Because I'm Worth It Read online

“Whoever he is, he’s one lucky dude,” said a photographer.

  “I heard he dumped her. I guess she’s trying to win him back,” Isabel snickered to Kati.

  “Well, don’t look now, but I think that’s him, and he looks pissed,” Kati hissed back. Both girls turned to stare.

  Serena blew Aaron a kiss from the runway, but Aaron was too busy feeling hot and embarrassed about her T-shirt to even notice. He’d thought Serena would be nervous walking the runway with all those supermodels. He’d thought she’d need his moral support, but it was pretty obvious she was having the time of her life. She probably got a thrill out of hearing everyone in the tent whispering her name. Not him. Sure, he wanted to be famous—a famous rock star. Not famous for being the boy on Serena’s I LOVE AARON T-shirt.

  He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out his half-empty tin of herbal cigarettes. Before he could even open the tin, a security guard put his hand on his shoulder.

  “No smoking in the tents, sir.”

  Fuck this, Aaron mumbled under his breath. But he couldn’t just get up and leave while Serena was still onstage. He glanced at Blair in the seat next to him. She was biting her lip and clutching her stomach like she had gas or something.

  Blair wanted to cover her diamond-studded ears to block out the sound of everyone whispering Serena’s name. Those eyes! Those legs! That fantastic hair! It was completely nauseating, and the after-party was bound to be just more of the same. As soon as Serena skipped down the runway path marked TO GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE and off the stage to change outfits, Blair stood up to go.

  “I think I’m going to take off before the snow gets too fucking deep,” she announced to Aaron.

  “Yeah?” Aaron jumped to his feet. “I’ll help you find a cab.” Serena didn’t need him around. She’d probably be so surrounded by admirers during the after-party, he wouldn’t even get a chance to see her. She wouldn’t mind if he just quietly took off.

  Outside in Bryant Park the snow was already ankle deep. The lion statues on the steps of the public library looked even larger and more menacing blanketed in white.

  “Think I’ll just hop a train up to Scarsdale,” Aaron said, referring to the Westchester suburb where he’d lived with his mom before deciding to move in with his dad’s new family in the city last fall. He flicked open his Zippo and lit an herbal cigarette. “My buddies and I always get together out on the golf course when there’s a big storm like this. It’s a good time.”

  “Sounds like a fucking blast,” Blair replied disinterestedly.

  Fat, frozen flakes of snow landed on her mascara-coated lashes and she squinted her eyes, burying her hands in her black cashmere Les Best evening coat pockets as she searched for a cab. Fuck, it was freezing.

  “Want to come with me?” Aaron offered, even though Blair had been a total bitch lately. They were still stepbrother and stepsister—they could at least try to be friends.

  Blair grimaced. “No, thanks. I’m going to call this man I met. See if he wants to meet me somewhere for a drink or something.” She loved how the word man sounded so much more sophisticated than guy.

  “What man?” Aaron asked suspiciously. “Not that old dude from Yale you were with last night?”

  Blair stamped her feet to keep her toes from getting frostbitten inside her totally-wrong-for-the-weather Les Best Mary Janes. Why did Aaron always have to act so infuriatingly superior? “First of all, I could be meeting someone else. Second of all, what do you care anyway? And third of all, if it is him, so what?” She flung her hand in the air and waved it impatiently. It was only nine. Where the hell were all the fucking cabs?

  Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just guessing he’s like some big investment banker who gives lots of cash to Yale, and you’re flirting with him or whatever because you want to get in so badly. Which is pretty lame if you ask me.”

  “Actually, I didn’t ask,” Blair snapped back. “But maybe I should listen to Mr. Accepted-Early-At-Harvard-Even-Though-All-I-Do-Is-Sit-Around-In-My-Underwear-Drinking-Beer-And-Pretending-I-Play-In-A-Really-Cool-Band-Which-Actually-Sucks, since you obviously know everything.” A taxi screeched to a stop at the corner of Forty-third Street to let someone out. Blair made a dash for it. “Don’t fucking make judgments about something

  you know nothing about!” she shouted at Aaron, before jumping

  into the cab and pulling the door shut.

  Aaron shivered in his thin cotton jacket and hunched his shoulders into the bitter wind as he walked east on Forty-second Street to Grand Central Station. It would be good to just hang with the guys for a change. Women were a monumental pain in his vegan ass.

  But we’re oh, so worth it—right?

  way better than naked

  Dan tried not to stare at the models as they came out onto the runway during the Better Than Naked show wearing only pleated brown corduroy miniskirts with no tops on at all. Their skirts were so short he could even see the frilly white panties they were wearing underneath, which happened to be little girls’ vintage underwear from the nineteen-fifties and fit so snugly on the models that their butt cheeks were busting out of them. Instead of sitting down in the front row, where Rusty Klein had managed to snag him a seat between Stevie Nicks and superhip performance artist Vanessa Beecroft, Dan stood at the back of the Harrison Street Club, clutching his black leather-bound notebook and trying to look writerly in case Rusty Klein was somewhere nearby and was secretly studying him.

  The show was set to strange German folk music and there was straw scattered on the runway. Little boys with blond pageboy haircuts wearing lederhosen led bleating white goats around by leather leashes as impossibly tall models stomped by them, their bare breasts bobbing.

  Bestiality, Dan scribbled furtively in his notebook. The goats were crapping all over the place and he noticed that the hems of the models’ skirts had been shredded on purpose.

  Tears were drawn on their cheeks in iridescent blue eye pencil. Ruined milkmaids, Dan wrote, trying not to feel completely out of place. What the hell was he doing at a fashion show anyway?

  The twenty-something-year-old brunette next to him leaned over and tried to read what he was writing. “Who are you with?” she demanded. “Nylon? Time Out?” She was wearing pointy rhinestone-studded glasses fastened old-lady style to a gold chain around her neck and had the thickest bangs Dan had ever seen. “Why aren’t you seated with press?”

  Dan closed his black notebook before she could read any more. “I’m a poet,” he said importantly. “Rusty Klein invited me.”

  The woman didn’t seem that impressed. “What have you published lately?” she asked suspiciously.

  Dan tucked his notebook under his arm and smoothed down his new set of sideburns. One of the goats had gotten loose and jumped off the runway. Four security guards ran after it. “Actually, one of my more recent poems is in this week’s issue of The New Yorker. It’s called ‘Sluts.’”

  “No way!” the woman gushed in a loud whisper. She pulled her lavender leather Better Than Naked tote bag into her lap and retrieved her copy of The New Yorker. Flipping through it, she turned to page forty-two. “You don’t understand. I read this poem over the phone to all my girlfriends. I can’t believe you wrote it.”

  Dan didn’t know what to say. This was his first encounter with an actual fan and he felt simultaneously embarrassed and thrilled. “I’m glad you liked it,” he replied modestly.

  “Liked it?” the woman repeated. “It changed my life! Would you mind signing this for me?” she asked, thrusting the magazine into his lap.

  Dan shrugged and retrieved his pen. Daniel Humphrey, he scribbled just beside his poem, but his signature looked a little plain and impersonal so he added a squiggly little flourish underneath it. He’d scribbled over a few lines of the Gabriel Garcia Rhodes story, which seemed kind of like sacrilege, but who really cared, when he’d just signed his first autograph. He was famous—a real, genuine writer!

  “Thank you so, so much,” the
woman said, taking the magazine back. She pointed to his notebook. “Now you go ahead and keep writing,” she whispered reverently. “Forget I bothered you.”

  German folk music morphed into opera and the little boys left the runway leading their goats. Models floated in wearing long black wool capes, peacock blue suede thigh-high boots, and ostrich feather headdresses. They looked like characters out of a Lord of the Rings sequel.

  Dan flipped open his notebook and began to write. Good and bad witches, he scribbled. Hunting hungry wolves. He bit the end of his pen and then added, Wish I could smoke a fucking cigarette.

  v poses as a poser

  For her appearance at the Culture of Humanity by Jedediah Angel show at Highway 1 in Chelsea, Vanessa broke her tradition of wearing only black and borrowed Ruby’s red scoop-neck top with three-quarter-length sleeves. It was the same top she’d worn once before and gotten a lot of compliments on, probably because it was so low it revealed her soft, pale cleavage and a hint of her black lace bra. Vanessa had arrived late because her sister had insisted she take a cab, and of course the cab had gotten stuck in the snow near Union Square. While the driver yelled at the towing company on his cell phone with Lite FM blaring from the speakers, Vanessa had jumped ship. When she’d finally made it to the club, her ears had been frozen solid and she’d looked like a walking snowball. The fashion show had already started and she’d been sure they’d turn her away at the huge garage door that served as an entrance, but when she’d given her name to the girl at the door, a security guard with a flashlight had been appointed to personally escort Vanessa to her seat in the center of the front row. The chair had a card taped to it with CHRISTINA RICCI crossed out in black marker and VANESSA ABRAMS written in instead. Vanessa had never felt so special in all her life.

  The room was dark except for burning white foot-high candles lining the runway on either side. Models dressed in navy blue above-the-knee sailor dresses with white piping and gold buttons at the lapels held foghorns to their lips as the sound of a terrible storm at sea boomed out of the sound system. The white wall behind the runway was lit with a single spotlight, and on that wall was projected the New York film essay Vanessa had sent to NYU. The film was black and white and it took on a sort of nineteen-forties classiness paired with the models’ sailor dresses. And even though everyone there seemed to be taking this whole bogus fashion-at-sea thing way too seriously, Vanessa had to admit it was pretty cool to see her film up there in lights.

  The wafer-thin woman next to her flipped open her PalmPilot and typed in, Brilliant backdrop, with a long red fingernail. She was wearing an ID tag on her camel-colored cashmere sweater with the word Vogue printed on it, and her brown hair was cut in a short bob with thick, bronze-highlighted bangs. She continued to type. Note: Ask Jed where the film came from.

  Vanessa considered nudging her gently and saying, “I made it,” but she decided it would be more fun to stay quiet and see what happened. Maybe someone would detest the film and make a big stink about it and Vanessa would become known as the infamous filmmaker whose bitterly honest portrayal of New York had been a real downer at Fashion Week. She wondered how Dan was doing at the Better Than Naked show. She imagined him asking that hot new Brazilian super-model—Anike, or whatever her name was—for a light without even knowing who she was. That was the thing Vanessa most loved about Dan, his divine innocence.

  The film came to the part where she’d filmed two old men wearing matching red-and-black plaid wool jackets and black wool caps playing chess in Washington Square Park. One guy’s head bobbed against his chest, his burning cigar perched precariously on his sagging lower lip as he began to fall asleep. The other guy snapped his fingers to make sure his partner was asleep before moving the chess pieces around and nudging his sleeping friend awake again.

  Inside Highway 1 the sounds of the storm faded and boisterous big-band music began to play. A giant cardboard boat was hauled onto the stage by muscular male models pulling thick white ropes and wearing only simple navy blue briefs. The boat came to a stop and the gangplank was lowered. Out came the models, two at a time—there must have been a hundred of them, and how had they all fit into that boat?—all dressed in navy blue satin bra-and-panty sets, with white fish-net over-the-knee stockings, white elbow-length gloves and white suede over-the-knee boots. After marching down the gangplank with military-style efficiency they began a complicated dance that looked like a cross between air traffic control and water ballet. Suddenly the neat rows of gesticulating models parted to reveal a dapper dude with curly, shoulder-length red hair, wearing a white three-piece suit, carrying a jewel-encrusted gold cane, and tap-dancing.

  No joke.

  Red curls bouncing, he tap-danced right up to the end of the runway, stopped on a dime, and began to applaud the audience. Behind him the models stood on one leg, with the other knee raised high, like flamingos, applauding, too. Then the music stopped and the audience went wild.

  The redhead had to be Jedediah Angel, Vanessa decided, and he was standing directly in front of her. He took a deep bow, looking a bit like the Wizard of Oz in his tight white suit. Suddenly he pointed at her and began to whoop and clap, motioning for her to stand up. Vanessa shook her head, alarmed, but Jedediah Angel kept on beckoning to her. “Stand up, baby! Stand up!”

  The crowd was going crazy now. They didn’t even know who the hell Vanessa was, but if Jedediah Angel wanted her to bow, she must be somebody. Giving in, Vanessa stood up, her face burning with embarrassment and her shoulders shaking in an uncharacteristically nervous fit of the giggles as she bowed her head to acknowledge their applause.

  She could already hear Ken Mogul whispering in her ear, “Get used to it baby, you’ve rocked their world!” And even though it was kind of cool to have so many people acting like they worshipped her, she couldn’t wait to trade stories with Dan about what a farce the whole thing was.

  Unless of course he’d already eloped to the south of France with a hot nineteen-year-old Brazilian supermodel.

  Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.

  hey people!

  Let it snow!

  There are fourteen inches on the ground so far and here I am, snowed in at the hottest, most exclusive Fashion Week after-party ever, with my all-time favorite fashion designer, hundreds of gorgeous models and hunk-o-licious actors, the most discerning fashion magazine editors in the business, and five of fashion’s most avant-garde photographers. I honestly don’t care if the whole city shuts down because of the snow. I never want to leave!

  Sightings

  B waiting for her date in the corner of that romantic little bar in the new boutique hotel on Perry Street. S signing autographs at the Les Best after-party at Crème on Forty-third. C at the same party, surrounded by younger male models, also signing autographs—who is he pretending to be? N escorting our favorite Connecticut heiress home to her Greenwich mansion in her limo. J and her new best friend dashing through the snow to collect booty from Blockbuster and Hunan Wok on Broadway near J’s house—sounds like a party. D being swarmed by models at the Better Than Naked after-party at the Harrison Street Club. Were they just bumming cigarettes or did they all actually read his poem? V at the Jedediah Angel after-party at Highway 1, pretending to flirt with everyone in that delightfully banal way of hers.

  I just hope everyone is as ecstatic as I am about being stuck where they are until the weather clears. Remember, nothing warms you up faster than another person’s body heat.

  Oops, someone’s taking my photograph for the Style section this weekend, and my lips are in serious need of some shine. Gotta fly!

  You know you love me.

  gossip girl

  just like that scene in titanic

  “So how come Dan didn’t invite you?” Elise asked as she rolled a steamed dumpling around in a puddle of soy sauce.

  To weather the snowstorm, Elise and Jenny had gathere
d a feast of Chinese food and Oreos and videos they’d never heard of, since everything else at Blockbuster had been rented out. Now they were watching the New York Fashion Week coverage on the Metro Channel in the living room of Jenny’s sprawling, ramshackle Upper West Side apartment. Bizarrely enough, the camera had just panned over the audience at the Better Than Naked show, zooming in on Dan for a moment as he scribbled away furiously in his stupid black notebook.

  “Because I’m his little sister,” Jenny answered, stunned that she’d actually just seen her brother’s sallow, sideburned face live on TV. She’d known Dan was going to the show, but she hadn’t even bothered to ask if she could accompany him. He was so obsessed with being Mr. I’m-The-Next-Keats that he barely even noticed her existence anymore.

  The camera shifted to the Les Best tent in Bryant Park, where Serena van der Woodsen strutted down the runway wearing a cropped white baby tee with I LOVE AARON printed on it, her gray Constance Billard School uniform skirt, a red wool cape, and Les Best ankle boots. It looked like she was supposed to be a sexy version of Little Red Riding Hood or something.

  Not that anyone would ever pay money for a school uniform.

  “Hey, isn’t that our peer group leader? Serena van der Woodsen?” Elise pointed out.

  Jenny stuffed an entire Oreo into her mouth and nodded, her cheeks bulging. It was Serena all right. Looking as perfect as ever.

  “Quick, change the channel! There’s no way I can eat anything while I’m looking at those legs,” Elise squealed, tossing a beaded velvet throw pillow at the television.

  Jenny giggled and turned off the TV altogether. She picked up her I LOVE NY mug of Coke, glancing warily at the feast spread out on the old steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. The apartment was so filthy, she worried that at any moment a disgusting lobster-sized cockroach would drop out of the crumbling plaster in the ceiling, right into her cold sesame noodles. She noticed Elise hadn’t actually ingested any food yet. “You don’t have a problem eating in front of me, do you?” Jenny picked up a pair of chopsticks and twirled them around in the cardboard container of noodles. “I promise I won’t even look at you.”