Beach Lane - By Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,1
Eliza shouldered her Vuitton carryall (the only one her mom let her keep from her formerly extensive collection) and walked as fast as she could to get away from the awful place.
She looked around at the sprawling bus station, wrinkling her nose at the blinding fluorescent lights, the holiday rush of the crowd on their way to the 34th Street piers for the fireworks, the pockets of pasty-faced tourists holding American flags and scanning LIRR timetables. Was this how the other half lived? Pushing and pulling and running and catching trains? Ugh. She’d never had to take public transportation in her life. She’d almost missed the bus that morning before she realized it might actually have the temerity to leave without her.
Life had always waited for and waited on Eliza. She never even wore a wristwatch. Why bother? The party never started till she arrived. Eliza was dimpled, gorgeous and blond, blessed with the kind of cover girl looks that paradise resort brochures were made of. All she needed to complete the picture was a dark tan and a gold lavaliere necklace. The tan would happen—she’d hit Flying Point and slather on the Ombrelle, and, well, the lavaliere was tacky anyway.
She wandered for a while in a bit of a daze, looking for exit signs, annoyed at all the plebian commotion. A harried soccer mom with a fully loaded stroller elbowed her aside, throwing her onto a brunette girl who was standing in the middle of the station, holding a map.
“Oh, gee, I’m so sorry,” the girl said, helping Eliza back to her feet.
Eliza scowled but mumbled a reluctant, “It’s okay,” even though it hadn’t been the girl’s fault that she had fallen.
“Excuse me—do you know where the . . .?” the girl asked, but Eliza had already dashed off to the nearest exit.
On 42nd Street, horns honked in futile protest at the usual gridlock. A long, serpentine line for the few yellow cabs snaked down the block, but Eliza felt exultant. She was back in New York! Her city! She savored the smog-filled air. She hoped idly that she would make it in time. She didn’t really have a backup plan in mind. But the one thing she loved about Kit was how predictable he was.
She walked a block away from the taxi line and put two fingers in her mouth to blow an earsplitting whistle.
A cab materialized in front of her turquoise Jack Rogers flip-flops. Eliza smiled and stowed her bags in the trunk.
“Park Avenue and Sixty-third, please,” she told the driver. God, it was good to be home.
port authority, take two: mara is definitely not a new yorker
MARA WATERS CONSULTED THE GRUBBY PIECE OF PAPER in her hand. Mr. Perry had said something about the Hampton Jitney, but as she looked around the Port Authority complex, she couldn’t find signs for it anywhere. She was getting anxious. She didn’t want to be late for her first day.
She still couldn’t believe she was in New York! It was so exciting to see all the flickering neon lights, the mobs of people, and to experience the brisk, rubberneck pace—and that was just the bus station! In Sturbridge the bus station was a lone bench on a forlorn corner. You’d think they’d spruce up the place a bit to herald the occasion of someone actually leaving that dead-end town, but no.
When the phone call came the day before, she just couldn’t believe her luck. There she was, dressed up as the Old School Marm at Ye Olde School House at Olde Sturbridge Village, sweating underneath an itchy powdered wig and shepherding complacent midwestern tourists through the nineteenth century, when the news came. She’d gotten the job as an au pair! In the Hamptons! For ten thousand dollars for two months! More money than she could even imagine. At the very least, enough to pay for her college contribution and maybe have enough left over for the sweet little Toyota Camry she had her eye on from Jim’s uncle’s used car dealership.
Of course, Jim hadn’t been too pleased she was leaving him for the summer. Actually that was the understatement of the year. Jim had been p-i-s-s-e-d. It had all happened so quickly that Mara hadn’t even had a chance to tell him she’d applied for the job, and Jim wasn’t the kind of guy who liked Mara making plans without him, or plans that didn’t include him, or, really, any plans at all that he hadn’t approved of beforehand. This