Well, they do say the British are reserved.
Rhys tore up the stairs and into his suite of rooms. He ripped off his tie and opened the heavy curtains to let in the remains of the evening sunlight. He picked up a silver frame that Kelsey had given him on their first anniversary. The picture inside was of the two of them kissing, in front of the Romeo and Juliet sculpture next to the Delacorte Theater in the park. They had asked a random tourist walking by to take it, and either because the guy was incompetent or had a vendetta against love, their heads were partially cut off in the picture. Kelsey had laughed when she saw it, and Rhys had instantly loved it too. Even though you couldn’t see their eyes, it was the type of artsy picture that Kelsey loved, and showed how happy they used to be.
In a weird way, his mom’s basic advice was totally on track. They needed to reconnect. Just the two of them. No elaborate plans. After all, they’d been fine until Rhys had gone overboard trying to make their first time perfect, complete with roses, candles, and cheesy music. No wonder Kelsey freaked out.
Rhys grinned excitedly. What had he been waiting for? It was time to get her back.
Nothing like a heart-to-heart with your stuffy British parents to get you in the mood.
hey people!
all’s fair in love and war
In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the lustful are punished in the second circle of hell through eternal unrest. Is it just me, or does that sound like a familiar experience for some lonely ladies on the Upper East Side? The trickiest thing about love (or lust—I won’t discriminate) is that unlike a vintage Prada clutch, an Aston Martin DB9, or admission to an elite Ivy League institution, real, true, spine-tingling love can’t be purchased, sold, or bribed out of anyone. If your boyfriend gets stolen, there’s no insurance policy. If you lose your girlfriend, well, there’s no magic solution to get her back. Love is a battlefield, after all.
But there are many ways to fight the war. I’m talking to those tragic girls who are searching for love in all the wrong places, trailing a certain slightly hairy guy around like lost little ducklings. Ladies, a tip: Have two dozen long-stemmed roses delivered to you during school hours. Look surprised, pleased, and touched all at once when you open the card, then immediately excuse yourself. While everyone will assume that you’re scampering off to an afternoon with a mysterious stranger, you can cuddle up under your Frette duvet with a collection of Payard chocolates for a viewing of one of the following: Dr. Zhivago, Casablanca, or An Affair to Remember. (Future relationship karma points taken away for viewings of Titanic, Lady and the Tramp, or any movie starring Hugh Grant.) Two hours later, you’ll be feeling properly romanced, and everyone will be buzzing about your secret suitor—meaning it’s only a matter of time before one actually materializes.
your e-mail
q: Dear Gossip Girl:
Or should I say, Gossip Grandma? You are so obviously one of those old ladies in that secret society that, like, owns Constance. You probably hold weird sacrificial rituals with Mrs. M and the lunch ladies. I guess they taught you how to use a computer, but why else would you be quoting all these weird lines and making it seem like you’re so smart? Why don’t you just sign off and hobble to the early bird special at Elaine’s or wherever you old people hang out? Haha!
—YoungAndFun
a: Dear YAF,
Interesting theory, but I am as young as they come. Besides, how do you know where all the oldies are hanging out?
—GG
q: ’Sup Big G,
Swim team throw-down’s coming up. Who u with? You wanna bid on me?
—Playa
a: Dear Playa,
Thanks for the invitation. I prefer to impulse buy, so I won’t make any commitments here and now. But if you’ve got the goods, I may just be swiping my black AmEx card at the benefit!
—GG
P.S. I assume the “big G” refers to my personality? I’m actually quite petite.
sightings
R buying an extra-large picnic basket at Dean & DeLuca and filling it with truffle-goose foie gras, a Gruyère-and-egg quiche, black-and-white cookies, French-style macaroons, and mocha truffles. Hey, sometimes sugar can cure a broken heart… if it doesn’t cause a diabetic coma first. J and G getting ridiculously drunk at dollar beer night at one of those sticky-floored bars that don’t card on Second. Sometimes you need a break from the velvet ropes at 1Oak or the Rusty Knot! B and her new friend, the pierced, tattooed S, streaking through the reading room of the New York City Public Library, trailed by security. Lovely… assets, ladies. A, with her new besties, J and S.J., sipping gimlets on her terrace… and O, trying to hide out from S.J. and J. Why so shy? They’re just feeling the love. Aren’t we all? H, I, K, and some other facial-hair-covered swim team members at Jackson Hole, whispering about a teammate over their greasy cheeseburgers. Apparently the word orientation was thrown around. Hmm. Is someone new joining the team?
Okay, time for me to head off to David Burke & Donatella, where I’ll drink an extra-large hot chocolate by the window and scope out whoever’s trying to do a discreet H&M run. Nice try. I’m watching!
You know you love me,
o is welcomed to the team
Owen felt like his heart was about to explode as he ran behind the Met on Thursday afternoon. Kat’s apartment was on Fifth Avenue, and even from his position inside the park he could see her sheer lilac curtains fluttering in the mid-September breeze. He sped down Cat’s Paw Hill, where Coach had assigned mandatory conditioning drills. Dozens of recreational runners and bikers swarmed around him, following the 6.2-mile loop around the perimeter of the park. As the fifth banana yellow spandex–clad biker whooshed past, Owen sped up. The St. Jude’s swim team was no joke, and Owen was glad that his every waking moment could be spent in physical activity. He just wished he were doing another kind of physical activity.
In your dreams! In mine too.
Just then, he felt a hand clap his back.
“Uh.” He grunted in surprise.
“Dude, lookin’ good!” Hugh jeered as he drew alongside Owen.
“Uh, thanks,” Owen replied.
“Oh, I wasn’t talking about you,” Hugh apologized, looking rueful. “I meant the ladies over there.” He nodded at two girls jogging past in tight Seaton Arms tank tops.
“What do you think?” Hugh stroked his beard—not an easy feat while running. The motion always made him look surprisingly thoughtful, as if he were talking about Sartre or Hegel rather than braless girls.
“Go for it,” Owen responded noncommittally. Lately he couldn’t get himself to even focus on the girls in front of him. Maybe he should become a monk.
“I like your hair thing,” Hugh said companionably. He winked at the Seaton Arms girls as he sped up to pass them.
“Thanks.” Owen readjusted the surprisingly comfortable terry cloth headband he’d swiped from Avery’s bathroom to keep the hair off his face. She wore them when she applied her gross-looking mud masks. He shivered, the September wind suddenly cold on his sweaty, shirtless chest.
“So, anyway, I was talking about it with the guys, and it’s all right, dude. Just talk to us. Like, look at him—nice, right?” Hugh gestured with his elbow to an orangey-tan guy jogging in what looked like a purple wrestler’s uniform.
“What?” Owen asked, confused. Owen knew Hugh liberally mixed vodka with his Gatorade for some Friday post-practice pre-partying, but maybe he’d gotten his bottles mixed up. Or did Hugh know something about him and Kelsey? Owen sped up, noticing Chadwick struggling up the hill, wearing just a Speedo, with the words YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME written on his back in magic marker. He looked like he was about to have a heart attack.
“Lookin’ good!” Owen cheered halfheartedly to the unlucky frosh.
“I know who wants a piece of that,” Hugh scoffed, easily catching up with Owen. Together, they sprinted the last quarter-mile over to the Seventy-second Street transverse to meet up with Coach. Despite his borderline alcoholic ten
dencies, Hugh was actually in pretty good shape.
Coach was standing on the steps leading down to Bethesda Fountain, hitting on a woman who was stretching in tight spandex shorts and a purple tank top.
“So, do you think Coach is hot?” Hugh asked as the two guys walked down the steps together.
“I guess so.” Owen shrugged. He’d never really thought about it.
“So, is that your type?” Hugh asked, giving coach two thumbs up. Coach winked as he placed his hand on the woman’s lower back, very close to her ass.
Helping her stretch, obviously.
“Huh?” Owen looked at Hugh. Had he been out in the sun too long?
“We’re on the same team, pal.” Hugh nodded knowingly. “Well, not that team, but I’m there for you. We can hug if you want,” he offered. Owen stared at him, confused.
“Dude, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” Owen said finally as they made their way down the steps. Around them, guys from the team had also finished their runs and were milling around, hoping the girls sunning themselves in Malia Mills bikinis might notice them. Technically, it was a little too cold to go shirtless, and the bikini-clad girls all had visible goose bumps on their fadingly tanned stomachs.
“This calls for reinforcements. Hey guys!” Hugh yelled. Several girls walking by looked over curiously as the guys swarmed around Owen. “Okay, I guess this is an intervention,” Hugh continued, clearly enjoying his moment in the spotlight. “We talked about it, and it’s okay that you’re gay.”
“It’s… what? I’m not gay!” Owen sputtered loudly, causing even more people to turn and stare. He looked at his team members, in case this was some type of weird hazing joke, but no one seemed to be laughing. Instead, they were looking at him with wide-eyed expressions, as if they’d never seen him before. Two guys walking down the steps to the fountain and giving each other bites of their ice cream cones looked over their shoulders and winked.
“I’m not gay,” Owen repeated in exasperation, loudly enough for their benefit. Even Coach had abandoned the stretching woman for this conversation. Owen felt like a caged animal at the zoo. His ears turned bright red. Rhys refused to look him in the eye.
“Dude, are you kidding yourself?” Ken Williams lumbered up and threw a large, sweaty arm around Owen’s shoulders. He looked like a lumberjack, or Paul Bunyan. All that was missing were the overalls and a blue ox. “My sister was watching you at your sister’s party a few weeks ago. You totally ignored her and all the other girls. You’re never with a girl. Ever,” he added definitively.
“Hey, my man, Carlyle.” Coach blew his whistle, causing even more people to turn and stare. “I love diversity!” he said loudly as he looked into the crowd, probably trying to gauge whether that sensitive statement had stirred any interest among the vintage-dress-and-Converse-wearing girls sitting on a nearby step.
“But… I’m not…” Owen floundered. He didn’t have a problem with gay people, but he, personally, was so far from gay, it wasn’t even funny. Back in Nantucket, he’d never gone a week without kissing a girl. He had a reputation for it. But here, everything was different. He wasn’t his player self, and no one had seen him so much as talking to Kelsey, or any other girl. Looking around the group, it seemed useless even to try to correct them. What could he even say? That he wasn’t gay, he just had a crush on a top secret girl? Owen sighed in frustration. It was useless. The team had broken from its tight circle and were now chatting in groups of twos and threes.
“I think it’s so cool. And, like, dude, swimming? You’re gonna get so much ass from the teams we swim against. And if you don’t, at least you’ll get to look, right? That’s, like, if I got to be, like, a locker room attendant at Seaton Arms or something, right?” Hugh’s eyes gleamed just imagining it. Owen shook his head numbly. His life was already complicated enough. He didn’t need this.
“Hey, it’s cool! We’ll have to find you a nice guy.” Rhys nodded to him and smiled tightly. So Owen was gay. It was cool. They’d just… look for a dude together.
Owen swallowed hard and looked at the crowd. They all seemed genuinely happy about his gayness. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. At least now he wouldn’t have to worry about people finding out about him and Kelsey. In a way, it was the perfect cover.
Just then a guy in super-tight blue spandex who’d been hovering nearby passed Owen a piece of paper. It had a hastily scribbled name and phone number on it. The guy winked, then jogged off.
Um, maybe not that great of a cover.
three’s company
Avery tumbled exhaustedly into the Carlyles’ seventeenth-floor penthouse on Thursday after school. She had just come from another absurd overseers’ meeting, this time at Goodman’s Café in Bergdorf’s, where they’d continued the navy blue versus midnight blue skirt discussion. No wonder the uniforms hadn’t changed since Avery’s mom was at Constance. In between the back-and-forth debate about how midnight blue skirts just weren’t appropriate, Avery had heard more than she ever needed to know about different types of plastic surgery options (which Muffy called “refreshers”). Her face had been poked and prodded by the old ladies as they determined, like palm readers, where exactly she could look forward to getting wrinkles. Avery still had a trace of the old-lady smell of baby powder, Creed’s Fleurissimo, and stale hard candies on her.
“Anyone home?” Avery called, her voice echoing in the living room, which was still bare except for some ultramodern Jonathan Adler club chairs and a low-slung couch. She wrinkled her nose. She had hoped they’d be living in Grandmother Avery’s town house on Sixty-first between Madison and Park, but the lawyers who were appraising the estate had practically freaking moved in. Now that they were in this apartment for the foreseeable future, it could at least be properly decorated. She heard the sound of Edie’s Buddhist chanting music coming from her studio. “Hello?” she called again. She just wanted to talk to someone, preferably someone normal.
And wrinkle-free?
“Outside!” she heard Baby yell. Avery shrugged off her boring black Loro Piana cashmere cardigan and threw it carelessly on the couch. Their cat, Rothko, meowed in indignation and jumped off the couch, rubbing his black and white fur against Avery’s bare leg.
“Hey kitty,” she murmured. She paused for a second and buried her face in Rothko’s soft fur. She’d never been so tired in her life. She stalked into the cavernous kitchen and flung open the cabinets. Her mom had found a vegan organic co-op in Brooklyn and had stocked up on enough spelt and granola to last until the triplets went to college. Luckily, Avery had used Edie’s credit card to place a FreshDirect order. Now the cabinets were weirdly schizophrenic: There was brown cardboard–wrapped spelt alongside tins of smoked oysters, Carr water crackers, and every variety of Pepperidge Farm cookies known to man. She pulled out a package of mint Milano cookies from the cupboard and walked out onto the terrace. She needed sugar.
“How’s the bitch brigade?” Baby lay on the hammock she’d set up on the terrace as soon as they moved in. Sometimes she even slept out there. She was still wearing her Constance skirt, but with a paper-thin C&C California tank Avery recognized from her own closet and an armful of chunky bracelets. Baby looked cool without trying, which was completely unfair, because if there was anything that was a constant in Avery’s life, it was that she always had to work for everything: her looks, her grades, her popularity. But even though Baby was beautiful, she was never bitchy about it. If anything, she almost treated her appearance—and the inevitable reactions of people around her—as a minor annoyance. It wasn’t anything special, it just was.
Hmm, how existential. So if she’s beautiful but no one is there to see it, does her beauty still exist?
“So?” Baby prompted. “How was jamming with the oldies?”
“It was… interesting,” Avery hesitated. She didn’t want to tell Baby how much the meetings sucked. Baby would just think it was hilarious, and that would depress the hell out of Avery. And unfortunately, it
wasn’t like she could quit the position. That would be a complete black mark on her Constance record. “How are you? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. Move over.” Avery pushed Baby’s thin, tanned legs off the hammock so she could sit next to her. She gazed at the pinkish-orange sun setting over Central Park and beyond. Ever since they moved to New York, the two sisters just didn’t talk as much. Baby was always busy with J.P., and Avery was still bitter that she’d almost gotten arrested trying to help her brother and sister get acquainted with their peers here in New York. Not only had Baby skipped the party, now she was running around with Jack’s old boyfriend. Why did Baby have to go and get herself a boyfriend—someone else’s boyfriend—and make things so complicated? Especially now, when Jack and Avery were becoming friends.
“Good. I think I might head over to J.P.’s in a few. I don’t really know what we’re doing, but I’ve been busy with Rancor stuff, so I haven’t really seen him too much this week. I kind of feel bad.” Baby blinked her large brown eyes lazily at her sister.
“You know, maybe for a while it’d be better if you and J.P. weren’t so obvious. Like, maybe he shouldn’t pick you up after school. I feel like that’s kind of rubbing it in Jack’s face.” Avery savagely dug her fingers into the bag of Milanos. She was starving for junky, un-delicate, not-tea-party food.
“I don’t think it matters. She knows I’m dating J.P., so it’s not some big secret,” Baby remarked. Had Avery forgotten how much of a huge bitch Jack had been to them both? Besides, she hadn’t stolen J.P. at all, things had just… happened. “You don’t understand.” Baby pushed Avery with her tiny yet surprisingly strong legs off the hammock.
“What do you mean I don’t understand?” Avery asked coldly, standing up. She hated the way Baby invoked her holier-than-thou voice, just because she’d had long-term relationships and Avery… well, hadn’t. She was a little self-conscious about that blip in her personal history. Somehow, nothing ever quite worked out between her and boys. The first time she’d made out with a guy, in eighth grade, on a school trip to Boston, she’d ended up accidentally knocking out his front tooth. It had been totally humiliating and a story that had followed her into high school. Luckily, no one had to know about that here. In New York, it’d all be different. Here in New York, anything was possible.