Dan remained onstage to receive the E. B. White Writing Award, Riverside Prep’s award for outstanding creative writing achievement. “Congratulations, son.” Their lisping, tall, young, Russian-figure-skater-handsome principal, Dr. Nesbitt, handed him the rolled-up piece of parchment paper and shook his hand while a photographer snapped pictures. Dr. Nesbitt was a lower-school dad who’d been acting principal for a year and a half—ever since Mr. Coobie, the previous principal, had gotten ousted after attempting to teach human development to the fifth graders himself instead of hiring a professional.
The applause was thin and sporadic as Dan accepted the award and returned to his seat. It was bound to be after a speech like that. Don’t listen to your teachers? Let love be your teacher and follow your heart? Love is all you need, love is all you need, love is all you need?
Hello??!
“And now for the diplomas,” Dr. Nesbitt announced, and the audience shifted eagerly in their seats.
None of the boys’ last names began with A, so Chuck Bass was first. For the occasion, Chuck had dressed entirely in cream-colored linen, including his shoes, which were made by Hogan and even had cream-colored crepe soles. With his sleek, dark hair and tanned handsome face, he actually looked pretty sharp, like a Hollywood star from the 1940s. Chuck tucked the brown-leather-bound diploma case under his arm, pulled a Cuban cigar out of his jacket pocket, and put it between his lips.
He was about to turn and walk offstage when Dr. Nesbitt snatched the cigar out of his mouth, wiped it on his trousers, and stuck it in his own mouth. “I’m going to need something to chew on to get through all these names,” he quipped into the microphone, and the audience of parents responded with a roar of laughter. Dr. Nesbitt had been so popular since stepping in as principal, he’d had to temporarily shut down his psychiatric practice because the school had yet to find a new principal they liked nearly as much.
“Nice speech, dickhead,” Chuck hissed as he lumbered over Dan’s feet on his way back to his seat. “‘Follow your heart’? Does that mean we’re eloping to Vegas together after the ceremony?” Dan resisted the urge to grind his Wallabees into Chuck’s nuts. He hadn’t thought about how his speech might sound to everyone else. All he knew was that he’d written it from the heart, with one person in mind: Vanessa.
“Nice work,” Zeke Freedman sneered at Dan as he passed by on his way up to the stage. Zeke and Dan had been best buddies until Vanessa became Dan’s girlfriend and Dan sort of forgot about everything and everybody else. Zeke was kind of a computer geek and was extremely proud of the fact that he was going to MIT in the fall, so it wasn’t a stretch to guess that Dan’s speech had rubbed him the wrong way.
Dan glanced back at his family again. Jenny had her arm around their dad now, and Rufus’s shoulders were shaking with grief. The other parents probably thought Rufus was weeping with pride, but Dan knew better. Maybe he should have given his dad some warning and told him about not going to Evergreen next year.
Yeah, maybe.
“Daniel Jonah Humphrey,” Dr. Nesbitt called out.
Dan squirmed in his seat. Hadn’t he used up enough front-of-stage time already? He dashed out of his third-row seat, grabbed the brown leather folder out of Dr. Nesbitt’s hand, and dashed back to his seat again, as if he were afraid his classmates were going to pelt him with raw tomatoes or something.
Jenny had thought Dan’s graduation would be relatively painless and boring. She hadn’t even minded when her dad had changed her ticket to Prague to leave tomorrow morning instead of yesterday so she wouldn’t miss it. He’d get his diploma while she and Rufus whispered to each other and heckled his nerdy classmates. Then they’d go eat Chinese at Dan’s favorite place on Broadway, and later she’d drag Dan out to that party Blair Waldorf was rumored to be hosting at the Yale Club—a party that she was absolutely determined not to miss.
Instead, their whole family was falling apart, and she was freaking out.
She and Dan had basically stopped being nice to each other when Jenny had spent the night in a Plaza Hotel room with the members of the Raves and then proceeded to record a song with them on the same day they fired Dan. At home it seemed like Dan could do no wrong. He was a published author and an A student. He’d had his pick of colleges to go to, including Brown, Colby, NYU, and Evergreen. Their dad boasted about his achievements all the time. Jenny was an even better student, but ever since Mrs. McLean had requested that she not return to Constance next year, she’d felt like Dan’s naughty little sister. The fact that overprotective Rufus had actually agreed to let her go to boarding school made it even more clear: Dan was the good one, and she was the bad one.
But now here she was, holding her dad’s hand and pretending to be totally calm and mentally stable while she was really wondering what was going to become of her next year. If only she could take Dan’s place at Evergreen. It was supposed to be arty—she’d probably do fine.
Too bad they don’t have a tenth grade.
A reads v like a book
Even though she’d been totally two-timing him and a cross-country road trip really wasn’t her idea of a good time, Vanessa was ready for Aaron when he pulled up in his red Saab, right on time. She just couldn’t let him down, because if she did, she’d have to explain her outrageously heinous behavior, which she wasn’t prepared to do, because she honestly didn’t know why she’d behaved so heinously. Maybe she was just …
Psycho?
“I’ll be down in a sec!” she called when he buzzed from downstairs.
“Nah, buzz me in, I’m coming up,” he responded.
Vanessa should have known that something was up when he walked in and didn’t kiss her. Downstairs, Mookie, Aaron’s huge brown-and-white boxer, barked eagerly out of the Saab’s open sunroof.
There were green beads in Aaron’s coarse brown hair. All of a sudden Vanessa noticed that he’d grown it out into inch-long little dreads all over his head. When had that happened?
“Thank God Blair’s graduating today too,” he remarked. “My dad was totally fine with going to her thing instead of mine.” He patted his green army-issue-shorts pockets. “Um …” he began, his dark eyes darting nervously around the room. “Hey, nice dress!”
The Morgane le Fay dress hung all by itself in the living room closet.
Vanessa shrugged. “I’m returning it.”
Aaron went over to the dress and pulled the hanger off the rail, twirling it around to get the full effect of the dress. “Put it on,” he suggested, holding it out to her.
She shook her head. “I already tried it on a couple of times. Besides graduation, I don’t have anywhere else to wear it.”
Aaron hung on to the dress. “Look,” he began. “I kind of don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come with me. First of all, with Mookie I kind of don’t have any more room in my car. Second of all, I’ve kind of known for a while that you and Dan have kind of been hanging out a lot.”
Kind of.
Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest, all of a sudden feeling a little too large or a little too stupid or a little too something she couldn’t quite place. He knew? But hadn’t she and Dan been totally discreet?
You call having sex in broad daylight on a rooftop discreet?!
“I’m sorry,” she managed to utter. It was all she could think of.
“It’s okay. But you should have told me when I tried to give you this.” Aaron held out the corny silver joined-hearts love/friendship ring. “I found it in a drawer with the serving spoons.” He didn’t even look that upset, which made Vanessa feel even worse. Obviously she’d been paying so little attention that he’d had time to think about this and get over it. But aside from feeling terrible, she was also totally relieved.
Aaron held up the dress again and twirled it around on its hanger. “I also kind of think you don’t want to miss graduation. You love those girls,” he added gently, sounding only slightly gay.
“Yeah, right,” Vanessa agreed sarcastically
, but again she felt totally relieved. She could wear the dress even though she was supposed to hate white. She could sit next to Blair and make fun of Mrs. M and finally graduate, and the whole class would get drunk together afterwards, even though they were all supposed to hate each other.
Okay, maybe she did love those girls just a little bit.
Aaron waggled the dress in front of her. “You know you want to.”
Vanessa snorted and snatched it out of his hands, catching him in a hug as she did so. “Don’t think you’re getting away without kissing me good-bye. I don’t know when I’m ever going to see you again.”
She kissed him quickly on the lips and then pressed her forehead into his warm, familiar shoulder, her body a bundle of nerves. She was breaking up with her boyfriend, she was about to graduate, there was a party to go to, and a whole four years at NYU awaited her, with no more stupid flicking uniforms!
Yippee! Except, hasn’t she sort of forgotten about someone?
Vanessa changed into her dress right in front of Aaron, feeling almost sisterly toward him now that they were broken up. She still loved him and probably always would. But the great thing about love was that it evolved.
Let’s make sure she remembers that.
“What do you think?” she asked, doing a Barbie-esque spin in Blair’s white wedge-heeled shoes.
Aaron flinched, as if it hurt to see her looking so incredibly gorgeous. He held out his hand. “Come on. I heard on the radio the subways are a mess. I’ll drive you.”
Aw. How come boys get so much cuter after we break up with them?
Who’s that girl?
“And that is why I’m standing here today in a pair of limited-edition Manolo Blahnik dancing shoes and an Oscar de la Renta suit that was tailored just for me,” Blair told her audience with an indulgent smile as she wound up her speech. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you should be happy with what you have. There’s always more, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t have it all.”
Everyone in the church remained politely silent, as if they weren’t quite sure whether she’d finished her speech or not.
Not that anyone was actually paying attention.
“Hey, is that who I think it is?” Kati Farkas whispered to Isabel Coates. The two girls craned their necks to see over their classmates’ heads as Vanessa appeared in one of the church’s side entrances. Her face was a happy pink and her dress a stunning white. Her wedge-heeled shoes were awesome, and her little white fishnet gloves were outstanding. She looked so different from her normally black-clad, frowning self, she was barely recognizable.
“Yeah, and she actually looks kind of … good,” Isabel remarked reluctantly. “Of course, Blair picked out her dress. Otherwise she probably would’ve come wrapped in a white sheet or something.”
Actually, Vanessa had flirted with the sheet idea, but the Morgane Le Fay dress was so much more flattering.
“Um, that’s all,” Blair announced from her place at the podium. She looked around for Mrs. M, and that’s when she noticed Vanessa. First Blair narrowed her eyes to show that she was pissed as hell at Vanessa for being so late. Then she gave her friend and former roommate a thumbs-up for looking so completely amazing. The audience broke out into weak applause as she made her way back to her seat.
“Thank you, Blair.” Mrs. M said, taking her place at the podium. “And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. It is my pleasure to hand out the diplomas to the graduating class. Vanessa Marigold Abrams, don’t bother finding a seat. You’re first.” She flashed Vanessa one of her rare and famous warm smiles, forgiving her most alternative graduating senior for missing half the ceremony.
Marigold?! That’s what you get when you have hippie artist parents.
Vanessa strutted to the front of the room in her awesome shoes, ears burning at the sound of her ridiculous middle name and eyes shiny with tears, full of love for everyone there, including Mrs. M. She couldn’t believe she’d almost missed this. Clasping the burgundy-leather-bound diploma case in her hand, her big brown eyes shiny with happy tears, she hugged the headmistress like she was her long-lost grandma.
“I’m also extremely proud to bestow on you, Vanessa Marigold, the Georgia O’Keeffe Award for creative excellence,” Mrs. M announced. She placed a light blue satin ribbon around Vanessa’s neck. From it hung a gold-plated medal embossed with one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s vaginalike poppies. “Congratulations.”
Vanessa hopped offstage and walked down the center aisle of the church to Blair’s third-row pew. “Can I sit here?”
“Move over,” Blair told Rain. Rain was wearing a white tulle dress that looked like an oversized tutu from Swan Lake. “Your dress doesn’t need that much room.”
“Isabel Siobhan Coates,” Mrs. M called, holding up Isabel’s diploma.
Vanessa wedged herself in beside Blair and grabbed the graduation program out of her hands. “Shit. Sorry I missed your speech.”
No she’s not.
“That’s okay.” Blair tugged on Vanessa’s dress. “Tell me you don’t love this and I’ll totally kill you. You should wear white, like, every day.”
Vanessa blotted her tears with her thumbs and flipped open the burgundy leather case holding her diploma. “Check it out,” she breathed. Both girls studied the gold-embossed piece of parchment paper upon which was printed Vanessa’s name, followed by the date and the name of their school, and then a whole bunch of stuff in Latin. It was totally official looking and totally worthless looking at the same time. All those years of uniforms and too much homework for this?
Vanessa flipped the case closed and held it tight to her chest. She didn’t care—she’d made it! And her whole future lay ahead of her. After taking every film course NYU offered, she’d become a famous indie filmmaker, except she’d stick to true indies—unlike her former mentor, Ken Mogul, who was totally selling out with that teen movie he was making at Barneys. It was a good thing Aaron had broken up with her today, because now she was free to meet all sorts of interesting people from around the globe, and she could experiment with different relationships. After all, wasn’t that what college was all about?
Yeah, maybe. But again, isn’t she kind of forgetting about someone??
Some would argue that her last name begins with w
“Serena Caroline van der Woodsen,” Mrs. M called out.
“Shit,” Blair muttered under her breath. Where the fuck was Serena, anyway? She glanced back at the other van der Woodsens. They looked perky and excited. Unbelievably, they still hadn’t quite grasped the fact that Serena was missing.
“Serena? Are you present?” asked the headmistress, scanning the church with her glassy brown eyes. “Has anyone seen Serena?” The pretty, never-quite-reaching-her-potential blonde was forever late for morning assemblies, but one would have thought she could pull it together to be on time for this particular event.
The other girls twittered. No one offered the headmistress an answer. Blair glanced back at Serena’s family once more. Now they looked confused, although the van der Woodsens never lost their cool. Erik jutted his chin at Blair, silently suggesting that she go up to accept Serena’s diploma for her.
“Blair Cornelia Waldorf,” Mrs. M announced sternly. No Constance girl had ever missed graduation before, and she was cross now, very cross. She’d allowed Serena to come back to Constance after she’d been thrown out of boarding school, and now Serena couldn’t even be bothered to turn up for commencement?
Thank goodness Blair’s W came right after Serena’s V. In fact, some would argue Serena’s last name began with W and therefore came after Blair’s. Not that it mattered or that anyone really cared at this point.
Blair went up to the podium to receive her diploma. “I’ll take Serena’s for her,” she whispered, hoping her voice wouldn’t carry over the microphone.
Mrs. M smiled tersely and shook her hand. “That won’t be necessary,” she replied, nodding at something over Blair’s shoulder.
&
nbsp; Blair spun around to find Serena sprinting up the aisle in her suit—exactly the same white satin Oscar de la Renta suit with the swishy pleated knee-length skirt that she herself was wearing. And because Serena was practically a foot taller than Blair and they both weighed the same, it looked even better on Serena, despite the fact that she was barefoot, her hair was all over the place, and she’d forgotten her gloves.
“Sorry, Mrs. M!” Serena panted, flashing their headmistress the famously charming smile that had won over everyone from avant-garde artists to the admissions offices at Yale, Brown, Harvard, and everywhere else she’d applied. “Just think—this is the last time I’ll ever be late!”
Blair wanted to slap her for being so charming when she should have been in serious trouble. In fact, Serena probably would’ve failed chemistry and not graduated if it hadn’t been for her. She hated they way they must look standing side by side in their matching suits. People probably thought they’d bought them together or something. One thing was for sure—Blair was definitely making Serena change her outfit before her big party at the Yale Club tonight. No fucking way was she allowing Marcus to see how much better Serena looked in that damned suit.
Mrs. M had had enough. Half an hour of shaking parents’ hands and offering a few lame anecdotes about their sweet, intelligent daughters, and she was off to Woodstock for the summer to watch Vonda weed their heirloom tomato collection wearing only the red embroidered halter top Mrs. M had bought for her at a craft fair last weekend.
“Take your seats, girls,” she ordered, dismissing Blair and Serena.
They walked back to the pews. There was no room for Serena, so she perched on Vanessa’s knee.
“You have my blessings.” Mrs. M blew the seniors a kiss. “And now, class is dismissed!”
Whooopppeeee!
her heart is on some other boy’s sleeve
After the ceremony, Nate did a few bong hits with the other boys in the billiard room over at Jeremy’s, but his heart wasn’t in it. They were all high school graduates, while he was still “diploma pending.” Whatever the fuck that meant.