“Peace, dude!” a girl's voice called up to him from the deck. “Alors, I found some Oreos for our dessert!”
Nate peered down at Lexie. From where he sat she looked very small and bright-eyed, like a little girl. All over the deck, groups of guys and a few girls were smoking and drinking blond Belgian beer out of crystal beer steins. In the aft of the boat the lazy music of one of Nate's mom's French jazz CDs wafted out of Bose waterproof speakers.
“Want one?” Lexie added. “I can climb up.”
For a moment, Nate didn't respond. He shifted his gaze to the brightly lit Coney Island Ferris wheel, turning slowly round and round across the twinkling, greenish-brown water. He was pretty sure he didn't want Lexie to join him in the crow's nest. First of all, there was hardly room up there for one person; second of all, if she did, the obvious thing would be for him to kiss her, because she was pretty and had that sexy tattoo, and because she so obviously had a crush on him. But these days he really didn't feel like kissing anyone but Blair. After all, he and Blair were supposed to be going to college together and getting married. They were going to spend their whole lives together.
Wait. Is he, like, having some sort of epiphany?
Nate stood up and began to climb down out of the crow's nest. He couldn't sit up there all night, waiting for the boat to turn itself around. Not when Blair was waiting for him, not when he had his whole future ahead of him.
He jumped down from the ladder and Lexie handed him an Oreo. “The water makes me feel so free,” she declared, swaying slightly as the Charlotte drifted over a patch of rough water. Her tie-dyed dress had somehow loosened or gotten torn, and the cap sleeves drooped down over the tops of her arms, revealing her tanned shoulders and making the most of her tiny sun, moon, and stars tattoo.
Nate took an Oreo, pulled the two halves apart, and licked the white icing inside. Yes, he had his whole future ahead of him, but sometimes it's important to enjoy the simple things in life.
The Isle of B
“Will you be dining here tonight, or shall we have your food sent down to your rooms at the Plaza, miss?” Aaron asked in his best hoity-toity English butler voice.
Blair glared at the annoying dreadlocked head that had poked its way into her so-called bedroom. “Actually, I'm going out,” she replied, yanking a never-worn Calvin Klein navy blue satin slip dress out of her closet. Nate was still MIA and she'd just had the humiliating experience of taking a cab home from the Plaza in her school uniform, even though it was Saturday and there was no school.
Girls who must wear uniforms to school try their hardest not to be seen in uniform outside of school hours, and especially not on weekends.
Earlier that afternoon she'd actually had a pair of Earl jeans delivered to her room at the Plaza directly from Barneys Co-op, but when the jeans arrived they were a totally different style than the ones she was used to wearing—pencil straight and meant to ride so low that at least six inches of butt crack would show. Blair could barely get them over her knees. And, with only her school uniform, her La Perla underwear, and a white terrycloth Plaza Hotel bathrobe to wear, and nothing to do but watch TV for sixteen hours straight, she'd slowly been going insane. The Yale party Serena had mentioned would offer a welcome escape, as well as provide an opportunity to take revenge on Nate.
Roll camera.
She'd arrive at the party in a cloud of perfume and cigarette smoke, like some sort of genie, wearing something so adorably irresistible that all the incoming freshman boys and even the stodgy old Yale alumnae at the party would toss back their scotches and fall on their knees at her immaculately manicured feet. She'd have a torrid, newsworthy affair with the handsomest, most influential one in the bunch, making sure Nate heard all about it, and then demand that the aforementioned alumnus secure her acceptance at Yale. Then she'd tell Nate to go fuck himself and go to Brown or someplace even farther away, because she honestly never wanted to see his sorry face again.
“Nate's mom called. She was kind of snippy. Said she'd appreciate it if you and Nate showed up at the Yale Loves New York party tonight,” Aaron informed her.
Huh?
Blair frowned down at the slip dress in her hands. It was a lovely shade of deep Yale blue, but not quite as come-hither as she would have liked. Unless she wore an outrageously sexy pair of strappy high-heeled sandals with it—of which she had many.
“I thought that party was only for people who were definitely going to Yale in the fall,” Aaron persisted nosily. “You didn't get in already, did you?”
Ignoring him, Blair pulled one of those mini poncho things she didn't even remember buying from out of her closet. It was a sort of stripy blue-gray, one of Missoni's latest weaves. She held it against the dress to see if it would go, and it did, but it wasn't exactly the alluring you-know-you-want-me look she needed to set those Yalie hearts aflutter.
She threw Aaron an icy get-the-fuck-out-of-here-I'm-trying-to-get-dressed glance. “For your information, no, I didn't find out—yet. However, I am confident that eventually I will get in, so I really don't see why I shouldn't attend this party.” She walked over to the door and gripped the doorknob, preparing to slam it in Aaron's face. He'd gotten into Harvard early admission. What the fuck did he care?
Aaron backed away, holding up his hands to show that he meant no harm. “No need to be so hostile.”
Nothing makes a girl feel more hostile than being accused of being hostile.
Blair slammed the door. A few minutes later, she opened it again, wearing the royal blue slip dress and a pair of silver metallic three-and-a-half-inch Manolo sandals. She teetered down the hall to her old room. Baby Yale had the perfect notice-me accessory for her outfit. If Blair could just sneak into the nursery without anyone seeing…
Yale's room was decorated in shades of pale yellow and peach and was filled with plush toys and miniature wooden furniture. The crib was draped with thick white mosquito netting imported from India, so that it was impossible to see if Yale was sleeping inside it or not, but there was a hush about the room that suggested she was. It also suggested that the baby was still in quarantine.
Oops.
Blair tiptoed up to the buttery yellow antique armoire, slid open the top drawer, and removed a small white velvet jewelry box. Then she closed the door and tiptoed over to the crib.
“I'll bring it back, I promise,” she whispered to the blanketed bundle lying peacefully inside. She lifted up the mosquito netting and planted a kiss on Yale's soft pink cheek, too focused on her prize to notice that the baby was wearing little mittens on her hands to keep her from scratching her rosy, rash-ridden body.
Usually it's the younger sister who steals stuff from her older sister's room, but, as baby Yale will eventually find out, Blair isn't exactly your average older sister.
Speaking of Little Sisters …
The Lower East Side was one of those lucky New York neighborhoods that had been cool forever but was just out of the way and dirty enough to remain free of tourists and Starbucks, and to resist becoming the trendy neighborhood of the moment like the Meatpacking District had become. A line of girls in halter tops and pleated miniskirts and guys in jeans and polo shirts with the collars turned up had formed outside Funktion, the Orchard Street club where the Raves were performing.
Jenny gripped Elise's elbow, gloating inwardly at how cool it was not to have to wait on line with the others, worrying about whether or not the bouncer would let them in. She gave him her name, the velvet rope parted, and in they went.
Ta-da! Instant coolness.
Inside, Funktion was smaller than Jenny had envisioned, and even though it was new, it felt old. The club's floor was painted black and the walls were made of cement blocks painted red. It was crowded, and instead of sitting at the black-and-white checkerboard tables, people crowded near the stage, standing up with beers in hand. The coolest and corniest thing about the club was the fireman's pole left over from when it had been a firehouse. The pole descended cente
r stage from the ceiling, providing a dramatic entrance for whoever was performing.
Jenny wondered if they should brave the bar and order drinks, or if they would have more luck if they just sat down, looking bored and sophisticated until a cocktail waitress came and took their order. Maybe they didn't need to drink at all. Every girl over the age of nine and under the age of twenty-nine was in love with the Raves. Just being in the same room with them, live, would be intoxicating enough.
She tugged on the strap of Elise's black-sequined Banana Republic purse and led the way to the back of the club so they could sit down and focus on looking drunkenly bored, like the fashion models always look in those candid pictures in the front pages of New York magazine.
The Raves' drummer and bassist were already onstage, fiddling with their instruments and testing mikes.
“A, B, C, D, E, F, G,” the drummer sang into his mike, his eyes closed and his face earnest, like he was singing the most heart-wrenching song ever written. “Tell me what you think of meeeee.”
“He's cute!” Jenny whispered in Elise's ear.
“Who?” Elise demanded, peering at the stage. “The drummer? But he's, like, twenty-five years old!”
So?
“So?” Jenny retorted. “Aren't they all twenty-five?”
“But he's wearing overalls.” Elise wrinkled her freckled nose in disgust. “The guitarist, whatsisname … Damon … no, Damian … the one Serena's dating? He's the cute one,” she insisted. “He has freckles like me, and that accent!” she gushed. “And don't forget your brother. He's not twenty-five.”
Jenny rolled her eyes. Okay, so the drummer was wearing white painter's overalls, with a pink-and-Kelly-green-striped polo shirt and new white Tretorn tennis shoes. It was a bizarrely innocent and preppy outfit for someone famous for breaking his drumsticks against his forehead during concerts. But that was part of his appeal, part of the whole band's appeal. The Raves were a perfect mixture of psychotic serial killer and loveable goofball mama's boy, like Marilyn Manson crossed with the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.
“I like him,” Jenny insisted. She adjusted her chair so she was looking directly at the drummer. He winked in her direction and she giggled, blushing furiously.
“A lotta pretty girls here tonight,” the drummer drawled into his mike and then grinned right at Jenny. He had straight white teeth and a wide mouth, like the Cheshire Cat, and his dark hair was short and neatly combed, like he'd just come from that old barber shop on Eighty-third and Lexington where all the little Upper East Side boys go with their dads for their first haircuts.
“He reminds me of the fat guy from that movie,” Elise observed, as if anyone would understand who she was talking about.
“He's not fat,” Jenny shot back.
Elise pulled an unopened pack of Marlboro Lights out of her sparkly purse and threw them on the table. “You can't really tell if someone's fat until you see them naked.”
Jenny considered this as she stared at the drummer. She didn't even know his name, but she liked him. She just did. And she wouldn't have minded seeing him naked. After all, the total number of boys she'd seen completely naked in her lifetime added up to what—zero?
The club was filling up. Jenny even recognized a few people from the line outside who'd finally made it in. All of a sudden the lights went out, except for a single bare bulb illuminating the fireman's pole. Jenny grabbed Elise's hand underneath the table and squeezed it hard, barely able to contain her excitement. Then Damian, the Raves' lead guitarist, slid down the pole, his reddish blond hair sticking straight up like he'd slept on it funny. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt with a big black capital R on the front of it—the Raves' new promo T-shirt, which he'd designed himself.
If you could call that a design.
The thing about the Raves was they could get away with wearing anything they wanted or doing anything they pleased because they were true Thoroughbreds—good kids from good Upper East Side families who'd gone to boarding school together and then formed a band instead of going to college. A few months back, Rolling Stone had even printed a piece describing how every member of the Raves had gotten into Princeton and how one fateful May night before graduating from boarding school, when they were performing in a Deerfield coffeehouse, a kid in the audience had just happened to be on the phone with his record executive dad, who'd signed them right then and there. The four boys decided not to go to college at all, because what better way to thank your parents for giving you everything you ever wanted than to buy your own car and your own house before the age of twenty? In the end, being rock stars would be much more profitable then getting a college degree in some completely useless subject like philosophy. Plus, the same record executive happened to be married to the director of a French modeling agency, which meant the band could hang out with beautiful French models all the time—a pretty decent perk.
Jenny looked on anxiously as Dan slid down the pole after Damian, landing painfully on his knees. His face was green, his hair was clumpy with sweat, and his eyes were sort of rolling back in his head. He was also dressed like Mr. Way Into Hip-Hop, which totally clashed with the other Raves' grown-up-prep-school-boy ensembles.
“What's with the pants?” Elise asked, looking alarmed, as if she couldn't quite believe that she'd once allowed Dan to kiss her. “And what's with the hair?”
Jenny shrugged her shoulders. She had to admit Dan looked kind of weird, but she would so much rather make goo-goo eyes at the Raves' drummer than try to deconstruct why her brother was suddenly trying to look like Eminem. The drummer smiled at her again and she batted her eyes, wishing her eyelashes were longer or that she'd worn more mascara. She also wished she had the nerve to go up to the bar and ask the bartender to buy the drummer a shot or something. It seemed like the kind of thing Serena would do. If only Serena were there. Or maybe it was best that she wasn't. After all, the drummer was smiling at her. If Serena had been there, Jenny might have gone unnoticed.
The crowd was noisy now and seemed to have doubled in size. Elise lit a cigarette and passed it to Jenny. No one had even offered to bring them drinks, but smoking in a room full of legal adults when you were only fourteen felt cool enough.
Damian twanged his guitar and the drummer banged out a drumroll. The anorexic, dark-haired bassist cracked his knuckles. Dan cleared his throat right into the microphone, a disgusting, phlegmy sound.
Gross.
“I guess I should start singing,” he mumbled almost incoherently. The crowd tittered. Jenny thought Dan sounded exactly like he did the morning he'd woken up to find they'd run out of instant coffee and he'd become so weak he'd puked. Jenny had had to run out to the deli, and it had taken four cups to revive him. She cocked her head to one side, inhaled, and blew a long stream of smoke into the air. Maybe he was just pretending to be out of it so everyone would be surprised when he started going nuts like he had at Vanessa's birthday party.
Or maybe not.
Even V Can't Watch this Train Wreck
Beverly was waiting for Vanessa outside the club, wearing the same loose black pants and orange rubber flip-flops as yesterday. His black hair was parted down the middle and his pale blue eyes were shaded by small, round mirrored sunglasses. Very John Lennon meets Keanu Reeves.
“Hi,” Vanessa greeted him, hoping she didn't seem too excited to see him again. “Nice glasses.”
Love the lip ring. You smell fantastic, she willed him to say in response. And with all certainty, I've decided to move in with you.
“Should we go in?” was all he asked instead.
The band had already started to play and the line outside the club had dwindled. Vanessa went straight to the front. “Abrams. I'm on the guest list,” she told the bouncer. All of a sudden it occurred to her that Dan was about to see her with another guy for the very first time. If only she had the nerve to grab Beverly and make out with him right in front of the stage.
As if Dan would even notice.
The bouncer gave them the once-over and then unhooked the red velvet rope. Vanessa could hear people on line behind them moaning jealously as they went inside. Beverly didn't say anything, as if cool things like that happened to him every day.
Funktion was loud and crowded and smoky and hot, just the way clubs are supposed to be. The Raves were playing with their usual bravado, but the audience seemed to be singing louder than Dan was. Vanessa couldn't even see him yet, but it almost sounded like Dan was choking on something.
Crack me like an egg!
Burn a hole in my finger 'til I find myself
Find myself losing you!
Losing you and missing stuff
Missing how you kicked my ass!
Whoa, that song wouldn't be autobiographical, would it?
It was a new song, one that Dan had written only last week. Somehow the hard-core Raves fans had bootlegged a version from one of their practice sessions and had already memorized the lyrics. Now they were shouting them out, which was a good thing, because Dan was barely audible.
Vanessa eased her way through the tightly packed crowd to the back of the club. Dan's little sister Jenny and her friend Elise were seated at a table in the corner, smoking cigarettes and nodding their chins to the music with such studied boredom it was almost obvious they'd been practicing in front of a mirror.
Beverly pointed to a table near the fire exit where there was one free seat. “Go ahead,” he told Vanessa. He perched on the table and indicated that she should have the seat. “I'm not sure how much more of this I can take.”
Vanessa pressed her lips together and sat down. What was that supposed to mean? That he didn't like her? That he didn't want to live with her? This wasn't what she'd imagined. They were supposed to sit together in an intimate corner, accidentally knocking knees and touching elbows and getting more and more into each other, all the while pretending to listen to Dan sing.