“A goddess,” Duffy opined.
“Relax, guys, we’re going to the Hamptons. And believe me, they all look like that there,” Grant assured them. But his two friends looked at him doubtfully. As far as they could see, there was only one Jacqui.
the first rule of party reporting: fabricate fun!
IN THE HAMPTONS, EVEN A day-care-center fund-raiser merited boldface names and a swishy crowd. The first person Mara saw on entering Cain was none other than Mitzi Goober—the toxic publicist from last summer who had styled herself Mara’s best friend and plied her with gifts, only to turn on her after a misunderstanding over a pair of misplaced quarter-million-dollar earrings that were supposed to be worn by J.Lo at the MTV Awards. But what was a lost PR opportunity among friends? To Mara’s surprise, Mitzi greeted her with a shrill hello and immediately drew her in for a fierce embrace. It was like hugging a skeleton, Mara thought.
Mitzi was tanner and blonder than ever. But while her arms were toned and muscular, she had a basketball-sized stomach owing to the fact that she was six months pregnant. She sported a tight tank top that blared LIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM over a proud baby bump—the ne plus ultra of accessories that summer. “Yummy Mommies” were all the rage—fertility was very fashionable at the moment. Of course, once the children were born, they were quickly ushered offstage by a crew of nannies. The glamorous crowd cooed over a chic pregnancy but beat a hasty retreat when faced with the reality of actually raising a child.
“Dollink!” Mitzi cooed as she sipped on a thin red straw poking out of a blue-and-silver Red Bull can. Caffeine intake concerns? Not this mother-to-be.
“Hi, Mitzi,” Mara said, relieved to see someone she recognized. Where was Lucky? She hoped she would run into him soon so she could find out what exactly she was supposed to do at the party.
“How are you? What’s new?” Mitzi jabbered in her singsong voice. “I heard you’re on staff at Hamptons this summer—that’s beyond! We need to get you to meet our clients—we have some awesome things coming up this season. We’re doing Sydney’s opening—I see six-page spread!”
“Um . . .” Mara didn’t know what to say. The idea that she would be making decisions on anything as important as a multi-page feature was absurd. She was a lowly intern.
“We’ll talk, okay? I’ll send you samples. Bye-yee!” Mitzi gushed, assaulting Mara with a brush of her lips on each cheek.
The minute Mitzi released her, several people whom Mara had met during the last two summers made their way to her side. They all knew she was working for Hamptons magazine. The same crowd who had shunned her at the end of last summer were now angling to get back in her good graces, reminding her of how they knew each other. Part of Mara was disgusted by their hypocrisy, but another part admired their tenacity. Some would call it fair-weather friendship, but such was life in the Hamptons. In their own way, they were paying Mara a compliment. It was obvious from all the attention they were lavishing on her that they considered Mara a real player. Even Alan Whitman and Kartik, the co-owners of Seventh Circle, last year’s hot spot, came over to pay their respects.
Eliza’s former bosses told Mara they were just back from Las Vegas, where they had opened Seventh Circle in the Desert, with an opening party that had included topless dancers re-creating the seminal dance scene from Showgirls.
“But I’m telling you.” Alan nodded. “You’ve got to check out our new place, Volcano. We’ve got real lava coming out of the fountain. It’s intense.”
“Come over for dinner, on us,” Kartik added, giving Mara a bear hug. “Mitzi’ll call you. Hook us up!”
Mara smiled in a noncommittal fashion. “Hook us up!” was the rousing chorus of the evening, with everyone from desperate socialites and their scheming publicists to coat-check girls and valet attendants pitching Mara items for the magazine.
She spotted Anna Perry in the corner of the club, looking woefully overdressed and awkwardly out of place in a floor-length ball gown. While the benefit dinner had been attended by the A-list social crowd, the dessert-and-dancing after-hours catered to the younger set. Usually Anna left early with the other society wives, but there she was, perched on a tufted ottoman, balancing a drink on her knee.
Mara noticed that she was accompanied by one of the more famous Hamptons “walkers”—gay men who acted as escorts to married women who couldn’t persuade their husbands to join them in the social whirl. Where was Kevin? She stopped by to say hello, and Anna greeted her warmly. “Did you see all the pictures of the kids? Aren’t they so cute?” her former employer asked wistfully. “Cody’s gotten so big! I miss having a baby around the house.”
“There you are!”
For the first time at the party, Mara felt genuine happiness at spotting someone. Lucky Yap, the tart-tongued party photographer, was making his way toward her.
“Excuse me, Anna,” Mara said, taking her leave and turning to her friend.
Lucky was wearing a voluminous velvet frock coat over a T-shirt that read FASHION VICTIM! (Edwardian irony was in, and last year’s African muumuus were out this summer), with his trusty digital Nikon around his neck. He was scanning the crowd with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s just exes, siblings, and stepkids tonight,” he lamented, meaning the crowd was made up of those with tenuous connections to the famous rather than real celebrities themselves.
“What should I do?” Mara asked eagerly.
“What we always do: lie, lie, lie! All these parties are so motha-effing boring, but no one has to know that or we’ll be out of work.”
Mara laughed. She knew Lucky was joking. Or at least, she hoped he was. She gave him a rundown of what she’d observed. She thought she’d spotted a famous socialite—one of the Bush nieces—but she wasn’t sure. And she had caught a glimpse of a married polo player kissing a newlywed television starlet near the coat check.
“Do you think that’s enough for the column?”
“Honey, of course it is. You can put the canoodling adulterers in the “blind item” category. But I’ll run the starlet’s photo above it so everyone will know it was him,” Lucky said wickedly.
“Oh, good,” Mara said, relieved.
“Miss Mara Waters,” a sexy yet familiar voice growled behind her.
She turned around. “Mister Garrett Reynolds,” she cooed back, folding her arms under her chest.
Garrett brushed a saucy flop of dark hair out of his eye. He was tan and wearing a white linen shirt and cream-colored trousers. He kissed her on the cheek and acted like they were old friends and like nothing had ever happened between them—as though he hadn’t dumped her unceremoniously once she’d been the victim of bad press.
“Working hard?”
She shrugged.
“Good luck with it,” he said, shaking his whiskey glass. “It’s my last night here.”
“Oh? You’re not staying in the Hamptons this summer?”
Garrett laughed as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “Oh no, of course not. The Hamptons are so over. We’re renting out the house. I’ll be in Cape Town, where the real action is.” He smirked. “But you have fun—I know you’ll find some way to get into trouble.”
His condescending and dismissive attitude did little to dampen Mara’s spirits. Garrett was an ass, and she was glad to see the back of him. She wondered how on earth she’d ever found him attractive.
She suddenly missed Ryan, who was sure to be asleep with the TV turned to Aqua Teen Hunger Force. She thought about heading home and crawling into bed next to him, but Lucky Yap called her over to introduce her to Jill Klompenhower, the only real A-list celeb in the joint—an Oscar-winning actress who was rumored to have recently annulled her two-week marriage to a Christian rocker. Suddenly Mara was too busy trying to remember every detail of Jill’s story to pine for her sleeping boyfriend.
as heidi klum would say, eliza is “in” and paige is “out”
ELIZA HELPED ANOTHER MODEL WITH her outfit, tweaking it so that the girl wore t
he newsboy cap at a rakish angle and the lacy camisole over the dress instead of vice versa. Then she moved on to the next one and the next, making little adjustments, adding earrings here, a pair of fishnet stockings there—and before she knew it, she’d changed the entire look and feel of the collection.
There! Eliza thought. Now, that’s more like it. The clothes all displayed an overall theme, with a sexy, beachy, jet-set vibe. More like the Sydney Minx collection of old. She had to say so herself—she was a genius!
“What do you think you’re doing?” Paige demanded. She had walked out of Sydney’s office and only just noticed that almost all of the models were wearing their outfits ever-so-slightly differently.
“Oh, Paige!” Eliza pouted. “You scared me.”
“Sydney, look what she’s done!” Paige called out ominously. “Everything is different!”
The designer emerged from his office. He frowned and cupped his chin in the palm of his hand. “Let me see.”
Eliza froze. She held her breath. All her bravado momentarily left her. It was easy to feel confident and inspired when the models cooed and aahed over her changes, but they were just models—what did they know? Most of them couldn’t even spell their own fake names.
“Good, good,” Sydney said. “Continue,” he told Eliza. “And Paige, give her a hand.”
It was a moment of triumph Eliza found bittersweet. Because while she took it upon herself to feverishly spray-paint, shred, and accessorize each outfit, Paige stood to the side, bored, unhelpful, and seething with barely controlled passive-aggressive rage.
“Can I get a glue gun, please?” Eliza called to her as she pulled on a model’s skirt and began pinching the fabric in a ruched pattern.
“Here,” Paige said, throwing it down.
The clatter made Eliza jump, causing her to cut into the fabric with her scissors.
“Jesus!” the model yelped.
“Oh, fuck!” Eliza said, noticing the hole. She looked over at Paige, who looked the picture of innocence. She knew Paige had done it on purpose, but there was nothing Eliza could do about it.
Eliza had a thought. “Hold still,” she told the model, cutting another hole in the skirt and another and another, creating a sexy peekaboo design.
A few minutes later, there was a ruckus in the back of the room. “It’s too small!” the model complained. The coffee-colored leather dress she was wearing was so short it barely covered her bottom.
“What’s happened now? I warn you girls, I cannot have another crisis! I’m already out of Xanax!” Sydney shouted, storming over to assess the situation.
“Eliza told me to put it in the dryer—and look,” Paige said smugly. “The outfit’s ruined. It’ll never be ready for the show.”
“I was going for a distressed leather thing,” Eliza explained, examining the destroyed fabric with a critical eye. She had asked Paige to set the machine on delicate, but obviously the malicious assistant had made sure the machine was set on high.
The leather was nubby and indeed shrunken.
“Here,” Eliza, decided, handing the model a pair of denim cutoffs. She pulled the dress higher on the waist. “It’s a top!”
“Naturally,” Sydney agreed, fanning away.
“Naturally,” Eliza repeated, beaming her million-dollar smile Paige’s way. No matter how badly Paige tried to sabotage her efforts, Eliza could do no wrong.
if only all nerf football games ended this way
JACQUI ARRIVED IN THE HAMPTONS at Sunset. the Perry estate, Creek Head Manor, was just as immaculate and photo-shoot-ready as ever, as if waiting for its close-up in Metropolitan Home. Laurie, Anna’s jovial assistant, had arrived a week earlier to make the proper preparations, and there were long-stemmed white calla lilies blooming in all the vases and fresh Italian linens on each bed. Anna had ordered yet another renovation over the winter, and the house now boasted a solarium and a fully equipped wet bar in the master closet. The master bath also housed Jackie Onassis’s former bidet (purchased at an exorbitant price at auction) to match the existing Marie Antoinette bath tiles.
Jacqui made the kids dinner and gave the little ones baths, and after she’d tucked them into bed, reminding William and Madison not to stay up too late, she was finally free to unpack and set up her own room. She trudged up the rickety steps to the highest floor and opened the door, tearing through a cobweb.
After living in high style in the city for a year, going back to the au pair cottage was a bit of letdown for Jacqui. The room was dark and musty and smelled like mildew. Jacqui threw open the windows and immediately wished she were back in her apartment’s central-air-conditioned comfort. She found wrinkled percale sheets in the drawers and halfheartedly tossed them on the stained and lumpy mattress on the single bed. It just wasn’t the same without Eliza whining about the tiny bathroom or Mara admonishing everyone to prepare for work the next day.
She sat moodily at the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette, tossing the ashes haphazardly into the nearby planter that contained a dry ficus tree.
Jacqui scratched her cheek and took a long puff. Eliza was still in the city, and Mara was on the boat with Ryan—best to let them alone on their first night back. In the middle of unpacking, she spotted the lights from the pool illuminating the garden pathway. Now, there was an idea. She grabbed a towel from the bathroom and walked quickly out of the cottage.
Just what she needed—a little skinny-dip to make her feel better. Anna was out at the benefit, and it was past midnight, so the kids were asleep. . . . It wasn’t like there was anyone else in the house. . . . The water was warm and refreshing—the Perrys had it especially irrigated with the finest fresh water pumped in from a stream in the North Fork. She did a couple of lazy strokes, then floated on her back for a while. She swam to the side of the pool, where an icy tumbler was waiting. Thankfully, she knew where the keys to the liquor cabinet were kept.
After a few minutes, she decided she’d had enough and swam to the opposite edge nearer the path back to the cottage. She emerged from the water, dripping and naked, just as the bushes that lined the perimeter of the pool exploded with a crash.
Jacqui screamed.
Three boys wrestling over a foam football tumbled through the hedge that separated the Perrys’ home from the Reynolds property.
“Twelve—twelve—twelve o’clock!” Duffy choked, still holding on to the Nerf. “It’s her!”
“Sweet Mother of Mercy,” Ben exclaimed, craning his neck. “Swear to God, I’m never going back to Harvard.”
“Señorita, please excuse my stupid friends,” Grant said in his slow southern drawl, which would have been charming had he not been lying on the ground, his face smashed up in the grass.
They stared round-eyed at Jacqui in all her naked glory, wearing nothing but her Brazilian—bikini wax, that is.
“Merda!” she cursed, wrapping a towel around herself and running back to the au pair cottage, leaving three very love-struck boys in her wake.
mara has king-size doubts about her new position
A LITTLE AFTER TWO IN the morning, Mara crept back onboard the Catalina. She slowly unlocked the cabin door and softly tiptoed inside the dark stateroom. Moonlight spilled through the porthole, and Mara could see Ryan’s long form huddled underneath the white goose-down comforter.
She eased out of her heels, pulling down the straps, and massaged the balls of her feet. Jill had invited them over to her Bridgehampton rental, and after a couple of vodka shots and a drunken game of “Celebrity” (the star herself winning on her Nicole Richie impersonation alone), they’d finally called it an evening.
Mara filed the story of Jill’s annulment and all the details of the day-care benefit party from her BlackBerry, hoping against hope that the story would make it into the magazine’s next issue. Lucky had assured her the piece was fine, but she wasn’t so sure. What if her boss didn’t like any of the jokes about the Walkers? Or the remark about how in the current celebrity math, two assistants o
f the famous now equaled one C-list star? For example, CaCee Cobb (Jessica Simpson’s personal assistant and best friend) + Trace Ayala (Justin Timberlake’s personal assistant and best friend) = Brooke Burke.
Her feet made a squishy noise on the thick carpet, and she locked herself in the bathroom to wash her face, shower, and change. She slipped into one of Ryan’s old T-shirts, feeling the softness of the cotton against her skin.
She slid underneath the covers and quietly snuggled into his chest, angling her body so that her arms ducked underneath his armpits and held him close while her legs curved under his legs.
“Mmmmppf,” Ryan murmured, patting her arm absentmindedly. He sighed.
“Ry, are you awake? Ryan?” she whispered. “I think they made a big mistake sending me to cover the party. I don’t know anything about writing a society column. I’m not even in society.”
She was hopped up from the vodka and anxious about her story. If only he would wake up so she could talk to him about it. She could really use his support right now.
“Mmmppff . . . huh?” Ryan said sleepily. “Don’t worry about it. Everything’ll be fine,” he mumbled.
Mara wrung her hands. What if her boss totally hated her copy? She’d be stuck with penning nothing but photo captions all summer. L-R, Ketchup Heir, Trophy Wife, Prominent Plastic Surgeon . . .
“Ryan, are you listening? Honey, I’m so nervous,” she said.
Ryan snored loudly in response. He turned over to his other side and hugged his pillow, leaving Mara feeling abandoned on the other side of the king-size bed.
Oh, well . . . so much for that. Standing in heels for three hours was an exercise in torture anyway, so she could use the rest. She gave Ryan one final kiss on the cheek and turned away from him to face the wall, hugging the covers to her chest.
They slept like that, back to back, their bodies scarcely touching. The bed rocked softly as the boat bobbed up and down in the water, and when Mara closed her eyes, she dreamed she was floating alone through space.