorna in after all these years. “Don’t you think it might be a little more honest, Dad, a little more up-front, if we just came out and told them? Made up a letter, one for each room, just letting people know what happened. Explaining how sad we are, explaining there won’t be fireworks here at the Lodge, just to let them know . . .”

“No,” Bud said, “no, I don’t think that’s best. The more we play this thing down, the—”

“Someone is dead! You think we should play that down?”

“I do not think we need to point our fingers at it,” he said briskly.

Suzy was gearing up for a fight. Bud looked as if he might try to send her to her room.

“I think that’s a serious mistake on your part, Dad. I think you’re making a grave error in judgment.”

Bud was in no mood. “Well, when you own a hotel”—and he did not say “this hotel,” did not concede even that much—“when you own your own hotel, you can do things however the hell you want . . . But seeing as I’ve got just a few years’ more experience, this is my decision to make.”

In the dining room the staff squirmed. Bud and Suzy glared, each daring the other to speak. Suzy broke off first—turned in the doorway and strode from the room as though in undisputed possession of the upper hand. She never failed to leave her father boiling.