Beach Lane - By Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,27

said. She certainly loved being Charlie Borshok’s girlfriend, if not Charlie himself. There were so many perks that went with the title. The gifts (always hand-delivered by special messenger). The vacations (weekends in Locust Valley, skiing in Telluride, surprise jaunts to St. Bart’s). The flat-out envy of everyone in the sophomore class.

“Do you guys keep in touch?” Mara asked.

“Not really. But he’s in the Hamptons this summer,” Eliza said. “I’m sure I’ll bump into him one of these days.”

“Maybe you guys will get back together,” Mara suggested. She couldn’t help it; she was a romantic at heart.

“We’ll see,” Eliza said. “I heard he’s already dating someone else.” She looked at her cell phone for the time. “I’ve got to get ready!”

“Where are you going?”

“There’s some benefit for baby teeth testing at Trupin Castle. It’s this huge mansion this guy built in Southampton; he broke, like, all the zoning laws to do it. I heard he paid six million in fees. Anyway, it’s never been open to the public and the new owner just got it renovated.”

“How do you keep getting into all these things? Don’t they card?” Mara asked.

Eliza took a puff from her cigarette and placed it on a makeshift ashtray (an upside-down Bumble and Bumble styling wax top). “I’ve got a fake ID. And it’s a private event. As long as you’re on the list, it doesn’t matter. It’s two hundred bucks a head, but Kit gave me three tickets. You guys wanna come?” The tonics and secret sharing were making Eliza feel surprisingly benevolent. Maybe these other girls weren’t so bad after all, she thought.

“No, I’m meeting Luca,” Jacqui said.

“I told Jim I’d call.”

“Suit yourselves,” Eliza said, pulling on a pair of skinny jeans and an off-the-shoulder top. She gave her blond mane a shake and took one last look at her reflection in the mirror. “Later,” she said, disappearing in a cloud of smoke and perfume.

It was eleven o’clock. By Hamptons standards, it was early. The evening had just begun.

mara’s got something special about her. it’s called being nice.

PROMPTLY AT MIDNIGHT THE ALARM CLOCK IN THE AU pairs’ room emitted an angry screech. Mara banged the snooze button down in confusion. She blinked. She had only been asleep for an hour. What was the deal?

Then she remembered.

Zoë.

She hauled herself out of bed and put on her robe and fuzzy slippers. She trudged all the way back to the main house and disabled the burglar alarm only after a few attempts. The house was eerily quiet. Mara walked up the stairs to the second landing to the room in the corner. She opened the door and walked quietly toward the small form huddled on the bed.

“Zoë, get up,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Time to go to the bathroom.” Mara yawned.

One morning Mara had discovered Zoë drenched up to her neck in her own pee. No one in the household seemed to know or care—least of all her stepmother—that the six-year-old was still wetting the bed. The kid was ruining five-hundred-count Frette sheets by the day. She had also developed an itchy rash on her legs from her nightly emissions. Mara couldn’t believe that the girl hadn’t been potty trained. So after picking up a well-thumbed copy of Dr. Spock from Bookhampton, every night at midnight Mara stole into the kid’s room and walked her to the bathroom. Zoë still couldn’t believe it when she woke up in the morning to dry sheets. Mara was a miracle worker.

“I’m done, Mara,” Zoë called from the bathroom. She flushed the toilet and walked back to her bed.

“Maybe next time you won’t need me to wake you up,” Mara said hopefully.

Zoë nodded. Whatever Mara said, Zoë was starting to believe.

Mara closed the door and walked out to the landing just in time to see Ryan Perry walk out of his room, fully dressed to go out. His hair was still wet from the shower, and he smelled like Ivory soap and cologne. He was wearing a linen sweater and dark jeans. Mara thought he could not look any cuter.

“Hey,” he said. They hadn’t seen much of each other since the first night. He had apologized about missing the Scrabble game, citing a friend in a broken-down Jeep as his excuse.

“Hi,” Mara said, wishing she was wearing something other than a plaid robe, bunny slippers, and a ragged nightshirt that read I ONLY SLEEP WITH THE BEST! in big pink bubble letters.

“Cute shirt.” He grinned. “Is it true?”

“My sister gave it to me for my