Happy Valentine’s Day to my very special sister on a special day. —Ruby Tuesday
Can you make it to Cannes? Let’s talk over coffee in Brooklyn Thurs. eve? —the film-maker who discovered you
Vanessa rolled her eyes as she read the last one. She appreciated everything Ken Mogul had done for her, but he hadn’t exactly discovered her. She’d been there all along.
She clicked on her inbox again but there was no response from Dan so she logged off. “See you later,” she whispered to Jenny, whose big brown eyes were glued to her computer.
“See you,” Jenny replied without looking up. There were three whole messages on her Secret Admirer page.
sorry i didn’t get you any candy but i wasn’t sure which kind you like. let’s get some after school. don’t really feel like going home right away anyway. —sadgirl
btw, when do you want to finish that painting?? —me again
Those two were very definitely from Elise, but the third one sounded like it might very well be from a genuine, real-life boy.
Sorry it took me so long, but I didn’t have the guts to write to you before. If you want to meet me, I take the Seventy-ninth Street crosstown bus home after school. I’m not sure what you look like, but if you see a really tall skinny guy with blond hair looking at you on the bus, smile because it’s probably me. Happy Valentine’s Day, JHumphrey. Can’t wait to meet you. Love, L
Jenny reread the message over and over. A tall skinny guy with blond hair? He sounded exactly like the boy she’d seen in Bendel’s! But what did L stand for? Lester? Lance? Louis? No, those names sounded too geeky, and his message didn’t sound geeky at all, just sweet. But how had he gotten her e-mail address? Oh, who cared—she couldn’t believe it: he wanted to meet her!!
Jenny immediately deleted Elise’s messages and ran to the printer to retrieve the one from L. Of course, she planned to ride the Seventy-ninth Street crosstown bus all afternoon and all night if that was what it took. But, God forbid, if they never found each other, Jenny would have his love note to cherish and keep forever and ever. And she’d thought she was through with love. See how magical Valentine’s Day can be?
hugs, not drugs
“So how come you didn’t call 911?” Jeremy Scott Tompkinson asked Nate as he crumbled pot into the EZ Wider rolling paper spread out on his right knee.
“Give the dude a break,” noted Charlie Dern. “He was stoned, remember?”
“I would’ve been like, ‘See ya later, you crazy fucking chick! I don’t care if you’re putting out!’” quipped Anthony Avuldsen.
Jeremy had managed to steal some pot from his older brother who was home visiting from college, and now the four boys were huddled on a remote stoop on East End Avenue, taking a break before gym class.
Nate blew on his bare hands and stuffed them into his cashmere-lined coat pockets. “I don’t know.” He still felt pretty confused about it himself. “I guess I just wanted to call someone who knew us both. Someone I could trust.”
Jeremy shook his head. “Dude, that’s exactly what those rehab headshrinkers want you to do. They’ve got you programmed already.”
Nate thought about the way Georgie imitated Jackie’s corny psychobabble—all that stuff about healing wounds and negative friendships. It didn’t seem like Georgie had been programmed. All of a sudden he wondered if she was angry that he’d called Jackie, but it wasn’t like he could call her and ask her. She was now staying at Breakaway full time and wasn’t allowed to take any phone calls, just in case one of her dealers called or something. Hopefully Nate would still see her in group.
“How long do you have to deal with that rehab bullshit anyway?” Charlie asked. He reached for the burning joint and took a hit.
“Six months,” Nate answered. “But at least I don’t have to live there.” The other boys intoned bored and sympathetic sighs of disgust. Nate didn’t say anything. Although he’d never have admitted it, he kind of liked going to rehab and meeting the different kids in group, especially Georgie. He’d be sort of sad when it was over.
“’Ere,” Charlie said, passing Nate the joint.
Nate looked at it and shook his head. “No thanks,” he murmured under his breath. There was a crushed red paper heart lying on the sidewalk in front of the stoop where the four boys were sitting. “Is it Valentine’s Day?” he asked distractedly.
“Yeah,” Anthony responded. “Why?”
“Huh,” Nate replied. He stood up and brushed the snow off the back of his black Hugo Boss coat. For what seemed like forever he’d always sent a special girl roses on Valentine’s Day. “I gotta go do something. Catch you guys in gym, okay?”
His friends watched him trudge purposefully through the slush toward Madison Avenue until he was out of sight. Something was happening to their old friend Nate Archibald, and it wasn’t just that he’d turned down a joint for the first time since he was ten years old
Could it be, was it possible, that he’d fallen in love?
v-day turned d-day for b
Blair kept her hand clapped over her mouth and her mind clear of any thoughts of Owen the whole way home to keep from being sick all over the back seat of the taxi. But when she stepped off the wood-paneled elevator and into the penthouse, her nostrils were bombarded with the putrid scent of roses, causing her stomach to churn ominously once more. The entire front hall was packed with them. Yellow roses, white roses, pink ones and red. She dropped her bag on the floor and read the notes on the bouquets.
A—You’re my honey-pie. Love, S, said the note on the yellow roses.
Audrey, my favorite little aristocrat, will you please be my Valentine? Love, Cary, said the note on the red roses.
My darling Mrs. Rose, May our tiny daughter be as lovely and as wonderful as you are and as hopelessly happy as I am every day I spend with you. —Your loving husband, Mr. Rose, said the note on the pink-and-white bouquet.
As if one of those notes wouldn’t have been enough to make Blair puke out her already puked-out guts, she had to be bombarded with three uniquely repulsive missives. Throwing her coat down on the floor, she staggered into the nearest bathroom to empty her stomach again. “Mom!” she shouted, wiping her mouth on a parchment-colored R-monogrammed guest towel.
“Blair?” her mother called back. Eleanor Waldorf wandered slowly down the hall wearing a pink boiled wool Chanel suit that had been let out at the waist to accommodate her five-months pregnant belly. Her highlighted blond bob was pulled back into a neat ponytail and she was wearing white rabbit fur slippers and carrying her portable phone. Like most Upper East Side hostesses, Eleanor spent all the time she wasn’t having lunch or getting her hair done on the phone. “What are you doing home?” she asked her daughter. “Are you sick?”
Blair clutched her stomach and tried not to look at her mother. “I saw the note from Cyrus,” she croaked. “You’re having a girl?”
Her mother beamed back at her, her blue eyes sparkling ecstatically. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she cried. “I found out this morning.” She flip-flopped up to Blair in her fur slippers and threw her arms around her daughter’s neck. “Cyrus has always wanted a girl. And now when you come home from college you’ll have a little baby sister to play with!”
Blair grimaced as her stomach did another back flip at the mention of college.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Eleanor babbled on. “But we’re planning to turn your room into a nursery since we’re running out of bedrooms. You and Aaron will be going away to school soon anyway. You don’t mind, do you, sweetheart?”
Blair stared at her mother blankly. She hadn’t wanted a stepbrother or a stepfather and she certainly didn’t want a baby sister, especially not one who was going to take over her room. “I’m going to go lie down,” she replied weakly.
“I’ll have Myrtle send in some bouillon,” her mother called after her.
Blair slammed her bedroom door and dove onto her bed, burying her head in the depths of her extrasoft goose-down pill
ows. Kitty Minky, her gray Russian Blue cat, jumped onto her back and kneaded his paws into her black-and-white Fair Isle sweater. “Help me,” Blair moaned miserably to her cat. If only she could lie there until late August and then be helicoptered to her new dorm room at Yale, skipping all the bad parts in the script of the movie that was her life, the parts that needed to be rewritten.
Out of habit, she reached out and punched the playback button on the answering machine on her bedside table, keeping her eyes closed as she listened.
“Hello, Blair, it’s Owen. Owen Wells. Sorry I couldn’t call earlier. What happened? I woke up and you were gone. Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day, gorgeous. Call me back when you have a moment. Bye-bye.”
“Hello, Blair, it’s Owen again. Did you get my flowers? I hope you like them. Call me back when you have a moment. Thanks. ’Bye.”
“Hello, Blair. I know it’s short notice, but would you like to have dinner with me? Um, this is Owen by the way. Plans on the home front have changed and I’m all freed up. So how ’bout Le Cirque this evening, gorgeous? Give me a call.”
“Hello, Blair. I got a table at Le Cirque—” Blair kicked her answering machine off the bedside table and it came unplugged. She didn’t care that Owen had the sexiest voice and was the best kisser in all of New York. She couldn’t play Audrey to his Cary anymore, not when Cary had turned out to be a lying, cheating, son-of-a-bitch, scumbag dad. She didn’t even care if Owen told Yale she was a stupid flake who wouldn’t last more than two weeks there. Fuck Owen, and fuck Yale.
She grabbed her phone and dialed Owen’s cell phone number. It was the only number he’d given her, probably because it was the only phone he could be sure of answering himself.
“Blair?” Owen answered eagerly on the first ring. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all day!”
“In high school?” Blair shot back. “I know it was a long time ago for you, but it’s this place where you go during the week where they teach you stuff. I’m only home now because I’m not feeling well.”
“Oh. I guess you’re not up for dinner then?”
Owen’s voice didn’t sound nearly as sexy now that she knew what a complete asshole he was. Blair walked over to the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door and examined her hair. It already looked a little longer. Maybe it wouldn’t take that long to grow back. Or maybe she’d cut it even shorter. She pulled her hair back severely from her forehead to see what it would look like supershort.
“I know your daughter,” she hissed into the phone as she walked over to her dresser and dug around in the top drawer until she found the little pair of silver antique sewing scissors she’d inherited from her grandmother and never had much use for.
“B-Blair—,” Owen stammered.
“Fuck off.” Blair clicked off the phone and threw it onto her bed. Then, grabbing a handful of hair, she began to hack away with the tiny silver sewing scissors.
Good-bye, Audrey Hepburn, hello Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby!
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people!
The least painful way to say good-bye
Sad but true, the reality of Valentine’s Day is that it makes demands on relationships that those relationships may not be able to handle. What do you do when you both know it’s over and you just want to move on so you can start maxing out your credit cards on presents for yourself instead of for someone else? In my vast experience with painless breakups, the less you say the better. Don’t hash things out. A simple gesture means so much more. An invitation to do something ‘with the gang’ instead of alone together. A tender kiss on the cheek. A good-bye wave. And don’t you dare return any gifts. They’re yours! Keep ’em.
One thing you may not have realized about me
I am real. That means I have a birthday. Next Monday I turn eighteen and I’m having a party and you’re all invited. I know what you’re thinking, it’s Monday. But really, what else have you got to do on a Monday night? Your Latin homework? A do-it-yourself facial? Plus, the week will fly by afterwards, I promise.
When? Monday, 9 P.M. till dawn.
Where? Gnome. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it. No one has. It’s a brand-spanking-new club on Bond Street celebrating its opening night with my party. Isn’t that sweet?
What to bring? Yourself, your most beautiful friends, and of course, a present!
Sightings
B absent from school for the second day in a row. D waiting around in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel looking nervous in his spiffy new Agnès B. suit. S at the Les Best atelier trying on a gorgeous sunflower yellow dress for a photo shoot. J riding the Seventy-ninth Street crosstown bus back and forth through the park for hours. A playing guitar on the train back from Scarsdale, where he’s been hiding out for days. N jogging around Central Park—so much clean living gives a boy energy!
Your e-mail
Q: Dear Gossip Girl,
I kissed a girl (I’m a girl too) but I didn’t mean anything by it. Actually, there’s a boy I like. What should I say to this girl without hurting her feelings, because she’s my friend?
—doubletrouble
A: Dear double,
I’ve never been a big believer in the theory that kissing someone is a promise you won’t kiss anyone else. Kissing is fun. Why limit yourself to just one kissee? The trick is telling the person you’re just having fun, you’re not planning to get married or anything.
BTW, it’s best to do this before you kiss them, not after.
—GG
Q: Dear GG,
I’m stuck in rehab and I’m allowed to log onto the Web but certain e-mail accounts are blocked so I can’t send a message to this boy I’m hung up on and miss so much. He even sent me roses! Luckily I can get on your site so I can tell the world that I’m in love. Maybe when I get out of here we can have a drink to celebrate. It’s on me.
—rehab babe
A: Dear babe,
Instead of us having a drink when you get out, you should start a site of your own. Or write a book. Just a suggestion.
—GG
Don’t forget my party—wish list to come!
You know you love me.
gossip girl
lifestyles of the rich and famous
Wednesday after school Dan stood in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, fiddling with the collar of his new black Agnès B. suit jacket and clutching the small red leather-bound book Mystery had given him for Valentine’s Day. He’d been to the Plaza only once before, when he and Vanessa had been in Central Park filming ice skaters and she’d had to use the bathroom. Even in his fancy new suit he felt out of place in such sumptuous surroundings.
He’d better get used to it. After all, he was about to become a very famous author who had tea with his agent in fancy hotels on a regular basis.
Pauper in a mirrored castle, he thought, forming the beginnings of a poem.
“Daniel!” Dan heard Rusty Klein shout from across the room. This time she was wearing her red wig in fat braids on either side of her head, and her immense, six-foot-plus frame was cloaked in an unusual black Japanese geisha robe dotted with tiny white flowers and paired with tall, black suede stiletto boots—as if she wasn’t already tall enough. Mystery stood at her side looking like a starved ghost in a tattered plum-colored wrap dress and worn brown leather boots. Her collarbone stuck out from her skinny frame like an airplane wing, and her lips were so chapped, they were completely white.
Skeleton princess drifts out on a ray of dust.
“Hey,” Dan greeted them casually, as if he always hung out at the Plaza after school. Inside his white Agnès B. shirt the silver gravity pen Mystery had given him beat against his pale chest. “Thank you for the gifts.”
Rusty swept him up in a big bear hug, suffocating him with her rank oily-fish perfume and smudging his cheek with orangey-pink lipstick. “Myster
y and I had too much fun shopping for you, darling! We had to force ourselves to stop.”
Mystery ran her tongue over her yellow teeth. “We’ve been drinking martinis and deconstructing Kafka like two old ninnies,” she croaked, sounding drunk and looking like she hadn’t slept in weeks. She blinked her sleepy gray eyes. “Now that you’re here I can eat. You starve me.”
Bones draped in moth wings sewn with cobwebs.
“This way,” Rusty chortled, ignoring Mystery’s odd pronouncement. She ushered them through the immense lobby and into a large tearoom full of gilded mirrors, tinkling crystal, and overly perfumed ladies with freshly blown-out hair. The round, white-clothed table had been laid with a silver tea service and a three-tiered silver tray covered with freshly baked scones, pots of homemade jam, and tiny cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Two half-empty martini glasses stood on the table, ready to be polished off.
“We’ve been having a little party to celebrate Mystery’s debut,” Rusty explained merrily. She sat down and tossed back the remains of her drink.
The queen of poesy gives a tempting tug.
Dan sat down next to her and put his red leather book on the table. “What debut?”
Rusty grabbed a blueberry scone and slathered it with butter, shoving the whole thing into her enormous orangey-pink mouth, where it disappeared instantly. “Good, you brought your observations book. Have you been writing everything down? Remember, nothing is inconsequential!” She winked at Mystery. “Who knows? It could all add up to a book!”
Mystery giggled and glanced at Dan. “I finished my novel,” she confided huskily.
House on fire! House on fire!
Dan rubbed his thumb over the tines of his fork, as he absorbed the information. Mystery had finished writing an entire novel in less than a week and all he’d done was write one crappy Valentine’s Day poem for Vanessa. He couldn’t even bear to read Vanessa’s response after he’d sent the poem to her, that was how badly it sucked.