You're the One That I Want (2 page)

Not that they'd ever have the guts to even say hi to her.

"Why don't you guys just get a room at the Mandarin? It's only a few blocks away," Serena joked when she reached her friends on the bench.

Nate and Blair looked up with happy, dazed expressions on their faces.

"Did you do the thing?" Serena asked Blair in that way only best friends can understand.

"Uh-huh," Blair nodded. "I didn't talk for very long, though, because Nate was totally listening."

"Was not!" Nate protested.

Serena glanced at Nate. "I just wanted to make sure Blair wasn't freaking out too much. I should have known you'd be able to calm her down."

Blair took a sip of lemonade. "Did you hear anything yet?"

Serena swiped the lemonade away from her. "No, for the fiftieth time today, I didn't hear anything yet." She took a drink and then wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her pale pink Tocca blouse. "Did you?"

Blair shook her head. Then she had an idea. "Hey, why don't we keep all our letters and then open them together? You know, so we can, like, freak out at the same time?"

Serena took another swig of lemonade. It sounded like the worst idea she'd ever heard, but she was willing to risk getting her eyes clawed out to make her friend happy. "Okay," she agreed reluctantly.

Nate didn't say anything. No way did he want to join that little party. He held out his flask to Serena. "You want?"

She wrinkled her perfect nose and wiggled her unpolished toes. "Nan. I'm late for my pedicure. See you guys." Then she turned and walked south toward the end of the park, taking the half-empty can of lemonade with her.

She had a habit of picking things up without even realizing she was doing it. Lemonade, boys . . .

d rescues v, or the other way around

Vanessa waited patiently as Chuck Bass adjusted the red collar around the neck of his pet snow monkey so that the mono-Crammed 5 was visible to the camera. Chuck had wandered up to the fountain right after Blair left. He didn't even say hello, just sat down on the towel with his monkey and started talking.

"NYU better let me the fuck in, because I want to stay in the apartment my parents just bought me. And then me and Sweetie can stay together." Chuck ran his hands over the monkey's short white coat, his gold monogrammed pinky ring flashing in the sunlight. "I know he's only a monkey, but he's my best friend." Vanessa zoomed in on the Prada logo on Chuck's black leather man-sandals. His toenails were freshly buffed, and a thin gold anklet hung loosely from his salon-tanned ankle. She'd been accepted early admission to NYU back in January. The idea that she and Chuck might be classmates next year was more than a little disturbing.

'"Course I'll rent a place wherever I go," Chuck contin-ued. "But the decorator just did my apartment up in Armani Casa, and come on, who the fuck wants to live somewhere like Provi-fucking-dence, Rhode Island?"

Daniel Humphrey tossed the remains of his Camel cigarette into a pile of wet green leaves on the edge of the promenade. Zeke Freedman and a bunch of his other Riverside Prep class-mates were playing roller hockey, and for a brief second he con-sidered joining them. After all, Zeke used to be his best friend--before Dan hooked up with Vanessa Abrams, his other best friend. Now he was completely friendless, and that all seemed like a long time ago. He turned away, lit another Camel, and continued his ritual lonely after-school prowl across the park.

Bethesda Fountain on a sunny day wasn't really his scene--too many stoner jocks running around shirtless and tan girls listening to their iPods in Missoni bikinis--but it was a nice day, and he had nowhere else to be.

There were his little sister, Jenny, and her Constance Billard School friend Elise Wells, giving each other pedicures. There was that asshole Chuck Bass from his class at Riverside, sprawled at the base of the fountain with his mon-key in his lap, talking to--

Dan ran a shaky hand through his overgrown boho-poet haircut and took a long drag on his cigarette. Vanessa hated the sun and hated guys like Chuck even more, but she'd put up with anything to make a good film. The willingness to suf-fer for their art was one of the many things she and Dan had in common.

He rifled through his messenger bag and pulled out a pen and the black leather-bound notebook he always carried, jot-ting down a few lines about the way Vanessa had worn the toes of her boots down until the metal showed through. Maybe it was the start of a new poem.

black

steel-toed boots

dead

pigeons dirty rain

"I'm making a documentary, if you want to be in it," Vanessa called over to him, cutting off Chuck in midsentence. Dan was wearing a cigarette-burned white undershirt and baggy tan cords. He looked like the same scruffy, disheveled poet she'd always known and loved. After his poem "Sluts" had been published in The New Yorker, Dan had started pay-ing more attention to his look, buying clothes at French bou-tiques like Agnes B. and APC. It was right about then that he'd started cheating on Vanessa with that anorexic, yellow-toothed, poet-whore Mystery Craze. But Mystery was his-tory, and maybe the old Dan was back for good.

The idea of sitting down and talking to Vanessa face-to-face was kind of unnerving, but perhaps if they just focused on the film, they wouldn't have to dig up all the ugly stuff. Dan glanced at Chuck, who was brushing his monkey with a child-sized pink tortoiseshell Mason Pearson hairbrush. "Are you--?"

"We're done." Vanessa dismissed Chuck. "Come back when you hear something."

Of course she didn't even have to say that. Chuck would be back. They all would. They couldn't help themselves. Getting self-absorbed people to dish their own dirt is so easy, it should be illegal.

"But I didn't get to the part about the publicist I hired for Sweetie," Chuck pouted. "We're going to get him on TV--"

"Save it," Vanessa barked. She tugged on the sleeve of her black button-down shirt and pretended to glance at her watch, when Dan knew for a fact she didn't even own one. "Next."

Chuck stood up and stalked away with his monkey on his shoulder. Palms dripping with nervous sweat, Dan took his place. "So what's the film about?" he asked. A girl lazing by the fountain dropped her lighter and Vanessa kicked it back with her boot. "I'm not sure yet. I mean, it has something to do with how crazy everyone is right now. You know, about college and everything," she explained. "But it's not just about that."

"Uh-huh." Dan nodded. Nothing Vanessa did was ever that simple. He dug around in his bag for his Camels and lit another one. "I have been kind of anxious about the mail lately," he admitted.

Vanessa peered into the camera and began to record. Dan's pale face looked 'so vulnerable in the sunlight, it was hard to believe he'd cheated on her--that he was capable of doing anything mean. "Go on."

"I think the thing that bugs me most is hearing the guys in my class say, 'Dude, I'm gonna miss you next year.'" Dan took, a long drag on his cigarette. The apple-whiteness of Vanessa's inner arm made him forget what he was talking about. Apple-white, that was good.

"Go on," Vanessa prompted.

Dan blew smoke directly into the camera. "No one's going to miss me, and I'm not going to miss anyone, except for my dad and maybe my sister." He paused and swallowed hard. And you and your apple-white arms, he wanted to add, but decided he'd better write it down instead.

Vanessa tried to keep quiet, but Dan's little half-baked speech had moved her, even without the mention of her arms. "No one's going to miss me either," she declared, keep-ing her face pressed firmly against the viewfinder so they couldn't make eye contact.

Dan ashed on the ground and rubbed it in with the heel of one of his scuffed blue Pumas. It felt weird to be talking to Vanessa in such a removed way when a little over a month ago they'd been in love and he'd had sex for the very first time. "I'll miss you," he admitted quietly. "I already miss you."

Why'd he have to be so goddamn cute?

Vanessa turned off the camera before she could say any-thing too revealing. "Camera's out of juice," she told him brusquely. "Maybe you could come back another day," she added, wishing she didn't always sound like such a bitch.

Dan pulled himself to his feet and hitched his messenger bag over his shoulder. "Good seeing you," he replied with a shy smile.

Unable to restrain herself, Vanessa smiled back. "You too." She hesitated. "Promise you'll come back when you hear any news?"

It was kind of nice to see her smile at him again. "I promise," Dan said earnestly, before loping back down the promenade.

Maybe she was only adjusting the lens, but it kind of looked like Vanessa was checking out his butt through the camera as he walked away.

oh, to be young and worry-free

"So nice of your brother, Daniel, to stop by," Elise Wells com-mented sarcastically to Jenny Humphrey. She stretched her long, freckled arms up over her head and then let them fall to her sides. "I think he's afraid of me."

Jenny removed her feet from Elise's lap and examined her freshly painted toes. Elise had smeared MAC New York Apple red polish all over her pinky toe, where the nail was supertiny, and it looked like she'd bludgeoned her foot with a hammer. "Dan's been acting like a freak lately," she noted. "And I hate to break it to you, but I don't think it has any-thing to do with you. He's supposed to hear back from col-leges this week."

The two girls were seated on the opposite side of Bethesda Fountain from where Vanessa had set up her camera. Jenny shielded her eyes from the sun and peered over the fountain's rim to see what was going on.

Vanessa was filming Nicki Button now--another Constance Billard senior. It was common knowledge that Nicki had had two nose jobs. If you lined up her yearbook picture from the last three years, you could totally tell. "She's only interviewing seniors," Elise stated. She tucked her thick, strawlike blond bob behind her freckled ears. "I asked her at school during recess."

Jenny frowned. How come the seniors always got to do all the cool stuff? She pulled her bra down where it always rode up under her arms. Trickles of sweat had collected in the bra's cups, making it feel more like a wet suit than one of Bali's supersupportive comfort bras for big-breasted women. "It's not like I want to be in her stupid movie anyway," she muttered.

"Right," Elise scoffed. "Like you don't always try to copy everything Serena van der Woodsen does?"

Hello, meanness?

Jenny hugged her knees to her chest and glared at Elise defensively. Was she an internationally reknowned model? Was she blond? Did she wear a knee-length Burberry trench coat and smoke imported French cigarettes and walk around looking clueless while boys stared at her with their tongues wagging? Was she secretly the smartest girl in her class? No!

Actually, Jenny was the smartest girl in her class, but it was no secret.

"Name one thing I've done that Serena's done."

Elise unscrewed the little jar of nail polish that was resting on the fountain's edge and began painting her fingernails. The color looked garish and inappropriate against her pale, freckled skin. "It's not really what you've done. . . ." Her voice trailed off. "It's just how you're always so buddy-buddy with her during peer group. You know, like you want everyone to know you're friends with this model. And how you're always trying on all these fancy clothes in stores, like you'd really have anywhere to wear them, the way Serena does." She didn't even mention Jenny's brief dalliance with Nate Archibald, which had been such a blatant case of a freshman girl getting in over her head with an older guy, it was too embarrassing to bring up.

A soccer ball suddenly appeared out of nowhere and bounced off of Jenny's head. "Ow!" she exclaimed angrily, her face turning bright red. She stood up and shoved her feet into the pink suede DKNY mules she'd bought at the latest Bloomie's sale, messing up her still-wet toenails even more. "I don't know what your problem is," she snapped at Elise, "but I'd so much rather hang out with my freak of a brother than listen to you criticize me."

Infuriatingly enough, Elise kept on painting her fingernails.

"Fine," Jenny huffed, stomping down the steps and away from the fountain toward Central Park West. Copy Serena, she scoffed, her stupendous double-Ds bobbing with each step. Like I could even come close.

But Jenny wasn't one to take challenges lightly, and nothing would please her more than to prove to Elise that she wasn't just some wanna-be, hopelessly trying to copy Serena and fail-ing every time. A boy whistled at her as she bobbed by, and she flipped her brown curly hair back from her face, pretending to ignore him. She might not be six feet tall and blond and gor-geous, but boys still whistled at her. That meant she had some-thing, didn't it? And not all models were tall and blond. She lifted her chin and added a little strut to her walk, imitating the way the models walked in the runway shows she'd watched on the Metro Channel. Elise was going to eat her words when she saw Jenny's face on the pages of Vogue and Elle. She'd be such a success, even Serena would be jealous.

Although Serena wouldn't be too jealous of the pile of dog poop Jenny almost stepped in while trying to be the next Gisele. gossipgirl.co.uk

topics previous next post a question reply Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.

HEY, PEOPLE!

The worst idea ever

So it's Thursday already and no one's heard anything yet. Hello?? And it's all due to this annoyingly dumb idea the U.S. Postal Service had. Apparently last year at this time, the postal service got millions of calls from college-bound seniors accusing them of losing their admissions letters and even tampering with the content of the letters. Right, like some mailman really cares if you got into Princeton or not. So this year they decided to try something called the National College Admission Letter Pool, which sounds a lot more intelligent than it really is. Basically it means that colleges are required to send their acceptance let-ters out in bundles according to zip code so the post office can deliver them all at once.