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"This is just the beginning, my friend. In the fall, we're having this huge party at the Rainbow Room to launch a couple of new sites we've developed. You've got to be there," Duffy said, handing her a marijuana pipe. "You're in New York, right?"
"What's wrong?" Ben asked, noticing her face fall.
"I might not be," Jacqui confessed, exhaling and coughing.
"Why not?" Grant asked, accepting the pipe and taking a huge hit of his own.
"My bosses are getting a divorce," she blurted. She hadn't been able to tell Mara about it because of Ryan, but she felt safe telling the guys. It wasn't as if they could do anything about it anyway. "And if they get a divorce, I have to leave New York and go back to Sao Paulo in September."
All three guys looked like they had just been told their stock had dropped three hundred points.
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a team of horses can't drag ryan away from the waves
"YOU'RE LEAVING?" MARA ASKED, TRYING NOT TO SOUND TOO
disappointed.
Ryan shrugged. He looked around the crowded VIP tent at the Bridgehampton Polo Club, frowning. He'd agreed to accompany her to the polo, something he wouldn't have been caught dead at otherwise.
The traditional afternoon event had become a commercial circus. It was little more than a platform for corporate advertising-- one week, a telecom company, the next, a tropical island tourism authority, their logos draped all over the tents. He cringed in distaste as a pinched-faced woman walked through the crowd, draped in several hundred carats' worth of diamonds.
Mara was pleased that he had accompanied her to the event but had become distressed when, after the first chukker, he'd become completely bored with the constant posturing of the crowd. He'd stood in a corner by himself, looking restless and nursing his drink.
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She knew there was nothing Ryan disliked more than having to attend some snobby social event. He liked nightclubs fine but had no particular interest in spending an afternoon watching wealthy old men hit a ball across a field. During the first summer she'd spent in the Hamptons, he'd only attended the polo because he'd heard she would be there. Later, he'd confided that he thought polo was the most pretentious sport: since it cost so much money to play, it was just about showing off.
"You know this isn't my scene. Besides, you're busy," he said, trying not to make it sound like an accusation. "Don't you have to get that guy to give you a sound bite?" he asked, nodding toward the back of the tent, where, bordered by a velvet rope and several menacing bodyguards (the VIP tent?), stood Boris Carter, the arrogant celebrity host everyone was gawking at shamelessly. Boris was the star of such movies as No Guts, No Glory 1, 2, and 3 --a trilogy based on a popular video game.
So far, the actor, famous for his squinty-eyed Texan stare and broken nose, had rebuffed all of Mara's attempts to nail a few quotes. He'd had the temerity to tell Mara that "talking to her was not part of his job." Apparently, the self-important Hollywood star had been paid a princely sum to attend the event but explained to Mara through his bodyguards that his appearance fee did not include having to grant interviews to the press. Mara had been in the middle of arguing with his publicist on the phone from Los Angeles when Ryan tapped her on the shoulder.
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"I think I'm gonna take off. You seem pretty busy, like always."
"I'm not always busy," Mara replied. "You make it sound like all I do is work."
"Well, don't you?" Ryan asked. Mara's Diary column was a huge hit, having quickly turned into a Hamptons must-read. Her outsider-turned-insider tone hit a comic nerve with loyal readers. Her mailbox was stuffed with invites, and her presence was requested at a fabulous bash every night of the week.
Already, her busy schedule had driven a bit of a wedge between them--Ryan was always trying to get Mara to blow off her job so they could spend more time together. "It's not like you're writing for Newsweek," he'd said under his breath the other evening when he'd wanted her to hang out with him and his friends and Mara had chosen to stay at home to bang out an assignment. "It's superficial celeb gossip stuff--you can do it in your sleep."
Mara tried not to feel too insulted. Why couldn't he just chill? Just the week before, they'd been getting along so well. Then they'd hosted a kick-ass Fourth of July bash on the boat. The party had been the first time they had entertained friends together as a couple, and the evening had been perfect. Eliza had brought Jeremy, and Jacqui had brought not one but three dates. All eight of them had had a blast.
"If you can just wait, I'll be done in a few minutes, I swear," she promised, holding up her Black Berry. "I finally got Boris's rep
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to look up his contract to see if it includes interviews. He's going to make Boris talk to me. Right, Lucky?" she asked, looking for backup from the photographer, who was standing next to them.
"Oh, sure." Lucky nodded.
"Wish I could, but the group's doing a paddle-out in a half hour. Why don't you come by afterward?" Ryan asked.
"All right," Mara said, feeling dejected. Ryan had told her about the paddle-out earlier. It was a surfer thing---a big deal with the community, Ryan had explained--surfers liked to commemorate events by gathering together and paddling out on their boards into the ocean as a group activity. This one was for Tinkers twenty-first birthday. Mara couldn't decide if she was more upset that Ryan was leaving the reception or that he was leaving to attend a paddle-out for Tinker.