The Au Pairs

For four energetic children, between 3 and 10 years old.

Join a NYC family for the best summer of your life in

East Hampton, July 4-Labor Day.

Pay: $10,000.00

Driver's license a must.

Familiarity with the Hamptons, a plus.

Send resumes and head shots to HamptonsAuPairs@yahoo.com

Meet Mara Waters, Eliza Thompson, and Jacqui Velasco -- new au pairs for one of New York City's wealthiest families -- who will spend their more >>

For four energetic children, between 3 and 10 years old.

Join a NYC family for the best summer of your life in

East Hampton, July 4-Labor Day.

Pay: $10,000.00

Driver's license a must.

Familiarity with the Hamptons, a plus.

Send resumes and head shots to HamptonsAuPairs@yahoo.com

Meet Mara Waters, Eliza Thompson, and Jacqui Velasco -- new au pairs for one of New York City's wealthiest families -- who will spend their summer in one of the most posh, most exclusive spots for summer summering: the Hamptons.

For good girl Mara, this job is a way out of another go-slow Massachusetts summer. Eliza, New York City's former It Girl, knows this is the fast lane back to the stylish world she wishes she'd never left. And for Brazilian bombshell Jacqui, it's a boarding pass back to her American love who told her he'd e-mail as soon as he got home, and didn't.

After all, how hard can an au pair job be? Slap sunscreen on the kids during the day and party at the coolest hot spots at night, right?ýWrong.

While Eliza is desperately trying to hide her baby-sitting job from her superspoiled friends who think she's still just as rich as she used to be, Mara's getting awfully cozy with the kids' extremely attractive older brother, Ryan. And Jacqui is heartbroken when she discovers that the love of her life may have been nothing more than a spring fling.

If the girls can manage au pair duties -- all the while mastering the ins and outs of the Hamptons' social scene -- it might just turn out to be the most incredible summer of their lives. But to do it they'll have to stick together. And that's where things definitely get sticky.Los Angeles Times Book ReviewMelissa de la Cruz has created a rambunctious first novel that deserves to have its every page encrusted with sand, its binding ringed with condensation from highball glasses.Publishers WeeklySociety Page addicts will no doubt enjoy its irreverent spin on the glamorous life.Michael MustoVillage VoiceA gift bag of satire, spectacle, and name-dropping. It's all too fabulous for words.Chapter Once: Port Authority, Take One: Eliza Experiences Public Transportation

Eliza Thompson had never been so uncomfortable in her entire life. She was sitting in the back of a Greyhound bus, sandwiched between the particularly fragrant bathroom and an overfriendly seatmate who was using Eliza's shoulder as a headrest. The old bag in the Stars and Stripes T-shirt had little bubbles of spit forming on her lips. Eliza took a moment to pity herself. Seriously, how hard could it have been for her parents to spring for a ticket on Jet Blue?

The nightmare had begun a year ago, when some people started looking into her dad's "accounting practices" at the bank and dug up some "misdirected funds." Several details had been leaked -- the papers had a field day with the thousand-dollar umbrella stand on his expense reports. The lawyer's bills added up quickly, and soon even the maintenance on their five-bedroom, five-bath co-op was just too much.

The Thompsons sold their "cottage" in Amagansett -- which was actually the size of an airplane hangar -- to pay their mounting legal expenses. Next they sold their beachfront condo in Palm Beach. And then one afternoon Eliza came home from Spence, her elite all-girls private school (which counted none other than Gwynnie Paltrow as an alum), to find her maid packing her bedroom into boxes. The next thing she knew, she was living in a crappy two-bedroom in Buffalo and enrolled at Herbert Hoover High, while her parents shared a ten-year-old Honda Civic. Forget AP classes. Forget early admission to Princeton. Forget that year abroad in Paris.

Her parents had told everyone they were simply going to go recover from it all "upstate in the country," though no one had any idea how far upstate they had really gone. To Manhattanites, there's as big a differe << less