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"The lucky bastard," Rupert said, now grinning broadly. "Maxine and I know them," he said as he put a hand on her knee. "My wife, you know. We just got married last year. It wasn't my idea," he added as he ran a hand up her toned thigh, stopping just short of her denim miniskirt. He let his hand rest there--just below--to see what she would do.
It must have been the alcohol because even if she had expected this, Jacqui wasn't as repulsed as she normally would be.
"We won't get into East Hampton for another hour with this traffic," he murmured, leaning in to smell her hair. "What do you say?"
Jacqui giggled into her glass. Really, men were way too predictable. "I don't know, what do you say?" she asked, finally pushing his hand away.
"Well, I think we should get to know each other a little ..." he began to suggest when they were both jostled by the limo swerving to miss a Mercedes convertible.
Jacqui looked out the window and saw a cute guy giving the limo the finger while a blond girl laughed beside him.
"Luca?" she called. It looked like him--from the back--was it? She couldn't be sure. Thinking of Luca sobered her up. What the hell was she doing in the back of a limo with a guy twice her age?
It was time to take control of the situation.
"Rupert," she said, turning around to let him know she
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needed to be dropped off in East Hampton pronto and she wasn't about to play any more games. But Rupert was already on the other side of the car, answering his cell phone.
Thank God for Hollywood diva crises.
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east hampton, new york: God, eliza missed this
Three hours after they set off from Park Avenue, Kit and Eliza arrived on East Hampton's main drag. Eliza felt a wave of nostalgia and affection at the sight of the familiar tree- lined shopping street with the shiny Citarella anchored at the end of the block. The store here stocked even better salmon pâté and stuffed grape leaves than the one on the Upper West Side. A few blocks away stood the Creed outpost, a pink jewel box of a store, where she had spent hours trying on perfumes last summer, finally selecting one especially made for the duchess of Windsor.
That's what Eliza loved about the Hamptons--Manhattan's most elegant boutiques and gourmet food stores transplanted to a gentler setting. The Hamptons were just like the city, except with only one-tenth of its inhabitants--the top one-tenth. It was the social equivalent of Harvard, Eliza decided. Of course, there were too many of the hoi polloi these days--wannabes who piled into illegal fifty-person "share houses," where the beds were stacked up right next to each other like the school gyms that doubled as
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disaster-recovery zones whenever there was a flood or a fire or a tornado or one of those other terrible things that happened far, far from here.
Regrettably, the Hamptons were getting more media attention every year. There had been a number of cable specials, documentaries, and "exposes" on everything from the singles dating scene to the environmental problem. It was a favorite target of lazy lifestyle reporters who were forever sounding the death knell and declaring the scene "over" and the beach "spoiled by civilization." Still, it didn't keep the hordes of up-and-coming Hollywood stars, Grammy Award winners, sitcom royalty, rap impresarios, literary lions, and assorted social-climbing aspirants from calling the place home-away-from-home three months out of the year. After all, a forty-mile stretch of beach only four hours' drive from Manhattan (make that two if you sped on Route 27 after dinner and The Sopranos on Sundays) was a total godsend.
"You can drop me off right here," she told Kit. "I'm meeting my uncle by the windmill."
"Okay." Kit nodded, finding a spot by the curb. He popped the trunk and helped her with her bags. "So we'll see you tonight?" he asked.
"Duh. Of course."
"Rockin'. Don't forget--if they ask, you're on my list. Any problem at the door, buzz me," he said, miming a phone call. He kissed her on the cheek. "Later."
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"Later." She waved. She walked over to the bench where a Jitney was unloading its passengers. A disgruntled girl wiping away a stain on the bottom of her shirt walked off the bus and sat down next to her.
Eliza barely noticed. She was oblivious to the outside world and already plotting how she would ditch work to go to the party. She wasn't totally clear on the rules per se, but if the party started at midnight, there was no reason she wouldn't be able to go, right? Kevin was just doing this as a favor to her dad. It wasn't as if the Perrys actually expected her to watch their children.
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ryan perry is adonis in board shorts
"Yecch. It's no use!" Mara complained, making one last effort to clean up the mess. She threw the tissue away in disgust, making a perfect arc into the trash can. It was her best going-out shirt, too. A nice rayon-poly blend she'd gotten at Marshall's for, like, thirty bucks! It wasn't so pretty now that the little beast Muffy had peed all over it.
Mara looked around, blinking at the quaint small-town storefronts that announced exclusive brand names. A white summer cottage read Tiffany & Co. in the window; another rustic shack read Cashmere Hampton. A glittering assortment of Mercedes- Benzes, Jaguars, BMWs, and Porsches made a slow, rumbling parade down the center of town, where a giant windmill towered at the intersection. Mara had never before seen a Bentley in real life--and in two minutes in East Hampton, she had already counted two.
