table of contents
chapter 1
port authority, take one: eliza experiences public transportation
chapter 2
port authority, take two: mara is definitely not a new yorker
chapter 3
jfk baggage claim: jacqui picks up more than her luggage
chapter 4
liza tells a couple of not-so-white lies
chapter 5
mara discovers the rules for hamptons travel
chapter 6
somewhere on the montauk highway: jacqui can really hold her liquor
chapter 7
east hampton, new york: god, eliza missed this
chapter 8
ryan perry is adonis in board shorts
chapter 9
mara is the odd girl out on lily pond lane
chapter 10
this is what “let’s burn the money to keep warm” looks like
chapter 11
don’t worry, girls, this is a partnership
chapter 12
where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire
chapter 13
main beach: you can only keep eliza down for so long
chapter 14
resort is the hottest party in the hamptons. at least until next week.
chapter 15
back at the beach, mara got blown off so eliza could blow out her hair
chapter 16
back at resort, jacqui certainly has an eye for fabrics
chapter 17
eliza is red, white, and definitely blue
chapter 18
a blistering day at the beach
chapter 19
the girls have finally learned how to locate the fridge under all that french cabinetry
chapter 20
the best way to find out a secret? a bottle of grey goose and a game of truth
chapter 21
mara’s got something special about her. it’s called being nice.
chapter 22
there’s never a dress code if you’re cute enough
chapter 23
you call this progress?
chapter 24
tanning is eliza’s favorite sport
chapter 25
eliza gives the gardener a free show
main street, east hampton: that’s why they invented credit cards
chapter 27
contrary to queer eye logic, not all gay men dress well
chapter 28
somewhere in the sticks (aka hampton bays), jacqui is getting in touch with her feelings
chapter 29
ryan finds out mara is full of surprises
chapter 30
eliza’s postmortem brunch of pancakes and page six
chapter 31
prima donnas got nothing on these girls
chapter 32
at the mercedes-benz polo match, not all the cute boys are loaded
chapter 33
there is some pain even bacardi 151 can’t numb
chapter 34
jacqui knows that the best way to get over somebody is to get under someone else
chapter 35
mara finally gets a backbone
chapter 36
ryan isn’t exactly having breakfast in bed, but . . .
chapter 37
eliza is learning a lot this summer, like the atkins diet isn’t worth it
chapter 38
jacqui is still testing out that brazilian saying
chapter 39
mara finally orders the right kind of drink
chapter 40
ryan gets schooled
chapter 41
these girls aren’t as predictable as they look
chapter 42
poor little not-so-rich girl
chapter 43
the only good thing anna perry has ever said
chapter 44
ryan calls a very important meeting in the hot tub
chapter 45
eliza always gets what she wants, even if she doesn’t want it anymore
chapter 46
jacqui has always been smarter than you’d think
chapter 47
eliza teaches jeremy the o.c. drinking game
chapter 48
luke and leo are rich white boys who think they’re straight outta compton
chapter 49
mara can’t keep her clothes on
chapter 50
when arguing naked, be careful how emphatically you talk
chapter 51
vacation is never long enough, is it?
chapter 52
everything is getting progressively worse
chapter 53
that money is burning a hole in eliza’s stella bag
chapter 54
someday mara will have saved enough to buy her own country
chapter 55
jacqui just might win her own bet
chapter 56
super saturday is turning out to be not so super after all
chapter 57
jacqui is not a chick gone crazy
chapter 58
sometimes people actually forget that the hamptons is long island
chapter 59
eliza, mara, and jacqui find the best part of the hamptons
chapter 60
mara finally makes her move
chapter 61
eliza goes to montauk for the first time all summer
chapter 62
mara finds happiness in a hammock
chapter 63
jacqui is a miracle worker
chapter 64
the second-best thing anna ever said
chapter 65
p. diddy knows how to throw a party
chapter 66
it pays to tip the valet well
chapter 67
it’s called karma
chapter 68
it’s the last night of summer, but it’s the first night for other things
acknowledgments
For Papa and Mommy. For Chito. For Aina, Steve, and Nico. Because being with my family is the best vacation there is.
For Kim DeMarco and David Carthas, the coolest people in the Hamptons.
For my husband, Mike, with whom every day is a day at the beach.
There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.”
—P. Diddy, No Way Out
SUMMER AU PAIRS NEEDED IMMEDIATELY
For four energetic children
between 3 and 10 years old.
Join a NYC family for the
best summer of your life in
East Hampton, July 4–Labor Day.
Pay: $10,000.00
Driver’s license a must.
Familiarity with the Hamptons a plus.
HamptonsAuPairs@yahoo.com
port authority, take one: eliza experiences public transportation
ELIZA THOMPSON HAD NEVER BEEN SO UNCOMFORTABLE in her entire life. She was sitting in the back of a Greyhound bus, sandwiched between the particularly fragrant bathroom and an overfriendly seatmate who was using Eliza’s shoulder as a headrest. The old bag in the Stars and Stripes T-shirt had little bubbles of spit forming on her lips. Eliza took a moment to pity herself. Seriously, how hard could it have been for her parents to spring for a ticket on Jet Blue?
The nightmare had begun a year ago, when some people started looking into her dad’s “accounting practices” at the bank and dug up some “misdirected funds.” Several details had been leaked—the papers had a field day with the thousand
-dollar umbrella stand on his expense reports. The lawyer bills added up quickly, and soon even the maintenance on their five-bedroom, five-bath co-op was just too much.
The Thompsons sold their “cottage” in Amagansett—which was actually the size of an airplane hangar—to pay their mounting legal expenses. Next they sold their beachfront condo in Palm Beach. And then one afternoon Eliza came home from Spence, her elite all-girls private school (which counted none other than Gwynnie Paltrow as an alum), to find her maid packing her bedroom into boxes. The next thing she knew, she was living in a crappy two-bedroom in Buffalo and enrolled at Herbert Hoover High, while her parents shared a ten-year-old Honda Civic. Forget AP classes. Forget early admission to Princeton. Forget that year abroad in Paris.
Her parents had told everyone they were simply going to go recover from it all “upstate in the country,” though no one had any idea how far upstate they had really gone. To Manhattanites, there’s as big a difference between the Catskills and Buffalo as there is between Chanel Couture and Old Navy.
But thank God for rich brats. The call from Kevin Perry had come just yesterday—he was looking for a summer au pair and could Eliza make it to the Hamptons by sunset? Kevin Perry’s law firm had been instrumental in keeping her dad out of the Big House, so he was one of the only people that really knew about their situation. The au pair job was her one-way ticket out of godforsaken Buffalo; so what if she had to work for old friends of her family? At least she wouldn’t have to show up for work at the Buffalo Galleria on Monday. The girl who used to have personal shoppers at Bergdorfs had come this close to waiting on pimply classmates determined to squeeze themselves into two-sizes-too-small, cheap-ass polyester spandex. She shuddered at the thought.
The woman next to her grunted and exhaled. Eliza discreetly spritzed the air with her signature tuberose perfume to camouflage the offensive stank. She fiddled with her right earring, a diamond that was part of the pair Charlie Borshok had given her for her sixteenth birthday. Eliza wasn’t sentimental, but she still wore them despite breaking up with him more than six months ago. She’d done it in self-defense, really: how do you explain Buffalo and bankruptcy to the sole heir of a multi-million-dollar pharmaceutical fortune? She’d loved Charlie as much as she knew how, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him or anyone else about exactly how much they’d lost. It was almost like if she said it out loud, it would make it true. So Eliza was determined to make sure no one ever found out. She didn’t know how she was going to cover it up exactly, but she was sure she’d come up with something. She always did, after all.
Take today, for example. So, fine, she was on the Manhattan-bound Greyhound, but she’d already found a way to get out of taking the Jitney to the Hamptons. She was relying on Kit to take her, just like he’d always done before. Sure, she could spend four hours in a glorified bus (and hello, the Jitney was a bus even with its exclusive name)—but why should she when Kit drove his sweet little Mercedes CLK convertible out of the city every Summer Friday just like clockwork? All she needed to do was hitch a ride. She and Kit had grown up across the hall from each other—they were practically siblings. Good old Kit. She was looking forward to seeing him again—she was looking forward to seeing everyone who was anyone again.
* * *
The bus pulled into the yawning chasm of the Port Authority and discharged its passengers under a grimy concrete slab. Eliza shouldered her Vuitton carryall (the only one her mom let her keep from her formerly extensive collection) and walked as fast as she could to get away from the awful place.
She looked around at the sprawling bus station, wrinkling her nose at the blinding fluorescent lights, the holiday rush of the crowd on their way to the 34th Street piers for the fireworks, the pockets of pasty-faced tourists holding American flags and scanning LIRR timetables. Was this how the other half lived? Pushing and pulling and running and catching trains? Ugh. She’d never had to take public transportation in her life. She’d almost missed the bus that morning before she realized it might actually have the temerity to leave without her.
Life had always waited for and waited on Eliza. She never even wore a wristwatch. Why bother? The party never started till she arrived. Eliza was dimpled, gorgeous and blond, blessed with the kind of cover girl looks that paradise resort brochures were made of. All she needed to complete the picture was a dark tan and a gold lavaliere necklace. The tan would happen—she’d hit Flying Point and slather on the Ombrelle, and, well, the lavaliere was tacky anyway.
She wandered for a while in a bit of a daze, looking for exit signs, annoyed at all the plebian commotion. A harried soccer mom with a fully loaded stroller elbowed her aside, throwing her onto a brunette girl who was standing in the middle of the station, holding a map.
“Oh, gee, I’m so sorry,” the girl said, helping Eliza back to her feet.
Eliza scowled but mumbled a reluctant, “It’s okay,” even though it hadn’t been the girl’s fault that she had fallen.
“Excuse me—do you know where the . . .?” the girl asked, but Eliza had already dashed off to the nearest exit.
On 42nd Street, horns honked in futile protest at the usual gridlock. A long, serpentine line for the few yellow cabs snaked down the block, but Eliza felt exultant. She was back in New York! Her city! She savored the smog-filled air. She hoped idly that she would make it in time. She didn’t really have a backup plan in mind. But the one thing she loved about Kit was how predictable he was.
She walked a block away from the taxi line and put two fingers in her mouth to blow an earsplitting whistle.
A cab materialized in front of her turquoise Jack Rogers flip-flops. Eliza smiled and stowed her bags in the trunk.
“Park Avenue and Sixty-third, please,” she told the driver. God, it was good to be home.
port authority, take two: mara is definitely not a new yorker
MARA WATERS CONSULTED THE GRUBBY PIECE OF PAPER in her hand. Mr. Perry had said something about the Hampton Jitney, but as she looked around the Port Authority complex, she couldn’t find signs for it anywhere. She was getting anxious. She didn’t want to be late for her first day.
She still couldn’t believe she was in New York! It was so exciting to see all the flickering neon lights, the mobs of people, and to experience the brisk, rubberneck pace—and that was just the bus station! In Sturbridge the bus station was a lone bench on a forlorn corner. You’d think they’d spruce up the place a bit to herald the occasion of someone actually leaving that dead-end town, but no.
When the phone call came the day before, she just couldn’t believe her luck. There she was, dressed up as the Old School Marm at Ye Olde School House at Olde Sturbridge Village, sweating underneath an itchy powdered wig and shepherding complacent midwestern tourists through the nineteenth century, when the news came. She’d gotten the job as an au pair! In the Hamptons! For ten thousand dollars for two months! More money than she could even imagine. At the very least, enough to pay for her college contribution and maybe have enough left over for the sweet little Toyota Camry she had her eye on from Jim’s uncle’s used car dealership.
Of course, Jim hadn’t been too pleased she was leaving him for the summer. Actually that was the understatement of the year. Jim had been p-i-s-s-e-d. It had all happened so quickly that Mara hadn’t even had a chance to tell him she’d applied for the job, and Jim wasn’t the kind of guy who liked Mara making plans without him, or plans that didn’t include him, or, really, any plans at all that he hadn’t approved of beforehand. This whole Hamptons thing had blindsided him. It, like, totally ruined his plans for the Fourth of July! He was going to show off his souped-up El Dorado at the local auto show. Who was going to help him polish the hood now that Mara was abandoning him?
She and Jim had been inseparable since freshman year. More than a few people had told her she was too good for him, but they were mostly related to her, so what were they supposed to say? Mara felt a twinge of guilt for leaving but brushed it away. She had other t
hings to take care of at the moment. She walking up tentatively to a uniformed officer behind a ticket booth and rapped on the glass window.
“Yeah?” he asked curtly, annoyed at being interrupted.
“Hi there, sir. Could you please tell me where the Hampton Jitney is?”
“You wan’ da Longuylandrail?”
“No, um, it’s called the Jitney?”
“Jipney?”
“It’s a bus? To the Hamptons?”
“New Joisey transit ovah theh.” He shook his head. “You wan’ da Hampton, take LIRR on Eight Ave.”
A passenger waiting on line overheard and chirped, “You won’t find the Jitney here; it’s on Third Avenue.”
“But really, you’re better off taking the train. Less traffic,” piped a lady holding several shopping bags behind him.
“Forget the train. Jitney’s worth it.”
“I don’t know why anyone bothers to go to the Hamptons anyway.” The lady sniffed in exasperation. “It’s just inundated with all those horrid summer people. Woodstock is so much nicer.”
“I don’t know about that. You can’t get decent sushi anywhere in the Catskills,” the first guy disagreed.
The two began a colorful argument about the relative merits of the Hamptons versus the Hudson Valley, completely ignoring Mara.
“Third—Third Avenue, did you say?” Mara asked.
“Huh? Oh yeah, just take the one-nine over to Times Square, then take the shuttle over to Forty-third and walk two blocks up toward Lex; it’s on the south side.”
It was all Greek to her. She nodded dumbly, feeling more like a hick than ever.
“But I’m telling you, dear, the train’s much better!” yelled the lady with the bags.
Mara left the line and had opened the crumpled e-mail again to make sure she had read the directions correctly when she was caught off balance by a girl who tumbled into her, narrowly missing falling flat on her face.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, helping the pretty, long-haired blonde to her feet. Mara noticed a tennis racket slung over the girl’s shoulder and was about to ask her about the Jitney, but when she looked up, the girl was gone.
Squaring her shoulders, she decided a taxi was probably her best bet and joined the packed line in front of the station to wait for a cab. Mara looked around her happily. She was so thrilled to be away, it didn’t matter how long it took to get where she was going.