Beach Lane Collection

by Melissa de la Cruz

  She’d forgotten Cassidy was allergic to cats, so the baby’s nose was running and dripping all over everything. She didn’t know that Violet was scared of horses. The twins thought a “farm zoo” was beneath their intelligence and had boycotted the event by taking seats under a shady tree and refusing to budge. Only Wyatt threw himself into the activity with gusto and had already fallen into a bale of hay, been chased by a pig, and been bitten by an angry duck.

  She wiped Cassidy’s nose with a baby wipe and tried to manage her frustration just as the now-familiar flash of a camera momentarily blinded her.

  “Hold it, just like that. . . . Marvelous,” Marcus directed.

  On top of everything, the afternoon was also supposed to be a fashion shoot for Vogue. The editors had flipped when they heard Jacqui was also an au pair—they declared that children were the hottest accessory of the season, what with all the big stars making child care a fashionable event, and Marcus was quickly dispatched to take some quick shots of Jacqui tending to her young charges.

  He had promised that it would be fun and that he would help with the “rug rats,” as he playfully called them, but so far all he’d done was jump in her face with his camera and get in her way.

  “Don’t mind me, just go on with what you’re doing . . . ,” he said cheerfully.

  Easy for him to say. She jiggled Cassidy on her shoulder, trying to soothe him. The baby suddenly vomited all over her new cross-back sundress. It was the only sample in existence. How exactly was she going to make this look glamorous?

  “Ick,” Marcus said, making a face. “You’re going to have to change. Puke is not fall’s new color,” he joked.

  Jacqui put the baby back in his car seat and scrubbed at the stain with a baby wipe, hoping Cassidy would be good. She hadn’t expected Marcus to be hands-on with the kids, but she wasn’t prepared for utter revulsion either. She briefly remembered how attentive and sweet Marcus had been with the kids on the day they’d met. Was that all an act, part of the courtship process? And if that was an act, what else was? Jacqui shook off the thought as she wiped baby Cassidy’s pink cheeks, hoping he wouldn’t throw up again—she was almost out of wipes.

  Marcus studied the photos in the small viewing screen of his camera. “I don’t know why you’re wasting your time cleaning up spittle,” he said. “You should be on the runway in Milan, not running a day-care center.”

  “I like working with kids,” Jacqui said defensively as she hunted down juice boxes in her backpack for the kids’ midafternoon snack.

  “That’s not the point, love,” Marcus said, coming over to squeeze her waist and give her a kiss on the cheek. “You’re better than this,” he added in a whisper as Jackson, Logan, and Violet approached from their perch under the shady tree to partake of the snack.

  Jacqui smiled to hide her annoyance. Who was he to tell her what to do with her life? She’d done a damn good job taking care of those Perry kids for three years, although no one ever gave her any credit for it. Madison was now a well-balanced teen at a normal weight, William was far from the hyperactive little boy he used to be, Zoë had finally learned to read, and Cody was toilet-trained. And that was a serious feat.

  “C’mon, everyone, how about we go on a hayride?” she proposed as she passed out the juice boxes, trying to muster up enthusiasm. She was met by five blank faces.

  “A hayride?” Logan wrinkled his nose. “You mean an hour spent sitting on itchy bales of hay while driving around a brown, muddy field?”

  Looking around at the children’s unhappy faces, Jacqui was unsure what to do. The more trouble she had with the Finnemores, the more she began to doubt herself and her abilities. Maybe her work with the Perrys had just been a fluke?

  “If it’s all right with you, babe, I’m taking off. I’ll meet you later,” Marcus said, stowing away his camera and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, leaving her to deal with five grumpy children on her own.

  Maybe Marcus is right, Jacqui thought as she proceeded to practically drag the children over to the area where eager kids were boarding large red trucks filled with hay. Covered in baby drool, with a sulky pre-teen, two bored seven-year-olds, and a five-year-old who wouldn’t sit still, she wasn’t exactly super-nanny.

  “Where’s Mara?” Jackson asked plaintively, not for the first time that day.

  “She’ll be back tomorrow,” Jacqui promised, feeling a little hurt.

  “I want her noooowwww!!!” he suddenly screamed.

  Maybe it was indeed time to throw in the burp cloth and put on the stilettos.

  david plays dunne to mara’s didion

  THE AUGUST SUN FELT WARM and prickly on her skin and Mara turned onto her stomach lazily, feeling genuinely relaxed for the first time in ages. “You’re slacking on lotion duties,” she teasingly told David, pushing the St. Barth’s tanning oil she’d found in the bathroom toward him.

  She put her head in her hands and glanced out toward the water. From their vantage point, she could keep an eye on the kids playing by the shore. Violet was completely engrossed in the latest issue of the New Yorker. Logan and Jackson were fascinatedly using a metal detector. Wyatt was building sand castles. Cassidy was dozing in his stroller underneath the Bugaboo sunshade. The children were all as they should be—occupied.

  When Mara woke up for work that day, Jacqui was nowhere to be found—as usual. It was a whole week since she’d taken the kids to the farm, and she had been missing from the mansion since then. Apparently, now that she was officially a model for Vogue, Jacqui wasn’t going to bother to show up for work anymore. Taking care of five children entirely on her own was becoming exhausting, so Mara was thankful when David called and proposed a day at the beach. There were only two weeks of summer left, and she wanted to squeeze at least a little fun out of them.

  David inched toward her and began rubbing the buttery lotion into her shoulders, giving her a little massage as he did. Mara sighed. It was heavenly having him back in town. He was amazing with the kids. He was the one who’d brought the metal detector for Jackson and Logan, he’d shown Wyatt how to build a sand castle, and he’d gotten the baby to say his first word, “Dah.” He’d even had a heart-to-heart with Violet, whom he’d confided in that he’d been a gangly smart kid in high school. Violet seemed really happy to know that introverted kids could turn out cool, and she’d even whispered to Mara that David was “really cute.”

  Mara sighed in pleasure as his strong hands worked their way down her back, tugging playfully at her bikini strings.

  “So . . . I had a chance to look up your blog the other day,” David said, removing one hand from her back to dab a little sun-block on his nose.

  “And?” Mara asked, holding her breath. She’d told him about the blog and how she was thinking of maybe turning it into some kind of novel one day. But that was a week ago and he hadn’t mentioned it, so Mara had assumed he hated it or thought it was trivial.

  “It’s hilarious. I particularly enjoyed all the death wishes for your slacker boyfriend ‘D.,’ ” he added with a grin.

  “Oops. I forgot. I had to vent, you know,” she said, pulling herself up on her elbows and looking at him underneath the brim of her straw hat. “But what’d you think?”

  “I told you, I thought it was really funny. You have a great voice—very appealing to women, I think. Very chatty,” he added, capping the suntan oil. He regarded her thoughtfully. “I think you have something there. I would concentrate a little more on the social aspect—do it as a comedy of manners. An upstairs/downstairs kind of thing. You know, like Remains of the Day but for teens.”

  “Huh.” Mara nodded, gratified that he took her work so seriously. Although wasn’t Remains of the Day a bit highbrow for what she was doing? But then, David always was a literary snob. He once gagged when he found Stephen King in her book collection.

  “Anyway, I want to show it to my mom,” he said, putting on the clip-on shades for his eyeglasses and leaning back on the blanket.


  “Your mom?” Mara breathed.

  “I can’t guarantee anything—but I think she should meet you. Mom’s always looking for new clients. And I get points too if it all works out,” he added with a smile.

  “You really think your mom would rep me?” Mara asked in disbelief.

  “Sure, why not?” David’s tone was casual, as if the opportunity to talk to New York’s most fearsome literary agent happened every day in a writer’s career. He lay all the way down on the blanket, grabbing his copy of Crime and Punishment—which he was reading for the fourth time—and putting it on top of his face to block the sun. “She’s giving a dinner party at the end of the month at Daniel, in a private room, and I want you to come. If you ever wanted to meet Salman Rushdie and Jay McInerney, now’s the time.”

  She felt her heart thump in her chest. David was very protective of his mom. Other kids at Columbia were always slipping him their manuscripts, asking if he would show it to his mother, and he always just tossed them into the trash.

  “What day was that again?”

  “August 28.”

  Mara grabbed her BlackBerry from her purse—which Suzy had provided so that she could keep track of all the kids’ schedules—and checked her calendar. That was the same night as Eliza’s Vogue bash. Shit. Eliza had been so excited when she told her about it, and she’d be heartbroken if Mara didn’t go. But she couldn’t say no to dinner with the Prestons and their literary circle—this could be her big break. Writers would rather die than miss meeting Pinky Preston, let alone be invited to dinner. Mara knew David was going out on a limb for her, so the night meant a lot for them both.

  “Thank you,” Mara said, removing the book from his face so she could kiss him on the cheek.

  David nuzzled Mara’s forehead, and soon they were kissing, rolling from their blanket onto the damp sand.

  “Oops,” Mara said, pulling away, a smile on her face. “The kids.”

  They looked up to see all the Finnemore kids watching them, horrified looks on their faces. Mara had a feeling this wasn’t exactly what Suzy meant when she’d told Mara the kids needed exposure to “ample stimulation” this summer. . . .

  jacqui meets some model citizens

  “THIS WAY, LOVE—THE POOL is out back.” Marcus took Jacqui’s hand and led her through the spacious two-story Georgian house to the Olympic-size infinity pool in the back, where a party was in full swing. Tall, beautiful girls were tossing a beach ball lazily over a volleyball net, sunning on the custom-made rocks, and drinking mojitos out of frosted glasses. There was a sprinkling of moneyed moguls, A-list actors, and hip-hop stars mixing with the girls. It was a good-looking and very European crowd, and Jacqui felt right at home overhearing the babble of many different languages.

  When Marcus had suggested they stop by the Chrysler Model house in Southampton for the weekly Sunday afternoon pool party, Jacqui had jumped at the chance to check out the outfit that was so hot to sign her up. Chrysler Models was one of the biggest and most prestigious modeling agencies in New York, and they’d been actively courting Jacqui all summer long. Chrysler girls had a solid reputation in New York as professionals instead of party girls, so Jacqui was curious to see what all the fuss was about.

  “Come meet some friends of mine,” Marcus said, bringing Jacqui to where a group of models were splayed out on beach chairs facing the pool, their bodies tanned and lean. “This is Jacarei,” he said to the group at large, presenting her to them as if it were her first day in kindergarten. “Be nice to her, ladies, or by next year she’ll have all your jobs,” he added naughtily.

  Jacqui shrugged apologetically but was pleasantly surprised to find that the models, instead of glaring at her, were smiling indulgently at Marcus.

  “Don’t worry, honey, we’re used to old Marcus here,” a stunning redhead with a pixie haircut and an Eastern European accent consoled, inviting Jacqui to sit by her on an empty lounge chair. “I’m Katrinka. That’s Fiona, and next to her is Sam.”

  Marcus laughed, perching on the arm of a lounge chair and grinning wickedly at all the girls. “Jacarei’s the star of our new Vogue spread. We’re doing twenty pages,” he added, throwing down the gauntlet. He looked around the party and jumped up from his seat. “I’ll be right back; I just want to say hello to someone,” he told Jacqui, squeezing her arm before loping off to greet a friend.

  Jacqui settled down in the lounge chair, a little nervous to be left alone with all the models.

  “Twenty pages. You must be so excited!” Fiona, a petite British girl who was a dead ringer for Kate Moss, smiled, putting aside the issue of French Vogue she’d been reading. She poured Jacqui a margarita from the pitcher beside her and Jacqui took it gratefully.

  “Is it your first?” Sam, a tan, raven-haired, green-eyed girl asked. She had a slight midwestern accent. “I remember my first Vogue with the boys,” she added, looking off into the distance as if she were reminiscing about years past. “We went to Paris. I was so excited—I’d never been out of the country before that.”

  Jacqui took a sip of the ice-cold drink. Other than São Paulo, she’d never been anywhere but New York and one trip to Florida with the Perrys, and she felt the slightest bit jealous. But then, she would be starting NYU in the fall, her dream, so who was she to complain?

  “How’d you like working with the Eastons? They are very sweet, no? Midas can be a bit of a stickler, but the pictures come out beautiful,” Katrinka jumped in, pushing her sunglasses back on her spiky red hair.

  Jacqui nodded. “I like it. To be honest, I didn’t expect to, but it’s a lot of fun,” she admitted. She was surprised at how friendly these girls were. The models she’d met in the past had been distinctly bubble-headed, catty, and hostile. And it was sort of nice to be able to talk to people who understood what she’d been up to all summer.

  “When my issue came out, I got signed by Versace to do their ads,” Sam said, piling her luxurious dark hair on top of her head. “Just wait—your life is totally about to change,” she added excitedly, her green eyes sparkling as she smiled eagerly at Jacqui.

  “How do you mean?”

  “It happened so quickly,” Sam said, folding herself in her arms and tucking her legs underneath her chin. “I mean, one minute, I was just nannying on the Upper East Side, kind of bumming around, not really doing much, and suddenly I was on a private jet to Morocco with Marc Jacobs and André Leon Talley.”

  “You were a nanny?” Jacqui asked, surprised. She removed her Tory Burch cover-up and began to lather the body oil Sam handed her on her skin. She was feeling more at ease by the minute.

  “Yeah. No one can work a juice box like me.” Sam winked. “Is that an Eliza Thompson?” she asked, critically studying Jacqui’s swimsuit.

  Jacqui nodded. “She’s a friend of mine, actually. And I’m an au pair.”

  “Not for long,” Sam said wisely.

  “I’m not sure I want to make modeling my life, though,” Jacqui told them.

  “Oh, it doesn’t have to be. Do you think I’ll be doing this when I’m twenty-five? Be serious.” Sam shook her head. “I’m totally doing the Christy Turlington thing. Retire, start up a company, marry a cute guy, have a great family.”

  “In the meantime, the traveling is awesome,” Fiona gushed. “Last week I was in Shanghai, Milan, and the Canary Islands. The lifestyle is great—it’s so flexible. You can work if you want, but if you don’t want to, you don’t have to get out of bed.”

  “And of course, there are the parties.” Katrinka nodded. “Not to mention getting to stay in this little cottage here.” She waved a hand at the enormous stately house behind her.

  “Your agency put you up here?” Jacqui asked. A little shack on the beach this was not.

  “Yup, it’s their little gift to us to let us relax and get away from the city. We’re all roommates in New York too. In a little loft in the Bowery. You should come by sometime.”

  “I will,” Jacqui agreed, thinking that a loft in th
e Bowery sounded a whole lot cooler than a tiny little dorm room. Looking around at the three confident, beautiful girls—each with a distinctive look and a lucrative contract—she began to think that if she ever were to model full-time, she could do worse than become a Chrysler girl.

  “Can I steal you for a moment?” Marcus interrupted, coming over with a fresh drink and holding out a hand. Jacqui bid the girls goodbye, and he brought her over to a more private area of the pool patio.

  “Big news,” he continued once they were alone. “That was Gilles Bensimon I was just chatting with. Midas and I sent him some outtakes from the Vogue shoot last week and he loved them. We’re going to Paris!” he said gleefully, picking her up and spinning her on the grass.

  “Meu Deus! Paris?”

  “The City of Lights! Singin’ in the Rain! Funny Face!” Marcus laughed. “Picture it: you and I walking along the Seine together. Dancing at Les Bains. It’s going to be absolutely brilliant.”

  “But why?” Jacqui asked, still shocked.

  “Midas and I just scored the Elle cover. Gilles doesn’t want his magazine left out of trumpeting the new girl. They’ve booked Versailles for the location, and we have to get there the day after the Vogue party. But no worries, they’re sending a private jet to take us straight there.”

  “In ten days? That soon?”

  Marcus nodded. “August 29.”

  “But that’s the first day of orientation at NYU,” Jacqui said, her face falling. “Couldn’t we shoot it the weekend after?” she asked hopefully, even though she knew it was a stupid question.

  Marcus scoffed. “You don’t tell Gilles Bensimon when to schedule a shoot. He tells you and you go, no questions asked. Darling, it’s all very simple.” He grabbed both her hands and squeezed them, looking deep into her eyes. “You need to forget about NYU. Come to Paris and we’ll stay at my flat; I’ve got plenty of space. Midas and I have big plans for our muse.”