Skinny Dipping (The Au Pairs 2)

And it was the opposite of glamorous when she'd opened her pay envelope and found out how much, exactly, she was actually making while working at Seventh Circle. She had stormed into Alan's office, insisting that a mistake had been made. Alan glanced at her check. It appeared there had been a mistake--they hadn't taken FICA taxes out, and the amount should have been even less. Eliza did the math and realized she was barely clearing minimum wage. When she complained to Kit, he told her that when he'd interned at Rolling Stone one semester after school, he

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hadn't been paid a dime. It was a prestige job, not a paying one. Eliza was privileged enough to work at Seventh Circle, and surely, since her parents were doing better, she didn't really need the money, right?

Except that she kind of did. Her parents had been generous enough to provide her the use of a MasterCard again, but after several trips to Calypso, Tracy Feith, and Georgina, she'd already maxed it out. She had to find a different stylish and sexy outfit to wear to work every night, and that was getting hard to do on a limited budget.

The job at Seventh Circle was supposed to be her entree back into the good life, but instead of becoming an important fixture on the scene, like a junior Mitzi Goober, Eliza found herself catering to her former friends instead. The other day, she'd had to arrange for Sugar to bungee-jump off the top of the liquor cabinet--to the delight of her camera crew--and then sweep up the broken bottles she'd sent smashing to the floor.

Eliza arrived at the au pair cottage just in time to catch Mara and Jacqui counting the money in their pay envelopes. Philippe had already left for the weekend, citing an invitation from friends in Sag Harbor. Eliza felt a little ill seeing all that cash.

"Can we go to the bank?" Mara asked happily. If she spent one

more summer working for the Perrys, she would have her entire college contribution covered.

Jacqui stuck her pay envelope into her bureau drawer carelessly, taking out several hundred-dollar bills just in case they

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went anywhere fun. She planned to use most of the money to pay for her SAT class, which was expensive but would hopefully be worth it.

"What's all this?" Eliza asked, noticing two rolling racks of clothes jammed in the corner. "Oh my God--are those the Sally Hershberger jeans?" Eliza squealed, pouncing on a pair of distressed denim jeans that retailed for one thousand dollars. "I want these," Eliza said covetously, holding the jeans up to the light and examining them closely. "How on earth did you get them?" she asked Mara.

"Mara's famous," Jacqui teased, rifling through the shopping bags and finding a pretty psychedelic Pucci scarf. It was true. Garrett Reynolds was the heir to a billion-dollar fortune, and the papers chronicled his love life with the same zeal with which they documented the spiraling construction costs of the Reynolds Castle. (The blueprints had recently been leaked to the press, revealing the home's thirty-five bathrooms.) Garrett's former girlfriends included actresses like Kate Bosworth and rock royalty like Keith Richards's model daughter Theodora. Mara's relatively obscure background made her even more of a choice subject to the press, especially Lucky Yap, who loved to run photos of the very public, very attractive couple. Page Six had nicknamed them "Beauty and the Billionaire Boy."

Mara blushed and explained in an apologetic tone that they were "gifts" from designers to wear around town.

"You mean these are free?" Eliza gasped. No wonder Mara had

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looked so good the other night at Seventh Circle. Eliza's eyes widened as she pawed through the loot. The leopard-print Shoshanna cape! The latest Alvin Valley leather-band trousers! The turquoise-encrusted Marni dress! The two-thousand-dollar Devi Kroell python clutch!

"Wow, that is crazy," Eliza said. "I can't believe you have all these!"

The Sally Hershberger jeans! She'd been lusting for a pair ever since she read about them in Vogue. They were supposed to be the best jeans on earth, the softest, rarest European and Japanese denim cut by the hand by Sally Hershberger--the Hollywood stylist who charged six hundred dollars for a haircut.

"Do you think I could borrow them? We're the same size, right?" Eliza asked, pulling the jeans out and pressing them against her legs.

"Oh, I don't know," Mara said nervously. "I had to sign all these responsibility forms."

Eliza pouted. "That's only a formality. They really won't want these back ever. Right, Jac?"

Jacqui shrugged. "They usually let you keep them, but it depends, I guess."

Eliza had already stepped out of her cargos and zipped up the jeans. "They look amazing! I can't believe they sent them to you" She said.

"Why not?" Mara asked, feeling a little hurt. Eliza hadn't come over to hang out with them all summer and now that she

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was here, she didn't seem to think Mara deserved the free clothes from Mitzi.

Eliza didn't answer. She was too excited to be wearing the jeans. "Can I borrow them? Please, please, please? With sugar on top?"

"Oh, all right," Mara said, caving in. "But if anything happens to them . . . !" she raked her thumb across her neck.

Eliza squealed and hugged Mara tightly. "I owe you!"