You're the One That I Want (9 page)

Whoopee!

"Are you hungry?" Drew asked. "The dining hall in my dorm actually has pretty decent food. I could take you through one of the bigger libraries and then we could walk over and get lunch and check out the dorm rooms. It's a coed dorm, so . . ." He blushed again and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

"Perfect," Serena breathed.

Drew led her out of the admissions office and down a long walkway that cut through Harvard Yard. The greener-than-green grass was crawling with students playing Frisbee or reading books. A professor corrected papers under a maple tree.

"This is Widener, the humanities library," Drew said as Serena followed him up the building's stately steps. "I'm a music-chemistry double major, so I don't really spend much time in here," he explained, holding the door open for her. They stepped inside the quiet, cool space, and Drew pointed to a locked glass case standing against the far wall. "They have a pretty amazing collection of original manuscripts here. You know, ancient Greek papyri and muff."

Papyri?

Drew stood patiently with his hands in the pockets of his neatly creased corduroys, waiting for her to ask questions about the library. But Serena was too absorbed in him. She'd already decided Drew was cute, but a boy who used words like papyri with a completely straight face was completely irresistible!

She twirled a strand of blond hair around her finger and stared up at the library's ceiling as if fascinated by its design. "You're a music major? Do you play an instrument?"

Drew looked down at the floor and muttered something inaudible.

She took a step closer. "Sorry?"

He cleared his throat. "The xylophone. I play xylophone, in the orchestra."

And she'd thought the xylophone was just a toy instru-ment invented so there'd be at least one English word that began with the letter x! Serena clapped her hands together in delight. "Can I hear you play?" Drew smiled hesitantly. "I have practice at three, but I'm only just learning. You probably wouldn't want to stick around--"

Serena had ordered a car to drive her out to Providence that afternoon to check out Brown. Her brother, Erik, went there and was going to take her around campus for once instead of just getting her drunk with his roommates in his off-campus house. Still, it was only Erik. He'd understand if she was late.

When you're seventeen and blond and beautiful, you can always late.

"Of course I'll stick around." She took hold of Drew's arm and pulled him out the library door. "Come on, I'm starving!"

Who needed libraries full of papyri when Harvard had so much more to offer?

b stands out at g-town

"My name is Rebecca Reilly and I'll be your host this week-end. Here's a name tag and a map and a whistle. Please wear the name tag and keep the map and whistle with you at all times."

Blair stared at the short, perky, fake blond girl in front of her. She had nothing against perkiness per se. She her-self even resorted to perkiness when she was trying to get a designer like Kate Spade to donate the gift bags for one of the big benefit parties she chaired, or when she needed a teacher to let her out early for a Chloe sample sale. But genuine perkiness among your peers was just plain sad and desperate.

"A whistle?" Blair repeated.

The entire plane ride down she'd been building this trip up as a big ego boost. She'd spend the day with some geeky tour guide who'd make her feel sophisticated and intelligent in comparison. Later on she'd get a room at the DC Ritz-Carlton or some equally grand hotel and spend the night soaking in her own private hot tub, quaffing champagne and indulging in more phone sex with Nate.

"Georgetown gives all its women students whistles. We have a very strong women's advocacy group here. And there have been no campus rapes or stalkings in the past two years!" Rebecca announced in her southern twang. She beamed up at Blair through thick, blue-mascaraed lashes. Her permed, bleached-blond hair smelled of Finesse hair products, and her white leather Reeboks were so new, they looked like they'd never been worn outside the mall.

Blair flicked a stray hair off the sleeve of her new pink Marni suit jacket. "I need to book a hotel room for tonight-Rebecca grabbed her arm. "Don't be silly, sugar. You're staying with me and my girls. We have a quad that's just deeelish, and you have absolutely the bestest ever timing, because tonight we're having our girls-only Southern Belles partay!"

Hello? Since when was girls-only anyone's idea of a partay?

"Great," Blair responded weakly. If only she'd thought to book a room in advance. She looked around at the other visi-tors being greeted by their hosts. Everyone, hosts and visitors alike, looked strangely similar to Rebecca. Like they'd all grown up in suburban mall towns where everyone was blond and happy and clean and uncomplicated. Blair felt like a dark-haired, pixie-cutted, stylishly dressed, cynical and jaded alien among them.

Actually, it was just the sort of ego boost she'd been look-ing forward to. See, I am different and smarter and better than these girls, she told herself. At least she'd never stooped to dyeing her naturally walnut-colored locks blond.

"Come on, let's start the tour!" Rebecca grabbed Blair's hand like they were four years old and pulled her out of the admissions house. Sun glistened on the Potomac River, and the spires of the university's ancient Jesuit chapel towered majestically from the hilltop. Blair had to admit that the old Georgetown University campus was beautiful, and the town of Georgetown was way nicer and cleaner than New Haven. But it definitely lacked the unique, we're-the-smartest-kids-in-the-class air of Yale.

"Up ahead on your left you'll see a big modern structure. That's our architectural award-winning Lauinger Library, with the largest collection of . . ." Rebecca walked backwards ahead of Blair down a flagstone walkway, burbling boring facts about Georgetown. Blair ignored her, keeping her eyes focused on the human traffic crisscrossing the main campus. Boys and girls dressed head-to-toe in Brooks Brothers or Ann Taylor marched purposefully toward the library, their Coach bags bulging with books. Blair took schoolwork seri-ously, but it was Saturday. Didn't these people have anything better to do?

Rebecca stopped suddenly and pressed her palm against her forehead. "Sugar, I am so hungover. This walking back-wards thing is getting me so dizzy, I might puke!"

Blair wanted to say something about how the entire situa-tion made her want to puke, but then again, so did most situ-ations. "Why don't we just sit down somewhere and have a ... coffee," she suggested, pleased with how normal and friendly she sounded, when what she could really use was a very strong vodka martini.

Rebecca threw her arms around Blair's neck. "A girl after my own heart!" she squealed. "I'm absolutely addicted to caramel macchiatos, aren't you?"

Yuck.

It was only two o'clock. Coffee would have to do. "Is there someplace close by?"

Rebecca slipped her arm through Blair's. "There sure is!" She whipped out her pink-and-white sparkly Nokia phone. "Just give me a minute to round up the girls. Why not get our Southern Belles partly started earlay?"

Blair grimaced and fingered the cell phone in her mint green Prada bubble bag. Already she was homesick for Nate. If only she'd borrowed the silver flask he carried around, then she'd at least have a memento of him, and a shot of vodka for her macchiato.

Rebecca looked up from the little telethon she was having with her friends. She held her hand over the mouthpiece. "They're in a bar already," she whispered, her cheeks flushing a perky, embarrassed pink. "It's down on M Street. Do you mind if we meet them there?"

"Okay," Blair agreed readily. Give her a cocktail and a cig-arette and she could be happy in almost any company.

how badly do they want him?

"Dude, you never told me the coaches were all chicks," Jeremy Scott Tompkinson, one of Nate's best buddies, hissed as he sprinted past Nate to retrieve a long pass.

Nate twirled his lacrosse stick overhead and waited until Jeremy had overshot before stepping in to catch the pass him-self. It was a show-off kind of maneuver, but it was effective. Besides, he was supposed to be showing off. He tossed the ball back to Jeremy, demonstrating his teamwork skills the way Coach Michaels had asked him to. Then the two boys ran back to center field together.

"The tall one's the Yale coach. The short one is the Brown admissions chick who interviewed me," Nate explained. "The Brown coach couldn't make it because of a game."

"But dude, they're all chicks!" Jeremy said again, his shaggy rock star haircut flapping around in the breeze as he jogged away. "No wonder you got in!"

Nate grinned to himself as he wiped the sweat from his brow. It might have been nice to believe he was completely oblivious to his perfection, but the truth was, he knew exactly how hot he was. He just wasn't an asshole about it.

From the sidelines the two women watched him intently. Then Coach Michaels blew the whistle. "Gotta quit early today, boys!" the coach shouted, spitting into the grass. "Wife and I are celebrating our fortieth anniversary tonight." He tucked his gnarled hands into his forest green Lands' End windbreaker and nodded at Nate before spitting into the grass once more. "Come on, Archibald."

Nate followed the coach over to where the two university women were standing.

"It'd be great to have our own pitch," Coach Michaels told the women. He gestured at the stretch of Central Park grass where Nate's teammates were dismantling the goals. "But when you play in the city, you use what you've got." As if they really had it rough.

On a bench nearby, four tenth-grade girls in green plaid Seaton Arms uniforms giggled and whispered to one another, their eyes fixed longingly on Nate. "At least in the park you always have an audience," the Yale coach observed. She was tall and horsey-looking, with a mane of blond hair and a handsome, angular face. A street vendor was selling drinks and ice cream from a cart parked near the benches. She unzipped the front pocket of her navy blue backpack with the gray Yale bulldog decal on it. "Can I buy you two a Gatorade or something?"

"No thanks, ma'am. Gotta get home to the wife." Coach Michaels shook hands with the two women and then clapped Nate on the back. "He's a talented boy. Let me know if you have any questions."

The coach took off, and Nate whacked at the new spring grass with his lacrosse stick. "I better get home and shower," he mumbled, unsure of what the two women had planned. Brigid, his interviewer from Brown, was watching him expec-tantly. Brigid had left a message on his cell phone asking him to meet her in the lobby of the Warwick New York Hotel at live o'clock that afternoon to "discuss his options."

Whatever that meant.

The coach from Yale handed him a blue nylon sports bag with a big white leather Y embossed on it. "Compliments of the team," she said. "Your jersey and shorts and stuff are all in there. Jockstrap. Even socks."

Brigid's face fell. Guess she hadn't thought of that. "Are we still on for later?" she asked quickly. "I could buy you din-ner." Her hair was strawberry blond, which Nate hadn't remembered from when he met her in October, and he won-dered if she'd dyed it. Actually, she was a lot cuter than he remembered and he kind of liked that she hadn't tried to seduce him with a whole bag full of Brown sweatshirts and shit. Even if he decided to go to Yale, did he really need a Yale-issue jockstrap?

"I'll be there," he said. Then he held out his hand to the Yale coach. "Thanks for coming down."

But the coach wasn't giving up that easily. "How 'bout I take you to brunch around eleven tomorrow? I'm in the Hotel Wales on Madison--Sarabeth's is right downstairs. Their pancakes are wicked good."

Nate noticed the Yale coach had a seriously nice chest-- big, but firm. She looked like one of those hot Olympic vol-leyball players. He slung the Yale bag over his shoulder. "Sure," he agreed. "Brunch sounds good."

It was kind of a head trip to be schmoozed this hard by two of the hardest-to-get-into colleges in the country, and it might be fun to see just how badly they wanted him.

upperwestsiderfliesthecoop

"Tell me honestly, is this obscene?" Jenny asked. Vanessa was perched on the edge of Jenny's bed filming her while she selected an outfit for her upcoming photo shoot. Vanessa was supposed to be helping Dan pack, but he'd discovered a note-book full of poems he'd written back when he was thirteen and was busy hunting for some recyclable poetic gem. Good luck with that.

Jenny had psyched herself up to appear at the photo shoot without a bra, something she never did, at least not in public. Not only that, she'd decided to wear a light blue T-shirt that was kind of tight. "So, what do you think?"

"Yes, it's obscene," Vanessa replied matter-of-factly, care-ful to keep the camera focused above Jenny's shoulders so her ratings wouldn't go from PG-13 to NC-17.

"Really?" Jenny turned around to check out her butt in the mirror on the back of her closet door. Her new Earl jeans made her legs look so much longer than her other jeans did. It was a remarkable feat of engineering.

Vanessa panned around the room. It was a typical adolescent girl's room, decorated in pink and white, with a collage of pic-tures ripped out of fashion magazines tacked to the wall and a bookshelf strewn with teen fiction and half-dressed Barbies that never got thrown out. The art on the walls was definitely unique, though. A perfect replica of Klimt's The Kiss, an impressive copy of van Gogh's Windmills, and a stunning O'Keeffe-like poppy-- nil painstakingly painted by Jenny herself. Vanessa panned back to her subject. "Why don't you try a black shirt?" she suggested. "And a bra."

Jenny's face fell. "It's that bad?"

Her dad appeared in her open doorway, the long pieces of his wiry gray hair pulled up on top of his head in one of Jenny's scrunchies. "Jesus, girl, put a sweater on or some-thing," Rufus gasped. "What will the neighbors think?"

Jenny knew her dad was playing around, but it was pretty clear what the general consensus was. She pulled a sweatshirt out of her closet and pulled it on over her head. "Thanks, people. It's so nice to know you care," she said, glaring at her dad. "Any chance I could move into your place, too?" she asked Vanessa.