Her perfect Natasha would be pale and blond, a natural dirty blond. She wouldn’t be too obviously pretty, but she’d have the kind of face that made you want to look at it. She would be the kind of girl to make Dan glow—full of movement and laughter—exactly the opposite of Dan’s quiet energy, which burned deep inside him and made his hands shake sometimes.
Vanessa hugged herself. Just thinking about Dan made her feel like she had to pee. Under that shaved head and that impossible black turtleneck, she was just a girl.
Face it: we’re all the same.
a power lunch
“The invitations, the gift bags, and the champagne. That’s all we have left to do,” Blair said. She lifted a cucumber slice off her plate and nibbled at it thoughtfully. “Kate Spade is still doing the gift bags, but I don’t know—do you think Kate Spade is too boring?”
“I think Kate Spade is perfect,” Isabel said, winding her dark hair into a knot on top of her head. “I mean, think how cool it is to have a plain black handbag now instead of all those animal prints and military shit everyone has. It’s all such . . . bad taste, don’t you think?”
Blair nodded. “Completely,” she agreed.
“Hey, what about my leopard skin coat?” Kati said, looking hurt.
“Yes, but that’s real leopard skin,” Blair argued. “That’s different.”
The three girls were sitting in the Constance cafeteria, discussing the upcoming Kiss on the Lips benefit to raise money for the Central Park Peregrine Falcon Foundation. Blair was chair of the organizing committee, of course.
“Those poor birds,” Blair sighed.
As if she could give two shits about the damned birds.
“I really want this party to be good,” she said. “You guys are coming to my meeting tomorrow, right?”
“Of course we’re coming,” Isabel said. “What about Serena—did you tell her about the party? Is she going to help?”
Blair stared blankly back at her.
Kati wrinkled her pert little ski-jump nose and nudged Isabel with her elbow. “I bet Serena is too busy, you know, dealing with everything. All her problems. She probably doesn’t have time to help us, anyway,” she said, smirking.
Blair shrugged. Across the cafeteria, Serena herself was just joining the lunch line. She noticed Blair right away and smiled, waving cheerfully as if to say, “I’ll be there in a minute!” Blair blinked, pretending she’d forgotten to put in her contacts.
Serena slid her tray along the metal counter, choosing a lemon yogurt and skipping all the hot lunch selections until she came to the hot-water dispenser, where she filled up a cup with hot water and placed a Lipton tea bag, a slice of lemon, and a packet of sugar on the saucer. Then she carried her tray over to the salad bar, where she filled up a plate with a pile of romaine lettuce and poured a small puddle of bleu cheese dressing beside it. She would have preferred a toasted ham-and-cheese sandwich in the Gare du Nord in Paris, eaten in a hurry before leaping onto her London train, but this was almost as good. It was the same lunch she’d eaten at Constance every day since sixth grade. Blair always got the same thing too. They called it the “diet plate.”
Blair watched as Serena got her salad, dreading the moment when Serena would sit down next to her in all her glory and start trying to be friends again. Ugh.
“Hey guys,” Serena said, sitting down next to Blair, smiling radiantly. “Just like old times, huh?” She laughed and peeled back the top of her yogurt. The cuffs of her brother’s old shirt were frayed, and stray threads dangled in the yogurt’s watery whey.
“Hello, Serena,” Kati and Isabel said in unison.
Blair looked up at Serena and turned the corners of her glossy lips upwards. It was almost a smile.
Serena stirred the yogurt up and nodded at Blair’s tray, where the remains of her bagel with cream cheese and cucumber were strewn. “I guess you outgrew the diet plate,” she observed.
“I guess,” Blair said. She smashed a lump of cream cheese into her paper napkin with her thumb, staring at Serena’s sloppy cuffs in bewilderment. It was fine to wear your brother’s old clothes in ninth and tenth grade. Then, it was cool. But now? It just seemed . . . dirty.
“So my schedule totally sucks,” Serena said, licking her spoon. “I don’t have a single class with you guys.”
“Um, that’s because you’re not taking any APs,” Kati observed.
“You’re lucky,” Isabel sighed. “I have so much work to do I don’t even have time to sleep.”
“Well, at least I’ll have more time to party,” Serena said. She nudged Blair’s elbow. “What’s going on this month, anyway? I feel so completely out of it.”
Blair sat up straight and picked up her plastic cup, only to find there was no water left in it to drink. She knew she should tell Serena all about the Kiss on the Lips party and how Serena could help with the preparations and how fun it was all going to be. But somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Serena was out of it, all right. And Blair wanted her to stay that way.
“It’s been pretty lame. There really isn’t much going on until Christmas,” Blair lied, shooting a warning glance at Kati and Isabel.
“Really?” Serena said, disappointed. “Well what about tonight? You guys want to go out?”
Blair glanced at her friends. She was all for going out, but it was only Tuesday. The most she ever did on a Tuesday night was rent a movie with Nate. Suddenly Blair felt seriously old and boring. Leave it to Serena to make her feel boring.
“I have an AP French test tomorrow. Sorry, Serena,” Blair said. She stood up. “Actually, I have a meeting with Madame Rogers right now.”
Serena frowned and began to chew on her thumbnail, a new habit she’d picked up at boarding school. “Well, maybe I’ll give Nate a call. He’ll go out with me,” she said.
Blair picked up her tray and resisted hurling it in Serena’s face. Keep your hands off him! she wanted to scream, jumping onto the table ninja-style. Hiyeeh-yah!
“I’ll see you later, guys,” she said, and walked stiffly away.
Serena sighed and flicked a piece of lettuce off her plate. Blair was being boring. When were they going to start having fun? She looked up at Kati and Isabel hopefully, but they were getting ready to leave, too.
“I’ve got a stupid college advisor meeting,” Kati said.
“And I have to go up to the art room and put my painting away,” Isabel said.
“Before anyone sees it?” Kati joked.
“Oh, shut up,” Isabel said.
They stood up with their trays.
“It’s so good to have you back, Serena,” Kati said in her fakest voice.
“Yeah,” Isabel agreed. “It really is.”
And then they walked away.
Serena twirled her spoon around and around in her yogurt container, wondering what had happened to everyone. They were all acting like freaks. What did I do? she asked herself, chewing on her thumbnail again.
Good question.
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people!
WHERE THE BOYS ARE
Thanks for checking in, although most of you had little to say about S or B. Most of you just want to know more about the boys.
Your E-mail:
Dear gg,
D sounds sweet. Whats he so hot for S for? Shes just a ho.
—Bebe
Dear Bebe,
I happen to know that D is not that innocent. He was up to some kinky shit back at summer camp in eighth grade.
—GG
dear GG,
what does N do at lunchtime?? i go to school near him, and i wonder if i see him all the time without realizing it. Yikes!
—ShyGirl
Okay, if you want to know so badly, then I’ll tell you.
St. Jude’s lets its senior boys out for lunch. So right now N is probably headed up to that little pizza join
t on the corner of Eightieth and Madison. Vino’s? Vinnie’s? Whatever. Anyway, they have good slices and one of the delivery guys sells pretty decent pot. N is one of his regulars. There’s usually a group of kids from L’Ecole standing around outside the pizza place, so N will stop and flirt with this one girl who I’ll call Claire, who acts all shy and pretends she doesn’t speak English, but she’s actually really bad at French and a huge slut.
N has this cute little gag where he buys two slices and he always offers Claire one. She holds onto it the whole time they’re talking and finally takes a little weeny bit off the tip of the slice. Then N goes, “I can’t believe you did that, you’re eating my pizza!” and swipes the thing out of her hands and eats the whole thing in like two bites. This makes Claire laugh so hard her boobs nearly pop out of her shirt. The L’Ecole girls all wear really tight clothes and short skirts and high heels. They’re like, the ho’s of the Upper East Side school system. N likes to flirt with them, and so far that’s as far as it’s gone. But if B leads him on any longer, he might start giving Claire more than just a bite of his pizza. This time, though, Claire surprises him by asking if he’s heard about S. Claire claims to have heard that S not only got pregnant last year, but that she gave birth in France. Her baby’s name is Jules and he is alive and well and living in Marseilles.
As for D—well, he’s sitting outside in the Riverside Prep courtyard again, reading poetry and eating PB and J. I know that sounds extremely sad, but don’t worry about D. His time is coming. Stay tuned.
Sightings
K was seen returning a pink, army-print handbag at Barneys. Personally, I thought the bag was cute. But someone must have talked her out of it.
You know you love me,
messages
“Hey Nate. It’s Serena. I’m just calling to see what you’re up to. I thought maybe we could go out tonight, but you know what? I’m tired. It’s only ten, but I think I’m going to bed. I’ll see you this weekend though, okay? I can’t wait. Love you. Nighty-night.”
Serena hung up. Her room felt very quiet. Even Fifth Avenue was still, except for the occasional passing taxi.
From where she sat on her big canopy bed, she could see the silver-framed photograph of her family, taken in Greece when she was twelve. The captain of the sailboat they’d chartered had taken the picture. They were all in bathing suits, and her brother, Erik, who was fourteen at the time, was making a big fart kiss on Serena’s cheek while their parents looked on, laughing. Serena had gotten her period for the first time on that trip. She’d been so embarrassed, she couldn’t bear to tell her parents, but what was she supposed to do, trapped on a boat? They were anchored off the island of Rhodes, and while their parents were snorkeling and Serena and Erik were supposed to be having windsurfing lessons, Erik had swum ashore, stolen a Vespa, and bought her some maxi pads. He came back with them in a little plastic bag, tied on top of his head, her hero.
Serena had thrown her ruined underwear overboard. They were probably still there, stuck on a reef somewhere.
Now Erik was a freshman at Brown, and Serena never got to see him. He had been in France with her that summer, but they’d both spent the whole time chasing or being chased by boys and girls, so they’d never really had time to talk.
Serena picked up the phone again and pressed the speed-dial button for her brother’s off-campus apartment. The phone rang and rang until finally the voicemail system picked up.
“If you would like to leave a message for Dillon, press one. If you would like to leave a message for Tim, press two. If you would like to leave a message for Drew, press three. If you would like to leave a message for Erik, press four.”
Serena pressed four and then hesitated. “ . . . Hey . . . it’s Serena. Sorry I haven’t called in a while. But you could have called me too, you big jerk. I was stuck up in Ridgefield, bored out of my mind, until this weekend, and now I’m back in the city. I had my first day of school today. It was kind of strange. Actually it sucked. Everyone is . . . everything is . . . I don’t know . . . it’s weird. . . . Anyway, call me. I miss your hairy ass. I’ll send you a care-package as soon as I get a chance. Love you. Bye.”
life is fragile and absurd
“You’re so full of shit, Dan,” Jenny Humphrey told her brother. They were sitting at the kitchen table in their large and crumbling tenth-floor, four-bedroom West End Avenue apartment. It was a beautiful old place with twelve-foot ceilings, lots of sunny windows, big walk-in closets, and huge bathtubs with feet, but it hadn’t been renovated since the 1940s. The walls were waterstained and cracked, and the wood floors were scratched and dull. Ancient, mammoth dust bunnies had gathered in the corners and along the baseboards like moss. Once in a while Jenny and Dan’s father, Rufus Humphrey, hired a cleaning service to scrub the place down, and their enormous cat, Marx, kept the cockroaches in order, but most of the time their home felt like a cozy, neglected attic. It was the kind of place where you’d expect to find lost treasures like ancient photographs, vintage shoes, or a bone from last year’s Christmas dinner.
Jenny was eating half a grapefruit and drinking a cup of peppermint tea. Ever since she’d gotten her period last spring, she’d been eating less and less. Everything she ate went straight to her boobs, anyway. Dan worried about his little sister’s eating habits, but Jenny was as spunky and energetic as ever, so what did he know? For instance, he didn’t know that Jenny bought a toasted, buttered, chocolate-chip scone almost every day on her way to school at a little gourmet deli on Broadway.
Not exactly a great strategy for breast reduction.
Dan was eating an Entenmann’s chocolate donut—his second—and sipping instant coffee with Coffee-mate and four teaspoons of sugar. He liked sugar and caffeine, which was probably part of the reason why his hands shook. Dan wasn’t into being healthy. He liked to live on the edge.
While he ate, Dan was studying Vanessa Abrams’s script for her short film, the film he was supposed to star in. He kept reading the same line, over and over, like a mantra: Life is fragile and absurd.
“Tell me you don’t care about Serena van der Woodsen being back,” Jenny challenged Dan. She put a piece of grapefruit in her mouth and sucked on it. Then she stuck her fingers in her mouth, pulled out the white pulpy skin stuff, and put it on her plate. “You should see her,” she went on. “She looks so completely cool. It’s like she has this whole new look. I don’t mean her clothes; it’s her face. She looks older, but it’s not like wrinkles or anything. It’s like she’s Kate Moss or some model who’s like, been everywhere and seen everything and come out on the other side. She looks like she’s totally, like, experienced.”
Jenny waited for her brother to respond, but he was just staring into his coffee cup.
Life is fragile and absurd.
“Don’t you even want to see her?” Jenny asked.
Dan thought about what he’d heard Chuck Bass say about Serena. He hadn’t wanted to believe any of it, but if Serena looked as experienced as Jenny said, maybe what Chuck said was true. Maybe Serena really was the sluttiest, druggiest, most venereally diseased girl in New York.
Dan shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the pile of grapefruit carcasses on Jenny’s plate. “That is so foul,” he said. “Can’t you just eat a Pop-Tart or something, like a normal person?”
“What’s wrong with grapefruit?” Jenny said. “It’s refreshing.”
“Watching you eat it like that isn’t. It’s disgusting,” Dan said. He stuffed the rest of his donut in his mouth and licked the chocolate off his fingers, being careful not to smudge any on his script.
“Don’t look, then,” said Jenny. “Anyway, you didn’t answer my question.”
Dan looked up. “What question?”
Jenny put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “About Serena,” she said. “I know you want to see her.”
Dan looked back down at his script and shrugged. “Whatever,” he said.
“Yeah, whatever,” said Jenny,
rolling her eyes. “Look, there’s this party the Friday after next. It’s some big fancy benefit thing to save the peregrine falcons that live in Central Park. Did you know there were falcons in Central Park? I didn’t. Anyway, Blair Waldorf is organizing it, and you know she and Serena are best friends, so of course Serena will be there.”
Dan kept reading his script, completely ignoring his sister. And Jenny went on, ignoring the fact that Dan was ignoring her.
“Anyway, all we have to do is find a way to get into that party,” Jenny said. She grabbed a paper napkin off the table, scrunched it into a ball, and threw it at her brother’s head. “Dan, please,” she said pleadingly. “We have to go!”
Dan tossed the script aside and looked at his sister, his brown eyes serious and sad.
“Jenny,” he said. “I don’t want to go to that party. Next Friday night I’m probably going over to Deke’s house to use his PlayStation, and then I’ll probably head over to Brooklyn to hang out with Vanessa and her sister and their friends. Just like I do every Friday night.”
Jenny kicked at the legs of her chair like a little girl. “But why, Dan? Why won’t you go to the party?”
Dan shook his head, smiling bitterly. “Because we weren’t invited? Because we’re not going to be invited? Give it up, Jen. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is. We’re different from them, you know that. We don’t live in the same world as Serena van der Woodsen or Blair Waldorf or any of those people.”
“Oh, you’re such a wimp! You drive me crazy,” Jen said, rolling her eyes. She stood up and dumped her dishes in the sink, scrubbing at them furiously with a Brillo pad. Then she whirled around and put her hands on her hips. She was wearing a pink flannel nightshirt and her curly brown hair was sticking out all over because she had gone to sleep with it wet. She looked like a mini disgruntled housewife with boobs that were ten times too big for her body.