“Did you ever think about the fact that these are like, the most important years of our lives? Like, for getting into college and everything?” she said.
Missy brought Serena’s drink, and this time Serena only nodded her thanks. She looked down at the floor, her pinky nail between her teeth. “Yeah, I’m just realizing that now,” she admitted. “I hadn’t thought about it before—how I should have been joining teams and clubs. You know, getting really into the school thing.”
Blair shook her head. “I feel sorry for your parents,” she said quietly.
Serena’s eyes were getting big, and her lip was trembling. But she was determined not to let Blair make her cry. Blair was just being a bitch, that’s all. Maybe she was getting her period.
Serena took a huge gulp of her drink and wiped her mouth with her cocktail napkin. “So, you never told me what you and Nate did all summer. Did you ever go up to Maine and see that boat he built?” she asked, completely changing the subject.
Blair shook her head. “I had tennis camp. It sucked.”
“Oh,” Serena said.
They drank their drinks in awkward silence.
Serena sat up suddenly, remembering something. “Hey,” she said. “You know, some girl actually signed up to help me with my movie? A ninth grader. Her name is Jenny. And she gave me an invitation to that party next week. You know, the one you’ve been planning?”
Touché, girlfriend. Touché.
Blair pulled another cigarette out of the pack and stuck it in her mouth. She reached for a match, pausing before she struck it to see if the bartender would leap across the room with a lighter. He didn’t. Blair lit the cigarette herself and blew a big cloud of smoke directly into Serena’s face.
So Serena knew about the party. She had an invitation. Well, she was bound to find out anyway.
“The calligrapher,” Blair said, smiling sweetly. “She’s good, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, she did a great job,” Serena said. “And it was really nice of her to notice that mine had the wrong address on it. She said the address you gave her was my dorm room at Hanover.”
Blair tucked her hair behind her ears and shrugged her shoulders. “Oops,” she said, feigning cluelessness. “Sorry about that.”
“So tell me about the party,” Serena said. “What’s it for again?”
Blair couldn’t talk about the cause without smiling self-consciously because it sounded so lame and unsexy. That’s why she’d named the party Kiss on the Lips. To give it some allure. “It’s for those two peregrine falcons that live in Central Park. They’re an endangered species, and everyone’s worried that they’re going to die or starve or the squirrels will raid their nests or whatever. So they set up a foundation for them,” she explained. “Don’t laugh. I know it’s kind of stupid.”
Serena blew out a puff of smoke and giggled. “Well, it’s not like there aren’t people that need saving. I mean, what about the homeless?”
“Well, it’s as good a cause as any. We wanted something that wasn’t too heavy to start the season off,” Blair huffed, annoyed. It was fine for her to laugh at the cause she’d chosen for the party, but Serena had no right.
Serena steered the conversation back on course. “So is the party like, just for us, or is it for parents, too?” she asked.
Blair hesitated. “Just . . . us,” she said finally. She downed the rest of her drink and looked at her watch. “Um, I kind of have to take off,” she said. She slid her bag over her arm and picked her pack of cigarettes up off the table.
Serena frowned. She had taken her time getting dressed, psyching herself up for a wild night out with her friends. She’d expected a big group—Blair and the other girls, Nate and his gang, Chuck and his boys—all the people they always used to hang out with.
“But I thought we would stay here for a while. Wait for everyone else,” Serena said. “Where are you going, anyway?”
“I have a practice SAT tomorrow morning,” Blair said, feeling extremely superior, even though she was lying her ass off. “I need to prepare for it, and I want to go to bed early.”
“Oh,” Serena said. She crossed her arms and sat back on her stool. “I was hoping we’d all wind up partying in the Basses’ suite upstairs. They still have it, don’t they?”
Back in tenth grade, Serena and Blair and her friends had spent many a night in Chuck Bass’s suite, drinking and dancing, watching movies and ordering room service, taking hot tubs. Together, they’d pass out on the king-sized bed and stay there until they were sober enough to make their way home.
Once, during a very drunken night at the end of tenth grade, Serena and Blair were soaking in the hot tub, and Blair had kissed Serena full on the lips. Serena hadn’t seemed to remember it the next morning, but Blair never forgot it. Even though it was just an impulse move that didn’t mean anything, thinking about that kiss always made her feel hot and itchy and uncomfortable. That was another reason why it had been such a relief when Serena went away.
“The Basses still have the suite,” Blair said, standing up. “But they really don’t appreciate people using it. This isn’t tenth grade anymore,” she added coldly.
“Okay,” Serena said. She couldn’t say anything right, could she? At least, not to Blair.
“Well, have a good weekend,” Blair said with a stiff smile, as if they’d only just met. As if they hadn’t known each other all their lives. She dropped twenty dollars on the table for their drinks. “Excuse me,” she told the three tall boys who were blocking her path. “Can I get by?”
Serena twirled her drink straw around in her glass and sipped the dregs of her Cosmopolitan, watching Blair leave. The drink tasted salty now, because she was about to cry again.
“Hey Blair—” Serena called out after her friend. Maybe if she just blurted it all out, asked Blair why she was really mad, even confessed to sleeping with Nate that one time, they could go on being friends. They could start over. Serena might even start taking an SAT prep course, so they could take practice SATs together, or whatever.
But Blair kept on pushing her way through the crowd and out the door to the street.
She walked over to Sixth Avenue to catch a cab back uptown. It was starting to rain and her hair was frizzing. A bus roared by with Serena’s picture on the side of it. Was it her belly button? It looked like the dark pit at the center of a peach. Blair turned her back on it and waved her hand in the air to flag down the next taxi. She couldn’t get away fast enough. But the first taxi that stopped for her had the same poster in the lighted advertising box on its roof. Blair got in and slammed the door angrily. She could never get completely away—Serena was fucking everywhere.
b & n come close, but no cigar
Serena reached for another cigarette and stuck it in her mouth with trembling fingers. Suddenly a pinky-ringed hand proffered a Zippo and lit the cigarette for her. The lighter was gold, with the monogram C.B. So was the ring.
“Hey Serena. You look seriously hot,” Chuck Bass said. “What are you doing sitting here all by yourself?”
Serena inhaled deeply, quelling her tears, and smiled. “Hey Chuck. I’m glad you’re here. Blair ditched me and now I’m all alone. Is anyone else coming?”
Chuck clicked his lighter shut and put it in his pocket. He glanced around the room. “Who knows?” he said casually. “They could come, or they could not come.” He sat down in the armchair where Blair had been sitting. “You really do look hot,” he said again, staring at Serena’s legs like he wanted to eat them.
“Thanks,” Serena said and laughed. It was kind of a relief to see that Chuck was still exactly the same, even if everyone else was acting like freaks. She had to love him for that.
“Another round,” Chuck called over to Missy. “And put everything on my tab.” He handed Serena the twenty Blair had left on the table. “You can keep that,” he said.
“But it’s Blair’s,” Serena said, taking the bill and looking at it.
“Give it back
to her, then,” Chuck said.
Serena nodded and stuffed the bill into her red velvet handbag.
“There you go,” Chuck said, when Missy put the drinks down. “Bottoms up!” He clinked glasses with Serena and poured scotch down his throat.
“Oops,” she said, as her Cosmo sloshed onto her dress. “Damn.”
Chuck grabbed his cocktail napkin and dabbed at the stain, which happened to be on her hip. “There, you can’t even see it,” he said, letting his hand linger near her crotch.
Serena grabbed Chuck’s hand and put it back in his lap. “Thanks, Chuck,” she said. “I think I’m okay.”
Chuck wasn’t even a tad embarrassed. He was unembarrassable.
“Hey, let’s get one more drink and take it up to my suite, okay?” he offered. “I’ll tell the bar staff to tell anyone who comes to meet us up there. They know who my friends are.”
Serena hesitated, thinking about what Blair had said about the Basses not liking people in their suite anymore. “Are you sure it’s okay?” she said.
Chuck laughed and stood up, holding out his hand to her. “Of course it’s okay. Come on.”
Even though it was raining out and he was freezing his ass off, Nate was in no hurry to get to Blair’s house. It was pretty ironic, really. Here he was, a seventeen-year-old guy, about to have sex with his girlfriend for the first time (hers, anyway). He should have been running.
She must know by now, he kept telling himself, over and over and over. How could she not? The whole city had to know by now that he had had sex with Serena. But if Blair knew, then why hadn’t she said anything?
Thinking about it was driving Nate insane.
He ducked into a liquor store on Madison Avenue and bought a half pint of Jack Daniels. He’d already smoked a little joint at home, but he’d need a shot of courage before he saw Blair. He had no idea what he was in for.
Nate walked the rest of the way as slowly as he could, taking surreptitious sips from the bottle. Just before turning down Seventy-second Street to her apartment, he bought Blair a rose.
Chuck ordered another round of drinks from the bar, and Serena followed him into the elevator and up to the Basses’ ninth-floor suite. It looked exactly the same as it always had: living room with entertainment center and bar; huge bedroom with king-sized bed and another entertainment center, as if they needed two; huge marble bathroom with hot tub and two fluffy white bathrobes. That was other great thing Serena loved about hotels—the bathrobes.
Doesn’t everyone?
On the coffee table in the living room was a pile of photographs. Serena recognized Nate’s face in the top one and she picked them up and shuffled through them.
Chuck glanced at the pictures over her shoulder. “Last year,” he said, shaking his head. “We were pretty crazy.”
Blair, Nate, Chuck, Isabel, Kati, everyone was in them, naked in the hot tub, dancing in their underwear, drinking champagne in bed. They were all party shots from last year—the date was in the corner of each one—and they were all taken in the suite.
So Blair had lied. Everyone did still party in the Basses’ suite, same as always. And Blair wasn’t the little goody-goody she pretended to be either with her mock SAT and her prim black cardigan. In one picture Blair was wearing only her underwear, jumping up and down on the bed with a magnum of champagne in her hand.
Serena gulped her drink and sat down on one end of the couch. Chuck sat down at the other end and pulled her feet into his lap.
“Chuck,” Serena warned.
“What? I’m taking your boots off for you,” Chuck said innocently. “Don’t you want to take them off?”
Serena sighed. She felt tired all of a sudden, really tired. “Yeah, sure,” she said. She reached for the remote and clicked on the television while Chuck removed her boots. Dirty Dancing was on TBS. Perfect.
Chuck began to massage her feet. It felt good. He bit her big toe and kissed her ankle.
“Chuck,” Serena giggled, falling back on the couch and closing her eyes. The room tilted a bit. She never could hold her liquor.
Chuck worked his hands up her legs. Within seconds his fingers were plying the insides of her thighs.
“Chuck,” Serena said, opening her eyes again and sitting up. “Do you mind if we just sit here? We don’t have to do anything, okay? Let’s just hang out on the couch and watch Dirty Dancing. You know, like girls.”
Chuck crawled towards Serena on his hands and knees until he was looming over her and she was pinned beneath him. “But I’m not a girl,” he said. He lowered his face to hers, and began to kiss her. His mouth tasted like peanuts.
“Shit!” Blair shrieked when she heard the doorman buzz from downstairs. She was still wearing her clothes, and she had just spilled red candle-wax all over her rug.
Blair switched off her bedroom light and ran to answer the buzzer in the kitchen.
“Yes, send him up,” she told the doorman. She unbuttoned her jeans and flew back to her room, wriggling out of them. Then she pulled the rest of her clothes off and tossed them into the closet. Naked, she spritzed herself with her favorite perfume, even spritzing once between her legs.
Oooh, bad girl.
Blair checked out her naked body in the mirror. Her legs were too short for the rest of her body, and her boobs were small and not as “pay attention to me” as she would have liked them. Her jeans had left an angry red mark on her waist, but it was barely noticeable in the dim candlelight. Her skin was still nice and tan from the summer, but her face seemed young and scared, not nearly as sexy as it was supposed to look. And her hair was sticking up in a halo of frizz from the rain. Blair dashed into the bathroom and applied a coat of the lip gloss Serena had left on her sink to her lips and ran her hairbrush through her long brown hair until it cascaded onto her shoulders in the sexiest way possible. There, instant irresistibility.
The doorbell rang. Blair dropped her hairbrush, and it clattered into the sink.
“Hold on!” she called out. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes to say a little prayer, although she wasn’t exactly the praying type.
I hope it goes well. It was the best she could do.
Serena let Chuck kiss her for a while because he was heavy and she couldn’t get him off her. As he explored the inside of her mouth with his tongue, she watched Jennifer Grey splash around in a lake with Patrick Swayze. Finally, Serena turned her head away and closed her eyes.
“Chuck, I really don’t feel so well,” she said, pretending she was about to be sick. “Do you mind if I just lie here for a little while?”
Chuck sat up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sure, that’s cool,” he said. He stood up. “I’ll go get you some water.”
Chuck went over to the wet bar and filled up a glass with ice, pouring in a bottle of Poland Spring water.
When he turned to take the water back to Serena, she was already asleep. Her head had fallen back against the cushions, and her long legs twitched. Chuck sank onto the couch beside her, grabbed the clicker, and changed the channel.
“Hi,” Blair said, opening the door a crack and poking her face through it.
“Hi,” Nate said, holding the rose. His hair was wet and his cheeks were pink.
“I’m naked,” Blair told him.
“Really?” Nate said, barely absorbing the information. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Blair said, opening the door wide.
Nate stared at her, frozen in the doorway.
Blair blushed, hugging her arms around herself. “I told you I was naked.” She reached her hand out to take the flower.
Nate pressed it into her hand. “I got that for you,” he said gruffly. Then he cleared his throat and looked at the floor. “Should I take off my shoes?”
Blair laughed and opened the door wider. Nate was nervous, even more nervous than she was. He was so sweet.
“Just hurry up and take your clothes off,” she said. She took his hand. “It’s okay. Come on.
”
Nate followed her into her bedroom, not doing any of the things a boy should normally have done under the circumstances. Like check out Blair’s bare ass, or worry about condoms, or bad breath, or try to say the right thing. He was barely thinking at all.
Blair’s room was a blaze of candles. A bottle of red wine was open on the floor, with two glasses beside it. Blair knelt down and poured each of them a glass like a little geisha. She felt more comfortable naked in the darkness of her room.
“What kind of music do you want to listen to?” she asked Nate, handing him a glass.
Nate gulped the wine, swallowing noisily. “Music? Anything you want. Whatever,” he said.
Of course, Blair had her CD mix all cued up. The first song was Coldplay, because she knew Nate liked them.
Slow and sexy, rocker boy.
Blair had made and remade the movie of this moment in her head so many times she felt like an actress who was finally getting her big break, playing the role of her career.
She reached up and put her hands on Nate’s shoulders. He tried not to look at her, but he couldn’t help it. She was naked, and she was beautiful. She was a girl and he was a boy.
There have been plenty of songs written about this.
“Take off your clothes, Nate,” Blair whispered.
Maybe after we do it, I’ll tell her, Nate thought.
That didn’t seem completely fair, but still, he kissed her. And once he started, he couldn’t stop.
When Serena woke up a little while later, Chuck had changed the channel to MTV2 and was singing along loudly to Jay-Z. Serena’s Pucci dress had ridden up above her waist, and her lacy blue underwear was showing.
Serena propped herself up on her elbows and wiped the lip-gloss scum out of the corners of her mouth. She pulled down her dress. “What time is it?” she said.
Chuck glanced at her. “Time for us to take off our clothes and get in bed,” he said impatiently. He’d been waiting long enough.
Serena’s head felt thick, and she was dying for a glass of water. “I feel awful,” she said, sitting up and rubbing her forehead. “I want to go home.”