Would I Lie to You Page 9

  —Confused

  A: Dear C,

  I think you’ve misunderstood. Bald is beautiful when we’re talking about a Brazilian, but most fellows I know like something to run their fingers through. It’s the rare woman indeed who can pull off the full-on buzz. . . . I’ve seen it work only once before. Good luck!

  —GG

  Q: Dear GG,

  I’ve been in Europe for the summer and am worried about my big brother back in New York. He hasn’t replied to any of my postcards, and when I called home a few minutes ago, my dad said he was “on the lam with a bottle of absinthe.” Eeek! Do you think he’s okay?

  —Worried Little Sis

  A: Dear WLS,

  Not to worry! Your bro is probably just out enjoying himself and trying new things. Trust me, that’s a good thing. If you’re still concerned about his whereabouts, send me his pic. . . . If he’s cute, I’ll track him down for you!

  —GG

  sightings

  N, making his first beach appearance of the season with a friend I hardly recognized—what’s up, A, you been working out? Great results! I’ve got the camera-phone pics to prove it. Yum. Two ladies matching the descriptions of B and S were spotted chewing gum behind a gas station on Main Street, late at night, but let’s take that one with a grain of salt, because another report also had B and S buying depilatories at Long’s, and something tells me those girls would never attempt a home job, even in an emergency. I mean, there are experts for that sort of thing, and yes, they make house calls! V pedaling around East Hampton on a child’s bike with training wheels. Maybe she’s making some kind of environmental point? Good for her. D’s being a good environmentalist himself, if that was indeed him passed out on the 2 train instead of cabbing it. BTW, K and I: if you’re going to try to crash an all-boy party, it helps immensely if you’ve got a shaved head and boring unisex outfit. More than a few of our readers spotted you slinking home in your Puccis after you were rejected at the gate. Sorry, girls!

  That’s enough for now. I’m going to go get to know a new friend of mine—he’s a lifeguard and only speaks Dutch—and you’ve got work to do, anyway: get out there and create some more dirt for me to dish. You know how much I love you for it. And of course . . .

  You know you love me.

  gossip girl

  before sunrise

  “Turn it up!” Nate cupped the flame of Serena’s dainty silver lighter, trying to light a cigarette as Serena navigated the convertible roadster along the deserted Long Island Expressway.

  Best way to beat the summer traffic? Set out in the middle of the night.

  His cigarette lit, Nate tossed the lighter back onto the empty passenger seat in front of him. Serena reached over and cranked up the volume as high as it would go, but even that loud, Bob Dylan’s distinctive warble was barely audible over the whoosh of wind.

  “I’m cold. Can’t we put the top up?” Blair wrapped her arms around herself and frowned.

  “I don’t know how it works,” Nate admitted. “But I can help keep you warm if you like.” He draped his left arm around her shoulder protectively.

  Just like old times.

  Blair leaned into the front of the car and grabbed the cardigan Serena had abandoned there. “And I’m tired. Whose bright idea was it to stop for dinner?” She pulled the sweater on and leaned back into the caramel leather uphol-stery.

  It had been Blair’s suggestion, actually, that they get dinner. She’d wanted to stop at a diner in Merritt—she and her dad had always stopped there on their family trips to Southampton when she was a kid—but they’d gotten lost, and it had taken an hour and a half just to find it. Nate decided not to remind her of this.

  “Maybe you should take a little nap,” he suggested.

  “We’ll be there soon,” Serena chimed in from the front seat. “I can almost smell the city.”

  Nate sniffed at the cool, damp air. He couldn’t smell anything but the gritty burn of his cigarette and the honey-almond aroma of Blair’s hair. He couldn’t see much, either, just the vague outlines of the car and his friends, and the dark void of that along-the-highway wilderness, which was barely illuminated by the thin sliver of summer moon. After a couple of other pit stops—to fill up the tank, to take dorky pictures of the three of them making faces in front of different scenic spots, to stock up on cigarettes and Diet Coke and junk food—they’d managed to waste most of the night. It seemed almost impossible that in a few hours Nate was supposed to climb back on that shitty bicycle and show up at Coach Michaels’s house for another day of hard labor and sexual harassment.

  Guess he’ll be calling in sick. Again.

  “So what’s our plan, anyway?” Serena glanced over her shoulder and into the backseat. “Where exactly am I driving us?”

  “Let’s go to the Ritz.” Blair hopped up and down in her seat like a little kid who had to pee. “Let’s get a suite and order room service and sleep all day tomorrow.”

  “How about we go right to the Three Guys coffee shop and we pig out on pancakes?” Serena suggested.

  Nate weighed the options: a hotel room shared with Blair and Serena or a greasy early morning breakfast.

  Decisions, decisions.

  But Nate had his own plan. He’d been going over it in his head for a couple of days now, ever since Anthony told him to seize the day. And know he knew what he wanted: an impromptu summer cruise on his dad’s boat. He could just picture it. He’d navigate them out of the New York harbor, the sun rising over the East River. They’d head north, toward the Cape, and eventually toward his parents’ place in Mt. Desert Island, Maine. They’d spend the rest of the summer lounging around on the sun-drenched deck in their underwear. They’d dive overboard and splash around in the cool water like kids.They’d pull into small towns so he could stock up on cigarettes and beer and Blair could buy magazines and whatever else she needed. Then, when they’d worked up an appetite from fishing or swimming or making love, he and Blair would raid the fully stocked kitchen, eating artichoke hearts directly out of the jar with their fingers.

  Forgetting about someone?

  That was the summer he was supposed to be having, and at last, he was seizing the day. The only problem was, well . . . Serena. Never mind that he and Blair weren’t quite a couple again. They’d had ups and downs for as long as they’d known each other, but they always came back to the same point: they were supposed to be together. And that point was coming again. That point was on the Charlotte.Nate closed his eyes, trying desperately to think of a guy they could bring along on their grand voyage to keep Serena occupied while he worked on winning back Blair. Jeremy? Anthony? Nah, she was out of their league.

  He flicked his cigarette out of the car and cleared his throat. “I’ve got it,” he announced. “Let’s get the Charlotte. Then we’ll just, like, sail away.”

  “Awesome!” Serena took both hands off the wheel and clapped them together. “Natie, you’re a genius!”

  “I don’t know.” Blair sat up. “I kind of just feel like taking a shower and going to bed.”

  Blair fidgeted in her seat, her knee brushing against Nate’s. Was she doing that on purpose? It sent a palpable surge of electricity through his body. He felt more clear-headed and aware than he had in months. It was like everything that had happened to him lately—getting in trouble and almost not graduating, getting shipped off to slave labor in the Hamptons, having that weird short-lived romance with Tawny—had been leading him right here, to this moment. Never mind that he was going to bail on work in a matter of hours, never mind that he had stolen his father’s prized possession, never mind that he might not get his diploma—he was with Blair, and when they were together it was like everything else in the world was just . . . right.

  “There’s a shower on board,” Serena reminded Blair, picking up her vibrating and blinking Nokia from her lap. “Don’t be a baby,” she called over her shoulder. “Hello?” she
answered her cell phone. Who the hell was calling at four in the morning?

  “Hey Serena. How are you? It’s Jason. You know, your downstairs neighbor at the town house on Seventy-first Street?”

  Serena smiled quietly at the road. Blair was so not expecting this call.

  “Hey!” She responded in her friendliest, most upbeat voice. Jason was cute but totally forgettable. After the Breakfast at Fred’s wrap party, that’s exactly what both girls had done—forgotten about him. But Serena wasn’t the girl Jason had had the hots for, anyway. “I guess you want to talk to Blair.” She shifted into fourth gear around a tight curve in the road.

  “Kind of,” Jason admitted.

  “Hold on.” Serena tossed her phone behind her, accidentally hitting Blair in the nose.

  Blair had been happily ensconced in one of her epic movielike reveries starring herself and Nate naked on a beach in St. Barts, kissing on the sand while the waves splashed over their bodies, exactly like Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity. She took the phone. Probably it was her mother, wondering why there was a $10,000 charge at Tod’s on her AmEx.

  “Hello?” she said with some annoyance. Nate’s leg was so warm against hers. She rested her head on his shoulder, seeking comfort while she prepared to have an extremely annoying conversation. “What is it now, Mom?”

  “No, it’s me, Jason,” a boy’s voice responded gruffly on the other end.

  Blair lifted her head from Nate’s shoulder and held the phone away from her face. Who?

  She glanced at Nate’s profile. He was beginning to nod off, and she wanted to grab him and slip her hands under his shirt, just to feel his warm skin beneath her fingers.

  “Hello? Blair?” Jason’s voice squawked out of Serena’s phone. Blair snapped the phone shut and tossed it into the passenger seat.

  “Blair!” Serena scolded. The two girls giggled, sharing a glance through their reflections in the rearview mirror.

  Nate shifted in his seat. “What’s so funny?” he mumbled, making them laugh even harder.

  Then Blair turned, catching Nate staring right at her. But before he could look away, embarrassed, she let one eye-lid fall in the sexiest, most unexpected wink Nate had ever seen. “Can I have a smoke?” she finally asked, gently biting her glistening-pink bottom lip.

  “Sure.” He dug into his pockets for the pack. Anything for you.

  Aw.

  Sunrise must have happened during the four minutes it took them to speed through the Midtown Tunnel and into the city: the sky was dark purple when Serena steered them into the gaping mouth of the tunnel, and by the time the little roadster emerged on the streets of Manhattan, the sun was up, the cars were honking, and it was already starting to get hot.

  Nate tried not to be too obvious about watching Blair, which was hard because she was so close he could smell her, could imagine the weight of her body against his if she happened to nod off to sleep, could conjure the soft feeling of her lips and tongue against his on the off chance they just started making out right there in the backseat.

  Stop it. Focus. “Just drive downtown.” Nate locked eyes with Serena in the rearview mirror. Did she know what he was thinking? Did she see something?

  Not that she was uncool enough to say anything.

  “Aye, aye, captain.” Serena made a wide right onto the FDR Drive that sent Nate and Blair hurling to the left as she did.

  “Don’t kill us.” Blair tucked her wind-whipped hair behind her ears.

  “Don’t worry.” Nate gave her right knee a reassuring squeeze.

  Blair looked up at him, her eyes glazed and sleepy but the same brilliant blue they’d always been. She smiled and rested her head on his shoulder, still looking up at him.

  Nate grinned back, feeling foolish and a little embarrassed, like he was fifteen again. He lost himself in the sensation of the wind in his hair, the thrum of the road beneath him, the smell of the girl he loved leaning against him. It took ten minutes for Serena to zip through the early morning traffic on the highway, and five minutes of navigating the twisting downtown streets before they reached the docks at Battery Park, where Captain Archibald kept the Charlotte docked.

  “We’re here, kids,” Serena announced, playing mommy as she guided the tiny car into a curbside parking spot and turned off the ignition. “Ready to sail?”

  Nate opened the door and clambered out of the back-seat. He breathed in the mingling scent of traffic and salt water and warm asphalt; it was a mix of everything he loved—the city, especially in the early morning, and the sea-side, where he’d spent the happiest weeks of his life. Maybe he’d been cooped up in the tiny backseat for too long, or maybe he was just excited at the thought of the illicit cruise he was about to undertake, but whatever the reason, Nate actually started to run, dodging pedestrians and leaping over a low gate that separated the docks from the street. The rubber soles of his flip-flops thwacked noisily against the ashy wood slats of the dock. His heart was pounding in his ears: it was really, finally happening—the summer was beginning at last. Once he and Blair stepped on board that boat, every-thing would change.

  “Sir? Sir?” A uniformed dockhand was running down the pier toward Nate, waving his hands in the air above his head like bees were attacking him. “This is private property, sir, you’re going to have to leave.”

  “I’m looking for my boat,” Nate explained, scanning the forest of masts for its familiar profile. He’d helped his dad build the thing—he’d have known the boat anywhere. “The Charlotte. It’s around here somewhere. I want to take her out.”

  “The Charlotte?” The dockhand—a college-age kid who seemed cool enough—stared at Nate, clearly confused. “The Archibald boat?”

  “Yeah.” Nate nodded, glancing behind him: Blair and Serena were perched on the security gate, swinging their legs in the air and laughing at something. “It’s my family’s boat. Can you give me the slip number?”

  “Sorry, man.” The dockhand shook his head, slowly. “She’s not here. Captain Archibald sailed up to Newport at the beginning of June—he told me he was planning on keeping her there for the season.”

  Shit. Nate frowned at the dockhand, then looked back at Blair once more. She was kicking her little tan legs up and down when a sudden gust of wind off the water caused her gauzy dress to flutter up around her waist. Underneath she was wearing pale pink cotton underwear. He could just make out little white polka dots decorating them.

  Forget the boat: for now all he wanted was to lie down next to her, hold her hand, and never let go.

  the truth comes out . . . and so does d

  “Male. Ball. Male, ball. Male balls.”

  Dan groaned and flopped over in the soft, once-white, now coffee-and-nicotine-stained sheets of his bed. Male balls? Sweating profusely, he rocked his head from side to side.

  “You awake in there?” Rufus Humphrey, Dan’s boisterous-and-eccentric-editor-of-lesser-known-Beat-poets dad banged on the bedroom door urgently. “Mail call! Mail call! Are you listening?”

  “Mail call!” Dan sat upright in bed. Mail call, you idiot, not male balls. “I’m awake,” he announced, his voice cracking.

  “Remind me to tell you about the early bird and the worm sometime!” Rufus stormed into Dan’s bedroom purpose-fully, clad in a typically demented outfit: a pair of carpenter’s pants splattered with the same dingy off-white paint that cov-ered the apartment’s walls—making them around nineteen years old—and an official Breakfast at Fred’s crew jacket he must have pilfered from a pile of Vanessa’s dirty laundry. It was unzipped, revealing a chest of furry gray hair. He held a massive cardboard box that someone had haphazardly sealed with twine, butcher paper, bubble wrap, and two kinds of tape.The word FRAGILE was scrawled all over the box in five different languages. Rufus dropped the package onto the bed. “You’ve got mail.”

  “Jesus.” Dan picked up the ungainly box. He could have tossed it into the air, it was so light. “It doesn’t feel like there’s eve
n anything inside here.”

  “Open it, open it,” Rufus urged. “Your sister sent it all this way and the shipping could not have been cheap, so I’m guessing there’s something good in there.”

  “Sure.” Dan started tugging at the twine.

  “I didn’t hear you come in last night.” Rufus grinned down at Dan. “Guess your first meeting went pretty well, huh? Stayed up late, debating the merits of the minor Shakespeare plays, did you?”

  “Something like that.” Dan burrowed through another layer of paper before finally reaching the flaps of the cardboard box. If there had been any discussion at all the previous night, he couldn’t remember it. He could barely remember anything except the sensation of Greg’s tongue on his, the fuzz of Greg’s facial hair against his own stubble.

  Eek.

  “I remember my old salon days.” Rufus perched on the windowsill and watched as his son reached into the depths of the cardboard box. Dan pulled out fistful after fistful of crumpled-up newspaper. “We had some pretty crazy times back then.”

  “It wasn’t so crazy,” Dan replied defensively. At last his hand gripped something firm inside the mush of newspaper. Grabbing hold tightly, he pulled on the narrow object until it popped out and the loose cardboard shell fell to the ground, showering balled-up newspaper all over his floor.

  Rufus laughed. “Too bad. You kids today. No passion, no guts. I remember back when I was your age, me and some friends, we’d go out to the lakes, up in New England. Camp out, write poetry, stay up all night talking.”

  Dan half-listened as he pondered the object in his hands: it was about two feet long and wrapped tightly in a cocoon of bubble wrap and packing tape. He dug at the wrapping with his fingernail, anxiously going over the events of the night before. How far had he gone with Greg exactly? How had he gotten back home? He had almost no memory of putting himself to bed. And he’d woken up in just his favorite pair of red Gap boxer shorts—had he been wearing them yesterday? He couldn’t remember.