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"You guys back in the building?"
"Not exactly," she said, trying to appear casual. She looked down the street. There was no sign of Kit's convertible. "Kit around?"
"Mr. Christopher?" Duke scratched his forehead with a black leather glove, which was part of the uniform--even in ninety-eight-degree heat. "I think he just left."
She cursed under her breath. She couldn't believe she'd missed her ride.
"Mr. and Mrs. Ashleigh are upstairs, though. I can ring up." "No thanks," Eliza said, suppressing a temptation to gnaw her nails. What on earth was she going to do now?
17
Just then a familiar red convertible pulled up in front of the red canopy. An agreeable-looking guy with a blond crew cut hopped out of the front seat without waiting for Duke to open the door. He gasped when he saw Eliza.
"Liza!"
"Kit!"
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, before enveloping her in a bone-crunching bear hug.
Eliza ignored the question. "It's great to see you!" she said, rubbing her fingers on his spiky hair and giving him a noogie.
"I forgot something--I just gotta run up and grab it. You goin' to Amagansett?" Kit started jogging backward into the marble lobby. "Hey, you want a ride?"
"Sure!" she said, relieved. Good old Kit. Eliza let Duke put her bags in the trunk and settled in the front seat to wait for Kit.
"Damn, girl! I missed you!" Kit said when he returned. He fired up the engine and they cruised top-down on Park Avenue. "You, like, went AWOL."
"Yeah, well, after everything that happened," Eliza said offhandedly, "my parents wanted to get out of the city to just relax, you know? So they decided to ship me off to boarding school. Quel drag." Eliza found Kit's Marlboros on the dashboard and helped herself to one. Her hands shook slightly as she rooted in the glove compartment for a lighter. "Lights out at eleven and the hall monitor is a tool," she said, firing up a Zippo and inhaling.
18
Kit grunted in sympathy. "Dad threatened that once. But I don't have the grades for Andover. So, uh, how are the 'rents, anyway?" Kit asked tentatively.
"They, um, spend all their time in Florida these days," she improvised. Eliza knew what everyone had read in the papers, but no one knew just how bad it had gotten. The gossip pages and business section had lost interest after her dad got off without an indictment, and before long the Thompsons had feigned exhaustion and disinterest over all the hubbub and left Manhattan for good.
"I didn't know you guys were down in PB!" He smacked the steering wheel, looking relieved. "We gotta hook up winter break!"
"Of course!" She felt sick to her stomach having to lie to one of her best friends. Especially since he automatically assumed the Thompsons had retired to Palm Beach. God, she missed their place by Mar-a-Lago.
It was all her dad's fault. She felt an all-too-familiar bitter resentment welling up inside her. It just wasn't fair. Her parents could hide out in Buffalo and avoid all their old friends. But Eliza was sixteen--not sixty--with her whole life ahead of her. She wasn't about to waste her chance. She wanted back in, no matter what it took.
"So it's just you this summer?" Kit asked.
"Yeah, thank God I bumped into you! I thought I'd have to take the Jitney. Ugh. You know I got kicked off last time because I wouldn't turn off my cell."
19
Kit grinned. "I remember. It made the Post."
"Anyway, I'm staying at my uncle's place on Georgica," she said. It wasn't such a stretch, really--Kevin Perry was one of her father's lawyers and after the last year, well, they were practically family. Eliza decided she was really just "helping out," and if she got paid doing it, what was the harm? Come to think of it, she was really more like an honored guest. After all, she had grown up with his twin daughters, Sugar and Poppy.
"Cool. That's not too far from our new place. Got any plans for tonight?"
"No, what's up?"
"A couple of the gang are hitting Resort--there's a party in the VIP room around midnight--then afterward there's P. Diddy's Red, White, and Blue soiree at the PlayStation2 House."
"Sounds cool." Eliza nodded. She knew the guys who ran the PlayStation2 House. A couple of New York club promoters had convinced Sony it was a good idea to fund a weekend party house to "market" their new games. In the Hamptons it was unofficially known as a model landing pad. Kind of like the Playboy Mansion but with nubile flat-chested eighteen-year-olds who were more likely to be found marching down a runway than spread-eagle in a centerfold.
