The au pairs skinny-dipping (21 page)

WAKING UP IN AN UNFAMILIAR BED IS NEVER FUN.

The way
the
sunlight hits you--lemony-stark, unflattering, and speckled with dust--it's like the world is punishing you for your clandestine actions the night before. Even though Mara hadn't hooked up with Garrett the night before--he'd passed out fully clothed the minute they'd gotten into bed--she woke up feeling wretched. Ryan and Eliza were together, and the thought made her chest clench.

Garrett was still sleeping when she got up to put on her clothes from last night. It felt gross--cheap--to wear a feathered evening gown in the morning, and she'd slept with all her makeup on. She looked for her Blahnik sandals but couldn't find them anywhere.

"Heymmmppf," Garrett said, opening one eye and trying to pull Mara back into bed. "Where are you going?"

"I've got to go," Mara said, feeling frantic as she removed his arms from her waist. She picked up her purse from the carpet and scurried out the door without her shoes.

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"Ill calllurrggh," Garrett mumbled.

She sped out the side stairs through the servants' entrance, and through the back yard that separated the Reynolds and Perry properties.

She'd just cleared the hedges in front of the pool, when Ryan appeared with a surfboard tucked under his arm. Just
great.
Just the guy she wanted to see.

Ryan took in Mara's wrinkled dress from the night before, her bare feet, her smeared makeup, and the direction from which she'd come. His face registered contempt.

"Late night?" he asked with an angry smirk.

Mara squared her shoulders. Nothing had happened, but she wasn't going to tell him that. Let him think she'd spent the night with Garrett--let him think she didn't care about him one bit.

"Garrett kept me up for hours," she said, smiling as widely as she could force herself. "I'm
sooo
tired."

Ryan's face contorted angrily. He looked disgusted with her.

"I know about you and Eliza," she said. "So don't even think you're so much better than me."

"What are you
talking
about? You broke up with me in November!" he yelled.

It was the first time Mara had ever seen Ryan show any real anger, any indication that his laid-back, anything-goes attitude could be rattled. It was exactly what she'd needed to see last fall when she'd told him they should just be friends.

"Only because I didn't think you really . . . Oh, forget it,"

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Mara said, turning away. It was too late anyway--he was with Eliza now. She turned and walked briskly back to the au pairs' cottage, trying not to think about what had just happened.

When she got to their room, it was empty. Jacqui was nowhere to be found, and Megan was gone. She hadn't even left a note. Mara collapsed on the single bed, mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. The intercom rang.

She picked it up. "Hello?"

"Is that any way to answer the phone?" Anna Perry's clipped voice asked.

"Oh, sorry," Mara answered.

"The children are waiting for their breakfast. Am I correct in assuming you still work for us?"

"I'll be there right away, Anna," she said grudgingly, wondering where on earth Jacqui had disappeared to, and why the fuck she hadn't told her about Eliza and Ryan.

Some friends those two had turned out to be.

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babies cry when you take

away their candy

KARTIK HAD ASKED ELIZATO HELP MITZI WITH THE
day-after wrap-up from the fashion show, so now she was back after only a few hours of sleep. The ground crew was stacking all the chairs, and empty goody bags blew through the tent like tumbleweeds. Eliza sat in a meeting with Mitzi and the other assistants, everyone yawning behind dark sunglasses and sipping from venti nonfat lattes, rehashing the gossip from the night before.

"Okay, so we need to messenger a goody bag to any celeb who didn't get one last night," Mitzi said, looking over her checklist. "Chauncey Raven's publicist called. Chauncey needs one."

Eliza nodded. That was
so
like a celebrity. She could have forty million in the bank, but she really
needed
that Kiehl's lip balm and Swarovski-crystal-encrusted Sidekick.

"We need to follow up on a couple of items today, too--we lent several girls a few dresses to wear, and we need to get them

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back. Just send the usual messengers. We do have a special case, however. Sugar Perry has a Chanel, and we need to get it back for Karl's show in Paris tomorrow. It's really important, since it's the only sample we have right now. Eliza, you know Sugar, right? Can you handle that personally?"

"Sure," Eliza said, trying not to roll her eyes.

Pulling into the Perrys' driveway, she was glad to see that Ryan's car wasn't there. Last night, Ryan had called her cell phone six times, but she hadn't picked up, and she'd deleted his messages without listening to them.

After throwing her drink at Ryan last night, she'd run out of the club in tears, and right into Jeremy and Carolyn. He'd tried to grab her arm, but she'd kept walking. It was funny how things worked out: All she'd wanted was to be with Jeremy this summer, and now here he was with someone else, and here she was, crying over a guy who wasn't even him. Except that on the ride home, the woods dark on either side of the car as she sped through night, she'd stopped crying about Ryan and started crying about Jeremy.

Eliza rang the doorbell and asked the butler for Sugar. She braced herself for a fight. Sugar Perry wasn't the kind of girl who would give up a one-of-a-kind couture dress that easily.

Sure enough, when Eliza walked into Sugar's all-white bedroom, the first thing Sugar said was, "Who let you in?" She was wearing a sheer T-shirt and boy-shorts, and the reality-TV cameramen were taping her every move.

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Eliza shrugged. "Mitzi wants the dress back."

"What dress?" Sugar asked innocently, doing back-bends. Sugar had been up since dawn, doing sun salutations. She always got up early, regardless of a hangover.

"The Chanel. It's the only one, and we need it for Karl's show."

"Oh, that one," Sugar said. "I don't know where it is."

"You lost it?" Eliza asked, incredulous. "I mean, you wore it home, didn't you?"

"I suppose." Sugar giggled. "I don't remember."

"Listen, Sugar, I really don't care. I'm just doing my job. Could we get the dress back? It's not yours, you know."

"Fine," Sugar said. She opened the door to her dressing room and rooted in the pile of clothes on the floor. She tossed a shredded silk rag at Eliza.

"Oh my God," Eliza said. "It's ruined."

"Charlie stepped on the train, and I think Poppy burned a hole in it with her cigarette. Sorry!" Sugar smiled fakely.

Eliza held up the pale pink Chanel dress to the camera. She couldn't believe anyone could be so reckless, even someone as spoiled as Sugar Perry. "You know Daria Werbowy is supposed to wear it on the runway tomorrow! Mitzi told you to be careful!" Eliza spat at her.

"I was careful. It wasn't my fault, okay?" Sugar said impatiently. "Besides, can't he just, like, make another dress? I mean, that's what designers do, right?"

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Eliza stuffed the dress into a brown paper bag, pushing past the cameramen. Eliza knew Mitzi would be furious, and that she, rather than Sugar, would bear the brunt of her fury. Celebrity trumped all else. That much Eliza had learned this summer.

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the best things in life are . . . covered by insurance? (let's hope!)

WHEN MARA ARRIVED BACK FROM HER DAY OF BABYSITTING,
she was still seething that Jacqui hadn't told her about Eliza and Ryan. She'd hardly seen Eliza all summer, but she'd slept in the same room as Jacqui almost every night.

"Ivan Jewelers called for you," Laurie said, as Mara shooed the kids into their playroom.

"Oh?"

"They sent a messenger this afternoon to pick up some . . . earrings? But you hadn't left a package or anything, so I sent them away."

The earrings. The two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar earrings. Right. Mitzi had told her they would send someone to pick them up the day after the party. She'd completely forgotten.

Mara ran out to the au pairs' cottage. The message light next to the answering machine was blinking.

"Mara, hiii! It's Mitzi. You were gorgeous last night, dollink! Anyway, hon, I gotta get those earrings back to Ivan. Put them in

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the case and just leave them with your assistant so the messenger can pick them up. Thanks!
Bye-yeee."

"Mara, hiiii! It's Mitzi again. Listen, hon, the messenger says there wasn't a package for him at the house. You must have forgotten. Call me and let me know--Ivan really needs them because J.Lo is going to wear them to the MTV Music Video Awards. Thanks, sweetie. Bye-yeee."

Mara ransacked her dresser. She
swore
she'd taken them off when she got back to the cottage that morning and put them in the little velvet case next to Jacqui's watch, but when she opened the case, they weren't there. They weren't in her other jewelry box, either, or on the sink, where she sometimes put the Mikimoto pearls. Could she have left them at Garrett's the night before?

She called Garrett and explained the situation. "Nope, nothing here. The only thing missing from this room is you, doll face," Garrett drawled.

She hung up on him, frantic.

Could Megan have taken them? No way, Megan had left before Mara arrived home--and please, her sister? She was so honest she'd actually called Target to tell them they hadn't charged her for something she'd ordered. Could she have lost them at the fashion show? Earrings didn't just fall out, did they?

She was certain she had taken them off right when she arrived that morning--right after seeing Ryan--but why weren't they there?

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The phone rang. Mara picked it up. "Hello?"

"Mara! Dollink! So glad I caught you. Listen, can you leave those earrings in a package for pickup tomorrow? Thanks, doll!"

"Sure," Mara said weakly, her stomach churning. She'd signed for them so blithely, agreeing to legal and financial responsibility for the value of the earrings in case of loss or theft. But this must happen all the time, right? Mara remembered reading something about Paris Hilton losing a diamond bracelet at some club.

But then, Paris was famous, and as Mara had come to see at the fashion show, she ...
wasn't.

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with friends like these, who needs the perry twins?

JACQUI RETURNED FROM MONTAUK MUCH LATER IN THE

afternoon, since Philippe had taken the car last night without any thought as to how Jacqui was going to get home herself. She'd had to take the bus, which took a winding route and stopped roughly every five seconds. The many hours she spent in transit gave Jacqui ample time to feel incredibly stupid about risking everything just to be with Philippe, especially when he had been Anna's boy toy all along. She was angry at herself for not sticking to her resolution and disappointed that she'd believed Philippe when he'd said there was nothing going on between him and Anna. But they hadn't been caught--not really, anyway--and even if Anna had Philippe, at least everything else was still going to work out, especially the job in New York.

When she got back, she found the au pairs' room in chaos and Mara in the middle of the mess, looking frantic, her hair awry; the sheets, pillows, and blankets piled haphazardly on the perimeter; and all of Jacqui's clothes, shoes, scarves, bikinis, underwear, tissues, and magazines laid out on the bed.

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"Merda! What
on earth? Mara, what are you doing!?"

"You!" Mara accused, looking up from her search. She forgot the earrings for a moment. There was something more important she wanted to confront Jacqui about. "You knew all along, didn't you?"

"Me? What? What are you talking about?" Jacqui said, confused.

"Ryan and Eliza. You were there in Palm Beach. You knew they'd hooked up. And you never told me?"

"Hang on. Hang on," Jacqui said, stepping slowly into the room as if Mara were a cornered and dangerous animal.

"You knew, didn't you?" Mara demanded, her eyes flashing with anger.

"About Ryan and Eliza? Yes, I did. Mara, I'm so sorry. I wanted to tell you ... I just didn't think it was my business--"

Mara recoiled. "I would have told you if it was your boyfriend!"

Jacqui blinked. "Mara, he
wasn't
your boyfriend. You broke up with him, remember?"

Mara didn't have an answer to that. Instead, she made a throaty noise and resumed her search.

"But what is going on here?" Jacqui asked, taking another careful step into the room, holding up her hands like Mara might attack at any second. "Why is the place all torn up?"

"I am looking--for--my--earrings!" Mara said in an agonized voice.

"O . . . kay . . ." Jacqui said, still holding up her hands. "What earrings?"