“Shut up, Daddy,” said Blair.
The plates were cleared. Impatient, Blair twisted her little ruby ring around and around on her finger. She shook her head to coffee and dessert and stood up to head for the ladies’ room once more. Twice in one meal was extreme, even for her, but she was so nervous she couldn’t help it.
Thank goodness Le Giraffe had nice, private bathrooms.
When Blair came out again, the entire waitstaff filed out of the kitchen. The maÎtre d’ was holding a cake decorated with flickering candles. Eighteen of them, including one extra for luck.
Oh God.
Blair stomped back to the table in her pointy stiletto boots and took her seat, glaring at her father. Why did he have to make a scene? It wasn’t her fucking birthday for another three weeks. She downed another glass of champagne in one gulp.
Waiters and cooks surrounded the table. And then the singing began.
“Happy birthday to you …”
Blair grabbed Nate’s hand and squeezed it tight. “Make them stop,” she whispered.
But Nate just sat there grinning like an asshole. He kind of liked it when Blair was embarrassed. It didn’t happen very often.
Her father was more sympathetic. When he saw how miserable Blair was he increased the tempo and quickly finished the song. “You smell like a monkey, and you look like one too!”
The waitstaff clapped politely and went back to their posts.
“I know it’s a little early,” Mr. Waldorf said apologetically. “But I have to leave tomorrow, and seventeen is such a big birthday. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
Mind? No one likes to be sung to in public. No one.
Silently Blair blew out the candles and examined the cake. It was elaborately decorated with marzipan high-heeled shoes walking down a spun-sugar Fifth Avenue, past a rock-candy model of Henri Bendel, her favorite store. It was exquisite.
“For my little shoe fetishista,” her father said, beaming. He pulled a wrapped present out from under the table and handed it to Blair.
Blair shook the box, expertly recognizing the hollow, thudding sound that a pair of new shoes makes when they’re shaken in their box. She tore into the paper. MANOLO BLAHNIK, said the type in big bold letters on the lid of the box. Blair held her breath and pulled off the lid. Inside was a pair of beautifully crafted pewter leather mules with adorable little kitten heels.
TrÈs fabulous.
“I got them in Paris,” Mr. Waldorf said. “They only made a few hundred pairs. I bet you’re the only girl in town who has them.”
“They’re fantastic,” Blair breathed.
She stood up and walked around the table to hug her father. The shoes made up for him humiliating her in public. Not only were they unbelievably cool, but they were exactly what she was going to wear later that night when she and Nate had sex. Those and nothing else.
Thanks, Daddy!
what the steps of the metropolitan museum of art are really for
“Let’s sit in the back,” Serena van der Woodsen said as she led Daniel Humphrey into Serendipity 3 on East Sixtieth Street. The narrow, old-timey hamburger-and-ice cream parlor was crowded with parents treating their kids while the nanny took the night off. The air was punctuated with the shrill cries of sugared-up children, as tired waitresses hurried to and fro carrying huge glass bowls of ice cream, frozen hot chocolates, and extralong hot dogs.
Dan had planned to go somewhere more romantic with Serena. Somewhere quiet and dimly lit. Somewhere where they could hold hands and talk and get to know each other without being distracted by angry parents scolding deceptively angelic-looking little boys in button-down shirts and khakis from Brooks Brothers. But Serena had wanted to come here.
Maybe she was really craving ice cream, or maybe her expectations for the evening weren’t quite as big and romantic as his were.
“Isn’t this great?” she burbled exuberantly. “Me and my brother, Erik, used to come here like once a week and eat peppermint sundaes.” She picked up a menu and examined it. “It’s still all exactly the same. I love it.”
Dan smiled and shook the scraggly brown hair out of his eyes. The truth was, he didn’t really care where he was, as long as he was with her.
Dan was from the West Side, and Serena was from the East. He lived with his father, a self-proclaimed intellectual and the editor of lesser-known Beat poets, and his little sister, Jenny, who was in ninth grade at Constance Billard, the same school Serena went to. They lived in a crumbling Upper West Side apartment that hadn’t been renovated since the 1940s. The only person who did any cleaning around the place was their huge cat, Marx, who was an expert at killing and eating cockroaches. Serena lived with her well-heeled parents, who were on the board of just about every big institution in the city, in an enormous penthouse decorated by a famous decorator, with a view of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park. She had a maid and a cook who she could ask to bake her a cake or make her a cappuccino any time she wanted.
So what was she doing with Dan?
They had stumbled into each other a few weeks ago while trying out for parts in a film directed by Dan’s friend and Serena’s classmate, Vanessa Abrams. Serena hadn’t gotten the part, and Dan had almost given up hope of ever seeing her again, but then they’d met again at a bar in Brooklyn. They’d seen each other and talked on the phone a few times since then, but this was their first real date.
Serena had come back to the city last month after being kicked out of boarding school. At first, she’d been thrilled to be back in the city. But then she’d discovered that Blair Waldorf and all her other old friends had decided not to be friends with her anymore. Serena still didn’t know what she’d done that was so awful. Sure, she hadn’t really kept in touch with anyone, and sure, she’d maybe bragged a little too much about all the fun she’d had in Europe this past summer. So much fun mat she hadn’t returned in time for the first day of classes at Hanover Academy in New Hampshire. The school had refused to take her back.
Her old school, Constance Billard, was more forgiving. Well, the school was. The girls were not. Serena didn’t have a single friend in New York anymore, so she was thrilled to meet Dan. It was fun getting to know someone so different from herself.
Dan wanted to pinch himself every time he looked into Serena’s dark blue eyes. He had been in love with her since he first laid eyes on her at a party in ninth grade, and it was his hope that now, two-and-a-half years later, she was falling in love with him, too.
“Let’s get the biggest sundaes on the menu,” Serena said. “We can switch bowls halfway through so we don’t get bored.”
She ordered the triple peppermint sundae with extra hot-fudge sauce, and he ordered a coffee banana split. Dan would eat anything with coffee in it. Or tobacco.
“So,” Serena said, pointing at the paperback sticking out of Dan’s coat pocket, “is that good?”
The book was No Exit, by Jean Paul Sartre, an existentialist tale of misfits in purgatory.
“Yeah. It’s kind of funny and kind of depressing,” Dan said. “But there’s a lot of truth to it, I guess.”
“What’s it about?”
“Hell.”
Serena laughed. “Whoa,” she said. “Do you always read books like that?”
Dan extracted an ice cube from his water glass and put it in his mouth. “Like what?”
“Like, about hell,” she said.
“No, not always.” He had just finished reading The Sorrows of Young Werther, which was about love. And hell.
Dan liked to think of himself as a tormented soul. He preferred novels and plays and books of poetry that revealed the tragic absurdity of life. They were the perfect accompaniment to coffee and cigarettes.
“I have trouble reading,” Serena confessed.
Their sundaes came. They could barely see each other over the mounds of ice cream. Serena dipped her long sundae spoon into the bowl and carved out a perfectly enormous bite. Dan marveled at the long, sli
m angle of her wrist, the taut muscle of her arm, the golden brilliance of her pale blond hair. She was about to pig out on a disgustingly huge sundae, but to him she was a goddess.
“I mean, I can read, obviously,” Serena continued. “I just have trouble paying attention. My mind wanders, and I think about what I’m going to do that night. Or something I need to buy at the drugstore. Or something funny that happened like, a year ago or something.” She swallowed the bite of ice cream and looked into Dan’s understanding brown eyes. “I just have no attention span,” she said sadly.
This was what Dan loved most about Serena. She had the ability to be sad and happy at the same time. She was like a lone angel, floating above the surface of the earth, laughing with delight because she could fly but crying out of loneliness. Serena turned everything ordinary into something extraordinary.
Dan’s hands shook as he cut off the tip of his chocolate-covered banana with his spoon and ate it silently. He wanted to tell Serena that he’d read for her. That he’d do anything for her. Coffee ice cream melted and spilled over the edge of his bowl. Dan tried to keep his heart in his chest.
“I had a great English teacher at Riverside last year,” he said when he’d regained control. “He told us the best way to retain what you read is to just read a little bit at a time. Savor the words.”
Serena loved the way Dan talked. The way he said things made her want to remember them. She smiled and licked her lips. “Savor the words,” she repeated, the corners of her mouth curving up into a smile.
Dan swallowed a piece of his banana whole and reached for his water. God, she was beautiful.
“So, you’re probably, like, a total A student and you’ve already applied to Harvard early or something, right?” Serena said. She picked a broken piece of candy cane out of her sundae and sucked on it.
“No way,” Dan said. “I’m totally clueless. I mean, I definitely want to go somewhere with a good writing program, I just don’t know where yet. Our college advisor gave me this big long list, and I’ve got all the catalogs, but I still don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Me neither. But I’m probably going up to visit Brown sometime soon,” Serena told him. “My brother goes there. Want to come?”
Dan searched the deep wells of her eyes, trying to gauge whether she felt as passionate about him as he did about her. When she said, “Want to come?” did she mean, “Let’s spend the weekend together, holding hands, staring into each other’s eyes, and kissing for hours at a time”? Or did she mean, “Let’s go together because it would be convenient and fun to have a friend along”? Still, he couldn’t say no. He didn’t care whether she’d said Brown or Loserville Community College, Serena had asked him if he wanted to go and the answer was yes. He’d go anywhere with her.
“Brown,” Dan said, as if he were still thinking it over. “They’re supposed to have a great writing program.”
Serena nodded, combing her long blond hair with her fingers. “So come with me.”
Oh, he’d go. Of course he’d go. Dan shrugged. “I’ll talk to my dad about it,” he said, trying to sound casual. He didn’t dare let Serena know that inside he was leaping and bounding around like an excited puppy. He was afraid he might scare her away.
“Okay, ready? Let’s switch,” Serena said, pushing her bowl toward Dan.
They switched bowls and tasted each other’s sundaes. As soon as the new flavors hit their taste buds, their faces contorted and they stuck out their tongues. Peppermint and coffee didn’t mix. Dan hoped it wasn’t a sign.
Serena took her bowl back and dug in for the final stretch. Dan took a few more bites of his and then put his spoon down.
“Whoa,” he said, leaning back in his chair and clutching his stomach. “You win.”
Her bowl was still half full, but Serena put her spoon down, too, and unbuttoned the top button of her jeans. “I think we’re tied,” she said with a giggle.
“Want to take a walk?” Dan ventured, crossing his trembling lingers and toes so tightly that they turned blue.
“I’d love to,” Serena replied.
Sixtieth Street was quiet for a Friday night. They walked west, toward Central Park. At Madison, they stopped at Barneys and looked in the window. There were still a few people behind the counters in the cosmetics department, setting up for the Saturday morning rush.
“I don’t know what I’d do without Barneys.” Serena sighed, as if the store had saved her life.
Dan had only been inside the famous department store once. He’d let his imagination run wild and had bought a very expensive designer tuxedo there with his father’s credit card, fantasizing about wearing it while dancing with Serena at a glamorous party. But then reality had set in. He hated glamorous parties, and until a few days ago, he’d thought Serena would never have two words to say to him. So he’d returned the tux.
Now he smiled at the memory. Serena definitely had more than two words to say to him. She’d invited him to spend the weekend with her. They were falling in love. Maybe they’d even wind up going to the same college and spending the rest of their lives together.
Careful, Dan. There goes that imagination again.
At Fifth Avenue, near the corner of the park, they headed uptown past the Pierre Hotel, where they had both gone to a formal dance in tenth grade. Dan remembered watching Serena, wishing he knew her, as she laughed with her table of friends, dressed in a green, strapless dress that made her hair shimmer. He had been in love with her even then.
They walked past Serena’s orthodontist’s office and the Frick, the old mansion that was now a museum. Dan wanted to break in and kiss Serena on top of one of the beautiful old beds inside. He wanted to live there with her, like refugees in paradise.
They kept walking up Fifth Avenue, past Blair Waldorf’s’ building on Seventy-second Street. Serena gazed up at it. She’d known Blair since first grade and had been in the Waldorfs’ apartment hundreds of times, but now she was no longer welcome.
Serena couldn’t pretend she was entirely blameless. She knew what had upset Blair most. It wasn’t just that Serena had been out of touch with her old New York crowd or that she’d been off partying in Europe while Blair’s parents were getting a divorce. What had really turned their friendship sour was the fact that Serena and Nate had slept together the summer before Serena went away to boarding school.
That was nearly two years ago, and Serena felt like it had happened to some other girl with an entirely different life. Serena, Blair, and Nate had been such a close threesome. Serena had hoped Blair would see it as one of those crazy things that happened between friends and forgive her. It was just a one-off. And besides, Blair still had Nate. But Blair had only recently found out about it, and she wasn’t going to let it go.
Serena fished around in her purse for a cigarette and stuck one in her mouth. She stopped walking and flicked on her lighter. Dan waited as she inhaled and blew a cloud of gray smoke into the chilly air. She pulled her worn, brown plaid Burberry coat around her.
“Let’s go sit out in front of the Met for a while,” she said. “Come on.” She took Dan’s hand and they quickly covered the ten blocks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Serena led Dan halfway up the steps and sat down. Across the street was her apartment building. As usual, her parents were out, attending some charity function or art opening, and the windows were dark and lonely looking.
Serena let go of Dan’s hand, and he wondered if he’d done something wrong. He couldn’t read her mind, and it was driving him crazy.
“Me and Blair and Nate used to sit on these steps for hours and just talk about nothing,” Serena told him wistfully. “Sometimes we were supposed to go out and Blair and I would get all dressed and put on makeup and everything. Then Nate would show up with a bottle of something and we’d buy cigarettes and just ditch the party and sit out here.” She looked up at the stars with big, shining eyes. There were tears in them.
“Sometimes I wish …” Serena’s voice trailed
off. She didn’t know exactly what she wished, but she was tired of feeling bad about Blair and Nate. “Sorry,” she sniffed, looking down at her shoes. “I hope I’m not bumming you out.”
“You’re not,” Dan said.
He wanted to take her hand back, but she’d hidden it in her pocket. Instead, he touched her elbow and Serena turned to him. This was his chance. Dan wished he could think of something beautiful and passionate to say, but his heart was in his mouth. Before his nerves could paralyze him, he leaned in and kissed her on the lips, ever so gently. The earth wobbled on its axis. He was glad he was sitting down. When he pulled back, Serena’s eyes were glowing at him.
She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and smiled at him. Then she lifted her chin and kissed Dan again. Just a tiny kiss on his lower lip, before she ducked her head down and leaned it against his shoulder. Dan closed his eyes to steady himself.
Oh God. What is she thinking? he wondered desperately. Why won’t she tell me?
“So where do Westsiders go to hang out?” Serena asked. “Is there a place like this?”
“Not really,” Dan said, his arm around her. He didn’t want to have a conversation right now. He wanted to take her hand and dive off the edge of the cliff and float on their backs in a moonlit sea. He wanted to kiss her again. And again and again. “I go down to the boat basin during the day, sometimes. At night we just walk around.”
“The boat basin,” Serena repeated. “Will you take me there?”
Dan nodded. He’d take her anywhere.
He waited for Serena to lift her head so they could kiss again. But Serena kept her head pressed into his shoulder, breathing in the smoky scent of Dan’s coat and allowing her nerves be soothed.
They sat like that for a little while longer. Dan was too nervous and happy and dazed to even light a cigarette. He was hoping they could fall asleep that way and wake up in the pink light of dawn, still wrapped in each other’s arms.
A few minutes later, Serena pulled away. “I’d better go before I fall asleep,” she said, standing up. She leaned down and kissed Dan on the cheek. Her hair brushed his ear and he shivered. “See you soon, okay?”