The Au Pairs (The Au Pairs 1)

"I'll put you on the list."

"Hey, have you seen Charlie around, by the way?"

Kit gave her a furtive glance. "Last I heard, he was dating some hoochie he met in summer school."

20

"Huh."

"I'm sure it's not serious."

"Kit, you're too sweet."

She remembered Charlie's face, crumpled in disbelief, when she told him over Christmas that it was probably not a good idea for them to see each other anymore. For weeks afterward he had left her voice mails wondering where she had gone. She wasn't at school. She wasn't at Jackson Hole after school. She wasn't at Barneys on Saturday mornings or at Bungalow 8 on Thursday nights. Then she changed her cell number to a local Buffalo area code (some luxuries are just necessiti

es), and she stopped getting the messages. Eliza had thought it would be easier if she just disappeared--she knew that she might break down and tell him everything if she saw him, and that was a risk she simply could not afford to take.

The convertible inched its way out of the city, and Kit paid the toll at the Triborough Bridge. Eliza savored the freeway signs as they sped east, Long Island towns with funny-sounding names like Hicksville, Ronkonkoma, and Yaphank bidding her on her way, taking her back to where she belonged.

She relaxed for the first time that day. So far, so good. Kit had bought her story about boarding school and her "uncle," she was already invited to some pretty fabu soirees in the Hamptons, and even if her ex-boyfriend was currently unavailable, Eliza loved him and was coming back to retrieve what was rightfully hers.

21

Mara Discovers the rules for hamptons travel

"Ah, de Hamptons, berry, berry rich people there," the bearded cabdriver told Mara when she told him where she was headed.

"So I've heard," she agreed. Her sister Megan, the US Weekly addict, had given her the full run-down before she left. "I hear Resort is hot this summer but stay away from the Star Room-- it's so over. And try to get a table at Bamboo if you can." As if Mara had any idea what she was talking about. For Mara the Hamptons was the episode on Sex and the City where Carrie goes to stay with a friend and accidentally sees her friend's husband naked. Mara knew it was some sort of rich summer place, but she went to the Cape every summer--it couldn't be much different from that, could it?

"Very, very rich people, yes. You lika Jerry Seinfeld? Billy Joel? They inda Hamptons all dee time. The guy who dated Jennifer Lopez before this Affleck. He has big party this weekend. Piff Daddy."

22

"P. Diddy?" Mara laughed.

"Yeah, him. I useta drive limo for him. Big party. Big, big fireworks. So many beautiful people. So thin. All the girls, thin, thin, thin." He angled back to appraise Mara. "You thin. You rich?"

"No, I'm not rich," Mara said. "I'm going to be working for some rich people, though."

"Ah, not rich. Working girl, eh?"

"That's right."

"Here Forty-third and Third. Jitney over there," he said, waving toward a large silver-and-green bus with The Hampton Jitney in cheerful lettering on the back.

"Great!" Mara said, giving him the exact amount on the meter. "Here you go, thank you very, very much!" She scurried out of the cab and slammed the door.

"No tip?" the confused cabdriver asked to the empty air.

Mara ran to find another long line waiting for her in front of the Jitney. She shuffled patiently to the front, where a tough- looking middle-aged woman wearing a fanny pack stood with a clipboard.

"Name?"

"Mara Waters."

"Waters, Waters, Waters ... Huh. I don't see you. Did you make a reservation?"

"Was I supposed to?" Mara asked, a little nervous.