Beach Lane Collection

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that it’s incredibly strange, isn’t it? They were here when I left—but they’re not here when I got back. And you seem to feel fine helping yourself to the rest of my things, so—”

  “Are you suggesting that I took them?” Jacqui asked, not quite sure if she’d understood Mara’s English correctly.

  “I’m just saying they’re not here. And you’re the only one who has the key to this room aside from me.”

  Jacqui had never been so insulted in her life. She stared at Mara, who suddenly seemed like a stranger to her.

  “Maybe you took them,” Jacqui said coldly, wanting to say the meanest thing she could think of to Mara.

  “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.”

  “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 ex-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 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.

  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 movie—Casablanca in Space—to a studio. But seven came and went, and the Maybach failed to appear in the driveway. Seven-fifteen, seven-thirty. Eight o’clock. The dinner was supposed to start right now.

  Mara looked at her watch. She dialed Garrett’s number again, but there was no answer. She felt sort of ridiculous just standing around in her Roland Mouret kimono dress and peep-toe Prada heels, waiting for him to arrive. Finally, she drove herself in the BMW to the party. Maybe she was supposed to meet him there?

  The restaurant was airy and light, with a copper bar and all-white bunting hanging from the ceiling. The Reynoldses had rented out the whole restaurant, and Mara noticed several people staring at her strangely as she looked around the room for Garrett.

  “Hey, do you know where Garrett is?” Mara asked a girl who was dating one of Garrett’s friends.

  “He’s over there,” the girl said. “But, um . . .”

  Mara ignored her and walked over to the main table in the middle of the room, where Garrett was sitting with his chair tipped back, laughing uproariously. She walked up to him and rubbed her hand down his arm.

  “Er, hi. Sorry I’m late,” she whispered, looking for an empty seat at the table. There wasn’t one.

  Garrett turned around, obviously surprised to see her. “Mara, what are you doing here?”

  “I was waiting for you. I thought you were going to pick me up,” Mara said, wondering why he was looking at her like that. He’d told her about the dinner last week and had made her promise she’d be there.

  “Excuse us one second,” Garrett said, leading Mara away from the table. She noticed a tall, exotic-looking girl glaring at them.

  “Wait a minute—are you here with someone else?” Mara asked.

  “You didn’t get my message?” he whispered urgently, leading her farther away from the crowd.

  “What message?” Mara asked, stepping aside so a waiter could deliver a tray of champagne glasses to a nearby table.

  He sighed loudly and ran his fingers through his bangs. “I uh . . . I’m really sorry, Mara. You’re a great girl and all, but you know, no hard feelings.”

  “Excuse me?” she asked, noticing that everyone at the party was settling into their seats and several people were shooting Garrett concerned looks.

  “Listen,” he said, looking like a guy whose patience was being tested, “I can’t be seen with someone like you right now. My dad is getting all this bad press about our house, and if he finds out the girl I’m dating . . .” He trailed off.

  “What?” Mara asked.

  “Oh, Mara. Everyone knows you took the earrings.” Garrett smiled. “I think it’s awesome, actually. Great job sticking it to Mitzi. You know her firm doesn’t have liability insurance, right? Her career is over.” He chuckled.

  “But I didn’t take the earrings. I didn’t,” Mara said. “And I can’t believe you would think that of me.”

  “Listen, babe. It doesn’t matter what I think. I told you, I don’t care if you did take them, but I can’t have any bad publicity right now. My dad is going to go ballistic if my name is attached to yours any more this summer. It was bad enough when people chatted about your . . . you know . . . background. But this is worse.”

  Mara shook her head. She didn’t understand what Garrett was saying. What background? What press? What bad publicity? How did he even know about the ea
rrings? Then Mara remembered: This was the Hamptons. Everyone knew everything.

  “So you’re dumping me?” Mara asked.

  “Mara, you’re a nice girl, and we had some good times, right?” Garrett said, winking at her. “It was worth it for the Perry factor alone.”

  Perry factor? Mara opened her mouth to ask what the hell he meant by that, but Garrett was already back at his table, raising his glass in a toast.

  To himself, natch.

  seventh circle of hell, indeed

  “YOU SEE THAT TABLE OVER THERE?”

  Eliza nodded. She looked over to where Kartik was pointing. It wasn’t just a table, it was the table—the table that Mara had danced on the night of the nipple photo, and the one that Chauncey Raven usually commanded.

  “Make sure they get extra-special treatment,” Kartik said.

  Eliza nodded and walked over to the table to deliver her standard welcome: a monologue on the services offered at the club, with a personal gesture—a bottle of the most expensive champagne. It was a pretty little speech that never failed to impress the VIPs, who, if male, would drool over Eliza, wondering if she was part of the “services provided,” or, if female, would try to bond with Eliza, since most celebrities had been waitresses or hostesses until they hit it big.

  “Hi, I’m Eliza. I just want to welcome you to Seventh Circle,” Eliza said, beginning her speech, when she noticed who it was that had caused Kartik to single the table out. “Sheridan Dunlop?”

  “Oh my God. Eliza!”

  Sheridan Dunlop had been a year ahead of Eliza at Spence but had dropped out and moved to Los Angeles after her junior year. She’d since cornered the market on icy blond Wasp princess roles, now that Gwyneth Paltrow had joined the ranks of stay-at-home moms, and had recently been nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of a deaf-mute prostitute. She was sitting with a bunch of old friends from New York and the Hamptons. Carolyn Flynn was there, as well as her old friends Taylor and Lindsay, and . . . Jeremy?

  “Hey, Eliza,” Jeremy said casually, as he smoothly took the bottle of champagne from her grasp. He was actually sitting between Taylor and Lindsay, and Lindsay had her hand on his knee.

  Eliza was stunned. She’d thought all along that Jeremy was with Carolyn, but now it was even worse. Lindsay—Lindsay, that smug little copycat wannabe with the bad nose job and the hyena laugh. She was looking at Eliza like she’d won a prize.

  “Hi, Jeremy. Great to see you, Sheridan,” Eliza said, walking away.

  She was holding back tears on the back patio, shakily smoking a cigarette when Jeremy found her.

  “ ’Liza,” he said, touching her shoulder.

  “They’re just using you, you know,” she said quickly. “They’re the kind of people who . . . who . . . they don’t even really like you. They just want something from you. Lindsay’s not exactly an honest person, you know.”

  Jeremy raised his eyebrow, pulling his lips into his mouth. “You know, I’m not sure you’re exactly in a position to be talking about honesty. I know all about you and Ryan Perry.”

  Oh.

  there’s more than one kind of pond scum

  THE NEXT MORNING, MARA WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE a massage at Naturopathica with Poppy and Sugar. She was looking forward to it, since the stress of the lost earrings was definitely getting to her.

  “Have you seen the twins?” Mara asked, bumping into Laurie outside their bedrooms.

  “I think they left.”

  “They did? How?” The twins hadn’t had their own car for weeks.

  “I think they took Poppy’s BMW,” Laurie explained.

  That was her BMW, but Mara didn’t feel like correcting Laurie, who’d been pretty cold ever since Mitzi Goober had mistaken her for Mara’s assistant at the beginning of the summer.

  Still annoyed, Mara walked into the kitchen and flipped through the newspapers. GEORGICA POND DRAINED OVERNIGHT! blared the latest issue of the East Hampton Star. Georgica Pond was a pretty lagoon and nature preserve next to the ocean, where she and Ryan used to walk and the kids liked to play. It was also home to the piping plover, an endangered bird. Someone had dug a ditch through the fifty-foot beachhead to drain the pond water into the ocean overnight. There were “before” and “after” pictures, and Mara didn’t even recognize the swampy mess in the “after” photo.

  Ezra Reynolds was named as the prime suspect because he had publicly complained that the pond overflow was disturbing his construction, and he had been denied a permit to legally drain the pond. The article mentioned that those who lived on Georgica Pond “frequently saw themselves as above the law,” and that neighbors included Calvin Klein, Martha Stewart, Stephen Spielberg, and Ron Perelman, who had all issued stern denials. The Reynolds contingent was suspiciously mum on the matter.

  Mara felt more than a little repulsed. What kind of person—what kind of family—would be so selfish? Those poor little piping plovers. She picked up the New York Post, immediately turning to Page Six to read their gossipy take on the Pond Drain Mystery. But a different article caught her eye: QUARTER-MIL MISHAP! Mara sat down, swallowing as she read.

  Which not-so-wellborn girl who dated one It Boy last year and traded up for an even richer boyfriend this summer was loaned a pair of million-dollar earrings for an event and hasn’t bothered to return them?

  It was a classic Page Six blind item, except that it went on . . . and on.

  “She said she misplaced them, but I think they’re stolen,” an anonymous source revealed. “I thought she was a friend of the Perry twins, but she’s from some cow town or something.” Sugar Perry, when asked for a quote, said only, “So many people claim to be my friend, and I’ve never met them in my life!”

  “Totally,” her newly brunette sister Poppy added.

  The article did everything but name Mara, although her identity wouldn’t be too difficult to figure out from the incriminating details.

  “I didn’t steal them!” Mara said to the empty kitchen, her face ashen. So that was why the twins hadn’t waited for her this morning. They had already written her off. The Daily News had a story about the earring scandal as well, and another gossip columnist lambasted her as a greedy, stealing au pair.

  Garrett and the twins’ brush-off would only be the first of many, she knew. Mara had never felt so deflated and rejected in her life.

  * * *

  It was raining hard when Jacqui returned from her SAT class late that night to find a shadowy figure on the lawn, holding an umbrella and combing the grass with a flashlight. Poor Mara. Even if Jacqui was still mad at her, it still made her sad to watch Mara searching the grass in the middle of a downpour. A flash of lightning lit up the sky, and Jacqui realized the figure was too tall to be Mara.

  It was Ryan.

  “Hey,” Jacqui said, calling to him. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, hi, Jacqui,” Ryan said, pointing his flashlight in her direction. “I lost my, uh, contact lens and I was looking for it.”

  “I didn’t know you wore contacts,” Jacqui said.

  Ryan shrugged, and Jacqui smiled sadly.

  If only Mara knew how much Ryan Perry still loved her.

  the piping plovers have never been so popular

  ALLAN WHITMAN AND KARTIK COULDN’T RESIST A CHANCE for publicity, and the weekend after the pond scandal, they quickly put together a benefit party for the homeless plovers at Seventh Circle.

  Eliza found Jacqui in the middle of the crowd and hugged her. It was the first time that summer Jacqui had set foot in Seventh Circle, and she was impressed with the way Eliza controlled the crowd and worked the room. Neither of them mentioned how hurt they were by Mara, but they both knew what the other was thinking.

  Eliza saw Ryan come in and walked over to his side. They hadn’t seen each other in a week, and in that time, she had stopped being angry about the friends-with-benefits thing and had started wanting to be actual friends again.

  “Hey,” she said, bumping an arm on his sh
oulder.

  Ryan managed a smile. “Hey, yourself.”

  She kissed him on the cheek, brushing the corner of his lips by accident. “I’m sorry about the other night,” she said.

  “I’m sorry too,” Ryan said. “I didn’t realize . . . I mean, I want to say, I really do care about you, Eliza. And I don’t know what I was saying. I mean . . . you know you’re more than a friend to me. We can be a couple if that’s what you want.”

  “I know,” Eliza said.

  Ryan held out his arms and Eliza stepped into them. She nestled her head on his shoulder and he tightened his arm around her waist. It should have been enough, but it wasn’t. Because just then, across the room, she spotted Jeremy and Lindsay walking into the VIP room.

  Jeremy had slicked his dark hair back and was wearing a brown cashmere sport jacket and dark denim jeans. Lindsay had her arm snaked around him in a vise grip and was looking up at him adoringly. He bent down to whisper something in her ear, and Lindsay laughed as if she’d never heard anything funnier in her life. Eliza’s heart clenched.

  Ryan went to get them drinks, and Eliza turned to look out the window. It was still raining hard outside, like it had yesterday, but that didn’t stop people from waiting outside the club as usual. Then she saw Mara at the door, underneath an umbrella, being turned away by one of Mitzi Goober’s minions.

  Eliza saw Mitzi Goober pretend not to see Mara. Mara was one of the few people who actually cared about the plovers, and Eliza knew it had taken courage for her to even show her face to this crowd. J.Lo had attended the MTV Music Awards wearing Harry Winston, and Mara had been blacklisted.

  Mitzi’s assistants asked Mara to step aside, and, against Eliza’s better judgment, her heart went out to her. Mara slowly turned away, but not before peering through the plate glass window and seeing Ryan kiss Eliza on the forehead and hand her a drink.

  It’s not what you think, Eliza thought. But even if Eliza had wanted to run out of the club to call her name, Mara was already walking away.