"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.

Zoe.

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.

"Zoe, get up," she said.

"Huh?"

"Time to go to the bathroom." Mara yawned.

One morning Mara had discovered Zoe 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. Zoe still couldn't believe it when she woke up in the morning to dry sheets. Mara was a miracle worker.

"I'm done, Mara," Zoe 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.

Zoe nodded. Whatever Mara said, Zoe 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 birthday when I was eleven," Mara said, embarrassed.

"Kids being a pain?" Ryan asked.

"No, I thought Zoe buzzed the intercom. But she's asleep. What are you up to?" Mara didn't want to blow up Zoe's spot, even if she was only six.

"My friends are dragging me out," he said, cracking his neck. "Some party to save babies; I don't remember."

"At Trupin Castle?"

"Yeah." His face lit up. "You going?"

She laughed, looking down at her slippers. "Does it look like I am?"

His smile faded a little. "Do you want to come? I'm sure it won't be a problem."

She shook her head. "No, I'm fine, really."

"Next time, then."

"Sure."

Mara walked back to the au pairs' cottage, wondering if she should have taken Ryan up on his offer, and found Jacqui sitting on the front steps, looking dejected. "What happened? Where's Luca?"

"He canceled," Jacqui said. "I sat out there in front waiting for him for an hour, and he just called and said he was too tired."

"I'm sorry."

"I feel like going out, though. e uma noite bonita. Don't you?"

"I'm in pajamas," Mara pointed out.

"You could change."

"I dunno. . . ."

"C'mon. I called Eliza and she said she'd put us on the list if we changed our minds."

Mara thought about it. In two weeks she hadn't even set foot outside the Perry estate after dark. And Ryan was going to be there, too. Maybe it was time to see this "other side of the Hamptons" that Eliza was always talking about.

Jacqui looked at her hopefully.

"Oh, sure, what the hell, we'll go."

And with that, Mara and Jacqui bounded back to the cottage to change.

there's never a dress code if you're cute enough.

NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE SHE ARRIVED, MARA wondered why everything was so crowded in the Hamptons. For a so-called weekend retreat, it was certainly packed with enough people.

She and Jacqui had taken a cab, and they barely had enough between them to pay the meter. They were aghast at the price, but they were still leery of taking full advantage of the "take any car that isn't being used in the lot" rule, ad plus, the Grey Goose had made them both a little tipsy. When they arrived at the castle gates, Mara was sure they were never getting inside. The people at the door of Trupin Castle couldn't understand Jacqui's accent, and when they did, they couldn't find Eliza's name on the list. Then even after they found it, one of the guards shook his head at Mara's shoes. "There's a dress code here, ladies," he scolded. Jacqui had told her not to wear her Reeboks, but then when she saw Mara's totally-in-need-of-a-pedicure toes, she acquiesced. Closed toes were a must. Luckily the other bouncer took a shine to Jacqui and decided to let them in anyway.

"You made it!" Eliza said when she spotted them by the bar. "What do you want? I know the bartender," she added, signaling. They told her, and two drinks were promptly passed over. "Check out the live shark tank," she said, pointing to the middle of the room, where six-foot-long hammerheads were on display.

Mara tried not to gape. Was there no end to all this excess?

"I got Mara out. Can you believe it?" Jacqui laughed.

"Where's Luca?"

Jacqui shrugged. "He was busy."

"Jacqui, you've met Lindsay and Taylor," Eliza said, motioning to her two friends, who were giving the newcomers not-so-subtle once-overs.

"Yeah-the exchange student," Lindsay said, giving Jacqui a fake smile. Lindsay didn't like girls that looked like Jacqui. They were way too much competition at a game she could never win.

Exchange student? Mara wondered. Huh?

"And this is Mara, another new friend of mine," Eliza said.

"What is that?" Taylor asked, pointing to the Amstel Light in Mara's hands.

"Beer?" Mara replied.

Taylor made a face. "Ugh, how can you drink that?" she asked. "So foul." Mara sipped her drink and cautiously looked around. Everyone else was holding brightly colored cocktails in martini glasses. Couldn't she do anything right? And where was Ryan? She couldn't see him anywhere, but there were so many people, it wasn't that surprising.

"Taylor-drinks?" Lindsay asked, even if her glass was only half empty. The two took that cue to make their exit. They'd had enough of Eliza's "new friends."

"Don't look now, but Charlie's walking over," Taylor warned before she stalked off, motioning to a short guy in a blue blazer who was making a beeline their way.

Eliza turned around to show her best side and slouched down a little-in her heels she was taller than he was, and she knew he never liked that.

Charlie Borshok was a classic trust fund kid. Rumor had it his family had already spent half a million dollars on restructuring his face. He'd received a nose job, ear tuck, chin lift, cheek implants, forehead lift, and who knows what else to approximate some sort of attractiveness. There had been a documentary made about the lives of super-rich kids that had caused a big mess a little while back. Rumor had it that he was supposed to be one of the stars. "Prenup! Prenup! Prenup! It's been drilled into my head since I was three!" he'd told the cameras. "And if she won't sign, she's a disgusting gold digger anyway." But the Borshok family had filed enough court injunctions that the director finally gave up on Charlie, and the material was left on the cutting room floor. Of course, everyone heard about it anyway. Eliza knew half a dozen kids who had been interviewed for the film who's parents had tried to do the same thing.

But none of that mattered to Eliza. Charlie was still the great guy who gave her a pair of two-carat Harry Winston diamond earrings on their six-month anniversary. Now that was love.

"Hey, handsome," she said, still smiling down at him despite the slouching.

"Hi, Eliza," Charlie said, a little coldly. He was still pissed that she had dumped him last semester. What was up with that? Hadn't he given her a pair of two-carat Harry Winston diamond earrings on their six-month anniversary? Wasn't that love?

"Long time no see," Eliza said with as much warmth as she could muster. She and Charlie were good together, she was sure of that.

He shrugged. "Heard you were shipped out to Farmington."

Eliza tried not to look uneasy. She'd been very careful not to mention exactly which boarding school she was supposed to be attending, lest someone in her circle knew someone who prepped at the same school. But somehow word had gone out that she was supposed to be at Miss Porter's, an elite finishing school for girls in Connecticut.

"Tell me about it. Charlie, I want you to meet my friends, Mara and Jacqui. Guys, this is Charlie," Eliza said triumphantly.

"Nice to meet you. How do you know Eliza?" Charlie inquired, to be polite.

"Oh, we wor-" Mara began.

"She's my roommate!" Eliza interjected, thinking quickly.

"How do you like it?" Charlie asked.

"It's not too bad. The kids can be a pain, and our room is really small, but otherwise it's all right," Mara said. "Our boss is kind of demanding, though."

"That's what we call our house mistress." Eliza laughed shrilly. She gave Mara frantic warning eyes. "Boarding school is tres lame."

Boarding school? "Uh . . . right," Mara said hesitantly. "Yeah. Boarding school. The uniforms suck." What was going on here? "But, um. Eliza's the most popular girl there," she was inspired to add.

"Well, that's not a surprise," Charlie said, looking keenly at his ex-girlfriend. Charlie looked at women the way he measured Thoroughbreds-the flanks, the teeth, the shoes, and Eliza passed with flying marks on all counts. He was still smarting from their breakup. The Charlie Borshoks of the world didn't take too kindly to being dumped out of the blue. But Eliza Thompson was easily still the prettiest girl in East Hampton.

"We should get together sometime," he said to Eliza, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

Eliza's eyes misted at his touch. Was she being forgiven? Was Charlie going to let her back into his life? Was everything going to be perfect again? Would he rescue her from that roach-infested attic and book them a suite at the Bentley Hotel?

"Looks like you guys are gonna get back together after all," Mara said after Charlie had left.

"God, I hope so. Charlie's parents have the biggest yacht!" Eliza said, oblivious to how shallow she sounded.

"But what was THAT all about-us being friends from school?" Mara asked. "And why is Jacqui an exchange student?"

"It's like this . . .," Eliza said, biting her lip. Should she tell them? Could she trust them? They had covered for her so far. Who knew Mara could lie like that? They had made her look good in front of Charlie. Maybe she owed them the truth, even without an empty vodka bottle pointing in her direction.

Eliza pulled them to the quietest corner she could find-behind the column, near where several glassy-eyed club kids passed a suspiciously fragrant rolled-up cigarette. She told them the whole story-Buffalo, bankruptcy, and the boarding school fiction.

"I just don't want my friends to know, especially Charlie, that I'm working here this summer . . . you know? As an au pair . . ."

Mara and Jacqui looked at each other. What was the big deal?

"I know it's stupid, but I just want to have fun this summer. Is that okay?" she pleaded.

Jacqui yawned. Eliza's confession meant nothing to her. Let the girl tell everyone she was the Queen of England, what did it matter to her? Mara found it harder to understand. There was no shame in living in Buffalo. Hey, she was from Sturbridge. Eliza obviously had some issues, but Mara knew it wasn't her place to tell her that.

"So you guys won't tell anyone?" Eliza asked.

They nodded. Her secret was safe with them.

you call this progress?