Dan turned the page and scribbled the words Ode on Love, modeling his new poem on those of his favorite poet, John Keats. Keats wrote odes all the time: “Ode to Psyche,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on Melancholy,” but never an “Ode on Love.” So why shouldn’t Dan be the one to do it?
“Seventeen minutes to go,” Ms. Solomon called out. Dan glanced up at the stiff backs of his classmates bent over their desks, pens working frantically as the black wall clock ticked the minutes by. He went back to his blue book. “Ode on Love.” Of course, his love for Vanessa was mixed with a heavy dose of undying lust. But how to convey that without sounding pornographic? After all, the poem was supposed to be part of his graduation speech.
Your milky white orbs,
The pillows of your stomach,
Thighs like birches.
Ew, enough!!
He drew a heavy X across the words. The pillows of your stomach? Yuck.
Exactly.
Then he remembered the lines from “Ode on a Grecian Urn”:
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed
Forever panting, and forever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead and a parching tongue.
Was there any better way to say it?
Probably not.
Dan began to sketch a picture of the water tower on top of Vanessa’s building, but he was no artist and his water tower looked more like a giant acorn. If only he were allowed to use his phone during exams. He could call the Evergreen admissions office and let them know he wasn’t coming.
Instead, he tried to rework the opening segment of his graduation speech in the last few pages of his blue book.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending this year’s commencement exercises for the Riverside Preparatory School for Boys. You must be very proud of your sons—so proud that you are giving them exactly what they wanted for graduation, right? (Pause for laughter.)
Anyway, I’m honored to be the graduation speaker this year. I’d like to start out by reading from a Robert Frost poem.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
This is a popular quote for graduation speeches. I know, because I Googled it. (Pause for laughter.) It’s ironic, though, because how many of us are actually taking the road less traveled? (Pause for awkward silence.) Well, I am. And here’s how I’m going to do it: I’m going to follow my heart—
The little white egg-shaped egg timer on Ms. Solomon’s desk went off. “Put down your pencils, please,” she announced.
Dan looked up with a dazed expression. As usual, he’d gotten carried away.
“Didn’t finish the exam, huh?” Chuck Bass snickered to his left. Seniors were allowed to break dress code for exams, and Chuck had chosen to wear a bright yellow cut-up Dolce & Gabbana sleeveless shirt that was somehow more revealing than if he hadn’t worn a shirt at all.
Dan glared at him. Was it possible to be killed in the line of duty while you were still only in military school? He certainly hoped so.
Ms. Solomon walked over to collect their blue books. “Is there a problem, Mr. Humphrey?” she demanded, sticking her bony chest out at him through her weirdly ugly black-and-orange striped halter dress.
Dan frowned. “Would it be all right if I ripped out the last couple pages in my blue book?” he asked, without much hope that she’d let him.
The teacher shrugged her inappropriately bare shoulders. “Go ahead.”
Dan ripped the pages out before she could change her mind, surprised at her total lack of bitchiness. Maybe Ms. Solomon had finally gotten herself a boyfriend and was too busy daydreaming about the approaching hot and sexy summer of late mornings and steamy sex to bother being nasty to Dan.
Oh, like he wasn’t daydreaming about late mornings and steamy sex? In fact, who isn’t?!
Who can resist an artistic page six girl?
Biology was Jenny’s last exam and she’d stayed up all night studying for it. Nuclei, protozoa, osmosis—she knew it all. She answered the questions automatically, filling in the blanks without pause and making her classmates seriously jealous. Osmosis was the process in which organisms took on each other’s qualities just by hanging out together. Well, if it worked for tiny little organisms, why didn’t it work for them? They’d been hanging out with Jenny all year, and yet they still weren’t any smarter.
And their boobs aren’t much bigger, either.
I like your hair, Kim Swanson scribbled on the edge of Jessica Soames’s gray plastic desktop with her number two pencil. Can you see fenny’s answer to #21?
Kim Swanson was the most perfectly groomed girl in the ninth grade. She’d been getting her naturally light brown hair highlighted blond since she was nine and preferred perfectly ironed Agnès B. white button-down shirts with her gray pleated uniform. It was rumored that even her underwear was ironed, and she never left the house without full makeup, a gold-and-silver Cartier chain bracelet on each wrist, and her not-so-tiny Cartier diamond studs in her ears. She spent so much time grooming herself that she hardly had time to study.
Hold on, Jessica Soames scribbled back. Jessica had been the class slut starting in fourth grade, when she’d gotten her period, and culminating in sixth grade, when she lost her virginity. She’d had the biggest chest in the class, too—until Jenny had blossomed in seventh grade, surpassing her by three whole cup sizes. Jessica stole a subtle glance at the desk to her right, trying to read the answers on Jenny’s exam. But Jenny was already finished and was now doodling in calligraphy on an empty page in her blue book.
Loser, she’d written in elegant, loopy black bubble letters, and Jessica tried not to take it personally.
The truth was, Jenny had written the word to describe herself. First thing Monday morning, she’d FedExed Waverly Prep her trio of brilliant new portraits, all matted and framed, but now it was Thursday and she still hadn’t heard from the admissions office. It was the first week in June. September was only three short months away, and she had nowhere to go to school. She was quietly approaching desperation.
Before they’d sat down for their exam, Elise had reminded her that Waverly was winding up the school year too and probably wouldn’t get to the package she’d sent them until after their seniors graduated. But Jenny was having none of that. She’d obviously missed her chance to go to boarding school. Her only other option besides public school was to ace her exams and then beg Mrs. M to let her stay at Constance. She could repeat ninth grade, cultivate her reputation as a total geek, wear thick tortoiseshell glasses, and lengthen her uniforms to her ankles. No more appearances on Page Six. No more racy fashion spreads. No dating rock bands. No online nudity.
Aw. But isn’t that what makes Jenny so special?
The problem was, she was already a straight-A student. How could she do better than she was already doing?
It occurred to Jenny that maybe her grades and her new artwork weren’t enough. Why not send Waverly a copy of the W magazine spread she’d modeled for with Serena van der Woodsen and the Page Six piece featuring a photograph of her kissing Damian, the lead guitarist from the Raves, outside the Plaza Hotel?
And while she’s at it, why not send them a lock of her hair? Or one of her massive Bali support bras?
Kim Swanson snickered discreetly as she scrawled something on Jessica Soames’s desk. Jenny put down her pencil and rested her forehead on her arms, her curly dark hair cascading in little ringlets all over her desk. If she sent Waverly the W spread and the excerpt from Page Six, she’d be the talk of the school before she even arrived. That was one way of getting people’s attention, but then everyone would be so full of preconceived notions about her, she’d never change their minds. Better to earn her reputation and dema
nd people’s notice once she got there.
Ahead of her was a bizarre summer in Prague with her mother, attending some famous Czech art camp—something she’d committed to over Passover under the influence of too much Manischewitz wine. Her dad had reminded her last week, when she’d thought she’d at least have boarding school to look forward to in the fall, but now she wasn’t so sure.
“Two, four, six, eight, only four more days till we graduate!” a group of seniors shrieked excitedly in the hall outside the biology lab. Then the bell rang and Jenny’s classmates threw their pencils in the air and started hugging one another and signing yearbooks. Even Elise came over to ask for Kim Swanson’s signature in her yearbook, and she’d despised Kim ever since Kim had spread the awful rumor that Elise had been born deformed and had had a hump in her back removed when she was two.
“Summertime,” Roni Chang began to sing in her glee-club-trained falsetto, “and the living is easy!”
Jenny wished she could share their excitement. After all, this was her last exam. She was done for the year! Three long summer months awaited her in Europe, and the possibilities were endless. But somehow she just didn’t feel like shrieking or signing anyone’s yearbook, even though her calligraphy was way better than theirs.
Now she realized how the seniors must have felt all winter while they were waiting to hear back from colleges. She’d done everything she could do. Her fate was in someone else’s hands.
Cheating for old times’ sake
Blair and Serena sat side by side at the long black chemistry lab table, scribbling away at their last and final exam. The AP chemistry students had been seated between the regular senior chemistry students and were taking a different exam, so it wasn’t supposed to matter that the girls were practically bumping elbows. Constance Billard liked to think its girls were beyond cheating, but the truth was, they cheated all the time. Blair and Serena were no exception.
Molarity if 5.827 g of NaCl is diluted to a volume of 100 mL? Serena etched into the inside of her forearm with her number two pencil. She yawned and stretched, letting her arm fall on the edge of Blair’s exam book.
n = 5.827 g / 58.4425
n = 0.09970 mol of NaCl
M = 0.09970 mol / 0.100 L
M = 0.9970 molar
Blair scribbled the answer on the inside cover of her blue book. What are you wearing Monday? she wrote next to it.
Why Monday? Serena wrote back before copying the answer Blair had given her. Was it possible that Blair already knew she’d been called back for a second audition?
Graduation—duh?! Blair scribbled back hastily.
Serena stared at the words Blair had written. It was so typical of her not to have realized her mistake. The second audition was on Monday—and so was graduation. Her parents were going to be there. Erik, her brother, had delayed his plans to spend the summer skiing in New Zealand with Liesl, his bodacious chick-of-the-week, so that he could be there. And Blair was giving a speech.
Oops.
You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Blair wrote, before racing through the next two pages of her exam.
Serena watched her admiringly. Blair totally deserved to go to Yale. She was a complete whiz when it came to tests. Sunlight streamed into the chemistry lab windows and a bird chirped merrily. Serena sighed and began to scribble her name in the corner of page three of her nine-page exam.
Serena van der Woodsen. Breakfast at Fred’s, starring Serena van der Woodsen.
Normally she didn’t daydream about things like this, but this was her first chance to star in a real movie. It was hard not to want it just a little bit.
Blair folded over the last page of her exam, rapidly scribbled in the answers, and then went back to check her work. Once she was satisfied that all was correct, she glanced up at their proctor, Mrs. Crandall. The overweight, red-faced teacher was busy filing her nails, which were painted an atrocious dark beige, making her fingers look like the pig feet steeped in formaldehyde they’d had to dissect in ninth-grade bio. Blair shoved her paper out of the way and reached for Serena’s.
“Hey—” Serena started to object.
“Shush,” Blair whispered, already beginning to answer the unanswered questions.
Serena drew a smiley face on the page Blair was working on. It was just like old times. Except for the fact that she was with Nate, and Blair was with her new British hunk. She frowned. And she was going to miss graduation, which was going to make Blair hate her all over again.
Yup.
Too many boys, too many choices, too little time
Vanessa kept the white Morgane Le Fay dress Blair had bought for her to wear at graduation stashed in her closet until Sunday night, the night before graduation. The lights were off in the apartment and she was all alone. She stripped down to her black-and-white striped Jockeys and slipped the dress on over her stubbly head, padding over to the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door to check it out.
The dress was prettier than anything she’d ever owned, with a plunging V in the satin bodice, an asymmetrical hemline, and a sort of flapper-style low waist that she’d had no idea would look as flattering on her as it did. She went back to the closet to retrieve the shoes. She and Blair had the same size feet, and Blair had left her a pair of white Michael Kors wedge-heeled sandals to go with the dress. She’d even found Vanessa a pair of cool white fishnet gloves from some consignment shop on the Upper East Side, because it was a Constance Billard tradition for the girls to wear white gloves during the ceremony.
The thing was, Vanessa wasn’t going to be at the ceremony. Aaron was arriving at ten the next morning to pick her up, his red vintage Saab 900S loaded up with herbal cigarettes, soy crisps, dried edamame, and peach-flavored Snapple iced tea for their cross-country sexcapade. Her parents were in Santa Fe, New Mexico, participating in some sort of hippie artist happening, and her older sister, Ruby, was still in Finland or Poland or Lapland, developing a freaky foreign fan base for her band, SugarDaddy. It wasn’t like anyone in her family cared if she missed graduation. She’d get her diploma in the mail, and Blair could return the dress. It wasn’t a big deal.
Right. We believe you.
There was a scratching sound at the front door. Vanessa left her room and flicked on the living room light as someone shoved a piece of paper underneath the door. She recognized Dan’s boyish scrawl before she even knelt down to pick it up.
Can’t make it through graduation tomorrow without seeing you one more time. I’m upstairs.
—D
Not again!
Vanessa left the dress on and clomped upstairs to the roof in her Michael Kors wedgies. It was a mild June evening, almost nine, but not quite dark. Traffic snaked on and off of the Williamsburg Bridge, and a chorus of fire alarms sounded down on Broadway. A hurricane lantern swung from the steel frame supporting the water tower. Beneath it, Dan was sitting in the lotus position, naked, with a thick paperback book open in his lap.
“What are you doing?” Vanessa demanded.
Dan looked up, his love-struck face illuminated by the lamp. He was all shimmery with it—the light and his complete adoration of her. “Wow,” he murmured softly. “You look so pretty. It’s almost like how—” He stopped with an embarrassed smile.
“What?” Vanessa folded her arms across her chest. If she and Dan hadn’t already been best friends for so long, she might have been more upset by his freaky naked stalking appearances. But Dan was Dan—she could only muster mild irritation.
“You look like how I imagine you’d look at our wedding,” Dan blurted haltingly.
Whoa.
Vanessa decided that the only appropriate response was to completely ignore what he’d said. “Is that something to do with the speech you’re giving tomorrow?” She pointed at the book.
“What?” Dan looked down, like he’d forgotten it was there. “Um, sort of. Actually, not really.” He closed the book and held it up, revealing all his naked manly bits. ??
?It’s called The Sexual Art of Ecstasy. I found it in the bookstore.”
Vanessa nodded with faint interest, as if he’d just told her that it might rain later.
“There’s this part about meditating together until you get to a place where you’re both, like, there. It talks about how Sting can, like, do it forever, even though he’s really old. Well, this is how he does it.”
Like we really want to know.
Vanessa stared at him. Dan was sort of adorable in his own bizarre, scrawny-bodied way, but the truth was, she’d been hoping she wouldn’t see him again before she left tomorrow because she didn’t want to have to explain anything—how she loved him, but how she’d promised Aaron. How it had been sort of exciting and fun seeing two guys at once but how it had to end sometime. The truth was, she wasn’t even sure how she felt, because she’d been trying not to think about it.
Dan put the book aside and held out his hand. “Or we could just kiss,” he suggested with a sort of polite tenderness that made her glad he was already naked.
She went over and knelt down in front of him, careful to lift her dress up so it wouldn’t touch the ground. “Just watch the dress,” she warned him.
This might be her only chance to wear it. Not that she was about to tell him that.
Gossipgirl.net
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people!
See how easy that was?
We did it! Now, if we could just decide on one of the seven dresses we bought for graduation at Bergdorf’s, Barneys, and Bendel’s because a) after popping Vivarin and bingeing on late-night pizza we didn’t know if we’d gain weight or lose weight during exam week; b) we hate making decisions; and c) white is the new pink this summer. At least, it better be.
Boatload of european import cars unloads at ny docks last night