Because I'm Worth it (21 page)
He reread the words without really seeing them. His mind was still too full of his night with Mystery to process anything else. Her stringy dirty blond hair had smelled like toast and when she’d touched his bare stomach with her cold, clammy hands, his whole body had rippled. He’d never even asked her what she meant by premature death or how his poem “Sluts” had saved her life, but he’d been so intoxicated by the taurine in the Red Bull and by her appallingly yellow teeth, he probably wouldn’t have remembered anyway.
Lost my virginity again,
Dan wrote, which was the truth. Doing it with Mystery was like losing it again. Was it possible that every time he made love to a new woman it would feel that way?
Before he could imagine who the next lucky girl would be, the bell rang and Dan snapped out of his reverie, slapping the notebook closed and tucking it under his arm. “Hey,” he called to Zeke. “I’ll buy you some sushi for lunch if you wait for me to whip off an e-mail in the lab.”
“Okay.” Zeke shrugged, trying not to look too excited that his old friend was actually deigning to pay attention to him again. Since when did Dan Humphrey, king of cheap egg rolls and bad coffee, eat
sushi
?
“Heard you got lucky Friday night!” Chuck Bass shouted Dan’s way as they passed each other on the stairwell. Chuck was wearing his Riverside Prep uniform navy blue V-neck sweater with nothing on underneath it. “Nice work.”
“Thanks,” Dan muttered, hurrying upstairs to the computer lab. He was kidding himself if he thought Vanessa wasn’t going to find out about him and Mystery, but as soon as she received his latest poem he was convinced she’d forgive him. Just as Mystery had written in her note—he was a charmer.
girls go gaga over secret admirers
Vanessa felt a little ridiculous hanging out with the desperate girls in the packed, overheated Constance Billard computer lab, all checking their e-mail for the hundredth time to see who’d sent them a pathetic e-card for Valentine’s Day or posted a message on their Secret Admirer page, the alarmingly uncreative new tradition the school had started last Valentine’s Day. But Dan usually logged on at least once a day, and since he’d been so busy this weekend meeting Rusty Klein at the Better Than Naked show and hadn’t had a chance to call her back all weekend, she figured he might try to e-mail her today, especially since it was Valentine’s Day— not that either of them really bought into that commercial holiday bullshit.
Of course not.
“Hey,” she heard someone say. It was Dan’s little sister, checking out her Secret Admirer page at the next terminal.
“Hey Jennifer.”
Jenny rolled herself backwards on her black swivel chair and then pulled herself forward again. Her curly brown hair was blow-dried straight and she looked older and more sophisticated than usual. “So you and Dan must have had fun at that fashion show. He didn’t get home until like, Saturday afternoon. My dad was grumbling about how spoiled and irresponsible we both are, but then he completely forgot to yell at Dan. As usual.”
Vanessa smoothed her hand over her practically shaved head. “Actually, I didn’t go to the same show he went to. I got invited to another one.”
Jenny looked confused. “Oh.”
In the back of her mind Vanessa sensed that something was wrong. What had Dan been doing out all that time anyway? But then again, everything had gotten screwed up in the snow. Maybe he’d spent the night at Zeke’s house or something. Zeke lived downtown.
She logged on as hairlesscat, password
meow
, and clicked on her inbox. Sure enough, there was a message from Dan, and—big surprise—it was a poem. Vanessa read the poem eagerly, grimacing when she recognized that Dan had put absolutely no effort into it at all.
Hot stuff?
What was that all about? And what was up with
“I lost my virginity again”
? Who was he fucking kidding?
She hit reply and wrote back:
Ha ha. I laughed. I cried. What’s your deal anyway? We’re supposed to be making a film together, remember?
As she waited for Dan to respond, she logged onto her Secret Admirer page. To her surprise there were four messages:
I can’t stop raving about you to all my boyfriends. No one mixes form with meaning the way you do, milady. —prettyboy
You give this fucked-up world a new kind of beauty. Keep your freak on. —d.
Happy Valentine’s Day to my very special sister on a special day. —Ruby Tuesday
Can you make it to Cannes? Let’s talk over coffee in Brooklyn Thurs. eve? —the film-maker who discovered you
Vanessa rolled her eyes as she read the last one. She appreciated everything Ken Mogul had done for her, but he hadn’t exactly discovered her. She’d been there all along.
She clicked on her inbox again but there was no response from Dan so she logged off. “See you later,” she whispered to Jenny, whose big brown eyes were glued to her computer.
“See you,” Jenny replied without looking up. There were three whole messages on her Secret Admirer page.
sorry i didn’t get you any candy but i wasn’t sure which kind you like. let’s get some after school. don’t really feel like going home right away anyway. —sadgirl
btw, when do you want to finish that painting?? —me again
Those two were very definitely from Elise, but the third one sounded like it might very well be from a genuine, real-life
boy
.
Sorry it took me so long, but I didn’t have the guts to write to you before. If you want to meet me, I take the Seventy-ninth Street crosstown bus home after school. I’m not sure what you look like, but if you see a really tall skinny guy with blond hair looking at you on the bus, smile because it’s probably me. Happy Valentine’s Day, JHumphrey. Can’t wait to meet you. Love, L
Jenny reread the message over and over. A tall skinny guy with blond hair? He sounded exactly like the boy she’d seen in Bendel’s! But what did
L
stand for? Lester? Lance? Louis? No, those names sounded too geeky, and his message didn’t sound geeky at all, just sweet. But how had he gotten her e-mail address? Oh, who cared—she couldn’t believe it:
he wanted to meet her!!
Jenny immediately deleted Elise’s messages and ran to the printer to retrieve the one from L. Of course, she planned to ride the Seventy-ninth Street crosstown bus all afternoon and all night if that was what it took. But, God forbid, if they never found each other, Jenny would have his love note to cherish and keep forever and ever. And she’d thought she was through with love. See how magical Valentine’s Day can be?
“So how come you didn’t call 911?” Jeremy Scott Tompkinson asked Nate as he crumbled pot into the EZ Wider rolling paper spread out on his right knee.
“Give the dude a break,” noted Charlie Dern. “He was stoned, remember?”
“I would’ve been like, ‘See ya later, you crazy fucking chick! I don’t care if you’re putting out!’” quipped Anthony Avuldsen.
Jeremy had managed to steal some pot from his older brother who was home visiting from college, and now the four boys were huddled on a remote stoop on East End Avenue, taking a break before gym class.
Nate blew on his bare hands and stuffed them into his cashmere-lined coat pockets. “I don’t know.” He still felt pretty confused about it himself. “I guess I just wanted to call someone who knew us both. Someone I could trust.”
Jeremy shook his head. “Dude, that’s exactly what those rehab headshrinkers
want
you to do. They’ve got you programmed already.”
Nate thought about the way Georgie imitated Jackie’s corny psychobabble—all that stuff about healing wounds and negative friendships. It didn’t seem like Georgie had been programmed. All of a sudden he wondered if she was angry that he’d called Jackie, but it wasn’t like he could call her and ask her. She was now staying at Breakaway full time and wasn’t allowed to take any phone calls, just in case one of her dealers called or something. Hopefully Nate would still see her in group.
“How long do you have to deal with that rehab bullshit anyway?” Charlie asked. He reached for the burning joint and took a hit.
“Six months,” Nate answered. “But at least I don’t have to live there.” The other boys intoned bored and sympathetic sighs of disgust. Nate didn’t say anything. Although he’d never have admitted it, he kind of liked going to rehab and meeting the different kids in group, especially Georgie. He’d be sort of sad when it was over.
“’Ere,” Charlie said, passing Nate the joint.
Nate looked at it and shook his head. “No thanks,” he murmured under his breath. There was a crushed red paper heart lying on the sidewalk in front of the stoop where the four boys were sitting. “Is it Valentine’s Day?” he asked distractedly.
“Yeah,” Anthony responded. “Why?”
“Huh,” Nate replied. He stood up and brushed the snow off the back of his black Hugo Boss coat. For what seemed like forever he’d always sent a special girl roses on Valentine’s Day. “I gotta go do something. Catch you guys in gym, okay?”
His friends watched him trudge purposefully through the slush toward Madison Avenue until he was out of sight. Something was happening to their old friend Nate Archibald, and it wasn’t just that he’d turned down a joint for the first time since he was ten years old
Could it be, was it possible, that he’d fallen in love?
Blair kept her hand clapped over her mouth and her mind clear of any thoughts of Owen the whole way home to keep from being sick all over the back seat of the taxi. But when she stepped off the wood-paneled elevator and into the penthouse, her nostrils were bombarded with the putrid scent of roses, causing her stomach to churn ominously once more. The entire front hall was packed with them. Yellow roses, white roses, pink ones and red. She dropped her bag on the floor and read the notes on the bouquets.
A—You’re my honey-pie. Love, S,
said the note on the yellow roses.
Audrey, my favorite little aristocrat, will you please be my Valentine? Love, Cary,
said the note on the red roses.
My darling Mrs. Rose, May our tiny daughter be as lovely and as wonderful as you are and as hopelessly happy as I am every day I spend with you. —Your loving husband, Mr. Rose,
said the note on the pink-and-white bouquet.
As if one of those notes wouldn’t have been enough to make Blair puke out her already puked-out guts, she had to be bombarded with
three
uniquely repulsive missives. Throwing her coat down on the floor, she staggered into the nearest bathroom to empty her stomach again. “Mom!” she shouted, wiping her mouth on a parchment-colored
R
-monogrammed guest towel.
“Blair?” her mother called back. Eleanor Waldorf wandered slowly down the hall wearing a pink boiled wool Chanel suit that had been let out at the waist to accommodate her five-months pregnant belly. Her highlighted blond bob was pulled back into a neat ponytail and she was wearing white rabbit fur slippers and carrying her portable phone. Like most Upper East Side hostesses, Eleanor spent all the time she wasn’t having lunch or getting her hair done on the phone. “What are you doing home?” she asked her daughter. “Are you sick?”
Blair clutched her stomach and tried not to look at her mother. “I saw the note from Cyrus,” she croaked. “You’re having a girl?”
Her mother beamed back at her, her blue eyes sparkling ecstatically. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she cried. “I found out this morning.” She flip-flopped up to Blair in her fur slippers and threw her arms around her daughter’s neck. “Cyrus has always wanted a girl. And now when you come home from college you’ll have a little baby sister to play with!”
Blair grimaced as her stomach did another back flip at the mention of college.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Eleanor babbled on. “But we’re planning to turn your room into a nursery since we’re running out of bedrooms. You and Aaron will be going away to school soon anyway. You don’t mind, do you, sweetheart?”
Blair stared at her mother blankly. She hadn’t wanted a stepbrother or a stepfather and she certainly didn’t want a baby sister, especially not one who was going to take over her
room
. “I’m going to go lie down,” she replied weakly.
“I’ll have Myrtle send in some bouillon,” her mother called after her.
Blair slammed her bedroom door and dove onto her bed, burying her head in the depths of her extrasoft goose-down pillows. Kitty Minky, her gray Russian Blue cat, jumped onto her back and kneaded his paws into her black-and-white Fair Isle sweater. “Help me,” Blair moaned miserably to her cat. If only she could lie there until late August and then be helicoptered to her new dorm room at Yale, skipping all the bad parts in the script of the movie that was her life, the parts that needed to be rewritten.
Out of habit, she reached out and punched the playback button on the answering machine on her bedside table, keeping her eyes closed as she listened.
“Hello, Blair, it’s Owen. Owen Wells. Sorry I couldn’t call earlier. What happened? I woke up and you were gone. Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day, gorgeous. Call me back when you have a moment. Bye-bye.”
“Hello, Blair, it’s Owen again. Did you get my flowers? I hope you like them. Call me back when you have a moment. Thanks. ’Bye.”
“Hello, Blair. I know it’s short notice, but would you like to have dinner with me? Um, this is Owen by the way. Plans on the home front have changed and I’m all freed up. So how ’bout Le Cirque this evening, gorgeous? Give me a call.”
“Hello, Blair. I got a table at Le Cirque—” Blair kicked her answering machine off the bedside table and it came unplugged. She didn’t care that Owen had the sexiest voice and was the best kisser in all of New York. She couldn’t play Audrey to his Cary anymore, not when Cary had turned out to be a lying, cheating, son-of-a-bitch, scumbag
dad
. She didn’t even care if Owen told Yale she was a stupid flake who wouldn’t last more than two weeks there. Fuck Owen, and fuck Yale.
She grabbed her phone and dialed Owen’s cell phone number. It was the only number he’d given her, probably because it was the only phone he could be sure of answering himself.