The Au Pairs

  "For what?"

  "Nothing, I just don't want you to cry."

  Eliza giggled, and ran her finger underneath her lower eyelashes to wipe away any makeup. "So, can I borrow the money? Promise I'll pay you back."

  "Oh, alright. I'm charging interest!" Mara joked.

  Eliza hugged Mara impulsively. Eliza bought the sweater and they walked back to Anna's booth, where Jacqui was handing out doughnuts. "Here you go, Chloe," she said, giving Zoe a chocolate-sprinkled one.

  "Chloe?" Anna asked, looking up sharply from writing up a bill of sale for a particularly ugly poncho.

  Eliza elbowed Jacqui. "Zoe."

  "Zoe ... Zoe," Jacqui sang, getting red from her slipup.

  "Zoe's been wanting us to call her by different names lately. This week she's Chloe. Last week it was Julie. Right, Zo?" Mara asked.

  Zoe nodded, rapturously eating her doughnut. She was only six, but she could be bribed.

  When Anna turned her back, Jacqui apologized.

  "Meu deus! I'm so, so sorry. I totally lost my head. I don't know what I was thinking," she said, looking completely wretched. "I don't want to get us in trouble."

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  "It's okay. It could have happened to any of us," Eliza said. "Yeah, don't worry about it."

  They spent the rest of the afternoon stalking a supermodel whom the three of them were obsessed with. As they piled the kids back in the car, Mara and Eliza were just thinking how the day didn't turn out to be such a washout after all, when Jacqui ran up.

  Her eyes were shining and she was obviously very excited about something.

  "I'll catch you guys later! I just saw a friend of mine who invited me to this great party at Sting's house!" she said. "Ciao!"

  Mara rolled her eyes. "What is it with that girl?" she asked Eliza. Mara had had enough of Jacqui. She was getting paid just as much as the rest of them--for doing less than a third of the work. William pulled on a lock of Mara's hair and then ran away. God, another pair of hands sure would be useful to wrestle that little boy sometimes.

  Eliza felt extremely annoyed, too, but not about Jacqui ditching them. Hello, a party she didn't know about? The reality of social ostracism was starting to set in.

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  jacqui is not a chick gone crazy

  Rupert Thorne smiled a catlike smile at his quarry. He had never forgotten the girl to whom he'd given a ride from the airport that day. Spotting her again at the Super Saturday benefit his wife always dragged him to was indeed a pleasant surprise.

  He mentioned Sting was in town--a private concert--and would she care to join him?

  They had started the evening by having dinner at The Palm, where Rupert ordered a seven-hundred-dollar bottle of Chateau Latour. "I'm celebrating something," he'd explained to Jacqui. Afterward he had taken her to the bar at the elite Maidstone Club, which was legendary for its stringent exclusionary practices concerning its eighty-acre golf course. Bill Clinton hadn't been deemed worthy enough to tee up during his 1999 visit. Rupert had broken several rules concerning women, foreigners, and Catholics just to impress Jacqui.

  The Hummer drove toward an enormous estate overlooking the sea. It was the hundred-thousand-square-foot mansion owned by a

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  former investment banker-cum-techno-DJ (not Sting--Jacqui had misunderstood) who liked to throw wild, twenty-four-hour Vegas- style parties on the grounds, complete with showgirls giving lap dances. The house was frequently rented out for movie shoots, music videos, and twelve-hundred-person bashes like this one.

  At the door a woman gave the two of them releases to sign, explaining it was being taped for television. Jacqui signed her name on the sheet without bothering to read it. This wasn't the first time she'd had to sign a release at a party--some cable station or another always seemed to be taping something in the Hamptons. Rupert did the same and gave her his hand as they entered the party.

  It was wild. Massive. This was partying on a grand scale. Hundreds of sweaty guests danced under a throbbing laser light show. A two-story-high ice sculpture of a vodka bottle melted in the middle of the fountain. The swimming pool had been turned into a massive grotto. Cocktail waitresses in corsets and tiny boy- shorts handed out free packs of cigarettes.

  "Wow," Jacqui said. "Where's Sting?"

  "Sting?" Rupert laughed. "I told you D.J.--oh never mind. Let's enjoy ourselves, shall we?"

  Roaming camera crews dressed in CHICKS GO CRAZY! hats and logo T-shirts cajoled guests to flash their ta-tas to the cameras. Wait a second. Jacqui had seen these videos advertised on E! once when she was watching that disgusting pig Howard Stone, or whatever his name was.

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  "What about you?" a bearded, potbellied man asked Jacqui.

  "No, no thanks." She smiled, feeling uncomfortable. It wasn't quite the star-studded event Rupert had led her to believe she was attending. Where were all the big names? Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz? Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Catrall? Or at the very least, Tara Reid and Paris Hilton? It wasn't an elegant A-list bash. In fact, most of the guests were cheesy guys in shiny shirts and polyester pants, and most of the women were overly tanned, silicone enhanced, and wearing cheap spandex dresses.

  "Uh, I think I'll just get a drink," she said.

  "Good idea," Rupert agreed, licking his lips.

  Rupert kept refilling her glass even when it wasn't empty, so she wasn't even sure how many drinks she had. In her growing anxiety Jacqui drank a lot more than she had intended. The piercing light of a filming camera suddenly flashed onto Jacqui. She squinted to see several hefty bodyguards and camera crews standing at the doorway.

  The twenty-eight-year-old topless-video entrepreneur who was throwing the party took a bullhorn. "It's that time of the night, ladies and gentlemen. Any woman who isn't naked in five minutes better leave now."

  "What?" Jacqui said.

  Rupert grinned. "Oh c'mon. It's no big deal. Everyone knows these parties always end this way."

  "I didn't!"

  "Hey, you signed the waiver at the door. Cmon, let's have a little

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  fun," Rupert said, reaching over to pull down the straps of her shirt. "Wait! Wait!" Jacqui said, pushing his hand away.

  Rupert scowled. "What's the matter?" he asked. "I show you a good time, I take you to dinner and the Maidstone, and this is how you thank me? C'mon, I just want to have a little fun," he said, keeping his hand on her breast with a little too much force.

  "Of course we're going to have fun," Jacqui said, her mind racing. "I just need to go to the bathroom and take care of a few things." She winked, her heart pounding.

  All around them women were stripping down and shaking their breasts for the cameras. It wasn't a fun, careless goof like Mara and Ryan skinny-dipping in the pool. This was business. This was frightening. This was not what she bargained for when she said she'd like to see Sting play a private concert.

  "I'll wait right here," Rupert drawled.

  Jacqui stood unsteadily on her feet. "I'll be right back," she promised.

  It was four in the morning and she was in the middle of nowhere. She didn't have money for a cab, and she didn't even know where she would call for one. No one at the party would take her home.

  She found a phone in the hallway and dialed the first number that came to mind.

  "Luca! It's me--I really need your help!"

  "Who is this?" a sleepy female voice demanded. "Who's calling?" "It's Jacqui. Can I talk to Luca?"

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  "He's sleeping right now. What's this about?" the suspicious voice asked.

  No use. Jacqui dialed another number.

  "Leo! It's me, Jacqui. I really need your help."

  "Jacqui?" Leo asked. He was still awake, having played fifty- four straight games of John Madden Football on his PlayStation. "The girl who said I was just a mercy screw?"

  "Leo--please."

  But he had already hung up.

  Jacqui was in tears. In a few minutes Ru
pert would storm out looking for her and God knows what she would do then. She dialed the last number she could remember.

  The phone rang and rang, and Jacqui had almost resigned herself to walking down the four miles of the Montauk Highway when Maras voice answered.

  "Hello?"

  "Mara. It's Jacqui. I really need your help. Can you guys come and pick me up?"

  Mara sat up in bed and looked at the clock. "What the hell? Just because you blow everything off, doesn't mean we can just up and get--"

  "Mara, please," Jacqui said, starting to cry.

  "What's going on?" Mara asked, suddenly realizing something was wrong here.

  "I'm at this party--Sting isn't here--it's just--I need to get away." "Where are you?"

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  Jacqui told her. "I'm really scared, Mara."

  "We'll be there in a few minutes. I have to get Eliza up, I don't know how to get there, but I'm sure she will. Hang in there."

  Jacqui put down the phone and tiptoed out the front gate. It was getting cold outside from the ocean breeze, but she would rather freeze than walk into that house again.

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  sometimes people actually forget that thelunky red hamptons is long island

  A flash of headlights and a familiar clunky red Volvo pulled up to the front door. Mara threw open the car door.

  Jacquie

  Eliza lit herself another cigarette. God, talk about drama.

  Mara had hastily explained why they had to get up and go get their lost roommate, but Eliza still wasn't sure exactly why she had to leave her comfortable bed at four-thirty in the morning.

  They found Jacqui huddled by the steps. When she spotted them, she burst into tears.

  "Oh my God! What happened!" Mara said, fearing the worst. "Nothing--nothing. I just didn't know if you were actually going to show up," Jacqui whimpered.

  She was shaking and so upset, a totally different person than the confident, glacial, sophisticated South American who was so jaded about everything. In the moonlight she looked all of her sixteen years.

  "I was stupid," she said. "I should have known something like

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  this would happen." She told them all about Rupert, the bait and switch, the sketchy party, the leering guys, the video cameras.

  "You're under the age of consent," Eliza said. "We could put them in jail."

  "I signed the release form," Jacqui admitted.

  "Who cares? That doesn't matter. That's never going to hold up in court."

  "C'mon, let's get out of this place before they try to get new recruits," Mara suggested.

  Jacqui sniffed and wiped her nose with the palm of her hand. She looked at the car. "You guys took the Volvo?"

  They drove west--all the way west--to the part of Long Island where it was more strip mall than stripper party. After all, it's not all about the Hamptons. By now they were a little sick of the place, to be honest. All that posing, primping, and posturing. The constant need to match one's bikini, sarong, handbag, and flip-flops. It took hours just to get dressed to go nowhere.

  "Look, there's a Denny's," Mara said. "I haven't been to one in so long."

  "Anyone up for breakfast?" Eliza asked.

  "Sounds perfect," Jacqui agreed.

  They found a corner booth by the window and opened menus. "What can I get ya?" a waitress in a checkered uniform with a beehive asked them. She was so far from the sylphs who doled out minuscule plates of tofu at Babbette's that the girls couldn't

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  help but grin at each other. This was exactly what they needed. A dose of reality.

  "I have lumberjack special," Jacqui decided.

  "Three eggs, two pancakes, bacon, sausage, and ham?" Eliza asked in horror. There was absolutely nothing on the menu that was under her four-hundred-calorie-per-minimeal ratio.

  "Sounds great. I'll have the same," Mara decided, snapping her menu closed.

  "Two 'jacks. What about you, hon?"

  Eliza contemplated. The bacon alone was three hundred calories. But she was really, really hungry. "Make it three."

  They wolfed down their greasy breakfasts and filled each other in on the latest news.

  "And you haven't even spoken to Jeremy since?" Mara asked after Eliza updated Jacqui on what happened.

  "No."

  "You've got to find him and tell him how you feel," Mara stressed. "It's important. You guys can't just leave things like this!"

  "I know, I know." Eliza sighed, spearing a fat brown sausage with her fork and popping it in her mouth.

  "Jeremy--the guy who cuts the lawn?" Jacqui asked. "He's really nice. I saw him looking for you the other day. Sorry. I forgot to tell you."

  "He was?" Eliza asked. "Oh my God."

  "See--I'm sure he feels the same way. But you've got to go to him first." Mara had a major romantic streak.

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  "Okay. But only if you break up with Jim. You deserve so much better than that bonehead," Eliza said. "And he is a bonehead."

  "We broke up already," Mara said. "Yesterday, actually."

  "And you haven't told Ryan?"

  "No, why should I?" Mara said obstinately.

  Jacqui and Eliza exchanged a look. "Only because he is so into you," Eliza said.

  "Is love," Jacqui announced. "I know when men love. He is sick with passion. He can't get enough of you. He's so in love," she said dramatically.

  "No, he isn't," Mara said. "He has a girlfriend."

  "That Camille girl? She's history," Eliza said. "He told me the other day, he just wasn't feeling it. He broke it off that week the kids were away."

  "So what? It's not like he would ever be interested in someone like me," Mara said quietly. She knew how guys like Ryan felt about her--she knew it the first time she saw him--guys like that were so out of her league.

  "What on EARTH are you talking about?" Eliza yelled, so loudly that the truckers having breakfast at the counter turned around. "You are a bombshell! Have you looked in the mirror lately?" Eliza asked, pulling Mara to look at her reflection in the glass.

  Jacqui nodded vigorously. "In Sao Paulo we call girls like you, how do you say... hot."

  "You guys are really sweet, but you're just blowing smoke up

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  my butt," Mara said as she turned. There was Eliza, the spitting image of Cameron Diaz, who, even totally hung over, still radiated that InStyle cover girl glow. There was Jacqui, the sultry, Latin sex- pot. Then there was her. The plain one. But for once Mara took a good look at the reflection. The haircut Pierre had given her brought out the angles of her cheekbones, and the new blue shirt Eliza had helped her pick out made her eyes look bluer than they ever did. While running after the kids half the summer, she had even lost a few pounds. Were they right? Had she transformed into a hottie overnight?

  "See," Eliza said smugly. "Told you."

  "Now, you go get that boy," Jacqui said. She was so happy to be just where she was at that moment. As she looked around at Mara, who was brushing her bangs away from her face with a wistful smile, and Eliza, who was motioning for a round of milk shakes (Hey, what else goes well with a lumberjack special?), Jacqui realized that after everything that had happened this summer, they really were friends.

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  eliza, mara, and jacqui find the best part of the hamptons

  The sun was rising when they drove back up Route 27 toward East Hampton. Roadside farm stands were opening up for business, and Eliza convinced them that they couldn't pass up this chance to buy the freshest fruit and vegetables for the house.

  "Anna always goes to the one in Amagansett, but it's always so picked over. This one is so much better." Eliza sniffed as they walked around, looking at all the stalls.

  The corn was piled high in the palest emerald green stalks, and inside, they were ivory white or as yellow as daffodils. Grapefruits the size of basketballs, oranges that glowed with an almost fluorescent light. Carrots as long and thick as your arm. Radicchio, endive, arugu
la, and every other fancy lettuce for less than a dollar a bunch.

  Eliza showed them the bakery table, set up with loaves of gluten- and wheat-free pumpernickel, sourdough, and challah bread.

  They spotted Cindy Crawford behind a baseball cap, sniffing persimmons.

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  "Hey, look, there's a homemade peach-and-blueberry pie," Mara said, walking over to the delicious smell. "Let's get one for the kids."

  "Madison will love it," Eliza agreed.

  "Peaches! Zoe's favorite." Jacqui nodded.

  "William would like throwing it against the wall." Mara laughed.

  They bought Cody a Sponge-Bob-shaped balloon and filled up the trunk with baskets of citrus, loaves of freshly baked bread, fat red-orange tomatoes on the vine, cauliflower and broccoli blossoms, and enough grapes to make their own barrel of wine.

  Eliza dropped them back off at the house.

  "Where are you going?" Mara asked.

  "Jeremy always gets up early to go running in Montauk. I'm going to try to find him."

  "Good," Mara said, squeezing Eliza's arm. "I'm going to go find Ryan."

  "Go get him, sista." Eliza smiled.

  Jacqui impulsively put her arm around both of them, which was actually rather hard to do, considering Eliza was still in the car. "You guys are the best."

  Eliza drove off and Jacqui and Mara walked to the back of the house to the stone pathway.

  "I'm going to go get some sleep," Jacqui said to no one in particular as she climbed the rickety attic stairs.

  But only after a long, hot shower so she could start with a fresh, clean slate.

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  mara finally makes her move

  The main house was empty when Mara snuck