The au pairs skinny-dipping (14 page)

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Eliza reacted as if slapped. "Stop acting like a bitch!"

"I'm a bitch? You're the one who's been acting so weird all summer!" Mara said, knowing it was true. Eliza had blown her off almost all summer and had been short with her when they had hung out.

They glared at each other. Last summer, the two of them had had a hard time seeing eye to eye, and they'd done their share of bickering. But this was so much worse.

"Oh God, I feel sick," Mara said, holding a hand to her mouth and clutching her stomach with the other. Then she leaned over and threw up all over Eliza's new Marc Jacobs shoes.

Before blacking out, the last thing Mara remembered was seeing a look of utter disgust on Ryan's face.

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you'll always love

your first love

SEVENTH CIRCLE CLOSED AT 5 A.M., AND ELIZA PUNCHED
her card and walked through the empty club to the staff rooms in the back. The fight with Mara had rattled her. Not only had she gotten yelled at by her bosses, since she'd barely gotten Mara down from the table before the health inspector saw what was going on, but her new shoes were ruined, and unlike Mara, she didn't have several free pairs waiting at home. She felt tired and defeated and a little resentful. How was it that
she
--Eliza Thompson, who used to run rampant through a slew of Manhattan nightclubs--was now the one who was dead sober at the end of the evening, with puke-covered shoes, no less?

She slid her feet from the mottled suede heels and put on a pair of flip-flops and a bulky Princeton sweatshirt that was as long as her skirt. The bar backs were hosing down the bar and the night porter had arrived to clear the garbage. She said good-bye to Milly, the coat-check girl, and split her tips with the three waitresses. They'd had a decent evening because Eliza had decided that names

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could magically appear on the list with the help of a hundred-dollar bribe. She had to supplement her meager income somehow.

"You're still here?" she asked, seeing Ryan Perry sitting alone by the bar.

He nodded. "What do you mean? I never leave," he joked. "Nah. I was waiting for you. Just wanted to make sure you get home safe."

"That's sweet," she said. She was glad they still had that easy connection and that their friendship was just the same as it was before.

"Want a drink? You look like you need one," Ryan offered.

"I'm the one who works here, remember? Johnnie? Could we have one for the road?" The bar back nodded and provided them with two glasses of whiskey.

"None for me, thanks," Ryan said.

"Well, then--I'll have yours too. Shame to let it go to waste," Eliza smiled, sipping her glass. "God, what was up with Mara tonight?"

"I have absolutely no idea," Ryan said, tapping his knuckles on the counter.

"Me either," Eliza said, raising her glass in a mock salute.

"I'll drive you home," he offered, when Eliza finished off the second tumbler.

"But--my car." Eliza motioned to her Jetta parked in the lot.

"I'll have Laurie send someone out to get it tomorrow," Ryan told her.

They drove with the top down on Ryan's car, and Eliza found herself telling him about how her job at Seventh Circle wasn't

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everything she'd thought it would be. She shook out a cigarette from her pack and lit it. "Want one?" she asked him. Ryan shook his head, then thought better of it. Eliza helped him light his cigarette, cupping it against the wind.

"Thanks," Ryan said, talking from the side of his mouth as he steered the car to the highway.

Eliza exhaled a huge plume of smoke. "And Jeremy hasn't even called me in two weeks," she complained. "I have no idea what's going on between us. He tells me he missed me all year, but then he like, drops off the face of the earth."

Ryan nodded in sympathy. Eliza put her bare feet up on the dashboard, feeling more relaxed and comfortable than she had in a long time. "So what's going on with you and Allison?" she asked.

"Not much." He shrugged. "I think she's into me, but we're just friends."

"Dude, everyone likes you," Eliza emphasized. "That's so not news."

He laughed and tapped the ashes from his cigarette in the wind. "I wish."

"Mara and Garrett look pretty cozy, huh?" Eliza noted, not to be mean, but just as an observation. "They're at the club together almost every night."

"I guess," Ryan shrugged. "She's different now."

When they arrived in front of Eliza's house, she hesitated before getting out of the car. "You want to maybe come in for a

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little bit?" she asked. "I'm so wired and I know I won't be able to sleep for a while yet. We could watch
Godfather Two.
..."

"Sure." Ryan shrugged. He didn't seem to want to be alone just yet either.

Ryan sat back on the couch, and Eliza tiptoed out of the kitchen holding a bowl of micro waved popcorn and two bottles of Diet Coke. She popped the DVD in. It was so natural, hanging out with Ryan. He'd been in the background all her life. She remembered how when they were little, their families used to vacation together in the Bahamas at Christmas. They'd learned to ski together on the slopes of Aspen. Eliza remembered Ryan's mom-- his real mom, Brigitte--saying the two of them would make a good couple when they grew up. Back then, Sugar and Poppy were still called Susan and Priscilla, and they'd followed Eliza around like little puppies, competing with each other to be the one to brush her hair or be her ski-lift partner. The twins sure had changed, but Ryan was still die same--still here, still right next to her.

Robert De Niro was beating up some guys on the screen, and Eliza leaned back on the couch, nestling her head on Ryan's shoulder. But when Ryan leaned down to say something, their lips met instead. She didn't mean for it to happen, but instead of pulling away, Eliza opened her mouth to his. He pulled up her sweatshirt and began to unbutton her blouse, unhooking her bra, kissing every inch of her.

She was thinking it was wrong--that she should stop him-- but it felt so . . . right. It was just like in Palm Beach, exactly like

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in Palm Beach--two broken hearts finding comfort in each other. That was all it was really, just hooking up. It didn't mean anything, she told herself.

And then she wasn't thinking of anything at all, because Ryan was kissing her again, and whatever worries she had, whatever doubts about where this was headed (nowhere, she thought), and what it would mean (nothing, she hoped) were made completely irrelevant by the sweet insistence of his lips on hers.

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the doctor is definitely out

"WHERE'S MARA?" ZOE ASKED WHEN JACQUI ARRIVED
to get the kids ready the next morning.

"She's sick," Jacqui said grimly, helping the little girl tie her bathrobe. "It's only me, okay?" Mara had certainly looked green around the gills that morning. Mara had overslept again, and when Jacqui tried to wake her, she'd mumbled something about a killer hangover, which was turning into a frequent excuse. Philippe was gone on another errand for Anna, and Mara and Jacqui had agreed that if Jacqui dealt with the kids yesterday, Mara would take the kids today so Jacqui could study for her SATs. But of course, Mara had flaked again.

"Where's Philippe? Where's Philippe?" William asked, alternately bouncing on his sneakers and gliding on the built-in wheels. Jacqui cursed whoever had invented the damn things-- they made William twice as fast and harder to catch.

"I'm not sure," Jacqui said. "I think your mom needed him to do something for her in the city again." Laurie had told her that

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some French papers Anna wanted translated needed a few more corrections. It sounded incredibly fishy. Since agreeing to Anna's ultimatum, she had kept away from Philippe as directed, which was a little hard to do since every time Philippe caught her alone in the house, he wanted to know when he could see her again. He'd even accused her of playing hard-to-get, which Jacqui found ironic.

"
I told you, she's not my mom!"
William shouted in a deafening tone.

"Okay! Okay! Calm down, please!" Jacqui said.
"Merda!"
she cursed when she realized she'd forgotten to put swimming diapers on Cody. The regular ones weren't waterproof.

"Madison, are you coming with us today?" Jacqui asked. For the past month Madison had been standoffish with the au pairs, since they were technically not responsible for her anymore.

"I'm meeting a friend there," Madison nodded. She was perfectly turned out in a pink bathing suit and a velour cover-up and was primping with a mascara wand in the mirror.

"That's a lot of makeup for the beach, don't you think?" Jacqui asked, amused.

"That bikini's a little revealing, don't you think?" Madison snapped back, applying a deep berry lip gloss.

Jacqui felt a little hurt. She'd bonded with Madison last summer, and this year the child was a little beeyatch. And her stepmother didn't seem to care that the eleven-year-old walked around looking like a little tramp.

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"It just gets a little hot on the beach, and it's bad for your skin," Jacqui said gently.

"I don't care," Madison declared.

Jacqui folded up Cody's stroller. He was getting way too big for it; his legs almost came up to his chin when he sat in it. The "baby" was four years old and he still preferred to ride rather than walk. Just yesterday, when she'd wheeled him out on Main Street, several women had asked her if her boy was "special," i.e., crippled. "Nope, just lazy!" Jacqui had said cheerfully.

For all of Anna's hypervigilance about the kids' diets, academic goals, and spirituality, Jacqui had never seen kids who were so lacking in the basics.

As she ushered them to the garage, they bumped into Dr. Abraham, walking out of a guest suite and munching on a banana. "We're off to the beach today? Hold on!" he said, and before Jacqui could disagree, the doctor ran out of his room carrying his tote bag.

"Looks like I have you all to myself," Dr. Abraham joked, seeing that Mara and Philippe were nowhere in sight.

"If you count the kids as nobody," Jacqui retorted.

The only car left in the lot was the tiny little Toyota Prius, and between Cody's car seat and the doctor's girth, it was a bit of a tight squeeze. Jacqui drove them to nearby Georgica, where the kids dispersed--Madison to look for her friends, William to run up and down the boardwalk, and Zoe to collect seashells.

"Don't go far! Only where I can see you!" Jacqui called out as

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she planted her beach umbrella and spread out her towel. She tied her hair back with the Pucci scarf Mara had told her she could borrow.

She stepped out of her cotton sundress and ignored the doctor's stares. She hoped tliat he would get the message and leave her alone.

The SAT tutorial was a little hard to follow--they'd gone over the verbal part of the exam at the class she'd missed to play pool with Philippe the other week. Jacqui just didn't get the word problems. Rock is to mountain as feather is to A) wing, B) chickens, C) pillow, or D) all of the above. In Portuguese,
rock
also meant "foundation" as well as "soil." In that case, the answer could be A, since wings were made out of feathers--but then, feathers were also the foundation of most pillows, which pointed to C. It was all very confusing.

"Man, that is a boring book!" a voice said from above her.

Jacqui looked up from under her floppy Panama hat and grinned. "Hey, Kit, how are you?"

"I'm good. A little bummed you didn't call the minute you got into town, but I lived," Kit Ashleigh joked, taking a seat next to her. He had a spiky blond crew cut, and he was so pale his nose was already peeling from the sun. He was one of Eliza's best friends, and Jacqui had gotten to know him better in Palm Beach. She knew Kit sort of had a crush on her, but she played it down. She liked Kit--but not in that way. Besides, there was her No More Boys rule, and so long as she was being forced to make it apply to Philippe, it had to apply to Kit as well.

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"I'm sorry. It's been so busy, with the kids. ... I haven't had a day off," Jacqui apologized.

"Who's the dork?" Kit asked, referring to the doctor, who was snoring underneath a paperback copy of Dr. Phil's
Family First.

"A
falsificacao . . .
like a ... duck doctor?" Jacqui had a hard time with American slang.

"Quack?" Kit asked helpfully.

Jacqui nodded excitedly. "Exactly!" Leaning down, she whispered, "I hate him."

Kit nodded. "Let's ditch him," he said conspiratorially.

"What do you have in mind?" Jacqui asked, one finely plucked eyebrow raised.

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