Nobody Does It Better Read online

  Oh, well.

  “I'm sick,” he lied into the intercom. “It's really contagious. I've missed the whole week of school.”

  “It's okay, I'm sick too!” Lexie responded brightly. She coughed to demonstrate just how sick she really was. “We can share our germs!”

  What fun!

  Nate had just heisted a Hummer, but when Lexie buzzed he'd gotten distracted and the cops had gone right up his ass. He kicked the Xbox controls across the room and licked his bong-chapped lips. His mouth felt like it was coated with pot-flavored road tar, and he hadn't changed his shirt in who knew how many days.

  “I smell,” he confided into the speaker. “Seriously. It's bad.”

  “We'll 'av a bath,” Lexie told him gaily. “Buzz me in. I'll give you a mah-ssage, bay-bee,” she added, sounding even more French than she'd sounded only a moment ago.

  Nate could tell she wasn't going to give up, and it wasn't like Blair wasn't cheating on him right then too. Besides, Lexie was hot and obviously desperate for it, and he was seriously bored.

  “Okay,” he replied slowly, about to press the buzzer to let her in.

  “Oh, I love you!” Lexie cried into the intercom.

  Nate blinked slowly. Did she say love? He let his hand drop. Girls—all they ever seemed to do was fall in love with him and get him into trouble. Blair, Serena, Jennifer, Georgie, and now this horny, fake-accented, hippie French chick, Lexie.

  Wait, is this, like, another epiphany?

  The thing was, he was about to graduate and go off to Yale. He wanted to hang out with the girls he'd grown up with and always known and loved. Not some new chick.

  Especially not one who didn't even speak the same language.

  “Look, I'm grounded,” he said firmly. “Go home.”

  “Mais non!” Lexie wailed, starting to cry.

  Mais oui.

  Will S Own up or Chicken Out?

  The door to Vanessa and Blair's apartment stood open. Serena stepped inside, her freshly glossed mouth agape at how changed it was since Vanessa's birthday party. Only a few weeks ago there had been black sheets hanging in the windows and plaster crumbling onto the barely furnished floors. Now it was freshly painted and filled with cool modern furniture. Lemongrass-scented candles burned on the coffee table, and cool black-and-white toile curtains billowed from the open windows in the living room.

  “Whoa,” she gasped.

  “I know,” Vanessa called over from the open kitchen where she was busy filling little ceramic bowls with Greek olives, baby carrots, and tamari-roasted almonds so their guests would have something to munch on before the pizza arrived. “Can you believe it?” She thrust her pale leg into the air and waggled her foot so Serena could see that she'd borrowed Blair's wedge-soled black patent leather Sigerson Morrison Mary Janes. “Like my shoes?”

  Blair padded barefoot out of the bedroom with an empty tumbler of ice in her hand, looking very Williamsburg in a tight black T-shirt, a short black Seven jeans skirt, and mod silvery pink lipstick. She kissed Serena's cheek. “Isn't it great?” she asked, looking genuinely thrilled.

  While her cab idled in traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge on the ride over, Serena had geared herself up to tell Blair that she'd decided to go to Yale next year. But now that they were face-to-face, she could feel herself chickening out.

  She dipped her hand into Blair's glass and stole a vodka tonic-soaked ice cube. “I hope you took before and after pictures.”

  “Don't worry.” Vanessa stomped out of the kitchen in Blair's shoes and handed Serena a vodka tonic of her own. “I even got the painters' butt cracks.”

  Of course she did.

  The three girls sat down on Ruby's old futon sofa, which had been refurbished with a new birch frame and a new gray faux-suede cover.

  “So what happened with Damian?” Blair wanted to know. “I thought we were going to be reading about you guys in the paper tomorrow.”

  Serena rolled the legs of her jeans up to her bony knees. “Well, he's good-looking and everything, but …” She hesitated and rolled her pant legs back down again. Then she took a sip of her drink and quickly changed the subject. “Who else is coming over tonight anyway?”

  Blair bit her lip. It hadn't really occurred to her that Serena might ever be the odd one out. “You're not going to like this, but I kind of invited that Stanford Parris kid from the Yale party? And Aaron—you know, my stepbrother? I think he and Vanessa are, like, made for each other.”

  Vanessa took a huge gulp of her rum and Coke. “We'll see,” she belched loudly.

  Serena's huge, dark blue eyes shone as she digested this information. She'd actually been in love with Aaron for a week or two that winter, but enough time had passed now that she could handle hanging out with him on a just-friends basis. And Blair was right—Vanessa and Aaron were perfect for each other. “Cool,” she told her friend graciously, even though she really had thought that Stan 5 guy was a conceited jerk.

  The downstairs buzzer rang and Blair and Vanessa both shot out of their seats and bolted to the window overlooking the street. Aaron Rose and Stanford Parris V were standing on the sidewalk, each looking dubiously up at the second-floor apartment.

  “Oh my God, they're here!” the oddly paired roommates squealed in unison.

  All of a sudden Serena felt like the chaperone at a junior-high sleepover party. She rolled her eyes. “Do you girls want me to get the door so you can go fix your hair or something?” she offered jokingly.

  “Yes, please!” Blair cried. She grabbed Vanessa's arm and dragged her toward the bathroom.

  Serena chewed on a piece of ice and pressed play on Vanessa's CD player as she waited for the boys to mount the stairs. The Raves song “Ice Cream” came on and she quickly selected the next disc—one of Ruby's weird German disco albums.

  Someone knocked on the door and she hurried over to answer it. Now if they could just avoid the topic of college for the rest of the evening …

  Not likely.

  Way to Alienate your Sister and Lose your Job

  Dan would have been perfectly happy eating sushi with Monique and taking in an old French film down at that artsy movie theater on Twelfth Street. But Monique had insisted that they could slip into Damian's party unnoticed, steal a bottle of champagne and a few cigars, and then creep out onto one of the fire escapes and have a party of their own.

  Bedford Street was exactly the kind of über-cool, exclusive, West Village neighborhood Dan envisioned himself living in when he became an absurdly famous rock star, and it felt extremely cool to swagger down the street with gorgeous Monique on his arm. She was wearing an ankle-length, completely see-through, white silk sundress and white sandals, and he was wearing his favorite pair of worn-in rust-colored corduroys and a soft black T-shirt. He thought they looked pretty good together.

  Guess no one told him about the white thing either.

  The door to Damian's town house was standing open and the scent of shrimp pad Thai wafted out of it. Before they reached the top of the white marble steps, Dan distinctly heard the voice of his sister, Jenny. And she wasn't talking—she was singing.

  Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me!

  Dan let go of Monique's hand and blinked in the bright whiteness. His fingers trembled and his palms began to sweat. Damian's entire place was white, white, white. Even the other guests at the party were wearing white. Sure, it was cool. He just wished someone had told him.

  Jenny's voice continued to blare out of the stereo.

  Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me!

  “Hey,” Dan called unevenly. He walked over to where Jenny sat on the white sectional sofa, her butt in Lloyd's lap and her calves resting on Damian's knees. “What's going on? Dad told me you were spending the weekend up at Elise's country house.”

  Jenny giggled, obviously enthralled with her own craftiness. “Elise is in the country.” She giggled and leaned back against Lloyd's chest. “But I'm here. Dad's so totally gullibl
e.”

  Dan didn't like the idea of Jenny lying to their dad. Sure, he'd told his share of harmless untruths, but little sisters were supposed to be pure and innocent and true, not lying schemers who sat on older guys' laps, flirting their heads off while dressed in flimsy, see-through white undershirts and a pair of some guy's boxer shorts. He would have written a poem about how she kind of reminded him of Ophelia, except he was too friggin' pissed off.

  “With doz breasts, you must get away with murder!” Monique pointed at Jenny's barely clad boobs.

  Dan's hands were shaking uncontrollably now. He reached for the pack of Camels in his back pocket and thrust one in his mouth. “I don't even know what you're doing here,” he growled at his sister with the unlit cigarette between his teeth. “This is my band,” he added, sounding completely immature.

  Damian raised his nicely arched strawberry blond eyebrows. “Actually, Jenny is singing for us now.”

  Dan waited for Damian to bust into a fit of giggles and tell him he was joking, but Damian kept a straight face.

  “Dad's always saying I need a job to support my shopping habit,” Jenny gushed, her face shiny with excitement and full of adorable dimples.

  “And we decided we need a softer sound,” Lloyd added, stroking Jenny's curly hair. “Of course, we'll still use your songs. Just with Jennifer's voice.”

  Excusez-moi?

  Dan lit his cigarette with his neon green plastic Bic and tossed the lighter on the white sofa out of sheer rebellion. The way Damian was holding Jenny's bare feet while not wearing a shirt over his well-developed, manly chest was totally infuriating.

  Damian eyed Monique warily. “I thought you went back to St. Barts, sweetie.”

  Monique grinned. “Vell, I have been trying to get Dan to go there with me, but he says he has to finish school first.” She rolled her eyes. “Boring.”

  “Serena van der Woodsen was here,” Jenny told her brother. “But she left. Not that you care.”

  “And she's prettier than you, Monique,” Lloyd added bitchily. He squeezed Jenny around the waist. “But not nearly as cute as you, dumplin'.”

  Dan sucked furiously on his cigarette, trying desperately not to scream his fucking head off. It would have been nice to see Serena, but he kind of had other things on his mind. “Uh, Damian, could I talk to you for a minute?” he demanded between gritted teeth.

  “Ciao, ciao, darling!” Monique called to someone across the room and drifted away from Dan to smother a bald Moby look-alike in a white linen tracksuit with her wet, pine nut-scented kisses.

  Dan waited for Damian to remove his hands from Jenny's feet, stand up, put a shirt on, and talk to him in private, like a man.

  Yeah.

  But Damian stayed where he was. “Anything you need to say can be said in front of Lloyd and your big sister. We're all family, right?”

  Big sister?

  Dan's free hand closed in a sweaty fist. “Jenny's not my big sister,” he hissed. “I'm turning eighteen in two weeks. She'll be fifteen in July.”

  “Thanks a lot!” Jenny complained.

  Damian and Lloyd's eyes bulged a little bit, but they didn't say anything. Then Lloyd cracked a grin. “Well, at least she's not married.”

  Damian elbowed him in the ribs. “I'll handle this.” He pulled a tiny bottle of Stoli out of his back pocket and took a swig. His red-blond hair was shorter than it had been only a week ago, and more stylishly tousled.

  Maybe that was because he had it cut by Sally Hershberger only yesterday?

  “Dan,” Damian continued. “You sang like shit last Saturday. And you basically threw up onstage. Then you hooked up with my wife.”

  Wife?

  Dan's stomach dropped. Monique had never said anything about being anyone's wife. He had a sudden urge to take a very long cold shower.

  “We're estranged,” Damian clarified.

  Oh, well, that's a relief.

  “I respect your words, yeah?” Damian told him solemnly. “But I'm just not feeling the love.”

  Dan shifted his gaze to the other party guests—visions of coolness and sophistication, wearing white designer clothes, happily quaffing their boiled-egg martinis and munching on shrimp shu mai and rice noodles, their hair as shiny and Sally Hershberger-groovy as Damian's. Dan wore corduroys from Old Navy and got a haircut at Supercuts once a year. He liked instant coffee and hot dogs bought on the street. He liked coming home in the evenings and laughing at the local news with his dad. His bedroom had linty maroon wall-to-wall carpeting that he was actually sort of fond of. He only owned two pairs of shoes. He was never meant to be a rock star.

  “Come on, Jenny. Let's go home.” He held a grim hand out to his little sister.

  Jenny glared at him. Was he crazy? The guys in the Raves didn't even mind that she was only fourteen. She was definitely staying. “You go home,” she challenged.

  Dan flapped a sweaty hand at her. “We can get a cab. I'll pay.”

  Jenny shrank away from him, her back pressed against Lloyd's chest. “Please don't be an idiot, Dan,” she yawned dismissively. “And don't say anything to Dad. I'll deal with him on my own.”

  “Fine.” Dan shoved his hands in his pockets. He had a feeling Jenny sort of wanted to get into trouble with their dad, but he wasn't going to tell on her. She was doing fine in the trouble department all on her own. “If you think I'm going to give you any of my poems, though, you can forget about it.”

  Damian raised his eyebrows, Lloyd rolled his eyes, and Jenny kicked at the white sofa with her bare feet—as if they were all completely bored with Dan's little tirade. Across the room Monique was eating noodles right out of the serving dish with a pair of ivory-lacquered chopsticks. A girl in a white embroidered bolero jacket who looked a lot like Chloë Sevigny was braiding Monique's long, honey-colored hair while she ate.

  “Tell your wife I said good-bye,” Dan grumbled at Damian. He hesitated, giving Jenny one last chance to leave with him, but she'd shifted around on Lloyd's lap so her back was to him.

  “'Bye, Dan,” she said, sounding like she couldn't wait for him to be gone.

  Dan shuffled down the white marble steps and out onto Bedford Street, unsure whether to laugh or to cry. It was kind of a relief knowing he'd never have to sing onstage again. He could go to college, be a normal kid, have a normal girlfriend, and a normal life.

  Whatever that meant.

  Truth or Dare

  Blair remained in the bathroom, preparing for her entrance, leaving Vanessa to hang back near the kitchen like a shy thirteen-year-old while Serena answered the door. Vanessa felt like a total dweeb wearing Blair's supershiny lip gloss and the one pair of black stretch Levis she'd stopped wearing over a year ago because she'd decided they were too tight. In fact, she felt like a total dweeb, period. Aaron would probably be a complete snob who thought she was a fat, bald weirdo, just like Blair had always thought before she'd lost her mind and decided to move in with her.

  “Hey.” Aaron stepped into the apartment and kissed Serena on the cheek. “You live here too?” He was wearing an orange hemp wifebeater T-shirt, his usual army-issue pants, and black cruelty-free rubber flip-flops. He'd pinned his dark dreadlocks back with two turquoise heart-shaped barrettes stolen out of Blair's bathroom, obviously trying to gauge Vanessa's vegan-freak tolerance by looking as vegan-freaky as possible.

  Serena was relieved to discover that she really was over him. “Oh, no. I'm just here to open the door.”

  Stan 5 towered blondly in the hall carrying two large pizza boxes in his arms, looking like a prep-school poster boy in a khaki Hugo Boss suit, a pink Brooks Brothers shirt, and a Kelly-green-and-pink-striped Turnbull & Asser tie. “The delivery guy was downstairs,” he said, looking bewildered. “It sure is different here,” he added, making it very clear that he had never been to Brooklyn in his entire life.

  “Hello again,” Serena said. “I guess you two have already met.” She took the pizzas and carried them into the kitchen. Stan 5 hov
ered near Aaron, his eyes searching the tiny apartment for the girl who'd actually invited him there.

  Heartened by the sight of Aaron's ridiculous hairstyle, Vanessa ventured forward a few steps. “Hi!” she greeted them, wishing she didn't sound so perky and dumb. “I'm Vanessa.”

  Aaron smiled, and she immediately liked his thin red lips and the way his dark, almost black eyes shone in the candlelight. He walked over and shook her hand. He was skinny, and slightly taller than she was. Five-foot-nine, maybe—the same height as Dan—but Aaron seemed bigger, more athletic. He pointed at her feet. “Hey, those are Blair's shoes, aren't they? My dog tried to eat those for breakfast once.”

  “Not that she'd notice. She has about eight hundred pairs,” Vanessa observed.

  They chuckled, grinning at each other. A regular mutual admiration society.

  Serena was about to go and drag Blair out of the bathroom when Blair reappeared in a cloud of Carolina Herrera perfume, her eyelashes freshly curled, her hair reparted, and her face dusted with sparkly, rose-tinted bronzing powder. She was still wearing the same tight black T-shirt, but she'd put on a different bra and her chest looked more like a C now than a B.

  “Who wants a drink?” she asked, smiling coyly at Stan 5.

  “I'd love one,” Stan 5 replied. He walked over and kissed her on the cheek. He was taller than she remembered, and more formal. But he smelled like Polo for Men, which was one of her favorites.

  Blair batted her curly-lashed eyes at him. I'm going to seduce you tonight, she told him silently.

  Serena couldn't stand how weird everyone was being. Besides, it was almost ten o'clock—way past her dinnertime. She flipped open the lid of one of the pizza boxes. “Mind if we eat now? I'm starving.”

  Vanessa and Aaron each took a vegan slice and a rum and Coke and sat down at the table. Blair refreshed her drink and slipped a huge cheesy pepperoni slice onto her plate, thinking that she was going to need her energy. Stan 5 took two pepperoni slices—obviously he thought he was going to need his energy too. And Serena took one of each, because she'd always been a big eater.