I Will Always Love You Read online

  Blair heard a loud crash from the attic and woke up with a start. Sun was streaming through the east-facing windows of the guest bedroom and Chuck was breathing easily beside her, oblivious to the noise.

  Blair cocked her head and heard the sound of loud footsteps right above her. Immediately, she remembered how many houseguests were under the roof. How Serena and Nate had crashed what was supposed to be a normal, sane holiday vacation.

  Doesn’t she know by now that doesn’t exist?

  She threw on a silky peach Cosabella robe, double-knotted it over her cami and boy shorts, and stomped toward the attic stairs.

  “Hello?” she called, an edge to her voice as she stomped up the rickety attic stairs. If Nate was up here with Serena… well, Blair didn’t even know what the fuck she’d do if she found them together. And if Serena and her gross pseudo-intellectual boyfriend were doing anything up here, she’d still be annoyed. Just the fact that Serena was in the house pissed her off. What part of her speech last winter had made Serena think it was a good idea to follow her to Newport?

  Blair swung open the door, ready to tell whoever was up there to get the fuck out. But it was just Nate, standing near the large antique wardrobe in the corner, holding what looked like her mom’s wedding dress out in front of him.

  “Oh, hey,” Nate said, turning around to face Blair.

  “What the hell?” Blair demanded angrily. This was one scenario she hadn’t anticipated. Had Nate been trying on her mom’s dress?

  “Sorry, I was just looking around. Remember how we used to play hide-and-seek up here?” Nate asked innocently.

  Blair softened slightly. Nate might be insensitive and have idiotic lapses of judgment, but he definitely wasn’t a cross-dresser. “I thought I heard a noise.” She folded her arms over her chest.

  “I accidentally bumped into the mirror. It’s fine, though.” He gestured toward her great-grandmother Cornelia’s gold mirror in the corner.

  “What are you doing with my mom’s wedding dress?” Blair asked pointedly.

  “Sorry.” Nate racked his brain, trying to come up with an excuse that didn’t sound too idiotic. He’d wanted to clean up after Jenny. Blair would rip Jenny’s sweet little curls from her head if she knew she’d been up here, snooping and trying on Blair’s mom’s old stuff.

  And kissing him?

  “I was just… reminiscing,” Nate said finally. “This house brings up a lot of memories.”

  “It does for me, too,” Blair admitted. She sat down on one of the large steamer trunks, hugged her legs to her chest, and stared at the dress, which Nate had placed over his rumpled sheets. She used to play dress-up with her mom’s clothes until well into high school. She’d even worn this very dress and imagined walking down the aisle at St. Patrick’s, with Nate waiting for her at the altar.

  “You would look beautiful in it,” Nate mused. In the picture in his mind, he substituted Jenny’s sloping curves for Blair’s sharp collarbones.

  Blair smiled despite herself. “I always thought I’d marry you wearing this,” she said honestly. “We’d get married in St. Patrick’s….”

  “And honeymoon in Capri,” Nate finished.

  Blair laughed. It was genuine, and the sound surprised her. “We were so young.”

  “I’m glad you and Chuck are happy,” Nate said softly. He remembered the awful, wild look in Blair’s eyes last year at that hotel room, when he’d accidentally ruined her relationship with her Yale boyfriend. She deserved to be with a good guy.

  “I hope you’re happy too,” she offered. She knew Deep Springs had done a lot for both Nate and Chuck, but something in Nate’s green eyes still looked lost. It made her want to smooth his hair and hold his hand and climb back under the sheets on the sleigh bed and—

  “I should go find Chuck, actually,” Blair said, standing up abruptly.

  “Good,” Nate said quickly. “I mean, I have to take a shower.”

  Blair padded downstairs, wondering why her brain had to be such a dangerous place. What was she doing fantasizing about Nate when she had Chuck—Chuck, who made her feel like a princess, and never, ever fucked with her—just down the hall? It was infuriating.

  Blair paused at the top of the stairs as she heard Serena’s voice mingling with the twins’ high-pitched, French-accented lisps. What the fuck? She descended into the kitchen. Serena sat with the twins at the large round wooden kitchen table. A jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, and a red box of graham crackers sat in front of them.

  “Blair!” Serena called joyfully.

  “Bear!” Both twins yelled, their faces sticky with peanut butter.

  “Hi,” Blair said stiffly.

  “Did you sleep well?” Serena asked hopefully. She hadn’t slept well herself, and had spent most of the night listening to Dan’s even breath and feeling guilty about intruding on Blair. Finally, she’d gotten up early and had been playing with the twins for hours.

  Blair stalked over to the coffeemaker on the counter, ignoring Serena’s inane question. The stainless steel carafe was empty and cold. “No coffee?”

  “The twins wanted tea this morning.” Serena shrugged playfully.

  “Ha,” Blair replied sarcastically, and pulled a bag of espresso beans from the freezer. She poured the bag into a coffee grinder and noisily ground the coffee, not caring if anyone was still asleep. It was time to wake up and get the fuck out.

  Good morning, sunshine!

  Blair finished grinding the coffee and the electronic whir gave way to Serena’s patient voice.

  “Okay, Pauline, now crumble the graham crackers really hard,” Serena told the little girl. Pauline’s face was scrunched in concentration as she squeezed a Ziploc bag filled with graham cracker squares.

  “What can I do?” Pierre piped up, his expression full of naked adoration.

  Blair turned, softening. She knew exactly what had to be done next. She and Serena had invented peanut butter pie—peanut butter and jelly mixed together on top of crushed graham crackers—when they were in first grade. Sometimes, they’d add marshmallows, which their nannies hated because it made their hands impossibly sticky.

  “You can take the peanut butter and jelly and mix them,” Blair said, searching the cabinets for a mixing bowl and setting it in front of Pierre. “I can’t believe we used to eat this,” she said to Serena, shaking her head.

  “Do you have marshmallows?” Serena asked hopefully, reading her mind.

  “Probably.” Blair rummaged through the cupboards, finally finding a bag. She tossed it over to Serena and leaned against the counter, appraising her. Serena’s golden blond hair had grown even longer in the last year, and was badly in need of a cut, but somehow managed to still look glamorous. Her navy blue eyes had slight laugh lines around the edges. She looked just a little bit older than she had a year ago, or maybe just more grown-up. “So, you’re dating Dan Humphrey,” Blair said finally.

  Serena nodded. “Pretty weird, right?”

  “Yeah,” Blair laughed. It was sort of weird. But Serena had always been unpredictable. It was one of the things about her that Blair loved most. It was also one of the things that had driven her crazy.

  “You’re dating Chuck,” Serena countered.

  “I know!” Blair laughed. The blue teapot on the stove whistled and Blair poured the steamy water into a French press. “Do you want any coffee?” she asked. It was the Blair Waldorf version of a peace offering.

  “Is it ready?” Pierre and Pauline interrupted, slapping their sticky hands against the counter.

  “Sure.” Serena gazed dubiously at the gooey mess in the pie pan. “I don’t know how they should eat this.”

  “Spoons?” Blair shrugged. “As long as they stay in the kitchen, my dad won’t care.”

  Doesn’t she mean dads?

  Serena carefully set up the twins at the toddler-size table in the corner, remembering herself and Blair as children sitting at that very table, doing that very thing. Blair was watching the
m too, cupping her coffee mug between her hands.

  “I was just thinking…” Serena began. She wanted to apologize to Blair, to say she didn’t even remember why they’d gotten so mad at each other the previous winter, that she just wanted to go back to being friends again. But she couldn’t find the words.

  She didn’t need to. “I know,” Blair said. “Me too.”

  It was still snowing heavily outside, but inside, it seemed the ice had finally thawed.

  dinner for eight

  “I thought Giles and I should show off our Provençal cooking skills,” Harold announced as he set a heavy red Le Creuset casserole on the long, rough-hewn table in the comfortable sunken dining room. It had been snowing heavily all day with no signs of stopping, and Harold had insisted that Dan, Jenny, Serena, and Nate call their parents and stay at the Newport house until the storm let up.

  Blair hadn’t minded—in fact, it had actually been kind of fun. They’d all watched Gone With the Wind, played Boggle and Monopoly, and drunk way too much of Harold’s special mulled wine. Dan kept excusing himself and Serena, either to make out or read in the library. Nate and Chuck had kept them entertained with crazy stories about Deep Springs, while Jenny quietly looked on and giggled. Now, even though it was only eight o’clock, everyone was exhausted and drunk.

  “Lamb daube with red wine and olives,” Harold explained from the head of the table. “I bet this is a far cry from dorm food.”

  “Blair survives on jelly babies.” Chuck named the weird British candy that had been the only thing Blair liked about England before she and Chuck started dating.

  “Shut up,” she said good-naturedly. She’d spent the whole first month surviving on whatever she could find at the newsagent’s near her dorm before it closed at 6 p.m.—potato chips and candy mostly—but the whole table didn’t need to know about it.

  “Well, enjoy. I’m telling you, kids, it’s great for us that you’re here.” Harold held up his glass of champagne as he slid into the chair at the head of the table. “To youth,” he announced solemnly.

  “And wisdom!” Chuck cried, clinking his own glass with Harold’s.

  “I’ve always liked you.” Harold winked showily at Blair.

  Nate stiffened as he cut into his lamb. Chuck had e-mailed him this year to tell him that he and Blair were dating, but it was one thing to know they were together and another to see it. He stared down at his plate. The olives looked like little beady eyes, challenging him. Just then, he felt something touch his foot. Jenny was smiling at him mischievously. Footsies? Really? That was kind of… hot. Nate smiled back at her.

  “I saw you girls making peanut-butter-and-jelly pies this morning,” Harold said, waving his flute at Blair and Serena. “I wish you’d stuck to doing that, instead of raiding our liquor cabinet when you were teenagers.” He shook his head in bemusement.

  “Daddy, we never did that,” Blair lied, taking a large swig of champagne.

  “Ha!” Harold laughed. “I wasn’t as out of touch as you may have thought.”

  Yes, he was.

  “Well, you girls had to learn how to socialize somehow. And it all turned out for the best. You hosted your first benefit when you were only sixteen,” Harold recalled with pride.

  “Oh my God, the Kiss on the Lips party,” Blair remembered. They’d organized a party to benefit the Central Park falcons or pigeons or sparrows or whatever those endangered birds were. After too much champagne, she’d nearly thrown up on one of the foundation representatives. Nate had rescued her, making an excuse to the representative and steering Blair discreetly toward the bathroom. She looked at him gratefully now, wondering if he was thinking about the same thing. Nate smiled back, and then, as if remembering something, tore his eyes away.

  “I did the invitations for that party!” Jenny piped up from the corner of the table. As a young, ambitious freshman, she’d wanted to be invited to the party so badly that she’d offered to use her calligraphy skills to address the invites.

  Dan stared down at his plate. He had nothing to contribute to this trip down memory lane, except that he had rescued Jenny from the bathroom, where she’d been cornered by a date-raping Chuck at the same party. But that wasn’t exactly appropriate for the dinner table.

  You think?

  He couldn’t believe it had snowed all day and they were stuck in Newport for another night. All he wanted was to be back in his apartment with Serena, a cup of coffee, and a good book.

  “Oh my God, Blair, remember when we were Jenny’s peer counselors?” Serena laughed. The guidance department had chosen her and Blair to act as role models for some of the younger Constance girls. They’d been assigned a group of freshman with whom they met once a week to discuss topics like peer pressure, teen sex, and drinking. Instead, they’d spent most of their time talking about boys and sample sales. Serena shot a sidelong glance at Jenny. She seemed to have turned out okay anyway.

  “We were great role models. Unlike Nate’s role model, L’Wren.” Blair smirked, naming a supremely slutty University of Virginia freshman who’d almost deflowered Nate when he was fifteen.

  “Oh my God, L’Wren! I’d almost forgotten about her!” Serena cried, clapping her hands.

  Nate shook his head ruefully. In truth, he still had a soft spot in his heart for L’Wren, the girl who’d taught him how to smoke a bong.

  Ah, memories.

  Dan shifted uncomfortably in his seat, wishing he had more to offer to the conversation. What would he say? Hey Chuck, remember when you locked me out of a party? Nate, remember when you invited yourself on my and Serena’s college visiting tour senior year? “Hey beautiful,” he whispered to Serena, trying to pull her out of this lame remember-when conversation about people he’d never met and parties he’d never been invited to.

  “Hey,” Serena said distractedly, putting her hand on his arm as if to shush him. She leaned forward over the table, looking from Nate to Blair. “What I really want to know is: How did none of us get arrested?”

  “I went to rehab.” Nate shrugged.

  “I followed you there,” Blair said in disbelief. Had she ever really been that crazy?

  Does she want the long answer or the short answer? Oh wait, there is no long answer.

  “And I rescued you!” Serena piped up. The three of them collapsed into a fit of giggles.

  “Okay, this officially enters ‘I don’t want to know’ territory. Giles and I will excuse ourselves,” Harold said bemusedly, pushing his chair back and beginning to clear the table.

  Dan sighed, bored. Jenny was hanging on to every word, giggling like a maniac even though she hadn’t really been a part of any of this either.

  “Serena, remember the first time we met?” Dan whispered in Serena’s ear. He hoped that would be enough to get her to start paying attention to him.

  “Yeah.” Serena smiled, but she didn’t elaborate. “Oh my God, remember when we lived in the Breakfast at Tiffany’s apartment, Blair?”

  “Remember the Raves?” Jenny asked, butting into the conversation. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was older or because they were all out of high school, but suddenly, all the things that had seemed die-of-embarrassment awful when she was fourteen—like the time a semipornographic video of her and Nate rolling around in the snow together was leaked on the Internet or the time she appeared in just a bra in a photo spread for a national magazine—seemed almost funny. Jenny felt vaguely proud of herself for surviving all that and ending up here.

  “Of course! And our awesome photo shoot for W right before graduation? I still get compliments on that.”

  Jenny beamed. Soon she’d be telling Serena she once stole her jog bra from her locker.

  Dan stood up from the table, needing a break. He picked up the empty casserole dish and headed toward the kitchen after Harold and Giles. He paused when he saw Harold’s hand on the back of Giles’s neck, and made his way back to the table. He plunked down next to Serena and drained the rest of his wine. Maybe
he could at least get some good poetic inspiration from his misery.

  The grown-up beauty queens, Lipstick traces of glory faded

  In ghost hallways, empty yearbooks. Angry. Jaded.

  Or not.

  Serena’s cheeks ached from laughing so hard and she knew she was going to be more than a little hungover tomorrow, but she didn’t want to get up and leave the party yet. Dinner had been over for almost an hour, but everyone was still sitting around the table, drinking wine and happily swapping stories.

  Almost everyone.

  “Okay, so what do you miss the most about high school?” Serena waved her empty wineglass around like a Madison Avenue divorcée at a ladies-only luncheon and glanced around the table. Dan had been silent the entire time. Serena knew he felt out of place. Even though he’d come to a lot of the parties they were remembering, he’d never really been part of their group of friends back in high school. Still, that didn’t mean he had to sulk.

  Jenny shrank lower in her seat, waiting for someone else to answer. Of course, she was still in high school, but she didn’t want to call attention to that fact.

  “I miss stealing homework from the smart kids,” Chuck offered with a wry smile at Dan.

  “Thanks,” Dan said stiffly. He had supplied Chuck with most of his English assignments for a year.

  “Just kidding,” Chuck laughed. “Didn’t I give you an autographed picture one time in exchange? God, I was a douche.” Chuck shook his head.

  Blair shifted back in her chair. All this talk about their high school escapades had made her feel restless and antsy. There were now half a dozen empty champagne and wine bottles on the table. Outside, an almost-full moon reflected on the still falling snow, making the whole world look magical. She didn’t want to sit across from Nate anymore or watch Jenny gaze at him with puppylike adoration or remember any of the reasons why Chuck was a freak in high school. She needed to get outside and do something.

  Or someone?

  “Let’s go sledding,” Blair announced, already scraping her chair across the cherrywood floors.