Nobody Does It Better

  Lloyd grabbed Jenny and squashed her into a sort of three-way bear hug with Damian. “Damian, meet Jennifer. Jennifer, meet Damian.”

  Jenny was so excited, it was a good thing Lloyd was hugging her so tight, or she would have collapsed on the floor. Damian made an exaggerated delighted gasping sound, like an overly gay man discovering the cutest little doggie raincoat he'd ever seen. Then he kissed Jenny on the tip of her nose.

  So maybe he wasn't Serena's new boyfriend.

  “Why don't Danny and Monique take the limo? The rest of us can squeeze into a cab,” Damian offered.

  “I could sit on someone's lap,” Jenny volunteered.

  “Of course you can,” said Lloyd.

  “Of course you can,” Damian agreed.

  Of course she can.

  Ain't Nobody Here but us Chickens

  “I take more APs than anyone else in my class, and I have an A average,” Blair complained.

  “Then you should have applied early admission,” Stan 5 advised.

  “But don't you understand. I kissed my interviewer,” Blair whispered loudly, sounding like a broken record. “My college advisor said there was no way they'd take me early.”

  Stan 5 shrugged. “Smaller pool of applicants. Better chance to shine.”

  Blair gritted her teeth to hold back a volley of expletives. She'd planned on applying to Yale early admission since she was thirteen years old. Why had she listened to clueless, bloody-nosed, wig-wearing Ms. Glos and not trusted her instincts? And why hadn't she met Stan 5 like, a year ago, when he could have been really useful?

  They were lying on their stomachs on the double bed in the room Stan 5's grandfather kept for him, and had already thumbed through every Yale catalog since 1947, laughing at the clothes people wore and the corny phrases underneath the photos. Things like, “Here's looking at you, kid!” and “Ain't nobody here but us chickens!” The room was decorated with Yale paraphernalia: Yale swim team pennants, Stan III's B.A. in English and dramatic arts, a New Haven newspaper article featuring Stan III as one of Yale's most gifted young actors, and a yellow card from the Yale University registrar listing every semester old Stan III had made the dean's list.

  “It looks like Yale is your grandfather's whole life,” Blair observed. Her shoes were half on, half off, and she bounced them up and down on the ends of her toes.

  Stan 5 rolled over and looked up at the ceiling. “Yeah,” he answered hollowly.

  Blair wasn't sure why he sounded so bummed. After all, Yale was her whole life too, but she was the one still stuck on the wait list.

  Stan 5 reached out and twirled a strand of Blair's dark hair around his finger. “We should stop talking about this,” he told her, letting the twirl go, “or you're going to get seriously depressed.”

  “But—” Blair started to say. Exactly when were they going to devise a plan to get her into Yale?

  Stan 5 rolled over and grabbed her arms, pulling her toward him. “We should stop talking period,” he said, his eyes hungrily searching her face. “Like I said, my grandfather and I are really close. So don't worry about getting in, okay?”

  This was the part in the movie where the music was supposed to slow down, heads were supposed to meet, and boy and girl were supposed to kiss so passionately that their clothes would wind up in a pile on the floor while the windows steamed up. Stan 5 was going to get her into Yale! But for some reason—maybe it was the quantity of Yale paraphernalia on the walls and all over the floor, or maybe it was because she'd drunk four glasses of champagne at a party she hadn't even been invited to, or maybe it was because kissing any boy other than Nate felt truly naughty—Blair couldn't manage to just close her eyes and kiss Stanford Parris V. All she could do was snort and giggle like a twelve-year-old.

  She pushed him away, snorting and giggling so hard she choked.

  “What?” Stan 5 asked, pushing himself up on his elbows. His blond hair fell into his eyes and he pushed it away.

  Blair snorted again. She felt giddy and confused and very much in need of a little girl talk with Serena. “I don't know.” She got up and jammed her feet into her shoes. “Um, I have to go find someone. Maybe I'll see you later?”

  Stan 5 seemed to enjoy how hot and bothered she was. He grinned cockily at her and raised his blond eyebrows. “Maybe.”

  As she left the room, Blair tried to pull herself together.

  Not maybe. Definitely.

  The Women are Smarter

  “I never really thought of Hamlet as tragic per se,” Serena found herself telling Stanford Parris III. She'd only skimmed Hamlet when they'd had to write an essay on it for English class, but she'd always been an excellent bullshit artist. Even without reading every word she'd noticed that Hamlet reminded her of Dan Humphrey, who she'd hooked up with earlier in the fall. So woeful and neurotic. “I mean, all he needed was a little Zoloft or something and he'd probably have conquered all of Scandinavia and had, like, a wife in every country.”

  Well, hello, Miss I Know All There Is to Know About Shakespeare.

  Mr. Parris nodded. “Wellbutrin. That's what I take.”

  Like she really needed to know that.

  “I like reading,” Serena went on, completely bemused by what was coming out of her mouth. “As long as I have nothing else to do,” she corrected herself.

  Which was almost never.

  “I guess that's the trouble I'm going to have, you know, with picking a major? I won't be able to decide between English and drama.” She smiled and pulled her short skirt demurely over her knees.

  Since when is the city's biggest party girl worried about her major?

  “Elementary, my dear. That's why they invented the double major!” Mr. Parris snapped his suspenders, obviously delighted with the opportunity to divulge his vast wisdom to a young girl of such extraordinary beauty and intelligence.

  All of a sudden Blair burst into the room, dressed a little too sexily for an academic gathering and wearing the Yale pendant her mother had ordered from Carrier for baby Yale. Serena had never seen her best friend look so bizarre.

  “Thank God I found you!” Blair babbled breathlessly. She glanced at Mr. Parris. “Sorry for interrupting, sir, but this is an emergency!”

  Serena could always tell when Blair was up to something or was just plain freaking out, because her nostrils flared like a wild animal and she forgot to blink. Right now she looked like a squirrel with rabies. Serena stood up and shook Mr. Parris's hand. “It was truly a pleasure talking to you, Mr. Parris.”

  Mr. Parris bent down and kissed her hand. “The pleasure was entirely mine.”

  Blair coughed. Of course Serena had completely enchanted the old man, which was totally unfair because Blair was the one who actually needed to enchant him. “This really is an emergency,” she blurted impatiently.

  Not exactly enchanting.

  “Okay, I'm coming,” Serena murmured. She looped her arm through Blair's and Blair dragged her to the front hall and pushed the button for the elevator. “Where are we going anyway?” Serena demanded as the elevator doors rolled open.

  “The Plaza!” Blair squealed, dragging her inside.

  And it's probably safe to say they weren't going to discuss Shakespeare once they got there.

  And you Thought Andy Warhol was Dead

  Vanessa and Beverly walked up an enclosed ramp that led into the warehouse space in Williamsburg where Beverly's friends' party was taking place. Vanessa could hear music coming from inside—something airy and rhythmic that might have been Björk, although she wasn't sure. A woman pushed open the black metal door at the top of the ramp and stomped past wearing a yellow bandana in her hair, black kneesocks, and fluorescent yellow clogs. She looked like she'd been crying, and was cradling her left hand against her chest.

  “Hey, Bethene,” Beverly called to her as she stomped away.

  “What are those?” Vanessa peered into a bucket of what she hoped were very well produced stuffed animals, sitting on the floor ha
lfway up the ramp.

  “Kittens,” Beverly replied, as if no further explanation was required.

  The ramp seemed to be fashioned as a sort of display, and was scattered with random art objects. Beside the bucket of kittens was a life-sized wax figure of Santa Claus carrying a huge see-through plastic sack full of naked Barbie dolls with their heads missing. At Santa's feet was a lava lamp with real-looking eyeballs floating around inside it. The ramp was like a haunted house, only slightly more disturbing.

  Slightly?

  “Everyone here is an artist,” Beverly declared, “and they've been doing this party since March.”

  Vanessa nodded, even though she wasn't exactly sure what he meant by “doing this party.” It sounded a little like the art “happenings” at Andy Warhol's Factory back in the 1960s—lots of cool arty people collaborating to make weird art that no one really understood and that wasn't even very good.

  When they reached the top of the ramp, Beverly pushed the door open and they stepped inside. The space was a giant warehouse, cool and dark, except for the glow from four giant lava lamps like the one they'd seen on the way in. No one greeted them, and Vanessa was surprised to find only about thirty people there. They sat cross-legged on the floor in little clusters, finger-painting on the pages of old encyclopedias and looking completely spaced out, like they hadn't slept since the party started back in March. No one was drinking anything or eating anything or even talking. It was sort of like an anti-party party.

  Vanessa watched as a woman wearing a fuzzy red bathrobe and red rubber rain boots chopped off a handful of her long dark hair and dropped it into a huge pot sitting on a hotplate on the floor. A tall, pale, skinny guy wearing only a black fedora hat and black boxer shorts went up to the pot and stirred it with a wooden yardstick.

  “Bruce,” Beverly greeted the guy with a nod. “This is Vanessa. She makes films.”

  Bruce nodded and kept on nodding for longer than normal as he stirred the pot. Vanessa wished desperately that she had her video camera with her. She'd never seen anything quite like this.

  “Are you here to make a donation?” Bruce asked.

  Vanessa wasn't sure who he was talking to. In fact, for the first time in her life, she felt completely lost. Every party she'd ever been to had been predictable to the point of being hopelessly boring. She smiled tentatively at Beverly. It was sort of nice to be surprised.

  The music suddenly shifted to the soundtrack for Shrek 2 and Vanessa felt more lost than ever. She took a step forward and peered into Bruce's pot. “What is that anyway?”

  Bruce held up his left hand and wiggled his fingers. The top joint on the middle finger of his left hand was missing, just like Beverly's.

  “I'm working on a regeneration project,” Bruce said, as if that explained everything.

  Beverly held up his left hand and spread his fingers out like a fan. No, Vanessa wasn't insane. His middle finger really was missing its top. “Most of us have contributed. But there's no pressure or anything.”

  Well, isn't that a relief?

  Vanessa wasn't easily creeped out, but she was getting close. “And what do you do with the … parts and stuff … in the pot … after they're like, cooked or whatever?”

  Bruce grinned and blue veins stood out on his pale neck. He looked like he hadn't eaten in months. “It's not about the doing; it's about the stirring,” he responded.

  Beverly nodded in that same odd, prolonged way that Bruce had nodded before. “Vanessa's got a great space,” he volunteered, apropos of nothing. “I'm thinking of crashing there for a while. It'd be great for something like this,” he added, still nodding.

  All of a sudden Vanessa realized that looking for roommates on the Internet probably wasn't such a great idea. Beverly had seemed interesting at first, but she'd almost rather live with Dan, despite all his failings, or one of her spoiled, vain, fashion-obsessed classmates than come home to a pot of boiling fingers and who knew what else on her stove. It was one thing to make art that people thought was shocking and bizarre without actually trying to be shocking and bizarre. Beverly and his friends were in college—hadn't they learned anything?

  “Are you thirsty?” Beverly asked her. “Do you want some water?”

  Vanessa realized that was just about the nicest thing he'd said to her all night. She couldn't believe she'd been worried about the configuration of her moles, or that she'd actually worn perfume just for him. She yawned and glanced around the enormous space. “I'm not sure how much more of this I can take,” she responded, mimicking what Beverly had said about Dan's singing in the club. “I'm going home.”

  Beverly bit his lip. “But this is working. I mean—so far, right?” he asked.

  “Actually, it's not.” Vanessa imitated the sweet, fake smile her classmate Blair Waldorf flashed, telepathically telling the teacher to eat shit and die when she was trying to get excused from class early to attend a Manolo Blahnik sale.

  “Sure you don't want to make a donation?” Bruce asked, still stirring the pot.

  Vanessa unclipped her lip ring and tossed it in. “Good luck with that,” she told them, turning to go.

  Beverly and Bruce began to nod.

  And as far as we know, they're still nodding.

  What Girls Really Do Behind Closed Hotel Suite Doors

  “Remember when we were in fifth grade and we used to practice kissing with pillows?” Serena buried her face in one of the Plaza's fluffy king-sized goose-down pillows and began making out with it. “Oh, baby,” she cooed. “Your lips are so amazing.”

  Blair chucked a pillow at the back of Serena's head. “Have you been listening to me?” she demanded. “I said I almost kissed Stanford Parris the Fifth!”

  Serena turned her head to one side and blew her hair out of her face. She'd taken off her skirt, and her white cotton underwear sagged halfway down her skinny ass. “So why didn't you?”

  “I don't know.” Blair untied the gold Cartier Yale pendant from around her neck and threw it on the bedside table. Then she yanked her dress off over her head, stripping down to her underwear. She pulled on one of the Plaza's white terry robes and cracked open a can of Coke. “I wanted to, but I couldn't stop laughing. And then I felt stupid, so I left.”

  Serena rolled over and started poking her nonexistent stomach fat. “Don't you think it's weird that we're friends and we're attracted to such different guys? I mean, I thought he was totally stuck-up.”

  Attracted to such different guys? Is that why they both lost their virginity to the same guy? Not that either of them wanted to wreck their friendship again by bringing that up.

  Blair burped noisily. “You think everyone's stuck-up. And actually I think he was sort of embarrassed about being into Yale after I told him I was wait-listed. He's only, like, a C student at Andover. He doesn't even take any APs. The only reason he got in was because of his grandfather.”

  Serena's eyes opened wide. She was a B+ student and didn't take any APs either, but she'd gotten in. And while talking to Mr. Parris she'd basically decided once and for all that Yale was the school for her. Did she dare tell Blair and ruin a perfectly good time together in their own hotel suite?

  Blair burped again and Serena thumped her frosted pink polished toes against the mattress, thinking. Nah, she decided. Besides, she suspected that the only reason Blair was so hung up on Stan 5 was because she thought he might help her get into Yale.

  That's the problem with best friends. Sometimes they know you better than you know yourself.

  “Hey, let's make prank calls!” Serena cried, desperate to change the subject. She sat up and grabbed the phone, stabbing giddily at the keypad.

  “Hello? Concierge? Could you send a plumber to room 448? There's a terrible … er … problem with the toilet. Get what I'm saying? Great. Thank you.” She dialed another number. “Sir? Is this room 448? Yes, this is the concierge. I just wanted to let you know that the male escort you ordered is on his way up.” Then she dialed one of the suites
down the hall. “Daddy, I can't sleep,” she said in a baby voice. “Sing me a song.” The guy on the other end started singing the Raves song “Ice Cream.” He sounded exactly like Damian.

  Hmm, wonder why?

  “Wow, you're really good,” Serena breathed in her baby voice. “I love you, Daddy,” she cooed, and then hung up. She turned to Blair. “Okay, that was dumb.”

  Blair didn't say anything. She still couldn't believe she'd chickened out with Stan 5. It was only a kiss, and it wasn't like Nate even cared who she kissed, because he seemed to have totally forgotten about her.

  All of a sudden there was a knock at the door.

  “Shit!” Serena squealed, diving under the covers. “It's the concierge!”

  Blair tightened the belt on her bathrobe and padded over to the door. “Who is it?” she called out, touching the door with nervous fingertips.

  “It's me,” Nate's voice answered.

  Blair jumped backwards as if she'd been electrocuted. She tugged on the belt of her bathrobe again. “Who?” she demanded irritably, even though she knew perfectly well who it was.

  “It's me, Nate,” he called through the closed door. “Can I come in?”

  “Psst!” Serena whispered from the bed. “Pretend I'm Stan 5!”

  Blair turned around to find Serena sprawled facedown on the bed under the duvet, her long legs spread wide, her hair hidden discreetly under a pillow, and her rather large feet sticking out at the end of the bed. She totally passed for a guy. Even the rumpled little gray skirt on the floor could easily have been a pair of boxers.

  Serena lifted her head and grinned devilishly. Blair giggled and waved her back into place. Then she opened the door, but only about four inches. “Now's not really a good time,” she whispered mysteriously.

  Nate looked disheveled and tired. In fact, she was pretty sure he was wearing exactly the same faded black T-shirt and khakis that he'd been wearing when she'd left his house the afternoon before, and his hair was definitely dirty, because there were no gold highlights in it. It just looked brown. Also, there was dark brown crap between his teeth, like brownie crumbs.