Love the One You're With (24 page)

“Oh?” Owen looked surprised. And, Jack hoped, a little pleased.

“Yeah.” She shrugged. She didn’t want to think about what would happen next or what it would be like when they got back to
New York. This was still her vacation, at least for tonight, and she wanted to have fun. “Want to go swimming?” Not waiting
for an answer, she dove in, still wearing her dress, enjoying the heavy feel of the now-ruined silk around her body.

“I’m coming in too!” Baby appeared by the side of the pool, her brown curls bouncing wildly around her pretty face. She slid
off her flip-flops and did a perfect swan dive into the pool, splashing Jack.

“Bitch!” Jack yelled good-naturedly, splashing Baby right back.

“Remy, let’s jump in!” Edie called from the other end of the pool. There, she carefully slid in feetfirst, still in her wedding
dress.

Avery shook her head at the ridiculous scene—of course her mother’s beach-chic wedding had turned into one giant pool party,
seventh-grade style. The thing was, it looked
fun
. She glanced at Rhys, her eyes wide with excitement.

“I’ll jump if you jump,” she said, already kicking off her Christian Louboutin slingbacks. Rhys grinned right back.

“Miss Carlyle?” Avery felt a pointy finger tapping her shoulder. She whirled around to see Yvette, the wedding planner. Her
skinny, angular face was pinched and she looked like she was about to have a heart attack. “I can assure you, this is
not
what I was expecting when we were discussing the party details. This is not typical.”

“Sorry.” Avery shrugged. “This family isn’t typical.” She jumped in, making sure to splash Yvette and her pink Chanel suit.
Rhys cannonballed in next and swam up to her. He was shirtless, but still wearing his dress pants. He pushed Avery’s hair
out of her eyes.

“Fireworks!” Someone yelled at the other end of the pool. Avery looked up. The night sky was splashed with reds and blues.
But instead she looked into Rhys’s brown eyes and kissed him.

It may have taken sixteen years of waiting, but it looks like somebody finally found her prince.

In honor of the hippie-tastic wedding of the century, please forgive me while I quote some Bob Dylan and say, the times they are a changin’. Who’d have thought the triplets’ bohemian, anything-goes mom would actually get
married
? Certainly not the Sunday Styles section, whose editor was so surprised that the paper crashed an announcement into this weekend’s edition—complete with a photo of the pool-soaked wedding party. Can’t wait to see what
A
will do when she sees that… unless she’s learned by now that infamy is better than anonymity. With her track record, she should have!

The Shakespearean comedies all end happily: with a wedding. Because really, what’s more promising than love? We all like to turn up our noses and pretend to be cheesed out, but the promise of a happily-ever-after gets everyone… including me. So bask in the glory of this happy day, and enjoy the fairy-tale ending. But don’t get too comfortable. Because I’m
always
watching.

See you back in Manhattan!

You know you love me,

gossip girl

Blair Waldorf, Serena van der Woodsen, Nate Archibald, Dan Humphrey, and Vanessa Abrams went off to live their lives. Now, they’re coming home for the holidays. A lot can change in a few months… but some things never do.

Turn the page for a sneak peek of

a new
gossip girl
hardcover featuring the original cast

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

For years, New York City—the center of the universe, the place where anything can happen—was our home. But we’ve moved beyond our uniform-required, single sex schools and into bastions of higher education around the country. Yes, it finally happened: We went to college. For the past few months, we’ve been surrounded by people who don’t know whom we’ve hooked up with, who don’t remember the time we wet our pants on the playground in kindergarten. We’ve learned new things and made new friends and maybe even met the loves our lives. We’ve changed.

Or at least,
some
of us have. Others are just as fabulous as always. Take
B
, heading to Vermont to spend a perfect holiday with her perfect Yale boyfriend and his perfect family. That girl always had her eye on the prize…. And speaking of prizes, what’s rumored SAG nominee
S
doing these days? Formerly worshipped by her Constance Billard classmates, she’s now followed by paparazzi and a posse of fellow movie starlets. No matter where she is or what she does,
S
will
always
be the center of attention.

Then there are the people who’ve tried their hardest to change:
N
is on a sailing trip around the world. But as we all know from reading Kant in our freshman seminars, no man is an island. He’ll be back. Then there’s
D
, scratching out poetry in his Moleskine notebook in the Pacific Northwest. It may look like a total lifestyle change, but he still insists on Folgers instead of French press in the coffee capital of the US. He also spends every waking moment attempting to Skype his shaven-headed, ultra independent filmmaker girlfriend,
V
, who’s at NYU and seems to almost… have
hair.
And friends. Lastly there’s
C
, last seen with a pack of flannel-wearing, very rugged boys. Is he into a new type, or has he gone through yet another reinvention? That man puts Madonna to shame.

Everyone’s back in town for the holidays, and this winter break is guaranteed to be filled with makeups, breakups, and shakeups. Lucky for you, I’m going to report
everything
worth reporting. Let the reunion begin.

sightings

B
on a train from New Haven to Montpelier, VT, looking very out of place in a sea of flannel…
S
with three identical girls, on the red carpet for a premiere….
V
and some friends from NYU, including her very young, very cute teaching assistant, at a film-screening party in Bushwick.
Is someone trying to get extra credit?…
D
and his little sister,
J
, splitting a plate of chocolate-chip pancakes at one of those curiously packed diners on upper Broadway….
C
and a group of cowboy-boot clad guys ordering sodas at the lounge at the
Tribeca Star
. Ride ’em, cowboy!

break the rules

Remember, you don’t technically live under your parents’ roof anymore. You’ve already indulged them in holiday merry-making:
Scrabble with the siblings, kissing Grandma, and decorating cookies that nobody’s going to eat. Which means now is the time
to use all your pent-up energy to party. Remember, you can always reform after January 1—that’s what resolutions are for.
So go out, have fun, and most of all, show your former besties and former flames just how much
better
you’ve become.

Besides, now that you know I’m watching, aren’t you just dying to put on a show? Thought so.

You know you love me,

gossip girl

“You awake, Scout?”

Blair Waldorf awoke from a nap to the sight of her boyfriend, Pete Carlson, gazing down at her. Pete smiled his adorable,
lopsided smile. His eyes were a yellowish brown and reminded Blair of her cat, Kitty Minky.

She threw the plaid Black Watch duvet to the foot of the couch and discreetly checked for drool with her index finger. She
loved
being woken up by Pete, especially when he called her by an adorable nickname. Currently, it was Scout because she’d directed
him and his three older brothers to the best Douglas fir Christmas tree, deep in the woods of the Carlsons’ expansive Woodstock,
Vermont, estate.

“Of course I am,” Blair lied, sitting up and yawning. Why sleep when her waking life was so much
better
?

“Good.” Pete settled next to her on the couch, pushing Blair’s long bangs tenderly off her small, foxlike face. Her hair was
a little shaggier than she’d like, but she simply didn’t trust any of the hair salons in New Haven. Besides, what were unkempt
bangs when she was with a guy who loved her?

“Have any dreams? You were making these little growls in your sleep. It was cute.” Pete pulled the blanket off the floor and
draped it over their legs.

“Oh.” Blair frowned. She was
growling
?

In truth, she’d been having a lot of weird dreams lately. Last night, she’d woken up and thought she was at a sleepover at
her old best friend Serena van der Woodsen’s house, only to find herself all alone in the guest bedroom of the Carlsons’.

Maybe it was just homesickness. After all, she hadn’t seen Serena since August, she didn’t have a home in New York anymore,
and no one in her family was even in the United States this week. Her father, Harold, was celebrating Christmas in France
with his boyfriend and their adopted twins. Her stepbrother Aaron was spending the break on a kibbutz in Israel. Her mother,
stepfather, brother Tyler, and baby sister Yale had moved to LA back in August, to a gigantic, tacky Pacific Palisades mansion
that they were making even bigger and more tacky. While the renovations were taking place, they were spending the holidays
in the South Pacific, visiting the islands that Eleanor Rose, in a fit of pregnancy-induced mania last spring, had bought
for each member of the family. Blair had been somewhat tempted to tag along, if only to see her baby sister, the least fucked-up
member of her tragically absurd family.

Not to mention pay a visit to Blair Island.

But once she’d been invited to spend Christmas with the Carlsons, she felt it was her duty as a girlfriend to go.

“I was just dreaming about you. Us. I’m just so happy.” Blair sighed contentedly as she gazed into the orange fire roaring
in the wood-burning stove across the room. Outside, a thin blanket of snow covered the ground.

“Me too.” Pete ruffled her hair and pulled her face into his for a kiss.

“You taste nice,” Blair breathed, letting her body relax into Pete’s muscular arms.

It was funny how things worked out. When she arrived at Yale, Blair discovered that her roommate, Alana Hoffman, sang a cappella
all the time. Blair would wake up to Alana singing “Son of a Preacher Man” to her collection of teddy bears. Avoiding her
room, Blair spent a lot of time in the library, where Pete was writing a paper for his Magical Realism in the Caribbean class.
They’d exchanged flirty glances, and finally Pete invited her for coffee.

It was amazing how
easy
everything could be with Pete. For the first time in Blair’s nineteen years, her life felt like it made sense. She loved
her classes, had an adoring, handsome boyfriend, and had even found a surrogate family in the Carlsons.

For the past few days, they’d spent every waking hour with the family: his former US senator dad, Chappy; his Boston debutante
mom, Jane; his three older brothers, their wives, and assorted nephews and nieces Blair couldn’t even try to keep straight.
It sounded like a nightmare, but it was great. His dad was barrel-chested and red-faced and told bad jokes in a way that made
everyone crack up, and his mom would randomly recite poetry at the dinner table without being drunk. The brothers were friendly
and smart, their wives were nice, and even the kids were polite. So far, it had been a perfect holiday.