You Know You Love Me Page 18

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Serena said. She took a sip of her champagne and fidgeted with the edge of the tablecloth. “You were just a little too intense, that’s all,” she added.

  Too intense? Dan wondered. What was that supposed to mean?

  All of a sudden the jazz band began to play.

  “Oh, I love this song!” Serena cried. It was “Cheek to Cheek.” She was a sucker for corny music.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the bride and groom!” the bandleader announced. Cyrus and Eleanor Rose stood up and twirled out onto the dance floor, beckoning to their guests to join them.

  Chuck grabbed both Kati and Isabel’s hands and twirled them away, his hands sliding down their backs to their butts within seconds.

  “Want to dance?” Serena asked Dan. She stood up and held out her hand.

  Dan looked up at her with hurt eyes, feeling very intense indeed. “No, thanks,” he said. He stood up to leave. “I think I’ll go smoke a cigarette.”

  Serena watched him go. She knew Dan was upset, but what could she do? It seemed like no matter what she said or did he would always find a reason to be miserable. That was the way he liked it. It gave him something to write about.

  Serena preferred to be carefree and happy-go-lucky, just like her brother. She downed her champagne and grabbed Erik by the shoulders to distract him from his food games. “Can’t a girl have any fun anymore?” she asked him, giggling a little desperately.

  Erik stood up. “This girl definitely can,” he said, taking her in his arms and dipping her backward dramatically.

  And it was true. Serena did always find a way to have fun, she just hadn’t found it yet tonight. But the night was still young. …

  amor omnia vincit—love conquers all

  “Have you seen my brother?” Jenny asked Nate. “Is he having a good time?”

  Nate flicked open his silver Zippo lighter and lit a cigarette. “I wasn’t really paying that much attention,” he admitted.

  “I’m sure he is,” Jenny said. She looked around at the hotel’s decadent dÉcor. “I mean, how could he not?”

  Nate tilted his golden head and blew smoke at the ceiling. Jenny took a sip of her seltzer. “Are you having a good time?” she asked.

  Nate leaned forward and rested his head on her bare shoulder. She smelled like baby powder and Finesse hair conditioner. “I’m having a much better time now than I was in there,” he said.

  “Really?” Jenny still couldn’t get over the fact that Nate even liked her. Now he was telling her he’d rather hang out with her than be dancing at the reception of one of the biggest weddings of the year?

  Nate ducked his head and kissed his way up the side of her neck and along her jawbone until he reached her lips. Jenny squeezed her eyes shut and kissed him back. She felt like a princess in a fairy tale, and she never wanted to wake up.

  Dan slipped into a seat at the end of the St. Claire Hotel bar and ordered a double scotch on the rocks. With trembling hands he pulled a Camel out of his coat pocket and lit it. Tears fell on the cigarette’s paper as it hung, damp and bent, from between his lips. He grabbed a pen from off the bar and drew a big black X on his cocktail napkin. It was all he could muster.

  All those lovely, tragic poems he’d written had been meant to ward away the actual tragedy, the actual idea even, that Serena didn’t love him. But it was true after all. She didn’t.

  The funny thing was, he wasn’t crying over her so much as what she’d said.

  He was too intense. A loser destined to scare people off because no one would be able to match his intensity.

  Dan’s chest convulsed in a sob and he slumped forward, resting his forehead against the edge of his glass. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar shock of curly brown hair, the enormous cleavage, the tiny figure.

  His sister.

  And next to her, with his hands all over her enormous cleavage and tiny figure was that rich bastard, Nate.

  Dan really wasn’t in the mood to watch his little sister get molested by some stoned Wasp with hash for brains. Sitting up, he poured the glass of scotch down his throat and spun around.

  After throwing up her quenelle, Blair had gone outside to smoke a cigarette and get some fresh air. That didn’t last long. It was November and she was freezing her ass off, so she went inside and headed back to the ladies’ room to spruce herself up.

  As soon as she rinsed out her mouth, smoothed down her hair, put on another coat of M•A•C Spice lipstick, and spritzed herself with perfume, she was going to find Nate and take him upstairs to their suite. Enough was enough. It was her birthday and she wanted it her way.

  But as she passed through the bar on the way to the ladies’ room, Blair stopped dead. In the corner, Nathaniel Archibald—her Nate—was kissing a little ninth-grade girl from Constance Billard.

  The soundtrack came to a crescendo and then stopped dead. The leading lady trembled, her eyes wide.

  Blair felt like she’d been shot in the stomach. Nate looked completely relaxed and happy. He and the girl—what was her name, Ginny? Judy?—were holding hands. They were smiling and murmuring sweetly to each other. They looked like they were in love.

  This was definitely not in the script.

  And as she looked on in horror and fascination, Blair had the most starkly disappointing realization of her entire life. Worse even than the thought of not getting into Yale.

  Nate wasn’t her leading man. He wasn’t going to sweep her off her feet and love her and only her. He was just a supporting actor, some loser who would drop off the screen before the final act. And if that was the case, she definitely didn’t want him.

  Blair turned away, tears of disappointment clouding her vision as she headed into the ladies’ room for the third time. She was badly in need of a cigarette, and she wanted to smoke it somewhere warm and private.

  “Get your fucking hands off my sister,” Dan growled, waving his burning Camel at Nate.

  “Dan?” Jenny said, sitting up. “Don’t. It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine,” Dan sneered at his little sister. “You don’t know anything.”

  Nate gave Jenny’s leg a reassuring squeeze and stood up. He reached for Dan’s shoulder and patted it gently. “It’s okay, man. We’re friends. You know that.”

  Dan shook his head. Angry tears dripped off his face and onto the marble floor. “Get away from me.”

  “What’s your problem?” Jenny demanded, standing up. “Are you drunk?”

  “Come on, Jenny,” Dan said, grabbing her arm. “Let’s go home.”

  Jenny twisted out of his grasp. “Ow. Let go!” she cried.

  “Hey, man,” Nate said. “Why don’t you go home? I’ll make sure Jennifer gets home okay.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you will,” Dan spat. He lunged for Jenny’s arm again.

  “Yo, Dan,” a girl’s calm, sarcastic voice called from the bar. “Why don’t you just go write a poem about it or something? You need to chill the hell out.”

  Dan, Jenny, and Nate looked up. It was Vanessa, perched on a bar stool in her black cat dress. Her lips were painted dark red. Her brown eyes were laughing. Her head was shaved like an army dude’s. Her skin was so pale it gleamed. She looked pretty fabulous.

  At least to Dan.

  The most amazing thing was her eyes. Why had he never noticed them before? They weren’t just brown like Serena’s had been just blue. They were talking to him. And they were saying things that he wanted to hear.

  “Hey,”Vanessa said, speaking only to Dan.

  “Hey,” Dan said back. “What are you doing here?”

  Vanessa slid off her stool and walked over. She put her arm around Dan’s shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. “Buying you a drink,” she said. “Come on.”

  as usual b is in the bathroom, but so is s

  After “Cheek to Cheek,” the band played “Putting on the Ritz.” Serena and Erik pretended they were Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, camping it up in
their corner of the dance floor. Serena swung her arms gaily, trying to be carefree, the life of the party. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the hurt expression on Dan’s face.

  Then Chuck cut in.

  “May I?” he asked, slithering his pinky-ringed hand around Serena’s waist and butting Erik out of the way.

  Serena couldn’t have asked for a better reason to stop dancing. “No way,” she said.

  She walked off the dance floor and grabbed her purse from her chair. Maybe she could catch Dan at the bar and reason with him over cigarettes.

  But when she got to the bar, Serena found that Dan was already being reasoned with … by Vanessa. Her arm was around him, and even though her head was still shaved and she was still wearing her Doc Martens, her face looked softer and sweeter than Serena had ever seen it. That was because Vanessa was looking at Dan and Dan was looking back at her and they were … in love!

  Serena kept on walking, right into the ladies’ room. She still wanted a cigarette, and she didn’t want to ruin their moment.

  Blair was perched on a sink at the far end of the bathroom, chain-smoking Merits. She heard someone come in, but she didn’t turn her head. She was too wrapped up in her own tragedy.

  There was a good chance she wasn’t getting into Yale, even after her father’s embarrassingly outrageous donation. Nate didn’t love her. She didn’t even have the same last name as the rest of her family anymore. And she was still a virgin. It was as if she really had become someone else without even trying. As if she’d been run over by a car and gotten amnesia and had gone on living without even realizing she’d been in an accident.

  Blair’s nose dripped on her dress and she swiped at it. She couldn’t even tell if she was crying anymore. She felt numb.

  “Hey, Blair, you okay?” Serena called out, a little timidly. Blair didn’t actually have fangs, but she could still bite your head off.

  Blair looked over her shoulder and nodded. Strands of brown hair were plastered to her wet cheeks, and her eyeliner was smudged.

  “Here,” Serena said, walking up and handing her a wad of paper towels. “I have some extra makeup and stuff in my purse if you need something.”

  “Thanks,” Blair said, taking the paper towels. She blew her nose, her shoulders shaking with the effort. Serena had never seen her look so spent.

  “Are you okay?” she asked again.

  Blair looked up and saw genuine concern in Serena’s blue eyes. It was unbelievable, but it was true. Even after Blair had been so incredibly mean to her, Serena still cared.

  “No,” Blair admitted. “I’m definitely not okay.” Her chest heaved as she let out a sob. “My life is a mess.”

  One of the beaded shoulder straps on Blair’s dress fell down. Serena reached out and put it back in place. “I saw you steal those pajama bottoms from Barneys,” she said.

  Blair looked up. “You didn’t tell anyone though, did you?” she asked.

  Serena shook her head. “Promise.”

  Blair sighed and looked down at her beautiful shoes. “I don’t know why I did it,” she said, her lower lip trembling. “He didn’t even thank me for them.”

  Serena shrugged “Fuck ‘em,” she said. She dug around in her purse and pulled out a brush and a pack of cigarettes. She lit two cigarettes and handed one to Blair. “It’s your birthday,” she said.

  Blair nodded and took the cigarette. She puffed tentatively on it as tears dripped down her face. And then she hiccupped, loudly.

  Serena tried hard not to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. Blair just looked so pathetic. She bit her notorious lips to hold back the giggles. Tears streamed down her perfect cheeks.

  Blair glared at Serena. But when she opened her mouth to say something nasty, all that came out was another enormous hiccup. She sucked in her breath. “Fuck it,” she giggled.

  And once she started she couldn’t stop. Neither could Serena. It felt so good to laugh! Mascara ran down their faces and their noses dripped on the floor, making them laugh even harder.

  When they finally got control of themselves, Serena stood behind Blair and began brushing her hair. “Well, happy birthday,” she said, looking at Balir in the mirror, her cigarette propped between her teeth. “Tell me if it hurts.”

  Blair closed her eyes and let her shoulders drop. For once, she wasn’t thinking about her Yale interview, or losing her virginity to Nate, or her messed-up family. She wasn’t the star of any movie. She was just breathing, enjoying the gentle tug and pull of the brush on her hair.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she told her old friend. “It feels good.”

  who left the party and who joined it

  “I don’t think Vanessa is going to want to leave with me,” Jenny whispered to Nate, nodding to where Vanessa and Dan had their heads bent together at the bar.

  “Who said you were leaving?” Nate asked.

  Jenny smoothed her dress down over her thighs. She and Nate had been kissing for a while, and it had ridden up. “Well, don’t you have to get back to the wedding reception? I mean, you are like, an usher and everything.”

  Nate tipped back his glass and crunched an ice cube between his teeth. He didn’t care anymore who saw them together. Even Blair. He wanted them to see. “Yeah, but I’m taking you with me,” he said.

  “No way,” Jenny gasped, half terrified and half thrilled to death. “I can’t!”

  But of course she was dying to go. She might even get her picture in Vogue!

  “Come on,” Nate said. He stood up and held out his hand. “Let’s dance.”

  Dan took a big gulp of scotch and set his glass down on the bar. “So I bet you think I’m a total loser, right?” he said, turning to gaze into Vanessa’s laughing brown eyes. Again, he wondered how he could have overlooked them.

  “Well, you are a loser,” Vanessa said, crossing her legs like a lady. She grabbed a handful of nuts from a dish on the bar and shoved them into her mouth.

  “But you still love me, right?” Dan said, watching her intently.

  Vanessa picked a ball of lint off her fishnets and flicked it onto the bar floor. She couldn’t believe she was actually flirting with Dan. She hadn’t even broken up with Clark yet! But it was kind of fun to be such a slut.

  She leaned forward and kissed Dan on his quivering lips. “Right,” she said, her mouth still full of nuts.

  “Nate and I were supposed to have sex in here tonight,” Blair said, flopping onto the bed in her hotel suite and kicking off her shoes. Her limbs were loose and floppy with exhaustion. It felt good to sprawl out.

  Serena decided not to rub it in by asking Blair what had gone wrong. She pulled her dress off over her head and tossed it into an armchair in the corner. Wearing only her skimpy white satin La Perla underpants, she walked into the bathroom and put on a fluffy white terrycloth robe. She came out carrying an extra robe for Blair.

  Blair took the robe and wriggled out of her dress. “Don’t look,” she warned. “I’m not wearing any underwear.”

  Serena laughed and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. She’d forgotten about Blair’s tendency to take things to extremes. “Don’t tell me. You got a Brazilian wax, too, right?”

  Blair smiled. Serena knew her too well. “Yeah, I did,” she admitted. “What a waste.” She tossed the dress onto the floor. “And that fucking thing was giving me a rash.”

  Serena walked over to the TV and clicked it on. “I wonder if they get the Playboy channel here. We could watch pornos and order beer from room service,” she joked. She carried the remote over to the bed and sat down.

  “Give me that.” Blair grabbed the remote out of Serena’s hand. “It’s my birthday.” If she wasn’t going to have sex, she could at least watch American Movie Classics. They always played Audrey Hepburn movies. “Let’s watch a movie and then go out to a club or something.”

  “Fine,” Serena said, piling up the bed pillows so she could lean against them. “But can we order a pizza or something? I’m starving.”<
br />
  Blair scooted back on the bed so she was sitting right next to Serena. She clicked through the channels until she found AMC. Breakfast at Tiffany’s was only just getting started. She settled in to watch, leaning her head back against the pillows until it was resting only inches away from Serena’s, strands of her long brown hair mingling with Serena’s blond ones.

  The two girls watched Audrey Hepburn flit around her apartment and flirt with her new neighbor. They sang along as she sang “Moon River” out on her fire escape, and counted how many crazy hats she wore.

  Audrey Hepburn was poised and thin and always knew what to say. She had incredible clothes and was fabulously beautiful. She was everything Blair wanted to be.

  Blair sighed heavily. “I don’t really look anything like Audrey, do I?” she asked out loud.

  Serena smiled, keeping her eyes on the screen. “Sure you do,” she said. And Blair decided to believe that what she said was true.

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

  hey people!

  Sightings

  Late Saturday night: D and Vholding hands as they left the St, Claire. Hey, doesn’t she have a boyfriend? J and N riding around Central Park in one of those horse-drawn carriages. Cheesy, but cute. B and S at Patchouli downtown, dancing like wild things in their matching dresses. Sunday: S retrieving a wrapped package from N’s house. Later, S and B in Barneys’ men’s department, slipping a pair of cashmere pj bottoms back on the hanger. What good Samaritans!

  Your E-Mail

  Q: Hey Gossip Girl,

  First of all, you kick ass. Second of all, don’t worry about B. Her mom and stepdad are going away for a month on their honeymoon, and we’re all going to party like wild monkeys at her house. I should know, I live there too. ;)

  -DoubleA

  A: Dear DoubleA,

  Who said I was worried? See you there!