She suspected that both places likely did backdoor references to gather information. It was a common thing, when companies asked around to see if anyone in their network knew anything about a candidate. Many employees over the years had gone to Boston hotels after working at The Whitley. And Andrea knew that some of those employees hadn’t liked working for her. She could be demanding, but she had always thought that was a good thing, to get the most out of people. But not everyone agreed.

She’d left her reference sheet with Human Resources. All the names on it were family—her grandfather, her cousin Nick and sister Hallie. She did not include her cousin Paula. There was no way she was going to ask the person taking her job for a reference. She was worried though about what her grandfather would say. She knew Nick and Hallie would focus on her strengths. But her grandfather had told her he’d be brutally honest about both her strengths and her weaknesses.

There was nothing available anywhere on Nantucket that was appropriate. General manager roles were few and far between and were usually filled internally, by referral or through a headhunter like Elaine. And she’d said there was nothing that she was aware of currently on the island. Boston was Andrea’s first choice after Nantucket as it was still close by and it was a very walkable city and much smaller than New York, which was just so big. Still, she told Elaine she’d consider something there too, but at the moment, Elaine had nothing.

And in a little over a week, she would have to start in the concierge role. She was dreading it, sure that everyone would be whispering about her. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too awful, at least until she found something else. And she had no intention of going to those deadly boring weekly manager meetings.

She couldn’t sit through that now, especially with Paula and her spreadsheets lording it over her in her new role. Andrea planned to have as little to do with Paula as possible. Hopefully they could stay out of each other’s way. She didn’t want to be continually reminded of the job her cousin stole from her by running into her all the time. She had no need for an office anymore and could just go right to work in the concierge kiosk.

The call came Friday afternoon at five minutes of five. Elaine kept it brief, delivering the news succinctly. “I’m sorry, hon. They went with one of the other candidates. They said you were great though. Enjoyed meeting with you. Sounds like it was close. I’ll be in touch when something new comes in.”

“Okay. Thanks, Elaine. Did they check references, do you know?”

There was an uncomfortable silence on the other end. “I’m really not sure. I sent them over, in case they needed them.”