“Here,” he murmured, yanking something out of the bag and handing it to her. Blair recognized it at once: the moss green cashmere V-neck sweater she’d given him over a year ago.
“But you love this sweater,” she complained, feeling for the gold heart she’d sewn into the left sleeve before she gave it to him so he would always be wearing her heart on his sleeve. It wasn’t there. Blair felt inside the right sleeve, although she was absolutely positive she’d sewn it into the left. Nope. Where the fuck was it?
“I just don’t think it’d be right to keep it,” Nate replied solemnly. He blinked hard, willing the tears not to fall. He wondered if Blair even remembered the gold heart, which was now sitting in a sailboat-shaped blue-and-green sea glass ashtray beside his bed, a constant reminder of their failed relationship.
Hey, maybe he should talk to Les Best about a new men’s cologne—Nate’s Tears!
“It’s just a sweater,” Blair insisted, feeling completely confused. Why couldn’t Nate just be normal and give her a boring Tiffany chain-link bracelet or something to congratulate her on graduating? Was this his way of saying sorry, or that he wanted her back? Well, it was a little late for that. “Please, keep it.”
“I can’t,” Nate gasped, choking up. He wished he could confide in Blair, tell her all about how he’d screwed up graduating; how he’d screwed up in general. But Nate had never truly confided in Blair, and now probably wasn’t the best time to start.
“Fine.” She folded the sweater neatly and placed it on a Yale-blue-upholstered armchair nearby. She put her hands on her hips, determined not to allow herself to waver. She had a new boyfriend now. A much, much better one. “Was that all?”
Nate nodded. Then he took a step forward, closed his emerald green eyes, and placed a careful kiss on Blair’s smooth, soft cheek. He opened his eyes. “Congratulations,” he murmured before turning away.
Blair stood there for a moment with her arms folded across her chest, ignoring the stares of her whispering classmates. It’s just a sweater, she repeated silently to herself.
Yeah. Right.
Remind me how much i love you
Dan kept his hunter green Riverside Prep school tie on for Blair’s party. He wanted to look his handsomest when he announced to Vanessa that he’d deferred admission to Evergreen and wanted to spend next year and possibly the rest of his life with her. As soon as they arrived at the party, Jenny went right to the bar to score a glass of champagne, but Dan lingered by the door, his arms full of red roses, transfixed by the sight of Vanessa looking resplendent in her sexy low-cut white graduation dress and funky white wedge-heeled shoes. There was a pink flush to her cheeks and a sparkle to her dark brown eyes as she chatted with Serena van der Woodsen. Serena was gorgeous as usual, with her mane of pale blond hair cascading between her bare shoulder blades and her endless legs, but the sight of her didn’t turn Dan on the way the sight of Vanessa did.
“Hey, hot stuff, get your ass over here!” Vanessa shouted at him from across the room. She’d been drunk since one o’clock in the afternoon and the sight of Dan, his arms full of roses, was less a turn-on than a revelation. A drunken one.
This morning she’d almost driven off with the wrong boy. It was Dan she loved. How could she not—with his scruffy looks, his painfully wrought poems, and the way he kept showing up unexpectedly on her roof with his clothes off.
As Dan approached, she sort of oofed herself out of the Yale-blue-and-white striped wing-back chair she was sitting in but then gave up and fell back into it again. “I’m trying to hug you,” she explained, laughing at herself.
She’s drunk, he realized.
Serena grabbed him and kissed him on the cheek, then pushed him into Vanessa’s lap. “You’re always so cute,” she cooed, ruffling Dan’s scraggly light brown hair as red roses fell out of his arms and scattered around their feet.
Vanessa tickled him under the arms and he shrugged her needling fingers away, suddenly feeling more like someone’s cute four-year-old brother than Vanessa’s stud-muffin boyfriend.
“So, the big news is Serena’s going to be a movie star, and I’m going to help make her cheesy big-budget movie, because if we sell out, we’ll make selling out look cool,” Vanessa told him with drunken excitement.
Serena and Vanessa slapped each other five like old soccer teammates. Then Serena refilled her glass of Dom out of the magnum on the floor next to Vanessa’s chair and handed the overflowing flute to Dan. “To Hollywood,” she cried gleefully, waiting for Dan to chug it down.
Dan perched on Vanessa’s pale bare knee, trying not to spill his champagne. He’d prepared a Pablo Neruda love poem to recite, but maybe now wasn’t such a great time.
“Do you think I should tell them to turn the music up so we can dance?” Serena burped loudly.
“Definitely.” Vanessa bounced up and down on the chair cushion, causing Dan to tumble onto the floor. “Dan will dance with us, won’t you, Dan?”
Dan clambered to his feet, eager for Serena to leave him alone with Vanessa. “Sure.”
Serena whirled away, a vision of yellow silk and golden hair. The room was packed with people and the air was thick with cigarette smoke and perfume. Everyone had been celebrating since morning, so it felt like four A.M. instead of ten P.M. For old times’ sake, a group of girls from Seaton Arms and Constance were playing Spin the Bottle with a group of boys from Riverside.
“Me first!” Chuck Bass crowed, kneeling down to give the empty Stoli bottle an energetic spin.
Typical.
“Dad got pretty mad at me today,” Dan confessed. He perched on the arm of Vanessa’s chair, suddenly so nervous, he couldn’t drink his champagne. She wasn’t looking at him, but he hoped she was listening. “I guess I should’ve told him before I made my speech.”
Vanessa was watching Serena as she flirted with Jarvis Cocker—the crazy cool British DJ wearing a black top hat at his station across the room. She had to admire how completely shameless Serena was. She’d do anything as long as it wasn’t too illegal or humiliating, just because it amused her. The thing Vanessa most admired, though, was that Serena wasn’t conceited—she was just Serena. And she didn’t seem to need anyone else to be Serena. She was just fine being herself.
“See, I kind of changed my mind about going to Evergreen,” Dan continued. “At least, not right away.”
Vanessa could feel Dan staring at her and she realized he was trying to tell her something important and that she’d missed half of it. “Wait. What?”
Dan slid off the arm of the chair and knelt down on the burnished amber wood floor, grasping her hands in his. “I do not love you except because I love you,” he recited.
Vanessa was glad the room was so crowded; otherwise she might have been a little embarrassed.
“I can’t imagine not sharing the air you breathe, living all those miles away,” Dan told her earnestly, in his own words this time. “Like I said in my speech, I can go to college any time, but I’m in love with you now. And the only thing I want, my only requirement, is to be with you.”
Vanessa’s face turned hot and prickly. Yes, she loved him, but did he have to be so darned dramatic? “So you’re …” Her voice trailed off uncertainly.
“Staying here,” Dan filled in, gazing up at her with adoring brown eyes. “With you.”
All of a sudden that new OutKast song that no one could listen to without jumping to their feet and wiggling their ass came blasting out of the speakers ten decibels louder than the smooth R&B that had been playing before. Serena bounded over, grabbed Vanessa’s hand, and pulled her out of the chair. “Come on, groovy girl,” she coaxed. “Show me what you got.”
Vanessa had always loathed dancing, at least in public, but she needed to get away from Dan right now, and all his intensity. Serena bumped hips with her and Vanessa laughed and bumped her back. She could feel Dan watching them intently, but she didn’t turn around. The music was good, and she felt vibrant and beautiful in her sli
ppery, shimmering white Morgane Le Fay dress. Dan must have been crazy to think not going to college next year was a good idea. Of course he was going, but they could spend the summer together working it out. The music grew louder still, and Vanessa raised her bare arms in the air, grooving to it. Dan was completely nuts, but so was she for ever having said she didn’t dance.
N’s trail of tears
Nate sat on the edge of one of the Yale Club lounge’s oriental carpets, pretending to watch the Spin the Bottle game. That French hippie chick, Lexie, who’d followed him around for a few weeks claiming to be madly in love with him, and her other L’École friends were sitting in a tight circle only a few feet away, all wearing crocheted halter tops with their skinny bellies showing, smoking Gauloises like fiends. He hoped she wouldn’t notice him.
Too late.
“Nate?” Lexie sat up on her haunches, her scrawny, tan tummy bulging in a way she must have thought was irresistible. She’d gotten a navel piercing, and it was still pink and new.
Ew.
She stretched her long bare arms overhead, giving the rest of the room a fine view of the sun, moon, and stars tattoo on her right shoulder blade.
Ooh la la.
Nate smiled, pretending to have only just noticed her. “Hey, Lexie.” He waved cautiously and then hugged his knees to show that he had no intention of joining her.
Lexie rolled her dark brown eyes and flipped her long raven-colored ponytail over one shoulder. “Bastard,” she retorted with a heavy French accent and a very French-looking scowl. “You broke my heart.”
Something exciting had just happened in the Spin the Bottle game, and everyone whooped and clapped. Nate began to clap, too—anything to avoid a confrontation with Lexie.
Serena and that weird shaven-headed girl from Constance who Blair was supposedly living with and reportedly having a lesbian affair with were dancing like disco diva freaks in the middle of the room, looking drunk and ecstatic—the way you were supposed to look the day you graduated from high school.
If, that is, you actually obtained your diploma that day, unlike a certain person we know.
Nate had a sudden flash of déjà vu, or maybe it was ennui. At any rate, it was something sad that sounded French. He remembered being drunk at a random party at that guy Dan Humphrey’s house over on the West Side back in ninth or tenth grade and letting Blair and Serena draw a face on his bare stomach with a black indelible marker. They’d named the face Buck Naked, and each girl had kissed Buck repeatedly over the course of the evening, even after Nate passed out.
Those were the days.
Suddenly Nate became filled with dread. What if he’d already had all the fun he was ever going to have? What if it was all downhill from here?
And what if he’d gotten more and more stupid with each year of high school instead of smarter? That can happen when you remain stoned most of your life.
Tears began to ooze slowly down his golden cheeks. Everybody else at the party seemed so happy and so excited about their future, but he wasn’t really sure what he had to look forward to anymore.
J considers losing it before boarding school
Parties had always seemed intimidating to Jenny—especially parties where the majority of the girls were normal-chested and taller, prettier, and more confident than she was. But now that she was into boarding school, Jenny felt like the possibilities—at least, the possibilities for her—were multitudinous. She didn’t have to be tiny little Jenny Humphrey, the curly-haired artistic girl with the knobby knees and gigantic boobs. Next year at Waverly she could be Jennifer Humphrey, the outrageously confident boy magnet, coolest girl in the sophomore class, or maybe even the whole school.
Maybe.
And if she was going to change her image, it seemed prudent that she do something drastic, like lose her virginity.
Whoa.
She’d been watching Nate Archibald for a while now. He seemed different than when he’d broken her heart on New Year’s Eve. He was crying, for one thing, and his shoulders were slumped, like he’d gotten some bad news and hadn’t been able to shake it. Even the glitter seemed to have left his emerald green eyes. She could hardly resist the urge to give him a hug.
“Hi, Nate,” she squeaked, boldly touching him on the shoulder. “Remember me?”
With that chest? Even the stonedest boy could hardly forget.
Nate scrubbed his hands over his blotchy face and attempted a smile. “Howdy, Jennifer,” he greeted her, with the sort of tired cheerfulness of someone who’s had kind of a rough day and doesn’t much feel like talking.
“So you’re all done with school and everything?” Jenny persisted. She was acutely aware that from his angle Nate was looking up at the shelflike undersides of her gigantic breasts, which were stuffed into a stretchy black Anthropologie halter top with a built-in Lycra bra. He probably couldn’t even see her face. She squatted down beside him, teetering slightly on her baby blue BCBG kitten-heel slides. “I’m going to boarding school at Waverly Prep next year,” she blurted out. “I totally can’t wait!”
Nate was sort of surprised that Jennifer wanted to talk to him at all, but he was grateful because it meant he didn’t have to avoid talking to Lexie anymore. “That’s a good school.”
“Yeah, and I don’t ever have to wear a stupid Constance uniform again,” Jenny added excitedly, already regretting how petulant and childish she sounded. Then she remembered something that wouldn’t make her sound childish at all. She inched a little closer to Nate’s ear. He smelled like freshly laundered shirt and that heart-stoppingly delicious Hermès cologne he always wore. “I have a tab of E in my bag. Someone gave it to me at the Croton School when I was visiting. I don’t even know if we can even split one tab, but …” She smiled her coyest come-hither smile.
What a flirt, what a risk-taker the new, on-her-way-to-boarding-school Jenny Humphrey was!
Nate blinked. Jennifer wasn’t just talking to him, she was flirting with him—hard. What, did she think he’d just gulp down a tab of E and hook up with her right in the middle of the Yale Club lounge, surrounded by everyone he knew, including his ex-girlfriend Blair and his he-wasn’t-really-sure-but-he-figured-she-was-probably-soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend Serena?
Had that ever stopped him before?
Nate had only taken Ecstasy a couple of times with Charlie, Anthony, and Jeremy, but both times he’d enjoyed himself immensely. There was nothing like that good, groovy, E feeling—until it wore off and you were tired and dehydrated and just wanted to float in a bucket of Poland Spring. He was definitely feeling lower right now than he ever had in his entire life. Maybe a little E with little Jennifer Humphrey—who seemed to be getting even cuter with age—was just what he needed.
Jenny could see that Nate was tempted. Empowered by her ability to snare hot older boys with her seductive ways, she breathed lustily into his ear. “Let’s go into the bathroom and do it.”
Hello? Does she not remember what happened the last time she was alone in a bathroom with a horny older boy?
What you choose not to hear can’t hurt you
Blair was in a stall in one of the Yale Club’s pristine and elegant gold-accented ladies’ rooms, wondering at the fact that she hadn’t made herself sick in over a month, when she heard the first worrying rumors.
“I heard he wasn’t even a real lord. He’s just this English guy who came over here and pretended to be this big aristocrat. I bet he doesn’t go on fox hunts or wear a top hat and tails to dinner or anything like that,” Laura Salmon blathered from the stall next to Blair’s.
“I just think it’s really shitty of him. I mean, if he’s engaged to some girl in England, that means he’s actually cheating on both of them,” Kati Farkas replied carelessly as she spritzed her hair with a sample-size bottle of Frederick Fekkai hairspray for the third time that night. “I just love the way this stuff smells. Don’t you love the way it smells? I even put in on my clothes sometimes, even though I know that’s kind of
gross. I mean, it’s hairspray!”
Blair kept the pleated satin skirt of her white Oscar de la Renta suit hitched up so the girls wouldn’t recognize it. Were they talking about Lord Marcus?
“I just think someone should tell her,” Laura declared before flushing. She pushed the stall door open and began to wash her hands with the L’Occitane lemon peel foam hand wash provided by the Yale Club. “Don’t you?”
“Totally,” Kati agreed.
Like they’d ever have the nerve.
Blair waited until they’d gone before pushing open the stall door. Her stomach was roiling from all the vodka and champagne she’d drunk in the last few hours, but she wasn’t about to resort to puking and risk splattering the skirt of her exquisite suit.
What do they know about Marcus? she fumed. Their petty jealousy was so transparent, it made her even more nauseous just thinking about it. Of course he was a lord. Hadn’t they noticed his wonderful scuff-free Church’s shoes? The flawless way his hair was cut? The tailor-made seams of his Savile Row shirts? Hadn’t they heard the way he called her “gorgeous” and “darling” and kissed her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world? There’d been no mention of a fiancée when Blair had Googled him. No fucking way was he engaged—to anyone but her. She closed her eyes dreamily. Lady Blair Rhodes—it did have a nice ring to it.
The bathroom door swung open and Isabel Coates marched in, looking frazzled because her white satin Dior hair clip had come loose while she was dancing. Isabel was always such a freak about her hair, Blair wondered why she didn’t just cut it all off.
“Oh. You’re in here,” Isabel observed, making it obvious that she’d just been part of Kati’s and Laura’s ongoing dissection of the so-called Lord Marcus. “I guess I should be the one to tell you.” She lowered her voice to let Blair know that what she had to tell her was extremely important. “Before you get hurt.”
Like she actually cared?