Jacqui didn't much care about being fired. As long as they did it after she found Luca.
"I miss them," Zoe said. "Tara was supposed to braid my hair today."
"What did they d--" but before Mara could finish her question, a particularly loud firecracker exploded and Cody started to bawl again.
"Oh my God, can you hold him? What should we do?" Eliza said, thrusting the toddler into Mara's arms.
"Shh ... shh ... ," Mara said, rocking him on her lap and trying to hum a lullaby.
"Thees one says she's a little hungry," Jacqui said, pointing to Madison. "Maybe we give her something?" she asked when Mara had her back turned.
"What's in the basket?" Eliza asked.
"Pringles."
"Yeah, fine." Eliza shrugged.
"Here. You," Jacqui said, pushing the Pringles toward Madison, "What is your name?"
"Madison, like Madison Avenue in New York City," the little girl said proudly.
"Ah," said Jacqui, "My name is Jacerei. It is a place in my home, too." Jacqui smiled at her.
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But their bonding was interrupted when Mara looked up. "Hey, where'd William go? William! Stay here! On the blanket! Don't move!" Mara said in her best sophomore class secretary voice. "Zoe, come on, honey, look at all the colors, aren't they nice?"
"Cody, it's okay, baby, it's only fireworks. I know, they're loud, but it's okay," she soothed.
A few minutes later the kids were crowded around Mara, who put an arm around them. "Look at that! The Stars and Stripes! Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?" Mara asked the little girls, who were sitting raptly looking at the night sky. The boys were passed out on the blanket, William utterly spent from chasing dragonflies and Cody sleeping in his stroller with his thumb in his mouth.
Eliza looked at her cell phone. Uh-oh. Time to motor.
"Hey, you know what, I've got to run. I'm meeting some friends ... ," Eliza said, brushing grass stains off her knees and starting to walk away.
"Excuse me?" Mara asked.
"Where are you
going?" Jacqui asked.
"Party. Wanna come?" Eliza said.
"Sim. "Jacqui nodded, standing up.
"Yeah, after all, you've got things under control here, right, Mary?" Eliza asked. But before Mara could answer, Eliza and Jacqui were running down the hill as fast as their stilettos would take them.
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resort is the hottest party in the hamptons. at least until next week.
Eliza took a deep breath as she scanned the mob scene outside Resort. Five hundred people were elbowing each other to get closer to the velvet-roped entrance, and there was a backup of twenty stretch limos parked on the driveway, waiting to discharge their famous (or merely showy) passengers. Toothpick-sized women with significant cleavage, lathered in layers of foundation, blush, and hair spray, wearing brightly colored tank tops and formfitting knee-length skirts, picked their way across the gravel in spindly sandals. Their dates, slick older men with artificial tans, jangled enormous gold bracelets on their hairy wrists.
Two spotlights directed up in the air lit the entire scene like a movie set. Several overwhelmed publicists tried to control the crowd while burly, three-hundred-pound bouncers glared at the overeager revelers.
Eliza fought her way to the front armed with the magic words: I'm on the list!
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