I Will Always Love You (9 page)

She paused in front of the limestone corner building that housed Tiffany & Co.

A dapper doorman in a three-piece suit pushed the revolving door, and she entered, enjoying the feeling of her Sigerson Morrison
boots sinking into the plush carpet. The iconic store was filled with tourists eagerly gawking at the merchandise under thick
glass counters. Ordinarily, the bustle would have annoyed her, but she didn’t mind today. She liked how everything in the
store felt so alive and exciting, as if anything could happen. She marched over to a customer service desk in the left corner
of the room.

“Hello, I’m Blair Waldorf,” she announced to the tiny man behind the counter. He wore a pink striped French cuffed shirt and
a red tie. His robin’s egg blue name tag read FREDDIE. “I believe you called me.”

“Of course, Miss Waldorf!” he shrieked. He glanced meaningfully over at the beige couches in the corner. Blair followed his
gaze, expecting to see Nate. An overweight guy wearing a pink baseball cap on his bald head stood beside two women arguing
with each other in French, and a handsome guy in shorts sat with his back to them.

Blair knew only one guy who wore cargo shorts in the winter, as if he simply wasn’t affected by the cold. And she’d sort of
forgotten that he existed.

“Scout!” Pete looked up and grinned devilishly as he sauntered toward her. It was as if he’d just spotted her across the dining
hall.

“Hi,” Blair said weakly. It wasn’t like she’d forgotten about Pete, exactly, but he certainly hadn’t been front and center on her radar.

“But what about Costa Rica?” Blair asked, confused. Pete was supposed to be there for another week.

He shrugged and smiled. “I couldn’t do it. I needed to be with you. So I got to thinking…” Pete smiled as he reached into
the pocket of his cargo shorts, removed a blue box, and held it out to her.

“What?” Blair asked, a wave of dizziness hitting her.

“Open it.” Pete pushed the box into her hands. Fingers trembling, she opened the Tiffany blue cardboard box to find a small
black velvet jewelry box. Blair’s heart careened through her chest to the floor.

Was he proposing? At Tiffany? She’d imagined this was how she’d get engaged a million times. But in all her fantasies, it wasn’t Pete asking
her. It was Nate.

She pried open the hinged lid of the box. There, sitting on a bed of blue satin, was a white gold ring. It was circled by
tiny pink sapphires that captured the light.

“Is this…” Blair began, her fingers trembling.

“It’s not an engagement ring,” Pete explained hurriedly, reading the shocked expression on Blair’s face. “At least not yet.
But I do want you to come on Carlson vacations. I feel like this sort of answers my dad’s ‘no ring, no bring’ rule, don’t
you?” he asked with an adorably lopsided smile.

Around them, tourists craned their necks to see what was going on. One paunchy man had even pulled out his camera phone and
was filming the whole incident. Blair wanted to yell at everyone to go away. She gazed into Pete’s ocean blue eyes, unsure
of what to do. She knew she didn’t want to touch the ring. She couldn’t.

“Thanks,” she began weakly, forcing a smile at the customers surrounding her. Four years ago, Nate had bought her an ugly
gold heart on a plain black cord. She’d hated the necklace. She loved this ring. But somehow, it wasn’t to be.

She shut the jewelry box with a deliberate snap. “I can’t.” Her voice broke on the last word. “I just can’t.” Then she turned
and walked out the revolving door, not looking back to see the heartbroken look on his face.

Breakup at Tiffany’s?

it’s not acting if it’s the truth

“Cut, cut, cut!” Ken Mogul yelled, his bloodshot blue eyes bugging from his head. He threw his bullhorn down, where it clattered
on the soundstage.

It was the last week of filming Coffee at the Palace, the much-anticipated sequel to Breakfast at Fred’s. They were on a set in Queens designed to look like a large New York City hotel penthouse that opened onto a rooftop garden.
Thaddeus placed his hands on Serena’s tanned shoulders protectively. They’d worked long enough with Ken as a director to know
that once he started throwing things, he rarely stopped with one object.

As long as he doesn’t move on to the talent, they’ll be fine.

“Serena, for fuck’s sake, you’re supposed to be Holly. Goddamn Holly who’s in love with her goddamn husband but is tormented
by the memory of her goddamn ex-lover, whom she’s supposed to be fucking seeing in five minutes for coffee. Where the holy
fucking hell is the passion?” Ken screamed, his freckled face turning as red as his curly shoulder-length hair.

“Sorry,” Serena sighed, pulling anxiously on the sleeve of her vintage black and white wool Givenchy dress. It had been a
long morning. Really, it had been a long week. Nate had hardly said two words to Serena at brunch the other day. And the only words Blair had said to her since then were
about Nate.

“Okay. Let’s start all over again. Take!” Ken screamed loudly, his voice cracking up an octave.

“I love you.” Serena concentrated on Thad’s large, wide-set, I’m completely gay eyes. “There’s never been anyone else. My dreams didn’t lie. Even when I sleep next to you, I dream about you.”

“CUT!” Ken shrieked angrily. “You sound like you’re talking to your goddamn guinea pig. Who the fuck cares if you love him?
I don’t. Anyone? Anyone on set?” One timid, owlish-looking assistant raised her hand. Ken held up his clipboard as if he were
going to throw it. “Great. Fucking Mousy Girl over there will net our film ten dollars. Off my set!” he yelled theatrically
as the terrified-looking assistant scampered away. Ken cradled his head in his hands and sighed.

“You okay?” Thad whispered. Serena nodded, but she could feel beads of anxious sweat creep down her spine. She took a seat
on a peach jacquard–covered wingback chair in the corner. A makeup assistant immediately scurried up and dabbed powder on
her forehead.

“Okay,” Thaddeus whispered. “I think you know me too well. Forget about me and just pretend you’re talking to the love of
your life. Listen, this is how I would say it if I were talking to Serge.” Thad turned toward Serena and closed his eyes.

“There’s never been anyone else,” Thad began dramatically, opening his eyes once more and gazing at Serena, as if he wasn’t
sure if she were real or a figment of his imagination. “My dreams didn’t lie. Even when I sleep next to you, I dream about
you.”

Serena pulled her hair into a tight ponytail at the crown of her head. It was sweet of him to try to help, but it was useless.
“I don’t love anyone that way,” she cut him off. In this scene, Holly was supposed to recognize that the only person she really
loved was her husband. That, no matter what, and no matter how many stupid things he did, he was the only person who could
ever make her feel happy and complete.

She sighed and leaned back into the wingback chair. She wished she, and not her alter ego, Holly, was face-to-face with the
man of her dreams. She wished the wind was blowing through her hair and that she was holding a real drink instead of a seltzer
mixed with food coloring. She wished she was out on a sailboat, in the middle of the deep navy ocean, under the wide blue
sky, with him.

She wished she was with Nate.

Serena felt a sob rise in her throat.

“Don’t worry about the scene for right now. Is everything okay?” Thaddeus asked in concern as he perched on the arm of her
chair.

“Okay, princesses, teatime’s over. Let’s work. My sanity’s at stake.” Ken rolled his eyes.

Serena stood up, crossed toward the camera, and blinked at what was supposed to be the Hudson River in front of her. She imagined
Nate, far away, on a sailboat, a tiny dot in the middle of the ocean. She turned her head, her chin grazing her tanned, bare
shoulder. “I love you. I always have.” She brushed a lock of hair out of Thaddeus’s eyes, the way she used to after she’d
hugged a sweaty and disheveled Nate when he’d just won a St. Jude’s lacrosse game. “I’d never leave you. Sometimes I wake
up and I think I must be dreaming. I love you so much. Just—make me the happiest girl ever and love me back.” A single tear
trickled down her cheek. “Please?”

“And, cut!” Ken stood up, waving his stubby hands wildly in excitement. “Fucking brilliant, Serena. Love the way you went
off script there. You put me through the fucking wringer so you can show that shit off? That’s my girl!” He grabbed Serena’s
waist and awkwardly spun her around. “We’ve got a fucking hit on our hands if you keep it up. Now, let’s get back into the
next scene. Coast on this moment of brilliance.”

Serena shook her head definitively. She needed to say those words to the one person who mattered. She needed to find Nate.
Maybe he was in love with Blair. But she couldn’t ever be happy unless he knew how she felt.

“I can’t!” Serena told him. She didn’t care if she got fired. Who cared about Holly? Serena’s life was real. And it was time she stopped pretending.

“’Bye!” She called, nearly tripping as she ran outside into the cold January afternoon.

Who doesn’t love a Hollywood ending?

b’s surprise, take two

“I have to leave you now. I’m going to that corner there and turn. You must stay in the car and drive away. Promise me not
to watch me go beyond the corner. Just drive away and leave me as I leave you.” On-screen, Audrey Hepburn, as Princess Anne in Roman Holiday, turned away from Gregory Peck. The camera zoomed to Gregory, who was eyeing her with a mix of sorrow and awe and sadness
on his face. Blair pressed rewind and watched as Gregory’s face built itself back up.

She sighed. It was so romantic and clean the way Princess Anne broke up with him. She felt bad for Gregory—and Pete—but, like
Audrey, she’d known it was the right thing to do. There was no way she and Pete could be together when she and Nate had always
been destined for each other. Pete had been a charming distraction, but he wasn’t her leading man.

Blair turned off the TV and glanced down at her Rolex. It was almost eight. Nate should be back from Le Cirque, where he’d
been forced to attend dinner with his parents before they went off to the opera. And Serena probably wouldn’t be back from
rehearsal for hours.

She dialed Nate’s number. “Are you home yet?” she demanded.

“Yeah, my parents actually—”

“Great. I’ll be over in ten minutes,” Blair said. She was having a serious Nate craving, especially now that there was nothing to keep them apart.

She rummaged through Serena’s closet and found a long Dries van Noten black tunic that looked like it had never been worn.
Knowing Serena, it probably hadn’t. She pulled it on over a pair of gray Wolford stockings, then eased her feet into her slouchy
black Frye boots. She pulled on a gray beret, slung her large Lanvin hobo bag over her shoulder, and ran out.

Snow was beginning to fall, and Blair wished she’d worn a coat as she walked the familiar path from Serena’s limestone building
on Eighty-third and Fifth to Nate’s stately town house on Eighty-second and Park. Blair gingerly picked her way up the icy
steps and pressed the button for Nate’s room, relieved that he had his own private doorbell.

The buzzer rang to allow her in, and Blair gingerly pushed the door open, inhaling the entryway’s familiar scent of floor
polish and lilacs. Everything—the Van Gogh above the mantle, the austere chandelier in the main dining room, the white marble
kitchen—looked exactly like it had since she’d first started coming to Nate’s house when she was five. She took the stairs
two at a time and burst into Nate’s bedroom.

“Hey!” Nate was seated at his desk in front of his Mac Air. He wore the moss green sweater Blair had given him in high school.
Back then, she’d secretly sewn a gold heart pendant into the inside—the same gold heart he’d given her from Tiffany—so Nate
would always be wearing her heart on his sleeve. “I have a surprise for you,” Nate said, swiveling in his Eames chair to face
her.

“Really?” Blair asked uncertainly, tugging her hat off and shaking her hair out around her shoulders. She’d had enough surprises
for the day.

Nate grinned. He couldn’t wait to tell Blair what he’d decided. He hooked his fingers underneath the sweater and pulled it
up.

“That’s the surprise?” Blair rolled her eyes, even though she got a little excited at the sight of Nate’s taut, tanned abs.

“No, look!” Nate yanked the sweater over his head to reveal a white T-shirt with a navy blue Yale insignia.

Blair gasped. He was coming back to school with her? This was way better than any ring. “Oh, Nate!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around his neck.

Nate smiled happily. He couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to realize that he and Blair were meant to be together.
Sure, she could be a pain in the ass, but she was his pain in the ass. And after his conversation with Chuck the other night, college suddenly seemed like a good option. He couldn’t
sail around the world forever.

“I don’t want to say goodbye to you again. Maybe I can even get placed in your dorm.” He grinned. He still couldn’t believe
how easy the decision had been.

“I’ll arrange everything,” Blair said matter-of-factly. She couldn’t believe how, after her shitstorm of a year, her life
had finally settled down. Everything was perfectly in place. “We’ll get an apartment together. Then we can have a huge party and I’ll
introduce you to everyone!”

Blair ran her hands over the Yale insignia across his strong chest. “I love you, Nate,” she whispered.

Looks like someone got a Bulldog for Christmas.

les liaisons dangereuses: upper west side edition

Vanessa slammed down the top of her MacBook Pro in frustration. It was now totally dark outside, and she’d spent the past
two hours sitting at the laminate counter in the Humphreys’ kitchen, Googling Hollis. She’d found out he ran track in high
school, that his mom was a sociology and gender studies professor at UCLA, his dad was a pioneer in philanthropic microlending
to developing countries, and that he’d won several film contests as an undergrad. He’d also showed up in a couple Tribeca
Film Festival party photos, above the caption “The Sexy Side of Celluloid.”