Beach Lane (11 page)

“Well, that’s not a surprise,” Charlie said, looking keenly at his ex-girlfriend. Charlie looked at women the way he measured Thoroughbreds—the flanks, the teeth, the shoes, and Eliza passed with flying marks on all counts. He was still smarting from their breakup. The Charlie Borshoks of the world didn’t take too kindly to being dumped out of the blue. But Eliza Thompson was easily still the prettiest girl in East Hampton.

“We should get together sometime,” he said to Eliza, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

Eliza’s eyes misted at his touch. Was she being forgiven? Was Charlie going to let her back into his life? Was everything going to be perfect again? Would he rescue her from that roach-infested attic and book them a suite at the Bentley Hotel?

“Looks like you guys are gonna get back together after all,” Mara said after Charlie had left.

“God, I hope so. Charlie’s parents have the
biggest
yacht!” Eliza said, oblivious to how shallow she sounded.

“But what was THAT all about—us being friends from school?” Mara asked. “And why is Jacqui an exchange student?”

“It’s like this . . .,” Eliza said, biting her lip. Should she tell them? Could she trust them? They had covered for her so far. Who knew Mara could lie like that? They had made her look good in front of Charlie. Maybe she owed them the truth, even without an empty vodka bottle pointing in her direction.

Eliza pulled them to the quietest corner she could find—behind the column, near where several glassy-eyed club kids passed a suspiciously fragrant rolled-up cigarette. She told them the whole story—Buffalo, bankruptcy, and the boarding school fiction.

“I just don’t want my friends to know, especially Charlie, that I’m working here this summer . . . you know? As an au pair . . .”

Mara and Jacqui looked at each other. What was the big deal?

“I know it’s stupid, but I just want to have fun this summer. Is that okay?” she pleaded.

Jacqui yawned. Eliza’s confession meant nothing to her. Let the girl tell everyone she was the Queen of England, what did it matter to her? Mara found it harder to understand. There was no shame in living in Buffalo. Hey, she was from Sturbridge. Eliza obviously had some issues, but Mara knew it wasn’t her place to tell her that.

“So you guys won’t tell anyone?” Eliza asked.

They nodded. Her secret was safe with them.

you call this progress?

IT WAS FINALLY TIME FOR THE FIRST WEEKLY PROGRESS
report, even if the girls had been working at the Perrys for almost three weeks. Laurie assured them this time Anna and Kevin would expect them in the screening room at ten o’clock Sunday morning. The girls were nervous as they left their attic room and walked over to the main house.

They had good reason to worry. The kids were getting on their nerves, constantly comparing them to their predecessors. “Astrid made us spicy tuna rolls.” “Camille always let us stay up till ten.” “Tara was so much prettier than you.” The little girls had been late for ballet twice because Mara was the only one who got up early enough to take them and she was always getting lost in the side streets.

Plus they were all a little on edge ever since one of the housemaids confirmed that the original group of au pairs had worked at the Perry house since June but had been let go abruptly without any notice. They still had no clue what had gone down.

“Quick, what was the last book we read to Cody?” Eliza asked.

“Hop on Pop?”
Mara ventured.

“What’s that? Sounds like a porno.”

“You have a dirty mind! It’s Dr. Seuss!”

“Riiiight.”

“No, I think it was
Pokey Little Puppy,
” Jacqui said.

“
Hop on Pokey.
Got it.” Eliza nodded.

“What did Madison have for breakfast?” Mara asked frantically.

“What else? An ice cream cone and a tub of Oreos,” Eliza said, rolling her eyes. “Like she does every day.”

“Noooo—she’s on that macrobiotic raw food diet! Eliza, I left the recipes on your bed. You were supposed to take care of that while Jacqui and I brought the boys to krav maga!” Mara groaned. Anna had enrolled her sons in the Israeli martial art, even though the youngest was still awfully prone to falling when he walked. Apparently karate classes just didn’t cut it.

“What are their names again?” Jacqui asked.

“Are you kidding me?” Mara demanded.

Jacqui shook her head. There were so many of them, it was hard to keep track. Plus it wasn’t like she was around all that much—every minute she could find, she stole off to be with Luca. “Uh—Villiam. And Manhattan?”

“MADISON.”

“
Sí.
Zooey . . . and . . . Cory?”

“Cody.”

“Zoë. Tell me about Zoë,” Eliza said. “Is there something I should know about her?”

“What’s to say? She’s still sucking her thumb and acts like a three-year-old rather than a six-year-old. Her yoga teacher complained that she kicked someone in class the other day.”

“Pobre bebê,”
Jacqui muttered.

“What else do you think they’re going to ask?” Eliza said, wringing her hands. She didn’t want to mess up the good thing she had going. Mara basically took care of the kids while she and Jacqui spent every night partying and every day nursing their hangovers.

“It’ll be fine,” Mara said, even though her heart was pumping hard in her chest. Cody hadn’t even stuck a toe in the water. Madison had gained two pounds. William had taken to ramming his head against the walls. Zoë barely recognized the alphabet.

“Well, here goes.” Eliza shrugged, opening the door to the basement screening room the Perrys had installed over the spring. A large sixteen-foot-long and eight-foot-tall screen was set up at the far wall, and each girl took a seat on a black leather Barcalounger.

They waited for ten minutes. Fifteen . . . half an hour . . .

Jacqui fell asleep. Eliza read a copy of
Vogue,
happy to have a bit of quiet time away from the little devils. Mara looked at her watch anxiously.

Finally Esperanza, the Perrys’ full-time housekeeper, appeared at the door. “
Dios mío,
I forgot to tell you. Laurie say Miss Anna out shopping and Mister Kevin playing tennis.”

Oh.

tanning is eliza’s favorite sport

“MAR, PASS THE SUNTAN OIL,” ELIZA ORDERED FROM
behind her wraparound shades. The sun was blinding, but that wasn’t the reason she hadn’t taken off her sunglasses all day.

Earlier that morning the Doublemint twins had found her wiping up Cody’s daily spill in the sun-filled breakfast room. They were dressed in matching skimpy satin nightgowns and cashmere bathrobes. “Ew, gross,” Sugar had said, daintily stepping away from the mess.

“How can you even touch that?” Poppy asked.

Eliza’s cheeks burned as she scrubbed the floor on her knees. She hadn’t counted on the twins getting up so early.

“Did you call Kit?” Poppy asked her sister. “What time is he picking us up to hit Sunset Beach?”

Sugar gave Poppy a warning look, not so subtly motioning toward Eliza, who could hear them perfectly even if their backs were turned to her.

“I don’t know; let’s check later,” Sugar said, taking a banana
from the fruit bowl. “Hey, Eliza, did you remember to call Jean-Luc to make us a reservation?” Poppy asked.

“Yeah, you’re booked for eight-thirty,” Eliza mumbled, picking up the baby from his high chair.

“You made sure we got the corner table, right?”

“That’s what they told me.”

“Huh. Well, if we’re seated anywhere else, I’m so not going to be very happy,” Poppy threatened.

Sugar shrugged, gave Eliza a half-scornful, half-pitying look, and followed her sister out of the room.

After they were gone, Eliza had quietly sobbed into Cody’s Diaper Genie. It just wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. . . . She was a good person, underneath the fading five-hundred-dollar highlights, and she hadn’t done anything in her life to deserve being treated that way. Cody watched her in fascination as she sniffed and blew her nose loudly.

“One day, when you grow up and come into your trust fund, promise me you’ll try to get them disinherited,” she told him, cuffing his chin.

Her eyes were still red and puffy from her run-in with the two wicked stepsisters when she went out to join the others by the pool. But that was what big Gucci sunglasses were made for.

* * *

“Mara—the suntan lotion, please?” Eliza snapped, still holding out her palm.

“Oh, sorry,” Mara said, looking up from the side of the
Infinity Edge pool, where she was trying to coax Cody into the water. She was a little annoyed that both Eliza and Jacqui acted like they were getting paid to laze about and sunbathe in their skimpy bikinis. The two of them had been comatose on their lounge chairs all afternoon, hardly lifting a finger to help—even when William fell in and pretended to drown. “Psych!” he’d yelled when Mara dove in after him, still in her shorts and T-shirt. And Madison was stuffing her face, but no one had the energy to find yet another of her junk food hiding places.

The only time the two had shown any motivation was when Kevin Perry passed through on his way to his golf game. Eliza had jumped to help William with his scuba mask, and Jacqui had assumed interest in the book Zoë seemed to be reading out loud to herself. Unfortunately, the little girl wasn’t actually reading any words, just pretending to by repeating the instructions her mother gave to their housekeeper every morning. “Make sure you alphabetize the spices in the pantry.” “When my trainer arrives, tell him to meet me in the studio.” “Please make sure you are using the environmentally safe tile cleaner I bought from Amsterdam.”

“So how are our girls doing?” Kevin had asked, his gaze resting on Jacqui’s spectacular MTV-rocks-Cancún body, barely covered by two seashell-trimmed crochet triangles and a matching thong.

“You missed a spot,” he said, coming over to wipe a smudge
of white sunblock goop on Jacqui’s shoulders. He rubbed it in with his thumb. “There, that’s better.”

Mara and Eliza blanched. But Jacqui didn’t flinch from his touch and returned his stare with an impudent smile of her own. With her luck, maybe she wouldn’t need to do anything this summer except keep the kids’ dad’s imagination well occupied. Besides, nothing could put a damper on her blissful state. Luca had promised he would take her to the very charming and quaint Farmhouse restaurant later that evening. And it was actually just down the street in East Hampton and not an hour away.

When Kevin departed, Jacqui and Eliza flopped down on their lounge chairs again. Mara sighed. She didn’t know what to do about her two coworkers. She expected them to be closer after William’s sunstroke accident and the night of truth, but no such luck. Jacqui was completely preoccupied with Luca, and Eliza was acting aloof and distant. So the three were only really speaking when they were dealing with the kids or complaining about the Perrys. Although there really wasn’t that much to grouse about—Anna and Kevin were hardly ever home. It wasn’t as if she had no troubles of her own. Lately Jim had been pressuring her to take a weekend off, get on the New London ferry, and get her behind back to Sturbridge.

“Here,” Mara said, getting up and slapping Eliza’s palm with the orange bottle.

“Thanks.”

Eliza massaged the oil into her skin, all the while exorcising the twins’ insults from her memory. She counted herself lucky because unlike Sugar and Poppy, she didn’t freckle or burn but browned to an even golden color.

She didn’t have their money, but at least she could do one thing they couldn’t.

She could tan.

eliza gives the gardener a free show

THE SOUND OF CLIPPING SHEARS STARTLED THE GIRLS,
and they all turned around to see a very cute dark-haired guy in a holey T-shirt and weathered jeans trimming the hedges. Eliza looked up questioningly, and the guy met her gaze for a second before dropping his eyes back down to his task.

He’s checking me out,
Eliza thought, a little annoyed but also a little intrigued. She stretched her legs and arched her back as she slowly rubbed her chest and bare flat stomach with SPF 4 carrot juice.

When she turned on her back and untied the strings, she caught him looking again. Ugh. How rude. She rolled her eyes. But a minute later she peeked at him from behind her lowered Gucci wraparounds.

Broad shoulders, blue eyes underneath that icky fishing hat. Hmmm . . . possibly even cute?

As if she would ever be interested.

Let him look,
Eliza thought.
It’s probably the highlight of his life.

“C’mon, Cody, it’s just the kiddie pool, it’s just water, it won’t hurt you,” Mara said, trying to soothe the trembling child.

“YES, IT WILL! HA HA HA!” William said, splashing on his baby brother as he cannonballed in.

“Ignore him.”

“Ah, just throw him in,” a jovial voice joked. The girls looked up to see Ryan Perry—bare chested and wearing faded jams, stretching his legs to get ready for his afternoon laps.

“Hey, dude, are you heading over to the thing at Sunset later?” Eliza called. What was it about Ryan Perry? Eliza wondered. He was superhot, but somehow she was never interested. Maybe because she’d known him since they were babies. And seriously, could she ever even think of dating those wretched girls’ brother? She’d pass. But it didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy lording it over Jacqui and Mara that they had a somewhat more special relationship. Her being an old friend of the family and all.

“Maybe.” Ryan nodded, but his attention was focused elsewhere. He knelt down to where Mara was wrapping Cody in a towel.

“Hey, when do you want to get together for that long-delayed Scrabble game?” he asked.

“What? Oh . . . sure. Anytime,” Mara said, smiling.

“Cool.”

They grinned at each other, and Ryan dove headfirst into the pool. Mara missed Jim, but it was hard—every time she called, he was either drunk in Andrus Field with his boys or helping customers (who happened to sound awfully young and female) at his
uncle’s car dealership. And Ryan was so nice to her. If she’d let herself think about it, she’d have already realized that Ryan was nicer to her than Jim had ever been.