Gossip Girl 00 - It Had to Be You (prequel)

it had to be you gossip gir
CECILY For nobody else, gave me a thrill--with allyour
faults, I love you still. It had to be you, wonderful you, it had
to be you.
--As sung by Frank Sinatra gossipgirl.net
ext � post a qtr
hey people!
Ever have that totally freakish feeling that someone is
listening in on your conversations, spying on you and your
friends while you sip lattes on the ivory-colored steps of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, following you to premieres and
parties, and just generally stalking you? Well, they are. Or
actually, I am. And the truth is, I've been here all along,
because I'm one of you. One of the Chosen Ones.
Don't get out much? Hair so processed it's fried your brain?
Perhaps you're not one of us after all and you have no due
what I'm talking about or who "we" are. Allow me to
expound. We're an exclusive group of indescribably
beautiful people who happen to live in those majestic,
green-awninged, white-glove-doorman buildings near
Central Park. We attend Manhattan's most elite single-sex
private schools. Our families own yachts, estates, and
vineyards in various exotic locations through- out the world.
We frequent all the best beaches and the most exclusive
ski resorts in Austria and Utah. We're seated immediately
at the finest restaurants in the chicest neighborhoods with
nary a reservation. We turn heads. But don't confuse us with
Hollywood actors or models or rock stars--those people
you feel like you know because you read so much about
them in the tabloids, but who are actually completely boring
compared to the roles they play or the ballads they sing.
There's nothing boring about me or my friends, and the
more I tell you about us, the more you'll be dying to know.
I've kept quiet until now, but something has happened, and
if I don't share it with the world I'm absolutely going to burst.
the greatest story ever told
We learned in our eleventh-grade creative writing class this
week that most great stories begin in one of the following
fashions: someone mysteriously disappears, or a stranger
comes to town. The tale I'm about to tel! is of the "someone
mysteriously disappears" variety.
To be specific, S is gone. The steps of the Met are no
longer graced with her blond splendor. We are no longer
distracted in Latin class by the sight of her twirling her pale
locks around and around her long, slim fingers while she
daydreams about a certain emerald-eyed boy.
But keep your panties on, I'll get to that in a moment.
The point is, S has disappeared. And in order to solve the
mystery of why she's left and where she's gone, I'm going to
have to backtrack to last winter--the winter of our
sophomore year--when the La Mer skin cream hit the fan
and our pretty pink rose-scented bubble burst. It all began
with three inseparable, perfectly innocent, iiber-gorgeous
fifteen-year-olds. Well, they're sixteen now, and lei's just say
that two of them are not that innocent.
An epic such as this requires an observant, quick-witted
scribe. That would be me, since I was at the scene of every
crime, and I happen to have an impeccable eye for the
most outrageous details. So sit back while I unravel the
past and reveal everyone's secrets, because I know
everything, and what 1 don't know I'll invent elaborately.
Admit it, you're already falling for me.
You know I love you,
gossip like most juicy stories, it started with one boy and
two girls "Truce!" Serena van derWoodsen screamed as
Nate Archibald body-checked her into a three-foot-high drift
of powdery white snow. Cold and wet, it tunneled into her
ears and down her pants. Nate dove on top of her, all five
foot eleven inches of his perfect, golden-brown-haired,
glittering-green-eyed, fifteen- year-old boyness. He smelled
like Downy and the L'Occitane sandalwood soap the maid
stocked his bathroom with. Serena just lay there, trying to
breathe with him on top of her. "My scalp is cold," she
pleaded, getting a mouthful of Nate's snow- dampened,
godlike curls as she spoke.
Nate sighed reluctantly, as if he could have spent the rest of
i he morning outside in the frigid February meat locker that
was i he back garden of his family's Eighty-second-Streetjust-off- Park-Avenue Manhattan town house. He rolled onto
his back :md wriggled like Serena's long-dead golden
retriever, Guppy, when she used to let him loose on the
green grass of the Great I .awn in Central Park. Then he
stood up, awkwardly dusting off the seat of his neatly
pressed Brooks Brothers khakis. It was Saturday, but he
still wore the same clothes he wore every weekday as a
sophomore at the St. Jude's School for Boys over on East
End Avenue. It was the unofficial Prince of the Upper East
Side uniform, the same uniform he and his classmates had
been wearing since they'd started nursery school together
at Park Avenue Presbyterian.
Nate held out his hand to help Serena to her feet. Behind
him rose the clean-looking limestone prewar luxury
buildings of Park Avenue's Golden Mile, with their terraced
penthouses and piate-glass windows. Still, nothing beat
living in an actual house with an entire wing of one's own
and a back garden with a fountain and cherry trees in it,
within walking distance of one's best friends' houses,
Serendipity 3, and Barneys. Serena frowned cautiously up
at Nate, worried that he was only faking her out and was
about to tackle her again. "I really am cold," she insisted.
He flapped his hand at her impatiently. "I know. Come on."
She pretended to pick her nose and then grabbed his hand
with her faux-snotty one. "Thanks, pal." She staggered to
her feet. "You're a real chum."
Nate led the way inside.The backs of his pant legs were
damp and she could see the outline of his tighty-whiteys.
Really, how gay of him! He held die glass-paned French
doors open and stood aside to let her pass. Serena kicked
off her baby blue Uggs and scuffed her bare, Urban Decay
Piggy Bank Pink-toenailed feet down the long hall to the
stately town house's enormous, barely used all-white Italian
Modern kitchen. Nate's father, Captain Archibald, was a
former sea captain-turned-banker, and his mother was a
French society hostess. They were basi- cally never home,
and when they were home, they were at the opera. "Are you
hungry?" Nate asked, following her across the r.lcaming
white marble floor. "I'm so sick of takeout. My par- ents
have been in Venezuela or Santa Domingo or wherever for
like two weeks, and I've been eating pizza or sushi every
freak- ing night. I asked Regina to buy ham, Swiss,
Pepperidge Farm white bread, Grammy Smith apples, and
peanut butter. All I want is the food I ate in kindergarten." He
tugged anxiously i m a messy lock of wavy golden brown
hair. "Maybe I'm going M rough some sort of midlife crisis
or something."
i
Like his life is so stressful?
"It's Granny Smith, silly," Serena informed him fondly. She
upened a glossy white cupboard and found an unopened
box i *{ cinnamon-and-brown-sugar Pop-Tarts. Ripping it
open, she removed one of the packets from inside, tore it
open with her neat, white teeth, and pulled out a thickly
frosted pastry. She sucked on the Pop-Tart's sweet,
crumbly corner and hopped up nil the counter, kicking the
cupboards below with her size eight- nnd-a-half feet. PopTarts at Nate's. She'd been having them I here since she
was five years old. And now . . . and now . . .
"Mom and Dad want me to go to boarding school next
year," she announced, her enormous, almost navy blue
eyes growing Imge and glassy as they welled up with
unexpected tears. Go :iway to boarding school and leave
Nate? It hurt too much even MI even think about.
Nate flinched as if he'd been slapped in the face by an
invisible hand. He grabbed the other Pop-Tart from the
packet and liopped up on the counter next to her. "No way,"
he responded decisively. She couldn't leave. He wouldn't
allow it.
"They want to travel more," she explained, the pink, perfect
curve of her lower lip trembling dangerously. "If I'm home,
they feel like they need to be home more. Like I want them
around? Anyway, they've arranged for me to meet some of
the deans of admissions and stuff. It's like I have no
choice."
Nate scooted over a few inches and wrapped his arm
around her sharply denned shoulders. "The city is going to
suck if you're not here," he told her earnestly. "You can't
go."
Serena took a deep, shuddering breath and rested her
pale blond head on his shoulder. "I love you," she
murmured with- out thinking. Their bodies were so close the
entire Nate-side of her hummed. If she turned her head and
tilted her chin just so, she could have easily kissed his
warm, lovely neck. And she wanted to. She was actually
dying to, because she really did love him, with all her heart.
She did? Hello? Since when?!
Maybe since ballroom-dancing school way back in fourth
grade. She was tall for her age, and Nate was always such
a gentleman about her lack of rhythm and the way she
stepped on his insteps and jutted her bony elbows into his
sides. He'd finesse it by grabbing her hand and spinning
her around so that the skirt of her puffy oyster-colored satin
tea-length Bonpoint dress twirled out magnificently. Their
teacher, Mrs. Jaffe, who had long blue hair that she kept in
place with a pearl-adorned black hairnet, worshipped Nate.
So did Serena's best friend, Blair Waldorf. And so did
Serena--she just hadn't realized it until now. She shivered
and her perfect, still-tan-from-Christmas- in-the-Caribbean
skin broke out in a rash of goosebumps. Her whole body
seemed to be having an adverse reaction to the idea of
revealing something she'd kept so well hidden for so long,
even from herself.
Nate slipped his lacrosse-toned arms around her long, nari � > waist and pulled her close, tucking her pale gold
head into
w � In1 crook of his neck and massaging the ruts between
the ribs "ii her back with his fingertips. The best thing about
Serena was licr total lack of embarrassing flab. Her entire
body was as long .inil lean and taut as the strings on his
Prince titanium tennis uicket.
It was painful having such a ridiculously hot best friend. Why
< ouldn't his best friend be some lard-assed dude with zits
and . Inndruff? Instead he had Serena and Blair Waldorf,
hands down the two hottest girls on the Upper East Side,
and maybe all of Manhattan, or even the whole world.
Serena was an absolute goddess---every guy Nate knew
talked about her--but she was perplexingly unpredictable.
She'd laugh I ur hours if she spotted a cloud shaped like a
toilet seat or some- thing equally ridiculous, and the next
moment she'd be wistful and sad. It was impossible to tell
what she was thinking most of i he time. Sometimes Nate
wondered if she would've been more comfortable in a body
that was slightly less perfect, because it would've given her
more incentive, to use an SAT vocabulary word. Like she
wasn't sure what she had to aspire to, since she basically
had everything a girl could possibly want.
Blair was petite, with a pretty, foxlike face, cobalt blue eyes,
and wavy chestnut-colored hair. Way back in fifth grade,
Serena had told Nate she was convinced Blair had a crush
on him. He started to notice that Blair did sort of stick her
chest out when she knew he was looking, and she was
always either bossing him around or fixing his hair. Of
course Blair never admitted that she liked him, which made
him like her even more.
Nate sighed deeply. No one understood how difficult it was
to be best friends with two such beautiful, impossible girls.
Like he would have been friends with them if they were
awkward and butt-ugly?
He closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of
Serena's Frederic Fekkai Apple Cider clarifying shampoo.
He'd kissed a few girls and had even gone to third base
last June with L'Wren Knowes, a very experienced older
Seaton Arms School senior who really did seem to know
everything. But kissing Serena would be . . . different. He
loved her. It was as simple as that. She was his best friend,
and he loved her.
And if you can't kiss your best friend, who can you kiss?
upper east side schoolgirl uncovers shocking sex scandal!
"Ew," Blair Waldorf muttered at her reflection in the fulllength mirror on the back of her closet door. She liked to
keep her closet organized, but not too organized. Whites
with whites, off-whites with off-whites, navy with navy, black
with black. But that was it. Jeans were tossed in a heap on
the closet floor. And there were dozens of them. It was
almost a game to close her eyes and feel around and come
up with a pair that used to be too tight in the ass but fit a
little loosely now that she'd cut out her daily after-dinner
milk-and-Chips- Ahoy routine.
Blair looked at the mirror, scrutinizing her outfit. Her Marc
by Marc Jacobs shell pink sheer cotton blouse was fine, as
were her peg-legged Seven jeans. It was the fuchsia La
Perla bra that was the problem. It showed right through the
blouse so that she looked like a lap dancer from Scores.
But she was only going to Nate's house to hang out with
him and Serena. And Nate liked to talk about bras. He was
genuinely curious about, for instance, what the purpose of
an underwire was, or why some bras fas- tened in front and
some fastened in back. Obviously it was a big turn-on for
him, but it was also sort of sweet. He was a lonely only
child, craving sisterhood.
Right.
She decided to leave the bra on for Nate's sake, hiding the
whole ensemble under her favorite belted black cashmere
Loro Piana cardigan, which would come off the minute she
stepped into his well-heated town house. Maybe the sight
of her hot pink bra would be the thing to make Nate realize
that he'd been in love with her just as long as she'd been in
love with him.
Maybe.
She opened her bedroom door and yelled down the long
hall and across the East Seventy-second Street
penthouse's vast expanse of period furniture, parquet
floors, crown moldings, and French Impressionist paintings.
"Mom! Dad? I'm going over to Nate's house! Serena and I
are spending the night!"
When there was no reply, she clomped her way to her
parents' huge master suite in her noisy Kors woodenheeled sheepskin clogs that she'd bought on impulse at
Scoop, opened their bed- room door, and made a beeline
for her mom's dressing room. Eleanor Waldorf kept a tall
stack of crisp emergency twenties in her lingerie drawer for
Blair and her ten-year-old brother, Tyler, to parse from--for
taxis, cappuccinos, and, in Blair's case, the occasional
much-needed pair of Manolo Blahnik heels. Twenty, forty,
sixty, eighty, one hundred. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, two
hundred. Blair counted out the crisp bills, folding them
neatly before stuffing them into her back pocket.
"If I were a cabernet," her father's playfully confidential
lawyer's voice echoed out of the adjoining dressing room,
"how would you describe my bouquet?"
Excusez-moi? Blair clomped over to the chocolate brown
velvet curtain that separated her mother's dressing room
from her father's. "If you i;uys are in there together, like,
doing it while I'm home, then i Kat's really gross," she
declared flatly. "Anyway, I'm going over 10 Nate's, so--"
Her father, Harold J. Waldorf III, Esquire, poked his head
out from behind the velvet curtain, holding it firmly in his
grasp so that Blair couldn't pull it aside. The one shoulder
she could see appeared to be dressed in his favorite
charcoal tweed Paul Smith cashmere bathrobe. But if he
wasn't naked, then why wouldn't he let her open the curtain?
"Your mom's with Misty Bass looking at dishes for the
Guggenheim benefit," he said, his nicely tanned, handsome
face looking slightly flushed. "I thought you were out. Where
are you going exactly?"
Blair glared at him and then yanked the curtain aside,
catching him as he tucked his rather bulky BlackBerry into
his bathrobe pocket. She shoved him aside and stood
amongst his custom-tailored Valentino and Dior suits with
her hands on her hips. Who had he just been talking to? His
intern? His secretary? A salesgirl from Hermes, his favorite
store?
"What's up, Bear?" Her father smiled tensely back at her,
his crystalline blue eyes looking a little too innocent. What
was he hiding?
Does she really want to know?
Her stomach roiling with bilious outrage and her blue eyes
shining with angry tears, Blair stumbled out of the master
suite and clomped her way across the penthouse to the
foyer. She grabbed her blood-orange-colored Jimmy Choo
Treasure Chest hobo and ran for the elevator. February had
been unusually cruel. Outside it was breath- takingly cold,
and fat snowflakes fell at random. Usually Blair walked the
twelve blocks to Nate's house, but today she had no
patience for walking. She couldn't wait to see her friends
and tell them what a scumbag her father was. A cab was
waiting for her downstairs. Or rather, a cab was waiting for
Mrs. Solomon in 4A, but when Alfie, the hunter-greenuniform-clad doorman saw the terrifying look on Blair's
normally pretty face, he let her take it.
Besides, hailing cabs in the snow was probably the
highlight of his day.
The stone walls bordering Central Park were blanketed in
snow. A tall, elderly woman and her Yorkshire terrier,
dressed in matching red Chanel quilted coats with
matching black vel- vet bows in their white hair, crossed
Seventy-second Street and entered the Ralph Lauren
flagship store on the corner. Blair's cab hurtled recklessly
up Madison Avenue, past Zitomer, Agnes B., and the Three
Guys coffee shop where all the Constance Billard girls
gathered after school, turned east on Eighty-second Street,
and finally pulled up in front of Nate's town house.
"Let me in!" she yelled into the intercom outside the Archibalds' elegant wrought-iron-and-glass front door as she
swatted the buzzer over and over with an impatient hand.
Nate and Serena were still cuddling in the kitchen when the
buzzer rang. Serena raised her head from his shoulder and
opened her eyes, as if from a dream. The kiss they'd both
been fantasizing about had never actually happened, which
was prob- ably for the best.
"I think I'm warm now," Serena announced, and hopped ill
the white marble countertop, composing her face so that
lie looked totally calm and cool, like they hadn't just had a
moment. And maybe they hadn't--she couldn't be sure. She
i'.rinned at the monitor's distorted image of Blair giving her
the I mger. "Come on in, sweetness!" she shouted back,
buzzing her � >iher best friend in.
Nate tried to erase the disturbing thought that Blair had i
;iught him and Serena together. They weren't together. They
' were just friends, hanging out, which is what friends do
when they're together. There was nothing to catch. It was all
in his mind.
Or was it?
"Hey hornyheads." Blair clomped into the kitchen with melting snowflakes in her shiny, shoulder-length chestnut brown
Imir. Her cheeks were pink with cold, her blue eyes were
slightly bloodshot, and her carefully plucked dark brown
eyebrows looked messy, as if she'd been crying or rubbing
her eyes like irazy. "I have a fucked-up story to tell you
guys." She flung her orange bag down on the floor and took
a deep breath, her eyes lulling around dramatically, milking
the moment for all it was worth. "As it turns out, my totally
boring Mr. Lawyer father, I larold Waldorf, Esquire, is like
totally having an affair. Only moments ago, I caught him
talking on the phone in his closet with some random babe,
saying, 'If I were a wine, how would you describe my
bouquet?'"
"Whoa," Serena and Nate responded in unison.
Blair turned on the kitchen faucet and then turned it off
again. Her face twisted up into a horrible grimace. "He just
sounded so . . . slimy*-" s n e wailed with dismay as she
admired her own reflection in the polished white porcelain.
She looked up and tucked her hair behind her tidily small,
slightly pointed ears, waiting for her friends to say
something soothing to make her feet better.
As if that were possible.
"Well, maybe he was just talking dirty to your mom," Serena
suggested.
"Sure," Nate agreed. "My parents talk like that all the time,"
he added, feeling a little sick as he said it. His former navy
admiral dad was so uptight he probably couldn't even think
sexy thoughts for fear of being court-martialed.
Blair grimaced. The idea of her tennis-toned-but-still-plumpj
St. Barts-tanned, gold-jewelry-loving mom having any kind
of sex, let alone cabernet phone sex, with her skinny,
preppy, argyle-socks-wearing dad was so unlikely and so
completely icky she refused to even think about it.
"N03" she insisted, snatching the uneaten half of Serena's
Pop-Tart off the counter and wolfing it down. "It was
definitely another woman. I mean, face it," she observed,
still chewing. "Dad is totally hot and dresses really well, and
he's an impor- tant lawyer and everything. And my mom is
totally insane and doesn't really do anything and she has
varicose veins and a flabby ass. Of course he's having an
affair."
Serena and Nate nodded their glossy blond heads like that
made complete sense. Then Serena grabbed Blair and
hugged her hard. Blair was the sister she'd never had. In
fourth grade they'd pretended they were fraternal twins for
an entire month. Their Constance Billard gym teacher, Ms.
Etro, who'd gotten fired midyear for inappropriate touching-which she called "spotting"--during tumbling classes, had
even believed them. They'd worn matching pink Izod shirts
and cut their hair exactly i In- same length. They even wore
matching gold Carrier hoop . ii rings, until they decided they
were tacky and switched to
I ili;iny diamond studs.
Blair pressed her face into Serena's perfectly denned �
nlliirbone and heaved an exhausted, trembling sigh. "It's just
,i) lucked up it makes me want to vomit."
Serena patted her back and met Nate's ga2e over Blair's
Eliz- .iln-ih Arden Red Door Salon-glossed brown head. No
way was
,hc going to bring up the whole being-sent-away-toboarding- � .rliool problem--not when her best friend was
so upset. And � .lie didn't want Nate to mention it either.
"Come on, let's go mix martinis and watch a stupid movie
or something."
Nate jumped off the counter, feeling completely confused.
Suddenly all he really wanted to do was hug Blair and kiss
away her tears. Was he hot for her now, too?
That's the trouble with friends who happen to be boys. You
can't take the boy out of the friend.
"All we have is vodka and champagne. My parents keep all
ihc good wine and whiskey locked up in the cabinet for
when i liey have company," he apologized, pulling his
heathered gray |,Crew sweatshirt off over his head and
giving both girls a small heart attack at the sight of his bare,
tanned navel.
Yum.
Serena broke away from Blair and scooted down the counlertop on her bum until she reached the bread pantry, where
most families would actually keep bread, but where Nate's
mom stored the cartons of Gitanes cigarettes her sister
sent from France via FedEx twice a month because the
ones sold in the States simply did not taste fresh. She slid
open the door and pulled out a royal blue carton. "I'm sure
we can make do." She ripped open the carton and stuck
two cigarettes in her mouth like tusks.Then she beckoned
Nate and Blair to follow her out of the kitchen and upstairs
to the master suite. If anyone was an expert at changing the
mood, it was Serena. That was one of the things they loved
about her. "I'll show you a good time," she added goonty.
She always did.
The Archibalds' vast bedroom had been decorated by
Nate's mother in the style of Louis XVI, with a giant gilt
mirror over the headboard of the enormous red-and-goldtoile-upholstered four-poster bed, and heavy gold curtains
in the windows. The walls were adorned with red-and-gold
fleur-de-lys wallpaper and renderings of Mrs. Archibald's
family's summer chateau near Nice. On the floor was a red,
blue, and gold Persian rug rescued from the Titanic and
bought at auction by Mrs. Archibald at Sotheby's as a gift to
Mr. Archibald for their tenth wedding an- niversary. The only
modern exception to the room's historical decor was the
circular glass skylight in the ceiling over the bed, a porthole
to the stars.
"Bus Stop} Some Like It Hoi? Or the digitally remastered
ver- sion of Some Like It Hot?" Serena asked, flipping
through Nate's parents' limited DVD collection. Obviously
Captain Archibald liked Marilyn Monroe movies--a lot. Of
course, Nate had his own collection of DVDs in his room,
including a play-by-play of the last twenty years of
America's Cup sailing races. Thanks, but no thanks. His
parents' taste was far more girl-friendly. "Or we could just
watch Nate play Xbox, which is always hot," she joked,
although she kind of meant it.
"Only if he does it naked," Blair quipped hopefully. She sat
down and bounced up and down on the end of the
luxuriously huge bed. N;iie blushed. Blair loved to make him
blush and he knew it.
< 'I .ivn" he responded boldly, sitting down next to her.
I'.Liir snatched a Kleenex out of the silver tissue box on I
I.m-'s mom's bedside table and blew her nose noisily. Not
that 'ilu- really needed to blow her nose. She just needed a
distraction liom the overwhelming urge to tackle Nate and
rip his clothes "II I Ie was so goddamned adorable it made
her feel like she was i'"iiin to explode. God, she loved him.
I "here had never been a time when she didn't love him.
She'd i"w-d the stupid lobster shorts he wore to the club in
Newport iv I K-ii tfieir dads played tennis together in the
summer, back when I1 Hv were, what--five? She loved the
way he always had a Spider-
- M:iii Band-Aid on some part of his body until he was at
least iwvlve, not because he'd hurt himself but because he
thought it l"oked cool. She loved the way his whole head
reflected the sun- IIJ'.IIL, glowing gold. She loved his
glittering green eyes--eyes that w i re almost too pretty for a
boy. She loved the way he so obvi- ously knew he was hot
but didn't quite know what to do about it. Nlio loved him. Oh,
how she loved him.
Oh, oh, oh!
Blair blew her nose with one last trumpeting snort and then
i-.nibbed a hot pink, tacky-looking DVD case from off the
floor. She turned the case over, studying it. "Breakfast
aiTiffany's. I've never seen it, but she's so beautiful." She
held the DVD up so Norena could see Audrey Hepburn in
her long black dress and �� limning pearls. "Isn't she?"
"She is pretty," Serena agreed, still sorting through the
movies.
"She looks like you," Nate observed, cocking his head and
Mudying Blair in such an adorable way that she had to
close her <-vcs to keep from falling off the bed. "You think?"
She tossed her dirty tissue in the general direction of the
Archibalds' dainty white porcelain wastepaper basket and
studied the picture on the DVD case again. A movie began
to play in her head, and in it she was Audrey Hepburn-- a
fabulously dressed, wafer-thin, perfectly coiffed, beautiful,
mysterious megastar. "Maybe a little," she agreed,
removing her black cashmere cardigan so that her fuchsia
bra was clearly visible beneath her blouse.
She turned the DVD case over and examined the pictures
on the back of it. Audrey Hepburn looked like the most
stylish, sophisticated woman in the world, but she also
looked sort of prim and proper, like she wore sexy
underwear but wouldn't let a guy see it unless he was going
to marry her. Blair yanked her cardigan back on and
buttoned the top button. From now on, her life's work would
be to emulate Audrey Hepburn in every possible way. Nate
could see her underwear, but only once she was sure that
one day they'd walk down the aisle at St. Patrick's
Cathedral with wed- ding bands on their fingers and confetti
flying through the air.
That makes sense--to her.
"I watched that movie with my mom>" Nate confessed,
causing both girls' hearts to drip into sticky puddles on the
floor. "It's kind of bizarre, actually. I think it's supposed to be
romantic, but I'm not sure I even understood it."
That was all the girls needed. Blair stuck the DVD into the
player while Serena mixed martinis on top of the vintage
hammered steel wet bar in the adjoining library. This
involved pouring Bombay Sapphire into chilled martini
glasses and stir- ring it with a silver letter opener. It was
only noon--not exactly cocktail hour--but Blair was in crisis,
and Nate tended to take off his shirt when he got drunk.
Besides, it was Saturday. 1
'There," Serena announced, as if she'd just put the finish- g
touches on a very complicated recipe. She handed out the
iisscs. "To us. Because we're worth it."
"To us," Blair and Nate chorused, glasses raised.
liottoms up! even cowgirls from Vermont get the blues
"Whose idea was it to send me to Constance anyway?"
fifteen- year-old Vanessa Abrams demanded of her
nineteen-year-old sister, Ruby.
"Fuck if I know." Ruby was in the bathtub, soaking off the
sweat and stench from her gig at Pete's Candy Store the
night before. She was the bassist for the band
SugarDaddy, the latest sensation on the Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, bar scene, and she'd been up all night, rocking
out. "Do you mind?"
Vanessa stood in the doorway of the bathroom while her
sister floated naked in the sparsely bubbled lukewarm
water, her thick black Williamsburg hipster bangs plastered
to her clammy white forehead. "Is tliere some reason why I
couldn't go to a more convenient, less materialistic, lessrull-of-bitches school in, say, Brooklyn, which happens to be
where I live?" Vanessa railed on.
"You know the story." Ruby hugged her pale wet knees,
"Dad read an article about that woman recycling personal
objects to make art in Atlantic Monthly and the artist's bio
said she went to Constance Billard. He was so impressed
that when you told I you wanted to come live here with me,
he just signed you u11. 1 le doesn't care what a hassle it is
to get there. And it makes Inni feel good that you're at this
ritzy school all day. It's like In- iliinks the school can be your
substitute parent because it's ir.i-tl to dealing with families
where the parents are always in " iMuad or Cannes or
wherever." Ruby lay on her stomach so Hint her flat, pink
ass was in plain view. Outside the tiny, city- r.i une-smeared
bathroom window a cargo truck rumbled by on if. way to the
sugar factory three blocks away.That was one of i IK- ihings
Vanessa loved about living in gritty Williamsburg: the
in always smelled like cotton candy.
LL
Nice," she muttered grimly. Vanessa turned to the mir- ini
over the sink, grabbed Ruby's green rubber hairbrush, and
� i;irted to brush out her waist-length, naturally jet-black
mane. Ms months ago, on her first day of school at
Constance Billard, 1 ii' tenth-grade girls had all gone crazy
over her hair, stroking it
1 .� ml braiding it, like Vanessa was one of those Barbie
hairdress- iii); heads or a new pony or something. It was
clearly the only ilung they liked about her. "Okay, so he read
that article like i uvnty years ago. The girls in my class don't
give two shits about 1 vycling or art. All they do is get their
highlights done and trade
1 lip glosses they get in gift bags at all those fancy parlies
they go in. Plus, you graduated from White River High and
you're mak- ing decent money without even going to
college."
"I'm exceptional," Ruby replied dryly, sitting up to squirt
h'linson's baby shampoo into her palm. "If I'd gone to Con-
[;ince instead of some shitty high school in Vermont, I'd
prob- ably be the first woman president by now."
Vanessa examined her pores in the bathroom mirror. The
tiiiihtub was beige and the sink was scrambled-egg yellow- typicalWilliamsburg--but she adored the wonky plainness
of the shabby one-bedroom apartment. If only the school
she attended five days a week, all day long, were equally
wonky. She'd spent lunchtime alone yesterday, drinking
black tea and eating saltines while at the other end of the
table Kati Farkas, one of her shiny- haired, glossy-lipped
classmates, complained about having to go sailing again in
the Greek Isles for spring break with her parents. ,
"But I've already been to Corfu. It's like, can't they take us
sailing somewhere in Greece with better shopping, like
Milan?" Kati h whined, blissfully ignorant of the world's
geography, topogra- phy, and just about everything else,
despite Constance Billard's efforts to educate her.
It wasn't as if Vanessa had tons of friends back in Vermont
either. She'd spent so many years dreaming about moving
to New York City and becoming an avant-garde filmmaker
in the style of Ingmar Bergman, she didn't have time to
socialize. Now that her parents had finally given in and let
her move in with Ruby she was sort of . . . bored. Or maybe
the word empty was more like it. It wasn't a new feeling, but
she'd thought the sensa- tion would go away when she got
to New York, and it hadn't, not really. Not even when she
pigged out on falafel.
"You need a project," Ruby observed from the scratched
beige porcelain tub. Her parakeet, Tofu, flew into the
bathroom and alighted on the soap dish, where he pooped
and then started to dip his green beak into the murky
bathwater.
Vanessa picked up her digital camcorder again and
zoomed in onTofu. "It's so cute how he does that," she
giggled.
Ruby rolled her eyes and sank down lower in the water.
"You're still relatively new in town. You need to establish
your- self and make a few friends so you have something
else to do I" '.ides film me naked in the bathtub, which is
actually totally i� i vorted and annoying, especially when
I've been up half the iuj'Jit playing my tits off," she yawned.
"Why don't you start a I '1' � > or something? Like, fill the
homepage up with stills of para-
} I' ei shit or some such. There are a lot of people who'd be
into Hun. Think of all the friends you'd make. You might
even meet vmir first boyfriend that way."
Vanessa reached out with her foot and kicked the soap
dish iino the tub. Tofu flapped up to the shower curtain rail
with a � .i|iiawk. His poop floated on the surface of the
bathwater like ,i piece of chewed Juicy Fruit gum. "Wench,"
Vanessa muttered I > lore stomping out of the bathroom in
the black vintage Doc
f M;wten steel-toed combat boots she wore as a big "fuck
you" to 1
onstance Billard's "simple dark shoe" rule. There was nothmr. complicated about combat boots, but she was pretty
sure i In- school was thinking of something more along the
lines of a i" imy loafer or ballet flat. Right. Fuck that.
She flopped facedown on the plain white sheets of the
unmade inion in her boxy, plain white bedroom, intending to
wallow in M i nation and resentment until Ruby dragged her
wet ass out of iIn- bath and turned on a movie or something.
But Ruby's com- nif in had given her an idea. Vanessa
spent most of her free time iii I iome, flipping through back
issues of alternative photography .mil ;irt journals and
absentmindedly splitting the split ends in I if i- long black
hair. Constance Billard's photography studio was i
uMculously well stocked and totally underused, and the
school i'iul>ably had millions of dollars in endowment
money. Why not inkf advantage of the school's resources
and start an arts maga- zine of her own? She could ask for
submissions from her fellow < ^instance students and
feature one of her own darkly brilliant photographs on the
cover of every ingenious issue. She wouldn't get a
boyfriend out of it, not that she cared, but it would keep her
busy, and it might even help her get into NYU.
Of course she'd probably have to publish a lot of dumb
photographs of girls' pedicured feet and poems about
dead bichons frises, but she could always deface them with
a fat black Sharpie in the privacy of her own home. Maybe
some girl's big-deal gallery owner mom would discover her
raw, intuitive, behind-the-camera eye and she'd begin her
filmmaking career before she even made it to NYU film
school. Maybe Ruby was right--she did need a project.
Starting her own arts magazine would be the ideal way to
establish herself uptown and show everyone there was
more to the pale, slightly chubby, dark- tressed, Doc
Martens-wearing newcomer from Vermont than they'd first
thought. And while she was at it, maybe she'd do
something different with her hair, something unexpected.
Here's hoping whatever she does doesn't involve parakeet
poop. psychotic stalkers come in small packages
You remember Mom's, though, right? They're not small," i
wdve-and-a-half-year-old Jennifer Humphrey reminded her
<>li1er brother, Daniel, as they sat at their cracked,
banana- < nlored Formica kitchen table, eating Saturday
brunch. Her 11 ly, four-foot-eleven-inch body tucked into die
same pink fleece
1 i HI tie pajamas she'd been wearing since she was ten,
Jenny was < working her way through a giant container of
peach-flavored �� ny yogurt in hopes that the naturally
occurring estrogen in soy would increase her breast size.
Everyone in her seventh-grade � lass at Constance Billard
was blossoming--Luna Skye had gone i ip two cup sizes
since September!--everyone except Jenny.
"Yeah, but maybe they're fake. I mean we don't know anyiliiug about Mom really," a scruffy, stained-browncorduroys- wi-aring Dan pointed out. This winter he had
worn only two nnilits: brown corduroys and a black polo shirt
with a frayed white turtleneck underneath it--all from Old
Navy--or faded I 'kick Levi's paired with a mustard yellow
hoodie he'd bought at
i ilirift store in the East Village. He'd rotate the two outfits
until ilu-y turned gray and Jenny would finally break down
and wash them for him in the basement laundry room of
their building. That's what happened when you didn't have
Mom around to do the wash, Jenny thought dolefully. Little
Sister wound up doing it.
Dan spooned another heap of Folgers crystals into the
green plastic Winnie-the-Pooh mug he'd been drinking
coffee out of since he was six. The topic of their mother
always made him squirm, and since their father, Rufus, had
been away since last night, attending an all-night howl-in
with his anarchist, Beat poet comrades, Jenny had been
talking about Mom even more than usual.
"They're not fake. We were both breastfed, so--"
"Can we please stop discussing Mom's . . . parts}" Dan
interrupted grumpily, feeling guilty almost instantaneously.
Jenny was the only girl living with her scruffy weird father
and her scruffy weird brother. She had every right to talk
about her ever-absent mother. The lack of femaleness or
even normal- ness in their decaying Upper West Side rentcontrolled apart- ment was excruciating. Jeanette
Humphrey had left Rufus and her two children when Dan
was eight and Jenny was not yet six to "discover herself"
with a handsome count in the Czech Republic. Dan
preferred to think of their mother as a babysitter who took
care of them for a few years and then got another job. He
certainly never thought about how he resembled her.
Clearly Jenny thought about it a lot. Or at least she'd
continue to think about it until she finally got breasts and
started think- ing about something else. It wasn't like she
missed their mother. Who could miss someone who'd
abandoned her young children.) never wrote or called, and
sent them each a pair of lederhosen in.j a child's size four
two Christmases in a row? \ I he only person Dan ruminated
over obsessively was Serena
in der Woodsen. Serena van der Woodsen. Just die
thought of � i name made him clutch his coffee mug with
sweat-slicked 'ij'i-rs. Serena was so beautiful he felt like
puking every time
illowed his thoughts to wander back to her; so perfect it
� , difficult to believe she existed; so entirely unattainable
she iii'lii as well have been a ghost or the tooth fairy or
something
M iilly ethereal. Serena van der Woodsen was and always
would � I >;m's dream girl, his muse--not that he ever did
anything
� nive that required a muse.
Never say never.
I Wo years ago, in a fit of insane compassion for his
mother-
. son, Ruius had thrown the mother of all birthday parties � i
iliirteen-year-old Dan. There was a disco ball, Jell-O shots,
I'.nlitub full of St. Pauli Girl, and enough Haagen Dazs
coffee
� i ream and Newman's Own microwave popcorn to feed
the
11 o roster of eighth-grade boys at his school, Riverside
Prep,
11 mi r Rufus was notoriously liberal and would definitely
have i problem getting a bunch of eighth graders drunk,
Dan's >
line class came, including woman-hips-sporting Zeke
Freed- i.iii, Dan's only real friend. But Riverside
sophomores weren't i< i ui!y ones who'd heard about the
alcohol-friendly party. The unites came and so did the
seniors. So did twenty-odd kids
;icross the park who'd heard about the party from Dan's
ir.lily obnoxious Park Avenue-dwelling classmate, Chuck
Bass.
li-vv of the crashers were girls--thank God--and Serena was
m ol'ihem.
Nik- got drunk, and so did Dan--all of them did. But the
(� :lnl]-grade version of Dan had been even more
introspec- \� :tnd insecure than the tendi-grade version, so
he'd never mustered up the nerve to talk to her. He just sat
on the worn brown leather sofa in the study, watching
through the doorway while Serena played a bizarre drinking
game involving a Lat- in textbook, a Sharpie, and a boy's
bare chest with her friends down the hall in the dining room.
It was Jenny who'd told him her name. Jenny was supposed
to be in bed--yeah, right--but she'd slipped onto the leather
sofa next to him with a pint of ice cream and two spoons
and whispered diose magical words in Dan's ear: "That's
Serena van derWoodsen. She goes to my school. Isn't she
divine?"
Absolutely divine.
Jenny was even more obsessed with Serena than he was.
She cut out pictures of Serena in the society pages and
drew doodles of her in the margins of her Hello Kitty diary.
She memorized Serena's schedule--which was taped to
the outside of Serena's locker--and followed her around
school. She eavesdropped on her at recess, at lunchtime,
and in the bathroom. Weekends, she trolled the Internet for
pictures. Just this morning Jenny had downloaded a picture
from the archives of a tiny Ridgefield, Connecticut, weekly
newspaper of an eight-year-old Serena eating a cone of
dripping green mint chocolate chip ice cream. Four of her
front teeth were missing, but she still looked glorious.
"I've been thinking. Why don't we make a collage?" Jenny
suggested now. "Like, of her whole life, as we imagine it."
"You mean of Mom?" Dan asked, his forehead furrowing
worriedly. Too bad their father was totally antipsychotherapy. His sister kind of sounded like she needed
it.
"No, silly. Of Serena," Jenny clarified, holding up the ice
cream cone picture.
Like that's any less psycho?
4 What?" Dan refused to admit that it sounded like the
most
� ii m^ idea he'd ever heard. "No way." He went over to
the
"I .uid filled his Winnie-the-Pooh mug with semi-hot water
� >in i lie tap, stirring in the Folgers crystals with a plastic
spoon.
� 1'iok a sip. Perfect.
IVrlcctly nasty?
|i niiy tapped away at the keyboard of the family's white i i.
Hook, ignoring her brother's protestations. She'd learned
� ii when it came to the matter of Serena van der
Woodsen, 'in was utterly useless. "Oh, wow," she
murmured as the new i- Hue she'd just downloaded began
to appear onscreen. She
! � < lid the laptop around so that Dan could see it. "Look
at II Nhe looks like she should be on the cover of Bride
magazine
"inething."
I >nn planned on feigning disinterest, but it was impossibie.
i' mi had one of those remarkable faces that even when dis� Hi i| and pixilated glowed with the sort of beauty that can't
be i II iril. Jenny could have drawn a mustache and huge
eyebrows
i'l i hairy nose over the image and the effect would have
been ! � � .nine: he could hardly breathe.
Ncrcna was dressed in a long white halter dress with silver
.nlmg in the bodice, and she really did look like a bride, but
� i .1 wedding dress model. She was too beautiful to
model. Her
11 v was so exquisite, genuine, and priceless it was
impossible
11 � undine anyone using it to sell anything.
I .\ccpt maybe MasterCard.
No now do you want to make a collage?" Jenny persisted,
I'l'ing away at the keyboard. "We could pretend this was like
� ui wedding announcement photo in the Styles section of
the
� . c York Times and write the column underneath." She
opened a new Word document. "Serena Antoinette van der
Woodsen and Daniel Fartbreath Humphrey, July 12 at St.
Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. The bride met the
groom when they attended Columbia University together.
He had been obsessed with her for years but was too
intimidated to talk to her until one day she sprained her
ankle in the library after tripping over his Shake- speare
anthology. He carried her back to his smelly dorm room,
propped her foot up on his mini fridge, and read her boring
existentialist books until she began to cry. From that day on
they were inseparable. He even started to smell better.
Daniel's voluptuous younger sister, Jennifer, is engaged to
be married to the bride's younger brother, Miles, on
Thanksgiving Day."
Dan was used to Jenny's babblings and would have half
tuned her out if it weren't for the fact that what she was
saying was very much like the little daydream he allowed
himself to, have every night before he fell asleep. "Is
Antoinette really hen middle name?" he demanded
suspiciously.
Jenny shrugged. She had no idea what Serena's middle
name was or whether or not she had a younger brother
named Miles or Michael or Morty. Her middle name
probably wasn't Antoinette, but it was undoubtedly
something equally glamor- ous. Scarlett? Jessamine?
"I think you should tell this girl how smitten you are so I don't
have to listen to you moon about her all day long," the voice
of their father, Rufus Humphrey, boomed from the kitchen
doorway. Rufus's long, frizzy salt-and-pepper-colored hair
was pulled back in a low, loose ponytail tied with the yellow
plastic cinch he'd removed from a Hefty bag. He was
dressed in his "homeless look" best: his favorite coffeestained purple sweat- shirt, the sleeves cut off at the
elbows, with QUESTION AUTHORITY '� il'l.i/.oned in black
across the chest; a pair of tight, stretchy
� i l l pants that Jenny and Dan's mother had left behind in
her i"1.i i; and black rubber Birkenstock clogs that did
wonders for i h.iuy ankles. Actually, one ankle was
inexplicably hidden in
ige woolen sock, while the other foot had been left bare.
� i". umsly Dan and Jenny were used to their father, but it
was
ill i Hi Lie shocking to see him after a good night's sleep,
and
� .1-. nlways, always totally embarrassing when he visited
their
I� t I ive schools. Nobody else's dad looked or acted quite
l � Uufus. But they still loved him fiercely, no matter what he
Nice pants, Daddy," Jenny remarked. "If you ever let me go
" " hoarding can I borrow them?"
K 1 lus smiled broadly at the compliment. "They're
insulated!"
1 � lioomed. "You could take a leak in these fuckers and
they ..iiMn'tleak!"
I t:ui was still fixated on what his father had just said. Tell �
i > n:i he loved her? Impossible.Terrifying. Unfathomable.
K'IIILIS slapped a shiny black leather-bound book on the
i' lien table in front of his son. "Write her a letter or a poem.
� II her how you feel. Then Jenny can put it in her locker.
She'll
ilnillcd. Everyone will be thrilled." Rufus's enormous, bristly i
in iial-colored eyebrows stood up on end. He was getting
� Hoi, like he fancied himself the next Cyrano de
Bergerac, In. h happened to be one of Dan's favorite
tragicomedies. "I've
� n ilioughtof a first line. I thought ofitwhenl was putting my
i"i-. on this morning and I could only find one sock. I was lost
1
i <i sock but now I've found you. We are a pair''
I );m rolled his eyes. No wonder his father had never pubiln-il any of his own writing. But maybe he could get a job at
Hallmark writing lines for greeting cards and finally hire
them a housekeeper. Dan opened the black leather-bound
book and grabbed a chewed-up pencil stub from the
tabletop. Without thinking he began to scribble.
Nothing hurt until you pushed me, hard, and I fell.
It's bleeding. I'm bleeding.
And I'm falling still. Still falling.
Can't you see me from up there? The water's clear.
Rufus peered over his shoulder and frowned. "That's a little
dark."
Jenny scooted her chair over to see. "What's a little dark?
What'd you write?"
Dan slammed the book closed. He'd never really written a
poem before, just letting the words pour out of him. It was
kind of exciting. "I'll show it to you guys when I'm done.
Maybe." Already he'd thought of another line. Actually it was
just a word: becoming. He was becoming a poet, and
Serena was becomin his muse. Even if he never actually
spoke to her in person, he could write to her, or at least
about her. And then if he died in a terrible fire at a tragically
young age and his poetry was heralded as groundbreaking
and heartwrenching, she would become fa- mous for being
his inspiration.
As if she wasn't already famous. nil dressed up with no
place to go
I II'I life just perfect?" Serena wondered aloud as she puffed
..n ilic ridiculously long black lacquered cigarette holder
she'd � Ir.i nvered in the tiny drawer in Mrs. Archibald's
gold-painted � unique bedside table, along with several
prescription bottles of I nils ;ind a small red-suede diary fall
of illegible blue felt-tipped � -i nhbles in drunken French.
Zut ctlors, je deteste Misty Bass!
I '� 11 lore won nouvel chauffeur!
"Merveilleux," Blair agreed, adjusting Mrs. Archibald's enor-
us black Chanel sunglasses on her nose.
The girls were lying on their backs on Nate's parents' bed,
winching the stars come out through the round skylight overhead. Nate lay between them, his glittering green eyes
closed. I M dad's purple-and-black silk bow tie and
matching cummer-
s liiind were tied around his white Polo shirt. "Hmm," he
noted ilrunkenly. Nate was sort of a lightweight when it
came to gin, hni even drunk and dressed like a jackass he
was still hot.
"Do you think she wore pajamas to bed?" Serena mused.
"Ora nightgown?"
"Pajamas/' Blair responded definitively. "White satin
pajamas with black velvet trim." They'd watched Breakfast
at Tiffany's twice in a row and neidaer girl could stop talking
about it. They were obsessed.
"If I ever become a director, that's the kind of movie I'd like
to make," Serena declared dreamily as a plane flew high
above the skylight, its lights flashing. "And you two can star
in it."
"Not me," Nate yawned. Acting was totally not his thing.
Memorize all those lines? No, thanks. He was a sailor. He'd
always be a sailor. Not that he actually sailed much during
the school year, but he and his father were working on the
blue- prints for the awesome sailboat they were going to
build up at their family compound on Mt. Desert Island, in
Maine. One day he'd take Serena and Blair sailing on that
boat. And one day he'd win the America's Cup with it.
In her head, Blair was already playing the movie she was
going to star in. She and Nate couldn't be perfect strangers
in her movie the way Fred and Holly Golightly had been.
They'd i known each other forever. But maybe after college
they'd wind' up living in the same building on the Upper
East Side just like Holly and Fred. And one day, when they
were both running, for the same taxi, they'd bump into each
other in the rain. Blair \ would be holding a cat, and they'd
kiss and realize that they'd | actually been in love their whole
lives. Then they'd rush up to her apartment and have wild,
passionate sex.
Or maybe that would happen right now.
Blair turned her head slightly to glance at Nate. There was a
tuft of soft golden fuzz on his cheekbone that he'd missed
with', his electric razor. His light brown eyelashes curled so
dramati-1 cally they looked fake. It was almost painful to be
this close to] him and not actually touch him. Boldly, she
pressed her head) i In1, chest and sighed sleepily in her
best Audrey Hepburn
� � � ,'"Thank heaven for king-size beds."
�
' > Nate's other side, Serena tapped out her cigarette in an
n
\ martini glass, unbuttoned her still-snow-dampened Earl �
HI ., mid slithered out of them. Then she rolled over, slipping
�
� ii' ("iij;, always-tanned, perfect leg around one of Nate's
khaki-
i i.M ML-CS. He was just a great big yummy teddy bear,
perfect for
Hii.ir.liiig.Andoneday soon she would get up the courage to
slip I- i I i.mds underneath his shirt and kiss him, really kiss
him.
i >IIC day soon, please,
ii w;is a blessing he was drunk or Nate wouldn't have been
� '� I' m stand it. Even with three martinis swirling around in
in I idly, his khakis were getting tighter and tighter in a
certain
iiri icd area. He loved both Serena and Blair, he really did, H I 1 icy were both so hot. He even liked Breakfast at
Tiffany's a U 1 In id hotter the second time around. But one
thing had occurred n Iuiii while he was watching it again:
everyone seemed so
> nt't cssed. All the girls wore makeup and the guys wore
hats and ill- v all stayed fully clothed the whole time. It just
made him "� mi U) . . . want to . . .
Nhite was fifteen going on sixteen and tired of being a
virgin. I'iinling himself the cheddar in a Serena-Blair grilled
cheese
� iiiilwich didn't help matters either--it just made him
hornier ill.in heck. But how could he choose between them?
They were I'"ih so much a part of him it felt wrong to
imagine one of them � i.il cil. He crossed his ankles,
throwing off Serena's leg. Maybe II would be better if he
remained dieir best friend, eunuchlike � uiil asexual--at
least as far as his two best friends were con-
cd--while he found some other girl to finally do it with. Just in
net it out of his system. Um, not exactly what either of them
had in mind.
"Let's stay together like this forever," Serena murmured
sleepily, burrowing her nose into Nate's warm neck. Then
she remembered that her parents wanted to send her to
boarding school next year. She squeezed her enormous
navy blue eyes shut, but she no longer felt tired. Her long,
nearly black eyelashes fluttered against Nate's neck as she
opened her eyes again. His breathing slowed as he drifted
into dreamland. Blair was already wheezing and whistling in
her sleep, the way she always did when she'd been
drinking and smoking. Serena lifted her head to look at
them, both fast asleep in an adorable, cozy heap, like
puppies that had played too hard.
In Mrs. Warwick's English class they'd been reading The
Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. In it, this guy Dorian
stays young and beautiful while the portrait some painter
paints of him ages and gets ugly. Serena cupped her
hands around her eyes and clicked her tongue, pretending
to take a picture of her friends that would freeze them like
this, together and forever perfect. She bent down and lightly
kissed Nate's cheek, breath- ing in the wonderful
sandalwood soap smell of him and damp- ening his skin
with her tears. She was crying because she loved both him
and Blair, and she was never happier than when she was
with them. How could she leave her two best friends?
And maybe she was crying because the idea of Blair and
Nate snuggling on his parents' bed without her was simply
too much to bear. sen altered or abbreviated
ct the innocent. Namely, n
hey people!
^.� tch out, Jiz smith
i�� ini.li io my surprise, this tell-all business comes quite
naturally to me.
I!"- only thing I cannot share is my own identity. Many of you
are already � i.mioring for it, but alas, I operate under a
strict don't-ask-don't-tell I" "Iriiy, so don't even bother. You
might want to tefl me all sorts of other i y stuff, which is
entirely welcome. I'm totally easy when it comes i' -' i<>ssip-I'll listen to anything. After all, I am descended from a long
in n � of glamorous gossips and advice columnists,
including Dear Abby, ili'dda Hopper, Simon Doonan, and
Liz Smith. Not that I'm actually "� i.iledtoany of them by
blood, but I can feel them in my veins. So give me | he
scoop!
iii|litings
II lighting with her dad in Ferragamo on Fifth and Fiftysecond
'iircet. She's scary when she's angry, but she finally did
calm down hitiij enough to try on and make Daddy buy six-count 'em, six--pairs "I i .1 ite satin ballet flats in jewel
shades. S with her mom in Frette buying N.ili;in flannel
sheets in twin sizeX-long. Where's she going, sleepaway '
.imp? N flirting with a gaggle of French girls from L'Ecole in
front of fli.il pizzeria on Eighty-sixth and Madison.
Pardonnez-moi, but hands - 'II he's already spoken for, by
more than one girl. the /word We're young, we're not
completely freaking out about college yet, and we still make
major fashion mistakes and social faux pas and totally get
away with them. Why bother with love now when we're so
footloose and fancy free? The obvious answer: boredom.
We need to stir things up a little, and because we're bored,
not boring, we have no qualms about telling our best friends
that after all these years of friendship, all we can think about
is them--naked. I know, I know, I can already hear you
squealing, Ew! But just imagine that your best friend is N--
who could not think about him with his shirt off and taking
your shirt off with hin I mean, come on!
There, I've said it. I'm in love with him too. Et vous? Or am I
enough for you?
w you just can't get enough of me,
gossip girl lust another manic school day
i i' i il I remind you boys that winter is almost over and we'll
hi: playing our dicks off? I don't care if you're cold. Run!
I In ihc fucker! Get yer stick up!" Coach Michaels shouted at
ili> M. Jude's School for Boys' varsity lacrosse team.The
boys
w n1 running drills in the corner of Sheep Meadow in
Central
I'MiK beneath a gray, sunless sky. Frozen balls of ice
crunched Itnu-jiih their cleat-clad feet. Most of the boys wore
shorts, as if in |novc how studly they were, impervious to the
cold.
liilk about impervious. Coach Michaels was wearing the
'KIIIU* hunter green Lands' End windbreaker he'd worn all
fall
I :ill spring. Either he had some serious polypropylene ultraiviiiiii, tiltrathin long Johns on underneath it, or he was totally
litwusiiive to heat or cold or much else, which was most
likely llit1 I'IISC. "Archibald, just because you're my
youngest player tlitcfin'i mean you can be the pansiest.
Goodred, grab Archibald iiinl Jo some relays. Shove your
stick up his ass!"
The other boys snickered. Coach Michaels was famous for
iiii luul mouth and absurd commands. He never said what
he H inn, or if he did, there was no way the boys could
actually
i
> do what he said. But they got the picture. He wanted them
to run hard, take command of the ball, pass accurately, and
score. He was a good coach and they usually won. Plus, he
recognized talent. Nate was only a sophomore, but Coach
Michaels had swiped him from the junior varsity team "to
give him bigger balls."
Luke Goodred, the varsity team captain, cupped Nate's
crotch with the basket on the end of his beaten up Brine
lacrosse stick and pretended to toss Nate's growing balls
over the trees bordering the park and out onto Central Park
West.
Splat!
Luke was tall and skinny with curly reddish brown hair, Mick
Jagger lips, and nervous brown eyes. He would have been
pegged a geek if he weren't so confident and such an ace
lacrosse player. "You're wearing sweats," he observed
wryly. "I bet you're still a virgin. Jesus, Archibald. How can
you spend all your time with those two smokin' babes and
still be a virgin?" Luke took great pride in knowing the
sexual status of every player on his team and did his best to
help the virgins get devirginized. "You ever talk to L'Wren
anymore?"
Nate shrugged. "She's in college," he responded before
chas- ing after the ball.
Luke ran after him. "Well, she's coming back for my party
tomorrow. You coming?"
Normally it would be strange for a senior to invite a sophomore to his party, but something about Nate transcended
class hierarchies. Perhaps it was the fact that he never
went anywhere without his two gorgeous female friends,
Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen, making him
welcome basically any- where. He was still trying to figure
out exactly who he was, just , ill <- I he rest of his fifteenyear-old peers, but he wasn't a dork
� Ixtiii it. In fact, it was already sort of obvious that some of
the
� mors at his school worked very hard to emulate him.
lL
You girls just keep talking!" Coach Michaels yelled at them
1 < un across the grass. "Would you like me to bring you
some tea
1
HI.I biscuits?This isn't fucking cricket, you morons!"
I ,uke laughed. "Hey Coach, I'm having a party tomorrow
mi-Jit, wanna come? It's gonna be a freaking orgy, I can
already
uli!"
(^oach Michaels stuffed his hands into the pockets of his
wind-
I'icaker. "No, thanks. I got my own orgy going on
athome!"The � mire team winced, their faces wrinkled in a
collective grimace. < :<>ach was always talking about
himself and his wife like they
urre the hottest couple alive.The boys had seen Mrs.
Michaels' picture on the wall of Coach's office in the gym,
and they'd all
� il'.reed she looked sort of like Jennifer Aniston. Her dyed
red
liair was long and wavy, and she had smiling brown eyes
and a
nice smile. But she wore huge amounts of makeup and
sported .1 pink windbreaker to match the coach's green
one. The team's nl'iicial verdict was that the Michaelses
kept their windbreakers mi when they did it.
Nice.
As soon as practice was over, Nate texted Serena and
Blair, who were across the park, enjoying Double
Photography. Double I 'holography was everyone's favorite.
An entire hour and a half 10 roam around the city
unmonitored under the pretense of laking photographs,
when what they really did was go to sample � ales, get
haircuts, buy shoes, or get their eyebrows done. Why waste
precious weekend time doing all that stuff when they had 1
>ouble Photography? The lights were on in the darkroom,
and the lab smelled like fixer and Mr. Beckham's perpetual
espresso. The teacher examined his attendance sheet,
preparing to pair the girls up to venture outside with their
Nikons. Serena's cell phone buzzed in her ice blue
Lambertson Truex microhobo. She slipped her hand into
the back and surreptitiously read Nate's text.
COME TO A PARTY WITH ME TOMORROW NIGHT? IT'S
AT MY LAX CAPTAIN'S HOUSE SO I HAVE TO GO.
Nate was so cute and helpless--he could never do anything
without them.
YES, BABY, OF COURSE WE'LL COME, Serena typed in
reply, DON'T FORGET, TOMORROW IS VALENTINE'S
DAY.
"Don't move," Blair whispered to her, grabbing Serena's
arm. "Mr. Boring is pairing us up. We have to be together,"
she added, like it was life or death.
"Kati Farkas and Vanessa Abrams," Mr. Beckham droned
in his monotone Midwestern accent.
"No fucking way," hissed Vanessa, the strange, combatboots-wearing girl with waist-length black hair who'd arrived
in September from who-knows-where and refused to speak
to any- one. "If you think I'm going to walk around taking
pictures with Cootie Fungus, you're out of your fucking
mind," she stated in a fairly loud voice.
Serena and Blair exploded into howls of laughter. Cootie
Fungus? Now why hadn't they thought of that?
Vanessa was wearing the navy-blue-and-white-checked
bloomers--yes, bloomers--the lower school girls were
required to wear for gym class, over a pair of black
leggings, like an Anna Sui model who'd lost her skirt.
Well, at least she was still in uniform. "lixcuse me?" Kati
whined, putting her hands on her pale, � � i tosed hips.
Kati preferred to wear cropped pastel-colored Polo
> "i I .ucoste shirts paired with the same teensy-weensy
uniform
I ii is she'd been wearing since sixth grade. She left the
skirts unbuttoned and folded over at the waist, so they were
super low
II n) super short. "Mr. Beckham? Shouldn't she be, like,
expelled ! � -" saying that to me or something?"
Mr. Beckham ignored her. Vanessa was the most talented I
<\ loiographer in his class, and he wasn't about to get her
expelled ni even suspended when she might very well make
him famous "in- day. "Whatever," he sighed, as if his
students' petty vicious- I .s couldn't have bored him more.
"Vanessa, you go with Blair, M
mil Serena, you go with Kati."
"No!" Blair wailed, throwing her arms around Serena and in
tiding on tight.
LL
It's all right," Serena whispered, shaking off Blair's death r.i
ip. She'd thought she might use the next two periods to
finally i' II Blair about boarding school next year, but Blair
had been
n i ing so jumpy ever since she'd overheard her dad talking
dirty i" someone in his dressing room, Serena couldn't bear
to freak lui out even more.
"I have to go to Barneys anyway, and you've already been
ilii-rc twice this week," she reminded her gently. Blair had a
I- i rible habit of going to Barneys during lunch or
immediately � ill cr school, even if it meant being late for all
the extracurricu- l.ns that were supposed to be getting her
into Yale, like French * lub, tennis, Princeton Review, and
the new Junior Board at i IK- Guggenheim Museum of Art.
Besides, Serena hated shop- I'in); with Blair because Blair
was so competitive about it. Before I1 n-y checked out,
she'd have to compare what she was buying to what
Serena was buying, and if Serena had one more skirt than
she did, or a dress in an unusual print, then Blair would
have to scour the racks for some equally fabulous
purchase. Today Serena wanted to buy something cute to
wear to the party Nate had just invited them to tomorrow
night, and she didn't really want Blair to see what she
picked out. Plus, it might be nice to have Kati along to hold
her stuff.
Wannabes do have their uses.
"And don't forget to submit your photographs to Vanessa's
new magazine," Mr. Beckharn reminded them. "It's a
wonderful way to showcase your talent," he added
halfheartedly.
Vanessa rolled her eyes.That morning she'd taped two
brown paper bags to the walls of the Constance Billard
lunchroom. One of the bags was labeled ART and the other
WRITING, with a sign above them that said SCHOOL
ARTS MAG SUBMISSIONS. SO far both bags remained
empty, which was fine with her. She'd taken plenty of
photographs to fill up the magazine, and maybe she could
just scatter in a few random quotes, like the one scrawled
on the bathroom wall of her favorite falafel restaurant in Williamsburg: Youth is wasted on the young.
The girls sprinted upstairs to their third-floor lockers to
retrieve their coats. Constance Billard had recently
redecorated its hallways in gold and silver--gold walls and
silver lockers, gold carpet and silver paint on the ceilings.
The idea was that the girls would spend less time on their
appearance and more time on their studies if the school
out-glitzed them all.
Nice try.
A carefully folded piece of paper was sticking out of one of
the slats in the silver metal of Serena's locker door. She
removed the piece of paper and unfolded it, hastily reading
as she shrugged
I 'lie new brown Burberry plaid wool coat her mother had
� 'ir.hi her in London last month.
Nothing hurt until you pushed me, hard, and I fell.
And I'm falling still. Still falling.
Can't you see me from up there? The water's clear.
It's becoming--no, I'm becoming
< Hearer and clearer still.
Can't you see me?
What is that?" Kati peered nosily over Serena's shoulder at
i" |>K-cc of paper as she buttoned up her new orange
mohair
�� ii ihiii looked almost exactly like the orange cashmere
Marni � � ii .Vrena had worn the whole first part of the
winter. "Did � >ii write that?"
No," Serena responded, rereading the poem. "Someone
left
I'AV!" Kati shrieked, tucking her overly blow-dried straw- � '
1 v blond hair behind her rather prominent ears. "That is so
1
� II v. I would so get a bodyguard right now if I were you."
'� i-rcna shrugged her shoulders. She was used to being
iliiiiied, and it was kind of flattering to have a poem written
11 cssly for her, even if the poem was kind of dark and
morbid
1 U I I licked up and she had no idea who'd written it. She
tucked
H \" white piece of paper into her pocket and slung the
strap of i- i Nikon camera around her neck.Then she folded
the waist-
nhl of her navy blue pleated uniform skirt over, shortening I
� '.kirt so that it barely covered her navy-blue-tights-clad
butt
<
! �� <� ! � . One thing she wouldn't miss if she went to
boarding . hmil was Constance's horrible uniforms. "Come
on, Kati, let's go find something cute in purple velvet. Every
girl should own some purple velvet, don't you think?"
Kati's vaguely hazel eyes lit up with excitement. "Really?"
she cried.
Definitely. v helps b notice the little things "It's just so pink,"
Vanessa observed, kneeling down on the dirty lit to get
another close-up photograph of the wad of spat-out '
liewing gum just outside Constance Billard's massive blueprinted wooden doors.
She'd been photographing the gum for almost half an hour,
. 1 id Blair wanted to strangle her. Blair could not believe
she was 1 walking around with someone wearing
bloomers, which were l>asically puny navy-blue-and-whitechecked underwear, in public. "Our pictures are all blackand-white anyway, remem- lier?" she snapped. "Can we go
now?"
Of course Vanessa knew perfectly well what kind of film
was loaded in her camera. "I just want to get it from one
more unjjle," she replied distractedly, lying down on her
back on the � mlcwalk and holding the camera upside
down over the piece of num. She fought back an attack of
the giggles. Wow, was it fun u> unnoy Blair.
Will it still be fun when her camera gets chucked onto Fifth
Avniue?
"jcsus," Blair muttered, yanking her vibrating cell phone
from the pocket of her kelly green Marc Jacobs Jackie O
coat with the gigantic tortoiseshell buttons. "Hello, Mother,"
she said coldly. "I'm glad you finally found the time to return
my calls." Blair had left four messages for her mother since
yesterday, having decided the night before last that she had
to tell her about the incident with her father in his dressing
room. Of course, she saw her parents nearly every morning
before school--her father insisted on family breakfasts
during the week--but she needed to speak to her mother
alone.
"I'm sorry, honey, but you know how busy I am this time of
year. Spring is coming and there are just so many benefits
to plan. I wish there were three of me!" Eleanor exclaimed.
Blair rolled her eyes. There already were three of her. Over
the past month her mother had gotten extremely fat on
some ridiculous French diet which required her to eat a
steak a day and an entire wheel of brie a week. Blair
squatted down on the sidewalk and rummaged around in
her bag for her white TSE cashmere scarf. She wasn't
wearing any tights, and she was freez- ing her ass off. "I just
thought you should know that last week- end I caught Daddy
hiding in his dressing room while he was having this gross
conversation with another woman while you were tasting
food for the Guggenheim benefit," Blair blurted out. "He's
having an affair. I'm sure of it."
Like most mothers and daughters, they had a complicated
love-hate relationship. Blair thought her mother had a right
to know what she'd seen and heard, but telling her was a
sort of challenge, as if to say, "Here's the deal, Droopyass.
Now what are you going to do about it?" Not that Blair really
wanted her parents to fight or split up or whatever, but it
would certainly add drama to her life. And we all need
drama.
t Hi, I'm sure you just misheard him, sweetie," Eleanor
I'luii in her chirpiest "this information does not compute"
i <-. It was all Blair could do not to hang up on her. "Daddy
i ln-cn working very hard lately. He was probably just
practic-
lor a case or something."
I ihiir's father was a patent lawyer who specialized
inpharma-
� ii icals and footwear. Blair was pretty damned sure he
wasn't � .1 ling on any cases for Ernest and Julio Galto.
Mie found the scarf and stood up to wind it around her
neck,
1 v i o find that Vanessa had left. She whirled around, her
mother's
1
� ilv perky voice still chattering in the background. "I
thought . n he we could go to Bergdorf's after school," she
was saying. "I
<�� i-nnt been there in weeks, and you need a new
spring coat."
I1 was a gray, dank February day and the air smelled like
cold
i1.lied potatoes. Dirty slush crowded die curbs, and even
the
n-lit yellow taxis looked cold. It was the kind of day that
made i.in1 want to put on her favorite Missoni knit bikini
and elope
nil Mate to St. Bans.
Across Madison Avenue Blair caught sight ofVanessa's
wide,
� " 'i nered butt sashaying down Ninety-third Street toward
Park v n tie, her long jet-black hair billowing out behind her
in the
mi|i, winter wind. Blair started to follow her, walking quickly.
In- phone call with her mother seemed totally irrelevant
since
i mother wasn't listening to her anyway. It was much more
> < irtant that Vanessa know that she was the one who was
sup-
l'
>..� ,! to decide where they were going. She'd wanted to
take
� 1 ires of the cute new baby ducklings swimming in the
reser-
1
>ii in Central Park, but Vanessa was walking east, away
from ..� |� ark. "I gotta go, Mom. I'll see you later, unless
you're going out."
"Your father's taking me to some Wagner opera. Boring."
"Okay. 'Bye!" Blair cut her off and dashed across Park
Avenue to chase after Vanessa. Her taupe Prada ankle
boots were not exactly running shoes, and they were getting
completely slush- stained. "What the fuck?" she panted,
catching up to her class- mate.
"I thought your conversation sounded private," Vanessa
explained without slowing down. "And I was finished with
the gum."
"So now where are you going?" Blair was annoyed that
she'd even followed Vanessa when what she really wanted
to do was pop into Starbucks and buy a venti hot chocolate
with extra whipped cream.
"I just have a quick errand," Vanessa announced vaguely
as she spotted the thing she'd been looking for. She turned
down Lexington Avenue, walked halfway down the block,
and pushed open the door to a closet-size men's
barbershop.
"What the--" Blair hesitated and then followed her inside,
The barbershop smelled like air freshener and bus exhaust,
and the barber was wearing oversize white nurse shoes
and a weird red patent leather belt, like a serial killer who
moonlighted as a clown. He draped a black polyester
tablecloth-like thing over Vanessa's shoulders and sat her
down on one of the two worn maroon pleather barber's
chairs.
Reluctantly Blair perched on the other chair to wait. There
were no magazines in the shop, not even a Sports
Illustrated. Ju one copy of some newspaper called U
Recordo that wasn't even in English. This better be quick.
"Your hair is so healthy look- l>lair observed, making
friendly conversation to keep from
in:-, completely bored out of her mind. "I was thinking you
..MI rim it every few weeks to keep jt looking like that." But
in
:>n>,[> like this?
V.inessa ignored her classmate and stared straight ahead i
IIK' mirrored wall, a smirk on her thin, red lips. The barber
pud a lever with his foot to raise the chair and then ran his
NIJS through her thick, black waist-length hair. "Just a nice
miss? Two or three inches maybe?" he asked politely.
V:uiessa took a deep breath. "Actually, I'd like you to shave
it, I- .r.c," she commanded. "Shave it all off."
< iiime again?
She caught Blair's shocked stare in the mirror in front of
her.
nil her lush, tenderly cared-for chestnut locks, bright green
� ,inner coat, taupe patent leather ankle boots, expensivelooking � ii .size orange leather handbag, and her glossy
pink pout, Blair " >ked completely out of place in the
crummy, masculine barber-
i"i>. Even Vanessa looked out of place. But not for long.
The barber nodded and snipped the air with his scissors a
w limes, as if he couldn't wait to chop into all that hair. He
i.i'.jicd the ends with his hands and got ready to hack away.
"Stop!" Blair gasped, as if it were her own hair. "You can't
..that!"
Vanessa turned halfway around in the barber's chair. "Why
"(.� ' It's my hair."
.Snip, snip! An enormous clump of thick black strands fell
nto the gray linoleum floor.
Nut anymore.
I {fair stared at the hair, lying in a messy pile near the toe I
the barber's ugly white lace-up shoes. She couldn't imagine
chopping all her hair off like that, especially not when it was
as long and luxurious as Vanessa's was. Some of it was
probably her baby hair!
"You should at least save it," she advised, crossing and
recrossing her legs uncomfortably. "Or give it to charity.
Serena and I both got bobs at Kute Kuts on Madison in
fourth grade, and if you have at least five inches of hair, they
donate it to a charity that makes wigs for children with
leukemia. Braid Aid I think it's called. It's a really good
cause."
Vanessa's smirk wrinkled into a frown. Donating the hair
wasn't a bad idea, but it kind of took away from the shock
factor of shaving it off. Unless she could get Blair to shave
her head, too. In fact, why didn't the whole class, no, the
whole school shave their heads if it was such a good
fucking cause? She could already picture the headline on
Page Six of the New York Post "Selfless Constance Billard
girls shave heads for sick children!"
Like that would ever happen.
The barber spritzed Vanessa's head with water and began
to buzz the thick dark hair at the nape of her neck with an
electric razor. "You may as well take some pictures of this,"
she sug- gested to Blair. "It's all in the name of art."
Blair snapped away with Vanessa's Nikon. She really didn't
need to document the event herself. It wasn't exactly
something she'd forget. She had to admit, though, Vanessa
did have a nice head--free of bald spots, blemishes, or
scars. It almost looked . .. good shaved. And her eyes
seemed bigger, browner, and some- how prettier now. The
barber sprinkled baby powder on the back of her pale,
clean-shaven neck and then whisked it off with a giant
brush exactly like the one Blair used with her favorite
Chanel translucent oil-blotting face powder. * .o.nl?" he
asked, as if he could have made it look any dif-
She was basically hairless.
V.nicssa considered her reflection in the mirror. She
certainly
I. li i i l mk like a Constance Billard schoolgirl now. She was
just
< . i ' n lotally unaccessorized, un-made-up, and unadorned,
i li.ti :i coup to have started her own arts magazine and
created u wry own alternative image all in one day. "It's
perfect." IK � .lipped out of the maroon chair and stood up.
The bar-
isnapped the black sheet, tucked it under his arm, and
Mc.in-d offher black sweater with a stiff lint brush. "Would
you MIUI sweeping up my hair and putting it into a little
baggie or
mi' 1 ling?" she asked politely. "My friend here wants to
donate
1
I'M liarity."
ni,nr"s mouth opened. Who the fuck did Vanessa think she
i .my way? Swiftly he swept up the mound of black tresses,
� � >�� '�� ! it into a large plastic freezer bag, and
tucked the Ziploc >d' Ulair's oversize dark orange Jimmy
Choo bag like he was �� nil', her a massive favor.
l!!:iir followed Vanessa out of the barbershop and
deposited I- |'f:istic bag in the nearest sidewalk trash bin.
Ew, ew, ew! It ">l >\\ like a dead animal. She fished around
in her bag for a � � ill*- of Purell sanitizing hand gel.
'It's all right," Vanessa assured her. "I took a shower last
ih, so the cooties shouldn't be too bad." She giggled and
ran � i handover her freshly shorn scaip, loving the clean,
bristly feel. I.in glared at her and Vanessa glared back.
Making her Con-
itu c Billard classmates hate her was an intrinsic part of the
n.ii'.c she was cultivating, and out of all the people in her
class, it
i. very important to her that Blair Waldorf hate her the most.
Well, let's just say she's off to a brilliant start. b-r-e-a-s-t-find out what it means to me! They were so perfect. Even if
she finally got some of her own, they'd probably never be
like that. Tan and round with a little blond fuzz on them.
Okay, so now she sounded like the big) pervert in the
universe, even if no one could actually hear her thoughts.
But it wasn't as if she could hide it, she was totally
obsessed. If only there was something she could take to
make her own grow just the tiniest bit bigger. . . .
Jenny took one last, long look at the picture of Serena she'd
just discovered on a Web site called Model Shoppers,
featuring snapshots of models coming out of the changing
rooms in stores like Barneys and Bendel's. Serena wasn't
a model, but she'd cer- tainly fooled the photographers.
Wearing only a simple white triangle-top bikini, everything
about her was perfect, especially her perfectly sized
breasts.
Hastily, Jenny typed "bigger breasts" into the search
engine at the top of the page. Serena's picture vanished,
replaced by the 2,407 search results. Bigger Breasts and a
heightened libido in only three weeks. Feel better, look
better, without weight gain. L risk of side effects. The
alternative to surgery! Ignoring the totally ! �� '� in graphic
links like seemygreattitz.net, Jenny scanned -ti'iwi ihe list,
pausing when she read the words all natural, risk- lu. wiih a
link to a site called noknockers.com. It was a stupid \ ir but
it sounded safe. She clicked on the link and read ihmiif;h
the list of ingredients of a 100 percent organic, all- IIIIIM:I]
breast enhancement supplement called MammaGro.
i mi1,, fenugreek, something called kavu root from
Thailand, I'M li -v. They really did sound totally harmless, but
MammaGro < n-.t 9300 for a four-month supply, which was
how long the \ < N site claimed you had to take the pills for
them to have V ' ill' u lull effect. In the testimonials at the
bottom of the page,
i- women claimed to have gotten great results in even less
� . "From a B cup to a C in two weeks! I'm so excited. So
is my l;-y(ncnd!"
Irnny's fingers hovered over the keyboard. She'd have to �
Hilcr them in her dad's name, because you had to be over
� T.lucen, and she'd have to use his credit card number,
which
� l� \\ memorized, because she didn't have one of her
own. The I M over card was supposed to only be for
emergencies, but the
M i mill was, her lack of any sign ofbreasts whatsoever had
reached
Tgency proportions.
Nlie filled in the appropriate information and hit "order
I'liankyou!
" |cnny, may I talk to you for a minute?" someone whispered
ilmvily behind her, causing Jenny to leap out of her seat with
' inliiirrassment. Her hand flew to the little button at the
bottom i-l ilii' computer monitor, flicking it off before anyone
could see 'ili.n she'd been doing. She'd totally forgotten that
she was in tin1 computer lab at school, presumably
downloading fonts for the yearbook staff who liked to use
smart seventh graders like her for cheap labor.
Jenny spun around to see her art teacher, Ms. Monet,
whom she despised, even though art was her favorite
subject. She was convinced that Ms. Monet had become an
art teacher simply because of her last name, proving that
she had absolutely no imagi- nation. The thing was, Ms.
Monet knew nothing about art. She made her students paint
the most boring and predictable still lifes of bananas and
plums and refused to use the word blue, prefer- ring the
word azure instead. Apparently blue was just blue to her,
whereas to Jenny blue was as limitless and exciting as her
future.
Or the robin's egg blue Balenciaga bag in the latest
Barneys catalog.
Jenny perched on the computer desk and folded her arms
in front of her, affecting the completely innocent stance of
some- one who has not just ordered breast enhancement
supplements over the Internet. "Yes?" she responded
querulously.
Ms. Monet handed her a mustard-yellow sheet of paper.
CONSTANCE BIIXARD HYMNAL DESIGN CONTEST
W3S typed in big bold letters at the top.
WINNER WILL BE CREDITED AS THE DESIGNER OF
OUR ONE-OF-A-KIND HYMNALS TO BE USED IN
WEEKLY SCHOOL ASSEMBLIES AND CHERISHED
FOR GENERATIONS TO COME. ILLUSTRATE AND
DESIGN THE PAGES FOR BACH HYMN. TO ENTER,
CHOOSE YOUR FAVORITE HYMN TO ILLUSTRATE AND
DESIGN IN THE FORM OF YOUR CHOOSING.
GRADES 9-12. DEADLINE MARCH 1. RESULTS WILL
BE ANNOUNCED IN JUNE.
GOOD LUCK, GIRLS!
1
MRS. MCLEAN, HEADMISTRESS The sign had been up
ever since the girls returned from
.inter break last month. Since she was only in seventh
grade, 1 any had ignored it.
1
"I knew at once that this was perfect for you," Ms. Monet
mid her in a loud whisper. The diminutive teacher was
wear- ing a paint-splattered white men's button-down shirt
over black niKedo pants and flat black boots. She wore
black Ray-Ban fumes with green lenses in them and kept
her gray-blond hair
nipped in a severe chin-length bob. She probably thought
she linked hip and artistic, but Jenny suspected she had
merely cop- i� � . someone else's style.
�t
Meryl Streep in Devil Wears Prada meets Bono?
Jenny pursed her lips. There was a strict no-talking rule in
the � mnputer lab, and the proctor--some male math
teacher with a I'ustly brown mustache--was frowning at
them. "It says grades 'inie through twelve," she responded
quietly. "I'm in seventh."
Ms. Monet pushed her glasses up on her long, bulbous
nose
mil shook her head. "Don't worry about that. You're the most
i.itemed artist in this school."
"I'll think about it." Jenny tucked her curly brown hair behind
li'T ears in the same oh-so-poised-but-casual manner she'd
seen '.'� rona van derWoodsen employ when she spoke to
her teach- � i � .. Of course she was dying to enter the
contest, but no way 1 ,i;; she about to admit it.
1
"Well, good." Ms. Monet pushed her Ray-Bans to the top "I
licr head as if to suggest that what she had to say was too
important for glasses. "Just submit some of those
wonderful
nit'ds you scribbled in the margins of that pop quiz on Dali I
r.Mve last week. And a page of calligraphy. Your calligraphy
is Jenny stared at her. Angels? Angels? She'd never drawn
any angels. The bell rang suddenly and the girls at the
desks around hers began to pack up their belongings and
leave. Jenny beni down to collect her dark purple nylon Le
Sportsac backpack. Angels. What angels? Then she
remembered. They weren't angels, they were pictures of
Serena, so blond and golden and perfect that of course she
looked like an angel.
"I've got to run to my fifth-grade class." Ms. Monet smiled
falsely, her chapped, lipstick-free lips sliding across her
coffee- stained teeth. "I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!"
Even though she was late for English, Jenny sat down in
from of the computer again. The hymnals were distributed
on every girl's chair before assembly so they could read or
sing along with Mrs. McLean to the Lord's Prayer or hymns
like "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." To think that her
secret doodles of Serena might be printed hundreds of
times over in the same hymnals that the entire student body
saw almost every day was unthink- ably bizarre.
But then a sudden shiver of excitement crept inside the
turned-up cuffs of Jenny's black wool Old Navy V-neck
sweater and wriggled its way up her arms and into her
chest. Maybe she would win. And with that and bigger
boobs, she just might become something one day-something more than just curly- haired, petite, and
forgettable.
Don't forget ambitious. We'd be nowhere without ambition.
Hie only thing assholes are good for
1 better grab a copy while I still have some, man," Chuck
1
'. whispered loudly across the space between his desk and
I'S. He shoved a large, glossy black-and-white photograph
us own head and bare upper torso in Dan's direction. "I
t'.ot back from Berlin last night where I did this cologne ad?
man chicks are fucking awesome." Charles Bartholomew
� ., the only child of Bartholomew and Misty Bass, and heir
lie Bass leather and luxury goods fortune, was tall and
tlsome in a cheesy men's underwear or aftershave ad type
:iy. His carefully coiffed dark hair was thick and shiny, he
led a fake-looking tan, his cheeks were overmoisturized,
liis glassy blue eyes gleamed lewdly. Chuck wore a gold
logrammed pinky ring and, in winter, a navy blue cashmere
I'with a gold monogram, as if to demonstrate to everyone
lie was in love with every aspect of himself, including his
i initials.
>:m was generally a very nice boy, but when this particu-
{iverside Prep classmate spoke to him, his automatic
physi-
I
icsponse was to wrinkle his nose in absolute disgust. He
pretended to be lost in thought, dreaming up the next
stanza tit' the new poem he was writing for Serena, even
though they were in geometry, but his eyes couldn't help but
wander to Chuck's annoying head shot.
"I'm serious, man, take it while it's still fresh."
Dan flashed a disparaging half-smile and tucked the
photograph inside his grubby black messenger bag.
"Thanks." He went back to musing on Serena's
unbelievable beauty, his gnawed-on blue Bic pen poised
over a fresh page in his black leather-bound notebook.
Chuck didn't get the hint. "You think if I give these out ai that
party tomorrow night Serena van derWoodsen will finally
give in and let me see her naked? After all, tomorrow is
Valen- tine's Day."
Dan blinked. Suddenly he didn't mind Chuck's ridiculous
stench of man perfume. "What party?"
Chuck leaned his elbows on Dan's desk. "While I'm here,
do you have the answers to the worksheet Miss Porkbutt
handed out yesterday? I was gonna do it at lunch, but then
my agent called to ask if I could shoot an ad for Axe in
Reykjavik this Sunday. As if I need to work so badly I'm
willing to lose my dick to frostbite."
Their geometry teacher, Miss Pohrbet, was forever leaving
the room for five minutes and then coming back, either to
test them or because she had some sort of bladder
problem and had to go to the bathroom a lot. Presently she
was out of the room. Dan handed over his completed
worksheet. Saying no and then argu- ing with Chuck would
require too much energy--and besides, it was only math.
"What party?" he repeated insistently.
Chuck grabbed the worksheet. "Just some senior from St,
J mte's," he explained vaguely as he hastily copied down
the
swers. "But everyone will be there."
Everyone. Translation: Serena.
Dan nodded. "Do you think it would be weird if I went?"
Chuck shoved the worksheet back at him. "What the fuck
do
i ;ire? You could go or not go," he growled dismissively,
indi-
ii mg that he was no longer interested in talking to Dan.
"But
vou do go, maybe you could try not wearing pants from the
iwnway bin at the Salvation Army."
!>an glanced down at his faded black corduroys. They were
>un Old Navy and had been new once--sometime last year,
'ilier than his brown cords and the green track pants he
wore �� uiL'times to play basketball in the park, they were
the only
11 [ s he had. Rufus wasn't into shopping, and although
Dan had
1
IDIIOW Riverside Prep's tan, black, gray, or navy blue
slacks
nl plain collared shirts dress code, he liked that he looked a
ile retro and a little scruffier than his khaki-clad classmates.
11 would Serena be revolted by his faded clothes and
generally
1
il ompt appearance? Maybe he was just beginning the
descent -"A 1 a slippery slope. Before he knew it he'd be
tying his hair
1 p with twist ties or pieces of garbage bags, just like his
father.
I test get himself to a department store tout de suite!
I >;in pulled his cell phone out of his bag and discreetly
tested
"iily friend in the world besides his little sister.
1
�� U G 2 THE GAP AFTER SCHOOL WANT 2 COME?
he typed hurriedly.
N ' II phone use was strictly forbidden in school--not that
every-
i' .ii id his kindergarten-age little brother didn't break that
rule
i i ilnily basis.
� i �� UR GAYNESS, Zeke Freedman texted back from
across the
i WHAT'S THE OKSION? Dan was about to invite Zeke to
the party with him, but the fact was the other boys in their
class called the big-hipped, acne- prone physics and
basketball whiz Zeke the Geek. It was prob- ably best not to
advertise their friendship when his ultimate goal was to talk
to Serena.
MY ASS GREW, Dan typed back, feeling guilty--but not that
guilty--for neglecting to mention the party or his reason for
going. He preferred to avoid being berated by Zeke for
getting a haircut, shaving, and wearing new jeans for a girl
who had rui clue he even existed. If Serena took a chance
and smiled at him, or even better, said something, Zeke
would be forgotten so fasl it would be as if he'd never
existed anyway.
So much for loyalty.
Dan nipped open his notebook as a rush of words flooded
his mind.
It's not the idea of me. It's me. Whether you know me or
don't,
We're the same sameness.
So pretend. It's just pretend. Pretend that you know me.
That we're in love. Just pretend. That's the idea.
That's it.
Blushing as his pen flew across the page, Dan felt his
palms J grow more and more damp and he bit his lower lip.
He was the J next e. e. cummings! The next Robert Frost!
The next Wallace I Stevens. Of course he'd never let
Serena read this one. Pretend I that we're in love? He'd
rather be thrown into a pit full of vipers I first. But he could
pretend that she'd read it when he saw her at * the party. It
would be his own little Valentine to himself.
Which is slightly sad, but also extremely cute. it's not a party
without a ii.iirless crasher
wii ever wonder what happens after a pet dies? Well, my
family's
nhin shorthaired pointer died last week of stomach cancer
and It
ivally sad. I know it sounds dumb but I believe in dog
heaven.
-'/-1 visits me in my sleep and licks my hand. A nd then I
give her
of her favorite treats: caviar on a water biscuit. She also
loved
'n � wine and she used to eat the cigar butts out of my
dad's ashtray,
� h -was how she got stomach cancer....
\ i first Vanessa was going to ditch the story but then she
uled to keep it in the "y es " pile. After all, the girl who had
men it was only in eighth grade. And so far it was the only
Men submission besides a poem by a junior, which she
abso-
IV refused to publish.
My Boyfriend
He makes me laugh and tells me I'm pretty
And I feel even prettier each time
He is so funny I can't stop laughing
I'm even laughing now We went to the beach and he said I
was pretty
We went ice-skating and he said I was pretty
He fell down and then I fell down
And we were laughing and then he kissed me
She couldn't decide whether the so-called poet was a complete idiot or exquisitely profound. Regardless, the poem
was so annoying it was the perfect first entry for what was
bound to be a great big reject pile. Vanessa tossed the
poem in the "no" pile on top of a pathetic drawing of some
girl's foot that looked more like a chicken leg. She stood up
from the dust-moted floor of her bedroom and threw open
the grimy window, letting in a cold blast of sugar-factory air.
Happy cheeseball bullshit like that poem made her blood
boil. She felt completely full of . . . rancor. The dark baby
fuzz of hair on top of her newly shorn head stood on end,
and a slow smile spread across her bitter mouth. Rancor. It
was a perfect name for her magazine--angry, unusual, and
slightly intimidating.
Kind of like someone we know.
She shoved the slim pile of papers back into her black
canvas backpack and headed into the bathroom. Anyway,
what was she doing working on a Friday night when she
had a party to go to?
Standing in front of the soap-scum-smeared bathroom
mirror, she squirted Bed Head antifrizz gel on her hand and
rubbed it on her nearly bald head just for fun. She hated
Valentine's Day and hadn't planned on going to any sort of
party tonight, but yester- day Blair had gotten five text
messages about tonight's festivities while they were out
taking pictures in Double Photography, and the idea of
showing up unexpectedly just to shock and piss off her
i coolest classmates was so delightful that she couldn't
resist. I cchnically, Vanessa had never been to a party in
the city � line. Parties in Vermont consisted of a bunch of
losers in foot-
ill jerseys drinking skunky Busch beer out of a keg in some� xlv's moldy basement rec room or out in a field. A
Manhattan 'i'|K-'t East Side private school party was
probably exactly the inn-, except for the surroundings, the
clothes, and the beer.
� 1 uilly, there probably wouldn't be any beer, just vintage
scotch
1 11'I 100-proof vodka. But Vanessa wasn't much of a
drinker I'vway. She'd only gotten drunk once, with her sister,
and she'd
� mud up sleeping in the bathtub, facedown in a puddle of
her
MI yuckiness.
i )f course, she was going under the premise that she was
taking � i camera. She'd do a photomontage for the
magazine--'Ass- � >lrs in Paradise." A profile of teen
excess.
And be honest, who wouldn't want to star in that} you know
it's a good cocktail if you can't taste the booze "What's so
funny?" Nate demanded in the brightly lit elevator on the
way up to Luke's family's loft inTribeca's distinguished
Elmer Building. Formerly a warehouse for Earner's glue,
the Elmer still smelled vaguely of glue despite its polished
granite, chrome surfaces, and Armani-clad doorman. But
the fumes had nothing to do with Blair and Serena's
uncontrollable giggling.
Serena clapped her gray-cashmere-gloved hands over her
freshly glossed mouth, her dark blue eyes huge and bright.
She stared meaningfully at Blair's crotch and crossed her
ankles, which were all zipped up into a pair of taupe, kneehigh, pointy- toed biker boots, care of Miu Miu.
Vroom, vroom.
"Stop it!" Blair squealed gleefully. "At least I'm wearing a
longer skirt." Not that fourteen inches could actually be
catego- rized as long. The skirt of her mauve distressed-felt
Marc Jacobs pinafore barely covered her thighs. "And
stockings."
"That's because you're chicken," Serena declared, pulling
up the hem of her brown plaid Burberry coat to reveal her
ever- tanned bare knees. Her purple velvet Marni tunic
clung to the i "I'1, i if her upper thighs a good eighteen
inches above her boots.
I 'ini;ht they had decided to experiment with a new look and
� i ii'-w purple, brown, and black color scheme. They were
also � inTitnenting with going commando.
1 was Serena's idea, of course. Blair had only agreed
because
1
lu never allowed Serena to think she was bolder or more
creative H I razier than she was. Anything Serena would do,
Blair could il" loo, though she'd insisted on wearing sheer
black stockings, i" . 1 least give the illusion that all her bits
were covered, and
1 i"i warmth's sake. Serena had taken it to the extreme,
wearing In i shortest dress, which was actually meant to be
worn over I .mis, and nothing else. The idea was that if
anyone noticed IIKT weren't wearing underwear, they were
looking too hard,
mil were thus demoted to asshole status. It was also a
practical i"l c on Nate. Making him blush was a constant
source ofenter- � miinent and excitement. Today was
Valentine's Day, and this 'i .� :; their funny Valentine to
Nate, complete with temporary red li'jin tattoos on their butt
cheeks.
()h my!
"Do you have to pee or something?" Nate asked Serena,
ii ising the girls to erupt into afresh round of snorts and
giggles.
The elevator arrived at the tenth floor and opened directly
urn the loft, which was paved with black and white marble
tiles
HUI vibrated with the sound of souped-up old James Brown
nn^s. A curly-haired brunette L'Ecole girl was dancing on
the hvriity-foot-long polished chrome coffee table, her long
legs
� >read into the sort of stripper stance that comes
naturally to
I
luiry French girls. In the open kitchen Luke poured
something
Irciric green out of a red Miele blender into crystal tumblers
lull of ice. "We're not wearing any underwear!" Serena
squeaked loudly as she brushed past Nate and threw her
coat down on the pile of coats on the floor in the oversize
entryway. She wasn't flirting exactly, just telling the truth.
Likely story.
"I thought we weren't supposed to tell," Blair snapped, flinging her new camel hair Max Mara trench in the general
direction of the coat pile with genuine irritation. It was fine
for Nate n> find out on his own when they were alone,
ripping each other's clothes off, but she hadn't exactly
planned on advertising the : � fact that she'd gone out
without her Hanros. How embarrassing.
"I'm not wearing any either," a tall girl with shoulder-length
dark hair highlighted in shades of python and fox confided
in a husky voice from across the entryway. Her Chanel Jetpainted toenails peeked out from beneath the hem of a
long black halter ; dress. Her cleavage was so wide and so
deep she probably ;] could have carried a Yorkshire terrier
in it quite comfortably, j Blair, Serena, and Nate stared at
her, each experiencing their f own cocktail of resentment,
envy, and desire. The girl put her hands on her hips and
pouted her dark red lips at Nate. � "Remember me?" |
"Hey L'Wren," he barely mumbled. He'd wanted to sound 1
a lot more surprised so Blair and Serena wouldn't think he'd
f only wanted to come to the party to see L'Wren, but
seeing her -t ridiculously hot body made him forget himself.
All he had to do } was untie that knot at the back of her neck
and her dress would fall off and then she'd be naked. Oh
boy.
Blair grabbed Serena's elbow and dug her nails into it.
Who the fuck wax L'Wren?
"Come on, Natie, let's go get a drink," Serena commanded
i � My. Those green cocktaiis Luke was making looked
yummy. iii plan was to prop herself up on one of those highbacked
.ki her bar stools at the kitchen counter and drink enough of
M 11 not to care anymore who saw her butt.
1
Among other things.
"Actually, I've prepared something special for you in Lukie's
mm, Natie." L'Wren raised her barely there black eyebrows
nl held out her hand. "Come check it out."
Nate followed her dutifully down the hall, leaving Blair and
tvna behind.
I 'ant, pant, pant.
"What the fuck?" Blair muttered furiously. Nate was hers,
lu-iher he knew it yet or not. How could he possibly already
IOW some slutty girl named L'Wren whom she'd never even
ul eyes on before? She fugged down her dress and
stomped no the kitchen. "What is that anyway?" she
demanded, point- i)1. at the green liquid in the blender on
the counter.
I .uke grinned. He loved it when pretty girls showed up at his
iiise. It made him feel like a complete success. "Try mine,"
he ik-redj holding a crystal tumbler to Blair's lips.
She swallowed half of the green concoction, took a breath,
ul then finished off the rest. It tasted like Lysol but she didn't
ve a fuck. "Will you make us some?" she asked, wiping her
KiLith. Kati and Isabel Coates were on the other side of the
niin, chain-smoking next to the open window. She stood on
� i tiptoes and waved to them just as Chuck Bass knelt
down
hind her, presumably to fetch more ice from the Sub-Zero's
i- drawer.
"I thought you were a nice girl," he commented, chucking an
(.- cube up her skirt. "Are those tattoos?" Blair glared
angrily down at him. Chuck's family and her family lived only
four blocks apart and had been friends for gen- erations.
He was a complete dick, but there was no escaping him. Of
course Chuck was destined to be the first to discover that
she wasn't wearing any underwear under her stockings.
He'd eagerly tell the universe and then it would be over.
That's how it was with lame gossip, Chuck's favorite kind.
"Loser," Serena declared definitively, tossing back her
neon green drink. It tasted like Fresca mixed with turpentine
and fresh mint. Excellent for the digestion. She grabbed
two more and motioned for Blair to follow her. They'd get
wasted and smoke cigarettes and Serena would finally tell
her all about how her parents wanted her to go to boarding
school in the fall. Blair was going to freak, but at least she'd
freak less with all this green stuff in her system. What was it
anyway--absinthe? Serena lined up the two drinks on the
deep windowsill that had been planted with green grass.
Then she unsnapped her Fendi button mush- room clutch
and retrieved a fresh pack of Parliaments, the only
cigarettes she could smoke that didn't give her a sore
throat. She popped one between her lips and twiddled
another between her fingers, waiting for Blair to finish her
ice fight with Chuck so they could talk about more serious
matters.
But then Blair's favorite song of the moment came on--that
stupid Christmas ensemble rap song with Beyonce and
Jay-Z and all those other rappers. Blair grabbed Chuck's
hips and started dancing with him. Serena stubbed out her
cigarette and knocked back her second green drink.
Discussing the scary future wasn't exactly her idea of fun
anyway. Dancing pantyless with a groper like Chuck would
be much less stressful.
i
And that's why she gets invited to all the best parties. n
learns to inhale, among other things
\ i lirst I thought maybe you wouldn't remember me," L'Wren
mured before shoving the bottom half of her face into a
pink frosted-glass bong. She sat crosslegged on the floor,
flick- � <<: her yellow Bic to Jighr rhe bong and inhaling
deeply as the I "in;; water bubbled and churned. Throwing
her head back, she r iiiscd to enjoy the hit before exhaling a
thin stream of gray
iiinkc. "But you seem like the type of boy who'd want to
finish
i h;ii he started," she added, her voice cracking.
She passed the bong and the lighter to Nate, who placed M
-in clumsily in his lap. He'd been offered joints at parties
M
I- ./i-ns of times, but he wasn't a smoker, and maybe
because he
ii.hi't inhale properly, he'd never really felt it. Still, he was
will- i 1 � io humor L'Wren.
> 1.
In more ways than one.
"This is sweet stuff. A couple of hits and I'm going to be all
� < IT you," she gushed. "Pot makes me horny."
\
What doesn't?
Mate flicked the lighter and attempted a hit. He squeezed
his . vi-s and mouth shut, trying to keep the smoke in as he
coughed and sputtered. Jesus. He had no idea what a
bong hit felt like not inhaling was not an option. He exhaled
and took anotha hit, determined not to look like such a putz
this time. L'Wrcn watched him with a little smile on her face
like she was so proud of her little pot-smoking prodigy she
just wanted to squeeze him and pinch him and kiss him to
bits.
Who doesn't?
"So." Nate placed the bong in the space between them,
ever so careful not to tip it over onto the organic Caribbean
sea kelp mat that covered most of the floor in Luke's room.
Inexplica- bly, the entire bedroom had a sort of modern
Caribbean themu, with sand-dune-colored walls, aquacolored silk roman blinds, and bamboo furniture. Nate
giggled softly to himself. What ;i dumb room.
"So, who were those girls you came in with?" L'Wren
demanded, picking up where he'd left off. She reached up
to adjust the ties on her dress, pushing her chest out and
almosi knocking the bong over with her boobs.
Girls? What girls?
Nate shrugged. "Just some friends." He grinned slyly al
L'Wren's chest, his whole body buzzing. "Let's take your
dress off," he added, like it was the most logical suggestion
he'd ever made.
L'Wren grabbed the bong and took a long hit. She held the
smoke in her mouth and then leaned toward Nate, grabbing
the back of his neck and pressing her lips against his. A
wave of pot smoke entered his esophagus along with her
warm, slippery tongue. Awesome, Nate thought stonedly to
himself. Fucking awesome.
He untied her dress and it fell to the floor, knocking over
i� mg and getting it and the floor all stinky and wet. She'd 1
' � I she was wearing underwear, but it was so tiny it was
barely
Nee what you've been missing?" L'Wren whispered, unbut-
iiij; his shirt. Outside the room a girl squealed and some"liiiir. scattered noisily on the tiled floor. Nate giggled again
as i Wivn kissed him. Man, was this fun. It almost didn't
matter
ii.n girl he was with. At least not when he was so very
stoned
ii nI when her body was as hot as L'Wren's. There was
nothing i" MIT right now than holding this sexy, nearly naked
girl who i MI il >;ibly didn't even know his last name or that
he'd sucked his iimtnb and had a lisp until he was seven. It
didn't matter that he
"iiMii't even remember what college L'Wren went to or why
li<Al messed with the spelling of her name.
< >r that he probably wouldn't remember any of this tomorbald as a fish out of water Vanessa already hated the party
before she even stepped out of the blindingly bright
elevator. What sort of assholes played Christmas-themed
rap at a party--any party, especially one in February?
Fuckers. She could barely muster the strength to grace
them with her nearly bald presence.
Tossing her black-wool-lined waxed canvas military jacket
on top of the pile of designer coats in the massive front hall,
she stomped into the kitchen and ran a cup of warm water
from the tap. Her nose was running and she was getting a
cold. She cer- tainly wasn't interested in drinking that
disgusting neon green shit everyone was tossing back. She
preferred black tea but when pressed would drink plain
warm tap water.
"Awesome haircut!" Serena van derWoodsen squealed,
fling- ing her iiber-blondness in Vanessa's general
direction. Maybe it was her imagination, but the air around
Serena always seemed to smell like cotton candy and the
girl herself seemed to float a fraction of an inch off the
ground, even when she was wear- ing the most impossible-
to-walk-in Jimmy Choos. Vanessa stood patiently sipping
her water while Serena fondled her head. "I < ived your hair
so much. I mean, who has natural black hair that
l luiilthy and shiny? But this is totally beyond cool. You are
so l n ave," Serena gushed, hugging her.
Vanessa dumped the rest of her water into the sink. She
liked '.crena more than she liked Blair. Serena seemed
less calcula- Killy fashionable, more effortless somehow,
which was probably aliy the other girls in their class---no,
the whole school--resented lift" so much. Still, it was
impossible to have a conversation with
� itmeone who knew perfectly well how blond and tall and
pretty
In.- was but who pretended to be just like everyone else.
"Do � on mind if I take your picture?"Vanessa demanded,
holding iii-r Nikon in front of her face.
Serena pouted her full, lavender-glossed lips like a pro.
"Mais imii." She laughed an inebriated laugh and did a little
twirl, flip- i >mg up the hem of her tiny purple velvet dress
and exposing the I'oiioms of her bare, red-heartembellished ass cheeks.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Blair Waldorf shimmied over to join her friend. "You really
� I" have a perfectly shaped head," she gushed drunkenly
as Y.inessa snapped away. The two girls grabbed another
pair of in on green beverages off the counter, poured them
down their
u:inlike throats, then turned and nipped up their skirts simuli.mcously so Vanessa could take a super-special shot.
Although ni i<her of them would ever admit it out loud, the
only reason "I "-y were drinking so much and acting so
completely obnoxious i\ ;is because Nate was ignoring
them. He was far too busy with i Wren, who didn't even love
him like Blair and Serena did. She " us just using him, and
he was using her.
Not a bad deal, actually.
Vanessa felt like the stunt double for a photographer on a
Playboy shoot. "Assholes in Paradise" had taken on a
whole new meaning. She personally would rather die than
bare her ass to the camera, but there was something
riveting about her beauti- ful classmates' total confidence.
They were a superior breed, so flawless they seemed to
have nothing to hide.
Not even wobbly bum fat.
"Work it, ladies!" a guy with shaving-cream-commercial
good looks and a creepy smile shouted at them from
across the room.
"Did I hire you?" a geeky-looking boy with Mick Jagger lips
and overgrown reddish brown hair whispered wetly in
Vanessa's ear. "Are you the dude from Vanity Fair?" He
shoved a green drink at her, barely missing her camera.
Another horrible rap song came on, this one by Diddy or
Daddy or whatever the fuck his name was--the guy who
used dog fur on the clothes in his fashion line.
Nice.
"Hey, I love this song!" Blair grabbed Vanessa's arm.
"Come on, dance with us!"
Vanessa hated rap and she hated dancing. Wiggling her
hips around to repetitive beats just wasn't her thing. And the
boy with the mouth had just called her "dude."
"You know you want to." Serena breathed alcoholic fumes
into her face, waggling her perfectly groomed blond
eyebrows like she was making an offer Vanessa positively
could not refuse.
Vanessa had to leave right away, or at least get some air.
A red EXIT sign flashed over a chrome door with a porthole
window that seemed to lead somewhere. And just maybe
that somewhere had a hot tub and a view of the Hudson
River, and everyone at the party was too drunk and stupid
to have discovered it yet. "Just going to grab a few scenic
shots," she mumbled and strode over to the EXIT door. She
pushed it open and let it slam closed behind her.
"Fuck!" she gasped as the frigid outside air nearly froze her
furs off. She leaned her shoulder into the chrome door,
thinking � ;lie'd just go back inside, grab her coat, and
head for the eleva- u>r. But the door didn't budge. She was
locked out without a roll phone, wearing only a thin black Tshirt and black jeans, on ;i fire escape that hung ten floors
above a dark lot between the I >acks of two converted
warehouse buildings. No hot tub. No iiicnds inside.
And no hair to keep her warm, poor thing. in one door and
out the other Dan was terrified that he was going to arrive
at the party, wouldn't know a soul, and would be asked to
leave right in front of Serena van der Woodsen, who from
then on would think him a pathetic loser. He'd decided to
walk all the way to Tribeca from the Upper West Side,
thinking a brisk stroll in the cool night air would give him a
boost of confidence. By the time he'd arrived and had
stepped onto the glaringly bright elevator, his wasted,
overcaffeinated body was rigid with cold, and his shaggy
light brown hair was pasted to his forehead with nervous
sweat. The doors slid closed and the floor beneath his feet
began to rise. Soon the elevator would open right onto the
living room of some guy named Luke Goodred's loft, and
Serena would be right there in front of him, staring at his
dripping cold sweat.
As if she didn't have better things to do than stand outside
the elevator?
The doors opened. The black-and-white-tiled floor was
throbbing with daft rap music. A gigantic messy pile of
coats lay in his way. Dan kept his coat on for armor and
kept his hi. . eyes on the black and white floor tiles as he
skulked carefull lly I loward the source of the music. Luke
Goodred's apartment was .1 massive black, white, and
green loftlike space with gigantic rect- angular windows, an
open kitchen, and a polished chrome coffee
i able that was at least a mile long. A group of girls were
dancing i>n the table with neon green drinks in their hands.
They shimmied
ilicir hips and smiled at one another like they'd all just heard
the I icst secret. Dan patted his pockets and pretended to
be looking for
liis keys as he continued to scan the room for Serena.There
were
i wo senior guys from his school, smoking by the windows
with
i wo curly-haired French-looking girls in matching dark red
lipstick.
There was Chuck the Fuck, wearing a black pin-striped
double-
breasted blazer over a crisp white shirt, pressed dark blue
jeans,
ii id brown leather loafers without socks, looking like the
poster boy
i < everything Dan hated and could never be. And dancing
with
<r
1
'liuck was Serena and that pretty, dark-haired friend of
hers.Their
r n-geous heads were thrown back and their pantyless butt
cheeks
<
liimmered below super-short purple hems. Dan's hands
began to
, i;ike and he averted his eyes. He was in way over his
head.
1
"Humphrey! My savior!" Chuck roared across the room
when he spotted Dan. "I got a freaking one hundred on my
main paper. Dude, I've never even gotten a ninety, let alone
a
"iic hundred! I'm sitting next to you every fucking day!"
Dan felt like he was hearing Chuck's assault through a wall.
v. liard as he tried not to stare at her, everything he saw,
heard,
ii.icd was Serena. Until Chuck lurched at him and smacked
hMII in the head.
"Dude, are you high or something? I go out of my way to be
IIU'L' to you and you don't even look at me?"
Dan blinked, a silly smile on his lips. He'd never seen
Serena
� lance before. Her long, lithe body undulated to the music
in a slinky but gawky sort of way, like she was a young
Thorough bred that hadn't yet figured out how to use its
perfectly formed limbs. Her striking but shorter brunette
friend was more manic I and more calculated. Serena's
gigantic blue eyes were closed, as if her body and the
music were having some kind of wonderful conversation.
Tantric beats --a rhythm or a sickness. |
What's come over me?
What's to become of me?
Every time Dan laid eyes on her, lines of poetry traversed
his consciousness, begging to be written down.
"Jesus. You want me to call nine-one-one?" Chuck shouted,
spitting all over Dan's eyelids. Serena opened her eyes
and glanced at Dan, who had become an instant spectacle
because of Chuck's performance. >
Does she recognise me? Does she know she's been to my
house? ' Does she know I'm the one who wrote her that
poem? Does she know how much I think about her?
Hopefully not!
Dan waved shyly at her, his fingers numb with the
realization that he was finally making contact--it was finally
happening. But what I to do next? Introduce himself? Just
stand there, staring? Ask her to 1 dance? Projectile vomit
and leave, hopefully not in that order? I
"I know what you need." Chuck grabbed Dan's legs and '
hoisted him over one shoulder. He was pretty strong from
lifting weights while he watched porn instead of doing his
homework. Dan tried to wriggle away, but Chuck was way
stronger than he . was, and he refused to put up too much
of a fight and make a
1 I of himself in front of Serena. Instead, he allowed himself
to - � :irried like a bag of laundry across the front hall and
out the i-� >r marked EXIT.
I he door slammedbehind Chuck's laughingback and the
frigid HI liii Dan's lungs, nearly choking him. "Asshole," he
exclaimed, 111 Icssly slamming his body against the
locked door.
11
"At least you've got a fucking coat," croaked someone
beside
I Ian swung around to find a pale, almost bald girl wearing
� I uupy black T-shirt, black jeans, and combat boots
squatting � ii ilic rails of the fire escape, her bare, not-too-
skinny arms � i.i])|icd around her shivering frame.
Instinctively he pulled off his black wool army-issue duffel
".ii and coaxed it around the girl's shoulders. She stood up,
i-.mg her arms into the sleeves and zipping it up. Dan
noticed li'-v were the same height. "Perfect fit," she told him
gratefully, i"Uing out her hand. "I'm Vanessa Abrams by the
way. Happy
ilrntine's Day." She shook Dan's still-sweaty hand firmly with
n i pale, freezing one.There was something solid and
reassur- iii1. about her big dark brown eyes, her round,
pale, makeup- i<' lace, and her shaved head. She was like
the antithesis of �� iciia van derWoodsen. So atypically
feminine and ugly she < r. almost beautiful.
K that supposed to be a compliment?
" I ")an Humphrey," he introduced himself. "Don't ask me
why
MI here. I don't even know the guy having this party." He
patted n . iiiivyblue corduroy pockets, as if searching for
cigarettes, even 1 gillie didn't smoke. It just seemed like the
thing to do.
"So why are you here?" Vanessa asked curiously. The
party
n'i full of jerks, she'd gotten locked out, and her coat, which
she'd been wearing all winter, was still inside. But here was
thi:. scruffy, lost-looking boy with wide light brown eyes like
a baby deer's caught in headlights. He was wearing navy
blue corduroys that looked so new his mom must have
bought them for him ai the Gap that morning. But he was
clearly not an asshole--they were all still inside. She
frowned, realizing she'd already forgot- ten his name.
Doug? Brad? Ned? She sucked with names. By the time
someone told her their name, she'd already forgotten it.
Dan wasn't about to admit that he'd come to the party
because of Serena even though she didn't even know he
ex- isted, or that Chuck Bass had thrown him out the exit
door just for fun. But what was she doing out there in the
cold? Had she come to the party for some equally pathetic
reason? How fortuitous to meet another outcast at a party
such as this! Or perhaps this girl didn't really exist. Maybe
she'd been conjured by his wild, poetic imagination, a
ghostly fairy godmother, come to steer his doomed
existence back onto a more sensible course than the one
he was about to take tonight.
Vanessa walked to the edge of the fire escape and peered
at the metal ladder that ran down to the fire escape below.
"Think we can scale it, Slick?" she wondered aloud,
Dan shrugged. He'd rather try that than humiliate himself by
banging on the door long enough and loud enough for
someone like Serena to finally let him in. Plus, he really
didn't want to go back inside.
He led the way, taking it slowly down the nine sets of lad-
ders. They climbed without talking, concentrating on the
rather terrifying task at hand. The bottom of the last ladder
loomed eight feet above the dark sidewalk. Dan closed his
eyes and jumped,The landing hurt his kneesj but he was
okay. He looked prepared to sweet-talk Vanessa down, but
she just dropped
il i he bottom rung and staggered into him, grabbing his
elbows
i \he regained her balance. Nope, she was no ghost.
"Whoops. Sorry, Pete," she laughed, letting go. She
stamped 1- i combat boots and smacked the traces of rust
from her palms.
1
Viually, that was sort of fun."
Dan smiled, the realization creeping over him that it had i"
in sort of fun. He never did anything with anybody other ( 11
1 Jenny or his Riverside Prep friend Zeke, who didn't count
1.1 I 'i * ;iuse (a) Dan had known Zeke since kindergarten
and hadn't �� illy chosen him as a friend--Zeke had just
sort of adopted iiim -and (b) Zeke had grown up to be
completely socially � H acceptable. Playing Spider-Man
with this Vanessa girl was � i.iy better than getting
humiliated by Chuck Bass in front of
� >[cna van derWoodsen anyway.
The brick hulls of warehouses turned luxury apartment buildni)',s loomed on either side of them. A lone cab lingered at
the � nrner and then sped away. Vestry Street was dead
quiet and � ilniost scarily dark. It was so cold, all the sane
people were in.ide, curled up under blankets, drinking
chamomile tea.
Hut we all know that S-A-N-E = B-O-R-I-N-G.
LL
You don't smoke, do you?" Dan asked, patting his pockets
M-..iin.
Vanessa shook her head. "Sorry, Charlie."
"I don't either." Dan wondered if she'd actually forgotten his
i I.I me or if she was just being funny. She had a crooked,
wise-assed
� i isc of humor, he could already tell. "But I think I might
start."
"Come on, Sam," Vanessa slung her arm through his. "I'll
1'iiv you some."
Something tells me this is the beginning of a beautiful
friendship. once upon a friday night A shy girl with no close
friends save her big brother, who was out at a party she
couldn't go to because she was just a lowly seventh grader,
can do very little on a Friday night except watch movies,
read, or take a bubble bath. As usual, Jenny poured almost
an entire bottle of Mr. Bubble into the bath and ran the tap
until the hot water had run out and huge puddles splashed
onto the cracked white tile when she got in. The bubbles
were so plentiful she couldn't see herself, which was just
how she liked it. She lay back in the warm water, rest- ing
her head with its damp mass of dark brown curls on the
ridiculous red inflatable lips bath cushion her mother had
left behind all those years ago.
"Jennifer? Get out here--I'm trying a new deviled egg recipe
and I want you to taste it!" Rufus bellowed from the kitchen.
One of the reasons Jenny had chosen to take a nice hot
bath was that her father was experimenting with a blowtorch
and boiled eggs while he cantered around the kitchen to
some boisterous Italian opera. "Hurry!" he shouted, as if it
were a true emer- gency. "Dad, I'm in the bathtub!" she
yelled back. "Thinking!" she ;idded, hoping that would shut
him up.
"Forget it," her father replied from just outside the chipped,
white-painted bathroom door. He opened it a crack and
shoved his hand in, brandishing something on his palm.
"I'm not look- ing. Just try it and tell me what you think."
Jenny sighed. "Can't it wait?"
Rufus stretched his blind arm out as far as it could go.
"Nope. It. can't."
She leaned over the side of the tub and reached for the
thing in his hand, already sure that it was going to be
disgusting. Half
i hard-boiled egg, its skin marbled with black veins and
filled with something that looked like crunchy peanut butter
mixed with yellow dog poop weighed heavily in her palm.
Oddly, it
� melled like Cracker Jacks.
"I added some almonds, but then I decided the nuts should
In- caramelized, so I threw in a cup of sugar and some
sherry � ind torched the hell out of it. I thought it'd taste
better, you I now, flambeed with candied nuts," Rufus's
voice echoed out-
� uie the door. His approach to food was not unlike his
approach in fashion: inventive and utterly appalling.
Jenny stared down at the sad little half of an egg. "But Dad,
� lim'tyou see? It's not a deviled egg anymore. It's just. . .
gross."
"I bet you haven't tasted it yet, though. Come on. Taste it, ii'.ie it!"
Jenny sniffed the egg again and then tossed it into the little
I1 i.K can under the sink. She sank her head back into the
red lips I'lllow and closed her eyes again. "Mmmm.Yum.
Wow. Actually, I hid, do you think I could bring some of
these to schooJ tomor- M'\v so I can give them out to my
teachers? I bet I'd get A's in everything if I told them that's
what I got to eat every night Im dinner."
"Forget it," Rufus muttered before retreating to the kitchen.
Jenny opened her eyes again to dispense more hot watci
into the tub and was dismayed to discover that the bubbles
hail already almost completely evaporated. There it was-her pale, concave chest with those two little pink things that
looked more like mouse eyes in a Beatrix Potter illustration
than boobs. Even Marx, the Humphreys' overweight black
cat, had bigger boob* than she did, and he was a boy.
Maybe she should just get used to it. She was doomed. Or
maybe not. According to the literature she'd received with
the breast enhancement supplements from
noknockers.com that had arrived this afternoon care of
FedEx, she might feel like nothing was happening for a
while. Then OIK* day she might measure herself and find
she'd increased by al least a quarter of an inch. Say that
happened twice a month. She'd be a B cup by spring! She
might even be able to wear a normal bra or even a bikini in
a real women's size rather than a child's size ten.
Anxious to measure her progress, Jenny sprang out of the
tub and wrapped her unnecessarily thick bubble gum pink
fuzzy cot- ton chenille robe around herself. She padded
down the hall to her bedroom, closed the door, and slid her
desk chair in front of it. Then she bent down and pulled
aside her pale pink dust ruffle to retrieve the white
cardboard box beneath her bed. Inside was a giant white
plastic canister decorated with an illustration of a
redheaded woman with perfect cleavage. Jenny unscrewed
the top, tapped two of the organic supplements out onto her
palm, and swallowed them dry. Then she unwound the
white, neatly coiled paper measuring tape that had come
tucked inside the i beside the canister. Pushing down the
shoulders of the pink
n nille robe so that it hung down from her small hips like a
gar-
>
.niiuan fuzzy pink tutu, she wound the tape around her back
mil over those two pink mouse eyes. She was careful not to
pull cm lightly and reduce the chance of a tiny incremental
increase
IIKC the last time she'd measured herself, which happened
to
'"Thirty-one and an eighth," she said aloud. She checked
the iipc again. Was it twisted? Nope. Thirty-one and an
eighth. This morning she'd measured at exactly thirty-one.
She'd only taken
� H dose. Was it possible that the supplements had
already
e
lined to work? She hurried over to her dresser and pulled
out iin- thing that made her blush with embarrassment and
guilt � iny time she touched it. The powder blue cotton
Hanro jog i'i:i had been sort of hanging out of the only
accessible crack in "� i-tL-na's locker when Jenny had
needed to shove in Dan's poem \ i.ierday. She'd tugged on
the bra, and it had fallen out. The
< lacker had been locked, so instead of just leaving the bra
on the [lmir in the hall, Jenny had replaced it with the poem
and stuffed ii into her bag. What else was she supposed to
do, drag Serena �� in of French class and tell her she had
her bra? She'd return it � Mutually.
Maybe.
The tag inside it read 34B. Not too big, not too small, just i
infect. Jenny pulled it on over her head and pushed her
arms iiinmgh the holes.The soft light blue cups sagged so
badly she 1'iok.ed like a little girl playing dress-up with
Mommy's things. '� nil, there was something reassuring
about wearing the bra. Mnybc, just maybe, if she kept on
taking the supplements, she'd m iuto it. Maybe one day she
wouldn't be a tiny mouse of a girl stuck at home on a Friday
night with her crazy dad eating flambeed eggs with candied
almonds. Maybe one day she'd be the girl wearing the bra,
the girl every boy wanted and every girl wanted to be. Just
like Serena.
Wouldn't that be something? snow falling on cheaters
WI icrc's Nate?" Blair slurred drunkenly into Serena's ear.
The ! � .� .<� j;irls were seated back-to-back in the middle
of the polished
initine coffee table, sharing a cigarette. Around them
revelers i i .prawled on the floor or furniture, their hair
matted with
� '� ' ;ii from dancing or puking, their lip gloss smeared.
Justin
I iniberlake was singing in slow motion over the sound
system, nt ai least it seemed that way. Of course Blair knew
perfectly well ihat Nate was indisposed at the moment
because he was lni'.v yetting devirginized by that horrible
megaslut L'Wren, but ilic needed him--now. "I want him to
take me home."
"Me too," Serena agreed. "My butt's cold." She couldn't
iwtii ID put on a pair of big comfy cotton underwear and
crawl iniohcd.
With Nate.
Yes, where is Nathaniel?" Chuck chimed in, from the floor. I
\i-\\ been staring up the girls' skirts all night, just waiting for
MIII- ill'them to get drunk enough to fall into his lap so he
could
Irsiher.
" I >o you think he and that girl are really . . . ?" Blair's voice
trailed off. The idea of Nate with anyone but her made her
fn I like she was going to be sick.
Serena shrugged her shoulders sadly. How could the boy
slit- loved so dearly be so careless and insensitive? Didn't
he know I that she lay in bed every night imagining how it
would be--them I together--like an Eternity perfume ad, only
better? They even I looked alike--sort of. Didn't he get it? )
Chuck suddenly leapt to his feet. "You know what this calls
for?"
Both girls shook their heads. Chuck's ideas were usually tcr
rible.
"Bundle!" he yelled grabbing their hands. He yanked them
forward, racing toward the closed door of Luke's bedroom.
Ami without even pausing to knock or give warning, he
burst in, set ting free a pungent cloud of pot smoke.
Nate and L'Wren were lying on the creamy flokati rug, she
in a tiny black lace thong and he in his royal blue boxers,
smil- ing up at the ceiling in what couJd only be complete
postcoitdl
Well, at least they were wearing underwear.
"Bundle!" Chuck shouted again, nonsensically, as he hurled
himself on top of them. It was as if he were re-creating a
scene from some dumb college frat movie he'd loved but
no one elso had ever seen.
Serena and Blair clung to each other in the doorway, starir- ing at L'Wren's fake-looking bare boobs. They were
balloon- round and tan. Even her nipples appeared to be
tan.They glar<
i at Nate's gorgeous, naked, muscular chest. How could
he? they wondered simultaneously. With that fake-boobed
slut in tin skanky black Victoria's Secret thong!? latie?"
Serena whimpered, a little too tragically. "Blair's
� lni); bad.We need to go home."
I 'mifully, Nate sat up. He rubbed his half-closed green eyes
ml grinned down at his bare knees. Stoned as he was,
getting >- .M-d seemed a monuments] task. "Just a
minute," he mur- mii-ti, his tongue leaden. Next to him on
the floor, Chuck � I li-il L'Wren's bare feet and she cackled
merrily, loving it. 1
n didn't get it. L'Wren seemed to get hornier and hornier
< i' more they smoked, but he could hardly do more than
kiss � i ;i lew times before going into a pot-induced trance
wherein � � \ pounded in a monotone voice much like his
father's on � �� '� airs should run on pot instead of gas
and then there'd be �� r.lobal warming and everyone
would be happy. He hadn't
� 1 gotten close to losing his virginity.
1
Wonder why--global warming is so sexy.
I Ic staggered to his feet and pulled on his gray T-shirt,
back-
mi. "Your coat's in the hall," Blair reminded him, all moth-
l\ She took his hand, bending down to retrieve his white
Stan mult tennis shoes from underneath L'Wren's bare calf.
I .'Wren sat up. With Chuck in her lap, his back pressed
� .mist her voluminous bare breasts and a huge gleaming� L.ilicd grin on his weirdly handsome face, she began to
reload
i pink bong. "'Bye, Natie," she called out teasingly.
Vrena led the way, hauling their coats out of the stack and
inihling into the elevator. "That party sucked," she declared,
� ii ihough she'd kind of had fun.
Nate fumbled with the toggles on his navy blue cashmere
iiiu-l coat. "I missed you guys," he admitted pathetically.
I loth girls stared at him, their hearts melting. How did he
i.iii;ige to be so infuriatingly adorable and such a fucking
asshole at the same time?They felt especially stupid for
going to the put ty without underwear. They'd spent the
whole evening feeling horribly exposed and unsanitary, and
Nate hadn't even noticed. The doors rolled open onto the
lobby and Serena wrapped her arms around Blair in
drunken solidarity. "Just fetch us a cab, love," she told Nate
in an imposing British accent.
The cab headed east on Houston, past the Angelika Film
Center, where the three of them had seen their first toodirty-to- be-rated movie together when they were eleven,
having beggeil a pair of bohemian-looking gray-haired
women who were hold- ing hands to take them in,
pretending they were their adoptci! triplets. The film had
been Last Tango in Paris, starring Marlon Brando and
Maria Schneider, playing in revival. All the charac- ters in it
did was hang out in some apartment in Pans, having sex in
weird positions that were totally embarrassing. It was so
filthy they'd left early. Their two mommies had been totally
into it, though.
Now they were on the FDR Drive headed uptown. The
lights of the Williamsburg Bridge twinkled like Christmas on
their right, behind them. On their left, the hulking buildingN
of the NYU Medical Center cut off their view of the Empire
State Building, which for the last week had been lit up red
for Valentine's Day. Across the river the famous red sign for
Silver Cup Studios glowed promisingly as a light snow
began to fall, Tiny white flakes danced in the yellow beam
of the taxi's head lights.
The driver flicked on his windshield wipers. Serena rested
her cheek on Nate's shoulder and stroked Blair's head,
whicli was in her lap. "I don't want to go away," she
whispered aloud.
Nate rubbed his jaw against Serena's smooth golden
hairline
I 'i he held Blair's small, warm hand. They were so great, his
i > I � 1 Ie felt nice. Warm and nice. And stoned.
�
Vnp.
< >bviously Blair wanted to avoid her house at all costs,
and 1
i m's parents were probably still awake, having just returned
i- from some interminably long opera. Serena's parents
� 1 at the family's country estate up in Ridgefield,
Connecti-
1
III (or a weekend of antiquing, so it went without saying that
� I i- v would all sleep at her house. Blair had to be carried
inside ill- Uiilding. She wasn't asleep, but she refused to
walk. Serena � ii- lid Blair under the covers, and shuffled
into her big Old 1
� ' n York bathroom. The bathroom window was open just a
� i n k, and snow had collected on the sill and spilled over
onto il" white hexagonal floor tile where it melted instantly.
Serena i-iillcd on a flimsy white camisole and a pair of red
flannel boxer
l"'i is stolen from Nate years ago.
When she returned to the bedroom, Nate was lying next to
� 1' cping Blair on top of the white eyelet bedspread,
blinking n|' ,ii the white eyelet canopy overhead as if
deciphering the
� 'ii'.idlations. Serena'climbed up next to him and lay
down, i- luciant to get under the covers and add a layer of
separation |" i wren her body and his. Instead, she wound
her long legs
d him and pressed her face into his chest.
1
1 hippy Valentine's Day," she whispered, ever so softly.
IIicy lay like that for a minute, wide awake. Suddenly Nate i'
Ii more turned on than he ever had in his life. Why wow?
Was
i "ine sort of delayed reaction to getting stoned with
L'Wren? in i<;id of getting the munchies he was getting the
hornies?
� iiiiilly, he was starving. But he could stave off hunger if
Ser-
M would just roll on top of him and kiss him.
.
i "Nate?" Serena was still drunk and felt relaxed and daring.
Nare was right there and she was right here. It just felt like
thu most obvious thing in the world. "I know this might be
weird but--" She lifted her head and looked down at him
smiling expectantly up at her. Then she didn't say anything
more, she just did it. She kissed him.
Blair was only inches away, breathing deeply, but they
couldn't stop kissing. Nate wasn't even thinking about Blair.
All he knew was how good it felt to kiss the warm, familiar,
incred- ible girl in his arms. Serena had wanted to kiss
Nate for so long, doing it for real was an entire-body
experience. She opened her eyes, watching him kiss her in
a tipsy haze. This is crazy, she tried to tell herself, still
kissing.
"I could just kiss you forever," she murmured softly, her lips
brushing his. Nate opened his eyes and smiled ecstatically
back at her, and her heart exploded into a thousand
glittering stars. She kissed him again, more fervently this
time. I love you, Nate! Her thoughts were so loud she was
sure they'd wake Blair, bui maybe Blair would understand.
After all, they were best friends. And Blair's crush on Nate
was just a flirty, childish thing, no! real, grown-up love. Not
love like this. Not kisses like this.
Finally they dozed off, holding each other, their lips cracked
and parched from so much kissing. The snow was wetter
now, almost rain. Early morning light crept through the white
eyelci curtains, and buses splattered noisily through the
slush on Fiftli Avenue. But the three friends sfept on,
breathing softly into o another's hair, their limbs entwined.
So very innocent--or not. gossipgirl.net topics -i previous
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hey people!
iioing commando
I lire's something we need to discuss badly. It's about this
underwear- "I'lional thing that seems to be taking over the
city, the country, the i .nth, and possibly even the universe.
Hello aliens on Mars, I'll show vHi mine if you show me
yours! The parts we all used to keep safely
inside our undergarments were often called "privates" in
the old days
l'.'cause it's simply not polite to put them on display. Perfect
strangers ii '.'illy don't need to see said parts, not even
while we're clambering out "I a taxi, and certainly not while
we're dining in restaurants or eating lunch in the school
cafeteria.
A;; far as the term commando is concerned, the expression
may have �� ( unefhing to do with the lack of laundry
facilities whilst at war. Cm all for � .Ilowing off and being
brave. Audacity is a good thing. But the truth is, we're not at
war: we have maids to do our laundry, and piles of clean,
iiiotty cotton and lace Hanky Panky and Cosabella panties
to choose imm. So let's keep them on--at least in public.
� gh tings
<; wearing a pearly white perma-grin while canoodling with
an older- Inoking, dark-haired girl wearing only a woolly
white rug in a town car mi their way to the Tribeca Star
Hotel where I happen to know his family keeps a penthouse
suite. D and V guzzling Irish coffees in the Ear Inn, an
intimate dive bar in the West Village well known for serving
minors and allowing people to smoke after hours. I know-'tis ever so shocking but ever so handy. B, with her head
out the window of a taxi on East Eighty-sixth Street,
breathing the not-so-fresh air. Tossed back one too many,
did we? S and N carrying B into S's apartment building
opposite the Met. Morning's almost over and not one of the
three has come out . . . yet. V holding D's hair back while
closely inspecting a gutter outside the aforementioned dive
bar. How nice--for them. A little advice: it's best not to
smoke at all, but if and when you try it for the first time, don't
chain-smoke an entire unfiltered pack or you too will wind
up tossing your cookies and Irish creams.
a new addition
Well, well, it seems I'm not the only one who can't keep her
mouth shut. You've been deluging me with e-mails jampacked with the latest updates and juicy tidbits of things so
stupid I just have to share, so I've decided to include a
smattering of your Setters in each missive. Enjoy, my pets.
your e-mail
� M yogossipgrl,
--bug'n
� � dr bug'n,
Dearest Gossip Girl, Q you don't know how long i've been
like planning to start my own
Web site or blog or whatever and now you did it and i can't
but I just wanted to tell you how amazing you are because i
totally
know everyone you're talking about because they're totaliy
me
and my friends and sometimes we act stupid but we're all
really
smart we're just really competitive and sometimes it makes
me
sad that we can't just all get along and say what we think to
our
faces you know?
--candyc
a Dearest candyc,
I do know. I also know that you and your friends really aren't
the
people I'm writing about but it's okay if you want to believe
you
are. I'm sure your problems are quite valid and I do
sympathize.
I hope I meet your expectations as far as this page is
concerned,
but please don't let my efforts prevent you from writing
something
of your own. You have a voice, so by all means use it. But
first,
a word of advice: take a deep breath, drink a glass of
Sancerre,
and use some punctuation. It may seem old-fashioned, but
your
friends will admire you for it.
--GG
a HeyGG,
Where do you get off being such a ho, dishing out trash
about
people that's just lies and pretending you did not make this
shit up.
--sucka
a Dear sucka,
And where do you get off calling me a liar? Were your
friends
lying when they called you sucka? Who's the sucka now?
--GG
And now I'm off to take a long hot milk-and-honey bath, get
a French pedicure, buy a pretty frock, eat a tiny piece of
Payard chocolate, break down and eat a very large piece
of Payard chocolate, do something about my eyebrows,
and buy an exquisite pair of Louboutin eelskin boots. I'm
sure I'll run into one or two of you on Madison and you can
tell me anything I might have missed--as if I ever miss
anything? Later on you can crawl under your favorite
cashmere throw with a bag of Cheetos and a flute of Cristal
and read all about it right here. Who has time to make up
stories when the truth is so much more interesting?
More soon. Ta ta!
You know you love me,
gossip girl v can't wash d out of what's left of her hair
I ',m. It wasn't the best name in the world. She would have
pre- ! � i red it if he insisted on going by Daniel. Dashiell
would have I" in much more exciting. Then he would have
been Dash for
hurt, which was just plain sexy. Dan. Who would have ever i
In night she'd like a boy named Dan? Dan was so boring,
like In|m or Bob or Brad. But here it was seven o'clock on a
Sunday morning and she was wide awake, thinking about
Dan.
He was so cute when he puked. His skinny body kind of > i
iihed in disgust while he hacked away. She'd tried to warn
\ him that smoking cigarettes was like sucking on a car's
exhaust i'i| 12 and that his body was going to reject all that
carbon mon-
1 "-.iile, especially combined with the caffeine and
whatever the IMCI; it was they put in Irish coffee--alcoholic
Junior Mints? I'.HI Dan wouldn't listen to her. He was
stubborn and seriously n.uve, but so smart. Hello? Did
anyone else she knew quote 1
.ncthe and Proust and Joyce without even trying? Clearly he
*\us born in the wrong century. And so damned adorable
with Ins pale skin, shaggy colorless hair, dumpy cords, and
his soul- IMI light brown eyes. She just wanted to carry him
around in her bag so she could take him out and play with
him whenevi i she wanted.
Woof, woof!
Vanessa pulled out the Ear Inn matchbook with the word
Dan and his number written on it in her orderly, all-caps
hand writing. Before she couid talk herself out of it, she
grabbed thi* phone from the windowsill behind her bed and
dialed. Outsidi* it was snowing and raining at the same
time, and the smell ol' wet sugar from the sugar factory
nearby permeated the air. Tin- radiator behind Vanessa's
head coughed and sputtered in iis attempt to overheat the
tiny apartment.
"Jesus Christ, hello?" a gruff voice answered.
Her heartbeat sped up. Dan's dad? What the fuck should
she say? "Oh, hello. This is Vanessa Abrams calling for
Dan. I know it's early--"
"Is it? I don't wear a watch," the voice boomed. She could
hear the rustle of papers and the clinking of glasses. "I just
sleep when I'm tired. Wait, who'd you say this was?"
"Vanessa," she told him again. "Dan and I met last night."
She blushed as she said this, realizing it sounded like she
and Dan had fooled around or something. She folded her
legs over each other proprietarily, even though she was
wearing gray long- john bottoms and was underneath her
white down comforter all by herself.
"Finally!" the voice growled. "You have no idea how long
this infatuation has gone on for. He's been impossible,
mooning over you. But you sound like a wonderful girl. A
little too girly for my taste, but I'm sure you've got a noggin
underneath all those fancypants clothes."
Vanessa sat up, confused. "Is this Dan Humphrey's
residence?" 'Yes, I'm his father, Rufus. So when can you
come over for � iiniier? I have so many new recipes and
I'm dying to try them "Hi on someone who isn't completely
biased!"
She tried to picture what Dan's apartment might be like. His
� I uf obviously liked to cook, so it probably smelled like
garlic
mi) marinara sauce and baking bread all the time. The
whole i>l.iic was probably wall-to-wall bookshelves,
stocked with the � l.issics.There were probably lots of big
comfy sofas for reading
mil good natural light and a dog or two. And flowers-flowers
nul books all over the place. She glanced around at her own
chin white room with its hard futon on the floor and nothing
"ii die walls. "That sounds really nice."
"You know, Dan doesn't get out much, so it's lucky you two
imally met. He's a good kid, but he's got confidence issues.
Not i" generalize, but with a charming, beautiful girl like you
on his
II in, maybe he'll come out of his shell a little."
Vanessa was blushing again. Would talking to Dan's father
.iKvuys be this embarrassing? She rubbed her free hand
over her in-shly shaven scalp. "Okay. Well, please tell Dan
that his friend Y:inessa called."
"Okay, Dan's friend Vanessa," Mr. Humphrey repeated
mockingly. "Now go give yourself another egg yolk facial, or
u liatever it is you girls do."
Vanessa hung up and hugged her long-john-covered knees
to IHT chest. So Dan had already talked about her at home!
Had In' spent the rest of the night thinking about her the way
she Inn) about him? Her digital camera lay on the floor next
to the iiiinn. She picked up the camera and scanned
through some of l;r:i night's pictures. There was Serena
dancing, traces of her kire, tattooed butt cheeks just
grazing the edge of the frame. With that curtain of blond
hair falling halfway down her b;i. I and her tan, endless legs,
she was so perfect and stunning sin looked almost fake.
Then there was Dan, shivering in the colt beneath a Tribeca
street lamp, his bony fingers wrapped miser ably around an
unfiltered Camel as he smiled shyly at the lens She bent her
head and carefully kissed the image, not embar- rassed in
the least.
And she claims she doesn't need a boyfriend. Ihere were
three in the bed and the little one said, "what the *$#@?"
Ml.nr blinked up at the white eyelet canopy looming above
her. Mii-'d been dreaming about kissing Nate on a beach
somewhere HI ilie Mediterranean, and it had felt so real she
could actually
incll the Bain de Soleil tanning oil and taste the sea salt in
her INOLlCh.
Or maybe that was just cotton mouth from last night's drinkmi', and smoking binge.
She turned her leaden head. Nate's cheek was on Serena's
i lu-st. His gray T-shirt was off and he looked totally . . .
bliss- inl. Serena was wearing a skimpy white camisole
and was hug- cm^ Nate's head tight. Blair bolted upright
and kicked away the � overs, simultaneously removing
them from their cozy cuddle
iindwich and revealing their long legs, which were all
atangle.
1
1 know you do that to Serena because you do it to me
when I :;leep over at your house," she remarked loudly.
"Maybe you
ilmuld just, like, get a teddy bear or something."
Serena's enormous blue eyes opened and she blinked her
� lurk lashes at Blair. Nate's wavy golden brown hair was
practi- t :illy in her mouth as he mumbled, "What time is it?"
"I don't know. Ten, eleven." Blair swung her leg out UH.I
kung-fu kicked Nate in the ribs. "Will you get up already?"
His eyes flew open and he sat partially up, looking startled
Rays of unrelenting white winter light blazed through the law
plate-glass window. "Jesus," he murmured, letting his head
fall back onto the sumptuous goose-down pillow. "Blair, you
really know how to wake up a guy. I should have you wake
me u | > every morning."
That's the idea.
Blair stared down at him, so adorable now that he was lyina
on the pillow and not Serena's perky 34Bs. She cuddled up
iu his Serena-free side and put his lacrosse-calloused hand
ovi'i her face, talking into it the way she'd done a thousand
times before. "We have to do something really excellent
this summci, you guys," she announced emphatically. No
way did she waul to hang out with her insane family this
summer, witnessing hci father sneaking around and her
mother getting fatter and f;ii ter, especially when there was
no school and she could actually escape to someplace far,
far away.
Like the Mediterranean?
"Summer," Serena mused aloud. No school. Sunny days
filled with kisses. Skinny-dipping. Nate. "I can't wait." She
slipped her hand over Nate's wrist and squeezed his free
hanil, He squeezed back, and she kicked her feet happily
against tin- mattress, silently screaming with the thrill of it.
This was just tin* beginning, the beginning of her and Nate.
Nate held the two girls, feeling happily confused. Hi
remembered kissing Serena last night, and he
remembered kissing L'Wren too. Both had felt nice. He
remembered fet ing super stoned, which also kind of
rocked. He loved holdii . nr's face in his hand like he was
doing right now. He loved
� in- way her tiny bones felt beneath his palm and the way
her
� 'l i lips brushed against his fingers. Girls were all so
great. Girls
i"i-ked. Man, was he lucky.
LL
Hey Nate. Why don't we spend the summer at your aunt's
1 > I ''ranee?" Blair rattled on. "Doesn't she live in, like,
Provence
1 .>i something? We could probably even get AP French
credit
lor it."
"No way," Nate responded quickly. "She's even more of a
I>I ima donna than my mom. We could stay there, but we'd
be Inc slaves. We'd have to, like, bring her lunch in bed and
drive inT dogs into town to get them groomed or take her to
her plas-
in surgery appointments."
Blair thought this sounded sort of romantic. She and Nate
� mild be Nate's aunt's live-in couple. They'd help around
the
Iniuse and make love on the porch in the evenings while his
Mint was asleep, recovering from one of her many
surgeries.
And Serena could sleep in the guest house with the dogs.
She'd
ilways liked animals.
Oh, she'd love that.
"Then maybe we could go sailing on your boat instead,"
� M-rena suggested.
Even better, Blair mused.
And Serena could sleep where--in the dinghy?
Nate and his dad were building a sailing yacht together at
the Archibalds' compound on Mt. Desert Island. They'd
designed
n themselves and had already gotten a good start on the
hull
iliis fall before the weather turned. Nate removed his hand
from
Illair's face. "We've barely started building it yet. It's not
going
io be ready for at least a year." Blair hopped off the bed,
grabbed Serena's MacBook from ol i her desk, and carried
it back to bed. She opened it and Googlcd "fabulous
European retreat." Of course everything that came up was
totally pornographic. Fabulous nudist retreat! Nude pools
dining! Nude maid service! All inclusive!
Sign me up!
Nate sat up and grabbed the laptop away from her, intending to look at a traditional travel Web site like Lonely
Planet. Rerlexively, he checked his e-mail first, where a
message from lwren@knowes.com with the subject "to be
continued . . ." beckoned from the "unread" list. Nate
glanced at Blair and then Serena, and then, feeling
particularly studly and bold, he opened the e-mail. To;
narchibald@stjudes.edu Date: Saturday, February 15,
8:45AM Subject: Hey
Dear Natie, You are tres adorable, but I think I got you a
little too wasted-we never finished what we started, again1.
Lucky you, we're gonna have a third chance. Next weekend
St. Claire Hotel. It's sooo not me, but
I have to. Anyway, I need a handsome
which is where you come in. We can start downstairs at the
cotillion and then go up to my hotel suite. How does that
sound? I'm taking the train back to UVA tonight to work on
a boring paper. Missing you already. Nate glanced away
from the screen, only to find Serena ami Blair reading
L'Wren's e-mail over his shoulder.
Serena scowled. "So, are you going?" she challenged, fold
ing her arms over her tiny white camisole. Her long, pale
blond hair was matted on one side and black mascara
smudges ringed her eyes. She looked like Edie Sedgwick,
Andy Warhol's skinny, drugged-out muse, on a good day.
Blair snickered wickedly and grabbed the laptop. She
clicked on the reply button and speedily typed, u R so HOT.
LUV UR HOI TITS. -N
She hit "send" before Nate even had a chance to read whai
she'd written. "Yeah, he's going," she announced
triumphantly. "Sucka."
"Hey!" Nate snatched the laptop back and hit the "sent
mail" button so he could read Blair's reply. "Christ," he
muttered in dismay. Blair was such a bitchy little
troublemaker sometimes.
Isn't that what we all--including him--love about her?
Serena wasn't completely sure what was going on. Nate
and Blair seemed to be bantering with each other just as
flirtatiously as ever, and Nate had just gotten a steamy
invitation from thai tramp with the impossible name. Where
exactly did that leave her? Hadn't something kind of big
happened between them last night?
"Nate," she ventured, "can I talk to you for a minute, urn, in
Blair stood up on the bed and bounced up and down. She
was still wearing her purple Marc Jacobs pinafore from last
nighi and no underwear. Oops! She sat back down again.
"Hello? If you guys have something to talk about I'd like to
hear it."
"It's just . . . urn . . ." Serena couldn't wait to tell her best ml
about kissing Nate, but she sort of wanted to talk to him
"� i, in private. Mostly she just wanted to make sure that he
� i. as excited about all this as she was. Then they needed
to
! � ' ule how to handle Blair's reaction, which was bound to
be
i� viacular.
In an ugly sort of way.
Nate hadn't said anything in a while. He was pissed at Blair
i 'i sending that e-mail to L'Wren, and though he wanted to
kiss
�
'� ' rcna some more--he really did---he didn't want to do it in
iIn- bathroom with Blair peeking at them through the
keyhole.
ln:;icad, he slid off the bed and put on his pants, then his
shoes.
"Where are you going?" Blair demanded, scooting back
under the covers. She'd have to borrow some underwear
from � ;<Tena. And keep it, of course.
"Home," he responded flatly. And maybe he'd stop off at i
Charlie Dern's house on the way. Charlie's older brother
was in < -osta Rica for his junior year abroad and was
constantly send- ing Charlie pot hidden inside local artifacts
packed in coffee Ivans. Now that Nate knew how awesome
it felt to be thor- ' Highly baked, he wanted to try it again.
"Fine," Blair told him huffily and strode over to Serena's
ip,iant antique chest of drawers to look for a pair of
underwear.
"Call me later," Serena called out weakly as her bedroom i
loor swung shut behind him. Was he really leaving without
so much as a hug or a goodbye kiss?
"He doesn't get it," Blair observed, rifling through Serena's
messy drawers.
"Get what?" Serena pulled the thick down comforter up 10
her chin, trying to decide whether to be happy, angry, or
sad. She wanted to sleep all day and wake up to Nate's
sweet, apologetic kiss. The poem someone had left in her
locker was ly- ing on the floor, peeking out from beneath the
white eyelet dusi ruffle. Pretend that you know me. That
we're in love. As far as she knew, Nate had never written a
poem in his life. Or maybe he J had written it, she thought,
perking up.
"Nothing." Blair snatched up a pair of white cotton Petil |
Bateau underwear with red polka dots and took them into
the bathroom with her.
Serena remained under the covers, gearing up to tell her j
best friend all about last night and going to boarding
school- everything. She wouldn't like it--at least not at first-but Sert needed advice, and Blair was her best friend.
And if you can't burst your best friend's bubble, then whose
bubble can you burst? our bodies, ourselves
Irimifer!" Rufus Humphrey bellowed from his office that
inoniing, waking Dan. "What in hell is noknockers.com?"
Dan's sleepy brown eyes slid open. His lips were stuck to I
in old Calvin & Hobbes pillowcase with a dried mix of
vomit- M cnted drool and Aquafresh. He vaguely
remembered being pin in a taxi by that shaven-headed girl,
Vanessa, with a twenty- ilnllar bill and a nearly empty pack
of unfiltered Camels. She w:is nice. And cool. He was
pretty sure he'd had kind of a good nine, except for the
vomiting-Irish-coffee-into-the-gutter part i itfht before he got
into the cab.
Ouch.
"Jennifer? Will you please explain how you possibly could
11: <ve donated nearly three hundred dollars of my money
to a < liarity in Tennessee by the name of noknockers?
What is it? Some crackpot organization that helps
underdeveloped young women find Jesus? Jennifer--are
you listening to me?"
Dan drew up the covers and pulled a pillow over his face,
nagging on the cigarette stench of his hands. If only he'd
had a chance to speak to Serena last night. Just a hello
would have been amazing. Instead he'd become a smoker.
He pressed the pillow against his closed eyes. And Serena
would forever remembci him as the geek who showed up at
the party and got thrown out the fire door by Chuck Bass,
never to be seen or heard from again.
Jenny lay on her back beneath her light pink chenille Pottery
Barn Kids bedspread, feeling her chest. "It's just a place I
gni some underwear from, okay, Dad?" she shouted,
hoping to shui him up. They were a family of shouters, so it
wasn't the shouting that bothered her. It was the idea of
talking about boobs with her dad, which obviously was not
going to happen, ever. Her chesl had definitely changed
overnight though. There were lumps- actual palpable
apricot-size lumps! She threw back the covers and leapt
out of bed, scattering sheets of paper covered with art for
Constance Billard's hymnal contest that she'd laboral over
until late last night. She grabbed the noknockers measut
ing tape and wound it around herself once more, careful not
n< twist it. The tape read exactly 32 inches. Jenny yanked
her thin cotton Hello Kitty nightgown down so there were
absolutely no wrinkles and measured herself again.
Definitely 32. It was u miracle. Still, the instructions from
noknockers said that it was very difficult to measure oneself
and suggested that a friend or family member could give a
more accurate reading.
"Dan!" Jenny shrieked. "Quick, get in here!"
Dan threw the pillow off his face and yawned noisily. Jesus,
was it against the law to sleep in on a Saturday anymore?
Ik should have slept over at that girl Vanessa's house. She
said sin1 lived with her big sister who stayed up really late
at night playinn in her band. They probably slept until sunset
in complete peace, Not that sleeping over at Vanessa's
house had been an option. ml not that he'd actually
considered it in his drunken stupor > mything.
Hut is he considering it now?
"Dan?" Jenny shouted again. "Are you alive?"
I )an staggered to his feet and shuffled miserably out of his
">in and down the hall with its creaking, scuffed parquet
floor N.I chipped white paint. Jenny's door was open just a
crack. 1
>k;iy, so I'm here.," he announced, pushing it open.
|cnny was standing in front of the full-length mirror on the
1 k of her closet door, wearing her favorite old pink Hello
Kitty
1 i � liigown. She cocked her head. "Notice anything
different?"
I >an squinted. "You got a haircut?"
� She rolled her eyes. "No, stupid, I grew!" She cupped her
1
<� . and gave it a good squeeze. Then she grabbed
themeasur-
� *( i � 'ape and handed it to him. "Will you just measure
me to � iU- sure? It's supposed to be more accurate if
someone else � "� ;. it," She held her arms out like
airplane wings.
Han glanced down at the white laminated paper measuring
iu- embellished with tiny illustrations of bras with smiley
faces ii i he cups. "You want me to measure you?"
"Don't be embarrassed. I mean, I'm the one who should be
nl>;inrassed," she explained, flustered by his hesitation.
"Please i i do it and get it over with already?"
l>an averted his eyes as best he could as he wound the
i-i- around his sister's upper torso. He reminded himself in
Jenny didn't have a mom to help her with such things,
lirrwise she'd have asked her. I'm all she has, he told him-
li importantly. The tape stuck to his clammy, hungover,
i':irctte-stained fingers.
"Not too tight," she reminded him, holding the tape securely
over her front as he wound it around her back. "But don't do
1 1 too loose either." She stood up straight.
"Urn, it looks like thirty-two inches. Maybe like a hair more,"
A hair more} Jenny yanked the tape away and jumped up
and down, skipping rope with it. "I'm a thirry-two!" she cried
exu
'I berantly. "A thirty-two!" That didn't mean she could quite
fill an A cup yet, but almost. Soon.
The scattered sheets of paper on the floor caught Dan's
eye and he bent down to take a closer look. Serena's navy
blue eye* stared knowingly up at him, her luxurious blond
hair spilling over the folds of a filmy white gown. The words
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing were printed in bold
calligraphy beneath her bare, pink, perfect feet, and her
downy white wings were spread wide, as if she were about
to take flight.
Wings?
He picked up one of the sketches and held it to his chesi.
"Can I keep this?" he asked without thinking about how perverted, messed up, or deranged he might sound.
"No, it's mine, you freak," Jenny snapped, slipping her arms
into her enormous, hairy pink bathrobe. What Dan might do
with that drawing in the privacy of his room was too gross to
consider. "Drop it."
Reluctantly, he let the page flutter to the floor. He folded his
arms and stared down at it. Serena. Serena, Serena,
Serena, "Well, when the hymnals get printed I'm going to
make you steal one for me."
Jenny came over and gazed down at the drawings with him.
"You think I could win? I mean, I'm only a seventh grader
and there are, like, seniors who are way better artists than I
am."
Dan rolled his eyes. Jenny had never grasped how truly
gifted :irtist she was. Ever since she could hold a pencil,
she'd i.iwn the most incredibly accurate portraits of
everyone in the imily. Once, she'd gotten in trouble for
sketching her school � ; idmistress, Mrs. McLean, during
assembly. But when Mrs. M .ui seen how precise and
lifelike the drawing was, down to the i-idmistress's weirdly
square head, she'd forgiven her. Now the urtrait was
framed and hanging on the wall in Mrs. M's office, inch to
Jenny's chagrin,
"I know you're going to win," Dan told her confidently. He
;is about to give her a nice, big-brotherly hug when he
realized i;it Jenny had her hands inside her bathrobe and
was feeling cr chest again, really giving the ol' hooters a
good going-over iis time.
Nice.
"I'm going to go now." He loved his little sister, he did, but .wasn't really into watching her develop right before his very
vcs, no matter how motherless she was.
Just wait till she takes him shopping for her first real bra.
what's love got to do with it? Serena put her silver
MacBook back on her desk, smothering I the four shiny
boarding school catalogs her mother had left j there with a
note written in her looping script: You know Daddy I and
your brother would be thriUed if you chose Hanover. As if
Ser- , ena could even think about boarding school now that
she and Nate had kissed. She clasped the remote in her
hand and flicked tiirough the channels, looking for
something absorbing to while away the minutes while Blair
took her interminable shower.
"Go back!" Blair shouted from the bathroom. The door flew
open, releasing a cloud of steam, and she leapt onto the
bed, fully dressed, her dark hair dripping. She tossed her
soggy whin- bath towel onto the desk, further obscuring the
boarding school catalogs. "That was Same Like It Hoi. I'd
recognize Marilyn's voice anywhere."
Because it's so like her own?
Both girls stared silently at the movie. Marilyn Monroe was
kissing the suave, fast-talking guy who was no good for her.
"Isn't it great how all they do is kiss in these old movies? It's
like, kissing really means something," Serena observed
wistfully. Like, how romantic to say to a guy you really love,
'Let's just
hss.'" She smiled to herself, savoring her secret for a
moment
imlii she released it and it was a secret no more. Onscreen,
Marilyn and Mr. Suave were looking longingly into each
other's
>ves. She licked her lips in preparation for her confession.
"Do you ever wonder what it would be like to kiss Nate?"
Itlnir blurted out. She couldn't watch anybody kiss without
iliinking about Nate.
Serena sucked in her breath. Her whole body felt like it had
I ii-cn thrust under the broiler. "Um . . . Actually I--"
"I do, sometimes." Blair's thin, expressive lips curved into a
�� liy little smile. She sighed and hugged her knees to her
chest, i'i-'ling a little more sure of herself now that she was
clean and \\ caring underwear. "Actually, I think about it all
the time." She mined her head, resting her cheek on her
knees. "I know I'm .ilways acting bitchy around him and
flirting, and you always ii-ise me about having a crush on
him. But the truth is, it's not n ist a crush. I'm totally,
completely in love with Nate. I've been in love with him
forever. And I've just gotten to this point where I I can't be
with him, I'm going to die."
1
Serena shrank back into the fluffy down pillows on her bed
.mil stared at her oldest and dearest friend in speechless
disbe- lief. The whole room was fuzzy, and Marilyn
Monroe's voice � .reined to be miles away.
"I know you think it's gross because he's like almost a
brother '�� whatever. But I can't help it. I just love him so
much." Blair 1 icked her body back and forth. "I even
daydream about us get-
1 in i^ married," she admitted.
Serena swallowed the enormous lump in her throat. How �
mild she say anything about kissing Nate last night and
being in love with Nate herself when Blair was talking about
mam in, him? If only she'd said something right when they'd
first woken up. Nate and I are in love, she imagined herself
saying while N:i i � was still lying next to her, and her
cheeks burned. She stuck lui thumb in her mouth and
began gnawing on her perfectly mam cured thumbnail.
She'd never been a nail-biter, but this seemctl like a good
time to start.
"And now he's with that tacky bitch L'Wren," Blair whined
"You know she went to boarding school? I hate boarding
school girls. They pretend to be all hippie and crunchy and
laid back, but really they're just assholes. And did you
notice she spells her name L apostrophe W-R-E-N? That's
just so retarded. Anyway, you've got to help me."
Serena blinked her huge blue eyes. She could feel a
hangover coming on, and it wasn't pretty. "Of course," she
offered, press- ing her trembling knuckles into her temples.
"What do you wanl me to do?"
"So you know how I answered that bitch's e-mail and basically told her Nate would escort her to her cheesy debutante
ball?" Blair bit her lower lip anxiously and wound her dark
hair into a tight, wet bun. "I'm such an idiot. I don't know why
I did that. He can't go, We've got to stop him. And then I
have to tell him . . . you know . . . that I'm in love with him."
Goosebumps stood out on Serena's arms every time Blair
said those words. "Don't worry," she responded
reassuringly, feeling like a traitor and a martyr all at the
same time. "We'll figure something out." She combed her
long, elegant fingers through her tangled pale blond
tresses. Of course Nate had no intention of escorting
L'Wren to the cotillion--not when he was in love with her--but
she knew Blair liked the idea that she was � ompeting with
L'Wren for Nate's affection, and she didn't have jlie heart to
correct her.
Blair imagined Serena dressed up in a tuxedo and ponytail
while she pretended to be Blair's escort for the debutante
bail. Serena would slip something into L'Wren's
champagne and ilien Blair would whisk Nate away in one of
those horse-drawn * arriages, galloping all the way to a
suite in the Tribeca Star or Mime equally sumptuous
downtown hotel.
How very Some Like It Hot.
She threw her arms around Serena and buried her face in
her best friend's mane of blond, nicely conditioned hair. "I
just love lum so much," she gushed, relieved that the
information was finally out and that she could talk about it
with Serena, her loyal ally.
Serena patted Blair's back, her eyes on the flat-screen TV.
Marilyn and her two cross-dressing male cohorts were on a
train, traveling to Miami. Even though they were wearing
dresses, makeup, and jewelry, the guys were so obviously
guys, Marilyn was pretty dumb not to notice.
"You know what we should do this summer?" she mused
:iloud, desperate to change the subject. "Get Eurail passes
and i ake the train all around Europe, getting off wherever
looks cool. My brother did it last summer, remember? He
got really skinny � tnd tan? It would be so romantic," she
continued enthusiasti- i -Lilly, letting go of Blair to see if she
was listening.
"That's perfect! My aunt's getting married in Scotland in
August, so I have to be there anyway." Blair's bright blue
eyes were all aglow. "Nate and I could share one of those
little sleep- ing compartments! We'll travel all over, ordering
room service mid never getting off the train. And maybe you
could meet a boy mo," she added generously for Serena's
benefit. Thanks. Thanks a lot,
Serena nodded energetically. She'd always been a natural
actress. "Not one--ten! A hundred! I'll go boy crazy!" She
stood up on the bed and bounced up and down.
Blair giggled. "You're such a slut."
Serena kept on bouncing as the terrible seed she'd plantul
took root and began to spread like some wild, poisonous
weed. She still hadn't told Blair about her parents wanting
to send hci to boarding school next year, and she hadn't
told her about kiss ing Nate. Each time her feet made
contact with the bed she fell weighed down by dread. She'd
lied to Blair. She was a horrible friend. Then she was
airborne again, elated. Nate had kissed her! They were in
love! Then once more as her feet touched tin- covers--oh,
how could she? Blair giggled merrily, watching ha bounce,
oblivious to the gap that had already formed between them
like a crack in the sidewalk. Serena squeezed her eyes
shui, still bouncing. How was it possible to feet so happy,
excited, ami in love and at the same time so heartbroken,
sorry, confused, and scared?
It's called life, babycakes. Get used to it. gossipgirl.net
>n altered or abbreviated
hey people!
II occurs to me that many of you tuning in don't live
anywhere near I his fine city and may not have had a
chance to visit. Allow me to paint .1 more vivid picture of my
modest little neighborhood, the sixty-karat diamond of
Manhattan. Almost all of us live within the same twentyblock radius from East Sixty-eighth Street to East Eightyeighth Street, from Fifth Avenue to Park Avenue. We see
each other in the deli when we're buying cinnamon Trident
and Parliaments. We sip cappuccinos together on the Met
steps, we share platters of fries at Jackson Hole or cast
sympathetic glares at our moms during brunch at Payard.
So where do we go when we don't want our parents or our
friends' parents to see us? The park, of course, as in
Central Park.
The guides on those scary-looking red double-decker
tourist buses that tool around the city might try to tell you
that New York City is full of parks, but for us there is only
one. It might seem a bit odd that we frequent the park so
much in our neatly pleated uniforms and highly sought-after
shoes, but it truly is our home away from home. The ducks
in the reservoir know us by name. The homeless guys wink
at us. The rocks have worn spots where we've sat for hours,
basking in the sun. And since our parents would never
dream of stepping out of their shiny black town cars to
venture into the park and have no inkling that it would occur
to us to go there, they have no idea what we do while we're
sitting on those beloved rocks. Which is basically all the
things we can't do at home. Of course, our parents are out
late or are away half the time, but we need somewhere to
go when they're home. Thank goodness foi Sheep
Meadow. Bethesda Fountain. The statue of Romeo and
Juliet. The zoo. Our penthouses and town houses may be
beautiful, and our country houses and beach houses even
more so, but Central Park is the place we'll remember
when we remember growing up.
sightings
N in our beloved park's Sheep Meadow with his St. Jude's
lax buddies, getting a tesson in the art of buying a dime
bag. Looks like someone has a new hobby. B at a freaky
costume shop in NoHo trying on a doorman suit. Already
getting ready for Halloween? S getting her ends trimmed at
Bumble and bumble on Fifty-sixth Street, looking incredibly
bummed. Cheer up, sugarplum, spring is just around the
corner. J walking up Broadway, stopping in front of every
freshly Windexed shop-window to admire the latest
developments. You know how the song goes: "all it takes is
a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground." D in the
poetry section of the Strand bookstore in the Viflage,
reading Keats just for kicks. Soon he'd start dressing in
kneesocks and puffy white shirts with ruffles and contract
consumption, just for effect. V, stalking him with her digital
cam- era. She'd be scary if it wasn't so cute that she's in
love. C doing his own little runway show complete with
white patent leather monogrammed car coat in front of the
Italian embassy. Was he modeling for Italian Vogue or is he
thinking of emigrating?
your e-mail
Dear GG, Q I have to go to a debutante ball with this girl
because she asked me
and I like her but (a) I don't know how to dance to anything
but ska;
(b) I refuse to wear a tux; fc) I have a pierced tongue that I'm
pretty
sure she doesn't know about; and (d) I don't know why I said
yes.
--ahole Dear ahole,
I didn't call you that, you did. All I can say is, she asked you
for
a reason and 1 bet there are all sorts of things you don't
know
about her either. For instance, she probably has way more
pierc-
ings than you do, and other things you'd be horrified to
discover.
So why not discover them?
--GG
Dear Gossip Girl,
I can't believe you're here and I'm here and oh my God life
is
so crazy. You know how we were all dancing at that party
last
weekend and I totally barfed all over the radiator? Oh my
God.
My dad had to, like, pay for that. I'm in so much trouble.
Anyway,
thanks for sending me home in your car--that was really
sweet,
1 love you!
--cara
��� Dear cara.
I'm still recovering from that party myself--glad to hear
you're
home safe. Just make sure you soak that gorgeous
lavender
silk Ware Jacobs blouse in a nice warm Woolite bath. I'd
hate to
see it ruined. Love you too!
--GG
Speaking of sharing the love. I think it's time to get my bum
off this rock � ind walk slowly and enticingly home through
that crowd of adorable hoys playing soccer just over there.
Some of them look familiar. Even if I don't know them, they
all know me. Or they will soon.
You know you love me,
gossip girl From: lwren@knowes.com � I Date: Sunday,
February 16, 2:45PM Subject; Be: Re: Hey
Dear Hatie, Thanx for ur note. I think u know how
here, but I can't stop thinking about u. please scan down for
a pic of me in the silk leopard-print victoria's Secret
underwear I bought for the cotillion ur taking me to, Hope
you like it! ;)
Mi
1 From: bwaldorf@constancebillard.edu
Date: Sunday, February 16, 5:17PM Subject: me and nate
Hey, I was just thinking, what if you dressed up like a waiter
and I hid under a table and when no one was looking we
tied up L'Wren's hands and feet with ray mom's old Hermes
scarves. Then I'd get Nate to
you created a distraction we could, like, crawl out of the
ballroom and make a dash for it. It could work, right?
I'll keep thinking. hms stoner boy Nate stood outside the
pizzeria on Eightieth and Madison with a bunch of hot
French L'Ecole girls, impressing them with his newfound
ability to buy pot, roll a joint, and get high in broad daylight.
After the snowfall over the weekend, Monday was
unseasonably warm, and the L'Ecole girls flaunted their
leftover St. Barts tans by tying up the tails of their white
button-down school blouses to reveal their flat stomachs
and folding over the waists of their gray pleated wool
uniforms until they were more like loincloths than skirts.
Yesterday, Nate's St. Jude's School classmates Charlie
Dem and Jeremy Scott Tompkinson had introduced Nate
to Mitchell, the pale, alarmingly skinny pizza guy who sold
slices and baggies full of premium Thai stick cannabis to
whoever knew enough to order "two slices of Sicilian with
extra oregano."
Aha, the magic password.
Nate felt like a spy, but then again, he was stoned. In fact,
he'd decided yesterday that he liked the feeling of being
stoned so much--the way it made everything so much more
intense mill at the same time so much easier to deal with-he planned � in being stoned for the rest of his life.
There's aspiration for you.
Yesterday at Charlie's house he'd discovered that three of
his . kissmates had been smoking pot for years. Anthony
Avuldsen, IIK' blond) iiber-preppy surfer-looking guy in his
class, had been �� Haling pot from his dad's special
Guatemalan coffee tin since lie was ten. Jeremy, the
scrawny kid with a late '60s Beatles hair- � in whose pants
were always falling down, had made his own I King in
pottery class, fired on the inside and everything, and I'hized
with a multicolored paisley design that looked extremely I1
ippy after a few hits. And then there was Charlie, whose
older luother,Tao, sent him pot all the time. All four boys had
really I� mded over hits on Jeremy's bong yesterday. It was
pretty iiucnse.
One of the L'Ecole girls kissed Nate on both cheeks before
having, smothering him with her curly black overly hairsprayed
Merci! Merci! Mwa! Mwa!
Nate sucked in a hit and squinted up at the bright yellow
� .mi, basking in it. Oh yeah, it definitely felt great to be
young, I ml, stoned, and in demand. L'Wren wanted him,
these French ruls all wanted him, Blair had always sort of
wanted him, and 'uxena definitely wanted him. In fact, he
was on his way to pick IKT up at school right now to find out
just how much.
Serena was in a hurry. Her meeting with the dean of admisMons from Hanover and her father was starting in ten
minutes in i he Yale Club onVanderbilt Avenue, more than
fifty blocks � iwny. Madame Rogers had kept her late,
giving the entire class a lecture in French on why the
conditional perfect was the most important tense, ranting
about how no intelligent person could get along without it
because it allowed language to have an imagination and
inspired French filmmakers to delve into romantic realms
that would otherwise have remained unex- plored.
Like Last Tango in Paris?
When class was finally over, Serena flew out of the great
blue doors of the Constance Billard School for Girls,
buttoning her raspberry-colored corduroy Agnes B. mini
trench coat as shi-
I went and waving her hand wildly for a cab headed
downtown. She'd been dreading the meeting all day, but if
she was late, her dad would probably send her to military
school instead of boarding school.
"Hey--wait up!" All of a sudden Nate's adorable golden
head and irresistible, glittering green eyes swam in front of
her. He leaned in and kissed her right on the mouth.
Hello.
"I thought about you all weekend," he told her, suddenly
realizing that he could have been kissing her all weekend if
he hadn't been getting high with his buddies.
Duh?
"Me too," Serena whispered back, her heart banging wildly
against her ribs. Had he come to apologize for leaving her
house so abruptly yesterday morning? Had he come to tell
her he loved her? She grasped his hand arid swung it back
and forth between them, her cheeks turning a bright, happy
pink. Behind her she could hear the hum of Constance
Billard schoolgirls buzzing with gossip.
"Wait, are they a couple, or do they just lass on the lips
when iln'V like meet up or whatever?" Kati Farkas wanted
to know as
� lie glossed and reglossed her lips in complete
fascination.
L
'I don't know. She looks pretty flustered to me," observed
I :i!icl Coates with classic accuracy.
"God, he's hot. I'd grab him and rip his clothes off if I were
1- r," Laura Salmon declared.
1
"Where's Blair?" demanded Rain Hoffstetter.
Thankfully, Blair was at a tennis tutorial at Asphalt Green.
U;iie pulled the tiny blue glazed sailboat he'd made in art
class � mi of his book bag and handed it to Serena. "I
made it for you," In- iold her shyly, sounding about seven
years old.
Serena had spent most of yesterday with Blair, pretending
in he excited about Blair and Nate. Now she could barely
resist �� uihbing him and kissing him all over. She took a
step toward linn and leaned into his muscular chest. He
smelled smoky, and 1
uic-y, and wonderful. "When are we going to tell Blair?" she
.� .kcd.
Nate buried his nose in her pale, sweet-smelling hair. It
hadn't i' ally occurred to him that they'd have to tell anyone
anything. Alier all, they were pretty much together all the
time anyway. Now they'd just kiss when they were together,
and sooner or lat- ii they'd do even more. Girls were like
that, though--they had in know things. They had to plan.
"You haven't told her?" he nsponded. "It's not like it has to
be a big secret or anything."
Serena stepped back and examined the little clay boat in
her liiind. Her Constance classmates were huddled so
close by, she lowered her voice to keep from being heard.
"I didn't tell her liccause I thought we should do it together."
She looked up at N;iie hopefully. As a couple, she added
silently.
Nate grinned boyishly. The most awesome thing about
being stoned was that he could think something completely
selfish and irresponsible and then say it out loud and not
feel guilty about
I it. "I'd rather you just told her. I'm not good with stuff like
that. And you know Blair."
Serena rolled her eyes as if she understood. Yeah., she
sure did know Blair. Blair was going to decapitate her with
her perfectly filed fingernails. But eventually all would be
forgiven--maybe. "Okay. Well, I'll tell her soon," she
promised vaguely. "Anyway, I have to go."
Nate took a step forward and kissed her lightly on the lips.
"You look pretty today," he said, wishing now that he wasn't
quite so stoned.
Serena giggled and pushed him away. "I'll call you, okay?"
she told him quickly before dashing across the street and
into a waiting cab. Sitting back in the sticky vinyl passenger
seat, she fished the little blue boat out of her coat pocket
again. HMS SERENA was etched in the stern, with a tiny
red glazed heart next to her name. It was four o'clock, and
Fifth Avenue was swarming with uniformed private school
girls and their nannies on their way to ballet class or iceskating at Sky Rink. The cab stopped at the light on the
corner of Fifth Avenue and Ninety- third Street. Nate caught
up to it and Serena rolled down her window and stuck her
head out.
"Hey, Natie. You're not really taking that L'Wren girl to her
debutante thing, are you?" she called out.
Nate stuck his hands into the pockets of his khakis. Blair
had answered L'Wren's e-mail with that retardedly horny
reply, so he was sort of committed now, wasn't he?
Besides, when he'd told Charlie, Anthony, and Jeremy
about it yesterday, they'd all agreed--L'Wren's a sure thing,
man. Do it with the older girl and get 1 over with. If you wait
around to do it with someone you're in love
/ ,1'iiht you'll be a thirty-year-old virgin. Those sounded like
wise ivnrdstohim.
"Yeah. I guess I have to!" he shouted back, like it was going
i" be a real chore.
Serena sat back down in her seat as the cab turned down
iillh, passing the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Guggenheim
� Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum in a gray blur.
Her � ill buzzed with another crazy text message from
Blair.
WE CLD HIT N IN HS HEAD SO HE PASES OUT &
FORGETS TO GO. BT
JIIA.T IF HE GTS AMNESIA & DOESNT KNW WHO I AM?
THN MAYB I CLD
i KITND WE ALRDDY WER M R R Y D ! !
Up until now Serena had ignored Blair's crazy schemes, 1
eating them as just that---crazy. Now that she knew Nate
was
1 .i ill planning on taking L'Wren to the cotillion, things were
dif- U-rent.
He absolutely could not go. Wimbledon can wait
Blair used to fantasize about rolling in the sand in a batikprim string bikini on some exotic beach with her tennis
instructor, Duane, who had the most incredible muscles,
black wavy hair, gorgeous turquoise-blue eyes, and spoke
with an Australian accent. But now that she'd vocalized her
infatuation with Nate to Serena, she was over Duane. Her
entire raison d'etre was Nate, Nate, Nate, and she no
longer cared how taut Duane's hamstrings were or whether
his hair was black, green, or purple.
Duane wanted to volley with her and work on her footwork,
but Blair was so preoccupied with the notion that she
needed to come up with a foolproof get-Nate-out-ofL'Wren's-bed-and- into-hers plan that she insisted on
working on her serves. That way, each time Duane
reloaded the ball machine she could whip out her cell and
text another devious plan to Serena.
WE CLD GT HM DRNK & WRP HM UP IN BLANKTS &
LCK HM IN A CLQST 8 NOT LT HM OUT TIL HE
PROMSES NOT TO GO.
Duane released the next ball before Blair was ready and it
hit her square in the chest. "Jesus! Fuck you!" she yelled,
glaring at him.
Now, now.
On a bench to the right of center court a little Sacred Heart
I'II I who was waiting for her lesson giggled into her fist. She
was
� taring a short lemon-colored Lacoste tennis dress and
had
cry impressive arm muscles for a girl of no more than
eleven.
I'lair thought the girl looked a lot like herself only a few years
ii'.o --so serious about tennis, and not yet into boys. Now
things
urrc different. All she thought about was Nate. It was like
there
was a movie playing in her head at all times, a love story.
She and Nate would finally declare their passion for each
"ilier after so many years of denying it, and they'd spend
their
I IM few years of high school glued to each other at the lips.
She'd
I >cnd most nights at his house, but occasionally they'd
steal up
11 her family's summer home in Newport, Rhode Island,
when
1
licr parents were playing golf in Scotland, and they'd make
love > the sofas without even taking off the dustcovers that
were
m
I'lit on each winter. Then they'd graduate and head off
toYales ivkere they both would have applied early, because
reaJly, when
ii came down to it, there wasn't any other college worth
applying io. Then Nate would become a lawyer and she
would become
ninething worldly, glamorous, and fun that involved wearing
.1 mazing clothes and having intelligent conversations at
the same nine. They'd have the wedding of the century at
St. Patrick's i :athedral, move into an incredible Park
Avenue apartment, and I iave sex all the time. This movie
was on constant replay in her mind, making it kind of hard
to think about anything else. She i ortainly couldn't practice
her serve.
The pocket of her conch-shell-pink-and-cream seersucker I
,illy Pulitzer tennis skirt vibrated. Blair thwacked a vigorous
serve at Duane's head and whipped out her phone. Serena
li:iil | just texted her back.
WHAT IF WE GET NATE READY 4 BALL, GET HIM RLLY
DRUNK. U KISS HIM. HE 4GETS 2 GO 2 BALL?
Blair speedily texted her reply:
COOL.1 CME OVR L8T 2 PLN? LV U!!
Duane released another ball, which glanced off Blair's
shoul- I der. The next ball bounced directly in front of her
and nearly took out an eye. She looked up from her phone.
Duane stood < i the other side of the court with his hands
on his athletic waisi, his nice dark eyebrows furrowed with
impatience. "If you're serious about the nationals this year, I
suggest you put down that phone!" he called out in his hot
Australian accent before turning to fuss with his ball
machine.
Blair had plotting to do, and Duane's little performance with
the tennis balls was totally annoying. After all, she was the
one paying him. He could wait while she texted highly
impor- tant messages. Or he could go fuck himself. She
shrugged her shoulders by way of reply, walked over to the
little Sacred Heart girl, and handed the girl her tennis
racket. "I think I just goi my period. Please put this in my
locker and tell Duane I wem home," she instructed, casually
strolling toward the exit.
Nice backhand. s channels all the best leading ladies
Serena's cream-colored lace-patterned Wolford tights
itched, :ind her dad was driving her crazy with his endless
questions.
"Tell me, Serena's quite creative. It occurred to me that she
should act. I can't recall--does Hanover have a decent
acting program? I was a debate team man myself."
William van derWoodsen was tall and handsome, with dark
blue eyes like his daughter's, blondish gray hair, and an
affin- ity for silk cravats instead of ties. He was the epitome
of dap- per, and more than once Serena had witnessed
women, from young stewardesses to matronly school
administrators, swoon in liis presence. He crossed his
long, squash-playing legs. "I think she'd be quite an asset to
any theater program, don't you?"
Serena felt her cell phone buzz in her satin-lined coat
pocket. Reflexively she glanced at it and read Blair's text.
Leaning for- ward so that her hands were obscured by the
coffee table, she typed back a hasty reply.
Hanover's dean of admissions turned out to be a middleaged woman named Candice Kaplan who looked like she
tried very hard to be cool. Her boyishly cropped hair was
dyed a dark amber color and she was wearing a pretty pink
angora ChaniJ suit and black patent leather Manolo
pumps. Actually, she t sort of cool.
"I played Lady Macbeth in our senior production," Dcunj
Kaplan gushed in her alluring, velvety voice. "We got such
good reviews, we toured Europe for the summer." She
winked con* i spiratorially at Serena and pushed her pink
hexagonal glasses I up on her long, bony nose. A gigantic
platinum-and-sapphinj 1 engagement ring glittered on the
ring finger of her left hand. "I j was hoping you would ask me
some questions yourself, dear," she said pointedly.
The main lounge of the Yale Club was ballroom size, with i
floor-to-ceiling navy blue velvet-curtained windows overlook
ing Grand Central Station. Bow-tied servers whisked in anil
out of the quietly huddled groups seated in brown leather
cluh chairs, efficiently delivering cocktails and tea and
newspapers. It was an excellent choice for a meeting such
as this, since there was no chance anyone Serena knew
would be anywhere nearby. She took a deep breath, about
to deliver the perfor- mance of a lifetime.
"I have no idea what I'm good at," she sighed, crossing her
arms over her chest and staring down at her brown Marni
lace- up boots. "I've traveled all over the world and had
private tutors in French, Latin, and world history. I play
tennis, field hockey, soccer. I swim, I read, I write. I suck at
math, and yeah, I've done some acting. But when I think
about the future, I'm like, maybe I'll just be . . ." Her voice
trailed off dramatically as she pulled her gorgeous mane of
blond hair up on top of her head and pouted her pinkglossed lips. Then she let her hair cascade messily down
over her well-defined shoulders. "A hair stylist? /\n actress?
Who knows? I'll probably learn how to do lots of
things, but I won't do anything very well."
Serena didn't know exactly who she was channeling---Liz '
Taylor as a child prodigy mixed with a little lindsay Lohan?-but she could tell it was working. Candice took off her
glasses and scrutinized Serena, as if noticing for the first
time that Serena might be a Thoroughbred, an exquisite
specimen of a human being with perfect conformation, but
also a stupid, spoiled brat.
"I mean, I'm only fifteen. How am I supposed to know anyihing?" Serena added, glancing at her father. He took a
great big swig of Scotch and uncrossed and recrossed his
long, grace- ful legs. She could tell he could barely resist
taking her over his knee and spanking her. Sorry, Daddy,
she told him silently, but I can't go now. I just can't.
"Well, you've certainly got the looks to do anything you set
your mind to," Dean Kaplan observed, the corners of her
fuchsia- lipsticked mouth turned down with displeasure.
She cleared her throat and swiftly pushed her glasses up
on her nose. "But you're applying late, your grades are only
fair, and your practice SAT scores leave a lot to be
desired.Your brother, Erik, is an absolute treasure at
Hanover--what a skier!--but I'm afraid lhat's not quite
enough to get you in at such a late date." She pursed her
lips. "Serena, you need to prove to me that you really want
to go."
Serena stared wordlessly down at her boots. / don't, I don't,
i don't want to go!
Dean Kaplan stood up and held out her hand to Mr. van der
Woodsen. "We'll review her application as soon as we
receive it, but I'm sorry to say I can't make any promises.
Thank you for the tea." Serena leapt to her feet and shook
the dean's hand, smilinn stupidly. As soon as Dean Kaplan
had left, Mr. van derWoodscu sat down again, straightened
his hunter green silk cravat, ainl swirled his Scotch around
in its crystal tumbler, looking elm grined. "I missed a board
meeting for this," he noted bitterly He glanced up at his
daughter, his blue eyes cold with hurt. "II you don't want to
go to boarding school, why didn't you jusl say so?"
Serena chewed on her thumbnail, feeling totally ashamed
Her father had always been so quietly supportive of her,
appeal ing out of nowhere at all her pageants and school
plays when she'd always assumed he had no idea what she
was up to. Shr smiled to herself, remembering the time in
fourth grade when she'd lost five teeth in one week and was
playing the second oldest daughter in The Sound of Music.
Her tongue kept popping out of the gap in her mouth so that
she could barely talk, lei alone yodel.
High on a hill was a lonely goatherd. Lay odl, lay odl lay hee
hoo!!
But she finished the performance, her face hot and red and
her eyes wet with embarrassed tears. Afterwards her father
presented her with a huge bouquet of Japanese daisies
from Takashimaya and whisked her away to Serendipity for
a gigantic peppermint chip sundae, even though both ice
cream and res- taurants full of screaming children gave him
the chills.
She gazed hopefully across the cocktail table at him. He
might be disappointed, but he was her father, and she
knew he only wanted her to be happy. "I don't want to go,
Daddy," she told him, her great big eyes shiny and blue. "I
don't want to go to boarding school."
Mr. van derWoodsen set his drink on the table and opened
up his arms. She rushed into them, sitting on his lap as she
sniffled into his perfectly tailored white collar, feeling like
that sap-toothed nine-year-old again. She loved the way her
father smelled---like well-oiled leather, fresh limes, and
Scotch. "It's all right," he soothed, patting her back. "If you
don't want to, you certainly don't have to."
Serena sighed happily and played with one of his gold
sport coat buttons. She couldn't wait to tell Nate she was
staying. There was nothing now to keep them apart. Her
cell phone buzzed where she'd left it on the seat of her
leather armchair, and she lunged for it as though it were a
life preserver. Natie? No, just another text from Blair.
Oh, her.
I NEED SOME FANCY UNDERWR FOR U KNW WHO.
BARNEYS L8R?
Serena tossed her phone into her quilted black Balenciaga
bag and slipped her arms into her raspberry-colored coat.
She was tired of lying. Of course she didn't want Nate to go
to that ball with L'Wren What's-her-face, but she also didn't
want to read any more texts about Blair needing sexy
underwear for him. Blair was her best friend. It was time to
tell her the truth so they could stop this charade and get on
with planning the summer and finding Blair a perfect
boyfriend of her own. Sure, she'd be a little miffed, but when
Serena told her how amazing- looking the boys in Holland
were, she'd get over it.
Sure she would. "that's one f--ed up little prince," said the
caterpillar to the butterfly "Hey Jenny, listen to this." Dan
took a drag from his fourth unfiltered Camel that day and
cleared his throat. "You have hair like the color of gold.
Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me!
The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the
thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the
wheat. . . ." He stopped reading and looked up at his sister,
who was lying on her stomach in the middle of their dusty
living room, drawing on a sketch pad with fat sticks of charcoal. "It's like the kind of thing I want to say. I'm just too
embarrassed, but in a poem it's different. It's like
everything's a metaphor, and even if you're really saying
what you mean, there's nothing to be embarrassed about,
because ir's the poem talking. Get it?"
Jenny stared at her brother for a second and then went
back to smudging the lashes on her charcoal angel's eyes.
She had no clue what Dan was talking about, but she knew
it made him feel better to rattle on in this way, so she didn't
say anything. She and Dan were alike in that way. In public
they appeared shy. At home you could not shut them up.
"That's from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
He's French. This is a translation." Dan took another puff of
his cigarette and paged through the slim secondhand
hardcover book with its delicate black-and-white
illustrations. He'd been smoking on a regular basis,
cultivating his image as an angst- ridden poet. So far their
dad hadn't said anything about it, but it took him a long time
to notice things. "It looks like a children's book, but it's really
this profound existential work. And it's really romantic too-he falls in love with this rose, who he knows he can't really
have a love affair with. But he loves her--he can't help how
much he loves her."
Jenny was barely listening. Obviously everything Dan said
was in some way related to his obsession with Serena.
Yester- day she'd noticed that some of her angel drawings
were missing from her portfolio. She stormed into his room
and found them Blu-Tacked to the wall. His shamelessness
was pathetic.
"I'm proud of your work," he'd told her defensively when she
pointed out that he'd taken them without asking.
Right.
Jenny let him keep the drawings, although she was a little
concerned that her big brother was turning into a
psychopath who talked to himself and had delusions that
one day Serena would just appear in their kitchen and ask
him out.
If only.
Dan continued to read. Mr. Sohn, his history teacher at
Riverside Prep, had assigned The Little Prince to illustrate
what creative people were doing and thinking during the
Nazi re- gime. Mr. Sohn was cool. He liked to demonstrate
whenever he could that you didn't have to be a boring
lawyer or bond trader when you got older. He tried to
introduce role models like this Antoine de Saint-Exupery
guy, who was a naval pilot and ;IIM> this incredible
philosopher-writer-illustrator. He sounded si> dashing-even his name was dashing.
"Antoine de Saint-Exupery." Dan recited the name aloud,
rolling it off his tongue with a dramatic French accent.
Jenny looked up from her drawing again. "You need
friends."
"That's where I come in," a girl's hoarse voice rang out from
the hallway. Rufus appeared in the doorway of the living
room wearing electric orange Adidas track pants and a
faded red-ami green-plaid flannel button-down shirt. It hurt
Dan's eyes i > < look at him.
"I just came back from buying saffron for my squid-ink
paeJlii and I found this rather sweet bald girl in the lobby,"
he told Dan with a goofy wink. "She's not a blonde, but I
asked her to stay for dinner anyway."
Dan closed his book and stood up. "Vanessa?"
Rufus stood to one side to allow Vanessa to enter the
room. "Hi," she greeted Dan, and then glanced at Jenny.
"Hi." She didn't know why she'd come without calling or
anything. She'd just been thinking about him so much, and
she suspected thai Rufus had forgotten to give Dan her
message since he hadn't called her back. Maybe he was
just super shy.
All the more reason to be super aggressive.
"I must endure the presence of two or three caterpillars if I
tvis/i to become acquainted with the butterflies," Rufus
quoted, pointing at Dan's book.
So that's where he got it, Vanessa thought to herself. Dad
was a literature buff.
Jenny sat up and crossed her legs. She was still wearing
her pleated navy blue wool Constance uniform but had
taken off her boring white polo shirt in favor of a black tube
top that showed off her new boobs marvelously. Her wildly
curly dark hair rick- led her bare shoulders so that she
looked like some sort of pre- pubescent Medusa. "Hey, you
go to my school," she observed perkily. "You're a
sophomore. Do you know Serena?"
Vanessa sat down on the floor in front of Jenny with her
back 10 Dan, who was still seated on the worn brown
leather sofa. "Maybe you can tell me," she began in a
confidential tone, "why everyone is so obsessed with
Serena."
Rufus stood his ground in the doorway. Silently Dan prayed
that his dad wouldn't say anything embarrassing about how
Serena was basically all Dan and Jenny talked about. It
was kind of strange for any of them to be talking about
some poor innocent girl who lived across town and had no
idea they even existed.
Kind of.
"She's perfect," Jenny finally answered earnestly as she
selected a fresh stick of charcoal.
Vanessa rolled her eyes and Rufus excused himself to
work on his paella. "Okay, now it's time to change the
subject," Vanessa declared, tugging her maroon polyblend
uniform skirt down over her pale, shapeless knees, which
were very definitely not her best asset. She pointed at
Jenny's charcoal drawings. "What's all this?"
Jenny bit her lip. She knew Vanessa was sort of an artist
her- self. Her creepy, depressing black-and-white
photographs of people on the subway had been on exhibit
in the hallway out- side the science labs all winter. "I'm
entering that hymnal design contest. You know the one Mrs.
M put up notices about? It's supposed to only be for upper
school girls, but Ms. Monet kind of made me enter. I don't
know. It's good practice, I guess." Vanessa pulled one of
the drawings closer and studied 1 Jenny had that uncanny
ability to be neat with charcoal. I lines were so precise it
was as if she were copying somethini "You'll win,"Vanessa
assured her. "You'll totally win."
Jenny liked her at once. She'd noticed her before and t
always been a little scared of her, especially now that she v
bald. But she wasn't scary, she was just . . . confident. And
s had good boobs. Not huge, but definitely there. Jenny
stucfcl her chest out and looked down at herself, checking
for signs of J cleavage.
"That's really not a good look," Vanessa observed. "Turn'
tops should be illegal."
"Thank you," Dan agreed, sQueezing his paiej knobby
knee:, together. It was weird the way Vanessa had come
over unexpeci edly and then spent the whole time talking to
his sister. Bui he was grateful she hadn't noticed that he
was sitting there in only his white Fruit of the Loom boxer
shorts, which is what he always wore when he was doing
homework.
"I'm kind of conducting an experiment, on my . . . chest,"
Jenny explained, tugging up on the tube top. "I'm taking
these supplements, and every day when I come home I put
on this tube top and measure myself. It's really working. I've
already gone from a no cup to almost an A cup, and this is
only day four."
"Jesus." Dan shielded his face with his hands.
"Quiet over there, Captain Underpants," Vanessa snapped,
and then giggled to herself. All the time she'd been sitting
there, she'd been aware of Dan's presence behind her. It
made her feel giddy and careless and electric. "Jenny," she
said a little more seriously, "you're what--twelve, thirteen?"
Jenny nodded. "I'm in seventh grade."
"Do you think I could see what's in the supplements you've
been taking?"
Jenny hurried away to fetch the canister of supplements
hid- den beneath the Target Shabby Chic pink dust ruffle on
her bed. She couldn't believe she'd told Vanessa about her
breast enhancement pills, but it was kind of nice to share.
Perhaps the bald-headed, black-Doc-Martens-wearing
sophomore was the solution to her gaping no-mother, nobig-sister void.
"I'm not through with you," Vanessa informed Dan while
they waited for Jenny to return. "Your dad told me on the
way up here in the elevator that you write poems. I'm
starting this arts magazine at Constance and you should
see some of the crap people are turning in. If your poems
are any good, I want to publish them."
Dan's face turned beet red. All of his poems were about
Serena.
"Here they are." Jenny dashed back into the room and
handed over the big white plastic canister.
Vanessa turned it over and read the label out loud. "'Yams,
fenugreek, macca root, barley, ginseng, biotin, sea kelp,
gelatin.' Sounds pretty healthy, although I have no idea what
macca root is." She unscrewed the lid and sniffed the
supplements. "They even smell good for you." She screwed
the lid back on and handed back the canister. "I don't think
those things are doing you any harm. The ingredients
sound pretty much like what my crazy sister eats every night
for dinner. She's macrobiotic. But my theory is, your boobs
will keep on growing without these things. Believe me, by
the end of seventh grade I went from totally flat to looking
like this. She lifted up her black T-shirt to reveal her sturdy
36Bs encased in a plain black cotton bra miuli by Playtex
for Kmart. "I know they're not huge, but I'm pn-uv sure
they're still growing."
Behind her she could practically hear die sweat dripping nil
Dan's palms. God, he was cute.
Dan didn't want Vanessa to leave, but he wished they couM
talk about something else, and that Marx the cat or
someoiu- would cause some sort of ruckus so he could
dash into his room, put some pants on, burn his black
notebook, tear down the angel pictures on his wall, and kill
the smell of whatever RUILIN was currendy cooking up in
the kitchen. The air smelled Hkr spicy earwax.
Jenny frowned down at the large container of supplements
"So you think I should stop taking them?The directions say
full results won't occur until you've taken them for at least
thrci- months."
Vanessa stared at her, realizing now how serious Jenny
was about growing boobs. Obviously she'd given it a lot of
thoughi and done a fair amount of research. "I think you
should stop taking them for a week, but keep measuring
yourself. If you keep growing, you'll know it's you, not the
pills. Believe me, our bodies are capable of some crazy
shit."
Dan shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. He really didn't warn
to hear about his sister's chest anymore. "Are we finished
with this discussion yet?" he demanded rudely.
Jenny wasn't so sure. "I'll think about it," she agreed tenta-
tively and carried the supplements back to her room. She
didn'i like being told what to do by someone she barely
knew, bui Vanessa had planted the seed of doubt. After all,
in some of their family pictures her mom really did have
quite a nice rack. Maybe if she just waited for Mother
Nature to do her thing, she'd grow an even bigger one.
"Okay, naked man." Vanessa whipped around and slapped
Dan's bare thigh. "Show me your stuff."
Blushing fiercely, Dan fished around in his backpack and
reluctantly handed over his notebook. If they were going to
be I'riends, her reading his poems was inevitable. So was
her rinding out about his obsession with Serena. His
lameness would also become apparent, but that was
inevitable too.
Vanessa held the black leather book in her lap and
thumbed ihrough the pages. It was the ones after
Valentine's Day she was interested in. After they'd met.
AV?
Say
California, never been there
Does anyone smoke in California?
Are they dean,pure> do they kiss with tongues?
Do they wear black like you?
Do you know me?
I think you do.
We only just met but
1 suspect you know a lot about
What's lurking beneath
This rock.
Hey, Black Widow,
Bite me.
Vanessa read the entire poem through twice, feeling
almost completely positive that the poem was about her. It
was even sort of shaped like her. Do they wear black like
you? Eager 1 <
< i more, she turned the page.
Turn aYound bright eyes
1 know that's
Some kind of dumb '80s shit song
But it suits you
I can even picture
You in a fishnet '80s shirt
Your blond hair all freaky
Sitting on my bed
Polishing my toes
And chewing gum
Blow a big bubble
Ckezo me up and spit me out
So she didn't have blond hair, but maybe Dan had
imagined she'd had blond hair before she'd shaved it.
A shaved head does leave a lot to the imagination.
She flipped back to the previous poem, which she liked the
best. "Do you think I could publish these? I wouldn't use
your name, since it's supposed to just be for Constance
students. I could just call you Anonymous. I'll make you
famous," she promised with a sly smile.
Dan slowly grinned back. Vanessa was basically offering
him a surefire way of getting his message out to Serena.
She would read the poems and gradually it would dawn on
her that they were all written for her. Then Jenny would let it
slip that Anony- mous was actually her dashingly handsome
poet of a big brother, and their dreamy love affair would
commence. 'Dinner!" Rufus bellowed from the kitchen.
"I'll make copies and give them to Jenny to take to school."
VIM took the notebook back from Vanessa and stood up.
"You
in stay for dinner. I just have to warn you, my dad's cooking
is "i ally insane. Usually Jenny and I just pretend to eat, and
then � > have donuts or something later,"
Vanessa beamed happily back at him.The Humphreys'
apart- inTit wasn't as bookishly elegant as she'd thought it
would be.
> I course there were lots of books, but they were stacked
on the lunr in dusty piles and there wasn't a vase of flowers
in sight. I lie place probably hadn't been cleaned in at least
ten years, iiill, she'd fallen in love with the whole family,
especially Dan. � he was pretty sure she could eat anything
if it meant she could M next to him, watching the adorable
way his hands shook as he iTostled with his steak.
Or his flambeed eggs with candied nuts and ham. b is for
binge and p is for purge The oak-paneled elevator doors
rolled open onto the Waldorfs' foyer. Blocking Blair's path
was a small Burberry signature plaid doggie carrier from
which emanated a plaintive mewing sound. Blair tossed her
navy blue cashmere knee-length TSE cardigan over the
handlebars of her brother Tyler's silver Razor scooter and
bent down to examine the doggie carrier. A tiny blue-gray
kitten stared at her from inside with hopeful ice blue eyes.
"You're okay, little kitty," Blair assured it. She unzipped the
carrier to retrieve the kitten and cradled it in her arms. A
piece of her father's gold-and-cream-striped Crane's stationery was folded inside the carrier. She pulled it out and tore
open the note, reading it as the kitten kneaded its paws
into her palm.
My darling Blair Bear,
As you know, your mom and I have been growing apart. It
1
probably comes as no surprise that I've decided to move
out. I
know this will be difficult, and so I'm giving you this
gorgeous Russian Blue kitten TO provide some solace.
He's a boy and
very gentle. Hug him and think of me.
I love you, my Bear. Call soon.
-Dad
Blair reread the note, squeezing the little kitten so hard it
� ,t|iiirmed to get away. It probably comes as no surprise . .
.? Wha t
i he frigging fuck?! Sure, her family had never been that
great with sharing what was on their minds, but her father
had just up .uid left} Moved out, like it was no big deal,
ditching his respon- sibility to his family, his children, his
firstborn? Had her mother � von noticed he was gone?
Blair was tempted to throw the little kitten against the wall,
I mt his tiny gray body was so furry and innocent, she
couldn't.
I1 is fur was softer than her mother's mink coat, like a
newborn i>aby mink. She held him up in front of her face
and pressed
luT nose against his fuzzy gray forehead. "My tiny lost little
Kitty Minky," she crooned dramatically and carried him
down
i he hall to her bedroom. Pretty soon her bed was going to
be � lightly crowded, what with Nate sleeping over all the
time, but
i intil then there might be room for a small kitten. She made
him i umfortable on her rose-colored silk pillows, stroking
him with .1 trembling index finger. She was angry as hell at
her father,
uid so sad she felt like throwing her bedroom furniture out
the window.
"Dad gave me a pretty cool present," she heard Tyler's tenyear-old choirboy voice call out from her doorway. "What'd
you I',i-C?"
Blair nodded her chin at Kitty Minky, which was what she'd
decided to call the kitten. He'd curled up in a tiny gray ball
and was purring contentedly.Tyler jumped up on the bed
uml pushed the kitten over on its side, vigorously rubbing its
linl< pink tummy and startling the poor thing half to death.
"He g;iv me this vinyl record collection and this awesome
vintage Zeniih turntable. The whole collection used to
belong to this famoic. DJ who's in prison or something.
Anyway, it's rad."
Tyler was practically hyperventilating he was so excited.
1>1 wanted to be a famous DJ himself one day, and he
spent a loi of time in his room, cultivating his nerd status by
playing Xbn<, and listening to Led Zeppelin on a pair of
gigantic headphone like one of the Little Einsteins on
crack. Still, there was some thing impossibly sad about
how excited he sounded, like he w:i-. trying his darnedest
not to cry and was acting overly chippn instead. It made
Blair so angry she felt like she was going in explode. Fuck
her fucking fucked-up family.
She scooped up Kitty Minky in her arms and pressed him
tenderly against her chest. "Is Mom home?"
Tyler shrugged and violently kicked Blair's Sigerson Morrison gold flats across the room just for the hell of it.
"Shopping," he replied flatly. "Dad took her favorite
champagne glasses," he j added. "The Baccalaureate
ones."
"Baccarat," Blair corrected him. The two siblings
exchanged glances, half sympathetic, half challenging, but
neither one was willing to pour their heart out to the other.
Blair hugged her new kitten even tighter to her chest.Tyler
got up and snatched a pica- of Doublemint gum from the
pack on her desk. He popped ii into his mouth and
dropped the wrapper on the floor.
"Get out, pig," Blair ordered, just as she'd done a thousand
times before. No, there would be no tears. Not until she
closed the door behind her brother. And put the cat down,
and-- She dashed into her bathroom, knelt down in front of
the [� .learning white porcelain toilet, and stuck her middle
finger -I own her throat until she gagged. Tears streamed
down her face .is she hacked up the iceberg lettuce and
lemon yogurt she'd i-;iten with Serena in the lunchroom at
Constance, the croissant :ind hot chocolate she'd had for
breakfast with her parents, the i heese omelet and pommes
frites Myrtle had made for her and
I yler last night for dinner, and every other meal she'd ever
eaten in her life. It was as though there was something
terrible inside her and she had to get it out, be free of it.
And even though the vomiting part was ugly and disgusting
and painful and shame- lul, she felt immediately better. She
really did.
The bathroom door stood open. From the end of her bed
Kitty Minky watched her with wide, curious eyes. His soft
gray oars twitched forward and back, as if he were trying to
under- stand what she was doing on her knees in front of
the toilet.Then I he bedroom door swung open and Serena
breezed in, looking Hushed and happy and ready to go
shopping. She stopped and stared at Blair.
"What are you doing?"
Blair stood up, quickly flushed the toilet, and splashed cold
water on her face. Then she smeared some Colgate onto
her linger, scraped it across her teeth and tongue and
rinsed it out with a mouthful of cold water.There, all better.
She walked back Lo the bed and scooped Kitty Minky up in
her arms.
"My father moved out," she explained, holding the kitten out
to her friend in order to distract her from what she had just
seen.
Serena examined the gray fur ball, holding it delicately in
her long, slender hands. In the cab up to Blair's she'd gotten
all fired up to tell her about kissing Nate; about how she'd
thought ha parents were making her go to boarding school,
but now, thank goodness, they weren't; and about how sorry
she was for noi saying anything about any of rhis before.
They could still have fun keeping Nate from going to the
cotillion with L'Wren, only Blair wouldn't be hooking up with
him, because he and Seren;i were already together.
Serena couldn't wait to see Nate and tell him the good
news, and kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him...,
But now this. Blair's father had moved out. He'd given her a
kitten by way of apology, and Blair had just made herself
sick because of it. Serena nuzzled her face into Kitty
Minky's soft, warm fur. Even if she wasn't going to boarding
school anymore, her acting days had only just begun. She'd
just have to keep pre tending she wanted to help Blair hook
up with Nate, when six had absolutely no intention of doing
any such thing. Nate was hers; he was already spoken for.
And just exactly when was she planning to break this
special news?
Carefully she put Kitty Minky down on the bed. Then sh<.'
linked arms with Blair. "Come on. It's the week after
Valentine's Day. I think some of the stuff at Barneys may
even be on sale."
As if either of them ever bought anything on sale.
Blair stuffed her feet into a pair of black velvet Tod's loafers
and spritzed her face with the nearest Evian water
atomizer. Her father had taken her to her first Nutcracker
and helped her pick out her first pair of Manolo Blahniks,
but she had better things to do now than mope. If she was
ever finally going to take her clothes off with Nate, she'd
need some decent lingerie for the occasion.
And there's no better cure for the blues than Barneys.
stoned dudes can read between Hie lines 1
1,lie was up in his wing of the Archibald town house,
sharing I uis with Jeremy, Anthony, and Charlie on the new
blue Lucite I'unghe'd just bought at a head shop on East
Fourteenth Street.
i'h(i windows were open to let out the smoke, and the boys
-.ii huddled together in a tight circle around the bong like
Boy � >routs around a campfire.
"Dude, in like two days you're gonna be El Capitan!"
Jeremy iibserved. He handed Nate the blue test tube-like
contraption, kinged his fists against his chest and snorted
through his nos- � ii Is like a horny male gorilla. Nate's
friends acted like they'd I >ccn having sex with older girls
since third grade, but the trudi w;is they were all total
virgins, vicariously enjoying the thrill of Nate's upcoming
tryst with L'Wren.
Nate grinned into the opening at the top of his new bong. It
was six inches longer than Jeremy's homemade one and
got him ilioroughly baked after only half a hit. Even without
his friends' 1'iicouragementj Naie was feeling totally
stoked. He couldn't wait to finally have sex. It was this huge
rite of passage thing that every boy fantasized about, and it
was about to happen to him. He stood up and grabbed his
graphite iMac off his desk. "Si sends me these horny emails every day," he bragged, r. the laptop on and clicking
on his inbox. Sure enough, a i message from L'Wren
topped the list.
Subject: thinking of u
Date: Wednesday, February 19, 4:18PM
Natie Baby,
Only two more days until I am untying
your bow tie and throwing your boxers out
the window. Get ready to have an amazing
time with a girl who knows what she's
doing, because you know what they say-
practice makes perfect!! J
I'm glad it's you and you're na be
glad it's me. ; )
-L'Wren
The other three boys tittered and blew smoke rings as Nate
read the message out loud to them. Then he clicked on the
mes- sage below it. From:
svanderwoodsen@constancebillard.edu
To: narchibald@stjudes.edu
Subject: us
Date: Wednesday, February 19, 3:05PM
Hey Natie,
d o n ' t think I should. I guess maybe I '
hard time with her family r i g h t now an
I d o n ' t want t o get her upset? Can we
j u s t s o r t of pretend nothing i s going
crazy?
You know I love you.
"See? That's what I'm fucking talking about!" Jeremy Scott
lompkinson crowed, pointing at the screen as he read over
Nate's shoulder. He thrust the bong into Nate's hands and
read i lie message out loud to the others while Nate took
another
'"Just sort of pretend nothing is going on'?" Jeremy
repeated with a disdainful roll of his bloodshot hazel eyes.
"Serena's the bomb and all that, but she's leading you down
the yellow brick mad to no-dickville," he expounded with
stoned intensity. "Col- lege girl's already got her clothes off.
You just gotta turn up and l>lam!--your virginity is part of
your rosy-cheeked childhood." He pounded on his chest
with his fists again. "El Capifc'm remember? El fucking
Capitan\"
Nate took a second consecutive hit, his head spinning wiih
lack of oxygen and an overdose of tetrahydrocannabinol.
Hi- wasn't sure what Serena meant about Blair, but then he
realized that he hadn't even seen Blair since the morning
after that parlv on Valentine's Day. Maybe she hadn't been
hanging out because things were going badly with her
family and she didn't really feel like talking about it?
Or maybe he was just too stoned to notice that nearly a
whole week had gone by without them talking.
Nate ran his hands through his wavy golden brown hair. If
Blair's family was having real problems, that was bad. And
ii was sweet that Serena didn't want to spill the applecart or
tip the can of beans, or whatever the hell the expression
was. He'd remember when he wasn t so stoned. But none
of that meani that he shouldn't go ahead and lose his
virginity to L'Wren, right?
Charlie shrugged his shoulders. "Serena's pretty hot
though," he put in, grabbing the bong away from Nate.
"She's a goddamned goddess," Anthony agreed. "But I bei
she'll stay a virgin until she's, like, sixty-nine. Sixty-nine--ha!- get it? Then she'll become a nun. Girls that gorgeous
never get laid."
Is that a fact?
Nate took the bong back and stared into it, not taking another hit or anything, just holding it because it was his and
he liked it. The water inside was a blue-gray color, almost
black. He didn't really like talking about girls with his
friends. It jusl made him want to be with the girls they were
talking about. 1 Is smelled good and they made him feel
good. He really liked
1 ilicin a lot.
Sigh. Despite his shortcomings, we like him a lot, too.
Nate's Nokia jingled and vibrated in his pocket and he �
lugged it out with rubbery fingers that felt like they belonged
in someone else. The word Blair loomed on the phone's
tiny �� ' r c e n .
"She bangs," he answered, and then giggled. Damn it to all
luck, was he ever stoned.
"Natie?" Blair responded inherbest, breathily flirtatious,
child- i-.hly querulous Marilyn Monroe voice. "Guess where I
am?"
"Whuzzat?" he slurred. He could barely speak.
"In the dressing room at Bergdorf's. Naked," she taunted.
"Yup!" Nate replied happily. He could picture it. A whole
'hcssing room full of naked girls. "That's what I'm talking
.ibout!"
"Anyway, Serena and I want to, like, get you ready for the �
lebutante thing, okay? Like help you tie your bow tie and do
vi>ur hair? We bumped into Chuck picking up his tux. He's
�� scorting some girl to the cotillion too, and he told us
he's to- i;illy having a pre-party in the Basses' suite at
theTribeca Star! No does that sound good? We'll get you
ready at Chuck's party? I Til be fun!"
Blair's voice sounded a lot like the adults' voices on those
old Peanuts cartoons--"wa wa wa"---but Nate got the gist of
what she was saying.They wanted to dress him for the party
and r.ct him all ready, kind of like those teaser mares the
breeders used on those horse farms down in Kentucky.
He'd visited a
I 'horoughbred farm on a trip to see the Kentucky Derby
with his i kid and had watched one of Secretariat's greatgranddaughters get bred. First the farm dude surrounded
the stallion with mar i � . in heat so he got all turned on.
Then they just led the hornv stallion up behind Secretariat's
great-granddaughter and--sin bangs! Nate giggled into the
phone.
"Natie?"
"Yup. S'all good," he stammered. "See y'then," he added
bi- fore hanging up. Then he yawned and stretched his
arms over head, feeling particularly studly and male. He
stood up, place* I his new bong carefully on his desk, and
belched. "Anyone know anything about condoms?"
His three friends rolled around on the floor, cackling ami
pounding one another with pot-weakened fists.
"Field trip!" Charlie shouted.
"To Duane fucking Reade!" Anthony chimed in.
"El Capitan!" Jeremy roared hoarsely.
"She bangs," Nate giggled again, cracking himself up.
Boys are so dumb. The sad part is, the dumber they are,
the more we love them.
J gossipgirl.net
Uplcs Afrevl ext � /test a qu
?s of places, people, er
' � i>rotect the innocent, ft
hey people!
I he deb
In case you don't actually know what a debutante is or why
these things
� .till exist even though we're living in modern times and
most of us girls
;ire counting on going to college and having careers and
wearing more
� .uits--beautifully tailored, exquisitely cool suits--than poofy
taffeta
ijowns, I'm going to give you the lowdown.
According to Webster's dictionary: debutante (n.)--a girl or
woman
making a debut, especially into high society.
It's all about our parents wanting to feel like they've created
something
as pure-blooded as a racehorse and as chaste as a saint,
when all the
debs really do is get terrifically drunk before, after, and
during the ball,
and swap escorts. And just like any other fancy function, it's
all about the
before- and after-parties. This year the ominipresent C
hosts both at his
family's penthouse suite at the Tribeca Star Hotel. The idea
is to bring
your outfit and get dressed at the pre-party, go to the ball,
then return to
the suite with your escort or someone else's, and get
undressed. As C
is constantly reminding us, the hot tub is a/ways hot.
And in case you're ever worried about what to wear to
occasions such
as these, don't be. Give it a few days and you'll come home
from school
to find your bedroom absolutely filled with couture gowns
from every
L designer featured in next month's W magazine. At least, /
will. That i;.. when I make my debut, or "come out," as it is
more often called. If I come out. Come out, come out,
wherever you are! Never mind. Anyway, the best of us are
not quite there yet--give us a few years. Like fine wine, we
gel better with age.
sightings
S and B outfitting themselves with white satin and black
lace in Bar- neys, Bergdorf's, and Bendel's lingerie
departments. If La Perla puts an embargo on shipping their
underwear to the U.S., these girls will remain well stocked
for years to come. Guess they feel the same way I do: the
dress is important, but what you wear under the dress is
cru- cial. V taking pictures of people kissing in the street.
Feeling sort of romantic, is she? D browsing in the bra
department with his sister, J, in Bloomingdale's. That boy
deserves a gold medal. C bellying up to the bar at the
Tribeca Star while he interviewed debs to escort to the
cotil- lion next week. Isn't it usually the other way around? Of
course, none of the debs spoke English, and one of them
had tusks for teeth, but all of them were bona fide
princesses from faraway lands. As always, he will have his
pick of the litter. Some things never change. B's mother at
Baccarat, ordering crystal like a new bride. From there she
moved on to Gucci, Dior, and ABC Carpet & Home. Funny,
those are all the places where her husband has charge
accounts. It's nice she's found a healthy way to vent.
your e-mail
a DearGG,
I'm so excited to be a debutante, but my escort is such a k
How can I ditch him?
--prdmary Dear prdmary,
An escort is just that, an escort. He takes you to the ball,
you
dance with him once, and then you dance with everyone
else
and oh-so-casually lose track of him. There are no rules that
the
escort has to escort you home.
--GG
Dear GG,
I've been really sad lately. Give me something to look
forward
to. And don't say summer's just around the corner, because
that
will depress me even more.
--bleu
��� Dear bleu,
I'm sure your birthday must be coming up sometime in the
next
twelve months. Zip up your pointiest Jimmy Choo boots,
grab a
cab to Madison Avenue, and don't stop stuffing shopping
bags
with frivolous goodies until you start feeling happy again.
--GG
Time to get dressed, people.
You know you love me,
iipgirl s andb create the ultimate distraction The Basses'
suite at the Tribeca Star was big enough to live in. It was
the perfect party pad--sleek and modern with tasteful taupe
velvet sofas, cherrywood paneling, cream-colored carpets,
a king-size bed, two huge plasma-screen TVs, and a
generous wet bar. The main attraction was the oversize hot
tub, situated in a sort of anteroom between the master
bedroom and the bathroom behind a giant sliding frosted
glass door. Usually, the door was left open so that revelers
could rotate freely between the couch, the bed, the bar, and
the hot tub carrying magnums of champagne, their damp
bodies wrapped loosely in the hotel's signature white
Egyptian cotton Frette towels.
It was six o'clock on Friday night, the night Nate was to
escort L'Wren Knowes to the debutante ball; the night Nate
had planned to finally lose his virginity and become a man;
the night Serena and Blair had been planning all week.
They arrived at the suite early. Serena brought half her parents'liquor cabinet and a carton of Gauloises with her. Blair
had Fresh Direct deliver oysters, Godiva chocolate-dipped
straw- berries, caviar, and saltyTriscuits.The idea was to
ply Nate with : � iirodisiacs, alcohol, and a general aura of
seduction, causing
urn to become so distracted he'd forget all about UWren,
the
"lillion, and his first time.
fhose had better be some strong aphrodisiacs!
("huck's date for the ball was the twenty-year-old Italian coni'-.sa Donatella Juliet de laVarga, heiress to the Varga olive
oil I'Hiune.The contessa was strikingly beautiful, with hiplength
iiiiber-colored hair, dove gray eyes, flawless olive skin,
end- ! � .s legs, and the curvy 34 x 24 x 34 bust-waist-hips
ratio of a Victoria's Secret model.To Chuck's complete and
utter joy, the
1'ntessa was so used to going topless at beaches
throughout iinope, she thought nothing of walking around
the suite with I ii T top off, asking for advice on which of her
two pairs of exqui-
iic gold Prada heels she should wear to the cotillion. Sadly,
her l.nglish was so limited she could only communicate by
saying
"kayj" "cute!" and "is hot, no?" which made her sound
slightly irtarded, but added to her allure.
It's hard to be jealous of anyone, however beautiful, who
can mily say three things.
"Having a bake sale, girls?" Chuck asked when he noticed
lUair and Serena setting up shop at the round glass coffee
table.
They'd borrowed a few of the cut-crystal Baccarat ashtrays
.kicked on top of the wet bar and had filled them with an
array � > offerings, from Gauloises to lime wedges.
f
A bowl of cigarettes anyone? Olives? An oyster?
"Cute!" the tall, mostly naked foreign girl trailing Chuck
rxclaimedj pointing at the neatly arranged items on the
coffee nible.
Chuck snaked his arm around the contessa's bare, curvy
waist. She was wearing white lacy boy shorts, a pair of gold
ies metallic peep-toe pumps, and nothing else. Her round,
n: orange-size boobs were tan and robust, like they'd spent
time in the sunshine and fresh air than had her perfectly
sculj tured face, which was pale in comparison.
Where exactly are these beaches she frequents?
"But my darlings, you forgot condoms," Chuck joked li' the
horny jackass that he was. "Don't worryj I'm sure there
some lying around." Actually, there were--cases of thenij ll
the cabinet under the bathroom sink. It was gross. Who
could get through that many condoms before they passed
their sell by date? But Chuck's parents--although they'd
never actuallv engaged their son in a conversation about
safe-sex practices were adamant that the hotel's cleaning
staff keep the bathroom cabinet well stocked. That was de
rigueur with families such us the Basses, theWaldorfs, and
the van derWoodsens: anything in avoid a scandal.
Better safe than sorry, right?
The contessa reached for an oyster, and Blair slapped her
hand away. "Those are for my boyfriend," she hissed,
ogling the Italian contessa's perfectly shaped tan breasts
despite herself.
Serena stared at her best friend. Boyfriend? She tugged
anx- iously on the narrow gold Carrier tank watch on her
wrist. Tonight was going to be trickier than she'd thought.
She'd been in denial about it ail week, telling herself tales
such as, Blair will get drunk anyway and pass out, and then
he'll be mine, all mine.,.. I'll just confront Blair and tell her
that the last thing she needs right now is Nate. What she
really needs is therapy. The truth was, all she really had to
do was kiss Nate herself the minute he walked in the door.
He'd forget about L'Wren and carry her in his arms to a
hotel suite of their own. Blair
i imlil get over it eventually. She might be dangerously angry
t :i while, but they could just hide out in their suite drinking
uinpagne and snuggling until it was safe to come out.
Blair brandished aTriscuit with a few crumbs of caviar on it.
I li-re," she offered the Italian exhibitionist generously. "I like
ur shoes."
"Okay," the contessa replied, munching her Triscuit. She
iscd one Prada-adorned foot in the air and waggled her
spar-
i ling burgundy-colored toes. "Is hot, no?"
Blair and Serena both nodded. Serena, dressed in a biack
l 'nine von Furstenberg wrap dress and black Lanvin ballet
flats,
ln-r hair pulled back in a ponytail, felt plain in comparison.
Blair
INK! dressed more carefully and was wearing her favorite
char-
� mil gray Calvin Klein silk jersey T-shirt dress that looked
bor-
ing on the hanger but hugged her tennis-toned body in all
the
light places. Still, her boobs had never been nor probably
ever would be as tan and robust as Donatella's.
"Is hot," the girls repeated, nodding appreciatively at her
fan- liistic shoes. She really was pretty hot. Chuck didn't
deserve her.
Serena stared at Donatella's lovely naked breasts as she
munched a Triscuit and contemplated her next move. Then
Mate stumbled into the suite, carrying a black Bergdorf's
suit bag and looking completely adorable in a baked, wide-
eyed sort of way. Serena knew at once that she couldn't go
through with Blair's charade. She wasn't a selfish girl by
nature, but Nate was already hers and she wanted him. She
wanted him all to herself.
"Natie!" she exclaimed, dashing over to help him with his
things. "You look nervous. Come on, have a cocktail. It's
going to be fun, you'll see." Nate's eyes were huge and
emerald green. Serena was �� <� damned gorgeous.
Why the helJ was he going to that fancy dcl> utante dance
when he could just stay here and kiss her all nighi i1 Then
Blair was at his side, looking clean and beautiful, aiul
wielding a raw oyster on the end of a gleaming silver fork.
"Eat it, Natie," she cooed. "They're really cold and
slippery."
A few feet away some gorgeous girl with big, tanned
breasis, wearing only a pair of lacy white underwear, was
bent over ;i cut glass bowl filled with cigarettes. Behind her,
steam rose up from the hot tub, which was overflowing with
scantily clad girls and boys drinking directly out of a giant
bottle of Dom Peri- gnon. Luckily, Nate had gotten superbly
stoned with his new blue bong before he arrived. He felt like
he'd just walked into a full-on orgy.
"Come on." Serena and Blair each took one of his hands
and pulled him toward the couch. "You know you love us."
Blair's cell phone chimed and twitched in its place on the
glass coffee table. She grabbed it, hoping it was Sephora
on Broadway in SoHo calling to tell her they'd restocked her
favorite Hermes cologne, Eau d'Orange Verte, and were
sending some over to her right now. She'd sampled every
cologne they carried, and that was the one she'd chosen for
Nate--fresh and masculine, yet supremely edible. She was
going to spray it all over his chest and then kiss it off.
"Hello?This is Blair Waldorf," she answered in a
businesslike tone.
"Blair Bear? It's your dad."
She almost hung up immediately, but the truth was, she
missed her dad. She missed seeing him and hearing his
reason- able, lawyerly voice. She sat down on a velvety
taupe sofa and Milled a raw oyster into her mouth. "Thanks
so much for my i ii ien, Dad." Her voice was small and little
girl-like. "He's the
"I knew you had to have him," her father replied, but he
� nunded distracted, like he had more serious things than
kittens
i'ii his mind. "Bear, I don't know what your plans are tonight,
lull. I'd really like you to meet my new partner, and we're
staying
i i!*ht here at the Carlyle. You could walk over."
Blair rolled her eyes and glanced over at Nate. He looked
so i ute the way he was dipping his strawberries into his
champagne ,iud licking them off. She couldn't wait to dip
him in champagne .md lick him off.
"I'm actually pretty busy tonight, Dad," she sang into the
phone. "Why do you want me to meet some boring lawyer
guy you work with anyway? I mean, don't you guys have,
like, a case LO work on or something?" She knew she
sounded spoiled and obnoxious, but she'd inherited her
sassiness from him and she really did have a lot better
things to do tonight than meet one of his stuffy colleagues.
Her father chuckled. "Actually, Giles and I don't work
together. We met at a wine tasting at Bouley. He's my new
part- ner, meaning we're together. We're a couple."
Blair clutched the phone to her ear. A couple} Her father
had been having a "what's my bouquet" conversation with
someone named Giles when she'd overheard him in his
dressing room? Her father was gay? He was leaving her
mother and his own flesh and blood for some French loser
named Giles, and he was staying with Giles in a hotel only
a few blocks from their home? It was too unfathomable to
digest, especially with a stomach full of vodka and raw
oysters. Across the coffee table Nate dug into the pockets
of In Brooks Brothers khakis and pulled out handfuls of
condoms. One of the glass ashtrays was empty now, and
he filled it up willi an assortment of the colorfully wrapped
prophylactics that he'd obviously brought to use later on,
with L'Wren. Blair's fathci preferred Frenchmen and her
beloved was about to have sex with a pushy older slut. Blair
snatched up her glass of Stoli on the rocks and poured it
down her throat.
"Sorry, Daddy," she managed to gasp. "Maybe some other
time." Then she threw her phone across the room and
bolted past the crowded hot tub, headed for the superprivate toilet room located deep inside the stark white
bathroom, and locked the door behind her.
Serena lit a Gauloise and followed Blair, abandoning a
severely stoned Nate, who was feasting on oversize
chocolate- dipped strawberries while building a tower of
colorful condoms and staring at Donatella's boobs. She
could hear her friend retch- ing on the other side of the
door. She knocked softly. "Blair? Are you all right?"
Blair coughed, staggered to her feet, and flushed the toilet.
"He's gay," she gasped. Then she fell to her knees and
retched into the white porcelain bowl all over again.
"Who? Nate?" Of course Serena thought Blair was talking
about Nate. He was the only person on her mind, forever
and always.
Rising unsteadily to her feet, Blair flushed the toilet again
and opened die door. She walked out into the main
bathroom, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and yanked
open the cabinet underneath the sink. Trojan. Durex. The
shiny, brightly colored packages with their bold brand
names screamed at her like i ui id chorus. But behind the
cartons of condoms was a bottle of r.n-en minty Scope.
She grabbed it and took a giant swig, swirl- ing it around
before spitting noisily into the sink. "No." Serena � ould be
such an idiot sometimes. "My dad. My dad is gay. He
'� ven has a boyfriend. Some French fucker."
Serena stared at her. "But--"
"He just called me. He wanted me to come meet him and
UK 'partner' at their hotel." She clutched her stomach again,
her lace as green as the Scope she was holding in her
hands. Jesus. |esus fucking Christ.
"Oh, Blair." Serena's delicately clefted chin trembled. Her
navy blue eyes grew shiny, and two big fat tears rolled
down each lovely cheek. Blair's life was a disaster. But that
wasn't why she was crying. She was crying because now
that Blair had found out this extra-special bit of news about
her father, there was no way Serena could take Nate away
from her.
Could she? one day little j woke up and she wasn't so little
anymore "I am the master, I am the king. You lie at my feet!
You undulate when you hear my name!!" Zeke Freedman
roared as he gestic- ulated wildly with his Nintendo joystick.
Zeke had been Dan's best and only friend since
kindergarten. Back then, they had been the smallest boys in
the class and were more proficient in reading than
wrestling, and so they had bonded in their class- room's
library corner. Zeke was still a kindergartner in a lot of
ways. After doing the reading for their sophomore Africa
and the Middle East class last night, he had become
obsessed with the word undulate and was now trying to use
it in almost every sentence.
"And I'll urinate on your feet, dickweed," Dan shot back as
his lanky dreadlocked player onscreen made a perfect
jump shot.
"Oh, man," Zeke whined, hauling his gigantic gray widewale corduroys up over his woman-hips. In the past five
years Zeke had grown from the second-smallest boy in the
class to the largest. His shoulders were massive and
sloping, his hips resembled those of a woman pregnant
with her third set of trip- lets, his waist was undefined, his
chin was doughy---even his
172 <l:uk, curly hair was big. It wasn't that he ate too much
or didn't i scrcise, he was just "genetically awkward," as
Dan liked to re- mind him, in a playful;, best-friend sort of
way. "Next game my i liecrleaders are gonna undulate so
loud, you're gonna get so � lisiracted you won't know
where my shit is coming from!" Zeke proclaimed, fervently
tapping the buttons on his joystick to re- -.liirt the game.
Down the hall in her room, Jenny plugged her ears with liwr
fingers. It was bad enough that she was the only girl in the
liouse--did she have to spend another lonely Friday night at
linme listening to boys talk about urinating on each other?
She � .lammed the door and unbuttoned her shirt, dropping
it on the Moor where she stood. She unfastened her creamcolored satin iViaidenform 32A bra, which had been cutting
into her all day, leaving angry red welts on the tops of her
shoulders. She threw n into her trash can and pulled open
her underwear drawer, airefully removing Serena's powder
blue jog bra. "34B," the tag beckoned to her excitingly.
Sewn onto the bra's outer hem with liny, perfectly formed
white thread x's was a small rectangular white label with the
name SERENA VAN DER WOODSEN printed on ii in
looping red script. Without a mother or a maid to sew name
tags into their clothes, Jenny and Dan had lost a lot of
clothes over the years.
Hence the need to steal other people's things?
Jenny slung her underdeveloped arms through the
armholes and pulled the bra on over her head. Last time
she'd tried it on ii had just sort of fallen loosely down over
her rib cage, the way ihings do when they're ten sizes too
big. This time, the bra got stuck above her new boobs. She
yanked it down, amazed to find that she filled it almost
completely. "Dan!" she shouted, throwing open her door.
Without think ing about what she was doing, she sprinted
down the hall, her new boobs bouncing softly against their
cottony encasemenl. "It fits!" She slid into the study in her
sock feet, wearing only the powder blue jog bra and the
pair of red-heart Nick & Nora pajama bottoms her Dad had
given her last year for Valentine's Day.
"Yowza!" Zeke exclaimed, his big, curly dark hair looking
bigger than ever. And then he undulated. Or at least tried to.
"What the fuck, Jen?" Dan shook his head at her, annoyed.
She knew Zeke was there. What was she trying to prove?
Jenny's cheeks turned pink, but she stood her ground. "I just
wanted to tell you that you-know-who's you-know-what
almost fits me. See?" She pointed to her nicely swollen
chest.
How discreet.
Then she spotted Dan's beaten-up cell phone on the worn
brown leather sofa and lunged for it.
"Hey," he cried, attempting to rescue it. Zeke undulated
again, and Dan realized he'd lost the game.
Jenny crouched protectively on the linty Oriental rug as she
began to punch the phone's buttons. "I'm just calling
Vanessa to tell her--"
"No!" Dan shrieked, diving floorward to tackle her. He and
Zeke were supposed to be hanging out, and Zeke didn't
even know Vanessa existed. Dan didn't want to have to
explain his and Vanessa's relationship, because he
honestly didn't quite know how to explain it. Jenny rolled
onto her back, still holding the phone, and kicked him
roughly away. Dan flew across the room like one of those
disposable bad guys in a James Bond movie. Hvcn a tiny
girl's legs can be surprisingly powerful. It's all 1 mi ballet
we're forced to take in elementary school.
1
"Hey Vanessa, it's Jenny." She spoke quickly into the
phone.
Vou know, Dan's sister?" Obviously Vanessa didn't say
much I >i-c;iuse Jenny immediately blurted out her news.
"Guess what?
I liL-y grew! So I totally won't take the pills anymore. I'm
stop- 1'iug today. I mean, I'm already at the size I wanted so
I guess ii '� . time to stop. Anyway, I just thought you should
know. Oh,
I1 id Dan wants to talk to you," she added, tossing the
phone to In r disgruntled brother.
He glared menacingly at his little sister and put the phone to
I us ear. "Hi," he greeted her in a tiny voice. His face was
flushed .ii id his hands were all sweaty. He swallowed
nervously. "How � ux you?" She didn't say anything.
"Hello?"
Zeke stopped mid-undulation. "Who's Vanessa?' he asked
loudly. "Dan's got a girlfriend! Dan's got a girlfriend! Who is
�� lie? One of Jenny's classmates?"
"Hello?" Dan repeated, his face hot.
"Shush!" Jenny scolded Zeke. She kicked him in the foot.
"Please?"
"Hello?" Dan asked for the third time. Vanessa must have
hung up on him. Or maybe she was never there in the first
place, (enny could be sneaky like that.
"Dan's got a girlfriend!" Zeke cried and undulated again.
"Oh, and by the way, you lost another game."
Dan sat on the leather sofa, glaring at life in general.
Now who's feeling genetically awkward? II s scores with two
girls in one night!
"Remember cuddles in the kitchen "
Nate listened to his favorite Arctic Monkeys song with a
devilish grin plastered across his face. Damn, was this
going to be a good night. Already he was at a party with a
mostly naked gorgeous Italian countess and his two best
friends, who were looking particularly hot themselves. Pretty
soon he'd be all decked out in his Armani tux, ready to
meet L'Wren, who was just about the horniest girl he'd ever
met in his life. Of course, her parents would be at the
cotillion, and he'd have to dance and make stupid polite
conversation with some of the debs and their escorts. But
as soon as they'd gotten through all the formalities, they'd
be up in L'Wren's hotel suite, doing it.
He checked his watch. Five after seven. Time to start
getting ready if he was going to be at the St. Claire Hotel in
Midtown by eight. He glanced around the crowded suite in
semi-stoned con- fusion. Kati Farkas and Isabel Coates
were trying on Chuck's father's Hermes ties, wearing
nothing but bras and jeans. When did they get so mature}
Nate wondered, ogling them. Did Ser- ena and Blair look
like that in just their bras? Weren't they sup- � iscd to be
helping him get ready---giving him dancing school pointers
and rubbing aftershave on his temples? Where were i key,
anyway?
Donatella perched on the edge of the glass coffee table
and spread a lump of black beluga caviar on aTriscuit. She
took a liny bite and then offered Nate the rest. "Okay?" she
asked with :i bright smile.
He took the Triscuit and devoured it, wondering if she was
retarded or just foreign. "Have you seen my friends? The
two pretty girls who were sitting here before? They were
wearing dothes," he added helpfully.
Donatella's gray eyes lit up enthusiastically. "Cute!" She
turned :ind pointed through the steam drifting from the hot
tub.
The suite was crowded and noisy, and someone had
turned up the latest cheesy Justin Timberlake dance song
on the Bose sound system, but a series of hysterical
giggles penetrated the din. The little hairs on Nate's
lacrosse-toned arms stood on end. He'd recognize that
sound anywhere. It was a sound that made more than just
his hair stand on end.
Yikes!
Listening to Serena laugh was like being tickled. It gave
him shivers and an adrenaline rush. It made him see stars
and lose coordination. It made him feel like he had to go to
the bathroom, which was exactly where he was going right
now. Not the toilet part of the bathroom, the hot tub part of
the bathroom--the source of the sound.
"Hello?" Nate called cautiously through the steam. More
giggles, combined with the humming gurgle of the hot tub's
jets, Bare pink skin glistened wetly beneath the surface of
the churn- ing water. "Who's in there, anyway?" He took a
step closer. Two slick heads popped up out of the bubbles,
one fair and C dark.
"It's just us, Natie," Blair called out. She smoothed her cht||
nut brown hair back against her head so that it was sha
commercial perfect. Her still-tan-from-Christmas-in-St.-B
arms were crossed over her chest in a totally lame attempt
{ hide the fact that she was completely naked. "I was feelll
yucky, so I decided to take a Jacuzzi," she explained,
gloss! over the more painful details of her absurdly
depressing r life.
"Hot tubs are my favorite," Serena chimed in. She leaned h
damp blond head back on the marble tile, exposing her l
perfect neck, among other things. "From now on, I'm
conduct"! ing all my affairs from underwater."
Nate sat down on the edge of the tub, soaking his khakil, I
Jesus, Serena was so damned gorgeous. It made him
unspeak- 1 ably aroused just to look at her. Strangely, he
was hoping hll | night with L'Wren would cure him of this
problem. If he had sex with L'Wren and sort of got it out of
his system, maybe he wouldn't think about Serena so
much--at least not in such a horny way. After all, he was in
love with her, and it seemed sort of wrong to feel that
jacked up about a girl you were so in love with, especially
when she was your best friend.
Like that makes any sense?
"Aren't you guys supposed to be helping me get ready?" he
demanded, glancing at his watch. He was already late. It
was only a matter of how late. L'Wren didn't seem like the
type of girl who'd be that forgiving, either, especially not
when she had a hidden agenda. "You know I'm ass at bow
ties," he added, wincing at how stupid he sounded. Lately
his friends had been Inn ihe word ass all the time, but
whenever he said it, he
HHIKIU he sounded like a weiner.
Ynp.
1
� ' rona giggled again, sending Nate's entire body into a
frenzy.
In ilidn't get to that cotillion and lose his virginity ASAP, he
1
n . coing to freaking lose his mind. "I better go," he
muttered,
muling up.
"No!" Blair's heart was racing. She was naked and Nate
was
tifjn there, looking stoned and a little tipsy and totally over-
wlii-lmed, but also so ridiculously cute that she just wanted
to
Hi.ih him and pull him into the water. He couldn't leave. She
iihsolutely could not allow him to leave. Tonight was
supposed
m he their night, and no way was Nate going to hook up
with
ili;ii slutty bitch who would totally ruin him forever. She shot
'ii-rena a "help me do something!" glance and jabbed her
friend's � luipely gluteus maximus with her carefully
exfoliated heel.
Serena kicked her back. She wanted Nate to hop into the
tub wiih them just as much as Blair did. "Natie?" she
cooed. "You li;ivc to change into your tux anyway. Why don't
you just get in, .ind then we'll help you get dressed."
Nate shrugged. He could never say no to Serena,
especially not when she was so naked in a bathtub built for
two, or three, nr four or five. "All right. But just for a minute."
He tugged off his grayT-shirt and threw it on the floor.
"Close your eyes."
Both girls pretended to close their eyes, barely staying conscious as he removed his pants, his silly sherbet orange
boxer shorts, and finally his socks. Oh, oh, oh!
Then, just as quickly, the boxers were back on. "I can't do
this. I'm late. I have to go. Will you guys please just, like, put
some robes on or something and help me?" Nate pleaded.
Aw.
Serena and Blair had to pinch themselves to keep from
squealing at his utter adorableness. "We are helping you,"
Blair insisted firmly. "Get in."
"Would it help if you knew we weren't at all threatening?"
Serena asked coyly, cocking a perfectly plucked pale
eyebrow. She grabbed Blair and kissed her right on the
lips, using her tongue and everything. "See?" she said,
pulling away. "We're lesbians." Underwater Blair stomped
on her foot and elbowed her in the side, but Serena kept on
smiling at Nate, daring him to get in.
Of course now he had to, because something ridiculous
was happening inside his orange boxers, and the only
place to hide it or kill it was under the bubbles in 103degree water. "Cover your eyes again, with your hands.
And no peeking, you jerks," he told them angrily, even
though he was anything but angry. How the fuck could they
do this to him? Serena especially. Fuck the party. Fuck
L'Wren. He was going to hook up with Serena again
tonight. And this time they weren't just going to kiss, he was
pretty damned sure of it. He loved her, and he was pretty
damned sure she loved him back, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with getting together with someone you
loved and trusted. It had to be way better than any one-night
thing with some college chick.
He jumped in with a huge warm splash and all his worries
left him. "Hello, ladies," he greeted them goofily. "I mean,
hello, friendly lesbians."
Blair giggled and swam a little closer to him. Her whole
body felt so electric she was worried she'd get a shock. "I'm
not really a lesbian," she declared boldly. "I just like kissing.
I'll kiss any- one. Especially my friends." Serena could feel
her own hands drifting through the warm wiiLer toward
Nate's body, reaching for him. He was hers, her Natie, and
she couldn't wait to kiss him again. And again. And ; train.
"I don't want you to go to that dance with that girl," Ser- � i
iu heard Blair murmur bravely. Serena dropped her hands
and lorced them behind her back. Blair looked so hopeful,
and her I M was just so shitty right now. She deserved to
have a moment
e .ilnne with Nate. After a few minutes, he'd sweetly reject
her, i wne find Serena, sweep her up in his arms, and carry
her off to
liend a blissfully romantic night together. The first of many.
"Maybe I won't go," Nate replied, edging toward Serena.
That's right, Serena thought blissfully as Nate drifted in her
ilirection. He was grinning at her in that irresistibly cocky
way � [' his, and it was all she could do to keep from hurling
herself :ii him. Then Blair giggled giddily and flicked water
at Nate's head, and Serena was once more reminded of
her mission. "I've > hanged my mind," she announced,
placing her hands firmly on i lie side of the tub. "I do like
boys."
Nate chuckled and slipped his arm around her bare waist,
pulling her toward him. Of course she liked boys. She liked
him. She loved him.
Serena squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to
wriggle ;md splash out of his grasp. "Actually, I've always
really wanted 10 kiss Chuck," she lied, pulling herself up
and out of the tub. She grabbed a white terry-cloth Tribeca
Star Frette robe from uff a chrome hook and wrapped it
tightly around her body. "This should be fun.," she added
glibly and traipsed off to find Chuck, whom she'd have to
kiss now to give her lie some authenticity, but at least Nate
would know where to find her. Chuck and Donatella were
standing by the door of the suil feeding each other one last
Stoli-dipped oyster before leaving for the cotillion. They
were both dressed now--rather exqulJ sitely, too--she in a
cream-colored 1940s Old Hollywood-stylfll Prada capslccved gown embellished with pearls and a white 1 ermine
shrug, and he in a sleek black Armani tux with tails anil I a
white bow tie.They looked like actors about to walk down
the | aisle for the first take of their big wedding scene.
"Kiss me," Serena commanded Chuck urgently. She stood
I on tiptoe, shut her eyes tight, and pulled his handsome but
still | repulsive face toward hers. "Quickly."
"I'm all over it!" he exclaimed loudly, lunging at her with his 1
big, hungry mouth. Serena kept her eyes closed, her head
swim- ming with the strong scent of Chuck's Egoiste
cologne. It fell j like he was gobbling her whole.
"Cute!" Donatella exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight.
Serena managed to tear herself away from Chuck and
wiped ' her mouth thoroughly on the sleeve of her robe.
Blech.
"Your turn!" Chuck cried ecstatically and grabbed Dona- '
tella, delivering another one of his famous, head-eating
kisses. Donatella giggled and then whirled around, her
white silk gown fanning out around her ankles as she
grasped Serena's shoul- ders and kissed her on the mouth
just for good measure. She tasted like olives and kissed
way better than Chuck could ever hope to.
"Cute!" she exclaimed again as Serena wiped her mouth
on her odier sleeve. Obviously Donatella thought this was
some sort of pre-party American custom--a kiss orgy.
Or maybe she really was retarded.
1 d really sort of maybe does have a girlfriend
"Are you getting that?" Jenny yelled at Dan from her room
when
i lie downstairs buzzer rang for the second time. They
weren't
ixpecting anyone, but their dad, Rufus, had gone downtown
to ii poetry slam with some of his communist Beat poet
cronies.
Maybe he'd drunk too much absinthe and had come home
nirly to sleep it off, losing his keys in the process. Jenny
was busy trying on bras and shirts and dresses and
admiring her hudding boobs. She needed an entirely new,
more womanly wardrobe--clothes with V-necks and scoop
necks and buttons lo unbutton and show off her cleavage.
Not that she really wanted anyone else to look at it---she
just liked looking at it herself. She wanted to be able to go
to the bathroom in the middle of math class, see her
reflection in the mirror over the sink, and say, "Hello,
cleavage! Where have you been all my life?"
Rest assured, she won't be the only one saying hello.
The bell rang again. "Dan?" Jenny shouted again. She
opened her door wearing a child's size ten pink-and-purple
vertical- striped Speedo one-piece that was so tight and
revealing on top it looked like more like a bustier than a
bathing suit, ;iinl stomped angrily down the hall to see who it
was.
Dan was in the study, busy writing another poem in ln:>
black leather-bound notebook. Zeke had left soon after
Jenny \ embarrassing announcement that her chest was
finally a size 54X or whatever. Since then, Dan had been
busy cutting urn one of Jenny's blond paper angels and
pasting it on the inside cover of his notebook while he
mused on a new metaphor. lie thought about how angels
had wings and were therefore m� n like birds than
people.The only birds he was really familiar wiili were
pigeons, and the pigeons he knew were always taking
bath:, in puddles or water fountains. What if Serena were a
pigeon anil flew up to his window, but he couldn't open the
window and k-i her in because he had been caught like a
lobster and was beiny, boiled alive in a big pot?
Okay, Crazy. Whatever you say.
I can't breathe with this lid on
Let a little air in
Dip your zoing
Take a bath
Get in
I'm turning red
It's not your fault
I'm so red
"Hi honey, I'm home."
Dan looked up from his latest masterpiece, Vanessa stood
in the doorway wearing black fishnet kneesocks, black
wool Ber- muda shorts, a black peacoat, and her black
combat boots. Her i'.ile cheeks were pink with cold and her
big brown eyes were I >right with amusement. Dan had only
seen her twice before, and he'd thought she was uniquelooking. Not ugly, but not bcau- liful either. Right now,
though, she looked perfectly fresh and amazing, like she'd
just been unwrapped from cellophane--the i-oolestj most
original girl ever invented. Jenny hovered behind lier
wearing a little kid's Speedo swimsuit that was ten times
mo small. Her curly dark hair was pulled into a tight ponytail,
:is if to make her chest more pronounced. Like he hadn't
seen I'nough of it already?
Vanessa unbuttoned her peacoat and threw it down on the
worn leather sofa next to Dan. "Whatcha writing? Anything I
need to see?"
He closed the book and held it protectively against his
chest. "I'm still working on it."
She shrugged her shoulders, knowing she'd get him to
show it to her eventually. Dan was looking at her funny. "Did
you miss me?" she asked hopefully. It was all she could do
to keep from lumping into his lap and planting a big fat kiss
on those thin blue-pink lips of his.
Dan didn't say anything, but his face turned as red as the
lobster in his poem.
Vanessa glanced at Jenny. "If you need bigger tops or
what- rver, I can loan you some. I can even take you
shopping." She felt � iorry for Jenny, growing up in a house
full of weird, awkward men who dressed badly. Not that
Dan's clothes were too awful--they just looked like they'd
been thrown from the washing machine into a drawer
without ever being folded properly.
As long as he stays away from his dad's red stretch pants
he'll he fine. Jenny looked skeptically at Vanessa's all-black
outfit am! closely shorn hair. Thanks, but no thanks. "That's
okay. D;ul said I could borrow the credit card tomorrow. He
gave me n three-hundred-dollar limit, which isn't great, but I
guess it's fair. I mean, whatever I buy now probably won't
even fit in the fall. I'm still growing."
Yes, we know.
"Okay," Vanessa responded. "But why don't you put something else on now and toss that bathing suit in the Goodwill
pile? It's hurting us just as much as it's hurting you," she
added gently.
Jenny blushed and trotted down the hall, loving the way hci
new boobs bounced. Vanessa was nice. She was glad
she'd let hci in. If only Dan wasn't such a loser. He'd
probably say something really dumb now and Vanessa
would run from the apartmeni screaming, when what he
really ought to do was just kiss her.
So young, and yet so wise.
"Sorry I didn't say anything on the phone," Vanessa
apologized, still standing in the doorway. "I can get pretty
testy sometimes. I'm better in person," she added, feeling
slightly embarrassed. It was pretty obvious that she liked
him. He must have figured it out by now.
"You are better in person. Did you get another haircut or
something?" Dan faltered. What he meant to say was, she
looked prettier than when he'd seen her a few days ago, but
he couldn'i exactly say that, could he? What were they
supposed to be talk- ing about anyway?
Vanessa shrugged and shook her head. Then she went
over to the sofa, pushed her coat out of the way, and sat
down. The Humphreys' apartment reminded her of her
parents' house in ' i montj the house she'd grown up in. It
was full of shit, like � u-ryone was afraid to throw anything
away. Used tissues that lull missed the trash can collected
on the floor. Decks of play- mi; cards with missing cards
were stacked on the bookshelves.
A dusty red Radio Flyer wagon was parked in the corner of
the living room, a relic of Jenny and Dan's childhood.
Dan was still clutching the black leather-bound book. She
i'niched it with her fingertips. "Can I?"
lie hugged the notebook even closer to his chest. The more
v.messa read, the more transparent he became. It was
scary, '� n ing someone read the crazy stuff that poured
out of his mind, unchecked. Even scarier still was the notion
that she wanted to publish his ravings for everyone to read--including Serena.
"Only if you let me see some of your pictures first," he bar-
r.lined.
"Fine," Vanessa agreed. She dug around in her coat
pocket � nid retrieved her Nikon digital camera. "I'm not
even sure what's on here." The camera beeped on and she
scooted closer 10 Dan so he could see the pictures on the
tiny screen.
This was nice, he realized, loosening his hold on the little
Mack book. It was nice to hang out with a cool girl on a
Friday m$it. His father wasn't even home.They could get
drunk if they wanted to. Watch R-rated movies. Do normal
teenagery things.
Whs this what normal people did? He couldn't even
remember what he normally did on Friday nights.
Sometimes he and Jenny I.layed Scrabble.
Good times.
Vanessa clicked through the photos in her camera's
memory. "Hold on. My sister would kill me if she knew I
showed you iliese." She shielded the screen and skipped
over some pretty risque shots of Ruby taking a bath
withTofu. When she reachi � ! the series of gum-on-thesidewalk shots, she handed the camci:i back to Dan.
"Nice," he observed. It was sort of heartening to know thai
Vanessa could spend that much time photographing a wad
ul spat-out gum. It was almost worse than writing a poem
from tin.' point of view of a lobster being boiled alive.
Almost.
"It looks like something from inside you, doesn't it? Yon
know that pink color that you see when they're doing
operations on like, ER?" she observed, admiring her own
handiwork.
Dan looked up from the camera. Sometimes Vanessa saiil
things that sounded exactly like something he might have
said himself. He liked it, but it was also a little freaky.
"What?" she demanded, trying not to sound hopeful. Was
Dan about to kiss her?
"Nothing." Dan turned back to the camera. The next series
of pictures were the ones Blair had taken of Vanessa
getting her head shaved at the barber. "Wow, your hair was
really long before. Weren't you nervous?" It was hard to
imagine her with all that luxurious-looking shiny black hair. It
was also hard to imagine why she'd want to shave it all off.
"Nah." Vanessa admired the picture of herself smiling
devil- ishly at her own reflection in the barbershop mirror
while the barber shaved a swath of hair off the back of her
scalp. She looked pretty cool, even if she did say so
herself. Dan hit the right-hand arrow key with his thumb and
a picture of Serena with her back to the camera, her bare
butt cheeks just peeking out from beneath a barely there
purple velvet mmidress, appeared on the screen. She
glanced over her shoulder, grinning knowingly. Printed on 1
curvaceous pale pink butt cheek was a perfect rosy red
1
ll
Oh!" Dan exclaimed. His hands began to shake, and he
� Itnpped the camera on the faded Oriental carpet.
Vanessa retrieved it, turned it off, and tossed it back in IN I
bag. "Sorry, that one was sort of pornographic too." She 11
iwned. "I guess I'm kind of a pervert. I never realized."
1
Dan stared blankly back at her, wondering if he could send
I" i on some sort of time-consuming errand so he could
scan iimmgh the rest of her pictures and see if there were
any more � � I Serena. He didn't care how perverted it
was, he had to see
ilu-m.
Hey, since they're both self-proclaimed perverts, why not
Inok at the pictures together and have a pervert party?
"Do you want to order a pizza? I think my dad even has
<>me beer in the fridge." He fumbled in his pockets and lit
a � ii;arette with trembling fingers. It had only been a week,
but he � v;is already hooked. Of course he knew it was bad
for him, but 1 nit was the most alluring part of it. If he wanted
to be a poet
1 like Keats or Kerouac, he had to die early. His dad even
let him
moke in his room. "You make your own choices, you pay
the � ' msequences," Rufus had told him dismissively.
If only more parents were equally dismissive.
Vanessa shrugged her shoulders. "Sure, pizza is good. I
don't i Irink beer, it tastes like snot." She waited for him to
get up and I'd the pizza menu or bring her a glass of water,
but he just sat ihcre, puffing furiously on his cigarette,
looking adorably for- lorn.
"The menus are in the kitchen," he lied. Dan and Jenny had
i lie number for the pizza place memorized, but Rufus
distrusted takeout, saying it was "full of rat poop and
cockroach feelers,1 and usually threw out all the menus that
appeared under tin- front door. "Try the drawer to the right
of the sink," Dan sug- gested, knowing that was the drawer
where Rufus threw all the recipes he clipped out of
newspapers and magazines, plus all the gizmos he used to
tie up his unruly hair. The drawer was abso Iutely loaded
with crap.
Vanessa glared critically at him for a moment. Was Dan
onv of those guys who seemed enlightened but was really
living in the dark ages, expecting the females to do
everything in the way of preparing food and keeping
house? Or maybe he just wasn'i supposed to smoke in the
kitchen. She got up to look for the menu. "I'll be right back,"
she told him, snatching his black leather-bound notebook
from off his lap and tucking it under her arm. If the pizza
place kept her on hold, at least she'd have something to
read.
"No, please d--" Dan began to protest. Then he remembered he was about to steal Vanessa's camera out of her
bag and hopefully download some of the pictures of Serena
stored inside it onto his computer, although he wasn't sure
he had the capac- ity to be that sneaky. "I like pepperoni,"
he said instead.
"Gotcha." Vanessa flipped open the notebook as she
walked down the hall to the kitchen. Pasted inside the cover
was one of the blond angels Jenny had drawn for the
hymnal contest. Van- essa continued to turn the pages.
Supporting his sister, that was nice, she guessed.
Guess again. a kiss is just a kiss--at least, that's the lie we
tell ourselves I'.lair sat on her hands on one of the hot tub's
submerged marble ledges. The jets pummeled her back,
causing her whole body lo vibrate. Nate sat on the opposite
ledge, his damp chin rest- ing listlessly on the side of the
tub as he watched Serena kiss Chuck and then Donatella.
What the fuck was going on? Serena could be such a
tease. Or maybe he'd been totally wrong and she wasn't as
into him as he thought she was.
But maybe all was not lost. He was still going to the cotillion with L'Wren. The loss of his virginity was imminent. This
was a good thing. The idea that he was going to have sex
with Serena instead of L'Wren had been just a momentary
blun- der caused by too muchTHC in the marijuana. El
Capitdn. El Capitdn! He raised his head. "I'm late," he told
Blair urgently. "I have to go."
Blair knew this was her cue. She blinked the steam out of
her fierce blue eyes, steeling herself for the most important
role she'd played thus far in the movie that was her life. Her
mother was fat and pathetic. Her father was selfish and
gay. Her little brother was destined for loserdom. Basically,
her life had been a colossal waste of time--until now. Nate
was right there in fi of her. Carpe diem. Now was her
chance to seize the day.
Among other things worth seizing.
Nate lunged for one of the white plush towels folded nenilv 1
on the heated metal shelving unit standing just out of reach
nf j the tub. "Damn."
Blair sprang out of the tub and gathered up two towels. She
J wrapped one around her body and then handed one to
Nate.
He got out, trying to act as cool as possible, and wrapped
the J towel rightly around his middle. "Thanks," he smiled
down n( I her appreciatively and shook the water out of his
hair. "Damn, I I'm so late."
"I don't want you to go, Nate," Blair murmured again, her
voice quavering but insistent. Water dripped off the ends of
i her long dark hair and onto her bare shoulders, causing
her to shiver.
Nate's glittering green eyes seemed to brighten even more
as he looked at her, as if he were noticing her for the first
time. Blair looked up at him, feeling like she was going to
be sick again, bui this time in a good way. "What if we--"
she began, wishing her heart wasn't beating quite so loudly,
so she could hear herself think. "What if we just--" She
stopped and licked her shapely lips. Nate's almond-shaped
eyes and perfectly sculpted face seemed to be the only
things of color in the room. God, how she loved him. "Why
don't we just kiss?" she finished quickly.
Nate frowned. Blair wanted him to kiss her--now, when he
was about to leave to meet a very hot older girl and
hopefully have sex with her? Now, when he'd just been
rejected by Serena? How could he kiss Blair when they'd
known each other since preschool? She used to leave little
lumpy Play-Doh hearts in his rilnn-, when he took them off
during nap time. He cinched his
|tmi-l a little tighter. Actually, it made perfect sense. Blair
had
nl>\ .iys liad a crush on him, and she was one of his best
friends.
� li- WHS pretty and funny and smart, and she probably
knew
I I letter than he knew himself. She was such a perfectionist,
I mi -ilic'd always accepted him, with all his faults.
Vrena had left because she didn't want to kiss him. But
Blair � li.l, :ind he loved Blair too. He'd never thought about
kissing
In i until now, but why not? Maybe he'd had the wrong girl all
� il.iiiji;. Maybe he'd just lusted after Serena and thought it
was
< t\v, when really it was Blair he loved all along. Even the
way she
l
..nil "Let's just kiss" was pretty romantic. She wasn't all hot
and I" > 1 icred. She didn't want to writhe around naked in
die hot tub
1 like L'Wren would have. She just wanted to keep their
towels on .MHI kiss, which made him feel sort of mature
and cool.
Mate took a step forward. Blair looked up at him
expectantly, InT lips parted. He wrapped his arms around
her as he'd done ',<� many times before, and it wasn't
awkward or tense--it was loiafly familiar. He ducked his
head down and kissed her, as lic'd also done so many
times before, but this time he kissed lu-r on her nice peachcolored lips, not her cheek. The kiss was lung and sweet,
and she was sort of exploring his mouth with her quick,
warm tongue in a way that made him smile when he was
kissing her. He held her a little tighter. Yeah, kissing Blair
was all right.
She pulled away and pressed her cheek into his bare
chest. "I love you, Nate," she whispered quietly into his
damp skin. "I've always loved you." Blair's entire body felt
like wax after it had melted and then cooled. She was
rubbery, pliable.
Nate tucked his hands under her wet hair and pulled her
head away from his chest so he could kiss her again. Blair
was so cute and dramatic, it made him feel like he was
acting in some big cheesy romance movie. Guess he'd
have to forget the cotillion and hooking up with L'Wren. He
couldn't leave now, not when there was all this kissing to do.
Blair's lips tasted like Triscuits and vodka. They tasted
nice. And she wasn't going anywhere. He could kiss her all
night if he wanted to, because he wasn't going anywhere
either. Knowing that made him feel satisfied and happy and
psyched to kiss her even more.
Across the suite, through the steam, Serena watched their
dark, wet heads come together and stay together. It really
was romantic--the way their pristine white towels were
wrapped so neatly around their bodies, the tender way
Nate was holding Blair's head. Serena's vision began to
blur and hot tears slid down her cheeks. Angry with herself
for standing there gaping like an idiot, she grabbed her
discarded clothes and her raspberry- colored coat from off
the floor and hurried out of the suite to change in one of the
hotel's lobby restrooms. She couldn't bear to watch any
more.
And this is only the beginning. don't believe everything you
read
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to a whole B cup! I'm only twelve and a
half, and I was totally flat before. I
feel so much better about myself now,
and I can actually wear clothes that I
like, like bikinis and V-necks, with no
drooping parts in the front! I think I
even walk differently now. Anyway, thanks
for listening. You're the bestl!
Sincerely,
Jennifer Humphrey
P.S. See below for pictures of ray
transformation! While Jenny was next door in her room,
uploading picturei J from her pink Hello Kitty digital camera
of herself wearing h black tube top at various stages of
growth to share with the digi-1 tal universe, Dan sat at his
desk in front of his computer and 1 frantically whizzed
through Vanessa's morbid pictures until he I came to the
one of Serena and her bare butt cheeks. He clicked
download and then moved on to the picture of Serena and
her pretty, dark-haired friend. Serena's smile was even
better in th;it one--more otherworldly and cunning. He could
always crop the other girl out. He clicked download again.
"Jesus fucking Christ!" Vanessa's voice echoed down the
hall from the kitchen.There was a clattering sound as
various objects dropped out of Rufus's special drawer and
skittered across the linoleum. Hastily Dan clicked through
the fifty-odd other photos on the camera. There were lots of
pictures of pigeons, puddles, people sleeping on benches,
assorted garbage, and Vanessa's sister, Ruby, but no
more of Serena. He yanked the cord out of the camera and
hurried back to the study.
"Screw the pizza menu, I can't even find a fucking cup in
this kitchen," Vanessa called down the hall from the kitchen,
her voice brassy with annoyance. "Are you done smoking?
Think you could maybe help me find this fucker since it's
your house,
Dan grinned at Vanessa's total lack of falsehood. She
wasn't trying to impress anyone. She wasn't flirting, or
pretending to be bored, or up-talking. She just wanted to
order a pizza. He felt bad for sneaking her camera behind
her back, but she'd never have to know about it, and it was
for a good cause.
The I Worship Serena van derWoodsen Lameness Fund?
"Coming!" he shouted as he tossed the camera back into f
V.nicssa's black waxed canvas rucksack. He hurried down
the
lull 10 the kitchen to find her seated at the cracked Formica
I ni hen table, busily reading one of his latest poems, her
cheeks
ihr.lied with delight.
I'm turning red
It's not your fault
I'm so red
(>h, yes it is, Vanessa thought to herself, thrilled with the
uoiion that Dan blushed when he thought about her, just like
in- blushed when she thought about him.
"That one's not finished yet," he explained awkwardly as he
i � i cad the poem over her shoulder, his hands trembling
with em-
l i.irrassment, He still wanted to add a few lines, something
about
how Cupid had wings so he was a bird too. Cupid was a
pigeon?
No, that was ridiculous. But it seemed necessary to invoke
Cupid
Alien he was discussing Serena as a pigeon/angel.
Okay, freak/genius.
"Just give it to me when it's ready. I figure I'll publish a
vries of five or six of your poems in the magazine. People
are
r,oing to be so impressed with Anonymous when it comes
out,
if 11 be a fuckfest, with everyone trying to figure out who
she
is." She slapped the book closed. "Hey, what happened to
our
l>izza?"
Dan took his notebook back and tucked it protectively
under
his arm. "646-555-PEEZA," he recited mechanically.
Vanessa stood up, a full two inches taller than him. She
poked him hard in his skinny stomach, all of a sudden
grate-
ful that she'd never had a brother. Boys were idiots.
"Thanks,
197 Stormfield. I'll take extra cheese and onions." She bit
her liji, wondering if she and Dan were going to be doing
any kissing later. "Actually no onions. Just cheese. Please,"
she added IIHM ily. "And some ginger ale."
Two hours later, a wasted half-pepperoni, half-extra-chu'rn1
pizza, two cans of ginger ale, and four empty bottles of
Amsicl Light lay on the floor of the Humphreys' study. The
Late Shut flickered dumbly on the old Philips TV screen, but
neither Van essa nor Dan was really watching it.They sat on
the floor will their backs propped up against the ancient
brown leather solsi, their shoulders touching. Vanessa
wondered if Dan had drunk enough beer now that he
wouldn't have a seizure if she kissiM him. She was pretty
sure it would be a first kiss for both of them He certainly
acted like someone who'd never been kissed, and she
knew she definitely hadn't.
Dan had been watching Vanessa out of the corner of his
eye for a while. Her big brown eyes were really pretty, and
her lips were really red. Or maybe her lips were having
some sort of allergic reaction to the pepperoni, which she
kept stealing off his slices. Vanessa was no Serena, but he
still couldn't help wonder- ing what it would feel like to kiss
her. Then he felt perverted for even thinking about it. Just
because she was a girl didn't mean she was a sex object,
Jenny's voice scolded him. His little femi- nist sister who
desperately wanted tits.
He stretched his legs out and yawned, sort of nudging Vanessa in the process. She giggled and kicked him back.
Then she just sort of grabbed him and pulled his face
toward hers until their lips were touching. It was just a little
wet kiss that tasted like pepperoni: no tongue. ., iu\ brain
flickered off and on, like aTV set in an electrical
A pigeon flapped by his face and he thought he smelled
i i lume from the sample Jenny dabbed on her wrists and
�� silicr she took a bath. She claimed it was the same
per-
Serena wore: Cristalle. Then the TV set in his head went
Vmicssa stared at Dan where he lay sprawled out on the
floor I |li limit' of her. He appeared to be unconscious. She
seized his
millers and shook him gently. "Dan? Are you alive? Do I
need
In i nil nine-one-one?"
11 is eyes fluttered open. "Cristalle," he murmured with a
bad
i ii in-h accent.
1
You're scaring me," she whispered. A strand of drool clung
i" Ins pale cheek. She wiped it away with her stub-nailed
thumb.
"I.IV something normal. Who wrote Jude the Obscure}"
'" Thomas Hardy," he responded automatically.
She relaxed her grip on his shoulders. Of course the boy
lie was falling for had to be the most immature person alive.
\ mere kiss sent him reeling. Maybe she was moving too
fast.
Maybe he needed a month or two of just sitting on the sofa
ii'i-ling the electricity between their thighs and taking walks
ind breathing in the sultry spring air.Then finally he'd pounce
"ii her, unable to resist.
"I think you need to stop smoking so much," she advised,
help- ing him stagger to his feet. She led him down the hall
to his bed- ioom. "And drink more water instead of instant
coffee and beer."
The room was dark and soothing. Dan climbed into bed
like a t^ood boy. He'd always been a lightweight, but to faint
like t h a t - come on, how embarrassing. He took the glass
of water Vanessa handed him and drank it slowly. His
hands were shaking. Maybe it wasn't the beer. Maybe it
was all the excitement of downloi ing those pictures of
Serena.
Or the excitement of knowing he could look at them e time
he wanted?
"You go to sleep." Vanessa took the empty glass and
pano( his hand. "I'm going home." She hesitated, not daring
to kiti him again, not even on the cheek, for fear of sending
him in( cardiac arrest. Instead, she tiptoed out of the room
and s closed the door. Dan was so fragile, he was exactly
like < of those sickly poets from England who died in their
twentiai because life was too full of beauty and tragedy for
them to b He was probably more romantic than she was,
more romantii than any girl.
And that kind of made her love him even more. oven though
he's not a cat person "W;int to meet my new kitten?" Blair
took Nate's hand and
pulled him down the hall to her bedroom. They hadn't even
uilkcd in the car on the way home from theTribeca
Star.They hiidn't talked much all night. They'd just been
kissing--in the sicamy hot tub, in their comfy white robes, on
the crowded sofa while they shared one last cocktail, and
then in the cab on the way home. It was as if they couldn't
get enough of each other. They just wanted to kiss and kiss.
Like they'd been crav- ing something for years but hadn't
known what it was and now linally they'd found it.
Yum.
A small gray cat with creepy blue eyes lay curled up on
Blair's bed.
"There you are," Blair greeted the kitten tenderly and
picked him up, cradling him in her arms. "He's a Russian
Blue." She handed the kitten to Nate. "Kitty Minky, this is
your daddy."
Nate wasn't an animal person, and he definitely wasn't anybody's daddy. "Hey," he greeted the cat gruffly. "What's
up?" Kitty Minky kneaded his claws into his hand and Nate
released him onto the floor.
"Careful!" Blair cried out sharply. She scooped the cat up
again. "He's just a baby."
"Sorry." Nate stuck his hands in his pockets, feeling a little
self-conscious. He'd been in Blair's room a thousand times,
but her mom and brother were home and he just felt...
weird. He'd wanted to finally do it tonight, but he didn't know
if he could do it with that cat watching. Or in the bed he
used to play hide- and-seek under all the time when he was
little. He walked over to her white flat-screen TV and flicked
it on. "Want to watch a movie or something?"
God, was he adorable. "No. Come here." Instead of waiting
for him to go over to her, Blair pounced, yanking his belt out
of his pants and whipping it across the room. She giggled.
"I know we just got dressed, but . . ." Then she kissed him,
reminding him of why he was there.
Okay, now he didn't feel so weird. He picked her up and
car- ried her over to the bed. Then he let the cat out of the
room.
Meow-meow, no watchie. Bye-bye.
He went back to the bed and took off his heather gray Tshirt. Blair followed his movements with a little smile on her
lips. "I love you, Nate," she whispered, blushing.
Nate stared down at her, wondering what to say. Not that he
didn't love her. Of course he loved her. She was Blair. He
just wasn't ready to get all . . . boyfriendy about it. Right now
he just wanted to take her dress off. He grabbed the hem
and began to tug it up. Up, up, up and over her head.
Damn, dresses were great. Just one big piece of material
over the head and blam!-- she was practically naked. lihir's
underwear was the kind that makes girls look more
n ii c,l. Dirty-magazine underwear, with lacy stuff on it. He
was
� ill-mi LO touch it. Instead, he lay down next to her and sort
of
nnkcd her arm, her shoulder, her neck. She propped her
head
11|' i HI her hand and smiled at him.
"Nate?"
i Imm," he responded, his green eyes closed. Her skin was
nil, her hair silky.
"You didn't say anything. I said I loved you, and you didn't
�� ;iv anything." She waited expectantly.
Nate opened his eyes. She wasn't going to let him get
away
� Mill it. "I love you too," he responded automatically. "I
thought
< n knew."
>
Blair was not a religious person, not really, but she was
hav- ing a religious experience. Nate was a god, her god,
and he'd I 'lessed her with his love.
Oh, lordy!
"You can kiss me now, you idiot," she commanded,
grabbing liis golden head.They kissed for a while, happily,
hungrily.Then she pushed his head away again. "I'm not
ready to have sex," she declared simply. "We will have sex
soon," she promised, her face serious. "When I'm ready."
Best not to keep anyone guessing. Just say it like it is.
Nate liked that she was being honest with him. Girls could
be so confusing. Like Serena--she was totally confusing.
Blair was not confusing. Her honesty felt almost generous.
"Okay. I can wait."
She grabbed his head again, wishing she could eat it. God,
God, God, he was so cute, cute, cute! She kissed him hard,
get- ting really into it. And he got into it right back. "Girls,
would you like some cookies?" Eleanor Waldorf's sinj;
songy voice echoed from outside the door. She opened it
just ;i crack. "And I have truffles from La Maison du
Chocolat!"
Blair threw a pillow at the door. "Go away, Mom."
Eleanor poked her head into the room. "Oh!" she
exclaimed when she saw Nate lying on top of her almostnaked daughter' with his shirt off. "Hello, Nathaniel. That's
fine. Don't mind me, I'm leaving." She quickly closed the
door.
"Sorry." Nate pulled away and hung his head and torso ofl'
the bed, feeling for his shirt on the floor. This was too weird.
He could come back when there was no one home.
"Stop it. You're not leaving." Blair grabbed his hair, practically scalping him. "You know my mom. She takes too
much Xanax. She won't even remember this in the morning.
Even if she does, she doesn't care. She's probably on the
phone with Crane's right now, ordering our wedding
invitations." She blushed, then kissed Nate's neck Just
below his earlobe. "Not that we're getting married or
anything." Meanwhile, in the movie playing in her mind, she
could hear the wedding march, see her amazing white
strapless Vera Wang wedding gown, pic- ture Nate waiting
at the altar in his Thomas Wylde tux, his green eyes
glittering with tears as he marveled at how beautiful she
was.
Let's not get carried away.
Nate settled back down on the bed again. "So, I know we
aren't going to do it, but can you take that thing off?" he
asked, pointing at her intimidating ivory-satin-and-blackFrench-lace La Perla bra.
Blair blushed again and scooted under the rose-colored
silk bedspread. She wriggled around like a fish and then
extracted 1
lira, flinging it against her closet door. "Like that?" she
asked � � >vly, her dark, neatly plucked eyebrows raised.
Nate scooted under the covers after her. Her skin was so
soft, ill (- the chamois cloths he used to polish the hull of his
sailboat. 11 was so nice being with Blair. He couldn't help
feeling sur- i" iscd by how nice it was. He was pretty sure
she was the one he
'. ;is meant to be with all along.
"Just Hke that," he murmured, kissing her.
"I love you, Nate," Blair whispered again.
This time he'd do it right. He propped himself up and
looked 1 no her hopeful, familiar blue eyes. "I love you, too,
Blair."
1
She bangs! tofties 4prev
is have been altered or abbreviated
hey people!
It's barely midnight, and just like Cinderella I'm home, dry
and snug and out of my mauve patent-leather Louboutin
stilettos, which are ruined for good from the snow. Call me
Granny Sensible, but from now until the first day of seventydegree weather I'm wearing my furry leopard-print slippers,
inside and out. Now that I'm warm and comfortable we can
discuss this intriguing evening's festivities.
a ball's a ball--but there's nothing like a pre-party
Debutantes among us, you came out tonight and now
you're out for good. I hate to say it, though--the ball was a
complete snooze. Except for the part when that gorgeous
Italian countess took her dress off. Apparently there's a
whole nudist faction of the Italian aristocracy--who knew?
And then there was the part when that very angry debutante
with the dubious name got on the table and shouted
expletives at her miss- ing escort. That was great, the
highlight of the whole razzle-dazzle. But most of the
excitement was happening downtown at the Tribeca Star
Hotel
sightings
S skulking around the hotel lobby wrapped in a white
Tribeca Star-issue
bathrobe. Has she started a new trend--suite-hopping? B's
father, pick-
ing up the keys to a suite in the Carlyle Hotel accompanied
by a guy ,n handsome anyone would want to elope with him,
male or female. B � irid N all cutesy, tumbling into the back
of a taxi and tumbling out again, together, outside her
building on the corner of Seventy-second and Fifth. C in the
lobby of S's building on Eighty-third and Fifth, getting lurned
away by the white-haired night doorman. What's with that?
You'd ihink he'd have put that gorgeous nude Italian
countess on a private jet lo Las Vegas and married her by
now. And later, S, shivering while she smoked alone on the
Wlet steps, a ghostly martyr in a Patagonia fleece and
baggy jeans. I'd like to say she looked tragic, but the traffic
on Fifth Avenue was almost at a standstill because of her,
so she couldn't have looked too bad. V riding the midnight
L train back to Williamsburg, snapping pictures of the gross
drunk guy peeing on himself as he lay sleeping on the seats
across from her. She seemed to find it very amus- ing. That
girl is twisted.
fyi
This may be extremely obvious to most, but if you are going
to post pic- tures of yourself on the Internet, especially
quasi-revealing pictures of your physical attributes, it's
probably not a good idea to give out your full name. Just a
warning. I know who you are now--everyone does. And this
isn't the last you're going to hear about it. Those pictures
are going to reach the far corners of the earth, and come
summer, you'll be getting fan mail from jerks in Bora-Bora.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
your e-mail
� Ml I think I'm in love. No, dammit. I know I am. And I let her
go. I
got on the wrong bus. She thinks I'm with someone else.
Damn.
Love stinks.
--CBreft Dear CBreft, It's never too late to say "I love you."
Bring her two dozen long- stemmed roses and dark
chocolate truffles and a black-and- white milkshake and
she'll forget all about the other girl. --GG
Dearest Gossip Girl, I know my daughter has a boy in her
room tonight and I'm not sure what to do about it. They have
known each other forever, but they are so young. Should I
offer to bring them some warm milk and profiteroles and
then tell him to go home? --hypermom
Dear hypermom, You are sweet to worry, but it's probably
okay to leave them alone. If you have always been this
sweet and concerned, your daughter probably has a good
head on her shoulders and the boy is probably quite
respectable if she decided to bring him home. You should
feel lucky they're not out doing something naughty. It's nice
they're home. Go to bed. You can make them breakfast in
the morning. French toast from Balthazar is always a hit.
Sweet dreams. --GG
Dear GG, 1 am taxi driver to stars. Give me call sometime.
--zip
Dear zip, Thanks for the tip, but I prefer my town car. --GG a
not the last word
: iumething tells me this isn't the last we're going to hear
about tonight, some of us are alone, some us are not, and,
as Scarlett O'Hara once � -.iid, tomorrow is another day. If
there's anything to report, you know where to find me, and I
certainly know how to find you.
You know you love me,
gossip girl look what the tooth fairy dragged in Serena lay
on top of her white eyelet bedspread, fully dressed ' in her
favorite pair of TSE charcoal-colored cashmere leggings
and a black cashmere J. Crew V-neck. It was Saturday
morning. She'd been asleep for part of the night but had
woken up at five a.m. to take a bath and give herself a milk
facial and never made it back to sleep. It must have been
eight o'clock or maybe even nine by now, she wasn't sure. It
had stopped snowing, and sun- light filtered into the room
through her white eyelet curtains, which were shut tight.
With a listless hand she reached for the little silver Tiffany
box on her antique mahogany bedside table. The lid was
mono- grammed with her initials: SvdW. She pulled it off
and ex- amined the inside of the box, which was lined with
Tiffany's signature light blue velvet. Six tiny teeth were
clustered together on the velvet, a little brown around the
edges--her baby teeth. Why were there only six, Nate
always wanted to know. There were two incisors, two top
teeth, and two bottom teeth. Where were the molars?
Where were the rest? Serena always told him that the
others had fallen out while she was eating chocolate
nimissc cake at his eighth birthday party and she'd
swallowed
iln in all at once, but they both knew that wasn't the truth. It
\\ ! � . ;i mystery.
Mie dumped the teeth out of the box and held them in her
km.I. They felt sort of gross, like the bones of roadkill,
some-
iluii|T she wasn't supposed to touch. She returned them to
the I 'i > and closed the lid, keeping it balanced on her
tummy. Her
x I" uly felt tired, so tired she could have slept for days, but
she was uliiiid to close her eyes and see Blair and Nate
kissing again. It n :IK something she'd never forget.
L
'Miss Serena?" The van der Woodsens' Brazilian house- I
roper, Deidre, knocked lightly on the door. "There is a Mr.
uck Bass here. He has presents/' she added teasingly, like
Ser- � iui would be totally overjoyed to see Mr. Chuck
Bass so early � HI a Saturday morning.
"Uh-oh," Serena muttered, stuffing her feet into her old I'lack
sheepskin Ugg slippers. She padded over to the door and i
ipened it a crack. "Hey Deidre, is he, like, in the house? Or
is he waiting down in the lobby?" she asked, hoping the
maid could i ell the doorman to send Chuck away.
"I'm right here," Chuck's loud voice responded grandly. He
appeared in front of the door brandishing a bouquet of
smelly white lilies and a gigantic venti frozen mocha-chocofrappi drink Lopped with ReddiWhip in a clear plastic
trough-size cup from Starbucks. "Good morning, darling."
He kissed her cheek and stepped into her bedroom like
this was their regular Saturday morning routine. Deidre
swished down the hall in her gray-and- white maid's
uniform, shooting Serena an amused backward glance with
her soft brown eyes as if to say, "What a charmer!"
Serena didn't hate a lot of things, but she despised overly
sweet frozen Starbucks beverages, and the overpowering
scrm of lilies had always repulsed her. As did Chuck's
manly colognr. his wet-looking hair, and his huge, shiny
white teeth. She won dered fleetingly if Chuck had ever had
baby teeth. It was hart! in imagine him with baby anything.
"Hi, Chuck," she greeted him tiredly. She took the coffee
and put the lilies on her desk. She wanted to toss them oui
the window, but thought that might be rude. "You're up early,
Where's Donatella?"
She noticed that he was still wearing his coat and tails, and
he still looked nice, in a deodorant-commercial sort of way.
All of a sudden he was kneeling in front of her, holding her
limp hands.
"All night I was awake, watching your building. Watching
your lights go on and off. The night doorman wouldn't let me
in. He wouldn't even ring up." He stopped, as if that was all
he needed to say.
Serena frowned. She had the feeling she was missing
some- thing. "Where's Donatella?" she repeated stupidly.
"You guys looked so . . . good together."
Chuck rolled his eyes as though Donatella de la Varga and
her perfectly round naked breasts were so yesterday. "She
was a baby. A total virgin. It turns out she's betrothed to
some Swiss prince, and he has it in writing that she has to
be a virgin on their wedding night, which is in, like, two
months. Her dad was watching her like a hawk the whole
time. Maybe he wasn't even her dad. I'm pretty sure he had
a gun. Kind of ruined my plans. Anyway, it doesn't matter."
Chuck held her hands a little tighter. "When you kissed me
last night, I knew. You're the one I love."
Serena stared down at him, the corners of her perfectly
iiaped mouth twitching. He couldn't possibly be serious.
"Did I Hair put you up to this?" she demanded suspiciously.
Blair loved i>ranks. And she was completely unaware that
she'd broken Ser- bia's heart last night. She was very apt to
pull a prank.
Chuck frowned. "No. She was a little busy last night." He �
lid something disgusting with his hands, sliding his right
index linger in and out of an O-shaped hole he'd made with
his left mdex finger and thumb. "With Nate," he added for
good mea- �� ure.
The gesture felt like a kick in the stomach. Serena
grimaced .md clutched her throat. "I don't mean to hurt your
feelings, i ^huck," she told him quietly, "but I need you to go
now." She lugged urgently on his hands, trying to pull him to
a standing position.
Chuck stood up and grasped her cashmere-swathed upper
arms. He was about to swallow her face in one of his
overwhelm- ing wet, gulping kisses, but Serena stepped
back, yanking her arras out of his hands. "Please," she
pleaded.
He stood there, glaring at her. This was not what he'd
expected. Obviously, he thought her kiss last night had
been some kind of open invitation. "You're supposed to be
so slutty," he growled. "Or do you only do it with girls?"
Serena decided not to answer that question. '"Bye, Chuck."
She picked up the phone, thinking he'd be more likely to
leave if she was busy doing something else. She pushed a
few buttons at random.
"I'll call you," he told her breezily, and flapped his hand in
her direction before leaving.
Please don't.
The phone rang in Serena's anxious hand. "Hey!" It was
Blair, sounding so excited she was practical1 screaming.
"We did it!"
Serena flopped dizzily down on her bed. She felt wrung on
or waterlogged. What was she supposed to say-congratulations At least Blair was happy now and not
leaning over the toih'i miserably puking her guts up.
"Is he still there?" Serena whispered hoarsely.
"Yes," Blair whispered giddily back. "He's sleeping."
Serena closed her eyes as tears spilled out of them
uncontrol lably. "Oh."
"Don't forget to call that travel agent with our itinerary for our
trip this summer," Blair reminded her bossily. "Tell him we
don't care about hiking in the Alps or the AppianWay or
what- ever. I don't hike. I just want to spend as much time on
the train as possible, in my couchette, with Nate."
"Okay," Serena sobbed breathlessly. "I'll call you later," she
added hurriedly and hung up. She remained seated on the
edge of her bed, staring at her cheery pink-and-blue rosepatterned needlepoint rug while the tears coursed down her
cheeks and into her lap. So complete was her misery, she
might have sat there for a minute or ten minutes or fortyfive, she didn't know.
Finally she wiped her tears and went over to her desk. She
shoved aside the forgotten pile of boarding school catalogs
and flipped open her Latin textbook. Amo, amas, amat. In
her entire life she'd never done homework on a Saturday
morning. But since her two best friends were now otherwise
engaged--with each other--maybe this was her chance to
become a model stu- dent, devote her spare time to
charity, perfect her backhand.
J
Rehabilitate her broken heart. something is amiss in the
state ofdenmark
HAMLET: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
OPHELIA: No, my lord.
HAMLET: I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Did you think I meant country matters?
Dan stared at the same faded page of his Shakespeare
anthology, the words crossing his frame of reference and
then skit- tering away without any hope of comprehension.
He'd read Ham- let before and marveled at it, but today he
could not concentrate. Laundry-, he decided, apropos of
nothing. He'd do his laundry and then go back to
homework. He pushed away his desk chair and gathered
up the dirty clothes strewn across the lint-speckled dirtbrown wall-to-wall carpeting on his bedroom floor. Maybe
he'd do everyone's laundry. His dad would love that.
Anything to keep from staring stupidly at those pictures of
Serena van der Woodsen on his computer, or from thinking
about the fact that he was pretty sure Vanessa had tried to
kiss him last night. Before he fainted, and before she
tucked him into bed and went home. It was pretty obvious
that she liked him. You don't drop m unannounced at
someone's house and start kissing them if you don't like
them--right? He just didn't know what to do about ii He
removed the faded Spider-Man pillowcase from his pillmv
and stuffed a wad of dirty clothes into it, mostly shirts he
didn'i even remember wearing and underwear that he'd
discreetly kicked under the bed.
Nice.
Dan headed down the narrow dusty hallway to his dad's
bedroom. As usual, Rufus was still in bed. He spent
Saturday mornings--and every other morning, for that
matter--tucked under a scratchy red wool blanket reading
newspapers and liter ary journals, smoking and cursing all
the while. Hunger would force him to get up around one,
and then he'd venture out In the supermarket to shop for the
day's culinary adventure. It was after one now, but Rufus
had been out late last night in the Easi Village with his
anarchist writer friends, so he was sleeping in.
"Dad?" Dan called from outside the bedroom. "Got any
laundry you want me to do?"
A muffled grunting and muttering sounded from within and
then Rufus opened the door. Last night's purple ponytail
elastic was dangling from a few strands of wiry gray hair
near his left ear. His gray-and-black beard looked like it
had been in a fight. His stomach bulged above the
waistband of his light blue Hanes boxer shorts, exposing a
bare slab of furry flesh beneath a too- tight black Mets
hoodie that Dan suspected was his.
"You're doing laundry?"
"I guess I'm procrastinating." Dan shrugged. "I have a
paper to write. Hamlet."
Rufus nodded. If there was one thing father and son had in
tmon, it was their interest in literature. "That shouldn't be
i"'i hard. But you've decided to do laundry instead." He
sniffed
Hi'- air suspiciously. "Something is rotten in the state of
Denmark,"
in quoted Shakespeare's famous lines, his muddy brown
eyes
I > ilging out of his head with toadlike imperiousness.
i
"Dan has a girlfriend ...!" Jenny's annoying-little-sister voice
mgsonged from down the hall. She danced out of her room
\ curing a denim Diesel zip-up shirtdress strategically
unzipped
in show off her budding cleavage. She was wearing
makeup, and had obviously been dressing up and staring
at herself in the mir- Mir since dawn.
"Do not!" Dan swung around and hurled the Spider-Man
I'illowcase full of laundry at her. His dirty underwear
scattered
ii his sister's feet.
She wrinkled her freckled, turned-up nose. "Hello, uncalled
lor?"
"Is it the same girl? The hairless one I met from before?"
Ivufus inquired as he got down on his hands and knees and
began patrolling his bedroom for soiled clothing, stashing it
under one ;irm as he went. A lot of the clothes he wore were
dry-clean unly, but that didn't stop him from washing and
wearing them. I1 was his opinion that the more shrunken
and wrinkled clothes became, the more interesting they
were to wear. He stood up und handed the unsavory
armload to Dan. "Where does she live? We should invite
her parents over for dinner."
"No!" both of his children exclaimed at the same time.
"She lives with her sister," Dan added, feeling a little mean
for insulting his dad's cooking all the time. "She's
macrobiotic. Or something, I forget."
"Are you doing laundry?" Jenny asked eagerly as Dan
continued down the hall past her room. She always got sun I
with laundry duty, so it was crucial that she take advantani'
of her older brother's generosity. "Wait!" She dashed into
hn closet and gathered up a tidy pile of jeans and T-shirts.
No wnv would she let him handle her underwear.
Dan waited in the doorway. A picture of some girl's perk;
chest was floating on Jenny's computer screen. The chest
wan clothed in a sheer nude bra. "Nice," he observed.
Jenny shrugged and handed him her dirty clothes, stuftVd
into a pink-and-white-striped pillowcase. "I wrote a thankyou letter to the breast supplement company last night and
got it bunch of really nice e-mails from other girls." Actually,
tin- e-mails were mostly from guys, but she didn't mention
those.
"This girl sent me her picture," she continued, sitting down
at her Pottery Barn Kids white "Madeleine" desk. "And
here's what she wrote: 'Dear Jennifer, you are so inspiring.
I've been complaining my whole life about my flat chest and
I'm way older than you. I was taking the supplements for
only like a week and I was gonna quit, but ever since you
wrote your testimonial I've decided I have to give it some
time. Good luck--you deserve it.'" Jenny turned around.
"Isn't that so nice?"
Dan shrugged. He couldn't believe how much time some
people spent online. He preferred to scribble things on
paper, cross them out, and then smoke himself sick while
staring furi- ously at a new blank page.
Hence his fainting problem?
Jenny scrolled quickly over the next e-mail, which was from
some crazy guy in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who'd sent her
a pic- ture of his bare ass with the words New and
Improved! scrawled across it in neon blue marker. Some
people were so stupid, � I way, I'm going out soon to this
bra store I read about online
ii'-ic they fit you better than anywhere else and they have
bras
i i all over the world. I really need bigger ones now, and this
i i ii i- sounds cool. It's in the Village. Want to come?"
'� liop for bras with his sister, or stay home, smoking and
ii mking coffee and contemplating his status in the
universe? It
r, a tough one.
1L
Maybe some other time," he told her kindly.
I )an headed down to the basement with a fistful of quarters
'u.l two pillowcases fall of dirty clothes. He used to think he
.! � : the only kid in the world who had to do his own laundry.
1
�� rtainiy he was the only boy in his class who did. So it
was
" uially pretty comforting to have met someone who did her
wu laundry too. And Vanessa was a diva of coolness. He'd
just
ilways thought that if he were to have a girlfriend, she'd be
nineone else. A certain platinum blond, blue-eyed leggy
angel
.nineone else.
Oh, yes? And who might that be?
The thing was, despite the fact that he had been writing
poems for her, Serena van der Woodsen honestly didn't
know IK: existed. Vanessa had already been over to his
house. She'd � .een him vomit. She'd stuck her face in his
and kissed him. She was real--so real he could still taste
the pepperoni grease on her i cd lips. She liked him, and
he'd never really been liked by a girl before. Still, did they
have to kiss? Even if it never actually hap- pened in real life,
it was happening all the time in his mind, in his poems:
kissing was reserved for Serena.
Good luck explaining that. v practices restraint Vanessa sat
cross-legged on her futon mattress with her iMac in her lap,
forcing herself to write a boring, friendly e-mail when what
she really wanted to do was show up unannounced at Dan's
house again, dive under his sad frayed Spider-Man quilt,
and ravage his hopelessly pale, spent, and hungover
bones. His room had been dark when she helped him into
bed the night before, lit only by the nickering blue computer
screen. She could just make out more of Jenny's artwork
hanging crookedly from the walls. Who could not love such
a devoted brother? He was the sweetest boy alive.
Dear Dan,
Hope you are feeling okay today. Just
wanted to thank you for the pepperoni.
We should catch a foreign flick sometime
when you're feeling up to it. Maybe
tomorrow at the Paris? Oh, but you have
that big Hamlet term paper to write. Skip
it. Spring break is in two weeks--let's not to do anything
you're not ready for.
I ler unmanicured fingers hovered over the gray keyboard.
SI ic'd wanted to be encouraging, but what she'd written
sounded
c she was ready to do all sorts of kinky things. Actually, she
w pretty sure she would like to do all sorts of kinky things
with
nij but that wan't what she meant. She just wanted him to In
>ow that she wasn't going to try and kiss him again. Not
when
lad made him so nervous he'd fainted. She'd just have to
re-
;iin herself and wait for him to kiss her.
She erased everything except the first three lines of the enKiil and then added,
See you over spring break, maybe, xo --V
P.S. E-mail me those poems immediately
when you finish them!
She pressed send and then clicked on the pages of Dan's
l>oems that were already stored in her computer. She
scanned i lirough them, lingering on the lines she treasured
most. Do they � it'ear black like you? .. . We only just met
but.. . bite me.
Yes, she would restrain herself. Then, sometime soon, Dan
would be in the middle of writing a poem and suddenly
realize iliat he could stand it no more. He'd rush out to
Brooklyn, take lier in his arms, and kiss her madly,
desperately. From then on they would be inseparable. In
fifteen years, when Dan won the I'ulitzer Prize for poetry and
she won an Oscar for her coura- geous documentary about
the detritus of the city, they would leak the news that she
had been the muse for his poetry since he first began to
write. They would live together in a crazy factory I loft
building in Williamsburg and create raw, magical mastci
pieces together until they died in each other's shriveled
arm:, at the age of one hundred and three. Books would be
written about them. They'd be famous for their work and for
their pan nership in love and art, like Gertrude Stein and
Alice B. Toklns or Henry Miller and Anai's Nin, Together
forever.
Sounds like the stuff of poetry. Or fiction.
1 I n knows the magic password
Naie woke up before Blair. He could tell it was late
because
1 1 cat--Tiger Monkey or whatever the fuck its name was--
10 was sprawled out on the windowsiil, soaking up the sun.
It had � .lopped snowing, and every once in a while a big
chunk of melt- 1 ig snow would cascade down from the roof
of the building and
1 liill to the street below with a pillowy thud.
Nate thought he smelled bacon, and his stomach growled
urgently. Beside him, Blair lay sleeping on her side wearing
only his heather gray T-shirt and her ivory satin underwear
as she Imgged her pillow, her lips curved into a smile. She
looked sated :md happy, even though they hadn't had sex.
She was like an advertisement for sex. Nate slipped out
from under the covers, Mill wearing his khakis. He combed
his fingers through his wavy golden brown hair and located
a Yale sweatshirt in Blair's closet [hat would do for now.
He'd slept over at her house many times before, in the
guest room, on the floor, even in her bed. But she'd always
worn pajamas, they'd never so much as kissed, and
Serena liad always been there. To find Serena missing felt
strange. How had it turned out like this? Did Serena have
something better to do, someone else to be with?The
details were foggy, as il In were remembering them through
a cloud of steam, but it wi < ;* pretty obvious now that he
was with Blair.
Quietly, he opened her bedroom door, tiptoed into the hall,
and closed the door behind him. Definitely bacon. He
paddol down the parquet-floored hall in his bare feet,
hoping theW;il dorfs' cook, Myrtle, would hand him a big
heaping plateful, ami then he could retire to the library,
where he'd watch English Premier League soccer and pig
out.
"Is that you, Bear?" Blair's father's commander-of-thc
courtroom voice rang out. Nate stopped in his tracks. He
w:u. pretty sure her father didn't even live there anymore. At
least not all the time. "We just dropped in to pick up some
things!"
"There's bacon and juice," Mrs. Waldorf added vaguely
when Nate appeared in the dining room. Her normally
perfect blond bob was smashed in at the back, and her
slightly chunky body was wrapped in a quilted black satin
floor-length dressing gown that looked like some sort of
1940s ski garment, tied at the waisi with a tasseled golden
rope. Her feet sparkled in gold sequincd evening slippers
with spiky gold-plated heels.
Was she trying to win her husband back or scare him
away?
HaroldWaldorf, Esquire, was crouched in front of the
French Imperial buffet, packing crystal goblets into some
sort of red velvet-lined carrying case like a thief. Crouched
next to him was a dark, sleek-haired, extremely tan younger
man wearing a salmon pink dress shirt and a shiny
platinum Piaget watch.
Good morning, Rico Suave.
"Blair's still sleeping," Nate announced, a little louder than
he'd intended. He pulled out the chair next to Eleanor and
sat down, ogling the china platter of crispy bacon in front of
him. l:lcanor pushed the platter toward him and used a pair
of
� .ilvcr tongs to plunk a few strips on his plate. "It's good,"
she
n 'li I him distractedly. Something about the way she wasn't
really
looking at him or at anything in the room made Nate feel
sad.
11' picked up a piece of bacon and shoved it in his mouth.
Man,
in luved bacon.
Mr. Waldorf stood up as if noticing Nate for the first time.
i ii- walked over to the table and clapped him on the
shoulder.
' J alhaniel. Long time no see. Just picking up a few things.
Glad
-HI stopped by. I think Blair's still sleeping."
Ouh?
He took off the pair of white cotton gloves he'd been weariii]', to handle the crystal. "Just picking up a few things," he
said inr the third time. His pink-shirted friend smiled at Nate
self- � unsciously. "This is my partner," Mr. Waldorf
introduced them.
<iiles."
The tan guy stuck out his hand and Nate reached across Ins
plate and shook it. The guy had a very firm handshake, [-nit
then he held on and bent down and kissed both of Nate's i
Ueeks. "Charmed," he murmured, gay as gay can be. It
sud- denly dawned on Nate that Mr. Waldorf didn't mean
business partner, he meant partner-partner. Jesus. No
wonder Eleanor looked so fucked up. Poor Blair.
"Nate slept over," Eleanor lold them, trancelike. She poured
more coffee into her cup from the silver decanter on the
table. L
'I saw them last night."
Nate's cheeks flamed, but her tone wasn't accusing. She
was simply making it clear that he hadn't just arrived.
As if his rumpled hair and bare feet didn't already make
that clear enough? "I'm just going to grab Bear," Mr.
Waldorf announced, /i|> ping up die black leather carrying
case. He handed the case in his French boyfriend. "She's
dying to meet you."
Nate shoved another piece of bacon into his mouth ami
quickly wolfed it down. Then he stood up and pushed his
chan back. Mr. Waldorf was already on his way out of the
dining room. "Please, let her sleep," Nate called after him.
Blair's fathu stopped and turned. "She's been a little
stressed out aboui everything." He gestured at Blair's
mother, the black leathn carrying case, Giles. "Please, just
let her sleep."
Mr. Waldorf shrugged and came back into the room. He
picked up his half-empty crystal glass full of freshly
squeezed orange juice and finished it off. "If you tfiink she
needs the rest," he acquiesced.
Nate picked up another piece of bacon and shoved it into
his mouth, whole. Eleanor was looking at him now, her baby
blue eyes wide and surprised. It was kind of cool the way
he'd just, like, protected Blair from meeting her dad's gay
lover. Like she was his little missus and he was looking
after her. It made him feel manly and primal, like King Kong.
Now, of course, he wanted to go wake up Blair and have
loud, crazy gorilla sex.
Easy,Tarzan.
"I'll guess we'll be going, then," Mr. Waldorf addressed his
wife. He bent down and gave her a quick stiff peck on the
cheek. "We fly to Paris tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll talk to
Bear before then. Anyway, tell her I'll be back to take her
and Tyler skiing in Sun Valley for spring break, just like
always." He glanced at Nate. "You're invited, of course."
Nate half smiled his thanks and bit off another hunk of > i
mi. Something about Mr. Waldorf's gayness made him feel
M| � ;i freaking caveman. Like all he could do was grunt
and
ii irk things with a club.
And hump the furniture?
Mrs. Waldorf was sitting up very straight. "Have fun in
' 1 1 ice," she told her husband tonelessly. Nate wondered
if she
.1
r; chinking about what she was going to do for spring break
Ink' they were skiing. He wanted to invite her along too, as
his
Inc, but then that wouldn't make any sense. Still, Mrs.
Waldorf
MIS a nice lady. She didn't deserve to look so sad. He
stood up, desperate to be out of the room and away from
this entire incked-up situation.
"Good luck, Nathaniel," Mr. Waldorf told him, shaking his I
innd as though Nate were a business client.
"Thanks," Nate responded. Giles winked at him but Nate
didn't wink back. He wasn't ready to get all winky-winky with
a i-uy he'd only just met.
They went out into the hall to get their coats. Mrs. Waldorf
was still looking at Nate like she was waiting for him to tell
her what to do.
"Have a good day." He walked over and kissed her gently
on ihe cheek. "I'm taking Blair out--" He paused. "To the
zoo." He grabbed another piece of bacon and walked
briskly out of the dining room and down the long hall to
Blair's room. He opened the door. Nothing had changed.
She was still hugging her pillow, asleep, with that satisfied
grin on her face. Pussy Willow, or what- ever the fuck his
name was, was still stretched out on the win- dowsill.
Nate swallowed the rest of his bacon and walked over to
the bed, trying to control the gorilla-man within. He bent
down and kissed Blair on her smiling pink lips. She opened
her eyes .mi grinned up at him, looking perfectly beautiful
and innocent.
"Hi."
"Hi."
"I was actually awake earlier," Blair yawned. "I called
Serenn Then I went back to bed."
Nate didn't care about any of this. He just wanted to gi-t
Blair out of the house without talking to her sad mother ami
getting bogged down in a screamfest about her dad's
sudden gayness and his weird handling of the crystal. He
wanted to gt-t a slice of mushroom pizza and look at the
sea lions. And maybe when Blair was in the bathroom or
talking to the penguins, he'd take a little walk and smoke
the roach that was still in his pockci. He'd been horny and
craving pot ever since he got into the hoi tub last night, and
if he couldn't have one of the things he was craving, at least
he could have the other.
"I'm going to sneak you out of the house," he told her, his
voice cracking sexily.
Blair was still reeling from the amazing feeling of waking up
to Nate kissing her. She felt like Sleeping Beauty when
Prince Charming finally comes to wake her up and
everything in the kingdom comes alive. He was totally
perfect. Her life was totally perfect.
"I'm not going anywhere," she insisted, pulling him down on
the soft, silk-covered bed. His lips tasted like bacon.
"You're supposed to bring me breakfast."
Nate rolled off the side of the bed and swung open Blair's
closer door. He grabbed a pair of boot-cut jeans from off
the floor, a red sweater hanging on a hanger, and a pair of
short, black, kitten-heeled boots that he thought looked
sexy but com-
i � i i.ilile. Then he opened her dresser drawer and pulled
out a
i HI of plain white underwear and a white cotton bra.
I Hair sat up, watching him, the rose-colored bedspread
pulled
"I' io her neck. Her gray kitten jumped into her lap, kneading
in . paws into her thigh in a horny sort of way. Nate tossed
the
l"[hcs on the bed, scaring the cat away.
"I'm not wearing those." She wrinkled her nose. "Those
M MIS are queer, and they totally don't go with those
boots."
Nate rolled his eyes impatiently. He didn't want to listen to
in v princessy bullshit. He was just trying to get her out of the
I muse. "Wear whatever you want. I just want to take a walk.
Get
� une air. Buy you a present."
Blair's robin's egg blue eyes opened wide. "A present?"
She i lapped her hands together like a little girl and
grabbed the underwear and the bra, slithering under the
covers to change into them. She stood up, wobbling on the
mattress as she shoved her feet into the leg holes of the
True Religion jeans he'd picked nut. Nate had to avert his
eyes as she struggled with her sweater, 10 keep from
losing his mind. The sight of her in that innocent- looking
white cotton bra was driving him absolutely bonkers.
She was dressed within seconds---even her boots were on.
Dashing into the bathroom, she smeared Crest in her
mouth with her finger, nipped her head over, and ran her
Mason Pearson wooden-handled boar-bristle brush
through her hair a few times. Then she spritzed the air with
a cloud of Chanel Mademoiselle and walked through it, out
of the bathroom, coat- ing her entire person with die scent.
"Okay. Ready!"
See how quick and obedient we can be when you say the
magic word?
Nate held her hand as they hurried down the hall. "I didn't
even rake a shower," Blair muttered under her breath. Not
ilim she cared. She was getting a present.
Present,present,present!
Nate squeezed her hand. "Me neither. It's okay, we smell
like each other. It's nice."
Could he be any cuter?
Out in the foyer Nate punched the button for the elevatoi "Is
that you, Blair?" Eleanor Waldorf's voice trilled from tin
dining room.
Blair buttoned up her black Searle peacoat, wound her
while TSE cashmere scarf around her neck, and stuffed her
hands inio a pair of gray cashmere gloves. "We're going
out for breakfast!" she shouted back as the elevator doors
rolled closed behind them.
The elevator descended to the lobby. Nate wrapped his
arm around Blair's shoulders, feeling the sort of smug
satisfaction one feels when one has saved the day.
Okay, so he's impossibly handsome and a touch conceited,
but he wears it so, so well. ugly hearts have feelings too
I iffany was Nate's idea. They'd watched that Audrey
Hepburn movie a thousand times a few weekends ago, and
Blair seemed 10 like it so much. He just wanted her to be
happy.
The centuries-old jewelry emporium Tiffany & Co. had
resided on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh
Street since 1940. Constructed of gray limestone, with
high, square, curtained windows, it looked more like a bank
than a jewelry store. A doorman wearing a knee-length navy
blue uniform coat with gold buttons, a black patent leatherbrimmed cap, and spotless white gloves swung open the
glass entrance to the store. � 'Morning!" he called out
cheerfully, tipping his cap.
"Oh, look," Blair cooed, heading straight for the heirloom
diamond display. "I love a plain diamond," she added.
As if there were such a thing.
Nate was thinking more along the lines of aTiffany blue pen,
or a little red Swarovski crystal cupid paperweight. The pen
would be totally useful, and the cupid would make a really
good paperweight for all of Blair's . . . papers.
An overeager salesman with a tiny black mustache had
already produced a pair of diamond earrings for Blair to try
on. '1' were platinum chandelier earrings, dripping with
prince? diamonds, and cost about as much as Nate's dad's
Aston tin.
"Oh!" Blair gasped, loving the way the diamonds sparkled
the sunlight blasting through the store's oversize windows.
"They look wonderful with your beautiful blue eyes/' tl
salesman cooed, working it.
Nate shot the guy an annoyed glance. He was fifteen old
and yeah, maybe he wore nice clothes and had a nice life
ai a beautiful girlfriend, but did he really look like someone
couid buy those earrings with his dad's credit card and get i
with it? They were the kind of earrings movie stars borrow
rn wear to the Oscars. Not buy. Borrow.
This whole ordeal was kind of killing Nate's mood. Ht-M
never been into shopping. All he really wanted was to
smoke a big fatty and then maybe grab a big greasy burger
at Jackson Hole, even though he knew Blair hated it there
because it made her hair smell like onion rings.
"Those are preoy," was all he said. He leaned against the
dis- play case, his back to the salesman, arms folded
across his chest.
Blair giggled, admiring herself in the gold mirror the salesman was holding up. She knew Nate's patience was
already waning and that she had to find the perfect item to
put in one of those pretty little blue Tiffany boxes before he
got a craving for pizza or had to pee or whatever and
demanded they leave. "I know we're not buying them, I just
thought it would be fun to try them on." She plucked the
earrings out of her ears and tossed them on top of the
glass display case like they were made of plastic. "Come
on."
i Nlic slipped her arm through Nate's and he dutifully led her
HI niss the room to a display of Elsa Peretti signature gold
jew-
i'h v,Tiffany classics. Blair wrinkled her nose. Boring.
"There." Nate pointed to a small, plain gold heart pendant
lunging from a black silk cord. It was simple and elegant
and
ilu- black cord was actually kind of sexy. He could imagine
ii Wangling from Blair's neck when they did it. It would look
� � ")[--a nice contrast--with the white cotton bra she was
wear-
ing. "That's it." He signaled the saleslady behind the display
i ;ise. "That's what I'm getting for you."
Blair tried not to pout. The heart pendant was kind of ugly.
Who wanted to wear a black string around their neck? Who
would pay for a piece of black string to wear around their
neck?
And the heart itself was lopsided and deformed-looking.
But
maybe if she strung the heart on a gold chain from some
other
necklace it might look more normal. She'd accumulated a
lot of jewelry in her fifteen years--surely there was
something in her jewelry box. And it was sweet that Nate
wanted to buy her a present at all. It wasn't her birthday. It
wasn't even Valentine's Day anymore.
That's the spirit. Never say no to a gift. Plus, there's always
regifting
"Would you like to try it on?" the saleslady asked. She
adjusted her thick glasses on her nose and crouched down
to unlock the case with shaking hands. She was about a
hundred and ten, and her skin and hair looked like they'd
been powdered with baby powder. Even her hands were a
chalky white. She removed the pendant from the case and
held it out to Nate, swinging it in front of his face like a
hypnotist. "Would the young gentleman like to do the
honors?" Blair unbuttoned her peacoat and Nate wound the
blad< silk cord around her neck. The small gold heart lay
against ha chest, pointing straight down into her cleavage.
Nate couldn'i stop looking at it, a constant reminder of
Blair's breasts. It w;i:. awesome.
The grandmotherly saleslady shoved a mirror at them, but
Blair didn't even glance at it. She could tell by the intense
look in Nate's glittering green eyes that he liked it, and even
though she would have preferred diamonds, she kind of
loved the way he was staring at her chest like he wanted to
attack it.
"I'll wear it out," she told the saleslady.
Nate wound his arm around Blair's waist and gave her an
adorable squeeze. "Yeah, but can we get one of those little
blue boxes and a ribbon anyway?" he asked. "She really
likes those boxes."
Blair closed her eyes as her heart caved in just a little.
She'd never been into public displays of affection---who
wanted to watch other people rub against each other like
animals?--but Nate was completely irresistible. She could
not keep her hands off him. She threw her arms around his
neck, kissing him and licking his face like a puppy. "I love
you, I love you, I love you!" she murmured wetly into his ear.
"You know I love you," he murmured back as he paid the
woman for the necklace. He felt like some sort of Good
Samari- tan, rescuing Blair from her crazy family, buying her
the heart, making her happy. Not that he wasn't happy too.
He was having a ball. But he might have been a fraction
happier if he'd smoked that roach in the guest bathroom
before they'd left.
"Next stop, the zoo," he announced as the white-gloved
doorman pushed open the door for them and they spilled
out � mio Fifth Avenue. Blair could pet the goats in the
petting zoo
> liilc he snuck off to "the John" and smoked a doobie on
an ice
\
I '.ink next to the polar bear.
Cool.
"Wait!" Blair cried, flinging her arms around Nate's neck �
me more time. She just had to kiss him in the exact spot
where A udrey Hepburn ate a Danish out of a brown paper
bag on the
� idewalk outside ofTiffany in the opening scene in
Breakfast at
I'ijfany's. This is way better than any cheese Danish, she
thought greedily as she ran her tongue over Nate's perfect
teeth. Today a uold heart, in a few years a diamond
engagement ring! Suddenly Nate pulled away and took a
step back.
"Hey," he called over Blair's shoulder. He wiped his mouth
on the sleeve of his blue wool toggle coat, looking slightly
sheep- ish.
Blair whipped around. There was Serena, looking cold and
sort of bedraggled and completely gorgeous, like the
princess in The Princess and the Pea before she stumbles
into the castle out of the storm and meets the prince who
winds up marrying her.
Not that there were any princes available to marry her in
this particular scenario.
Serena darted away from them, about to cross Fifth
Avenue, when Nate called out to her again.
"Hey, wait up!"
She stopped and turned, her stunning navy blue eyes wide
and startled looking, as if she'd only just noticed them
standing there. "Oh, hey," she faltered. "I didn't see you
guys."
Likely story. polar bears and falcons and pigeons, oh my!
The color of the sodden wintry slush piled between the
parked cars on Fifth Avenue matched Serena's mood
exactly. It was a strange feeling. Usually she was the sunny
one, the glass-half- full one, the perker-upper. Today she
felt positively bleak. Her efforts to placate herself with
reminders that she'd done a very unselfish thing and made
her best friend unspeakably happy simply weren't working.
The fairy tale of her dreams had been ruthlessly adapted
into a film starring different actors, and her part had been
written out. The question was, what part would she play
next?
The other woman? Just a thought...
She'd purposely left her cell phone behind for fear of receiving another one of Blair's stomach-turning Vmso-happy
calls. She walked aimlessly, bare hands stuffed into the
pockets of her brown plaid Burberry coat, chin tucked into
the buttoned-up collar, chilled to the bone because she'd
run out of the house without a hat and gloves or even any
breakfast. Her baby blue Uggs were soaked through, and
the backs of her Earl jeans were dotted with smatterings of
slush. She hadn't realized how far \<\\ walked until she
heard a familiar, well-loved voice call out,
ley, wait up!" and she'd looked up to find her worst
nightmare
� Iiic to life: Blair and Nate, looking like the cutest couple
ever,
;ij:gling a miniature light blue Tiffany shopping bag, their
arms
1 wined.
1
Blair looked like she'd had a face-lift by one of those plastic
.nrgeons who really knows what he's doing. She was
positively i.nliant. Nate just looked like Nate. Serena
wanted to be angry with him for not showing any signs of
remorse, but as soon as � .he saw his dear, unspeakably
handsome face, the anger didn't � .urface. She loved him.
It was as simple as that. No matter what happened, she
would always love him.
Which kind of made this particular moment all the more
;iwkward.
"Look what Nate got me." Blair hastily unbuttoned her coat
and flashed the gold heart at Serena. "Isn't he just the
cutest?"
Ouch.
Serena sensed that Blair was absolutely bursting with news
and couldn't wait to bombard her when they saw each other
at school on Monday. She could already picture the cluster
of girls gathered around her at their favorite lunchroom
table as Blair pretended not to want to give them a play-byplay of her glorious night with Nate. Kati, Isabel, Rain, and
Laura would ply her with questions while a group of ninth
graders led by Kathy Reinerson huddled nearby,
eavesdropping. Serena would be required to act excited
and intrigued, while every word Blair uttered would feel like
a punch in the face.
"It's lovely," Serena responded with remote pleasantness,
channeling her British ancestors. Like Queen Elizabeth of
England, Serena had been bred and educated to be
gracious, not to stamp her foot and pout in the face of
adversity.
If only she had a few corgis to cuddle with.
The corner of Fifty-seventh and Fifth was probably the most
ill-advised place to try to stand still and hold a conversation
in all of Manhattan. Tourists bustled past them, jostling their
shopping bags and cursing under their breath in all manner
of languages. Normally the three friends would have been
walking fast, arm in arm, interrupting one another with the
latest gossip or non sequitur. The awkwardness was not
lost on Serena.
"So, Natie," she cleverly changed the subject, "whatever
hap- pened to that girl you were supposed to escort to the
debutante ball?"
"Who?" he responded with genuine cluelessness.
Serena and Blair exchanged glances. Oh, to be young, hot,
and thick as a post, at least when it came to girls. Nate was
like a hound dog, capable of following only one scent at a
time.
"You know, L'Wren?" Serena reminded him, pronouncing
the girl's idiotic name with humorous precision.
Blair's amused look morphed into a warning glance. She
did not want to discuss that slutty college girl on the best
day of her life, so would Serena kindly shut the fuck up?
"We're going to the zoo," she announced, taking her
friend's arm. "You have to come." As soon as she'd said it,
though, she realized with a strange sort of queasy
meanness that she really didn't warn Serena to come at all.
When she was with Nate, she wanted him to herself,
because now he was hers--all hers.
"You know how much you love the polarbear," Nate
reminded Serena. It was one of the things he adored about
her, the way she talked to the polar bear like it was her
long-lost twin.
1 "I have a date," Serena lied, marveling at herself. A date?
With whom}
"With Chuck?" Blair asked perkily.
Serena stared at her, horrified. Did Blair actually believe
that
she'd kissed Chuck last night because she was into him?
"I'm meeting my dad for brunch," she informed them.
"He wants to discuss my future," she added, shooting Nate
a
pointed look as if to say, Remember me? The girl who has
a stack
of boarding school brochures in her room, put there by her
parents,
who couldn't wait to get rid of her? The girl who was
heartbroken at
the thought of going to boarding school because she
wouldn't get to
see your perfect face every day? The girl who decided to
stay in the
city to be with you? The girl on the verge of a nervous
breakdown
right now as we speak?
Nate grinned back at her blankly. His night with Blair
seemed
to have erased his memory of any quandaries except when
and
where he and Blair were going to hook up next and how to
score
the next dime bag.
Serena glanced at her platinum junior Rolex tank watch.
"I'm
late," she muttered, elaborating on the lie. "Have a good
time,
guys," she added, tiirusting her long, delicate hand in the
air and
stepping off the curb to hail a cab. So what if she hadn't
brought
any money with her. Wasn't that what doormen were for?
Blair and Nate waved brightly to her as the cab performed
an
illegal U-turn and headed east on Fifty-seventh Street.
Serena
felt like she was seeing them for the last time, like they
were
waving goodbye for good. And in a way, maybe they were.
Back in her room, she sat on her bed and stared at the
silver-
framed photograph propped on her bedside table.
Ironically,
the frame was from Tiffany. Nate stood between her and
Blair
I with his arms around them beside the pool outside the van
� Woodsens' Ridgefield country house. All three wore
briglnly | colored bathing suits and were smiling goofily, like
they were MI on some big secret.
She stood up and went over to the window, gazing acruMN
Fifth Avenue at the Met and Central Park. Outside it had
begun I to sleet. Wet snow fell lazily downward until it
melted on the | pavement. A horse and buggy trotted by on
Fifth, carrying tw passengers snuggled together beneath a
gray woolen blankd Serena could have sworn she
recognized Blair's creamy while cashmere scarf, and
wasn't that a blue Tiffany bag in her lapr1 Then something
moved atop the Met's white limestone rool, and she looked
up at it, squinting. It was a large, elegant browti bird with a
hooked beak, perhaps one of those peregrine falcons from
the news, the endangered ones. It must have really loved
the city to want to stay there all by itself in the sleet with no
one to talk to but the pigeons and the squirrels. Or maybe it
was waiting for another falcon that had been momentarily
led astray by some other pretty bird. The lonely falcon
looked like she'd been waiting a long time, and,
considering the weather, there was a good chance the
other falcon wasn't coming back.
But the stubborn falcon wasn't ready to give him up. All she
could do was tuck her head under her wing and wait. /
meets the mother she never had
i he Village Bra Shop, located on the corner of Christopher
Street
ind Seventh Avenue, looked like the kind of store that had
been .iround since the 1970s, selling wigs, hairnets, and
pcds to dotty i ild ladies.The peach-colored painted brick
was cracked and peel- ing; the store's plain black-andwhite sign was so badly faded it was barely legible; and the
only window displayed a dusty, shape- loss mannequin with
cracked green eye shadow wearing a pink raincoat and
black rubber rain boots. Her raincoat hid her boobs so
completely there wasn't even a suggestion of a bra. Jenny
was worried. Where were the bras?
She pushed the door open and stuck her head inside the
tiny shop, ready to flee if it looked scary. Immediately facing
her were racks and racks of beautifully crafted, impossibleto-fmd- anywhere-else bras from faraway places like
Hungary, Poland, Belgium, France, England, Brazil, and
Hong Kong. There were push-ups and gel-lifts and racerbacks and nursing bras, strap- less bras, convertible bras,
underwire bras, and wire-free bras. The Village Bra Shop
was bra heaven.
Jenny stepped all the way inside and rang the little bell at
the unmanned desk at the front of the store. A tiny old luily
sporting a white bun, huge black-framed glasses, a white
lull coat, and lumpy ankles appeared from the back. She
looked likr Nanny from the animated Disney version of 101
Dalmatians, which Jenny used to be addicted to watching.
"Help you?" she demanded in a thick Brooklyn accent. I In
head bobbed as she sized Jenny up. A yellow measuring
tape dangled from her neck. Jenny could almost see the
numbuiN flashing in the thick lenses of Nanny's specs: 32 x
22 x 27. "I understand. You're growing. I can help," she
added before Jennv could explain herself, then swiftly
locked the shop's glass door, lowered a black Venetian
blind to obscure the view from tin- street, and yanked her
measuring tape down off her shoulders. "Take everything
off the top. Arms up like an airplane. Don'l worry, no one
can see inside. It's very private."
Jenny timidly took off her sweater and her Playtex bra and
placed them on top of the metal desk with the bell on it. She
closed her eyes and raised her arms up like airplane
wings. She was naked in front of a complete stranger
inside a store--it seemed crucial to keep her eyes closed to
keep from dying of embarrassment.
Nanny wound the measuring tape around her chest. Ii
tickled. Jenny kept her eyes shut tight as Nanny muttered to
her- self and fished around for a pen on the desk. She
measured each of Jenny's boobs individually, from several
different angles.
"Thirty-two C," she finally pronounced, tapping Jenny's
forearm to indicate that it was okay to put her arms down.
She shuffled deep into the store and came back carrying a
plain white cotton underwire bra with a plain white satin
bow on the front of it. "Doesn't look like much but it's perfect
for a grow- ing girl. It will give you nice coverage and keep
its shape in the ivash." She smiled as she helped Jenny
adjust the bra's straps.
Prom Poland. Very good quality bra."
Jenny waited while Nanny fastened the three hook-and-eye
i losures. Then she followed her to the back of the store to
look
.a herself in the mirror. Her body looked tiny, and then there
was the bra. It didn't push her up or give her extra cleavage--it
swallowed her.
There was something very old-fashioned about it, Jenny
decided with a disappointed frown. Like it was the first bra
ever made. And it made her boobs look like torpedoes.
Poland wasn't exactly the epicenter of the fashion industry,
either. "It's too big," she complained. After all, it was a C
cup. She'd been measuring herself every day for the last
week and she was no C cup.
"It's really not," Nanny insisted calmly. "In a month you'll be
back asking for a bigger one."
Jenny's brown eyes opened wide. But she'd stopped taking
the supplements. Her boobs were perfect now. She liked
them just the way they were--the same size as Serena van
derWoodsen's--- give or take a quarter inch. "What do you
mean?"
"I said before, you're growing. Probably you'll make it up to
a 34 double-D. For a little girl you got a big, healthy chest."
Nanny smiled and pointed to her own misshapen boobs,
which looked like partially deflated birthday balloons stuffed
inside a lab coat. "Just like me."
Jenny crossed her arms over her chest. A double-D?
Impos- sible. She'd spent her entire life painfully flatchested and now this woman was telling her that she was
about to become a mon- ster with super-size breasts?
Wonder Boobs to the rescue!
"Put your sweater back on. The lines on that bra are very
nice," Nanny coaxed. She fetched Jenny's sweater for her
:inil eased it carefully over her head, tugging it down and
smoothing it out like she was Jenny's mom or something.
"Good. See?"
i
Jenny took a step back and examined her reflection
criticallv. The lines were good. Her chest looked perky, but
not overly sn, and the torpedo effect was somehow
diminished by her plain black V-neck sweater. Her boobs
looked natural and normal.
Not for long.
"It's comfortable, too. You buy two of these--one white and
one nude, in case you wear a white T-shirt or something
sheer, You can alternate between the two until you're ready
for a bi^ ger size." Nanny fumbled around in a drawer and
extracted the nude version of the bra. It looked like strap-on
prosthetic bui tocks for a person with weirdly beige skin.
Not exactly what we dream of when we dream of lingerie.
"Cash or charge?"
Jenny paid for the bras with her father's Discover card, still
dazed by what Nanny had said about her growing chest.
She was a boob professional--she would know. The bras
were expensive, seventy-five dollars each. Was she
destined to spend all her allowance and half her salary
when she was an adult and had a career as a graphic artist
on bras alone? Would this have happened if she hadn't
taken those stupid supplements from noknockers.com?
Had the supplements somehow overstimu- lated the growth
hormone in her mammary glands? The words of one of her
male online admirers flashed in her mind. When I look at
your chest in your black tube top I see my future and you're
in it, girl. Was she destined for a life of icky come-ons from
com- plete strangers?
Well, at least she won't be lonely. gossipgirl.net
(� /lies -4 previous next � post a
*s of ptac&s, peopte, a.
f the wedding of the year
hey people!
Okay, so they're not married--yet. They didn't buy a ring and
she didn't
net fitted for the dress. Butthey did buy jewelry--at Tiffany,
no less. And
where did these two people who two days ago were just
friends not kiss
und fondle each other in a very public way all week? They
were like
emperor penguins, doing that "I've found my partner for life"
dance, all
over the entire city. I wouldn't be surprised if they had to
stop in at the
ER at Lenox Hill Hospital to have their lips surgically
separated just so
they could go to school tomorrow. And you know what? I
sort of hate
happy couples. It's like, we love that you've found each
other, but some-
times it's more polite to be happy in private, so people
don't have to
watch you being all cutesy and boring. Think of it this way: if
you leave
more up to our imaginations, we might be kinder to you
when we talk
about you, which we are bound to do.
At least, / am. 1 simply cannot keep my mouth shut! And
neither can
some of you.
your e-mail
�� fl I am a guy and probably not the best judge, but if you
really think
a girl is hot and you, like, bring her all sorts of shit, and
basically make it clear that you want her, and she tells you
to leave, does
that mean she's really into you and she's just playing hard to
get
so you'll want her even more?
--callme
! Dear callme.
No.
Dear GG,
I've been with the same guy since we were twelve. Mow it's
4
years later and he's like, what's the deal? R u ever gonna
give
it up? Maybe it's different 4 grls. I dunno. Maybe I should
just
take the plunge.
--virg
Dear virg,
I will address this in more detail below, but just because you
have been together for a long time doesn't mean you owe
him
anything. If you are fine with how things are, then he should
be
too, or you can teil him to stick it. If you want, /'// tell him to
stick
it--where it hurts.
--GG
DearGG,
I just think that when a guy is supposed to be your escort at
a
very important event, he should at least have the decency to
show up. Some guys should just be castrated, don't you
think?
--bitr
Dear bitr, the right time to do it
For whatever reason, some of my fans have decided that
I'm their mom, and keep popping the "do you think I'm
ready?" question in their mait. Let's just get this straight: I
am not your mom. I'm not even close to being oid enough to
be your mom. But even your mom can't tell you what to do.
You are your own best judge. And the best advice I can give
is, if you have even the slightest doubt, if you're even
thinking of asking yourself or me or anyone else if you're
really ready, you're prob- ably not ready. Trust yourself, and
if you can't do that, trust me. I know everything.
sightings
N and B in Tiffany & Co., being cute and annoying. N and B
in the Cen- tral Park Zoo, teaching the sea lions how to kiss
and being even cuter and more annoying. N and B in a
horse-drawn carriage, being cute and annoying all over the
place. N and B feeding each other strawberry ice cream.
Will they please just get a room? Oops--I guess they
already did! S reading the Travel section of the New York
Times alone in the Three Guys coffee shop on Madison.
Planning her getaway? C in the Hallmark store on Madison,
demanding that they paste his head shot onto the front of a
half-price V-Day card and messenger the card to a certain
Upper East Side address. Wonder who the lucky girl is?
B's dad at a wine tasting in Provence. B's dad hitting on a
shoe salesman in the Prada boutique in Paris. B's dad
testing new mattresses at a bedding store in Nice. B's dad
sitting on the lap of a tractor operator at a vineyard in a little
village outside Cannes. Zut alors, that fellow sure does get
around!
revenge of the spurned
A certain college freshman whom a lot of our guy friends
know way better than you think has decided to leave school
and move to Italy. It seems she befriended a certain Italian
countess at the same deb bnll where both debs were
dissed by their escorts. They decided to start ;i secret
society in Florence, the tenets of which will involve nudism
and no boys! Sounds a little like a certain island off the
coast of Greece beginning with the letter L. I'm sure the
weather's lovely there this time of year.
speaking of lovely weather...
Spring break is less than two weeks away, and what with all
the slush and sleet and subzero temperatures, it's about
time. Some of us-- including yours truly--will spend our
vacation wisely, sunning ourselves in the latest Missoni
string bikinis on remote Caribbean beaches. The more
foolhardy among you will be doing more athletic things like
skiing or scuba diving or playing soccer. I promise to soak
up some extra rays for you. And please use some SPF 15
on your faces--the raccoon tan you get from wearing ski
goggles or a diving mask is simply not a good look.
Whatever you do, enjoy yourself. You absolutely deserve it.
I'm off to soak in a nice hot milk bath surrounded by my
favorite bath toys: a bottle of chilled Veuve Cliquot and a
box of Godiva dark choco- late truffles. Why don't you do
the same, pronto.
You know you love me,
gossip girl Air Mail - Par Avion - March 4
I li Bearita,
We are staying in the most adorable B&B, but we've
already fallen in love with a gorgeous chateau in the next
village that needs some serious TLC. I've decided to retire
early and settle here. It's a dream come true. And guess
what?--it has a vineyard! I'll have my own wine, and you'll be
the first to sample it, ma petite chardon- nay. I miss you
loads, but we'll see each other v. soon in Sun Valley. I'll
meet you at the lodge in twelve days, and please bring that
hunky boyfriend of yours {he is your bf now, yes? Do tell!!),
and Serena of course. Enclosed are three first-class
tickets.
The shopping over here is beyond fantastic. Don't worry, I
can't leave a boutique without buying something pour toi,
Bear,
Love you to pieces, check out their sweet suite
"Those two bags go in here," Blair instructed the strapping,
tan Sun Valley Lodge porter. She indicated her black
quilted leathei Louis Vuitton travel valise and Nate's red
nylon Burton snow boarding bag. The porter removed a
wooden luggage rack from the closet, unfolded it at the end
of the king-size California bed, and gently placed Blair's
valise on top of it. Blair pointed ai Serena's silver Tumi
duffel. "That one goes next door."
Nate came out of the suite's beige marble-tiled bathroom
wearing only a pair of red-and-royal-blue paisley board
shorts. His chest and arms were muscled from playing
lacrosse and still bore the remnants of a tan from
Christmas sailing in the Vir- gin Islands. Smoke oozed out
of the bathroom where he'd jusi enjoyed a wee joint from
the stash he'd hidden inside a knotted sock at the bottom of
his snowboarding bag.
"I'm going for a swim. Want to come?" He grinned widely at
Blair and she threw herself at him with the total abandon of
someone on vacation at the same resort where Marilyn
Monroe had flirted with Ernest Hemingway. The gold Tiffany
pendant he'd given her banged between her breasts in the
deep plunge of � '� i black Loro Piana V-neck sweater.
He gazed down at it with
imied adoration,
"I have to wait for my dad," Blair breathed, kissing him
if rcely.The room's beige-and-black decor and heavy tan
canvas > i mains were unexpectedly ugly, but as long as
she was in Nate's
u nis she didn't care. "We're going to have so much fun!"
Nate held her small, foxlike face in his hands and kissed
her i >uck. He couldn't wait until that night. Hotel beds were
so com- lurtable, and there were no weird reminders of
childhood or i>;irents. No pets, or photographs, or teddy
bears, or eavesdrop- ping moms. Just him and Blair and
that big bed. Awesome.
Serena stood in the suite's adjoining junior bedroom in front
i>l" the oversize windows, watching the skiers in the
distance as iliey crisscrossed the snowy slopes of Baldy
Mountain like col- orful insects. The porter came in and
placed her silver duffel bag nn the wooden luggage rack at
the foot of the lone double bed. She didn't mind having a
room all to herself. She'd just have to %leep with the
television on to drown out the sound of Blair and Nate,
giggling and talking in baby voices to each other like they
were doing right now.
She didn't even know why she'd come, except that she
always went to Sun Valley with Blair for spring break. Plus,
Blair was !ioing to be with her dad for the first time since
he'd run away to France with his boyfriend. If she was going
to start acting weird and making herself sick all over the
place, Serena wanted to be there.
Masochist.
"We got six inches of powder last night/' the porter informed
her with die dorky hell-yeah enthusiasm of a true ski bum.
Serena whirled around, the skirt of her gray cashmere
pleated Marc Jacobs tunic fanning out around the thighs of
her skinu black True Religion jeans. The porter was actually
pretty cm i Thick coppery brown hair poked out from
beneath the dm I - green Dartmouth cap he was wearing to
accessorize his boi ing brown Sun Valley Lodge sweater
with the queer golden sun embroidered on the chest. His
turquoise blue eyes sparkle*), and his surfer dudehandsome face was dotted with frecklo. He was about
twenty-two, and had probably graduated from Dartmouth
last year. Still, he didn't seem the least bit embar rassed
about being a porter.
Although his parents were probably slightly disappointed.
Serena cocked her magnificent blond head. She might be
able to tolerate this vacation if she had some sort of
distraction in the form of an older boy. Maybe Nate would
see her with this other guy and become unspeakably
jealous. He'd spend the resi of their holiday trying to make it
up to her. After all, Blair really did need to spend some
quality time with her dad.
That's the spirit!
"Are you working all day? Could you take me skiing?" sheasked boldly. She took a step toward him and held out her
hand. "I'm Serena."
The porter smiled broadly and stretched out a tan, competent hand. "Love to," he agreed, closing his ski-polecalloused hand around hers. "I'm Fenner. I don't get off till
two, but that'll give you a little time to settle in, and we can
definitely catch some powder runs before the lifts close. I
know where to find the untracked stuff."
Serena just stood there smiling nervously. She'd never
really spoken to a strange guy like this before. His name-Fenner-- was sort of odd, but he seemed like a nice guy. "I'll
meet you ii<- lobby at two," she agreed, hoping she
wouldn't wind up
ii' il and freezing to death on an abandoned cliffside.
Serena? Who are you talking to in there?" Blair's blissedout
� 'ii i- rang out from the other room.
;
l cnner tipped the brim of his green Dartmouth cap and
� imdc out of the suite. "Later," he called, closing the door
i" hind him.
Serena padded warily into Blair and Nate's portion of the
mie, half expecting to find them writhing naked on the bed.
Niite went for a swim," Blair announced. Her suitcase lay �
ni|>ty on the wooden luggage stand. She'd already
unpacked
mill the lodge's sturdy beech armoire and generous cedar
closet,
i our pairs of ballet flats, three pairs of knee-high boots, and
two luirs of cozy tanUggs stood at the ready on the closet
floor.
Not that she planned to venture out much.
Blair prodded Nate's red duffel bag. "Do you think it would
In- weird if I unpacked for him?"
Serena considered the bag. She'd never used the drawers
in .my hotel she'd ever stayed in. She was a live-out-of-her-
suitcase 1 ind of gal. "I don't know." She shrugged her
shoulders. "He's vDur--" She was about to say the word
boyfriend, but she couldn't l>ring herself to utter it. Nate
wasn't Blair's yet, because Serena wasn't ready to give him
up.
The phone beside the bed rang loudly and both girls
jumped. "Hello?" Blair answered with a sexy purr,
undoubtedly thinking it was Nate. Serena watched her
friend's body stiffen. "Fine," she *aid coldly and hung up the
phone. She grabbed the cellophane- wrapped box of Lindt
chocolate truffles from the minibar and tore it open. "Dad's
on his way up." She popped an entire truffle into her mouth.
"With his boyfriend." Serena noticed that her friend's
cheeks were totally ashen "Are you okay?" she asked,
carefully removing the box of trul fles from Blair's grasp. If
she was going to hurl, one truffle wui enough. "Do you want
some water?"
Someone rapped on the door with a fist. "Bear?"
Blair wobbled on her mint green sheepskin Kors platform
slippers. "Just a minute!" she gasped, clutching her
stomach, Then she bolted for the bathroom and slammed
the door.
"Blair Bear? We're here!" Mr. Waldorf called out once
moiv.
Serena ventured forward to open the door. "Hi!" sinchirped enthusiastically. "Blair's just in the bathroom." Mr.
Waldorf looked younger and tanner and gayer than she'd
eva seen him look before, wearing a tight buttery yellow
turtle neck, white wool pants, and brown Italian loafers with
no socks. Beside him stood a dark, handsome, neatly
dressed man with combed-back black hair wearing a gray
cashmere suit, a crisp white shirt, and what looked like a
platinum man's engagement ring, studded with sapphires.
Blair's little brother, Tyler, lurked behind them in the hallway
wearing a pair ol giant white Bose headphones, a
sleeveless black Duran Duran T-shirt, and freshly creased
brown leather pants. He looked pretty gay himself.
"Hello, gorgeous," Mr. Waldorf greeted Serena, kissing her
on both cheeks. "I'd like you to meet my partner, Giles." He
hugged her one last time and then turned to his sleekly
turned- out friend. "This is Serena, part of our family."
Serena blushed with the corniness of it. No sound emitted
from the bathroom.What had happened to Blair? Had she
fallen in? Fainted?
Giles kissed her graciously on both checks. "But you are so
i � .nitiful," he enthused in a luscious French accent,
squeezing
�
h i hands in his and flashing a brilliant white smile.
Serena giggled. Giles looked like he'd spent his entire life
kisking in the Mediterranean sun, shopping for beautiful �
li ahes, and drinking wine. He smelled like lemon verbena.
And IIIML voice! He was tres charmant. No wonder Mr.
Waldorf had 'lecided he was gay.
Blair's dad glanced into the closet and grinned at the vast
.may of clothes and shoes. "I'm glad to see you girls have
settled HI. Blair?" He rapped his knuckles on the bathroom
door. "You're i n it canoodling with that boyfriend of yours in
there, are you?"
It takes a canoodler to know one.
Serena was about to improvise an elaborate lie about why
Nate's suitcase was in this room---the room she was
supposed 10 be sharing with Blair---and her suitcase was
in Nate's room, when Blair stepped out of the bathroom.
She looked fresh and sparkling, as if she'd just had a
makeover. "Hello, Father," she greeted them haughtily,
filling the room with the minty alco- holic odor of
mouthwash, "How's France?"
"France is fabulous, darling." Mr. Waldorf swooped her up
in a tight hug and then let go. He put his arm around his
hand- some boyfriend. "Bear, this is Giles, the wonderful
man I've been telling you about."
Blair hesitated. There was no risk of her vomiting all over
Giles's handsome gray cashmere suit, because she'd
vomited up everything in her stomach already. "Hello," she
managed curtly as her father's overly cologned gay lover
kissed each of her pale cheeks.Tyler slouched in the
doorway in his ridiculous trying-desperately-to-look-likeJim-Morrison-from-the-Doors leather pants, bopping his
head up and down to his own loser beat. "Harold, you did
not tell me these girls would be so be;iiiii "Just a minute.
You've got something important to do fulj" Giles observed.
"They are like movie stars." He pointed nt lirst." Mr. Waldorf
dashed out into the hall and retrieved two Blair's
outrageous green sheepskin platform slippers and flwvil
c.iant shopping bags loaded with shoe boxes and various
items his tidy French nostrils. "Cute sleepers]" wrapped in
black and white tissue paper. "Presents for all!" he
Blair smiled despite herself. Okay, so he was nice. So
wh;iii' cried, like a camped-up, yellow turtleneck-wearing
Santa. He Did her father have to wear yellow turtlenecks
now that he w:i'i plunked the shopping bags down on the
bed. gay? Did his boyfriend have to wear sparkly man
jewelry? Blair had wanted to be aloof and standoffish to let
her father
"Now where is that adorable Nate?" Mr. Waldorf asked,
know just how mad at him she was for dumping his family
and peering into the bathroom as if Nate might be hiding in
then running off to France with his new jewelry-wearing
boyfriend. amongst the complimentary Clarins toiletries.
Instead, she clapped her hands together, unable to control
her
"His muscles were sore. He needed a swim," Blair
announce! I, excitement. "Oh, Daddy!" hoping to shock
them with the implication that she and N;iir
Mr. Waldorf blew her a kiss and ushered Giles and Tyler
out had been having wild and crazy sex ever since they
arrived.
Mr. Waldorf winked conspiratorially at Serena, as if they'd
of the room. "See you at two!" secretly shared their
opinions about what a superb couple Nate Blair reached
inside the first bag and found something large and Blair
made. "Well, as soon as he gets back, why don't we all
wrapped in white tissue paper with the famous black
double-C go out skiing together? There are simply buckets
of fresh powder, Chanel logo on it, She tore the tissue
paper away greedily. The and I can't wait to try out my new
Rossis." new Jaguar Cub hobo bag! The waiting list for the
bag at the
Blair couldn't believe her father had just said the words
Chanel store on Madison was at least ten pages long.
simply buckets with a straight face. "Nate's muscles are
sore," she Maybe having a gay dad won't be quite so bad
after all. repeated with a whine. "And I'm tired." She didn't
really cart- about skiing. All she wanted to do was ro!l
around on that big hotel bed with Nate, wearing the
shimmery red Hanky Panky boy shorts and matching
bralette she'd bought at Bendel's only yesterday.
Serena couldn't wait to get out of this suffocating love den.
"I'm meeting this guy I met in the lobby at two. He works
here. He knows all the good runs. We could all ski
together."
Blair stared at her friend, impressed. She certainly didn't
waste any time. swimsuit weather is just around the corner
"I'm looking for something more along the lines of a working
farm. Somewhere she can learn to make cheese, harvest
her owi i vegetables, skin a goat," Rufus told the director of
the annual Ninety-second Street Y Summer Camp Fair.
Rufus was con- cerned that Jenny was spending her entire
spring break analyz- ing her rapidly developing figure in the
mirror and perfecting her calligraphy. In order to avoid a
repeat over the summer, he'd dragged her to the fair. What
better place to hone life's neces- sary skills like cheese
making and goat skinning than at summer camp?
What about a camp for champagne drinking and
shopping? Burp!
Jenny clutched her father's arm as she took in her surroundings. The Y's gym was crowded with tables bearing
summer camp leaflets and testimonials from previous
campers. Camp directors aired films exhibiting their
camp's offerings as parents and their charges wandered
around the room, looking as dazed and overwhelmed as
she felt.
The camp fair director flipped through her clipboard. She
tvmv a khaki-colored safari dress, thick clear plastic
glasseSj
livili-colored knee-highs, and beige orthopedic shoes. Her
hair
,viH cut in a thick gray pageboy and her skin was doughy.
She
l mkcd. like she'd been doing her job a long time. "Lake
Quin-
<
ni|)iac has goats, but the concentration there is on
swimming."
"No!" Jenny practically shouted. The way her boobs were
r.M'wing she'd be a double-F by summer. No way was she
going
'.wimrning in public. "No swimming. What about an art
camp?"
i h perhaps there was a slimming camp for girls with giant
lii-casts?
We must, we must, we must decrease our busts!
The director flipped through the pages in her clipboard
ii;ain. "The Rhode Island School of Design has a wonderful
� :unp." She peered at Jenny over her dorky thick plastic
glasses.
You have to be fourteen," she added with a frown, obviously
unable to determine the age of this tiny girl with a baby face
and i lie chest of a stripper.
At least she'll never get carded.
Rufus was already distracted by a table covered with rocks.
"Come on." He grabbed Jenny by the elbow and dragged
her over. "What's this?" he demanded of the woman seated
behind i he table. She wore a confusing brown-and-blue
wool poncho lhat looked like it had been knit by left-handed
two-year-olds. Her frizzy hair hung in two graying waistlength braids. On her feet were the type of woven leather
sandals sold by street peddlers in Mexico.
"Rock people," she explained, even though the rocks were
just plain rocks. "I'm Cindi Bridgehutter. And this is what we
do at Camp Bridgehutter--make people out of rocks."
Jenny stared at the woman, who was obviously insane. She
tugged on her father's too-tight Ben & Jerry's purple tie-dyo!
T-shirt. Maybe summer camp wasn't such a good idea after
;ill But Rufus stood his ground, already smitten with Camp
Bridge hutter and its Rapunzel-haired founder.
"Dad," Jenny whined under her breath. Behind her two bill,
skinny blond girls in skimpy white tennis dresses were
registu ing for a tennis camp on Lake Placid. Jenny couldn't
imagine her boobs bouncing around inside a tennis dress.
Nope, tennis was out too.
"Of course that's just a metaphor. I'm an artist. It's an am
camp," Cindi Bridgehutter elaborated gaily. Her teeth were
vaguely blue, and Jenny wondered if maybe she'd done too
many weird drugs in her twenties or worn braces as an
adult. Oi maybe it was a rare gum disease.
Rock peoplitis?
"Aha! An arts camp!" Rufus crowed. "Sign her up!"
"Dad!" Jenny protested. Didn't he even want to know where
the camp was? And what about goats? Five minutes ago
he was adamant that she learn to skin a goat.
"We're based in my hometown of Wooten, Pennsylvania,
near a lovely lake. Of course we have all the usual camp
offer- ings like swimming, archery, and tennis, but they're
optional. Our campers are encouraged to work on their
craft. Our mis- sion is to bring out the rock person within,"
Ms. Bridgehutter expounded, tugging on her braids for
emphasis. "Every camper creates their own mounds. It's a
wonderful thing each summer to watch the mounds grow."
Haven't a certain person's mounds grown quite enough?
"The rock person within!" Rufus sounded thrilled.
Actually, the camp didn't sound so bad. Jenny liked the
idea that swimming was optional. She didn't know what
was meant by "mounds," but she hoped it was another
metaphor. "I do calligraphy," she ventured shyly. "And
portraits. I entered the hymnal contest at school."
Ms. Bridgehutter flashed her blue teeth in a freaky Cat-inthe-Hat-like smile. She clearly had no idea what Jenny was
talk- ing about. Rufus was already filling in Jenny's name,
address, and birthday on an admissions form. "I'll need a
deposit check to secure her spot," the camp's director told
him greedily.
Jenny glanced over at the next table, where a perky
redheaded girl in a cheerleading outfit was showing off her
latest cheer to the director of a cheerleading camp in
Princeton, New Jersey.
"Give me an S-U-M-M-E-R! What's that spell? Summer! Go
summer! Summertime!'."
There were long lines to sign up for both the cheerleading
camp and the tennis camp. Across the gym a TV showed a
girl riding a horse around an impressive course of jumps.
The line for that camp was even longer. No one was signing
up for Camp Bridgehutter. No one.
Um. Wonder why.
Jenny turned back to the table where her father was
furiously filling out forms. Beneath one of the rock people
was a photo- graph of a boy carving a face out of wood. He
had wild, dark hair and fantastic arm muscles. "Oh, are
there boys there?" she asked the blue-toothed camp
director eagerly. She'd never even gone to school with
boys, let alone sleepaway camp.
Boys, boys, boys!
"The ratio of boys to girls is three to one," Ms. Brigehut- ter
explained. "Girls are all signing up for horseback riding and
soccer camps these days." She handed Jenny an egg-size
rock and flashed her blue teeth again. "I'm sure you'll have
lots < l
> inspiration."
Jenny turned the rock over and over in her hands as hci
father finished filling out the forms. Three boys to every girl.
With those sorts of numbers, who wouldn't want to find the
rock person within?
Give me an S-U-M-M-E-R! What does that spell? Boys! the
hills are alive with the sound ofs's beating heart "Oops!
Sorry!" Blair cried as she crashed into the three large men
in front of her in the lift line. Even though she'd never tried it
before, she'd insisted on snowboarding instead of skiing,
so that she and Nate would be the same. She'd been skiing
since she was four. How hard could it be?
"Bear, ride with us!" Her father grabbed the elbow of her
white Bogner ski jacket and yanked her back into line as he
was about to board the triple chairlift beside Giles. Blair
hopped awkwardly up and down on one foot, clutching her
father until she was seated securely on the lift's padded
chair.
"She's nuts," Fenner observed. "There are no easy runs up
there. She should be on Dollar Mountain, taking lessons."
Serena pushed her silvery poles into the snow as they
advanced in the line. Then it was their turn to board the
chair. Fenner was on her left, and she guessed Tyler would
ride up with them, but then--whoosh!--Nate scooted in on
her right on his nifty neon green Burton board.
"Hey," he greeted them breathlessly. "Sorry I'm late." The lift
eased up behind them and swept them off their feet.
Serena was wearing a navy blue Patagonia parka the
same color as J� eyes. Her blond hair spilled out from
beneath a white hand knit earflap hat, and her hands were
bundled into a pair �� gigantic black mittens. Next to her
was a tall guy wearing a vcn professional-looking black
North Face powder suit and oranj.:i- goggles with no hat.
"Hey, you're the guy from the hotel," Niiir observed.
Fenner introduced himself. "Serena asked me to show ha
some untracked snow," he said, grinning at her. The chairlili
rose up on its cable until their skis skimmed the treetops.
Tin1 sky was blue, the mountain was crisp and white, and
the aii smelled like Christmas, even though it was March.
Nate tapped Serena's skis with his snowboard. "I never sec
you anymore," he told her accusingly.
"Well, I'm still here," she responded quietly. Their thighs and
shoulders were touching, and Serena could feel the whole
Nate side of her vibrate with a familiar, warm hum. Could
he feel it? Was he humming too?
Actually he was humming, but thar was because he'd
smoked a joint before and after he'd gone swimming. Nate
turned and looked at her and she looked back. His
glittering green eyes were bloodshot from the pot and
swimming in the lodge's over- chlorinated pool. Her dark
blue eyes were big and hopeful. "Hi," he said tenderly,
maybe even a little sadly.
"Hi," Serena replied, wondering if they would survive if she
pulled him off the lift with her. It was at least a seventy-foot
drop, but she was dying to kidnap him and tunnel way down
deep in the snow so they could kiss in private. Deep down,
he was dying to kiss her too. Wasn't he? Jump! She
wanted to scream. Jump!
Emergency rooms are anything but private. "I'm thinking of
going out for ski patrol next year," Fenner lold them,
whacking his long skis together in a noisy display of skierly
cool. "My dad's into it. He wanted me to go to medical
school, but ski patrol is like being a doctor on skis, except
all you need to know is first aid and CPR."
Dude, medical school is so yesterday.
"Cool," Nate responded, tearing his eyes away from
Serena. Up ahead he heard Blair shriek as she attempted
to dismount from the chair. That was one of the hardest
things about snow- boarding; it had taken him a year to get
it right. The chairlift halted abruptly. Obviously Blair had
wiped out.
Serena shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Fenner was even
more good-looking in his black North Face ski clothes, but
he was a little too old for her, and a little too much of a snow
geek. "I totally love those red ski patrol uniforms," she
gushed lamely, her attempt at girlish flirtation falling flat.
The chairlift started moving again. Nate lifted the toe of his
snowboard, preparing to dismount. Just below the off ramp,
Blair sat in a giggling, snow-covered heap. Her father and
his French boyfriend stood over her looking like slalom
racers for the Gay French Olympics in their matching black
Bogner stretch suits.
"Natie!" Blair cried, waving her pink-mittened hands overhead. Nate dismounted from the chair and coasted
effortlessly over to her. "My necklace broke," she told him,
holding up the torn rope of black silk.
Maybe it's a sign, Serena thought, appalled by her
meanness.
"I still have the heart, though," Blair explained, rising to her
knees and patting her parka pocket. "The chairlift guy put in
it here forme."
Nate pulled off his gloves and tucked the black silk rope
into his own pocket. Then he coaxed Blair to her feet and
strapped her free foot onto the back of her snowboard. He
grasped her hands and put them on his waist. "Hold on to
me," he instructed competently. "I'll get you down."
Serena stared after them as Nate led Blair out into the
easiesi section of the run. I'm still here! she shouted at them
silently. Then Fenner blew by her, shredding the snow with
his long racing skis. "Torque it!" he called over his shoulder
like the snow-bum geek that he was. Blair's dad and Giles
started down after him, making concise little figure-eight
turns with their matching red Rossignol skis. Serena wiped
her nose on her mitten, lifted her head, and sucked in a
gulp of cold mountain air. She'd wanted Nate to be jealous
of her and Fenner, but she couldn't exactly flirt with Fenner
when she only had eyes for Nate.
"What's up, gorgeous?" A studly-looking snowboarder in an
army fatigue print Burton snowsuit skidded by, flashing her
a cocky smile. Serena watched him disappear down the
slope and into the trees. Then she kicked up her skis and
let out a loud, giddy whoop as she catapulted down the hill.
The powder was fresh and she was surrounded by
gorgeous boys on snowboards. She wasn't about to let a
broken heart ruin her vacation.
There's something they don't teach you in private school:
you have to be born to it--die art of the rally. v plays hard to
get
danhum: i thought we were gonna do stuff over spring
break, my Iriends are all away.
hairlesskat: what friends?
dan hum: ok my 1 friend. I already filled up that notebook
with poems. I'm bored.
hairlesskat: my whole mag is ur poems and my pics be the
girls in rny school are hopeless
danhum: my sister goes to yr school.
hairlesskat: shes not hopeless--her art is in it
danhum: so do you want to see a movie?
hairlesskat: I prefer films to movies. Warhol Sucked opens
at the Film Forum next Thursday
hairlesskat: hello?
danhum: ok i guess, if you can't make it before then.
hairlesskat: im worth the wait
danhum: huh?
hairlesskat: nevermind gossipgirl.net
1
hey people!
greetings from paradise
I write to you from an undisclosed location, beneath a palm
tree, the barely there breeze wafting over my perfectly
tanned, barely bikinied form. It has occurred to me that I
needn't ever return. I can do what I do best--write this
column--from anywhere. And I do so hate the idea of ever
wearing clothes again. There is the problem of missing the
final, important years of high school, and college would be
out of the ques- tion, but I'm sure in ten years or so some
wise Ivy League institution will bequeath me an honorary
degree after being amused and informed by the wisdom of
my words for so iong. There is one small problem, though: I
miss you afl terribly. And if I'm not where you are, I honestly
don't have much to write about. Still, you've been ever so
good about keeping me informed. . . .
your e-mail
Dear Gossip Girl, Q So my family has a condo in Sun
Valley and it's right behind the
lodge. You can see the heated outdoor pool from my
bedroom. I'm
not a stalker, but, I'm sorry I watched that boy you call N do
the
backstroke for an hour smoking this huge joint. These other
girls
started showing up at the pool because he was there. His
girl-
friend had better watch it, because we are all crazy about
him.
jetty Dear skibetty, 1
Yes. And the thing that makes him even more delightful is
that
he has no idea how completely smitten we all are.
--GG
Dear GG,
Okay, so first of all I'm a guy, so it's kind of embarrassing
for me
to be talking to you. But I figure, if you can't help me, who
can? I
saw this girl's picture on the Internet and I think she's really
cute
and I want to meet her, but I don't want her to know I know
who
she is, because I don't think she meant to, like, put herself
out
there. You know?
--bud
Dear bud,
It's hard for me to tell how creepy you are or aren't without
meet-
ing you, but I will venture to say that if you saw this girl's
picture
on the Internet, she did indeed mean to "put herself out
there"--
it's just a matter of how far. With her best interests in mind,
I'd
like to suggest that you leave your meeting in person up to
fate.
Got it? Good.
--GG
I DearGG,
I was getting to be friends with this girl and now she's kind
of act-
ing like we're online dating or something. No, that's not i t . .
. but
she's being weird. I know she likes me, but I just want to be
friends
with her and hang out. Do things have to be so
complicated?
--insomniac
Dear insomniac,
She likes you, but you "just want to hang out." I believe
you've
answered your own question,
--GG sightings
B and N in the mountaintop lunch spot in Sun Valley with
their ski boots off, playing footsie under the table. S flirting
with a tall blond male ski instructor in the line for chili dogs.
You know what they say: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. B's
dad and his French boy toy, also playing footsie under the
table. B's little brother, T, surrounded by admiring elevenyear-old girls as he skipped lunch to catch a few more runs
wearing only a black Led Zeppelin T-shirt and brown
leather pants care of Hermes, Paris. Another stud in the
making? C in Rome, slathered in extra-virgin olive oil and
sunbathing topless on the steps of the Coliseum. Is he
trying to lure back his extra-virgin Italian countess? You
know what they say--when in Rome . . . K and I skidding
down the slopes in Stowe, trying desperately to make a
fashion statement while freezing their little tushies off in
denim short shorts and black legwarmers. Sorry dears, but
Vermont and Sun Valtey just do not compare. D al the main
branch of the Public Library on Forty-second and Fifth in
the Romantics sec- tion. Aw. And finally, yours truly,
glorious as usual in the latest white Eras bikini, lying prone
on a white sand beach, lazily tap-tap-tapping the keys of my
laptop.. . .
campari is not as harmless as it looks
My cure-all for too many days sipping too many bottles of
champagne has always been a nice tall Campari and soda
with a fresh wedge of lime. However, the reason I lie here,
quite unable to swim or read or disengage myself from my
batik-print chaise lounge, is that four or five Campari and
sodas will quite do you in. Campari, after ail, is alcohol.
And I thought it was a bitter sort of cherry syrup. Hiccup! Oh
well, live and learn. Or maybe I should say, live well and
learn. Enjoy the rest of your holiday, darlings. Whether
you're on the slopes or in the surf, I want to see every one of
you dressed in a to-die-for tan when we return.
You know you love me,
gossip girl her heart's on his sleeve and he's wrapped
around her little finger "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" Blair howled
as Nate eased her black Ellesse ski pants down over her
snowboard-sore calves. He'd warned her that
snowboarding used a different set of muscles and a
different skill set than skiing, but as usual Blair had refused to listen. Now she was paying the price. Yesterday
she'd collapsed in a heap after dinner. This morning she'd
barely been able to walk, but she'd insisted that Nate give
her another snow- boarding lesson on the baby run while
Serena skied with her father and Giles. Nate pulled off her
white cashmere turtleneck and rubbed her bare arms.
Sounds like she's really suffering.
"Want me to run you a bath?" he offered.
Blair lay back on the bed, her pain forgotten. He'd already
cured her. "Just kiss it better, please," she directed.
He walked over and closed the door between their room
and Serena's. Serena seemed to be having a blast
hopping moguls with Biair's dad and his boyfriend. All the
more time to finally do it with Blair. She lay on the bed in her
black underwear and a ridiculously see-through black mesh
undershirt that was sup- �� ,id to be some sort of hightech self-wicking polypropylene 11 ii Icrgarment but was
actually pretty fucking sexy. Nate took off
1 in-, snow pants and then his shirt. His heart was beating
fast.
"You were so patient with me today," Blair observed. She
i'mpped herself up on her elbows to look at him. The brown-
ii id-gold floral bedspread was totally heinous, but she
looked lioi on it anyway. "I love you, Nate."
Nate sat down on the end of the bed. "I love you too, Blair."
11 is heart was beating even faster now. This was it, he
was sure i > it.When they'd first gotten together Blair had
said they would
l li;ive sex "later." Well, it was later now. It was time. He bent
1 own and kissed her on the shoulder.
1
Blair grabbed his head and pulled him down on top of her. I
ler own hotel room with the boy of her dreams--the movie
that was her life just kept getting better and better! She
smiled up at Mate and almost said, Let's pretend we just
got married and we're mi our honeymoon, but then she
remembered that not everyone was as crazy as she was. "J
u s t kiss me," she whispered instead.
Nate kissed her--all over. It was a good thing he'd had such
;i long day of skiing and swimming and getting high,
because if he'd been slightly less tired, he'd have had
trouble containing himself. "I don't think I want to just kiss
you anymore," he told her as he smoothed her long dark
hair away from her face. "I want to do something else."
On the other side of the door the sounds of a TV roared
noisily. Then there was a series of thumps and bumps.
Serena appeared to be back and rearranging the furniture.
Was she with that Fenner dude? Nate wondered fleetingly.
It was cool how easily Serena met people and made
friends. He traced his finger across Blair's collarbone and
down her arm. She giggled ticklishly and propped herself
up on her elbow, then kissed Nate's temple. He was such a
boy. Obviously he was dying to have sex, but she just wasn't
ready yet. "I know you wani to. I want to too," she murmured
sympathetically. "But we have to wait." She kissed his
cheek. "Until this summer." She kissed his lips and smiled
coyly. "On the train." They'd spend the day in Paris, ambling
the side streets around Ndtre-Dame and drinking rose in
romantic cafes. When night fell they'd board the train ai the
Gare du Nord. As it eased out of the station and across the
city, they'd lock their couchette, strip off their clothes, feed
each other champagne-dipped strawberries, and make
wild, passionate love until the train had reached the
oceanside.
Nate suspected that he was supposed to be as excited by
this as Blair seemed to be, but waiting until summer
sounded like the worst idea he'd ever heard. He flopped
back on the ugly, scratchy bedspread. "Dad said he 'wasn't
too keen on the idea of me traveling alone with two young
girls,'" he admitted, quot- ing him nearly verbatim but not
exactly telling Blair everything. The truth was, he was pretty
sure his hard-ass navy captain father had done one of his
extremely sporadic "routine checks" of his room just before
Nate left for Sun Valley, and had possi- bly found his bong.
Not that his clueless-to-all-that's-hip father would know what
the bong was for, but it had probably aroused some
suspicion. "He might not let me go."
Blair pressed her cheek against his smooth, bare chest,
clos- ing her eyes and grinning as she breathed in his
wonderful Nate- ness. Then she walked her fingers up his
belly, spiderlike. "Since when have our parents ever not let
us do what we wanted?"
Nate laughed halfheartedly. "I just love you, that's all."
Losing their virginity together on a train sounded pretty
damn uncomfortable. There wouldn't be any room to spread
out or try different positions. And the pillows would probably
suck. Couldn't they just do it now? What difference could a
couple of months make?
Blair slapped his stomach playfully and sat up. "I have a
present for you. Actually, the present is from France. My
dad brought it." She didn't tell him that she had embellished
the gift with her own ingenious touch using the lodge's mini
sewing kit. She got up, went over to the walk-in closet, and
took out the carefully rewrapped parcel. "It's from
Courreges," she gushed, handing it to him. "In Paris."
Nate sat up and tore the white tissue paper away from the
squishy package, unsheathing a thick and luxurious moss
green cashmere V-neck sweater.
Blair snatched the sweater up and held it against his bare
chest. She couldn't wait for him to try it on so she could rip it
off of him again. "Try it on, try it on," she urged.
Nate slipped his arms into the sleeves and pulled the
sweater on over his head. It was soft and felt nice against
his skin. It was going to be one of his favorites--he could
tell. "It's great. Thanks."
The moss green hue of the sweater made his eyes look
even greener, and the bare V of his tan chest made Blair
want to scream. She was dying to tell him that she had
sewn the gold heart he'd bought her at Tiffany into the
inside of one of the sweater's sleeves so that he would
always be wearing her heart on his sleeve. But Nate would
only want to cut the heart out and make her wear it again.
She liked it better where it was, hidden against his
adorable skin. She kissed his neck and nuzzled her lace
into his wonderful, cashmere-coated chest. Nate played
with a lock of her shiny chestnut-colored hair, 1 loving the
soft, cozy feel of the sweater. "Hey, where's the heart I gave
you?" he asked suddenly, as if reading her mind.
Blair lifted her head. "In a safe place." She kissed him on
the lips--long and slow---partly to make him forget the
question and partly because he looked so delicious
wearing the sweater, she just couldn't resist.
"I love you, Blair," he murmured; tugging up on her black
mesh undershirt.
Her heart on his sleeve, indeed. s comes of age in the
wrinkle room After that first day of skiing, Fenner had
invited Serena out with his other ski bum friends, but she
had turned him down. She preferred solitude or the
reassuring company of Blair's liither and his nice gay lover
over pretending to flirt with a boy she wasn't even remotely
interested in. While Nate and Blair fooled around on the
other side of the door, she tried to watch Cocktail--the
worst Tom Cruise movie ever made--but had to turn away
when the people in Tom's hideously crowded bar started to
recite terrible poetry and everyone in the bar hooted and
clapped like it was the most kick-ass, profound stuff they'd
ever heard. She turned the TV off and tried to unpack her
clothes into the lodge's bureau drawers. She washed her
hair and blow- dried it. She filed her nails. She turned theTV
back on and tried to watch Marie Antoinette starring Kirsten
Dunst, but the story was so thin she quickly grew bored.
Every few minutes a sul- i ry giggle or an amused chuckle
emanated from the next room. Marie Antoinette wasn't
getting any action from King Louis, hut it sounded like Blair
and Nate were getting plenty.
Finally, when she could stand it no longer, she threw on a
black merino cardigan and her favorite pair of beat-up bl;ul'
Chanel flats and hastily left the room. On the second floor of
111'- lodge was the famous bar and late-night dance
lounge, populm with the over-sixty set, that the lodge staff
had nicknamed tin- Wrinkle Room. Serena sat down at the
bar, feeling young anil conspicuous. Older couples
crowded the dance floor, gingerlv holding each other as
they waltzed and tangoed to the medlcv of Frank Sinatra
songs belted out by the tuxedoed, mustachioei I piano
player.
Come fly with me, come fly, come fly away....
"I'd like a shot of Absolut, please," Serena told the frail,
thousand-year-old bartender. "And a Coke." The bartendei
poured her the Coke but not the shot. His body looked
totally decrepit, but his mind must have been working fine.
Clearly she was too young for him to even card.
Serena was grateful he allowed her to stay.The lounge was
lii by candlelight, and through the windows she could see a
lighi snow begin to fall. The snow appeared to be made of
gold. A couple swept by her place at the bar. They were the
best dancers of the bunch, and the best dressed. He was
silver-haired and dapper in a hunter green velvet evening
jacket and tuxedo pants. She was elegant in a pewtercolored silk gown, her white hair done up in a neat French
twist. They danced gracefully and eas- ily, as if they'd
practiced for such a long time that the steps were second
nature.Their eyes never strayed from each other's faces,
and they were both smiling, like they were the luckiest
couple alive.
It was difficult not to see herself and Nate in them. Half a
century after their romance had begun, they would
celebrate- by dancing here. If things were entirely different,
that is. Now it seemed a lot more likely that Nate and Blair
would be the ones to do the dancing. How could he have
changed partners so easily and guiltlessly, without batting a
single one of his per- fect golden brown eyelashes? How
could he forget how they'd kissed in her warm bed that cold
February night? And kissed, and kissed . . .
She lit a cigarette, letting the smoke trail away into the
candlelight. If only she could give Nate up to Blair wholly ;ind
completely and stop thinking about kissing him. But she
couldn't. Even if it was all in her head, he was still just a little
bit hers. One thing was certain: she wouldn't torture herself
again by traveling with them this summer. After this drink
she would e-mail the agent in charge of arranging their
summer train trip to tell him there would only be two
travelers this summer, not three. No way was she going to
sit in romantic French cafes with Blair and Nate while they
fondled each other beneath the table and called each other
pet names like Gummy Bear and Noodle. No way was she
going to listen to them having loud, giggly sex in their
romantic couchette while she sat alone in her couchette,
knitting misshapen sweaters or doing the crossword in
French, which had never been her best subject. She'd find
something else to do this summer, like help her mother
prune the rose- bushes up in Ridgefield, learn to juggle,
perfect her breaststroke, meet another boy.
As if there could ever be another boy.
Serena's well-defined shoulders slumped and she leaned
heavily on the dark wooden bar. Salty tears seeped out of
her sad navy blue eyes and slid down her cheeks. She
suddenly felt older and more tired than any of the other
patrons in the lounge. She pushed her Coke away and was
about to slip off her lonely
Z79 bar stool when the bartender set a shot glass down in
from < her. He poured out a shot of Absolut. The piano
player belied � out another tune.
It had to be you, wonderful you, it had to be you....
Serena steeled herself, tipped her head back, and did i
shot. She'd never done a shot before, but she'd always
been ! bolder when she was alone.
Looks like this might be the dawn of a bold new era.
A v catches d with his pants on It was the last Thursday of
spring break. Vanessa had finally Creed up her schedule
enough to bring a DVD over to Dan's house along with
some sushi and a bottle of sake, care of Ruby. Vanessa
had always thought sushi was sort of romantic, the way
everything was so neat and bite-size. You could feed each
other without making too much of a mess. You barely even
needed a napkin. Not that she and Dan were in the
feeding-each-other stages just yet, especially not when
she'd barely spoken to him in weeks. But maybe by the end
of the evening . . .
Never underestimate the power of sake.
Dan had been looking forward to tonight all week because
with Zeke away in Florida he was dying of boredom and
loneli- ness and had even contemplated writing a novel.
The thing was, the only thing he could think of to write about
was a bored, lonely fifteen-year-old loser, and no one would
want to read about that. Thankfully, Vanessa had arrived to
relieve him of his navel-gazing. They sat on the floor of the
study with their backs against the worn brown leather sofa.
He stuck in the DVD and pressed play. A Japanese couple
rode the subway, looking tired and greasy.They were
Japanese but they were speaking Spanish, "Where are the
subtitles?" Dan wondered aloud. "Am I sup- posed to
understand what they're saying?"
Ruby had recommended the movie Mystery Train, which
slu- claimed was the best film ever made, and was all about
lost souh finding each other. Vanessa thought that sounded
just right.
I She'd searched for almost an hour and finally found it in
tin- Imports section of the tiny, dirty video rental place down
tin- street from their apartment. Now she knew why. "It's in
Span ish," she observed. Ruby hadn't told her it was a
foreign film. Then she noticed that the actor's lips were
moving differently from the sound. Elvis appeared and his
lips were definitely moving in English but his voice came
out sounding like Julio Iglesias's. "It's dubbed," she
realized, feeling rather stupid.
"That's okay, I can read lips." Dan opened the bag of sushi
and began to carefully lay out the containers on the coffee
table. He poured sake into two plastic cups, his hands
shaking as usual. He handed a cup to Vanessa. She
looked just the same as she had when he'd seen her last.
Her head was shaved close and she was dressed entirely
in black. It was kind of reassuring.
Vanessa watched the way Dan's hands shook as he
attempted to pick up a California roll with his chopsticks.
She poured more sake into his cup. Maybe it was a good
thing the movie was practically unwatchable. He seemed
pretty nervous, and she was pretty sure she knew why. He
wanted her to kiss him again, but he was terrified he was
going to black out again. The way he tortured himself was
so damned irresistible. It was all she could do to keep from
jumping his pale, skinny bones.
Dan lit a cigarette, getting into the movie despite the fact
that he couldn't understand it most of the time. He liked that
i ;ill the people in it seemed to be up doing stuff when
everyone else was asleep. He'd been having some trouble
sleeping himself lately. Maybe it was the cigarettes.
Or die instant coffee he drank all day?
He finished his sake and poured himself some more. The
little bottle was almost empty. "Dad's out," he observed.
"But he opened some Chianti before he left. Should I get
it?"
Vanessa nodded encouragingly. The drunker Dan got the
more likely he was to let his guard down and kiss her.
Or faint again. Or throw up.
"This movie reminds me of Kerouac," Dan told her, coming
back with a liter bottle of red wine with a picture of a black
bull on the label. "My dad would love it. Whither goest thou,
America, in thy shiny car in the night?" he quoted, puffing
out his skinny chest like a jackass.
Here was one of the things Vanessa liked most about him,
one of the things that set him apart: he could drop a literary
quote without even pausing to think about it. He was a boy
out of times past. Her scruffy little Shakespeare. Her bard.
Oh, she was glad she'd come. And glad he had more wine.
Soon Dan had finished off the Chianti too, and half a pack
of Camels. His head was woozy and the room seemed set
on a tilt. It didn't matter anymore that he couldn't really
understand the movie. Then the room dipped and tilted at
an even sharper angle. He felt like he was on a ride at
Hershey Park in Penn- sylvania, where his dad had taken
him and Jenny that one time. Whoa, easy does it. He
slumped against Vanessa and put his arm around her for
support.
"Hey," she laughed, turning to face him. Her mouth was so
close to his cheek she could smell his smoky skin, the wine
on his warm breath. She noticed for the first time that the
tips of his eyelashes were strawberry blond, the same color
as the fuzz on his upper lip. It was all she could do to keep
from kissing him again. She wanted him to make the move.
Any time now . . .
"Oof," Dan grunted. "I think I need to lie down." He grasped
her thigh as he attempted to heave himself up onto the
leather
I sofa.
Little electric pulses ran up and down Vanessa's leg.
"Here." She knelt beside him and helped him up. "I'll get
you some water," she offered, trying not to sound
disappointed. "You little wuss."
She fetched the water, and then on impulse pulled out her
camera. Dan's head was thrown to the side at an
uncomfortable angle and his eyelids were open just a crack
so that she could see the whites. His hands were pressed
into a praying position between his knees. He looked half
dead. Vanessa snapped the picture. Then, just to be funny
and mean and to remind him that she had witnessed his
demise and still had a sense of humor about it, she
decided to upload the picture on Dan's computer. She'd
leave it open for him to stumble upon when he woke up in
the morning.
The desk lamp was on in his room and the computer
hummed. Cracked mugs half full of cold coffee littered the
desk, and an old Coke can held the traces of Dan's new
cigarette obsession. The room smelled stale and the
brown-paper-bag-colored shag carpet was filled with lint.
Vanessa loved it. It was just so . . . Dan.
She hooked up her camera, jiggled the mouse, and clicked
around until she found a folder simply called Dan's Pictures.
Opening the folder, she scrolled absently through the files,
and was about to download her own silly photo when she
came
I upon two files called serenavdayl and serenavday2. She
clicked on the first one, and the picture she'd taken of
Serena looking � ockily back at the camera while she
flashed her bare, heart- i:iitooed butt cheeks loomed large
on the screen. Vanessa stared .ii the photo. The lines from
Dan's poem--one of her favorites--
ippeared in her mind:
Your blond hair ad freaky
Sitting on my bed
Polishing my toes
Dan's leather-bound poetry journal lay on the desk beside 1
lie computer monitor. She flipped it open to Jenny's illustrai ion of a blond angel that Dan had pasted on the inside
cover.
The angel had the same dark blue eyes, the same
seductive "you know you love me" smile as Serena in the
photo, Vanessa whirled ;iround in Dan's swivel chair. More
of Jenny's illustrations were pasted on the wall. There were
five of them in total. Each of the live was of an angel in
flight, her long golden hair trailing out between her
widespread wings, her head haloed and lovely. She
rmild've have been any blond angel, except for her navy
blue ('.onstance Billard uniform, her dark blue eyes, and the
gold 5 pendant around her neck.
More lines from Dan's poems streaked through her mind
Do you know me?
I think you do
But she hadn't known him, she'd just thought she had. Dan
wasn't just a doting brother, she realized now. These
weren't angels. They were all likenesses of Serena. He was
so obsess*. I with her gorgeous blond classmate that he'd
stolen her pictured and pasted reminders of her all over his
cracked, cream-coloreil wall. Dan Humphrey, the object of
her undying affection, was ;i Serena-stalking freak.
Vanessa tossed the leather-bound journal on the desk,
stomped back into the study, and glared at Dan's sleeping
form He looked like a little boy, his eyelids ticking, drool
pooling in the corners of his mouth. She spun around and
tiptoed inm the kitchen, hunting around in the cupboards
until she found :i saucepan. Then she filled it with water and
tiptoed back to tin- living room. Dan was snoring softly now,
one arm dangling over the side of the couch. Vanessa set
the saucepan on the floor, lifted his arm, and carefully
lowered his hand into the tepid water. She stood up and
slipped on her black PVC rain jacket, leaving him to his
own demise.
The sound of her Doc Martens reverberating noisily on the
dusty hardwood floor followed by the slam of the front door
startled Dan awake. He hadn't meant to fall asleep--he jusi
needed to rest until the room righted itself again.
"Hey . . . Vanessa?" he called out, sitting up. He looked
down at his pants. They were soaked. He'd wet himself like
a three-year-old. And his hand was wet too. He swung his
legs to the floor, knocking over the saucepan of water. The
scent of wet, stale cigarette smoke emanated from the
musty Per- sian rug, making him gag. "Christ," he muttered,
staggering toward the door. He shuffled soggily down the
hall to his room. Vanessa's wildly gorgeous picture of
Serena and her bare butt cheeks swam gaudily in front of
him on his computer screen. Oh. Oh! "What's going on?"
Jenny poked her head into his room,
iiw!" she cried, pointing at his soaked crotch. "Gross!"
"Fuck off," Dan told her miserably. He flicked off the power
m his computer monitor before Jenny could see what was
on it. Vanessa must hate him. He hated himself.
"I just saw Vanessa leave." Jenny stepped into his room
wear- ing a pair of pink Powerpuff Girls baby-doll pajama
shorts and ;i tiny red J.Crew bikini top, her curly dark hair
brushed into two light pigtails. "She's so weird. Have you
guys kissed yet? I think she really likes you."
Dan stared at his sister in disbelief. Vanessa had made
him pee himself. Even if she'd liked him before, she didn't
like him very much anymore.
"I have to change," he sighed miserably, hunting on the floor
for a semi-clean pair of cords.
And clearly it's not just his clothes that need changing. the
mean reds vs. the blues After nine grueling but glorious
days of skiing, their last morn- ing in Sun Valley had
arrived. Nate felt guilty about not get-
I ting more runs in while he was there, so he'd woken up
early and hit the slopes. Blair threw open the door to
Serena's room and crawled into bed with her. "Breakfast at
Tiffany's is on," she announced, pressing "select" on the
cable remote and grabbing the room service menu from off
the bedside table. The lodge had the best Belgian waffles
she'd ever tasted. Belgian waffles and Breakfast at
Tiffany's. What better way to end a perfect vaca- tion?
Well, there is one other thing that might make it even more
special.
Serena opened a dark blue eye and peeked at Blair
through a curtain of thick blond hair. She reached for the
clay boat Nate had made for her with HMS Serena and the
little red heart in- scribed on it and tucked it farther under
her pillow. Each night she fell asleep with the boat in her
hand, holding it against her heart like a good-luck charm
and remembering the night she and Nate had kissed. She
knew it was vaguely psychotic, but Jute had made the boat
for her as a token of his . . . love. Hadn't he?
Or maybe he just thought it would make a good paperweight.
Blair's cheeks were glowing from skiing in the sun during
the <(ay and fooling around with Nate all night. She looked
pretty ;ind annoyingly happy. Serena sat up and shoved her
hair out of her face. "I need coffee. A whole pot." She'd
spent the last four nights doing shots and watching the old
people dance in the Wrinkle Room, and she was constantly
hungover.
"The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's
been rain- ing too long. You're just sad, that's all," Audrey
Hepburn as Holly Golightly said onscreen. "The mean reds
are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid, and you don't know
what you're afraid of."
Serena didn't know which she had, the blues or the mean
reds. Maybe a little bit of both.
Blair picked up the phone and ordered nearly everything on
the menu. Waffles. Rare steak with bearnaise sauce.
Bagels and lox. An American cheese omelet. A chocolate
milk shake. "I can't decide what I want," she explained.
Maybe it was the mountain air, but she'd been starving ever
since she arrived.
The two girls sat propped up on Serena's down pillows,
watching the now-familiar film. Room service arrived and
Blair spread the bountiful feast out on the bedspread. She
took a bite of syrupy waffle and then stuffed a ketchupsmeared French fry in her mouth. "I don't know what I'm
doing. I want to be skinny, skinny, skinny when we go away
this summer." She reached for her chocolate milkshake
and took a long slurp. "Europe by train," she murmured
dreamily, watching as Audrey played "Moon River" on her
mandolin. Maybe she'd learn how to play guitar this
summer too. She could serenade Nate, ;m>i he'd get so
turned on she'd have to wrestle him to the floor u! their
couchette. "It's going to be so incredibly romantic."
Serena sipped her bitter coffee. Sun streamed through tin1
window. Skiers silently crisscrossed the snowy mountain.
"AIv huckleberry friend," Audrey crooned.
"I can't go to Europe with you guys," she blurted out.
Blair frowned and reached for more fries. "Is this an April
Fool's Day joke?"
Serena shook her head. Wasn't April Fool's Day, like, two
weeks away? "No, I really can't go."
"Why not?" Blair demanded, stuffing her mouth with fries.
Isn't it obvious? Serena wanted to yell. "My parents just
warn me to stay home, that's all. And there's this really cool
summer acting workshop that's pretty close to our house in
Ridgefield. It sounds amazing. Gwyneth did it, before she
got famous." She wound her white cloth napkin around her
wrist. She knew only vaguely that there was a community
theater near her house in Connecticut where Gwyneth
Paltrow had once acted in a play when she was younger.
When did she become such an elaborate liar?
Blair shoved more fries into her mouth and took a swig of
her shake. "Oh, really? You're not going?" she repeated
with obvious annoyance. "You're such a flake, Serena, you
really are."
"I'm sorry." Serena hung her head. Her lower lip twitched
and she bit it, hard. She was afraid that if she started to cry,
she might pour her heart out to Blair, and that was the last
thing she wanted to do.
Blair grabbed the steak knife and sawed at her steak until
the blood ran. Actually, when she thought about it, this was
even ' K.Lter. She and Nate would have their couchette on
the train all 10 themselves. They wouldn't have to worry
about doing tour- isiy things and entertaining Serena--they
could just have sex, I'imstantly, in every country in the EU.
How could she even ihink of having sex when Serena was
always hovering nearby? She was glad she'd asked Nate
to wait: it was going to be even more perfect this way,
"Never mind," she said airily, forking a piece of steak and
shoving it into her mouth. "It's actually fine."
"Really?" Serena blew out her breath. She hated it when
lilair was mad at her.
"Really." Blair flashed Serena a fake little smile, the kind of
smile she usually reserved for her annoying wannabe
classmates like Nicki Button and Rain Hoffstetter. Over the
last few days she'd fek a new distance between herself and
Serena that she couldn't quite put her finger on. They
weren't like sisters any- more. They were more like
stepsisters. She glanced down at the pile of food in front of
her. It really was a disgusting display. "Can you put this
outside, please?" she barked, dashing for the bathroom.
Serena gathered up the plates and covered them with their
silver warming covers. She returned them to the tray and
set the tray outside in the hall. She could hear Blair retch in
the bath- room, the sucking flush of the toilet, the sound of
her gargling. This time she didn't ask Blair if she was okay-she just pulled her silver Tumi duffel bag out of the closet
and started to pack. She tossed the little clay boat into the
bag, eager to get it home and out of Blair's sight.
But you know what they say. Home is where the heart is. n
tosses and turns in his teeny-tiny twin bed ''Don't forget your
towel, sir," the bald guy behind the pristine white gym desk
called. He handed Nate a warm white bath towel. "The girls
are in the steam room" he added helpfully.
Nate pushed open the heavy door to the locker room. It
wasn't the locker room at St. Jude's with its old muddy
green-painted locker doors--it was the locker room at the
Bridge, his dad's golf club in Bridgehampton, The lockers
had teak doors. A freshly laundered white totoel and a
hand-rolled cigar were placed in each one. Very nice.
A receiving line of his lacrosse team buddies stood
waitingfor him, wearing their St. Jude's lacrosse team
hunter-green-and-white-striped uniforms and carrying their
sticks.
"Way to go, man."Jeremy Scott Tompkinson slapped
Nate's hand and flashed his wicked stoner grin.
"Fucking awesome, dude,"Anthony Avuldsen agreed,
holding out hisfistfor Nate to bang.
"You're the man,"Charlie Dem agreed. He shook Nate's
hand, placing a fat, neatly rolledjoint in his palm as he did
so.
"It's an honor to have a player like you on my team," Coach
Michaels reached out and gave Nate a burly bear hug. The
team disappeared into the ether and Nate fired up the joint.
Smoking it was like eating the most amazing hot Judge
sundae he'd ever tasted. He took one last hit and then took
off his khakis and polo skirt and boxer shorts and wrapped
the white towel the clerk had given him around his waist. He
put his clothes in an empty locker. He zuasn't wearing any
shoes.
The glass door of the steam room was all fogged up. He
pulled it open and stepped inside.
"Hey Natie," a girl's voice greeted him.
Mate moved through the steam in the direction of the voice.
Sud~ denly he felt arms around his neck and the girl was
kissing him. It was so unbelievably fantastic. Just kissing
her was the most amazing sensation he'd ever
experienced. It was like this total natural high, and he could
have kept on kissing her forever. The girl's hair looked
brown but it was wet and she felt ribbier than Blair, and
taller. She smelled like Blair's perfume, though, and she
kissed like Blair--eager, ravenous, hyperactive.
"You know you love me," the girl murmured in his ear, and
her voice sounded exactly like Serena's voice on her voicemail greeting.
"Let's do it," Nate told her. "I really want to do it with you."
"Nate, darling? Are you all right?"
Nate woke with a start and sat up. His tartan plaid flannel
sheets were soaked with sweat. His parents' heads peered
in at him through the open bedroom door. They looked tan
and dap- per. His mother wore a diamond comb in her hair
and a mink stole around her neck. His dad was holding a
glass of Scotch.
"You were talking in your sleep," his mother told him in her
aristocratic French accent. "Quite loudly."
Nate rubbed his eyes and checked his bed for girls. Was
he still dreaming? "You guys are back?" he asked, dazed.
While he was in Sun Valley his parents had gone to St.
Bans. Or maybe Barcelona. He couldn't remember.
His father cleared his throat and swirled the ice around in
his Scotch. "As a matter of fact, we got back yesterday.
We've been
I at the opera. The first installment ofWagner's Ring Cycle
began tonight. How was the skiing?"
"Skiing was good," Nate responded automatically, even
though he hadn't really done much skiing. He rubbed his
eyes some more, hoping his room didn't smell like pot. He
didn't think it did, although the green sweater Blair had
given him reeked, and it was draped over his desk chair,
not four feet from the door.
"Go back to sleep, darling," his mother commanded with a
knowing smile.
Nate flopped down on the pillows and closed his eyes,
trying to ease back into the same dream again. AH he
could see in his sleepy mind's eye were the faces of the
two girjs he loved more than anyone in world, his two best
friends. "You know you love us" they whispered, loud and
clear.
It would probably be safer to dream about someone else.
i gossipgirl.net
topics -4 previous next � post a questu
hey people!
april showers bring may flowers, but what does June bring?
Cute skirts, flip-flops, and shirtless boys! It truly baffles me
why school doesn't end in May. How on earth are we
supposed to pay attention in class when it's ninety degrees
outside? Spring was a blur of electrical storms and exams
and the occasional, totally irresponsible let's-trash-thepenthouse-while-the-parents-are-at-the- Cannes-FiimFestival rage. But now the windows are open, birds are
singing, bees are buzzing, and the park is humming with
boys playing Frisbee with nary a shirt in sight. And yet we
have to wear our hot, itchy school uniforms and closed-toe
shoes for two more weeks, sweating over our geometry
textbooks while we daydream about the summer. It's funny-some girls I know get so worked up about their summer
plans. All I want to do is dangle my feet in the pool. Of
course, I'm very particular about which pool, and who I'm
going to dangle with. Some of you are absolutely dying to
dangle with me. See come-on below.
your e-mail
a Dearest GG,
I have been watching you. Well, not watching, but reading
and
rereading your every word. I'm pretty sure you're my soul
mate.
I want to send you my picture. I want to send you my soul. I
H
really dig you. And tonight I'll dream about you, just like I do
every night.
--smittn
Dear smittn,
I'm truly flattered, but my soul mate doesn't have time to
read
and reread girlish prattle. Not that anything I write is actually
I
prattle, but it's definitely girlish. No, my soul mate is out
stalk-
ing lions and scouting for watering holes. You can send me
your picture, but I'd rather you didn't and kept on dreaming
about me.
--GG
a Dear GG,
Simple question. What do you do when you're mad at
someone,
but you also like them a lot?
--boots
a Dear boots,
That is not a simple question. All I can't think of to say is,
yell at
them until they get it, or give then the silent treatment. They'll
come around eventually. Hopefully. Good luck!
-GG
sightings
V at a karaoke bar on Orchard Street singing "Crimson
and Clover' with her big sister. It's about time she let her
hair down. Wait, she doesn't have any hair. D playing
hoops in Riverside Park with his desperately- in-need-of-aOueer-Eye-makeover friend. Well, at least he still has one
friend. S in the Centra! Park Zoo, talking to the polar bear.
At least she still has one friend. B and N shopping for his
summer clothes at Brooks Brothers on FiftH. If she really
wants to help him, she should take him somewhere else.
He's sixteen years old--time to branch out and wear
something other than Bermuda shorts and pastel polos.
Actually, scratch that--we love him just the way he is.
the girls of rancor
Looks like our favorite shaven-headed friend has been
busy, busy, busy outsmarting us all by putting out her first
issue of a very sleek, very cool new arts magazine. It's just
a girl's school publication, but it's impossible not to walk
down Madison Avenue without spotting at least one person
reading it. Most of the photographs are pretty damn gross.
Hello? Who honestly wants to look at pictures of spat-out
gum and dead pigeons? The biggest draw by far are the
poems by Anonymous. They're totally freaky, a little sad,
and kind of sexy. There's something in them for everyone.
Best of all, they're written by a girl, about a girl. Which leads
me to . ..
so close and yet so far away
Has anyone noticed how a certain threesome has turned
into a two- some plus a stray? The Terrific Three are now
just a boring lovey- dovey couple and a blonde who walks a
few feet apart from them, if she's walking with them at all.
Hmm, just a thought, but could a cer- tain gorgeous blonde
be Anonymous? Maybe that girl-on-girl kiss a few of us
spied her and a certain glossy brunette sharing in a steamy
hot tub in a certain hotel suite way back on Valentine's Day
really meant something--to her. Wheel All the more fodder
for my favorite pastime. No, not that pastime, you
gutterhogs. I meant gossip of course!
Oops, it's lunchtime. Gotta slather on that Guerlain SPF 4
ultrabronzing tanning oil and hit the roof. And you thought
the roof gym at school was fordodgeball. Let's see who can
get the best tan by the time school gets out. And f| cheating
with that fake-tan crap, I know a real tan when I see on*, (
your marks, ready, set--go!
You know you love me,
gossifipgirl
i I) has mail
From: narchibald@stjudes.edu
To: bwaldorf@constancebillard.edu
Date: Thursday, June 1 11:50AM
Subject: Bad news
Hey,
I know I'm already late for lunchtime lax
practice but I wanted to get this to you so
you can make new plans or whatever. I know
you're going to be pissed but I kind of let
it slip to my dad that it was just going
to be the two of us this summer and he went
apeshit. I think he's seriously becoming
Bottom line is, I can't go to Europe this
summer. Basically my dad wants me around to
help finish building our boat up in Maine.
It'll be cool once it's done, and I promise
to take you out on it. I'm really sorry,
but I promise to make it up to you v. soon.
-N what the ladies-who-lunch talk about during lunch
I "Wait your turn, girls," Mrs. Wile;', the wide-nostriled lundi
proctor instructed the semi-orderly queue of uniformed Con
stance Billard girls lined up at the entrance to the cafeteria,
orange plastic trays in hand. "There are plenty offish sticks
ii� go around. Watch out for the little ones."
Constance Billard parents had been complaining about the
uninspired school lunches for years, and the school was
deter- mined to improve on its standard fare of cold roast
beef ami powdered mash potatoes. The first step was to
hire a lunch proctor whose job was to monitor how much the
girls ate, whai their preferences were, and what sorts of
foods they broughi from home to supplement the disgusting
school lunch. Dur- ing the upcoming summer, the
administration had promised to refurbish the cafeteria, and
in the fall it would offer a deluxe salad bar and smoothie
center, with offerings garnered from Mrs. Wiley's
observations. Not that she'd garnered anything aweinspiring. Who wouldn't prefer braised carrot sticks in
pesto, sourdough baguettes, and green-tea yogurt to scary
gray meat loaf and canned string beans? If the students
and parents were satisfied with the new menu, Mrs. Wiley
would take her nostrils to another malnourished school.
And she would be sorely missed. Not.
Blair and Serena stood in line for the salad bar, remaining
oddly silent. Blair was in a foul mood. She'd received
Nate's horrendous e-mail only moments before--and to
think, all morning she'd been in a blissed-out pre-summer
trance, glori- ously reviewing every momentous event since
she and Nate had kissed that first night in Chuck's suite.
How thrilled she'd felt to wake up the next morning to him
kissing her. Tiffany. Watching the sea lion feeding at the
zoo.The hour-long carriage ride in the snow, fooling around
the whole time beneath a scratchy woolen blanket. Giving
Nate the moss green sweater with the gold heart sewn into
it. Promising to finally do it with him this summer on the train
as it left Paris. Now they weren't even going to Europe
anymore.
The girls placed modest piles of iceberg lettuce on their
plates, ladling a dollop of bleu cheese dressing next to it
before moving along to the dessert area, where they each
selected a Dannon nonfat lemon yogurt. This was the "diet
plate" they'd invented in fifth grade and had been eating
ever since. Serena followed Blair over to their favorite
table, in front of a full wall of mirrors. As usual, Serena sat
facing the mirror and Blair sat with her back to it. Blair
couldn't look at herself and eat at the same time.
Serena twirled her spoon around in her yogurt, wonder- ing
why Blair looked so glum. Had she done badly on her AP
French test? Had she and Nate had a fight? she couldn't
help but wonder hopefully. Across the lunchroom Rain,
Laura, Kati, and Isabel were getting their trays and lining
up. Now was Serena's chance for a private conversation
before they were bombardi-il Blair stirred her coffee with
exaggerated annoyance, spilling hull of it onto her tray.
"Are you okay?" Serena asked tentatively. She unbuttoned
the top button of her white Peter Pan-collared short-sleevn i
Tocca blouse and then buttoned it again.
The small, crowded cafeteria was teeming with chattering
girlSj but an almost imperceptible hush seemed to fall ovi'i
them when Serena uttered this question. Without actually
mov ing, the room full of girls bent their ears toward the two
prctiv sophomores speaking in low voices at their special
table near the mirrored wall, and their mindless chatter
morphed into ruthless gossip.
"You know those poems by Anonymous? Serena is Anonymous. She's totally in love with Blair. It's really sad," a bedwetting eighth-grader named Susie Wexler declared.
"They're so beautiful," sighed a freshman with Coke bottle
glasses.
"Serena had a nose job," countered her frizzy-haired classmate. "My dad's a podiatrist---I should know."
"I heard Blair and Nate are getting married. I heard
someone saw him looking at engagement rings in Tiffany
this weekend. Oh my God, do you think she's pregnant?" a
tragically stubby- legged senior wondered gleefully.
"But I thought I heard she was a lesbian," another senior
remarked. "Didn't she write all those lesbian poems by
Anony- mous?"
Blair touched the spot in the middle of her chest where the
gold heart pendant used to fall. Even if it was ugly, maybe
she should have strung it on a gold chain from another
necklace and resigned herself to wearing it until Nate gave
her something bet- ter. At least the necklace meant
something--that she and Nate were a couple, that they were
in love, that he was hers. Even if they couldn't be together
this summer, at least she could have had that. She dunked
a piece of lettuce in bleu cheese dressing and stuffed it into
her mouth.
"Actually, I'm not okay. Thanks to you, Nate can't go to
Europe with me this summer," she informed Serena icily.
She snatched up her plastic fork and used it to scratch the
back of her neck. The lace-edged turquoise-colored cami
she'd chosen to wear to school today was totally out of
uniform, and the lace was itchy as hell.
Serena contemplated her own reflection in the mirror. She
was afraid that if she didn't watch herself, the glimmer in her
navy blue eyes might actually reveal that she was pleased.
"But that's terrible." She shook her head and shifted her
gaze to Blair's darkly pissed-off glare.
Blair stabbed at her yogurt with her spoon. "His dad won't
let him. He wants Nate to help him build that stupid boat
way up in Maine. It's your fault. If the three of us were going,
his dad would have been fine with it." She let out a loud,
irritated sigh and flung her yogurty spoon down on the
orange plastic tray. "Nate and I were supposed to finally
have sex on the train as it pulled out of Paris. I bought
beautiful underwear. I even bought an exact replica of the
sunglasses Audrey wears in the first scene in Breakfast at
Tiffany's. Now I'm going to have to spend half the summer
up in Newport playing boring tennis with my naming father
and his fake-tan, barely-speaks-English boyfriend, and the
other half with my idiotic mother in boring fucking Scotland
for my crazy aunt's second fucking wedding to the same
guy." Just then Rain, Laura, Kati, and Isabel swooped in
ami MII| down at their table. "Aren't you going to finish your
dressing!1" Kati asked, dipping her pinky nail into Serena's
bleu CIILTNO. "They ran out. I had to get ranch--gross." She
pulled IKT straight, shoulder-length strawberry blond hair up
into a him on top of her head and then let it cascade
dramatically onto ]H-I shoulders. Kati had very pretty hair.
Too bad she was so duinli
I
At least she has something going for her.
Isabel glanced from Blair to Serena. Blair looked like sin
wanted to chop Serena's head off with her plastic knife, and
Soi ena was staring into her yogurt like she was mindmelding with the live cultures inside it. Nate and I were
supposed to finally haw sex on the train as it pulled out of
Paris. All this time she'd thougl 1
1 they'd been having sex all over the place, but they were
both slill virgins. She could scarcely believe it.
Believe it, baby.
"Did we, like, interrupt something?" Isabel demanded
sagely. She was wearing a bright purple cowl neck
sweater, a color only someone with her confidence and
flawless dark complexion could get away with. She had a
genius IQ, but she preferred to apply it to the science of
choosing a new shade of highlights for her hair or finding
the identical dress to the one Kate Bosworth had worn at
the Costume Institute gala, rather than say, AI' Chemistry.
Well, if given a choice, which would you choose?
Serena heaved a huge, shuddering sigh. She couJdn'r wail
for school to be over. And maybe the summer apart from
each other was just what they needed. They'd have a nice,
relaxing vacation and then come back in the fall and start
afresh. Maybe Blair would meet a hot tennis player in
Newport and decide I Nate wasn't so special after all.
Maybe she and Blair would miss
each other so much they'd make a pact never to be mean
to each
other again. Maybe Nate would remember that he was in
love
with her, not Blair. Blair could be very convincing, but with a
little distance Nate might realize it was Serena he missed,
not
Blair.
Anything's possible.
"I'm sorry, Blair," Serena ventured, looking hopefully up at
her friend.
Blair thrust her tray away with such force that it teetered
pre-
cariously on the edge of the table. She stood up, her whole
body
trembling. "Sorry isn't good enough." Leaving her full tray
for
Ms. Wiley to freak out about, she stalked out of the
lunchroom
to the nurse's office, where she'd use the private bathroom
to
heave up her lunch, then complain of cramps and get the
heavy-
duty prescription-strength Motrin, her favorite.
The other girls waited for Serena to say something, but she
didn't, or wouldn't. Instead, she picked up her tray and
Blair's
and carried them back to the kitchen to be cleared off and
cleaned. The lunchroom was buzzing now, with news of
their
fight.
"See what happens when you kiss your best friend?" Isabel
joked cuttingly. "It always ends in tears."
"I wonder if Nate has anything to do with this," Laura Salm-
on offered. "Their fight, I mean."
Whatever gave her that idea?
Gossip about Serena and Blair leaked from one table to
die
next until it had completely infected the room like a bad
case
of strep throat. Finally it hit Jenny's seventh-grade-loner
table,
near the faculty bathroom. "Serena's not Anonymous,"
Jenny mumbled aloud to IUTM II as she peeled her third
nectarine. She had started an all-lnni fast in hopes that it
would stunt the growth of her boobs. Sin1 was wearing the
tan version of her Polish bra today and was ti-cl ing
particularly conspicuous, because, as the proprietor of IIK
Village Bra Shop had predicted, it was already too tight.
SlicM always attributed her lack of friends to the fact that
she was sk and quiet in school; now Jenny blamed her
boobs. Her chiv. mates had no idea that if they'd deigned to
speak to her, sin- could have told them exactly who
Anonymous was.
Serena was on her way out of the cafeteria when she
noticed Vanessa Abrams with her shaved head, sitting by
herself ami reading her magazine over a cup of black tea.
The cover ul Rancor bore a photograph of a piece of spatout gum on tin- sidewalk. It looked like a piece of meat
someone had dropped on their way home from the butcher.
On a whim, Serena plunked down in the seat across from
her shaven-headed classmate. "I love your magazine," she
said with genuine admiration.
Vanessa cocked her head defiantly. It hadn't escaped her
notice that Ms. Perfect and Ms. Bitchy had just had a big
fight. Was Ms. Perfect already looking for a new friend?
"Especially those poems by Anonymous." Serena giggled
and leaned forward. "Someone left me an anonymous love
poem in my locker once. I think it was the same person."
Vanessa glared at her perfect blond classmate with her big
brown eyes. She knew it was wrong to hate someone she
hardly even knew, but she couldn't help it. It was all too clear
now that the only reason Dan had allowed her to use his
poems in Rancor was because he was sure Serena would
read them. How could she have been so dumb when she
was usually so smart?
When we're in lust, we just don't think straight.
"Congratulations." Vanessa flipped the magazine closed
and stood up abruptly. "I hope you'll be very happy
together."
From across the cafeteria Jenny watched Serena watch
Van- essa leave. She looked so alarmingly sad, Jenny
wished she could do something to console her. But Serena
van der Woodsen was Serena van der Woodsen, the girl
every boy wanted and every girl wanted to be, Jenny was
prerry sure she'd think of some way to console herself.
She always does. d can't lose this loving feeling Dan had
fogged through Central Park and over to Constance from
Riverside Prep onWest End Avenue and now he was
dying. Sweat poured from his face and seeped into his
collar. He was shaking and red-faced and looked like he
needed to go to thi1 hospital. It was a hot and breezeless
day. He lit a cigarette and sucked on it desperately. There .
. . much better. He still fell, awful, but a better, more
intriguing kind of awful. Now all he had to do was think of
something nice to say to Vanessa so she wouldn't hate him
anymore. Too bad the only thing he could think of to say
was, "You're nice, I like you," which sounded like a
marriage proposal from somebody who'd been living in a
windowless basement all his life, eating cockroaches.
At least it would be a step in the right direction.
With its flawless redbrick facade, billowing American flag,
and great blue doors, Constance BiUard was much more
impos- ing than Riverside Prep. Even the teachers looked
more intimi- dating, with their crisp linen suits, pointy shoes,
perfectly coiffed hair, and steely makeup. No wonder
Vanessa hated school. She must have felt like the ugly
duckling in this place. Dan lit another cigarette, tossing his
old one discreetly beside the front tire of the parked gray
town car he was leaning against. The sturdy redbrick
school building in front of him seemed to shudder with relief
as the final bell rang within. Then the great blue doors flew
open and a stream of girls wearing Constance's blue-andwhite seersucker summer uniforms poured out. First came
the little ones in their white Peter Pan-collared blouses,
lugging enormous wheeled backpacks full of lunchboxes,
sticker albums, pencil kits, and scrapbooks. Next came the
middle schoolers, looking awkward in their braces and
glasses, weighed down by their enormous math and Latin
textbooks. And finally the upper schoolers began to ooze
out more casually, after changing into shorts, halter tops,
and flip-flops, turning on their iPods, and applying their one
thousandth coat of MAC lip gloss for the day.
Jenny should have been out already, but she often got
caught up with a project in the art room, so Dan wasn't
surprised she was late. Still, she was supposed to be his
cover. If Vanessa refused to talk to him or gave him a hard
time, he was counting on pretending he was just there to
pick up Jenny.
Then he spotted her exiting the great blue doors wearing a
cap-sleeved black T-shirt, a super-short, maroon wool Constance winter uniform skirt, and cut-off-at-the-knee black
fishnet stockings with her ever-present black Doc Martens.
She traipsed down the stairs in that deliberately slow, fuckall-you-losers-for- rushing way she had of walking and
headed straight for him. Her big brown eyes were mild and
almost bored-looking, and he could tell she was
determined not to let on how mad at him she truly was.
"Been staying dry and secure?" she demanded, pointing at
his black corduroys. "I hear Depend undergarments give ;i
lici- ter fit than Pampers."
Nice.
Dan threw his cigarette onto the steaming sidewalk. "h v .
not my fault you stuck my hand in a bowl of water. What'd
you expect?" He wasn't about to mention why she'd stuck
his limnl in a bowl of water in the first place. How could he
explain In-, tireless obsession with a girl who didn't even
know his name?
Vanessa shrugged her shoulders. What did she expect? A
loi, actually. She squinted at him. "What's wrong with your
face? H;iw you been exercising or are you just happy to see
me?" She cackk-il at her own joke. "Did you come to finally
demand an apology lot my little prank, or are you just
waiting for your sister?"
Dan smiled, then frowned, suddenly confused. Why was Inhere? "I could say I'm here to pick up Jenny, but I'm
not."Words spilled out of his mouth before he could stop
them. "I ran all the way here . . . to see you . . . to apologize
for being . . . I don't know, a jerk."
Vanessa wanted to hug him, she really did. But hugs were
so corny. She just wasn't a hugger.
Aw, go on. Hug him.
Besides, she still wasn't sure what Dan's apology meant.
Had he burned the illustrations of Serena over his bed?
Had he trashed the pictures of Serena's naked butt
cheeks?Was he ready to devote himself to her instead?
She certainly hoped so, because the meek, apologetic way
he was looking at her was pretty fuck- ing cute. She
reached out and tweaked one of his rather dangly pink
earlobes. "S'okay," she relented. "Maybe you could buy me
a seltzer to make it up to me. But I think we should wait for
your sister. She has news." Dan looked up at the redbrick
schoolhouse. He noticed for the first time that the secondfloor windows were decorated with student artwork. He
squinted up at them. It wasn't just random student artwork,
either. Pasted on the paned windows were the goldenhaired angels of Jenny's hymnal illustrations. Serena,
Serena, Serena---her face was all over the place.
Dan turned away. He'd be fine if he didn't look at them.
Everything would be fine.
"Go blue team, go blue team, go BLUE!!" shouted a group
of overinvigorated volleyball players as they piled into a
school bus on their way to a game.The second bell rang.
Still no Jenny.
"It's sunny," Vanessa observed, shielding her pale face
from the light. She'd noticed Dan notice the illustrations in
the win- dows of the auditorium upstairs, noticed how he
turned his back on them. Maybe she could forgive him;
maybe there was hope for him after all.
Dan lit another cigarette, and they waited in almost comfortable silence for Jenny to turn up. Not one of the girls coming
out of school spoke to Vanessa. Dan realized she was just
as friend- less as he, and he was glad he'd come. Vanessa
was good enough to be met by a boy after school, and he
was good enough to have a girl to meet.
The great blue doors swung open and a tall girl with long,
pale blond hair appeared wearing cutoff jeans, a white tank
top, and silver flip-flops. She paused in the doorway,
watching as a tall, stoned-looking boy in a green-and-whitestriped St. Jude's lacrosse T-shirt and his fancily dressed
brunette Constance girl- friend climbed into a taxi. She
hugged her arms to her chest and her whole body seemed
to shudder. Then she fished a pair of huge tortoiseshell
sunglasses from out of her bag, put them on, and continued
west down Ninety-third Street toward (he park, alone.
Hold yourself until I get there, then I'll do the holding.
We'reflappinglike fish on a rock. Come on, flap in and
swim!
Catch me. Or better yet, I'll catch you.
Dan wasn't sure about the expression "flap in." It didn't
sound right, at least not in his head. "Catch me," he
murmured under his breath, like a crazy person.
Vanessa waved her hand in front of his face. "Ground
control to Mars. Mars, do you copy?"
Dan hadn't realized he was staring. Actually, he knew he
was staring--what he'd forgotten was that Vanessa was
standing there with him, watching him stare.
"Sorry," he apologized, still staring. Serena was just turning
the corner, her golden angel hair flying out behind her,
leaving a trail of tears.
A trail of tears. That's good!
Dan couldn't hide the fact that he'd been staring. He also
couldn't hide his desperation. Why, oh why had Serena
looked so miserable, sad, and alone? Was she in love with
that stoner jock? Hadn't she read the poems? Didn't she
know that he was the one for her?
Vanessa rolled her eyes in annoyance. Dan was no less
over Serena than she was over him. She couldn't say
anything, though. It wasn't worth it. He was like an alcoholic
or a junkie. He couldn't be cured until he admitted he had a
problem.
Or found a better drug.
She was about to kick Dan hard in the shins with her steeltoed boots when Jenny burst out of the great blue doors
and threw herself at her brother like an overexcited puppy,
bouncing her new boobs against him and chattering
hysterically. "I have so much to tell you guys! Oh my
God.Today has been totally crazy. I think I'm going to have a
heart attack!" She grabbed Vanessa's arm. "I won! I totally
won the hymnal competition. And it's, like, so unreal,
because they liked the angels and all, but what they really
liked was my calligraphy. I'm so excited!!" She dove at Dan
again, practically knocking him down on the sidewalk. "And
oh my God, it's so weird--everyone thinks Serena wrote
your poems, you know, the ones by Anonymous? Everyone
thinks she's, like, into girls, and her heart's broken because
Blair has a boyfriend."
Dan blinked his light brown eyes at her. Who was Blair?
Was she with that stoner boy he just saw Serena hugging?
Was Jenny even speaking English?
"Actually, I don't really know exactly what happened, but
Serena and her best friend Blair had like, this huge, huge
fight in the lunchroom at school. It was really dramatic.
Vanessa saw it." Jenny glanced eagerly at Vanessa.
"Wasn't it dramatic?"
She pursed her lips. "I prefer foreign films."
Jenny rolled her eyes. "So what are we doing? Where are
we going? Are you guys friends again? Are you, like, going
out now?"
Vanessa tried hard not to blush. "No way. We're way too
cool for that."
Dan felt hollow and waterlogged, like driftwood. "It's weird
they think she's me," he mused aloud to himself, his feet
rooted to the spot. If he stood there long enough, maybe
Serena would come back. He could explain that he wrote
the poems for her. He'd make her smile again.
"Come on." Vanessa slipped her arm through Jenny's and
led her away, leaving Dan behind. He was hopeless--utterly
and entirely hopeless. "Let's go find something else to talk
about."
As if that were possible. f gossipgirl.net
hey people!
we did it!
We made it through another school year. Right now you're
wearing
a Tracey Feith sundress and Tory Burch espadrilles, you're
gor-
geously bronzed, the city smells like an intoxicating
combination
of Coppertone and bus exhaust, it's one hundred and ten
degrees
in the shade, and you don't have to go to school for almost
three
months. I know you already know this--I just can't believe it
myself.
No more waking up at the crack of dawn's ass, no more
itchy uni-
forms, no more mind-numbing trigonometry homework, no
more
tortuous hungover jogging around the reservoir in Central
Park
during P.E., following the gym teacher like lemmings, no
more
onion-bagel-breath Latin teacher. Summer is all about you.
A whole
eleven weeks to do absolutely everything or absolutely
nothing. Or
maybe a bit of each.
your e-mail
a Dear GG,
Sol was sent a picture of this curly-brown-haired girl who's
sup-
posed to share my cabin this summer at camp and there's
like
no way she's twelve. She looks like a stripper, I swear.
Maybe
she got implants and they made a mistake and put too
much silicone in. If that's true, then I feel sorry for her. But
they should have a special camp for people like that, you
know? --bunkgrl
Dear bunkgrl, They actually have a special camp for people
like you: it's called Camp Bitchalot. It's totally fun. I should
know. I went there. --GG
Dear GG, My sister is trying to kill me. Not in an overt way,
but she got the worst summer job available to man and she
did it to torture me, I'm sure of it. She just started today and
she came home stinking like a rotten can of tuna fish. Now
our whole place reeks,and I can't sleep. I'm a musician, I
work late, and sleep is sacred. I wish t could do something
to sabotage her job so she'll get fired. Is that so terrible? -rubadub
Dear rubadub, Sabotage is my middle name. --GG
Dear GG, I'm going away tomorrow for the summer. I'm not
going to see my girlfriend for more than two months, and I
want to give her a going-away present, if you know what I
mean. I'm kind of new at this whole thing, so any
suggestions would be appreciated. --salur
Dear salur, You cutie. It's so nice that you'd ask little ol' me
for advice. I think thai if you are somewhere comfortable,
the candles are lit, there's soft music playing, and you say
sweet things, that's
all good. But she's the one who's gonna decide if it's gonna
happen--not me, and not you. Got it?
--GG
sightings
N in Tiffany & Co. alone. Looking for something special for
that special someone so she'll forget you totally ruined her
summer plans? S sit- ting on the floor at the Corner
Bookstore on Ninety-third and Madi- son, voraciously
rereading The Age of Innocence, that famous New York
story about a woman spurned by society. Books like that
are so much more meaningful the second time around. D
on a broken green bench in the divider in the middle of
Broadway at Ninety-sixth, chain- smoking. Please don't tell
me that's what he plans to do all summer. B in Barneys,
buying up the whole Lilly Pulitzer tennis collection. N in
Central Park later, smoking up with a tiny light blue Tiffany
bag slung around his wrist. It might take more than a couple
hits to recuperate from spending a fortune on something
that fits into a tiny velvet box. I know it hurts, but in no time at
all she'll be kissing it better
the truth about summer
We talk about it all year long: summer romance, lazing in
the sun, sleep- ing late, no shoes. But the truth is, those very
last weeks in August, we start getting antsy. We want to
wear our knee-high Miu Miu boots and shop for coats
again; we can't wait to be back on the steps of the Met
sipping cappuccinos and describing the particulars of our
summers in detail. Because even though we're about to
have the best summer ever--we will, you'll see!--there'll
always be that nagging feeling that we're missing
something.
Never fear, GG is here. I may be on vacation, hiding behind
my new gigantic tortoiseshell Chanel shades and floppy
Philip Treacy straw hat, but that doesn't mean I can keep
my mouth shut. I promise to fill you in on anything and
everything worth talking about.
See you at the beach!
You know you love me,
gossip girl b only comes in one color It was the Monday
after the last day of school and the air was heavy with
humidity and the promise of a hot and heady sum- mer.
Nate's red duffel bag was packed. Tonight was the last
night before Blair left for Newport and he headed up to
Maine. This was the night he'd been waiting for, their big
summer send-off--the night he and Biair were finally going
to do it. Nate had everything ready: Diptyque musk candles,
thirty of his favorite songs playing continuously from his
iPod Sound- Dock, a chilled bottle of Dom Perignon he'd
stolen from his father's wet bar, and a package of Chips
Ahoy cookies--Blair's favorite. The housekeeper had the
day off, so he'd even made his bed all by himself. And he'd
bought Blair another present from Tiffany.
As if he needed to score more points.
"Since the summer got all messed up and you don't wear
the heart anymore," Nate said, pressing the little robin's
egg blue Tiffany box into Blair's hand.
She tore the lid off the box and snapped open the black velvet ring box. Inside was a delicate brushed gold band set
with a gorgeous deep red ruby. It was the most beautiful
ring she'd ever seen. She shoved it onto the ring finger of
her left hand and threw her arms around Nate's neck. In the
movie that was her life, he'd just asked her to marry him,
and the answer was yes, oh, yes. Definitely--yes!
Cue straitjacket.
"I'm not mad at you anymore," she told him in a sultry
whisper. She was so glad she'd found another use for that
ugly Elsa Peretti gold heart pendant. The ruby ring was so
much better.
Nate grinned eagerly down at her, his emerald green eyes
glittering. His parents were at the last installment
ofWagner's Ring Cycle. All that was left to do now was get
naked.
And now that it was summer, there really wasn't much to
take off.
Blair's neatly plucked eyebrows arched expectantly. "Are
you about to get all romantic on me?" she demanded,
loving it.
Nate ran his hands through her dark, luxurious hair. "Let's
do it," he murmured, trying not to sound anxious. "I really
want to do it with you." Somehow the words were so
familiar, he fett like he'd said them before. Or maybe he'd
just thought about saying them so much it only felt that way.
Blair eased her hands underneath his light blue Thomas
Pink oxford shirt. "I know, Natie. Me too."
His whole body felt prickly with excitement. It was about to
happen. It was about to happen. Oh, goody, goody, goody!
Steady, boy.
He pulled her in close and covered her bare shoulders,
neck, and collarbone with kisses. Then he tugged the
straps down on her yellow Issa palm leaf print sundress. No
bra, just Blair. She took a step back and pressed her
freshly manicured palms against his smooth, wonderfully
lacrosse-toned chest. "But I've been thinking about it a lot,"
she told him firmly. "And I think we should wait until August,
when I come back from my aunt's wedding in Scotland."
Nate's roving hands ceased their roving. What the hell was
she talking about? In Sun Valley she'd said summer; well, it
was summer now. He was through with waiting. "But--" he
started to say. Just then a Beck song came on the
SoundDock. Nate had stopped liking Beck when he found
out he was a Scientologist.
"Think about it. We'll miss each other like crazy al! summer.
We'll be, like, imagining what it's like to finally be together.
And then, when I'm finally back, we'll do it, and then we'll
totally stay together forever" Blair explained, like she was
decoding the meaning of life.
That would be the meaning of life according to Blair.
"But---"
She dug her fingernails ever so gently into die skin on
Nate's chest. "It's what I want," Blair insisted, indicating that
the dis- cussion was over. She slipped her hands up to his
shoulders and down his arms, easing them out of the
sleeves of his plain gray T-shirt. "That doesn't mean we
can't still kiss."
Nate tugged his T-shirt out of her hands and walked over to
the open window. His bedroom was on the top floor of his
fam- ily's town house, and the window he was looking out of
faced the back of die gray limestone building. Three stories
below, his mother's coveted Venus de MUo fountain
gurgled in the garden. Fireflies flitted in the still night air.
Music and laughter echoed out of a distant open window.
She comes in colors everywhere,
She combs her hair,
She's like a rainbow
The song reminded him of Serena. In his mind Blair was
just one color--red--but Serena really was like a rainbow.
She didn't comb her hair much, though; she didn't have to.
He and Serena e-mailed every once in a while, but they
rarely saw each other anymore. She might already have
gone up to Ridgeheld--Nate wasn't sure. Apparently the
tryouts for some play she wanted to be in were starting
tomorrow. Serena sud- denly seemed so busy. Or maybe it
was he who was busy.
Having a girlfriend can be pretty time-consuming.
"I have to take a shower," he mumbled to Blair and turned
away. He slammed the bathroom door closed and turned
the cold water on full blast. Then he opened the bottom
drawer of the marble-topped vanity and retrieved his
emergency stash: four slim little joints in an AJroids can. He
fished his silver Zippo lighter out of his pocket and lit one.
Normally he didn't smoke in Blair's presence, but he'd
abstained all afternoon because he'd thought they were
finally going to do it. This waiting thing was driving him
apeshit. What exactly was the point of being together if they
couldn't be together?
Boys.
As soon as Nate closed the bathroom door, Blair yanked
open the bottom drawer of the antique mahogany armoire
he'd inherited from his dead French grandfather. She
upended the drawer, searching through the piles of wool
and cashmere for the moss green cashmere V-neck
sweater she'd given him in Sun Valley. She found the
sweater and yanked the sleeves inside out. There it was,
the gold heart, still there. She put it to her lips and kissed it.
Nate might be sore with her now for making him wait, but
he was still wearing her heart on his sleeve--still hers for
better or for worse. When they finally did it, it would be so
amazingly perfect he'd forget all about being mad. It would
be totally worth the wait--she'd make sure of it.
She carefully refolded the sweater and tucked it into his red
duffel bag. Maine was pretty far north. Surely Nate would
need something to wear on those chilly nights without her.
She righted the drawer and put the other sweaters back as
neatly as she could. Pot smoke seeped out from beneath
the bathroom door. You know you love me, Blair scrawled
with a dark green Sharpie across a piece of blank printer
paper. She propped the note up against one of the wooden
model sailboats on Nate's desk, grabbed her white Celine
scashell clutch and left. Absence makes the heart grow
fonder, she reminded herself.
If she's lucky. s is lucky to have a brother who can't read her
mind "So, I just finished reading Franny and Zooey, byj. D.
Salinger," Erik van der Woodsen informed his sister as
their Metro-North train ambled out of Grand Central and
down the long dark tunnel leading out of the city. "He's the
guy who wrote The Catcher in the Rye. You've read that,
right?" Erik eagle-eyed her with navy blue eyes just as dark
and huge as her own. His wavy pale blond hair skimmed
his gray Brown T-shirt-clad shoulders. Nearly everyone who
met them assumed they were twins.
Serena nodded as she fished in her orange canvas Coach
beach tote for some cherry-flavored ChapStick. She was
barely listening. She couldn't believe she was headed to
Ridgefkld to spend another summer with her family. It was
just so weird. And so depressing.
"Well, anyway, this book wasn't nearly as good. Actually, it
was really boring. There's all this stuff about religion that I
totally didn't expect. Anyway, you really remind me of the girl
in the book, Franny. I mean, you really remind me of her
right now. She's, like, totally depressed, and her brother
Zooey tries to help her snap out of it. He's kind of this wiseass swishy actor, but it's nice that he cares."
Serena was seated between the window and Erik. The
train rolled out of the tunnel and eased above ground near
125th Street. "I'm not depressed," she told the depressinglooking high-rise apartment buildings in front of her. "I'm---"
She stopped short and closed her ChapStick-slick mouth. If
she said anything more, she'd burst into tears. Instead she
let her head fall away from the window, onto Erik's familiar,
muscular shoul- der, and allowed him to stroke her hair. "I'm
just glad to be leav- ing," she sighed, shutting her eyes tight
to hold back the tears.
"And I'm just glad we get to hang out this summer." Erik
would be working at the Ridgefield Polo Club serving
drinks in the open-air clubhouse next to the polo field. He
was only seventeen, but somehow he'd landed the most
coveted sum- mer bartending job in Connecticut. Serena
had a feeling she wouldn't see much of him once he
befriended all the polo play- ers and found a few pretty
equestriennes to hit on.
Nate might have been the love of her life, but Erik was her
knight in shining armor. The first time she'd ever gotten her
period the family was sailing in the Greek Islands. Serena
was too embarrassed to tell her mom, so Erik dove
overboard, swam to the nearest village, and swam back
with Stayfree maxi pads in a plastic bag tied to his head.
Every Christmas since they were babies they'd snuck
downstairs in the house in Ridgefield in the middle of the
night on Christmas Eve, unwrapped their pres- ents, and
then rewrapped them again. They'd driven the family's
Mercedes station wagon into a ditch and left it there,
claiming they had no idea how it got there. They'd stayed
up till dawn almost every summer night, talking and talking,
pretending to be great philosophers. If Serena was going to
be sad with any- one, she would choose Erik. He knew her
better than anyone- else. But she still couldn't bring herself
to tell him what was really wrong. They had to spend the
whole summer together, after all, and she couldn't bear the
thought of him hovering over her and worrying about her
when all he really wanted to do was drink beer and listen to
music by the pool with his boarding school friends.
Selfless as always, but wasn't it her selflessness that got
her into this mess in the first place?
She replaced the cap on her ChapStick and shoved it back
into her bag. The little clay boat Nate had made for her
toppled against her knuckles. As the train sped through the
Bronx, she reached for it and held on. It was pathetic, she
knew.
But it was all she had. fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish
heads "Gimme summa dose porgies. Two ninety-five a
pound? Dat's a bargain, right? Gimme a pounda dose and
some crab claws. Make it a dozen."
Vanessa scooped up the dead fish bodies with her latexgloved hand and slapped them down on a fresh piece of
waxed paper.There was something supremely satisfying
about working at her local Williamsburg fish shop. The shop
was called Brok, which wasn't even a word, at least not in
English. It stank of raw fish. She had fish blood in the black
laces of her Doc Martens. People looked at her funny when
she waited on them, as if to say, What's a shaven-headed
all-black-wearing sixteen-year-old gir like you doing in a
place like this? She didn't know a cod from a sturgeon, but
the shop was super-duper air-conditioned, she worked
nine-hour shifts, and she loved the gritty intensity of
chopping up raw fish bodies with a cleaver. She even got to
wear a hairnet over her shaved head. She'd bought a black
one, so her head kind of looked like a giant big toe in a
black fishnet stocking.
How lovely. Vanessa was the only employee who actually
spoke English. Her boss was Russian and all her
coworkers were old Chinese men. They would joke around
with her and point at her head like it was the funniest thing
in the world, but she'd just point at their heads and laugh
back. Fish was the universal language. When she needed
help discerning the difference between Chil- ean sea bass
and red snapper, Vanessa would point to the waxy labeled
place mats with pictures of live fish on them decorating the
walls, and her Chinese friends would point out the steaks
and filets she was looking for inside the glass case. They
taught her how to scale and slice a Dover sole. She got to
cut heads off and squeeze out guts. It was awesome.
"Hey stinky." Ruby came into the shop as the porgy-andcrab-claw guy was leaving. "I told my drummer I'd bring him
some scallops. You'll give them to me free, right?" Ruby
was wearing her favorite pair of purple leather pants and a
black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off that read c TI across
the front. She always got a lot of stares when she wore that
shirt.
Which was exactly the point.
Vanessa glanced behind her at Hon, her white-haired
Chinese fish shop friend. Then she pointed at her sister's
pants and covered her mouth, pretending to giggle, like
they were the most ridiculous pants she'd ever seen. Ruby
glared at her. "At least I don't stink of raw tuna vaginas."
Good one.
Vanessa stuffed a handful of scallops into a clear plastic
bag and tied a knot in the top of the bag. They looked like
water- logged earlobes. She handed the bag to Ruby. "No
charge."
"Nice presentation." Ruby dangled the bag in front of her.
"Could you at least give me a brown paper bag so I don't
get
i arrested for chopping up my children or something?" She
squinted her glassy dark brown eyes at her sister. "You
have the demeanor of someone who's broken up with her
boyfriend and has decided to get all stinky in case he
comes calling. Like you're trying to make yourself as
repulsive as possible." She cocked her head, the shiny
ends of her black chin-length bob just brushed her shoulder.
"Only problem is, there was no boyfriend to break up with."
"I just like it here," Vanessa explained tersely and handed
her sister a white waxed paper sack. Something about the
bag of scallops reminded her of Dan. She hadn't seen him
since he came to her school to apologize more than a
month ago. Of course she still thought about him all the
time, but she wasn't about to waste her time on somebody
who was in love with Serena van der fucking Woodsen.
Part of the reason she'd got- ten the Brok job in the first
place was because it was a job Ser- ena would never take
in a million years. The other reason she'd taken the job was
that if for any totally random reason Dan turned up in
Williamsburg looking for her, he'd run screaming once he
caught a whiff of her. Then she'd have the last laugh.
At least, that's the stinking lie she's telling herself.
She watched her sister squeeze the clear plastic bag full of
raw scallops into the white paper sack. The thing about
Dan was, he really did have cute earlobes, and his poems
were really good.
And the thing about fish shops is, they're really quite poetic.
down and out in malariaville Camp Bridgehutter in Wooten,
Pennsylvania, turned out to have a pretty nifty art program.
Campers were encouraged to roll themselves in paint,
make clay molds of their fellow camp- ers' bodies, and
weave clothing for each other. All of the art was hands-on,
meaning paintbrushes, pencil sharpeners, scissors, and
potter's wheels were strictly forbidden. Campers were supposed to "use their raw materials" to make their art,
meaning they had to use their own bodies or things they
found in the woods to smear on die paint, mold the clay, or
cut the wool.
Let's hope they allowed toilet paper.
Jenny liked paintbrushes and scissors and pencil sharpeners. She didn't want to use a rock to cut a goddamned
piece of paper or an ant-infested stick to mix her paint.
She'd been at camp for nearly two weeks and she could
safely say she hated it. The entire campus reeked of rancid
organic crunchy peanut butter. Her cabin was damp. The
shower had spiders. Her mat- tress smelled like pee and
squeaked like crazy. Some of her art teachers were okay,
but it was hard to get excited about chisel- ing wood with a
rock. And her boobs refused to stop growing. Her father
had sent her a care package full of marshmallows and
Cadbury chocolate and Hostess cupcakes on the second
day of camp because he already missed her so much, but
she'd thrown it out, for fear that all that fat and sugar would
only make her boobs grow even bigger. And for fear that
the mean girls in her cabin would be even meaner.
"She looks like she drank the stuff they put in breast
implants," Rachel Werner told her best friend and
cabinmate, Jill Dube, in a loud whisper. Rachel and Jill
were from Delaware and this was their second year at
Camp Bridgehutter. They'd requested tiny cabin 5,
nicknamed Malariaville because of all the mosquitoes, for
themselves. But the camp had run out of room and had
been forced to stick Jenny in there with them, Rachel had
curly blond hair down to her waist that she liked to show off
by dangling it off the side of the top bunk, block- ing Jenny's
reading light. Jill wore her straight brown hair in a ponytail
every day and gave herself a pedicure every single night.
She'd brought seven bottles of nail polish to camp along
with a very comprehensive Bliss Spa pedicure kit.
It is crucial to keep one's toenails trimmed and buffed when
one is scouring the woods for useful rocks and twigs.
"You mean silicone?" Jill offered helpfully.
Rachel snickered. "Yeah. She looks like she drank it and
her boobs just totally inflated."
Today it was raining, so Jenny and her bunkmates were
stuck in their cabin for the rest of the two-hour lunch period
until weaving class began. Jenny had been weaving a set
of four green-and-yellow hemp napkins. She couldn't wait to
send them to her dad--he'd be so proud. Jenny lay on the
bot- tom bunk pretending to ignore the nasty whispering
above her head while she read The Age of Innocence by
Edith Wharton, one of the books on the Constance Billard
eighth-grade sum- mer reading list. Poor Countess
Olenska was totally ostracized by everybody in New York
simply because she was beautiful and wanted to have a
little fun after leaving her mean old hus- band back in
Europe. Well, good for her, Jenny thought, wonder- ing
briefly what size bra Countess Olenska would wear if she
lived in modern times.
She slapped at herself while she read, killing three mosquitoes as they gang-raped her calf. The mosquitoes at
Camp Bridgehutter were rabid and ravenous. They went up
your nose and feasted on the flesh between your fingers.
She scratched miserably at an old bite on her knee,
smearing blood all over the place. It was safe to say
Serena van der Woodsen never went to Camp
Bridgehutter. Jenny would have noticed the scars. Right
now Serena was probably stretched out in the sand on
some pristine white beach in southern France wearing only
a pair of Gucci bikini bottoms and her Chanel sunglasses.
Rain fell in torrents outside the cabin. Every time Jenny
glanced out the window at her wet, densely forested
surround- ings she yearned for the noisy brick, limestone,
and asphalt surroundings of home. She could hardly fall
sleep to the per- sistent cheep-cheep of crickets. Give her
a police siren any day. The cabin's screen door banged
open and a lanky, soaking wet, redheaded, freckle-faced
boy Jenny had seen around the camp poked his head in.
"Hey." The boy greeted her like she was the only one there,
even though Rachel was lying in the bunk above Jenny, and
Jiil was in the other top bunk. Jenny could feel them peering
curi- ously down from above. "I'm Matt. You're Jennifer
Humphrey, right?" He was wearing fatigue-print swim
trunks and nothing else. His body was skinny, sunburnt, and
mosquito-bitten.
Jenny nodded, blushing at the sight of his bare, rainspattered ribs. How did he know her name? She was afraid
to say anything that Rachel and Jill might make fun of later,
and afraid to move in case her boobs did something
embarrassing all on their own. At the beginning of June
she'd upped her bra size to a 32D, but she'd stuck with the
Polish bras because they provided the most coverage.
It sounds like she needs it.
"I just wanted to say hi," Matt told her. His nose was small
and pointy like a doll's and he was absolutely covered with
freckles. His eyes were light blue, and his teeth were small
and straight. He was kind of gangly and goofy-looking, but
what boy her age wasn't?
"Hi," Jenny squeaked. She waited for him to say something
else, but he just raised his hand in salute and the screen
door slammed shut behind him as he dashed out into the
rainy Penn- sylvania woods once more.
"Hail,Camp Big Hooters, hail!" Rachel and Jill sang from
above, cackling hilariously as they had done so many times
before.
If Serena were there, she would have thought of something
clever to say, but Jenny just held her book open in front of
her face, her cheeks aflame and her mind racing. Matt was
cute and seemed super nice. Maybe she was turning into
the type of girl who would have more guy friends than girl
friends. She and Dan had always gotten along, so that
would make sense. Girls seemed to hate her now before
she even opened her mouth. Guys were more
understanding.
Hmm. Wonder why? I d's already found it "Just have a read
through that pile there and tell me if you think any of it is
worth saving," Dan's father had instructed earlier that
morning as he indicated the heap of yellowing manuscripts and newspapers beneath and surrounding the
desk in the small, cluttered office just off his bedroom. Dan
almost wished he'd gone to sleepaway camp like his sister
instead of offering to work for his dad. He'd had the very
stupid and unrealistic idea that sometime this summer
Serena would bump into him accidentally, find out that he
was the author of all those wonderful love poems written by
Anonymous, and fall madJy in iove with him.
But of course, like most Upper East Siders with any sense,
Serena had fled the unbearable city heat for the country.
The proof of her whereabouts was in the Styles section of
today's NewYork Times, which happened to be lying right in
front of Dan on his father's scratched metal desk. Serena
van derWbodsen, 15, daughter of Lillian and William van
derWoodsen, at the 64th annual Ridgefield Polo Club
Classic, the caption read beneath a photo- graph of her
wearing a white eyelet sundress and yellow lace-up
espadrilles, her pale blond hair spilling carelessly over her
per- fect, tan shoulders.
Dan slid open his dad's desk drawer and removed a pair of
scis- sors. Careful not to fray the edges, he began to cut out
Serena's pic- ture and the caption beneath. Then he
stopped himself. What kind of self-respecting person
collects images of a girl he's never even spoken to? Next
thing he knew he'd be getting a tattoo that said "Serena
Forever" on his chest and eating cat food straight out the
can.
At least he'd be getting a balanced meal.
He shut his eyes, ripped the entire page of the newspaper
out, crumpled it up in his fist, and tossed it into his dad's
metal wastepaper basket, where it landed with a hollow
pong.Then he grabbed a stack of papers from off the floor
and began sorting through them. Rufus was possibly the
most disorganized per- son on the planet. His papers were
like his hairstyles and out- fits--totally insane.There were
doctors' bills, crossword puzzles3 a random word written in
pencil on a scrap of paper, essays in Russian printed on
colored paper, and weird typewritten para- graphs of quasiinspirational profound thoughts that could only have been
written by Rufus himself.
not the acid-inspired ramblings of a
madman. The man was more poet than
Whitman, barring Song of Myself.
Aspire to Brautigan and produce
Whitman. Originality is key.
Rufus appeared in the doorway while Dan was still reading.
"Find anything?" he asked hopefully. Dan looked up from
the creased, coffee-stained piece of paper. His father was
wearing a dapper-looking pair of brown tweed britches
circa 1917, paired with a stained orange Lacoste
turtleneck with the sleeves cut off, and a pair of white perforated leather Dansko clogs. The little green alligator
perched over his left nipple had come partially unsewn, so it
looked like it was swimming for its life. Rufus's wild and
wiry gray hair was braided and tied with the red-and-white
string from the box of cookies he'd bought at the Italian
bakery that morning. He looked like Paul Revere on
mushrooms.
As featured in the July issue of Men's Vogue. Not.
"What exactly am I supposed to be looking for?" Dan
thought he was supposed to just throw his dad's old shit out
so he could find his way around his office again and maybe
write something worth saving for once.
"It!" Rufus bellowed at him, his nostrils flaring so widely that
Dan could see his forest of gray-black nose hair. "You're
sup- posed to find the nugget, the thing.'"
Dan had no idea what his father was talking about. "Nugget?" he repeated.The word sounded vaguely
pornographic, like "the family jewels," a euphemism for
balls.
Like any guy needs help finding those?
Rufus yanked on his earlobes and ran his hands over his
dis- tended belly. "Lookit, kid, I want to write the novel, but I
don't have time to get all inspired again. I'm too old for that."
He waved his bare, flabby arms around in the air. "This
office is full of inspiration. I've been getting inspired for
years! I hired you to find the source, that kernel of
inspiration that's going to set off the whole fireworks show.
Got it?" His bloodshot, muddy brown eyes bulged with
excitement. Dan lit a Camel and finished off his mug of cold
instant coffee, feeling suddenly depressed. His father's
office had one tiny window that faced West End Avenue but
was completely blocked by the noisy air conditioner. Most
days Rufus stayed in his office with the door closed,
smoking and typing on an old typewriter, emerging only to
cook or shop for one of his heinous concoctions. He wore
mismatched clothes bought at the Salvation Army or found
on the street. Some of his anar- chist friends slept on
benches in Riverside Park simply because they refused to
conform. He supported Dan and Jenny with the royalties
from his own father's book, the biography of some obscure
Russian painter, which Rufus had managed to translate into
English.
"You shouldn't smoke," Rufus told him, fishing one of Dan's
cigarettes out of the pack and lighting it for himself. "It fries
your brain."
Never mind the lungs.
Still, smoking with his dad while having a literary discussion
was pretty mature. Dan felt sort of cool, like he was already
in college. "How do you know when you've found it,
though?" he asked, blowing a thin stream of smoke up at
the cracked white ceiling. He stuck his thumb into the
bottom of his empty coffee mug and dabbed at the
grounds.
"It speaks to you," Rufus explained, throwing back his head
and blowing a series of huge, obnoxious smoke rings. "You
just see it and think there must be more. It's not done. So
it's your job to flip the burger and finish it."
Dan licked his thumb and frowned. Only his dad would
compare the creative process to flipping burgers.
Rufus stubbed his cigarette out on the wooden sole of one
of his clogs and flicked the butt into the trash can. "I gotta
get out there and find some cardamom." He held out his
hand for Dan to slap. "Just shout when you find it. I'm
counting on you, kid."
As soon as his father had gone, Dan fished the wadded-up
page from the Styles section out of the wastepaper basket.
He unfolded it and laid it out on the desk, smoothing the
wrinkles out with the flat of his hand and nicking away any
remnants of his father's cigarette ash. There she was again
in her white eyelet sundress, smiling up at the camera with
those sad, seductive navy blue eyes. Dan didn't need to
sort through piles of useless crap to find his nugget. He'd
already found it.
Yes, but it's what we do with our nuggets and our family jewels that makes all the difference. if only the captain would
jump ship "What you've got to be sure of, son, is that there
are no gaps. We want her tight. Tight as can be," Captain
Archibald told Nate as they crawled around on their hands
and knees hammering planks into the deck of the eightyfoot cruising yacht they were building together. The boat
would be named the Charlotte, after the captain's grand
dame of New York society mother, Nate's grandmother,
and one day Nate planned to sail it around the world. He
could already imagine motoring out of the harbor there on
Mt. Desert Island, hoisting the sails, and sailing off into the
blue--just him and the enormous stash of pot he'd Ziploc
into individual waterproof baggies for the journey. Enough
to last at least six months.
Speaking of pot, it was the last week in June and hot as
hell, especially for Maine. Nate was worried about his
plants. He'd started a mini garden of his own, out behind
the boat barn--ten little marijuana plants with seeds he'd
bought online from Thai- land. The little seedlings had been
thriving since he planted them two weeks ago, but the
direct sun and ninety-degree heat were bound to take their
toll day after day, especially when Nate could only sneak
out to water them in the middle of the night, after his parents
were in bed or went out to a party. The boat barn was down
by die shore, a half mile away from the house, so unless
someone was looking for them, no one would ever find the
plants. Even if they never amounted to anything, it was kind
of fun to watch them sprout and grow leaves. He was proud
of them.
Okay, Peter Rabbit, just watch out for Mr. MacGregor.
Nate crawled over to a spot his dad had missed and
whacked the nail into the plank until the head disappeared.
The carcass of the Charlotte was set up on four huge
wooden sawhorses just outside the barn, five hundred feet
from the beach. Building the boat had been awesome so
far--good, old-fashioned manual labor--as long as his dad
didn't try to talk to him too much.
And as long as he smoked a big fatty behind the boat barn
before getting to work.
Captain Archibald was a totally anal perfectionist, so even
if Nate was high all the time, it wasn't like he could fuck
anything up. The wood guy had cut each piece to size and
basically built the hull for them. All Nate had to do was nail
the nails in, apply the sealant, and give the boat good
karma. He was all about positive vibes these days. Positive
vibes and sex. All he had to do was stay positive, build the
boat, get through the summer, and soon enough he'd be
having sex with Blair. Waiting sucked, but soon he'd be
waiting no more.
Waves crashed on the beach and seagulls screeched overhead.The air smelled like cranberries and salt. On the other
side of the thicket of birch trees that hid the outbuildings
from view loomed the Archibalds' white colonial mansion
with its twenty gabled windows and cheerful red shutters.
The lush green lawn was fringed with exquisitely
landscaped flower beds and rolled downhill like a
magnificent green carpet a quarter of a mile to the churling
gray sea.
"So tell me, son," Nate's father began in his authoritative
captain-of-the-ship voice as he lay down on his taut
stomach, squinting at the rough-hewn bow of the boat to
see if it was level. "Tell me about the girls in your life. How's
that lovely van der Woodsen girl, Serena? And the other
one, the lawyer's daughter. What's her name?"
"Blair." Nate picked up a plank and crawled starboard with
it hoping to get out of hearing range. To his dismay, his
father crawled right after him.
"Get it straight," he ordered, hovering directly over Nate's
tanned, bare back. "If we screw this up, we'll have to scrap
the whole project."
No pressure or anything, though.
Captain Archibald handed his son a level, then thought better of it and grabbed the plank out of Nate's hands so he
could adjust it himself. "I know you like to pretend those
girls are just your friends. But my guess is there's a little
more to it than that."
How insightful.
Nate sat back on his haunches and watched his dad fuss
over the five-foot piece of wood. Captain Archibald was
wear- ing gray flannel suit pants and a light blue buttondown J. Press shirt, tucked in, with a white undershirt
underneath it, and Top- Siders. It was his standard casual
uniform, but Nate didn't see how he could bear it in the
heat.
"Blair is my girlfriend," he clarified, blushing slightly as he
said it. "And Serena is my . . ." His voice trailed off.
"Mistress?" Captain Archibald offered helpfully. He sat up,
341 an amused twinkle shining in his dark green eyes. With
his thin- ning fair hair and regal deportment he probably
would have been kind of a handsome dude if he hadn't
been such a hard-ass.
"She's my friend," Nate clarified firmly. "Blair's really
smart)" he added, surprising himself. "She wants to go to
Yale." It felt nice complimenting Blair like that. It made him
feel like a good boyfriend.
His father handed him a hammer. "Gently but firmly," he
instructed. "If you hit it too hard you can damage the
integrity of the timber."
Yes, sir, HMS Cocksucker, sir!
Nate banged in a few more nails while his father looked on.
He was tempted ro fuck up just so his dad would kick him
off the project and he could spend the rest of the summer
on the beach getting baked. But he really did love to sail
and he wanted the boat to get built.
"Make sure you don't distract her too much," the Captain
advised, reaching for another plank. "She'll need to be at
the top of her game to get into Yale."
Nate sat cross-legged on the partially built deck, rubbing
his sore, muscled arms. He shook his head as his dad
continued to work. Something about what his dad had just
said implied that Nate himself would never be good enough
for Yale. He was just a distraction, like a sunny day or a
bumblebee. His dad would never understand how he
calmed Blair down and distracted her when she was upset
about her parents. How he brought her Ben & Jerry's vanilla
ice cream or Chips Ahoy after tennis so she'd eat more. He
chucked the hammer overboard and into the scrappy sea
grass. "I'm taking ten, Dad. You want anything?"
Bong hit? Doobie? rapunzel, rapunzel, let down your hair
Blair knew it was slightly immature, but she'd spent the last
month at her dad's Newport, Rhode Island, estate watching
the sailboats go by in the bay, daydreaming about having
sex with Nate, and playing dress-up. Every item in her
mother's ward- robe that had been worn more than twice or
was too small was stored in a cedar closet outside Blair's
bedroom, so the dress-up costumes were limitless. Her
father was supposed to have the clothes shipped back to
the city as part of the divorce settle- ment, since he would
be keeping the Newport house, but they were a long way
from settling, so the clothes remained for Blair to play with.
There was Eleanor's wedding dress, a beaded ivory
strapless Carolina Herrera gown sealed in a giant clear
cellophane bag. The purple velvet suit Eleanor had tailored
just for her at the Yves Saint Laurent boutique in Paris when
she was still a size 2. And the shoes--rows and rows of
shoes from every designer imagin- able, especially Prada,
which had always been Eleanor's favorite. Stilettos,
wedges, sandals, and slides--they were all a size and a half
too large for Blair, but still fine for dress-up. This sweltering
July afternoon Blair's father and his naming French hunk,
Jacques or Jean or whatever the fuck his name was, were
out playing doubles with another gay couple they'd met at a
club in town the night before. Blair carried the nail scissors
sne used to trim Kitty Mmky s claws into her mom's closet
and began to slice open the cellophane bag containing her
mom's Carolina Herrera wedding gown. She knew she
really shouldn't, but her mom wouldn't know it was her.
She'd just assume that Harold and his gay friends had
dressed up in her clothes and had a gay old Paris Is
Burning time.
And then her lawyers could ask for yet another million.
"Keep your head out of the bag, silly," Blair warned Kitty
Minky, gently shoving the tiny gray kitten away so he
wouldn't asphyxiate himself. The pretty half-grown Russian
Blue cat amused himself by jumping into one of Eleanor's
Gucci bamboo- handled handbags and playing peekaboo.
Blair slipped the gown off its padded white satin hanger
and let her lime green seersucker J.Crew sundress fall to
the floor. Then she stepped into the wedding gown and
zipped it up. Amazingly, it was an almost perfect fit.
Impossible as it was for her to imagine, seventeen years
ago her lumpy, freaky mom had nearly the same figure she
did.
Incredible what nearly two decades on antidepressants can
do to a person.
A pair of gold Prada evening sandals widi four-inch heels
beckoned. Blair slipped her bare feet into them and clipclopped back down the hall to her enormous bedroom. She
examined her reflection in the mirror. Was this the dress
she would wear when she married Nate? She'd have
diamonds, of course, and a big elaborate hairstyle like
Marie Antoinette. She wrinkled her nose critically and
turned away from the mirror. Strapless had never been her
thing, and how could she resist shopping for a new dress
for her very own wedding?
Her four-story Victorian dollhouse stood on its wooden dais
in front of a series of dormer windows with deep window
seats, their cushions upholstered in pink pinstripes. The
dollhouse had been made especially for Blair, modeled
after the Newport house itself. The largest bedroom on the
fourth floor of the doll- house was an exact replica of her
own bedroom, down to the rose-colored satin lampshades
and the large circular wool rug adorned with pink peonies in
full bloom. Instead of people, mice made of gray rabbit fur
and dressed in exquisite satin clothes inhabited the
dollhouse. On a recent antiquing expedition her father had
even found a little gray rabbit-fur cat. It slept on the tiny
dollhouse version of Blair's brass bed, a rabbit-fur miniature of Kitty Minky.
Blair picked up the mother mouse, dressed in a dorky
floral- patterned Laura Ashley dress and a white lace
apron, and sat her on the toilet in the bathroom downstairs.
Then she put the father mouse, who was wearing a red
velvet smoking jacket and tuxedo pants, in the claw-foot
bathtub in the master bathroom. Next, she set the butler
mouse, who was fat and bloated and had a huge red nose,
on top of the father mouse. Finally, she chucked the littlebrother mouse, a white midget sporting denim overalls and
a red wool cap, onto her real live bed for Kitty Minky to bat
around and chew on. Torturing her dollhouse mice was one
of Blair's favorite pastimes.
And it's oh so therapeutic.
She reached for her cell and dialed Nate's number, perching daintily on a window seat as she waited for him to pick
up. Outside the windows, her father's dramatic hilltop lawn
rolled greenly down to the sea. Sailboats bobbed in the
waves, looking tiny enough for her dollhouse mice. Off to
the left was the clay tennis court. Her father and his French
"partner," probably still hungover from last night's gay rave,
were being totally creamed by their middle-aged-mom
neighbors.
Blair should have felt guilty for being inside on such a
beauti- ful summer day, but for the remainder of the
summer she was intent on cultivating the persona of a
beautiful maiden locked in her ivory tower--until the day she
finally had sex with Nate. And part of that image was to flirt
with him mercilessly over the phone.
"Hey." Nate finally answered, sounding slightly out of it. "I
was just thinking about you," he added sweetly.
Blair wanted to tell him she was wearing her mom's
wedding dress and totally thinking about their wedding
night but she didn't want him to think she was insane.
As if he didn't already know that by now.
"Only five more weeks," she whispered. "I can't wait to be
na- ked with you," she added teasingly. She lifted her goldsandaled feet up off the floor and smoothed out the folds in
her white silk taffeta gown.
"Me neither," Nate agreed. "I think about it all the time."
Understatement of the month.
Blair shook her head, her long, wavy chestnut-colored hair
fan- ning out over her bare shoulders. She felt exactly like
Rapunzel, trapped in her impossibly high tower and waiting
for the dashing prince. She stood up and adjusted the
butler mouse so that his swollen red nose was sticking
directly into the crotch of the father mouse's tuxedo pants.
"Oh, Nate. I miss you so much." Nate didn't say anything.
She could tell he was probably thinking they could have
done it way back in Sun Valley, or before they both left for
the summer. But he was going to be glad she'd made him
wait--she'd make sure of it.
"How's your boat?" she asked, changing the subject. "Are
you naming her after me?"
"We named her Charlotte."
Blair's hackles rose. She stuck her chest out to keep the
strapless wedding dress from falling down. Who the fuck
was Charlotte?
Just when you think you know everything about each other .
.. gossipgirl.net
ext y post a question reply
id events have been altered or abbreviated
hey people!
a midsummer's night's scheme
Summer's halfway over, but I've been thinking: if I got
everyone on this
I glorious beach with me here to sign a petition to start
school the month after Labor Day instead of the week after,
maybe the mayor could pass a new law. It's only the city that
matters. Sorry, people, but we city folk just need more R &
R. It's all that time pounding the pavement, hail- ing cabs,
waiting for tables at La Goulue, fighting over the last size 0
Marc Jacobs peacoat at Barneys. Life is stressful, and
summer is just
I too damned short. I know I said once that by this time we
might start missing one another. Well, I'm sorry, I really don't
miss anyone that
I much--yet.
sightings
V declawing lobsters--yes, lobsters. It has to be the worst
summer job ever, but--big surprise--she seems to have
found her calling and never stops whistling while she works.
J buying a noise machine at Kmart
I on the weekly camp excursion to town. Hope she made
sure it had a City Sounds setting. Who can sleep to the
sound of a babbling brook? D "working" hard for his dad
down by the boat basin in Riverside Park with a pack of
Camels, his little black notebook, and a thermos of cold
black coffee. Maybe the weird people living in their
houseboats will in- spire him. B playing tennis with her
father in Newport wearing a super- fabulous sequined
flapper dress. How very Great Gatsby of her. N purchasing
a pair of deerskin gardening gloves at a Mt. Desert Island
hardware store. Let's hope they're srnokeproof. S at a local
Connecticut dive bar with her fellow actors, dancing on the
bar to Lynyrd Skynyrd. We knew she'd pull through--or
maybe she's a more talented actress than we thought. K
and I getting thrown out of that trendy no-name club in East
Hampton for dancing on the bar. Wannabes. C traveling all
the way to Ridgefield, Connecticut, in his convertible Jag to
watch a certain dress rehearsal. Is he still not over her? Me,
stalking surfer boys on an unidentified beach in Montauk-somebody's got to do it!
your e-mail
mm Dear GG, |� fl There's this girl at camp who I think is
cute but I'm too shy to
even talk to her. What should I do?
--quietkd
Dear quietkd, Q Just trip over her feet and say sorry. She'll
get all blushy, then
you'll get all blushy, then she'll introduce herself, and then
you'll introduce yourself. Before you know it, you'll be
slather-
ing Banana Boat sunblock all over each other and telling
your
life stories. J'adore!
--GG
Dear GG, Q I'm turning 16 soon and 1 feel like something
monumental is
supposed to happen, but I'm pretty sure it's just going to be
another boring summer day.
--bleu Q Dear bleu.
There is no such thing! You need to wake up; take a cold
shower; put on some Chanel No. 5, your most lovely Marni
i
sundress, and your least practical high-heeled sandals; call
some friends . . . and then I have one word for you: parlay!
--GG
no news is good news
I have to say that lately most of you are doing a terrible job
as infor- mants. I can only conclude that this means you
really are having the best summer ever. Well, you'll have to
te/l me all about it once we're all back. If you ever come
back.
Surfs up--time to don my opera glasses and catch the
action. Thank goodness it's too warm for wet suits!
You know you love me,
gossip girl sixteen candles
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy
birthday to you, Serena, mon--Jah rule.1--happy birthday to
you!"
Serena awoke to the tinny plink-plink-plink sound of steel
drums and the rumble of planes flying low overhead. She
pulled her goose-down pillow over her head and giggled
into it. There. Erik had made her smile first thing on her
birthday, July 14, Bastille Day, which was most likely what
he'd set out to achieve. She rolled out of bed and stuck her
head out die open window, giving the steel-drum-playing
Rasta dudes a little thrill because she was wearing only a
sheer pink tank top and matching under- pants. Erik was
standing by the pool with some of his boarding school
friends wearing a red, green, and yellow tie-dyed ban- dana
on his head. Why her birthday had become some big
reggae festival, especially on Bastille Day, she wasn't sure.
Erik waved a three-foot-long baguette at her and beckoned
her downstairs.
"Get up, lazybones! There's something you have to see!"
Serena pulled on a pair of denim cutoffs and her favorite Tshirt, which happened to be a faded gray St. Jude's T-shirt
that she'd borrowed from Nate in seventh grade and never
returned. She padded downstairs and picked up a Granny
Smith apple in the kitchen, carrying it out with her to the
pool. It was hot and bright. The sensitive skin on her regal
nose was already burn- ing.
"Look up!" Erik shouted at her.
Serena took a bite of her apple and tipped her head back.
A small plane roared noisily by, leaving a trail of smoke in
its wake. Then the smoke began to take shape and Serena
realized it was skywriting, like in The Wizard of Oz. S-W-EE-T S-I-X- T-E-E-N! the writing read.
"Mom and Dad felt guilty for being away on such a big day,
so they gave me their credit card to spend it on you
however I wanted," Erik explained, handing her a frozen
royal blue drink with a red cocktail umbrella sticking out of
it. "I started riffing on Bastille Day and got kind of into the
whole French-Jamaican thing. Then I saw some skywriting
down at the polo club the other day and had a total
h'ghtbulb moment."
Serena had no idea what he meant by "French Jamaican
thing." Erik was wearing yesterday's shorts and nothing
else and looked like he'd been up all night, partying. She
tipped her head back and looked up at the skywriting
again. The letters had swelled and faded so that they were
nearly illegible. She tossed her half-eaten apple into the
grass and flexed the straw in her drink, gulping half of it in
one go. Whatever was in it was very strong and very tasty.
Just the way we like it.
"Your cards and shit are on the table." Erik indicated the
glass-topped outdoor table with its festive red sun umbrella.
A few of his friends were seated around the table. Corky,
Dorian, and Chase? Serena could never remember their
names. With their long hair and frayed Brooks Brothers
clothes, they were all so interchangeably boarding school.
"Happy birthday," One of the boys stood up and kissed her
on the cheek. He wore only a pair of shredded white
Adidas soc- cer shorts and smelled like beer.
"Thanks," Serena muttered, sorting through her birthday
mail. Two cards from her parents with checks. Cards from
her conscientious aunts and uncles. A card from Blair's
mom of all people. And one from Maine. Serena ripped
open the plain white envelope and removed a white index
card. A tiny green leaf was Scotch-taped to the card.
Happy Birthday was scrawled beneath the leaf in Nate's
surprisingly neat, boyish writing, with a big exclamation
point drawn next to the leaf. Serena stud- ied the card. It
wasn't Just an ordinary leaf, she realized. It was marijuana.
"Hello! Is rhat what I think it is?" Erik peered over her shoulder at the card. He leaned in and sniffed it. "Nice." He
turned to his friends. "My little sister's all grown up," he told
them in a mock-weepy voice. Then he swiped the card out
of her hands and held up for them to see. "Look at this!"
"Hey." Serena grabbed the card back. "That's mine." She
held the card against her chest. "It's not like you could
smoke such a tiny leaf anyway," she told him, sounding
more pissed off than she'd intended. Erik could be such a
dork sometimes. Except for her rehearsals for a small part
in the local summer workshop production of The Age of
Innocence} Serena Lad spent most of vacation in the
company of these idiotic boarding school boys. She
missed girls. She missed Blair. But it wasn't like she could
just call her up. Or maybe she could, but she wasn't sure
what she would say. The reason
353 I've been acting so strange is that I'm madly in love with
your boyfriend?
Maybe not.
She carried the card into the house and upstairs, tucking it
safely into her underwear drawer. Then she put on her red
J.Crew hafter-top one-piece and went back downstairs.The
guys from the steel band had started up again. They were
smiling at her as they played, dreadlocks bouncing in time
to the music.
"Good, I see you're ready," Erik observed putting down his
frozen blue concoction.
"Ready for what?" Serena sighed a little wearily.
He sprinted up to her with his arms outstretched, snatched
her up, and heaved her over his shoulder like a sack of
grain, and kept on running toward the pool. "For a swim!"
he shouted, jumping into the water and pulling her in with
him.
Serena came up laughing and pinched the chlorine out of
her nose. God, was he a dork. But it was kind of hard to
stay mad at him when he was so determined to make her
laugh. After all, it was her goddamned freaking sixteenth
birthday and she'd been in die absolute doldrums all
summer. This was the first day of the rest of her life. It was
rime to snap out of it.
"You're in so much trouble," she cried and dove down
beneath the surface like a porpoise. She yanked up on
Erik's dorky yellow-and-black surfboard-print board shorts,
giving him the worst wedgie ever. Then she broke the
surface again. "Everybody in the pool!" she ordered, like
some sort of birth- day girl drill sergeant. Corky, Dorian,
and Chase stood up and began to tear off their clothes.
That's one way to celebrate.
I the real reason for going to sleepaway camp It was
searingly hot, even for the first days of August, and since
camp was ending tomorrow anyway, most of the campers
were down by the lake cooling off. Too embarrassed to
wear a bathing suit in front of her mean cabinmates, Jenny
was in the weaving room, threading a strand of raw purple
silk through the stays in her weeping-willow-twig loom in a
risky attempt to make some- thing more colorful than her
collection of lumpy barf-green napkins. She felt like the
miller's daughter in Rumpelstiltskin, trying to weave straw
into gold.
Suddenly someone came up behind her and put his hands
over her eyes. It was Matt. At least she was pretty sure it
was him, since she hadn't really made eye contact with any
other boy the whole time she'd been at camp. "Hey," she
giggled nervously. He'd only waved hello to her twice from
afar since barging into her cabin more than two weeks ago.
Now he was touching her?
"Okay, here's what I want you to do. You've got to stand up
very carefully, and we're going to walk like this to my cabin."
He kept his hands sealed over her eyes.
It wasn't Matt, Jenny realized, her body rigid. "But--" "Don't
be scared," the boy whispered in a lispy, spitry voice that
made Jenny relax just a little. If things got weird she could
probably kick Lispy's butt. "Nothing bad's gonna happen.
Promise."
Wanting to trust him, she stood up and allowed him to lead
her out of the art building. "Come on, it's going to be fun,"
he murmured spittily in her ear as he pulled her down the
path to his cabin. Jenny was pretty sure Matt lived in cabin
12, the last of the boys' woods cabins. Was that where they
were headed?
"What's going to be fun?" she demanded, stumbling
forward. It was hard to keep her footing when she couldn't
see where she was walking and her boobs were bouncing
so much it hurt.
Where's he taking me? she wondered, feeling scared and
curious all at the same time.
"You'll see," the boy lisped, adjusting his grip over her eyes.
His ringers smelled like bug repellent. Everything at camp
smelled like bug repellent or pee or peanut butter.
"Okay, step up. Another step up," he directed, guiding her
carefully up the wooden cabin steps. He opened the
creaking screen door to the cabin and they stepped inside.
Jenny's heart was pounding. Sweat beaded on her upper
lip and trickled down the unventilated crevice between her
boobs. "Now walk forward one, two, three steps--" He
removed his hands from her eyes and gave her a little push
between her shoulder blades. Jenny stumbled forward, right
into Matt, who was standing in the middle of the cabin, his
freckly face so red it was almost purple. He didn't smile at
her or anything. He didn't even look at her.
"Whoa," she faltered, regaining her balance. She smiled
cau- tiously up at Matt. "What's going on?" He swallowed
nervously, the bump of his Adam's apple bobbing up and
down. He looked terrified.
"Go on," Lispy urged. Jenny glanced behind her. He was a
year or two older than she, tan and muscular in a sleeveless
black Puma T-shirt, with dark hair shaved into a crew cut
and a cocky smirk on his face. He actually looked a lot
more threaten- ing than he sounded.
"You know you want to," came another boy's voice. She
looked up to find two more campers huddled on the top
bunk of the bed on the far side of the room. The cabin was
four times the size of the one she shared with Rachel and
Jill and was deco- rated with boyish paraphernalia like
posters of soccer players and the various archery awards
they'd won over the summer. The mattress the two boys
were huddled on was made up with black pirate sheets
covered with white skulls and crossbones. The idea that
one of the boys was so into pirates he had actual pirate
sheets almost made Jenny smile.
"Honk, honk," one of the pirate boys croaked, holding up
his hands and squeezing his fingers open and shut.
Blushing furiously, Jenny turned back to Matt. Whatever it
was Lispy and these other boys were doing, she had a feeling Matt wasn't completely in on it. He took a deep breath,
swallowed again, and then ducked down and pressed his
dry, chapped lips against hers. Then he reached up and
quickly pat- ted her chest with his clumsy freckled fingers.
"Hey!" she cried, taking a step back. "Stop it." Her boobs
were so new even to her, the idea of anyone besides the
woman from the Village Bra Shop touching them was
completely out of the question.
"I'm sorry. I wanted to kiss you," Matt stammered, his freckly
face a tie-dyed mixture of purples and pinks. "But they
made me--"
"Lame," one of the pirates jeered.
"He saw your boobs on the Internet," Lispy joined in. "We
all did."
Jenny whirled around to glare furiously at him through tearfilled brown eyes. She'd thought Matt might turn out to be
nice. She'd thought he might be her first boyfriend. But he
was just as big a jerk as Lispy and his pirate friends. Was it
fun making her feel so bad? If this was their idea of fun,
then she felt sorry for them. They were losers; they'd
probably always be losers.
Well, at least she got a first kiss out of it. That's something.
"Have a good rest of the summer, guys," she told them
breez- ily, blinking back the tears and refusing to reveal
how angry and humiliated she was. She pushed open the
screen door and hurried down the steps of the cabin, letting
the door bang shut behind her. She raced down the path
through the stinking, mosquito-infested woods. Maybe she
would be the kind of girl who had more boy-friends than girlfriends, but those boys were so immature they hardly
counted as boys.
Get used to it, sweetie--they're all like that. But they get hotter with age, and we learn to be more tolerant.
I b engages in phone pda injfk Blair stood outside the VIP
lounge in the British Airways ter- minal at JFK with her cell
phone pressed to her ear. On either side of her, whole
families sat on the floor like homeless people, eating stale
bagels and drinking Starbucks. Peasants.
That's what you get for traveling in August.
Come on, Nate. Answer yourfriggingphone. Blair tapped
the toe of her black suede French Sole ballet flat
impatiently. Her plane to Glasgow was leaving in less than
an hour and she wanted to say goodbye and leave Nate
with a little something to keep him thinking about her. She'd
worn a gorgeous new black Diane von Furstenberg
shirtdress to travel in, thinking she'd sit alone at a table in
the VIP lounge, looking mysterious. A cast of hand- some
admirers would eavesdrop jealously while she smoked and
drank dirty martinis and flirted on the phone with Nate. But
as soon as she'd arrived, she discovered her phone didn't
work in the lounge.
"Hey." Nate suddenly picked up.
"My plane's leaving soon," Blair told him breathily. "Only two
more weeks until we see each other again." "Sweet," he
responded.
"I should have asked you meet me here," she added
sugges- tively, as if they could have had sex right there in
the middle of the airport. Maybe they would have been
arrested for indecent expo- sure. They might have gotten
locked in a jail cell together. They could have had sex all
week. But then she'd miss her plane.
Not to mention the wedding.
"I can't wait to kiss you," Nate told her, his voice hoarse
from all the pot he'd been smoking. She tried to picture him
sprawled out on his single bed in his house in Maine, where
she'd actually never been. The picture in her mind was of a
ramshackle fishing cabin with screens for windows and a
dilapidated wood stove in the corner, but she knew it was a
lot nicer than that.
Kind of.
Still, the idea of him lying on a scratchy red wool camping
blanket thinking of her in her gorgeous ivory satin and black
lace underwear was too delicious to dispel. She smiled into
her silver Samsung. Across the terminal a couple held
hands while they watched the planes taxi out to their
respective runways. On the floor a few feet away a girl with
spiky black hair and an eyebrow ring was kissing her grayhaired, tattooed boyfriend. Airports were so sexy.
"You know, Serena always said just kissing was the most
romantic thing," Blair murmured. "But that's so boring. I'm
definitely ready to go all the way." She twirled the little ruby
ring he'd given her around and around on her finger. "When
I get back. Like, the minute I get back," she giggled.
A gong went off inside the VTP lounge and Eleanor stuck
her head out the door. She'd lost thirty pounds since March
and wore a black linen Chanel dress, a wide-brimmed
black linen hat, and enormous round black Chanel
sunglasses--looking every inch the jaded divorcee. "Blair,
darling, our flight's leav- ing in half an hour. We have to get
to the gate."
Blair pressed the phone to her lips and kissed it noisily.
Mva!
"I love you," she whispered loudly as she followed her
mother down the corridor to the awaiting plane. "And next
time no more boring kisses."
Long after Blair had signed off, Nate stood in his little weed
garden behind the boat barn, looking at the small black
phone in his hand. He was baked after smoking the first
two joints of his very own homegrown pot. It wasn't the best
stuff in the world---it hurt his throat and gave him the
shakes. But that thing Blair said about Serena had shaken
him up even more. He'd barely seen Serena since they
were in Sun Valley together. Even then, they hadn't really
hung out. And, as it turned out, it was Serena who was the
romantic, the one who talked about kissing. The one who
had kissed him first.
"I could just kiss you forever," she'd whispered to him in the
dark in her bed on Valentine's Day. Those words were
more powerful than anything he'd ever smoked. And the
craving he had right now for the sound of her voice, her soft
breath on his skin, the honeysuclde scent of her lush blond
hair, the way her lips moved against his, the feel of her long,
lean body beneath his hands, was stronger than any
craving he'd ever had.
Uh-oh. gossipgirl.net
hey people!
Something's fishy
Did anyone see the write-up in Time Out about that tiny
Russian fish shop in Williamsburg? Apparently it's the
place to get the freshest fish for grilling in your backyard
this summer. As if any of us is doing any grilling. Well, not
grilling of that nature. B will be doing a bit of grilling when
she next sees her boyfriend (see sightings).
belle of the ball
Word in from Connecticut that S has been partying up a
storm and acting her little tushy off at her summer acting
workshop. It's about time she learned the art of distraction:
surround yourself with gorgeous boys, play pretty
temptresses onstage, and pretend you're not missing a
damn thing.
sightings
B getting buffed and polished at the Vidal Sassoon salon in
Glasgow in preparation for her aunt's wedding. She's got
her chastity belt locked, but all that Rhode Island country air
has her looking bronzed, fit, and gorgeous. S in a black silk
bonnet and low-cut golden gown on-stage in the The Age of
Innocence. S at the after-party at the polo club, dancing on
tables sans bonnet and gown. N installing an automatic
watering system behind an old red barn in Maine. What's
he growing back there, pumpkins? K and I wearing their
blue-and-white seersucker school uniforms as cover-ups on
the beach in East Hampton. Do they really think this is a
trend that's going to catch on? Maybe they just miss school.
C picketing at his local beach in Bar Harbor to reverse the
no-topless-sunbathing rule. N in NYC, buying Molson and
everything bagels in his local deli. Hey--summer's not over
yet. What's he doing back??
your e-mail
M l DearGG, MMl Have you been to that crazy fish shop in
Williamsburg? I swear
that bald girl slices a mean filet of sole. She's freaking cute,
too.
--crbby
Dear crbby, H 1 guess I'm going to have to make the trip,
since no one will stop
talking about this.
--GG
� Ml DearGG, � Ml There's this girl, actually a friend's
younger sister, who all my
friends are talking about. She's gorgeous. Everyone always
lies
about hooking up with her, but of course I want to hook up
with
her too. What should 1 do?
--gdflw
Dear gdflw. Q Do not pop out of the bushes at her and
pretend you don't know
who she is. She gets that ail the time. If it's meant to be,
maybe
she'll pop out of the bushes at you!
--GG All right, people, I'm off to Williamsburg to watch this
notorious bald girl slice fish firsthand. It better be as good
as everyone says it is, because I do not like to leave the
island of Manhattan unless it involves going to the beach.
And I better not get lost getting there. You might be wondering what I'm doing back in the city. Whither a certain boy
goes, I cannot stay away. . . .
Don't worry, we'll save some beluga caviar for you.
You know you love me,
gossip girl j sure hasn't missed much Her bus was stuck in
stop-and-go traffic all the way home from Pennsylvania, and
her cab from Port Authority was manned by the slowest
driver alive, but just before midnight Jenny unlocked the
door to her family's apartment and tiptoed inside. It was
dark and the windows in the living room were open.The
ancient flax-colored linen curtains wafted pleasantly in the
hot summer breeze. How nice it was to hear the sounds of
traffic, to feel the musty floorboards creak beneath her feet,
to smell the homey smells of cigarettes and coffee and
curry powder. The dining room table was still covered with
the remainders of dinner: a Pyrex lasagna pan containing
baked chicken legs, pineapple slices, whole bananas, and
what looked like partially melted Hershey's kisses. Next to
the pan were two mostly empty botdes of Guinness. A light
glowed from the study down the hall and she could hear the
familiar voices of her dad and Dan.
"Hey people," she greeted Dan and her father. They lay on
their tummies on the faded Oriental rug in the study, playing
hangman. Dan wore a white wifebeater, backwards, and
cutoff black corduroys. His shaggy light brown hair was
sticking out all over the place and his eyes were bloodshot.
There was a cigarette behind his ear and he was nursing a
bottle of Amstel Light.
Rufus wore his favorite red cotton ank]e-\ength nightshirt
with the sleeves rolled up. There was lint in his beard. He
sat up and held out his arms for a hug. "What's an eightletter word beginning with t with two o's in it?"
Jenny crawled into his lap like a little girl and allowed herself to be smothered in his embrace. "You guys are scary,
you know that? I mean, what would happen to you if I never
came home?"
They'd eat each other?
Dan pointed at her bare, mosquito-bitten legs. "Jesus."
Jenny shrugged her shoulders. She had already decided to
pretend that camp had never happened. "I don't want to talk
about it."
Marx, the Humphreys' enormous black cat, strutted up and
butted his head against Jenny's hands. Rufus adjusted her
on his lap so he could add another letter to his hangman
word. So far he had To_ TO_$E, and his hangman was fully
formed.
"I'm allowing feet, hands, and ears," Dan explained, swigging his beer.
"And a face! You promised me a face," Rufus grumbled,
frowning at the word. "Tobnoise. Towpoise?" he muttered
non- sensically.
Up on its roost on the bookshelf the dusty Sony stereo
made a clicking sound and one of Rufus's weird arrhythmic
jazz CDs came on. "So this is what you guys have been
doing all sum- mer?" Jenny demanded.
Dan nodded like it was no big deal. "Pretty much."
"And what about the rest of the human population? Have
you gotten out? Seen anyone?" He shrugged his shoulders
and Jenny wished he at least was wearing his shirt the right
way around. "So basically you've spent the whole summer
being a little Dad- in-training. No offense, Dad. And what
about Vanessa?"
Dan shrugged his shoulders again. It was August, hot, and
his skin was as pale as a mushroom. Jenny wanted to slap
him.
"Tontoise?" Rufus muttered idiotically.
She extracted herself from her father's lap and stood up.
Was it just her or were all boys retarded? She was tired
from the jour- ney and needed to sleep. "Dad, the word's
tortoise. And Dan, if you don't call Vanessa, I'm going to
call her for you, because some people are just nice, and
some people are not."
Amen.
Lying under her cool pink sheet on the bed she'd slept on
since she was two years old Jenny drifted defiantly to
sleep. She'd spend the last three weeks of summer
working on the calligra- phy for the hymnals, learning
breast-toning exercises, and mak- ing sure Dan showered
every day and got out more. Soon she'd be in eighth grade-which was practically high school--armed with an aweinspiring chest and the knowledge that most boys really are
retarded.
How could she go wrong? s finds instant cure for the
doldrums
Serena sat on a chaise lounge by the pool, watching her
mother do laps and painting each one of her toenails a
different color. She'd wanted to do the colors of the
rainbow, but she was miss- ing some crucial hues like
yellow and violet. She settled for one foot in different
shades of red and browns and one foot in dif- ferent
shades of pinks and blacks. Actually, they looked kind of
cool. She wouldn't be surprised if she started a trend.
As if everything she'd ever done in her life didn't start a
trend?
It was another one of those sweltering mid-August days
when the only reasonable thing to do was to stay wet. Her
mother was wearing a white-and-black vertical-striped
forties- style bathing suit that fit low on the leg and tied at
the neck. Serena thought she looked exactly like Katharine
Hepburn, at least underwater. She was a strong swimmer,
too, slicing through the water with her capable, impeccably
manicured hands and kicking rhythmically with her size
eleven feet. It was kind of fascinating to watch a person
who dressed so well, gave money to all the right charities,
had such marvelous parties, and even tended her own
roses, do something so basic as go for a swim.
Serena's cell phone whirred and bounced atop die glass
out- door table. Serena saw the word NATE appear on the
phone's tiny screen. She snatched it up and flipped it open.
"Natie?" she cried, clutching the phone. Did he know how
much she'd thought about him all summer long? Did he
real- ize how much she missed him? How lonely and sad
she'd been? "Where are you?"
"I'm here. At home. In the city." He took a deep breath.
"Can you come down?"
Serena's whole body trembled. Konly she could have
beamed herself to Manhattan, she could be standing in
front of Nate right now, kissing, and kissing, and kissing
him. Not that he necessarily wanted to kiss her. No, she
would have to control herself. But she could pretend.
She checked her watch. It was 2:45 p.m. There was a train
out of Ridgefield every hour at seven minutes past the hour.
"Meet me at Grand Central at four thirty-five." She flipped
her phone closed and flew into the house to change.
Upstairs, she yanked a dress over her head and shoved
her feet into a pair of flip-flops. Then she flew down the
stairs again. The keys to the family's old Mercedes station
wagon were on the kitchen table. She'd drive it to the
station, leave the doors unlocked, and leave the keys under
the seat. Erik did it all the time.
That was the joy of being a van der Woodsen. Things just
worked out. d has smelled worse It was a Friday, and Brok
was busy as hell. Smelly or not, everyone seemed to want
to eat fish when it was hot out. Vanessa doled out softshell
crabs, filets of grouper, swordfish steaks, and some new
trendy oversize yellow scallops that looked like Twinkies.
Her latex-gloved hands were caked in fish guts and her
bare calves were spattered with fish blood and unidentified
gray slime.
"I'll take six pounds of calamari, and all the clams you got,"
the next guy in line told her.
Vanessa checked the glass case without looking up. Six
pounds of squid? She stood on tiptoe and peered over the
top of the high countertop. Smiling at her was the shaggyhaired, goofy-grinned boy of her dreams. "Hey, I know you.
You're SpongeBob SquarePants." She turned to Hon and
pointed directly at Dan's face, covering her mouth like Dan
was abso- lutely the funniest-looking guy she'd ever seen.
Hon just smiled uncomfortably, wary of what was obviously
some sort of twisted lover's quarrel.
"Cool job," Dan observed. He'd been watching Vanessa for
a while. She looked supremely self-assured, slapping fish
filets down on waxed paper and wrapping them up so
professionally. She even knew how to use the cool old cash
register. It made him wish he'd spent the summer working
in the fish shop with her.
Duh.
"My sister has been sleeping at her friends' house. She
can't stand the way I smell." Vanessa began to help the next
customer, conscious of how closely Dan was watching her.
She paid extra attention to the folds in the waxed paper. It
was like making paper airplanes: the neater your folds, the
straighter the plane flies. Which had absolutely nothing
whatsoever to do with fish.
But we know what she means.
"So I was wondering!" Dan was forced to yell over an older
woman's head. The woman had ordered twenty fresh
sardines and now she was counting each one to make sure
Vanessa hadn't gypped her. "There's this movie at the
Angelika I want to see--"
"The Tom Waits one?" Vanessa yelled back, tossing a
soft- shell crab at Hon just for fun.
Dan nodded. "You want to go?"
Vanessa considered Dan's face. It hadn't changed. If anything, he was paler now than he'd been in May. And as long
as they stuck to Brooklyn and downtown, they'd be at no
risk of bumping into Serena van der Woodsen. She took off
her apron and tore her gloves off with her teeth. Her shift
was over in half an hour. Hon could cover for her. Besides,
she was honestly sort of sick of slinging fish. Hell, she might
not even come back.
She stepped around the counter and led Dan out of the tiny
shop. Outside the sun beat down on the sidewalks, turn- ing
everything white. Vanessa shielded her big brown eyes.
"You don't mind walking around with me all stinky?"
Dan put his arm around her shoulders and took a good
whil'l. After years of smelling the impossible odors that
emanated from his dad's kitchen, he didn't mind her eau de
poisson at all. "You smell like a sushi restaurant." He lit a
cigarette and smiled sexily at her without meaning to. "It's
nice."
Vanessa totally hated him for being so disarming, but slitalso still totally loved him. Dan kept his arm around her
shoul- der as they walked down the street to the subway.
She wasn'i sure what his arm meant., but it was enough for
now.
As long as nobody mentions a certain blonde. sis a sight
for sore eyes Serena hadn't specified where he should
meet her, so Nate stood at the end of the platform where
her train was supposed to arrive, waiting. He'd been in the
city for two days before he'd finally called. He didn't want to
be stoned when he talked to her or stoned when he saw
her, and it had taken him that long to get it out of his
system. Not that he had a clear head. He was shaking all
over, partly from withdrawal but mostly because he couldn't
wait to see her get off that train and--
There it was, the silver Metro-North train with its thick
orangey-red stripe. The headlights eased toward him and
then the train stopped with a whoosh. The doors opened
and she stepped onto the platform, three cars down,
wearing a thin light blue slip dress and pink rubber flipflops, her pale blond hair hanging nearly to her waist. She
spotted him and her face lit up with the most glorious smile.
Then she broke into a run, her flip- flops thwacking the
ground as she came closer and closer.
He wrapped her in his arms and picked her up, swinging
her around like a little kid. "Oh, Natie, you're so strong!" she
laughed, and then she leaned in and kissed him right on the
lips. Nate closed his eyes and held her for a second longer
before putting her feet back down on the platform. He was
pretty sure this was about to be the best day of his summer,
or maybe even his life. He was in no hurry. "Let's get a drink
in that place upstairs," he told her gruffly, trying to hide the
fact that he had just experienced his very first swoon.
"I'm such an idiot," Serena gushed, threading her arm
through his. "I didn't bring any money or keys or anything. I
had to beg the conductor to let me stay on."
They walked up the marble stairs from the lower level and
entered the station's enormous, elegant main terminal.
Briefcase-toting commuters in linen summer suits hurried
past to catch the trains back to their homes in Westchester
and Connecticut. A woman wearing a green-palm-leaf-andpink-flamingo-print Lilly Pulitzer dress and a gigantic yellow
straw hat stood in the center of the terminal examining the
train schedules on the board over the quaintly old-fashioned
marble and steel Metro-North ticket counter while her white
Yorkie nervously circled her pink espadrilled feet. Serena
had always loved the gorgeous station with its cool marble
cor- ridors, romantic Old New York restaurants and bars,
and the vast, sea-green vaulted ceiling decorated with
marvelously unexpected gold paintings of the zodiac.
Despite the fact that Grand Central was the largest station
in the city with trains servicing the whole of New England, it
maintained its regal air of competence, just like a good
society hostess remained beautifully poised under
pressure.
Nate took her hand and led her upstairs to the open-air bar
overlooking the main terminal.The bar stools were covered
with red velvet and the inside of the station was so airy and
timeless, it was hard to believe the sun was blazing
outside, raising the temperature to a horrifically humid one
hundred degrees.
The seats of their stools were already touching when they
sat down, and they didn't bother to move them. "Two dirty
marti- nis, please!" Serena barked at the bartender in a
superior voice and then collapsed against Nate's
wonderful-smelling chest, giggling. She felt drunk already.
What was wrong with her?
Love, baby.
The young bartender looked like David Beckham in a white
tux and didn't even card them. Serena sipped her martini
with- out tasting it and stared into Nate's adoring, glittering
green eyes. She couldn't tear her eyes away. He looked
just like he always looked in a plain white Ralph Lauren
polo shirt, khaki Brooks Brothers shorts, and docksidcrs
with no socks, his skin bronzed from working outside all
summer and his hair bleached gold by the sun. He was the
same--exactly the same Natie she'd dreamt about all
summer--but better. He was everything, per- fect. She
reached out and smoothed down the fine blond hair on his
deeply tanned forearm. Then she pulled her hand away,
grabbed her martini glass, and gulped her drink. "Aren't you
going to tell me about Maine?"
Nate wanted to grab her hand back and put it on his arm
again. Touching her was all he could think about. Serena,
his girl, his dream girl, was right here, right now, sitting so
close, her thigh pressed against his, breathing the same air
he was, talking to him and stroking his arm. What was to
stop him from kissing her again? And kissing her, and
kissing her . . . He tossed back his martini and signaled the
bartender for another. "We did a lot of work on the boat.
One day I'll take you sailing in it," he gasped, finding it hard
to talk. Why talk when they could be kissing?
Her huge blue eyes were like oceans themselves. "Oh,
Natie. It's so good to see you," she gushed, her whole body
trembling. "I've been so . . . there's just been way too much
of me and not enough of... you this summer."
Nate gulped down most of his second martini. His hands
felt all grabby and he wasn't sure he could control them. He
just wanted ro grab every gorgeous bit of her and hold on.
Below them the terminal was milling with people, but it felt
like they were the only people in it. Like the entire station
had been built for them alone. Their little bar with its
pressed-together velvet- covered stools and view of the
busy station was pretty damned intimate, but not nearly
intimate enough. "Let's go home," he suggested, because
he couldn't not suggest it.
And he was pretty sure she wouldn't say no. a nice day for
an off-white wedding The thing about Scotland was it was
always fucking freezing; and even though the wedding was
on the grounds of Hume Castle, a stately home in
Gleneagles near the Queen's country house that had been
in the family for over four hundred years, there was deer shit
everywhere, and the women were wearing the ugliest
fucking hats Blair had ever seen. She knew it was English
and everything to wear hats at weddings, but did the hats
have to have dead animals on them?
Forty large round tables were scattered across the deer
shit- strewn green lawns, with the castle looming ominously
behind them like something out of Scooby-Doo--haunted
and ghost- ridden, with a constant black rain cloud over it
and bats in its belfries. Thick ten-foot-high hedges
bordered the lawns, shield- ing the well-heeled guests from
the paparazzi and riffraff. The reception tables were
covered in creamy linens and decorated with simple sprays
of lilac and ferns. A stage had been provided to
accommodate the entertainment, headlined by Sting
himself. Blair had hoped to see Madonna, but she must
have stayed home with her horses and all those kids she
kept adopting. Blair sat shivering at her table, wearing the
lilac-colored, puffy-sleeved organza gown with a huge bow
in the back that her aunt had had made especially for her by
the worst tailor in Scotland and a garland of white roses
and baby's breath in her retardedly curled hair. At least the
hideous dress went down to her ankles so no one could tell
she was wearing black cashmere leggings underneath it,
rolled up above her knees.
Forever bucking fashion trends.
Tyler sat next to her in a creased dove gray morning suit
with a white rose in the lapel, nursing a bottle of Guinness
and giggling to himself. Bald, paunchy, red-nosed Uncle
Ray was giving a speech and was plastered as usual. "I just
want to thank my wife for marrying me--at least, I think we're
still married," he began, spilling champagne down the
groom's boots.
This was Blair's Aunt Catherine's second wedding to the
same man. The groom, Blair's uncle Bruce, was a former
key- board player for Sting. Bruce and Catherine had
eloped when they were nineteen and divorced a year later.
During their sec- ond marriages they'd had children and the
usual affairs, but they'd never forgotton their first love. Now
well into middle age, they were back together again and
ready to give marriage another try.
Uncle Bruce had stringy haphazardly bleached blond hair
and wore white cowboy boots with his iridescent-iilac-tinted
morn- ing suit and shimmering lilac-tinted top hat. Aunt
Catherine was dressed like Lady Marian from Robin Hood
in a dark green corseted satin gown, feathered felt hunting
hat, and purple satin cloak. Blair felt like she'd fallen down
the rabbit hole into some sort of fucked-up Wonderland.
The whole affair made her want to puke.
"And I'm glad Bruce is marrying Catherine again, because
if he doesn't, someone else will," Uncle Ray continued
sloppily. Tyler was turning blue he was laughing so hard.
This was his third or fourth Guinness, so he was bound to
throw up anytime now.
"Shut up," Blair hissed at him. Her weird Scottish cous- ins-ten-year-old Peter, nine-year-old Willie, and eight-year-old
Becky, who went to some creepy Catholic boarding school
in the country and looked like trained assassins--stared at
her blankly with their queer, lashless gray eyes and blond
pageboy haircuts. She'd tried to talk to them earlier, but
their Scottish accents were so fucking impossible to
understand she'd given up.
Everyone applauded as Uncle Ray gave the mic up to
Sting, who looked exactly the same as he did in pictures,
with spiky blond hair, squincily earnest blue eyes, and a
tanned yoga-wiry body stuffed into the tiniest black peglegged jeans and white T-shirt Blair had ever seen on a
man. He looked like a one- hundred-and-ten-year-old
Galapagos tortoise in skinny jeans.
"I'd like to dedicate this song to my dear friends Catherine
and Bruce!" Sting shouted into the mic.Then he began to
strum the first bars of "Every Breath You Take" on his white
guitar. To the left of the stage Blair's mother stood swaying
back and forth to the music, blitzed out on champagne and
wearing a purple-and-gold hoopskirted bridesmaid gown
that looked like it had been fashioned by a coked-out fairy
godmother. Aunt Catherine and her new husband, Bruce,
slow danced on the shit-smeared grass with their bodies
pressed together like teen- agers at a prom. It was
supposed to be romantic, but it made Blair want to strangle
someone. Blair Cornelia Archibald, she doodled on her
napkin with her black Lancome eyeliner. It sounded even
better than Blair Cornelia Waldorf. She especially liked the
way each word had an a and an i in it.
Eleanor and Harold Waldorf III, Esq.,
proudly invite you to attend
the marriage of their daughter
Blair Cornelia
to
Nathaniel Archibald
on August the seventeenth
at four o'clock
in the St. Claire Hotel's Grand Ballroom.
The only problem was that first line. If her mom and dad
were getting divorced and her dad was living with Giles or
Raoul-Pierre or whatever the hell his name was, then surely
it couldn't say "Eleanor and Harold Waldorf" on the
invitation, could it? Maybe she'd just leave her mother out of
it entirely, although that didn't really seem fair.
One thing was certain: she wouldn't be wearing a purple
cloak, Nate wouldn't be wearing white cowboy boots, and
Sting wouldn't sing.
How about Seal? Bono?
I the best way to cool off is to take your clothes off Like so
many of the beautiful prewar town houses and apartment
buildings in New York City, the Archibalds' East Eightysecond Street town house was without air-conditioning.
Nate's fam- ily had never bothered with it because they
wanted to preserve the original qualities of the house, and
they spent most of the summer at their compound in Maine
or away in Europe, anyway. Nate had opened all the
windows upstairs in his wing and his parents', but it was still
stifling. He grabbed a six-pack of Molson from the fridge
and led Serena into the shady sheltered garden out back. A
nude marble Venus de Milo fountain was the garden's
centerpiece. Water spilled out of the top of her head,
cascaded over her placid-looking face, onto her bare
shoul- ders, and down her bare thighs until it pooled at her
feet. Nate and Serena perched on the bench his dad had
made from slate imported from their property in Maine. A
mild breeze wafted through the slim branches of the
Japanese cherry trees planted along the tall brick walls
surrounding them, doing little to cool them off.
Nate cracked open a beer and handed it to Serena, who
took it eagerly. Her eyelids and cheeks had a sultry, sweaty
sheen that was better than makeup. Nate tried not to look at
her. He'd been trying not to look at her all the way home in
the cab. Instead, he stared out at the tall, colorless buildings
on Park Avenue like a tourist. He knew if he had looked at
her--really looked--they wouldn't have made it home without
taking their clothes off.
But now they were home.
"Christ, it's hot," Nate observed. He took a swig of beer
and put the bottle down on the flagstone beneath his feet.
Then he tugged up on the hem of his white polo shirt and
pulled it off over his head. He tossed it on the ground and
flexed his nicely toned back muscles as he picked up his
beer again and took another swig.
Serena stared at the smatterings of adorable golden brown
freckles that danced across his muscled shoulders. Here
she was with Nate, Nate, Nate, her Natie, back behind his
house where they'd played since they were little kids. She'd
tied an imaginary rope around her hands to keep from
grabbing him and throw- ing him down on the flagstones.
Nate wasn't hers to grab, she reminded herself. But the
rope felt so flimsy, she could break it anytime. Of course
Nate was hers. He'd always been hers.
"It is hot," she giggled, springing to her feet and shimmying toward the Venus de Milo in an attempt to switch
channels. She danced right out of her pink flip-flops and
climbed into the fountain, getting completely soaked as she
perched precariously on Venus's lap. The cold water felt
totally amazing, exactly what she needed.
And she looked amazing in it--a real, live, in-the-flesh goddess. Nate stood up, put his beer down on the bench, and
dashed into the fountain after her.
I "Hi," Serena greeted him, grabbing his arm so he wouldn't
slip and crack his skull on the marble. Water beaded on
Nate's tanned, perfect chest. They stood there together for
several awestruck minutes under the two little burbling
streams of cold water, gazing into each other's eyes.
Finding themselves together in the fountain behind Nate's
house on a hot August afternoon was so predictable yet so
surprising, it was like they were acting out a dream and
making up the parts they couldn't remember.
Serena tightened her grip on Nate's arm and pulled him
toward her. She kissed him softly on the lips and then
quickly pulled away, her face flushed. Her light blue slip
dress was soaked. Nate's pants were soaked. What were
they doing? "Sorry," she apologized, removing a strand of
wet pale blond hair from her cheek.
Nate grabbed her hand and laced his fingers through hers.
"It's okay. Don't stop. I don't want you to stop." He kissed
her perfect cheek, and then her perfect nose, and then her
perfect lips, and then her perfect neck, and then her lips
again.
And they didn't stop. They kept going, kissing like mad and
yanking the rest of each other's clothes off. It was kind of
embarrassing to be outside in front of the security cameras,
though, and besides, the fountain was kind of small and wet
and there was no place to lie down.
"Let's go upstairs," Nate murmured, picking Serena up in
his strong arms before she could even answer.
As if in a dream--the most glorious dream she'd ever
dreamt--Serena allowed Nate to carry her inside the house
and up the elegant, red-carpeted staircase. She was done
being a martyr. Nate wanted her and she wanted him. End
of story.
Actually, this is just the beginning. life according to b Sting
had given it up to a band of Scottish folk rockers in white
patent leather clogs and black leather pants. The guests
were all drunk now, and everyone was dancing, ruining their
shoes in deer shit, even Eleanor--especially Eleanor. She'd
cast off her strappy gold Prada sandals and hiked up her
iridescent lilac hoop skirt to boogie down with Sting
himself, barefoot.
Watch out,Trudie!
Blair remained at her table with her own private bottle of
Cristal champagne, chain-smoking from a pack of cast-off
Chesterfields while she continued to direct the movie that
was her lifej in her head. They'd honeymoon on Nate's boat,
which he would rename Blair, of course, sailing around
Europe and maybe the nice parts of Africa. When they
returned home, they'd settle into the classic Park Avenue
apartment their par- ents would have bought for them as a
wedding gift, decorated to Blair's specifications in velvet
and furs, while they were away. Nate would work for a
venture capitalist firm, doing something easy that made lots
of money but allowed him to be home by seven so they
could have sex and then go out to dinner. Blair would be a
lawyer like her father, but her clients would be very few and
select and she'd have a giant staff of super-efficient mousylooking assistants to do absolutely everything for her except
go to the bathroom and have sex with Nate.
Speaking of having sex with Nate, why was she sitting here
watching her sad, desperate mother attempt to get it on
with Sting, of all people, to the most headache-inducing
music she'd ever heard in her life, when she could be home
with Nate, doing it right now'i
No comment.
Poor Nate--she couldn't believe she'd abandoned him for
this clown show. She yanked her cell phone out of the
ridicu- lous lilac-colored puffball drawstring bag that had
come with her nasty puffball dress and searched her
contact list for her mother's travel agent. Surely there was a
flight leaving this god- forsaken Scottish shithole in the next
twenty-four hours. She didn't care if the flight was
overbooked. She'd fly the plane her- self if she had to. She
knew Nate was back in the city, because the maid in Maine
had told her so this morning after she'd called his cell seven
times and he hadn't picked up. Poor Nate, all alone in his
stuffy New York town house, pining for her while he wasted
away on a diet of pot and tonic water. She couldn't wait to
tell him all about the wedding she'd planned, and the
wonderful life they would have together.
No comment. summer lovin' happened so fast Nate carried
Serena up two flights of stairs to his parents' bed- room.
Her dress was in the fountain, a soaking ball of blue silk. So
were his pants and his belt. There wasn't much left to take
off. He settled her gently on top of the golden yellow Italian
cot- ton coverlet and lay down next to her, admiring the glow
of her smooth skin in the rays of late summer sun beaming
through the skylight overhead. Serena turned her head and
pressed her forehead into his. "I could just kiss you
forever," she murmured, her lips brushing his. "But I don't
want to just kiss."
They looked into each other's eyes with an excited intensity
that only excited them even more. This was it: the thing
neither of them had ever done before was about to happen,
and in the most perfect way--with each other.
Nate pulled Serena close. "I love you," he said loudly,
because he wanted die whole city to hear it.
"I love vow," she replied, even louder.Then she erupted into
excited giggles and began tearing his white cotton boxers
off with her long, graceful, overeager fingers, followed by
her own fountain-soaked white underwear. She tossed the
soggy under- garments across the room and they landed
on the floor by the door.
Ta-da!
But wait, the condom. Nate rushed away to get one from his
room. That awkward, slimy, silly-looking necessity. They'd
both played with them before--blown them up like balloons
and filled them with water--but they'd never actually used
one. Putting it on was like a science experiment in lab class
at school, and they wanted to do the experiment absolutely
right. Serena tossed the empty wrapper on the floor.
Ready, set, go!
How fun, how right, to be doing the scariest thing for a girl
to do for the first time with her best friend, the boy she'd
loved forever. Her Nate. There was really nothing scary
about it. It was exactly the way it was supposed to be.
He brushed his nose against hers. "Are you sure?" he
asked quietly, even though he was pretty sure he knew the
answer.
"Yes," Serena nodded, pressing her body against his.
She'd never been more sure of anything. "Please?" she
added with a giggle, because it was pretty obvious that he
wanted to too.
So they did it. And the fun part was watching each other's
faces, because they both looked so scared and happy and
sur- prised. Serena could not stop laughing. It hurt, it did,
but not in the way she'd thought. It was still so much fun,
because Nate was so sweet. He didn't want it to hurt, and
every time she flinched he just kissed the hurt away. She
loved him so much, hurt was the wrong word. There were
no words for how it felt. It was like getting the present she'd
wanted for such a long, long time and finding out it was
even better than she'd anticipated. It was amazing. He was
amazing. Nate couldn't believe he got to do this for the first
time with the most beautiful girl in the universe. He was
damned glad he'd waited, because nothing could top this.
He loved Serena so badly it made him feel like he was
going to explode. He couldn't stop smiling and laughing and
looking at her. It was amazing. She was amazing.
And their bodies were amazing, the way they fit together
and knew instinctively what to do. It was like this was somehow preordained. They'd been built for each other, created
to be together, like two pieces from a model sailboat.
Click!
They weren't laughing anymore, because there wasn't anything funny. They Just held each other, shivering with the
thrill of being closer than they'd ever been before, sharing
something they didn't know existed, something they'd keep
with them for- ever.
Eventually they dozed off in each other's arms. Nate woke
up first. It was nighttime now. The stars had come out in the
sky- light overhead. Without thinking about what he was
doing, he reached for the remote on his dad's bedside
table and switched on the TV. It was tuned to the History
Channel, and the narra- tor for a documentary about
Moses, who sounded an awful lot like Serena's friend
Isabel Coates's dad, said in an incredibly loud voice,
"Moses saw no alternative but to part the Red Sea so that
he and his people could cross it."
Jesus, it was loud. Nate had forgotten his father was practically deaf. He pressed the volume button over and over
again to soften it, but Serena's long eyelashes were
already fluttering open against his chest. She lifted her
head and grinned at him. "You parted my Red Sea!" They
both snorted, erupting into giddy giggles until they
were howling with laughter. It was kind of a gross analogy
but pretty funny too. They wrestled with each other under the
covers, their bodies sleek with sweat. Soon they were
kissing,
unable to stop, and before they knew it, he was parting her
Red
Sea once more.
There they go again, making history.
I honesty: it's just another word Blair's greasy-haired
cabdriver seemed to think she was a tourist who would
want to see the sights upon her arrival in the city. He wound
his way from the bottom of the island up, pointing out City
Hall, the Stock Exchange, the Guggenheim SoHo, and the
Gandhi statue in Union Square. Blair's flight out of St.
Andrews had been delayed because of fog, the
stewardess refused to serve her vodka, and there was
nothing decent to eat for ten interminable hours. Now that
she wasfinallyon the ground, all she wanted to do was get a
hotel room with Nate somewhere, order a huge brunch, and
feed each other French toast and mimosas, naked.
"The World Trade Center used to be the tallest, but now it's
the Empire State building again," the cab driver informed
her, shaking his greasy head sadly.
"Would you please just drive the fucking car up Park
Avenue?" Blair screamed through the plastic barrier
between them.
Good thing it was bulletproof.
The only reason Blair knew Nate was in town in the first
place was that his housekeeper in Maine had told her so-after Blair had given up on Nate's cell and started on all his
other numbers. And what reason could he have for being
there other than to prepare for Blair's impending arrival?
She imagined him shopping for new Frette sheets,
stocking the fridge with Ketel One, and ordering a Rolls to
pick her up at the airport. She imagined his elated surprise
to find her back already, a whole week early! They'd have a
picnic in the park and then he'd whisk her home to his town
house and make sweet, passion- ate love to her on his
cozy single bed, exclaiming all the while how much he'd
missed her all summer and how depressed he'd been
without her.
Uh-huh.
Finally, the cab pulled up in front of the Archibalds' town
house on Eighty-second Street and she got out, hauling her
Louis Vuitton mini steamer trunk out of the trunk herself and
throwing a pile of money at the driver. It was nearly noon on
a sunny Saturday, and the rest of the city had been bustling
and crowded, but the Upper East Side appeared to be
abandoned. Nate's house was still and quiet. The curtains
were drawn on the first two floors. But up on the third floor
the curtains were open and the windows were up.
Blair pressed the button on the intercom with her thumb,
leaning her whole body into it. "Nate? It's me!"
Serena's head was nestled against Nate's bare chest as
she daydreamed about the coming school year. She'd
spend every waking and sleeping moment that she wasn't
in school with him. Or she could kidnap him and stash him
under her bed for safekeeping. One thing was certain: she
never wanted to be away from Nate again.
Nate was still asleep, dreaming of mermaids. He was
stranded on a windless sea on his boat, the Charlotte. The
glassy water stretched out endlessly before him as he
stood on the bow, searching for land. Then a voice began
calling his name--"Nate? Nate?"--and bubbles burst on the
surface of the water. A long, lithe fish shimmied past, its
golden head glimmering in the sun- light. Then a dark head
popped up out of the water; it was a girl, a mermaid.
"Nate? Nate? Can you hear me, Nate?"
Blair.
Nate sat up abruptly, his whole body covered in nervous
sweat.
"Nate? Are you there?" Blair's voice echoed throughout the
house.
Serena was already out of bed, scrambling on the floor for
something--anything--to wear. There was her underwear,
but fuck, her dress! She tossed Nate's boxers at him and
flew into his mother's walk-in closet, scanning the hangers
for something remotely wearable. Mrs. Archibald dressed
for the opera even when there was no opera. Dior chiffon.
De la Renta taffeta. Val- entino silk charmeuse with a train.
Help! Serena pulled a pair of gray satin Armani cigarette
pants down off the hanger and stepped into them. Then she
pulled on a cream-colored wool Chanel jacket with crystal
buttons. She looked kind of cool, but the wool was itchy and
hot and never in a million years would she have worn such
an outfit on a Saturday afternoon in August.
Yes, but this wasn't just any Saturday afternoon in August.
She started to make the bed, careful to flush the condom
wrappers down the toilet. Nate returned from his room,
looking normal in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.
"We could just wait for her to leave," he suggested. His cell
phone began to ring. Then the house phone. "Nate? Wake
up, Nate. It's me.1'
"No, let her in," she told him, tucking her sex-mussed blond
hair neatly behind her her ears, as if giving herself the final
fin- ishing touch. "I'll go outside and hide our stuff. Bring her
out there after you let her in. Tell her that's why we couldn't
hear her."
Serena was sort of missing one very big hole in the story--why the hell she was there in the first place--but neither of
them said anything about that.
Nate did as he was told. "Hello?" He spoke cautiously into
the intercom.
"Nate? What the fuck, Nate. I've been out here for like an
hour with my fucking suitcase."
"Sorry," Nate mumbled and buzzed her in.
Serena raced downstairs and out into the garden.There
were the waterlogged remnants of their clothes, wadded up
at the Venus de Milo's feet where they'd left them. She
wrung them out, lifted the cover of the Archibalds' gas grill,
and stuffed the clothes inside. Then she slid her feet into
her pink rubber flip- flops, which looked positively bizarre
with the rest of her outfit. Her face was slick with sweat and
her heart was beating so fast it hurt. Calm down, she told
herself. But all at once the source of her distress was right
there in the garden with her: Blair, looking very clean and
chic in a black linen tunic with cap sleeves, white patent
leather lace-up sandals, and her black Audrey Hepburn
sunglasses perched on top of her head.
"Hi!" Serena threw herself in Blair's direction, embracing
her with a breathless, clumsy hug. "How was your summer?
Did your aunt get married okay and everything?"
"My summer sucked." Blair extracted herself from the hug
with pursed lips. "But it looks like you guys have been
having fun." She picked up an empty beer bottle and put it
down again. "Where are you going, anyway?" she asked,
eyeing Serena's out- fit curiously.
Serena looked down at her stupid clothes. Her toes were
painred all different colors, something she hadn't even
remem- bered doing. "Shopping." she blurted out. "At
Bloomingdale's. My feet grew and none of my shoes fit.
Erik's taking me to some play tonight and I need shoes."
She'd only been to Blooming- dale's once, when she was
twelve, but Nate's house was sort of on the way so it was
the only store that made sense. "I just stopped in to say hi,"
she added, explaining away her presence at Nate's house
as briefly as possible.
Nate stood a few feet behind Blair with his arms folded
across his chest. Serena met his bewildered gaze for a
fleeting second and then forced herself to look away.
Blair didn't seem even remotely suspicious. She lit a
cigarette and puffed on it dramatically. "You guys would not
believe what a freak show my aunt's wedding was. I just
had to get the fuck out of there. And Scotland is so
medieval. The toilet paper was like burlap." She turned and
walked over to Nate. "Our wed- ding's not going to be
anything like that," she told him, slipping her arms around
his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. She heaved
a huge, exhausted sigh. "My family is so fucked up. I'm just
so glad to be home."
Nate patted her chestnut-colored hair, his face twitching
with conflicting emotions. Part of him wanted to blurt out
that he was in love with Serena, that they were together
now, and though he was sorry for hurting Blair's feelings,
she'd just have to deal. But part of him still loved Blair too.
He loved how unsuspicious she was right now. How she
was so caught up in the drama of her life she didn't have
time to be petty.
Blair lifted her head and kissed him on the lips, a long, inviting, remember me? kiss. And he did remember her. He
remem- bered kissing her for the first time, and he
remembered loving her. And he remembered that he
couldn't just break up with her right now because he'd
hooked up with her best friend, whom he happened to be in
love with too. He clasped her small, con- fident shoulders
and kissed her back, oblivious to the pain he was causing.
Serena tore through her thumbnail with her teeth. She could
see now that what she and Nate had done last night was so
dangerous and explosive and hurtful it was best to pretend
that it hadn't happened at all. Blair and Nate were still a
couple. He wasn't going to volunteer any information about
what had hap- pened last night, and she certainly wasn't
going to say anything. She felt like her chest had been cut
open with a dull knife and without any anesthesia, and Blair
was ripping her heart out with her bare hands. But what
could she do? How could she stand by and watch them kiss
and be in love all next year? Last spring had been torture
enough.
Blair giggled as she zipped up the fly of Nate's white
J.Crew bermuda shorts, which he'd overlooked in his haste
to get dressed. Serena stood watching, gnawing furiously
on her thumbnail. She felt like she'd been in a car wreck
and was bleed- ing internally. It wasn't safe to move. Then it
occurred to her that there was something she could do after
all: she could go to boarding school. Her dad could get her
into Hanover--surely he could. Blair and Nate would never
have to see her again, and she'd never have to see them.
Everyone would be happy. Sure they would.
"I'm late.," she told them, turning away. The longer she
stayed, the harder it would be to leave.
"Wait!" Blair cried. She broke away from Nate and rushed
over to Serena, throwing her arms around her. "Good luck."
She gave her old friend a generous hug. "And have fun."
Serena wished she had the biggest pair of sunglasses ever
made to cover up her face, because she felt like it had split
in two. Blair thought she was only wishing her luck finding a
pair of shoes and fun seeing a play; she didn't realize she
had just uttered the equivalent of "have a nice life."
"Thanks," Serena whispered back, her voice cracking as a
tsunami of tears welled up in her huge, navy blue eyes. She
blinked them away and then looked up to find Nate staring
at her, his golden brown eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
She wanted to hug him too, but she was afraid that if she
touched him she would lose control. Instead, she swallowed
a sob, flashed him her famous you know you love me smile,
and lifted a gorgeous, stubbornly independent hand. "Au
revoir."
Adieu. epilogue Erik's red Jeep bounced along the twisting
local New Hampshire roads on the way to Hanover
Academy, threatening to dislodge Serena's trunk from the
roof. Serena sat in the passenger seat with her bare feet
perched on the black dashboard, wearing a gi- gantic pair
of tortoiseshell Gucci sunglasses. She hadn't spoken since
they'd left Manhattan, and she remained silent now. Erik
was listening to a Beatles compilation album playing very
softly on the car stereo.
/ don't know why you say
I say hello
"Dad's a freaking genius, getting you in the way he did. You
didn't even have to write a freaking essay!" Erik declared.
He glanced at his sister. "And when we get there you'll
probably score the biggest single room on freaking
campus, you lucky duck."
Guess who's not feeling so lucky?
Serena remained silent. Over and over in her head, she
was writing e-mails. First there was the one to Blair in
which she would confess everything and ask to be forgiven.
Then there was the one to Nate, telling him that she couldn't
live without him and so would he please ditch Blair and
come to Hanover to be with her? Then there was the one in
which she set Nate free, telling him that their hookup had
been nice and all, but she had a whole future of hookups
ahead of her. And then there was the chatty one she wrote
to both of them sounding thrilled to be away, and full of
funny little details about her fantastic new life at boarding
school.
Great food, great friends, good times!
None of these e-mails would ever get sent. As her old
nanny Agatha used to say when she was little and would cry
at the sight of peas on her plate, "You get what you get and
you don't get upset." Blair would have Nate forever, and she
would have him for just that one, perfect night.
Her new green metallic Treo was clutched in her whiteknuckled hands, where it had been the whole ride up. She
flipped it open and snapped a picture of her bare toes on
the dashboard. Her toenails were chipped and weatherbeaten, but they were still painted all different colors, the
way they'd been that night with Nate. She pressed send
and e-mailed the picture to him, hoping it would make him
laugh. Then she nipped her phone closed and tossed it into
her bag. Two big, glistening tears slid down her cheeks.
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello gossipgirl.net
ts have been altered or abbreviated
hey people!
Summer has finally come to an end and school's starting all
over again. But our favorite, most fabulous classmate is
missing. Everyone who's anyone is talking about why she
decided to go to boarding school in the first place. Why
would the most popular, beautiful, best-loved girl in the city
leave? Of course, some of us know the truth--at least, we
think we do. And if we don't know the truth, we have our
opinions, and we're always willing to share them.
your e-mail
Hey GG, Q I was in a play this summer at a theater-acting
workshop near
Ridgefield, Connecticut, and there was this girl in it who
was,
like, a total mess. Like she would go home with every guy in
the
whole play, including the kind of old director, and I'm pretty
sure
she was on drugs. When I heard she was going to boarding
school I was like, oh, no, bad idea. She needs parents!
-gdgrl
� Dear gdgrl,
It's nice of you to worry, but you'd be surprised. Boarding
schools
have honor codes and rule books. They can be very strict.
Of
course we all know that rules are meant to be broken....
--GG � � DearGG, � � 1 All the girls at my boarding
school are talking about this new girl,
and basically, we've all decided she's bad news. If she's
going
to have any friends at all, they're gonna be boys.
--bordgrl
Dearbordgrl, Q Are you quite sure this is the tactic you want
to take? Do you
really want the new girl to be best friends with your
boyfriend?
Wait, this is all starting to sound weirdly familiar.
--GG
sightings
N carrying B's brand-new nickel-plated Balenciaga book
bag while he walked her to school--wearing a leash. Just
kidding. V, D, and J shop- ping for new school clothes at
vintage stores in Williamsburg. Looking forward to another
year at the loner tabie? Sorry, that was mean, but most of
the time vintage clothes just look . . . old. C handing out his
glossy new headshot in front of L'Ecole, where all the easy-I mean French--girls go. K and I getting to Constance
Billard early on the first day and wait- ing outside with
buttered bagels and cappuccinos for everyone, including
the teachers. Guess they simply could not wait til! school
started! S at a table full of adorable boys hanging on her
every word in the dining hall at Hanover Academy. She
can't be suffering too much, right?
questions
Will B and N stay together? Will they ever seal the deal?
And when they do, will she guess that he's been there, done
that already?
Will J's chest stop growing? Will she ever meet a nice boy
who iikes her for her pretty smile? Or will her you-knowwhats keep growing so we can't see her smile anymore?
For her sake, I sure hope not. Will V ever admit to D that
she thinks about what he looks like with- out his crappy old
T-shirt on? Wait, what does he look (ike without his crappy
old T-shirt on?
Will D ever get over S and admit that he already has a
girlfriend?
Will S get over N? Will she survive boarding school? Will
she thrive at boarding school? Will she ever come back?
Some of you already know the answers--at least, you think
you do. If you don't, you know where to find them. I have no
plans to stop talking about any of the above.
Until next time.
You know you love me,
gossip girl Acknowledgments I am grateful for the
opportunity to finally thank everyone who has contributed to
the success of Gossip Girl. No thanks does justice to the
thanks I owe my friend and editor at Little, Brown, Cindy
Eagan--beyond/ You are the ultimate it girl behind each
book's triumph, never uttering a doubting word, always
2,000 percent positive, hysterically funny, and just what I
needed. To my friend and editor at Alloy Entertainment,
Sara Shandler, always so perceptive, sympathetic, secretly
cynical, ridiculously funny, and impossible to get off the
phone. Thank you to my friend Josh Bank at Alloy
Entertainment for being my ally, for making me laugh when
I'm grumpy, and for directing my ideas into something that
makes sense. We'll always have Last Dog. Thank you to
my friend Les Morgenstein at Alloy Entertainment for not
treating me like an idiot even when I act like one, and for
not hanging up when I cried over the phone all those times.
And thank you to everyone else at Little, Brown and Alloy
Entertainment over the years for all their behind-the-scenes
hard work. I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks ever
so much to my agent, Suzanne Gluck, for seeing past the
idiot savant and taking me on. Thank you to Liz and Papa,
for your love and pride and for being the ultimate guerilla
marketers, you made the books bestsellers. Omi, I could
never have written this book or any of the others without
your love, support, and help, especially with the children. I
can't imagine what I did to deserve you. Thank you Erasmo
for bringing music into my children's lives. Thank you to my
children for really getting that I can like what I do and love
them too. And thank you Richard, you know I love you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone I mentioned
and everyone I missed. It has been a wild and wicked ride.
really happened before the #1 New York Times