"Why would I?" Mara asked, alarmed.
Jacqui shrugged. She put down the stack of clothes she was sorting through. She wasn't about to help Mara do anything.
Just then, the door opened, and Eliza entered, not realizing she was walking into a landmine.
"Oh, look! Another lying slut," Mara said. She'd had enough time to get really worked up about Eliza and Ryan while she'd been desperately searching. "You probably took the earrings just to spite me or something."
"What are you talking about?" Eliza asked, confused.
Jacqui quickly explained about the earrings.
"Listen, Eliza, I know you've been jealous of me this whole summer. I know you just want what I have, but I really didn't think . . . I didn't think you would do something so underhanded."
"What are you talking about?" Eliza demanded, leaning forward as if that would help her understand why Mara was being such a total bitch.
Mara snapped. "I know all about Palm Beach."
Eliza looked startled. "But I thought you already knew about Palm Beach. I thought you didn't care."
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s k i n n y - d i p p i n g
"Who told you that?" Mara scoffed.
"Sugar," Eliza said.
"It doesn't even matter if I knew or not," Mara spat. "I can't believe you would do something like that to me."
"You guys had broken up! And I did mean to tell you . . . but then Sugar and Poppy said you already knew and didn't care . . . and ..." Eliza said, her voice trailing off when she realized what a mistake she had made. Of course Sugar had lied to her. That was what Sugar did--she lied.
"So you think it's okay to date my boyfriend behind my back?"
"Your ^c-boyfriend. You have a new boyfriend now, Mara. Or did you forget? And we weren't going behind anyone's back. We just didn't want anyone getting hurt," Eliza said.
We. We. We. That hurt Mara more than anything Eliza had said. She and Ryan were a We. The two of them, Ryan and Eliza, were a couple.
"But you knew how I felt about Ryan," Mara said. She could have lived with knowing they'd had a one-night stand in Palm Beach, maybe, but a whole summer of the two of them? Together? Behind her back? What was Eliza thinking? "You knew I still liked him," Mara said.
"How would I know that? We barely hung out this summer," Eliza argued.
"Yeah, you ignored me the whole time," Mara replied.
It was true. Eliza had avoided Mara out of guilt at first, but as
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the summer wore on, and her job wore her down, and Jeremy ignored her, she had found comfort in Ryan. She'd been using Ryan as a Band-Aid to forget about Jeremy. But the Jeremy wound had never healed. She was still in love with Jeremy, and she'd wasted the whole summer with Ryan. And lost a best friend. Mara, Eliza, and Jacqui stared at each other, hating one another for more reasons than they could possibly say.
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it takes e-v-i-l to spell handsome devil
MARA HAD TURNED THE ENTIRE COTTAGE INSIDE OUT, searched the footpaths and the bushes next to the pool, the country club grounds where she'd brought the kids that day-- although the possibility of both earrings falling off her ears was highly unlikely. As the days passed, it was looking more and more like someone had deliberately stolen them.
Mitzi Goober had taken to tele-stalking Mara--her cell phone, the phone in the room, and the main house phone rang incessantly, and it was always Mitzi or one of Mitzi's assistants asking if Mara could please call back and let them know when Ivan could expect his earrings returned. Mitzi had even come by herself, since the MTV Awards show was in two days, but thankfully Mara had been out with the kids at the beach. Finally, Ivan himself had called, screaming and threatening legal action.
It was a Thursday evening, and Garrett was supposed to pick her up at seven so they could go to a dinner his parents were throwing at Alison by The Beach to celebrate the sale of his