Nothing Can Keep Us Together (15 page)

“I guess I failed to raise you properly.” Rufus sighed heavily as he stared into a troughlike glass of red wine. The way he saw it, you had two choices in this city. Either you spent an arm and a leg to send your kids to private school, where they learned to shop for insanely expensive clothes and to be snobbish to their father, but also to converse in Latin, memorize Keats, and do algorithms in their heads; or, you sent them to public school, where they might not learn to read, might not graduate, and risked getting shot. He’d thought he’d done the right thing. But now it looked like neither of his kids was going to any school of any kind next year.

“You didn’t fail, Dad,” Dan corrected as he scarfed down a forkful of sesame noodles. Rufus and Jenny had waited outside Hunan 92 on Ninety-second and Amsterdam while he went in to buy some celebratory takeout. He’d stayed up all night working on his speech, drinking instant coffee after instant coffee and smoking Camel after Camel. If he didn’t eat something, he wasn’t going to make it to any party later. Now they were home, sitting at the dining room table, staring at one another, with an unopened bottle of champagne on the table. It was a Monday and barely four o’clock—an odd time to all be home together.

“At least he got into college,” Jenny put in glumly. She’d worn a new stretchy lavender-and-pale-yellow Pucci print wrap dress to Dan’s graduation, and there were two huge damp spots under each pendulous boob from where she’d sweated in the heat. She felt disgusting and was particularly resentful of her brother and father for being in such equally bad moods that they weren’t even going to try to cheer her up. She thought about calling Elise, but she was at her country house in Cape Cod, and she’d only make Jenny feel worse by moping about the fact that they were going to be apart next year. That is, if Jenny was actually going anywhere next year. As things stood, she might have to be homeschooled.

She glanced at her father. In an effort to fit in with the other fathers, he’d worn a suit to Dan’s graduation, but it was black wool—too warm for June, and all wrong with the weirdly trendy, tight-fitting pumpkin orange shirt he’d borrowed from Dan to wear underneath it. He’d yanked out the orange ribbon in his fury, and his wiry salt-and-pepper hair was now fashioned into a sort of messy chignon, held together with the electric blue magnetic bulldog clip they used to keep their takeout menus on the door of the refrigerator. To make things worse, there were stray pieces of pink towel lint in his beard.

Maybe homeschooling wasn’t such a great idea.

“Isn’t there someplace you kids need to be?” Rufus asked, downing the remains of his wine. Obviously, one glass wouldn’t be nearly enough.

“Come on, Dad,” Dan complained. “It’s not like I’m never going to college. I just deferred for a year, that’s all.”

Rufus reached for the uncorked bottle of Sangiovese in the middle of the table and poured himself some more. “I just spent eighty thousand dollars on your high school education, all borrowed, so it’ll probably be double with interest. Excuse me for not being ecstatic.” His gray eyebrows knitted together in a furry single line. “Does Vanessa even know about this?” he demanded suspiciously.

Dan ripped open a clear plastic packet of fluorescent orange duck sauce with his teeth and squirted it onto an egg roll. “Not really.”

Jenny and Rufus both stared at him in shocked surprise.

Dan looked up. “What?”

“Idiot,” Jenny breathed across the table at him. She’d worked with Vanessa Abrams on Rancor, the Constance student-run arts magazine, and had hung out with her enough times to know that she was fiercely independent and not at all into this sort of lovesick-puppy-dog shit Dan was pulling. Besides, wasn’t she supposed to be going out with Blair Waldorf’s stepbrother now? “Idiot,” she muttered again.

Rufus didn’t say anything. He just picked up his glass of wine, carried it out of the dining room, down the hall, and into his office, slamming the door shut behind him.

Dan shrugged his shoulders and opened up another packet of duck sauce. “I really don’t know what everyone’s problem is.”

Jenny was about to tell him what an ignorant, presumptuous asshole he was when her baby blue Nokia began to jingle with the first few notes of “Happy Birthday to You,” the Raves recording she’d sung backup for. She bit her lip, still glaring at Dan with her big brown eyes.

“It’s your phone. You better answer it,” Dan told her with his mouth full.

“Fine.” Jenny reached into her imitation—Louis Vuitton Calla Lily purse and pressed the yes button on her phone. It was probably Elise, calling her from Cape Cod to complain about how bored she was of eating lobster with her parents. “Just to warn you, I’m in a really bad mood,” Jenny said in greeting.

There was silence on the other end.

“Hello?” Jenny demanded impatiently.

“Yes? Is this Jennifer Humphrey?” a polite male voice replied.

Oops.

She sat up straight in her chair. “Speaking.”

Jenny reminded Dan of someone just then, but he couldn’t quite place who. Their mother, maybe? Except the only real memory he had of his mother was of her trying to teach him how to tie a tie when he was only five. He’d kept messing up because her perfume was so pungent, it had made him dizzy.

“This is Thaddeus Moore, director of admissions at Waverly Prep,” the man introduced himself. “Do you have a moment?”

Did she ever!

“Yes,” she answered cautiously, her heart beating so hard, she could practically feel her ribs cracking. Dan’s pack of Camel filters was sitting on the table. She reached for them and pulled one out, tapping it on the tabletop like a veteran smoker. If only her dad had left the wine behind.

“Good. Well, I wanted to let you know that we received your application and the package you sent, and we were very impressed, especially with your artwork,” Mr. Moore informed her. “I myself spoke with your headmistress, Mrs. McLean, and she couldn’t say enough kind, enthusiastic things about you. Of course, applications for next fall have been closed since December. However, due to unexpected circumstances, a space has just opened up for the fall. So if you’re still interested in attending Waverly next year, we’d be happy to have you.”

Jenny whipped the unlit cigarette at her brother and it bounced off his stupid, staring forehead and onto the floor. “Really?!” she nearly shouted. “Oh my God. Really?!”

“Yes, really,” Mr. Moore responded with what sounded like a tinge of amusement. “We’ll send you the paperwork today if you like.”

Oh, what a nice, nice man. “Yes, please!” Jenny stood up and then sat down again. She was so excited, she thought she might wet her wrap dress. “Thank you. Oh my God. Thank you so much!”

“You’re quite welcome.”

She realized she should hang up before she said something really stupid and he changed his mind. “I better go tell my father now. I’m so glad you called. Thank you.”

Jenny hung up, danced around the table, and threw her arms around Dan. “I’m going to boarding school!” she shrieked giddily, grabbing his shoulders and shaking his skinny, smelly body like a rag doll. “I’m going to boarding school!”

“Cool,” Dan responded, relieved that the attention had shifted away from his own dubious predicament. He fished a fortune cookie out of the bottom of the paper bag he’d brought his Chinese food home in. “Good for you.”

Jenny spun around and hurtled toward her dad’s office. Ignoring the strict rule Rufus had laid down when she was just a babe, she flung open the door without knocking.

Rufus looked up in surprise, lit match and translucent green water pipe in his hands, the window flung open and the warm air acrid with the stench of pot. “Grr,” he growled.

Jenny didn’t even care. She’d always suspected he smoked pot, anyway. “Dad, I got into Waverly,” she told him breathlessly. “You know, the boarding school I read about with the new art program? I got in!” she practically shouted at him. “I got in!”

Rufus blew out the match, opened his desk drawer, and chucked the evidence into it. Then he opened his arms to give her a big bear hug.

“I just wanted it so badly, it had to happen,” Jenny gushed, her face pressed into his warm, smoky shoulder.

We’ve always been told, “Be careful what you wish for.” But maybe Blair had it right after all: The more you want, the more you get.

Gossipgirl.net

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

Our last night together

We’re now officially high school graduates!!! Let’s get ready to party hearty—at the Yale Club!! There’s no guest list and no dress code, so crashers—you may not be guaranteed a room, but you’re certainly welcome! Definition of a crasher: anyone who did not graduate today and/or anyone who doesn’t actually know the girl hosting the party.

Their last night together

Alas, B’s lovely English lord is flying home tomorrow. Will he break off his engagement to the girl it’s rumored he’s been betrothed to since he was a wee lad? Or will he marry her, leaving B in the lurch? At least she can drive off into the sunset in her new, adorable, bisque-colored convertible Beamer. Did you see it parked outside Brick Church? Imported directly from the Continent. No one—and I mean no one—in this country has that car.

Your e-mail

Q: Dear GG,

I’m a premed sophomore at Yale and I heard that kid N has already signed up to be a lab rat for the medical school’s psychiatric division. Like, they’re going to give him all these mind-altering drugs that they’re trying out, and they even pay him to take them.

—jrmed

A: Dear jrmed,

Like he needs to be paid?! Anyway, first things first—the boy doesn’t even have his high school diploma yet.

—GG

Q: Dear Gossip Girl,

My son tells me you are the voice of the young people and so I must ask if you know a gifted poet who was on his way to Evergreen College but tripped over his heart. You see, I am something of a poet myself! This poet was going to assist me with my history of sex poetry book, but he writes to say he doesn’t come. I am upset! I need talented assistance! Maybe you can come to Olympia to help me. You sleep in hammock. My son makes good Greek food!

—professorpop

A: Dear professorpop,

My, is it ever tempting, but I kind of already have plans this summer. Besides, hammocks have never been my thing—I’m a 600-thread-count-Egyptian-cotton-sheet sort of girl. Your book sounds quite intriguing, though. Good luck with that.

—GG

They finally caught on

Almost all the private schools in Manhattan have finally figured it out: Seniors don’t want to take final exams or sit in class the last month of school, nor do they need to, since they’ve already been accepted at college and are so mentally spent by then, they can’t possibly learn anything new. So, starting next year, seniors will only have to go to class until the middle of May. They’ll finish up the year by doing an internship of their choice anywhere in the city. Sounds pretty cool, huh? Too bad none of us got to do it. I could have “interned” with an online news column and “gone to work” in bed in my favorite black cotton DKNY intimates nightgown. Not that I’m bitter. After all, I’ve already graduated!!!!

Sightings

B mooning the Yale Club out of her new Beamer convertible. V mooning the Yale Club out of B’s new Beamer convertible. The girls started celebrating early, so who knows what kind of shape they’ll be in later tonight. … That conceited indie film director paying a personal visit to S’s family’s Fifth Avenue penthouse. S stepping out of her apartment building, looking resplendent in a yellow eyelet Tocca sundress. Thank goodness she changed. J in Bed, Bath and Beyond, already decorating her room at Waverly Prep. D buying a whole bucketful of red roses for guess who? Good thing she didn’t leave town, but too bad she’s forgotten all about him! Tonight should be très, très interessant.

See you then!

You know you love me.

gossip girl

Nothing Can Keep us Together

Still wearing her perfectly fitted white satin Oscar de la Renta suit, Blair sat on Lord Marcus’s knee on a brown leather wing-back chair in the Yale Club lounge, feeling weirdly content as throngs of people wandered into her graduation party with their yearbooks tucked under their arms. She and Lord Marcus hadn’t had a chance to consummate her graduation yet, but as soon as the party kicked into high gear, they’d slip up to her suite and do it once and for all. She’d already filled the suite with Diptyque candles in scents of sandalwood, bergamot, and lime, and underneath her suit she was wearing her favorite new cream-colored embroidered cotton Cosabella camisole-and-thong set.

The lounge was its same crusty old New York self, except for the six flat-screen Pioneer TVs hanging from the wood-paneled walls, running Vanessa’s latest film on a constant loop. The fact that all the characters in the film were slowly trickling into the party made it seem like the opening night of an edgy new documentary, and everyone at the party felt totally famous.

“I told you I was telegenic,” Chuck Bass crowed, watching himself onscreen. He’d arrived with an entourage of crew-cutted boys in gray flannel uniforms no one else there had ever laid eyes on before.

That’s because he’d raided the sophomore class of some random Catholic school near his Sutton Place apartment and paid the boys to come.

“They’re cute,” Isabel remarked, eyeballing a particularly innocent, wide-eyed-looking boy who was signing Chuck’s Riverside Prep yearbook with a yellow highlighter pen. Isabel had changed into a pair of cutoff Rogan jeans and a cut-up red Juicy Couture T-shirt and was looking almost indecently slutty.

The boy eyeballed her back. He’d never seen so much well-tended exposed skin. Maybe it was his lucky night!

“They’re only, like, thirteen years old,” Kati scoffed as she flipped through her yearbook, counting how many people had signed it. She was saving her virginity for college. Sort of. Technically she’d already lost it to Chuck Bass at a party at Serena’s house, like, two years ago, but she’d been so drunk at the time, she didn’t even remember it.

Lord Marcus slipped something cool and wonderful around Blair’s neck. Blair touched her collarbone and glanced down. It was a Bvlgari pearl choker exactly like the one she’d borrowed from her mother for her Breakfast at Fred’s audition, only ten times nicer. Each pearl in the strand was its own unique shape, imperfect and perfect at the same time, fastened by an ornate gold clasp shaped like the letter B. “Congratulations, Bee,” he murmured, kissing her on the nape of the neck.

Bee?

Blair had always wanted a nickname. She tilted her chin up to kiss him on the mouth, feeling drunk with happiness and all the vodka she’d consumed with Vanessa in the hours between graduation and now. She had an insanely cute new car, an insanely hot new boyfriend, and she was going to Yale in the fall. The pearls were just accessories for her already-perfect life.

Well, aren’t we smug?

“I’d love for you to come to England this summer,” Lord Marcus whispered, his lips brushing Blair’s hair. “My family’s desperate to meet you. You could stay at the house. And maybe we could even fly to Paris and see your dad while you’re over.”

Blair’s breath caught in her throat and she turned around, blinking up at him like a vacant cartoon princess who’d just been woken from a witch’s spell. He’d only asked her to visit him, but it had sounded almost like … a marriage proposal. He was her prince, her knight—well, not exactly, but a lord was almost the same thing. He’d swooped in on his white stallion, swept her off her feet, and now he wanted to take her home to meet his parents because soon—maybe even sometime this summer—he was going to give her an incredibly rare diamond ring, kneel down before her, and ask her to marry him.

Not that he actually mentioned marriage. And when exactly did a white stallion enter the picture?

“Yes,” Blair responded blissfully. “Oh, yes!”

It was more of a response to the marriage proposal in her head than to Lord Marcus’s original proposal, but in the world according to Blair, they were intrinsically linked: She would go to England and she would come back engaged to Lord Marcus.

Even though she was only seventeen and her mom had never even met him. Not that she ever planned to purposely introduce her mother to Marcus. They could meet at the wedding. Or maybe they’d elope to some remote South Pacific island and have an intimate nighttime wedding on a beach with only the natives as their witnesses. They’d eat fire-roasted goat and dance barefoot in the sand.

Remember, anything can happen on the Island of Blair.

She’d kept her summer open, thinking she would need all two and a half months just to shop and pack for Yale. She’d even considered going over to Europe to see her dad—but mostly to shop, because the stores in New York never put out any fall fashions until September, and she had to be in New Haven for orientation at the end of August. How on earth would she arrive at Yale with the right cashmere sweaters, ankle boots, and fitted jackets unless she bought them directly from Prada in Milan or Burberry in London?

Now her summer was more defined. She would shop, get engaged, and then shop some more.

“I can’t bear to think this is our last night together,” Marcus lamented, kissing her behind the ear. “It would do my heart good to know you’re going to come over in a couple of weeks.”

Blair would have closed her eyes and kissed him and then whispered something about how she really, really needed to lie down so would he please walk her to her suite so she could rip his clothes off and they could consummate their marriage a little early, but then Serena and Nate wandered into the party behind a group of L’École girls who were all smoking Gauloises and wearing crocheted Marni halter tops and gold Gucci toe-ring sandals because that French model, Pru, had just worn a crocheted Marni halter top and gold Gucci toe-ring sandals on the cover of the June issue of French Vogue. Serena had changed her outfit—luckily. Otherwise Blair would have broken her perfect, aristocratic nose.

“I thought you told me they broke up,” Tina Ford, who’d just graduated from Seaton Arms, commented to Isabel Coates. She bit into an Absolut Citron–soaked ice cube. “Isn’t that why they both missed graduation?”

“I heard they were never really together,” Kati Farkas trilled in reply, even though Tina wasn’t even talking to her. “Nate’s gay. He came out last week. And he’s in so much trouble. His parents are disowning him. They’re not even going to pay for Yale.”

“So why is Serena still pretending to go out with him?” Isabel demanded, lifting up her ripped red T-shirt and exposing her tummy just to give that innocent-looking Catholic school boy Chuck had brought with him a little thrill.

The other girls rolled their eyes. “Oh, you know how she is. She always has to be so nice to everybody,” Rain complained. “Nate’s dad probably, like, hired her to flirt with Nate so he wouldn’t be gay anymore!”

Actually, that does sound like something Captain Archibald would do.

As they’d filed out of Brick Church, and in the seconds before their families caught up with them, Serena had tried to explain to Blair why she’d almost missed graduation, while Blair had pretended not to listen. Obviously Serena’s second Breakfast at Fred’s audition was way more important than listening to Blair’s speech or getting her diploma. At least Blair had the satisfaction of knowing that Serena would never get the part. She was way too tall, too blond, and too blue-eyed—totally wrong for it.

“I got the part!” Serena screamed at the top of her lungs, so excited, she didn’t care who was listening. She grabbed Nate and squeezed him with her long, perfectly toned arms. “Ken Mogul just called. I got the part!”

Blair nearly fell off Lord Marcus’s knee. She’d already been hating Serena all over again for missing her graduation speech and for wearing the exact same Oscar de la Renta suit she had. And of course she still secretly hated her for being with Nate. It hadn’t seemed possible to hate her any more—until now. But Blair had already started talking to Serena again—she’d even taken Serena’s chemistry exam for her, for Christ’s sake, so now she was stuck with the awkward choice of suddenly acting like a bitch for no reason in front of Lord Marcus, or being completely fake and pretending to be nice so Lord Marcus wouldn’t think she was a bitch and change his mind about wanting to marry her.

As if he hadn’t already noticed her bitchy side.

Nate stood next to Serena like a hired piece of celebrity arm candy. He rubbed his eyes and smiled at Blair and Marcus blearily, and for the first time in a long time, Blair wondered what she’d ever seen in him. No matter how often they broke up, her happily-ever-after fantasies had always featured Nate, but now they had a new and improved co-star. She leaned back against Marcus’s chest, making it very clear that she was supremely comfortable on his lap and totally unruffled by Serena’s news. Her perfectly tailored suit was a little warm in the stuffy room, but it looked so good on her, she didn’t care.

All of a sudden, another good-looking but shorter couple stepped around Nate and Serena and gazed tensely around the room, as if they were worried someone might yell at them for crashing the party. Blair sat up and unbuttoned her Oscar de la Renta suit jacket, flinging it onto the floor in disgust. The male part of the new couple was her twelve-year-old brother Tyler, attempting to look like a rock star by wearing a vintage Armani tuxedo jacket over a ripped black AC/DC T-shirt. The dimple-cheeked, waiflike girl on his arm was wearing the same fucking white Oscar de la Renta suit Blair was. She was even wearing the same fucking Manolo Blahnik shoes as Blair. Her fucking hair was the same color as Blair’s, and it was cut in a short layered bob, just like Blair’s. Blair squinted. She had never seen this fucking girl in her life, but if she wasn’t mistaken, she was also wearing Chanel’s fucking Stroppy lip gloss, Blair’s fucking favorite.

Growl.

Blair hitched up the straps on her totally see-though cream-colored Cosabella camisole. If it hadn’t been for Lord Marcus, she’d have grabbed the girl by the scruff of the neck and thrown her out on the street.

“Hey, sis,” Tyler greeted her in a fake stoner voice, puffing up his shoulders in an attempt to look bigger. “This is Jasmine. Jazz, this is my sister, Blair.”

“Cool,” Blair’s apple-cheeked clone responded casually. Like she hadn’t just spent all day trying to dress exactly like Blair.

Blair wrinkled up her pert little nose. “I got the part!” she heard Serena scream from the other side of the room, for what seemed like the thousandth fucking time. She picked up her cigarette holder, waiting for Marcus to give her a light. “How do you do?” she replied in her best gracious-under-pressure Audrey Hepburn imitation, blowing smoke over her brother’s and his stupid little girlfriend’s heads.

Serena may well have gotten the part, but Blair lived it, every day.

Nothing Can Keep us Together