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"It'll be fine," Mara said, even though her heart was pumping hard in her chest. Cody hadn't even stuck a toe in the water. Madison had gained two pounds. William had taken to ramming his head against the walls. Zoe barely recognized the alphabet.
"Well, here goes." Eliza shrugged, opening the door to the basement screening room the Perrys had installed over the spring. A large sixteen-foot-long and eight-foot-tall screen was set up at the far wall, and each girl took a seat on a black leather Barcalounger.
They waited for ten minutes. Fifteen ... half an hour...
Jacqui fell asleep. Eliza read a copy of Vogue, happy to have a bit of quiet time away from the little devils. Mara looked at her watch anxiously.
Finally Esperanza, the Perrys' full-time housekeeper, appeared at the door. "Meu deus, I forgot to tell you. Laurie say Miss Anna out shopping and Mister Kevin playing tennis."
Oh.
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tanning is eliza's favorite sport
"Mar, pass the suntan oil," Eliza ordered from behind her wraparound shades. The sun was blinding, but that wasn't the reason she hadn't taken off her sunglasses all day.
Earlier that morning the Doublemint twins had found her wiping up Cody's daily spill in the sun-filled breakfast room. They were dressed in matching skimpy satin nightgowns and cashmere bathrobes. "Ew, gross," Sugar had said, daintily stepping away from the mess.
"How can you even touch that?" Poppy asked.
Eliza's cheeks burned as she scrubbed the floor on her knees. She hadn't counted on the twins getting up so early.
"Did you call Kit?" Poppy asked her sister. "What time is he picking us up to hit Sunset Beach?"
Sugar gave Poppy a warning look, not so subtly motioning toward Eliza, who could hear them perfectly even if their backs were turned to her.
"I don't know; let's check later," Sugar said, taking a banana
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from the fruit bowl. "Hey, Eliza, did you remember to call Jean- Luc to make us a reservation?" Poppy asked.
"Yeah, you're booked for eight-thirty," Eliza mumbled, picking up the baby from his high chair.
"You made sure we got the corner table, right?"
"That's what they told me."
"Huh. Well, if we're seated anywhere else, I'm so not going to be very happy," Poppy threatened.
Sugar shrugged, gave Eliza a half-scornful, half-pitying look, and followed her sister out of the room.
After they were gone, Eliza had quietly sobbed into Cody's Diaper Genie. It just wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair... . She was a good person, underneath the fading five-hundred-dollar highlights, and she hadn't done anything in her life to deserve being treated that way. Cody watched her in fascination as she sniffed and blew her nose loudly.
"One day, when you grow up and come into your trust fund, promise me you'll try to get them disinherited," she told him, cuffing his chin.
Her eyes were still red and puffy from her run-in with the two wicked stepsisters when she went out to join the others by the pool. But that was what big Gucci sunglasses were made for.
"Mara--the suntan lotion, please?" Eliza snapped, still holding out her palm.
"Oh, sorry," Mara said, looking up from the side of the
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Infinity Edge pool, where she was trying to coax Cody into the water. She was a little annoyed that both Eliza and Jacqui acted like they were getting paid to laze about and sunbathe in their skimpy bikinis. The two of them had been comatose on their lounge chairs all afternoon, hardly lifting a finger to help--even when William fell in and pretended to drown. "Psych!" he'd yelled when Mara dove in after him, still in her shorts and T-shirt. And Madison was stuffing her face, but no one had the energy to find yet another of her junk food hiding places.
