The Au Pairs

by Melissa de la Cruz

  "We're not alone!" she told Jeremy, putting a finger to her lips.

  Jeremy smirked when he saw the other couple. "I guess someone else had the same idea," he whispered. They giggled quietly.

  "Let's go," she told him, straightening her skirt and collecting the shot glasses and tequila bottle. They inched their way to the doorway, laughing as the couple began making lurid, disgustingly wet sloppy noises along with unintentionally comic expressions of discomfort. "Ow! Not there! Oops, I think I'm sitting on the remote control! Oh, that's you!" "Honey, please, stop pinching ..." "That's better. Oh, wait, is that your leg or mine?"

  The light suddenly switched on, filling the room in a blaze of light.

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  The two couples blinked. Taylor and Lindsay stood at the front of the room. They were roaming the house, trying to find the source of the music in order to change the CD. The speaker system was wired to the entire house, and you could only take so much vintage Puffy.

  "I think they keep the Crestron in here," Lindsay said, meaning the universal remote that controlled all the electricity in the house, including the lighting, stereo, televisions, burglar alarm, and even the microwave.

  "Oh! Sorry!" Taylor said.

  Eliza finally got a clear picture of the room's other amorous inhabitants. "Charlie! Sugar!"

  Sugar, splayed out between two Barcaloungers, was topless in a Cosabella thong. She was, indeed, straddling the remote control. Charlie was dressed in his polka-dot boxers and nursing his foot. Talk about compromising positions.

  Sugar sat up and shook out her hair, casually sliding her completely see-through cami back on. Eliza willed herself not to look and see if Jeremy was staring.

  "Eliza, what are you doing here?" Sugar asked coolly. "And hey, aren't you our pool boy or something?" she said, noticing Jeremy as she reached for her pack of cigarettes and patted out a stick.

  Charlie grabbed at his pants on the floor and pulled out his lighter. He lit her cigarette and assessed the situation, observing Eliza's crimson face and rumpled clothes and her partner's stony expression and some kind of Pizza Hut uniform.

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  "Liza," Charlie drawled, obviously still drunk. "I didn't know you had it in you to go slumming."

  Eliza recoiled from Jeremy, shaking off his protective hand on her elbow. "I didn't know you did either, Charlie," she said, looking pointedly at Sugar. Let her whine to Anna and get her fired. Eliza didn't care.

  Jeremy balked. "When are you going to stop pretending you're still part of this world, Eliza?"

  "Excuse me?" Charlie asked, not sure what he just heard. The dude was obviously some blue-collar trash. And Eliza Thompson was Park Avenue born and bred.

  Eliza turned to Jeremy, completely horrified that he had just blown her cover. "You don't even know me," she spat.

  Jeremy's face hardened. He couldn't believe keeping her status with her so-called friends was so important to her. "You're right, I definitely don't know you at all." He pushed his way to the door without giving her a second glance.

  Lindsay and Taylor were utterly speechless with shock and schadenfreude. Eliza? Poor? Could it get any better than this?

  Sugar, dumb as she was, said matter-of-factly, "God, you guys didn't know that? Eliza's been working here as an au pair all summer. Her family's totally bankrupt. Hey, don't you have to go burp my brother or something?" she said snidely.

  Tears in her eyes, Eliza mumbled something unintelligible and ran out the door as fast as her three-inch-heel Jimmy Choos could carry her.

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  luke and leo are rich white boys who think they're straight outta Compton

  "Man, that is so low," Luke said, shaking his head and staring at Leo and Jacqui. "I can't believe you would tap my bitch like this."

  "Dude, you have a girlfriend," Leo said in his defense.

  Bitch? Jacqui was no one's bitch. What was this, some bad audition tape for a rap video? Who did these guys think they were? Eminem and Dr. Dre? More like Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer.

  "You! You lied to me!" she said to Luke. "You had girlfriend the whole time!"

  "Listen, mamasita. What I do in the States is my business. I showed you a good time, didn't I?" Luke said scornfully. He'd had Jacqui's number since they met. All pretty girls had zero self- esteem. Jacqui was just like every Upper East Side ice princess who pretended to be all that, but melted at a well-phrased compliment.

  Jacqui couldn't believe she had ever fallen in love with such a

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  cretin. Or that she had fallen for his whole aw-shucks, nice-guy act.

  "Goddamn, Leo, I can't believe you got on my bitch!" Luke said, scowling and folding his arms across his chest, assuming the confrontational pose he had seen Snoop throw down on the BET

  "I didn't. The bitch wasn't taken," Leo said, stepping back and waving his arms.

  "Bitch? What? Listen, you," Jacqui said, turning to Leo. "I'm only with you to make him jealous."

  "See. You're being played, man. That is cold. That's cold," Luke said, smirking.

  Leo turned purple and turned to Jacqui. "What?!"

  Jacqui shrugged. Jesus, what did he think he was, some kind of stud? Of course she was only with him to lick her wounds and get even with the so-called love of her life.

  It was a whole sloppy-second mess, a complete emotional disaster. But somehow, by the end of the argument, Luke and Leo were slapping each other on the back, calling each other homie and laughing about the whole thing. Dating and dumping the same girl--it was something the two jerks could relate to. It was just like something out of a Bad Boy video, and they thought that was pretty cool. She just provided them with a summer's worth of gross locker room anecdotes, and they couldn't be happier.

  But for once it looked like Jacqui was going to have to sleep in the cottage. Alone.

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  mara can't Keep her clothes on

  2 A.M. Almost everyone had left for another party, and the only people left were on the back patio by the pool having another kind of party altogether... a more intimate one, shall we say. The table held several empty bottles of liquor, dozens of cocktail glasses, and ashtrays filled to the brim with cigarette butts, and the group exuded a jovial camaraderie as if it were perfectly normal that they were more than half naked. They didn't call it strip poker for nothing.

  Mara peeked at her hand. A pair of queens. Not bad. Her dad had taught all three of his kids his favorite game, and Mara always thought of herself as a bit of a pro. No daughter of George "Texas No Limit Hold'Em" Waters was going to lose to a bunch of overprivileged softies from East Hampton.

  Nonetheless, she was down to her pink Chantelle bra and matching low-rise underwear.

  She looked across the table, where Ryan was busy examining his cards, frowning.

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  The dealer flipped the next card: an ace. "And that's the river," he crowed.

  "Well, I'm out," Ryan's friend Corey decided, putting down his cards in disgust.

  "Me too," another friend agreed.

  Around the table everyone took a pass, forfeiting an item of clothing in the process.

  "I'm in," Ryan declared.

  Mara looked at the ace, looked at her high pair. She scanned the other four community cards--all trash. There is no way he can beat me. He has nothing! Nothing! He's totally bluffing! Ryan was the worst player of the night--he was the only one down to his boxer shorts. Well, besides her.

  Mara smiled to herself. This was going to be fun.

  "I'm in, too," she said challengingly.

  "The Scrabble Master should fold," he advised.

  "No way."

  "Not to be cliche, but read them and weep." Ryan grinned, putting down a pair of aces. With the dealer's ace, he had three of a kind. Mara slumped in her seat.

  "What have you got?"

  She showed him.

  "No big deal. You don't have to do it if you don't want to," Ryan told her, a sympathetic look on his face.

  S
he shrugged. What the hell. It was just like the dressing room at Loehmann's. Except outdoors. In public. In front of Ryan Perry.

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  "Rules are rules," she said. All those daiquiris she'd drunk were making her pretty brave.

  Taking a deep breath, she unhooked her bra and threw in her underwear as well. Naked as Aphrodite emerging from the sea, she streaked past the rest of the strip poker revelers, through the kitchen, across the porch, through the yard, and dove into the pool.

  Far from shy, Ryan took the cue, doffed his boxers, and followed her in. After all, his mother had shipped him to a hippie summer camp in Vermont as a kid. This was all just fun and games.

  "WATER FIGHT!" he yelled, splashing up to her.

  Mara screamed mid-backstroke and tackled him in the water. She'd never had so much fun in her life. She was liberated, free. The old class secretary Mara would never be caught dead in the wee hours of the morning, completely nude with a guy she wasn't even dating.

  Ryan swam up and grabbed her by the waist. "GOTCHA!" "Ryan! Let me go!" Mara squealed, loving every minute.

  They treaded water for a while, laughing, and Mara suddenly

  realized she was like, oh, good God, totally naked in front of

  Ryan! And he was holding her. .. kind of close actually.

  She looked into his eyes, which were laughing back at her. He's going to kiss me, Mara thought. It's going to happen. Now.

  Here. She closed her eyes, but then she suddenly pulled away. "Ryan, I can't--this doesn't feel right--not that I don't

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  want to--I really do--but I still have to work things out with Ji--JIM!"

  And there, standing by the edge of the pool, was Jim Mizekowski, all two hundred and twenty pounds of him. With a look of absolute disgust on his face.

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  when arguing naked, be careful how emphatically you talk

  Mara struggled out of the pool, running after Jim. She felt terrible for him--there was so much to explain--if he would just wait.

  "Jim, please, listen to me," she pleaded.

  "So THIS is why you couldn't come home this week. You had to 'work.' I get it." He spat, so angry that a vein throbbed dangerously on his forehead. "Jesus, I can't even look at you."

  "It's not what you think. Ryan's just a friend. We were just playing a game, that's all," Mara said, knowing it sounded pretty weak.

  "Calm down, buddy," Ryan said, still laughing, giving Jim his usual disarming smile. "We're just having fun. You want to join us in a little strip poker?"

  Jim ignored him.

  "NOTHING HAPPENED, Jim! I SWEAR!" Mara said, energized by the truth. After all, nothing had happened. Yet.

  "You know why I came up here?" Jim asked. "My MOM saw

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  your picture in the paper. She gets the Post, you know. And there was some picture of you from some polo match and some guy you were with--this guy!" he said, motioning to Ryan. "I didn't even believe it. It's just not like you. Not my Mara. But I saw the picture--you were dressed like a hooker."

  "I'm not a hooker!" Mara cried. Even though she was, technically, still naked. In public. Ahem.

  "No, you're worse. You're a slut and a whore. You're nothing better than a two-bit hooker on Worth Avenue."

  Mara gasped. She had never been called such awful names. And from her own boyfriend! She didn't know how to react.

  "Hey, dude, that's enough," Ryan said, coming up to shield Mara from Jim. His voice was quiet, and he was no longer amused. (He had thought the whole thing was kind of funny, really, since he and Mara were still naked, and hey, everything could easily be explained--it's not as if there wasn't a bunch of half-naked people on the porch.) But this guy was acting way out of line.

  "I understand you're angry, but you can't talk to her that way," Ryan said.

  Mara couldn't believe what was happening. It was all too much. And she'd had a lot to drink. It was surreal. A total nightmare.

  Meanwhile, back on the patio, the music was still blasting and the game continued. Everyone else was totally clueless about the drama going on in the backyard.

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  "I'll speak to her any way I want," Jim spat, hulking up. This little fancy pants prep school kid had nothing on him.

  "And Mara, you can forget about the discount on that Camry at my uncle's dealership." With those fighting words, Jim took off through the woods.

  It was so absurd Ryan actually began to laugh.

  "A Camry?" he asked.

  "It's not funny," Mara said miserably. "I was counting on that car. It was the only one I could afford to buy and still have money left over for college."

  "God, I'm sorry," Ryan said, sobering up.

  Mara frowned, but after a minute she, too, began to laugh. There they were, standing naked in the Perrys' front yard. "It is kind of funny."

  They walked back toward the house, collecting their clothes along the way.

  A few hours later Jacqui walked out of the cottage and found the two of them huddled in Ryan's oversized sweatshirts, sharing a cigarette and watching the sun rise.

  "I couldn't sleep," Jacqui explained.

  "Glad you made it to the party," Ryan joked.

  "Jacqui--are you okay?" Mara asked.

  No, she was really so far from okay, it was laughable. The guy she had loved was a two-timing loser with serious identity issues. And the guy she had replaced him with was an even bigger loser

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  who was more Li'l Romeo than DMX. Jacqui felt empty and used and completely burned out.

  "I'll be okay," she said, hugging herself and shivering.

  Mara didn't press for any answers. She knew Jacqui would tell her more when the time was right.

  "You want a cig?" Mara asked, offering the only solace she knew Jacqui might accept just then.

  "I thought you didn't smoke," Jacqui said, taking a seat on the grass next to them.

  Mara shrugged. "I thought I didn't do a lot of things."

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  vacation is never long enough, is it?

  Early the next morning the Perry kids ran scrambling into the room. They galloped up the rickety stairs, completely ruining the girls' plans to sleep in. Remnants of the party the night before were in evidence in their little domicile. Jeremy had left his coat under Eliza's bed. Ryan's sweatshirt was draped over the armchair. Several dirty cocktail glasses were breeding fungus in the bathroom.

  "We're back! We're back!" Madison yelled, jumping up and down on Eliza's bed. "Did you guys miss us?"

  "Wanna go swimming?" Zoe asked.

  Eliza groaned. "Is it Sunday already?"

  Mara couldn't even raise her head from her pillow. "William, stop pulling my hair, please!"

  "Oh my God, I am SO hung over," Eliza complained.

  "Me too," Mara said, clutching her stomach. She scanned the room. "Where's Jacqui?"

  Eliza gave Mara a blank look. Jacqui? Hello, where had Mara

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  been all summer? Jacqui was never around. She was their phantom roommate.

  "She was here last night," Mara explained. "I can't believe she bailed! It's her turn to take the kids somewhere. Ugh."

  "Well, I haven't seen her." Eliza shrugged, trying to hide underneath the covers.

  "Seriously, there is no way I can go to the beach today," Mara yelled over the clamor as William and Madison fought over who got to sit on the armchair.

  "I've got an idea," Eliza said.

  They drove into one of the few movie theaters in town. Unlike the sprawling suburban megaplexes in Sturbridge or the high-tech high-rises in Manhattan, where a movie ticket cost upward of ten dollars, the East Hampton theater was a small, brown-shingled building that showed obscure foreign films, art house indies, and, luckily for them, a Disney animated feature that afternoon.

  "I wanna see Alien versus Predator!" William demanded.

  "Sucks to be you; it's not showing." Eliza yawned.

  They ushered the kids into th
e theater. Eliza was thankful for the air-conditioning and the darkness. She was planning to catch up on her sleep through the entire thing in an attempt to exorcise the events of the night before from her memory. After she had left the screening room in disgrace, she had tried to look for Jeremy, but all she found were assorted half-naked people passed out on the porch.

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  He had to understand--she'd been put on the spot in front of people she had known her whole life. It wasn't anything to do with him, really. God, it was all such a mess. She gnawed her cuticles anxiously.

  Mara walked in with Madison, carrying a huge bucket of popcorn and a Coke.

  Eliza stuffed a handful into her mouth and instantly spit it out. "What? No butter?"

  "That motor oil they pass off for butter has more calories than a porterhouse steak!" Mara reminded her, nodding toward Madison.

  Eliza knew that. But everyone knew popcorn wasn't really a food. And it tasted like sand without butter. "I'm getting butter on this and salt," Eliza said, grabbing the carton.

  "Hey, get your own!" Mara said, nodding even less subtly at Madison.

  "Why don't we just ask her what she wants?" Eliza said. "Do you want butter?"

  Madison looked at the two au pairs. She really wanted butter, but Mara was giving her such an encouraging look, she didn't know what she wanted. It was Mara who had fixed the hair on her Barbies the other day, combing them until they weren't tangled up anymore. She didn't want to disappoint her.

  "No," she replied, almost like a question.

  "Good girl, Mad." Mara nodded. "Why don't you buy your own bag?" she asked Eliza in a conciliatory tone.

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  "Forget it." Eliza frowned. She had already spent all her money and didn't have a penny to her name till the next pay period.