“You know,” she mused, “maybe you’re right. Maybe a job is just what I need to keep myself busy this summer.”
“Yes!” her mother cried happily. “I knew you’d come around!”
“And maybe you can help me get one?” Blair asked sweetly.
“Of course!” Eleanor agreed. “I’m sure we can make some phone calls and find you something wonderful in no time at all!”
There was, of course, only one telephone call she needed her mother to make. Being the daughter of Eleanor Rose, Bailey Winter’s most loyal couture client, would surely come in handy when it came to landing an assistantship on the set of Breakfast at Fred’s.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!
it’s getting hot in here
Furtively cupping the butt in his palm, Dan took a long last drag on his cigarette and tossed it to the ground, stubbing it out quickly and exhaling smoke into the breeze. He was stationed on a bench at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Houston and could see Bree crossing the street. He didn’t want her to catch him smoking—again.
“Dan!” Bree called out, dodging the battalion of cabs creeping up Sixth Avenue, waving excitedly. She was wearing short, stretchy black pants that flared a little at her calves and a turquoise sports bra and was carrying a gray Nalgene water bottle. She trotted through the traffic and up to the bench.
“Hi! It’s so good to see you.”
“You too,” Dan replied, oh-so-casually closing his book and grinning at her.
“Oh! You’re reading The Way of the Artist!” she exclaimed. “I love that book.”
“Really?” Dan had a feeling she might. “That’s a funny coincidence.”
Sure it is.
“Totally,” giggled Bree. “First Siddhartha,now The Way of the Artist? You must be the Strand’s spiritual expert.”
“Oh, definitely,” Dan lied. “Everyone they hire has a different specialty.”
“Cool.” Bree grabbed his hand and yanked him up off the bench. “Now come on! We’re going to be late.”
“Okay,” Dan agreed cheerfully. “I hate missing the previews.”
“Previews?” Bree asked. “We’re not going to the movies. Remember? We’re going to Bikram.”
“Uh, yeah,” Dan replied nervously. Bikram, Bikram, Bikram. Not a movie. Maybe a restaurant? “Right. Um, good, I’m, uh, starving.”
Bree laughed. “Yeah, I’m pretty hungry for some exercise myself. Let’s hurry so we don’t miss this class—the evening sessions are even more intense than the ones I usually take. And maybe afterwards I’ll buy you a Jamba Juice.”
Class? Jamba Juice? She might as well have been speaking Swahili. Dan had no idea where they were going but he followed Bree down the street, making idle chitchat about books he hadn’t actually read and getting more and more worried. It didn’t seem likely that they were going to a restaurant. Then Dan looked up and saw it, looming in the distance: a hand-painted sign with a funny, Indian-style font that was supposed to look like Sanskrit that proudly proclaimed BIKRAM. It wasn’t a movie. It wasn’t a restaurant. Bikram was a kind of yoga. Bree was taking him to a yoga class.
Namaste!
Bree trotted up the stairs eagerly, like a kid on Christmas morning. She turned and glanced over her shoulder at Dan, who was lagging behind, trying to think of an excuse not to participate. He decided to feign an injury and was trying to choose a part of his body he could claim to have hurt. He had a cracked rib maybe, from lifting too many dictionaries. He’d been hit by a car on his way to work this morning and was pretty sure he was concussed. He had a rare neural disorder that caused him to black out in small crowded rooms full of sweaty people lying on colorful rubber mats.
“PS, Dan,” Bree called down to him. “I’m glad you didn’t bother with a change of clothes. For the evening sessions,Yogi keeps the heat even higher than usual, so we usually just go naked.”
Now things were getting complicated. First, there was no way he was going to do yoga, and second, he’d be damned if he was going to do yoga naked. On the other hand, Bree would be there too; he’d get to see her completely naked the very first time they hung out.
“Um, great!” he enthused, already out of breath from climbing the stairs. Dan had never exercised in his life, but the sight of Bree’s round, yoga-firm butt a few steps above him was all the motivation he needed. Forget that he’d never done yoga, never mind that he was sure to be humiliated, and fuck the seemingly endless flight of stairs: he was going to get into all sorts of pretzel-like positions with Bree, naked. What was there not to love?
That’s the spirit!
“Come on!” Bree urged giddily.
Dan reached the top of the stairs and followed her into the Tranquility Yoga Studio, a wide-open space with gleaming wide-plank pine floors. The room was almost all windows and was flooded with the late afternoon sun—and the rays only intensified the heat. The temperature in the room must have been near a hundred and twenty degrees, and with the sunlight and all the naked bodies, it was also humid and very . . . fragrant.
On a platform in the front of the room was an emaciated-looking Indian man with gleaming, well-oiled skin, dressed only in a loosely cinched white cotton robe, seated with his spindly legs crossed in front of him. Below his thinly tweezed eyebrows his eyes were closed, and he was smiling beatifically. In front of him was a fortyish Katie Couric–looking woman doing her warm-up stretches, her paunchy tummy hanging loosely over her bare, veiny thighs.
A couple of guys warmed up by the windows—one with long, sinewy muscles who arched his back in a way that just didn’t look natural, and a silver-haired grandfather type touching his toes effortlessly. He really put Dan to shame . . . in every department.
“Better get undressed.” Bree winked at Dan. “Master doesn’t like to start class even a minute late. Anyone who’s not undressed and ready to go is asked to leave.”
Dan had been on the verge of explaining to Bree that he was epileptic and had forgotten to take his medication, but then she started to yank her turquoise sports bra over her head. Wow. What could he do?
Strip!
He pulled his dirty T-shirt over his head and let it fall to the ground. Then he unbuckled his belt, kicked off his shoes, and pulled down his jeans. He was the only guy in the room wearing boxer shorts, but he stubbornly kept them on.
Like his vampire tan and skinny arms didn’t make him stand out enough.
He balled his socks up and stuffed them into his shoes, then took a deep breath and followed Bree out onto the floor, where she started to stretch. Her flawless skin was tan all over, which he knew for sure, since he could see everything. Her long blond hair fell over one of her handful-sized breasts and Dan had to remind himself he couldn’t just go and grab them right now. She bent over and touched her palms to the floor. He tried to mimic her, but he could barely touch his knees. It was agonizing.
“Don’t bend,” Bree whispered. “Stretch, stretch.”
It was impossible to see Bree’s perfect naked body stretching and contorting without the fly of his boxers expanding to embarrassing proportions. Dan stared as she took her foot in her hand and extended it straight over her head. He closed his eyes and tried to think of unsexy things, like the way food always got stuck in his aunt Sophia’s dentures or how the side-walk in front of his building always smelled like dog piss. The sweat was already pouring down his face and they hadn’t even done anything yet. He used his forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow.
“Dan, no!” whispered Bree. “Don’t let master see you do that. The whole point is to sweat it out. You can’t wipe it off. It goes against his teachings.”
Why couldn’t Bikram have been a nice foreign film? They could be eating popcorn in a dark, air-conditioned theater making out instead of sweating in this stifling room and following the orders of some sadist. Suddenly the teacher rose from his seated position on the dais at the front of the room and let his robe drop to the floor.
“Namaste!” he called, in a joyfu
l, booming voice, bowing slightly.
“Namaste!” the rest of the class replied, bowing back.
Well, most of the class.
“Let’s begin with partner poses.” He motioned for every-one to pair up. “Prepare for shoulder stand. Begin with downward-facing dog and tripod pose, if you wish.”
“Ready?” Bree whispered. She had a thumbnail-sized birthmark the shape of Texas near her belly button.
Bree bent over and placed her palms on the floor in front of her and then waggled her butt as if in preparation for take-off. Dan looked around, alarmed, but everyone else was doing the same thing. Their partners were even gently holding their hips. Dan tentatively touched Bree on the waist and she brought her right knee to her right elbow and then did the same with her left.
“Hold me steady,” she told him. Dan crouched next to Bree, his hands circling her taut middle as she brought her long, toned legs straight up and smiled at him from upside-down. “I think I have it now.”
“Oh, okay,” Dan said, backing away. But as he went to stand up, he realized that his boxers were totally gaping in front and his “friend” was totally exposed . . . and totally excited. Oh, God. He stayed in a half-crouch, desperately trying to picture Aunt Sophia’s cruddy teeth again.
“Young man.” The scary naked yoga master pointed at Dan.
Me? Dan pointed at himself, still half-crouching. Everyone in the class turned to look at him.
“Yes, you. Come, my son,” the teacher said, beckoning to Dan with his long, skinny fingers.
“Go up there,” Bree whispered from upside-down. “This is such an honor, I can’t believe it—on your first time, too.”
Dan walked across the wooden floor trying to look casual, desperately cupping his crotch with his hands. He reached the foot of the platform and the teacher smiled down at him placidly.
“Come, my son,” the teacher said. “You’ll work with me today. It’s your first time, right?”
Dan nodded nervously. His whole body trembled as he stepped onto the platform. The yogi reached down and placed his worn palms on the floor, giving Dan a terrible close up of his elephant-skin-wrinkled ass. Everyone in class followed suit, and for a brief second Dan got a surreal glimpse of Bree’s bare breasts upside down from between her wide-spread legs. His reverie was interrupted as the teacher grabbed him from behind, pressing his bare stomach into Dan’s skinny bare back, and gently guided his head down, so that all Dan could see were his own legs and the skinny legs of the naked guy straddling him. Dan had never been intimate with an older person before, let alone an old Indian yoga geezer.
But when a guy wants a girl, he has no shame.
n goes native
“I know a great place where we can go after this,” Tawny announced. She licked her thumb and stuck it into the greasy basket of popcorn shrimp to pick up some fried crumbs.
Nate took a last swig from his limey Corona and nodded. “Fine by me.”
Crammed into a tiny table by the Oyster Shack’s greasy windows, they ate with their fingers, sipped beer, and talked— well, Tawny did most of the talking. About how she was learning to surf. About how her dad used to be a fire chief but had gotten hurt falling off a ladder and retired. About how she’d been to Disney World four times. About how her hair was naturally curly, but people always thought she had a perm. About how excited she was to finally graduate next year.
Nate barely listened to what she said: she was sexy as hell, and he enjoyed simply looking at her. There weren’t many girls like Tawny on the Upper East Side: full, blond, wavy hair spilling over caramel, freckled shoulders, pink lips that tasted like cherry ChapStick, long-lashed bright blue eyes, and slender, tanned fingers covered with silver rings.
Blair was always quizzing him on his favorite song, his first memory, what he wanted to do when he grew up. She said she just wanted to get to know him, but it always felt like a test he was failing. Tawny seemed happy just to let Nate be who he was.
A hot, arrogant pothead?
When dinner was over, Tawny perched on the handlebars of his bike and shouted directions to Nate. She threw her head back and her long wavy hair tickled his nose.
“Slow down! No, speed up!” she shrieked.
“Where are you taking me?” Nate shouted as they bumped over tree roots and rocks.
Tawny glanced over her shoulder at him. “You’ll see.... Hey, stop! Let me off.”
Nate skidded to a stop and Tawny hopped onto the ground. Her lavender-colored hot pants had ridden up, giving him a great view of her tan, surf-toned ass cheeks. Shit, was she foxy! “That was fun,” she laughed, crashing through some low bushes toward the beach. “Ditch the bike. It’ll be safe there.”
Nate leaned his bike against a nearby tree. The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the boughs overhead, but it was cool and very still in the woods.
Following Tawny, Nate thought about how weird it was that he’d only been out of school for a couple of weeks and yet his entire life had completely changed. He was working construction and dating a hot Hamptons chick. Well, why not? If Blair could change everything—she was getting married, for Christ’s sake—why couldn’t he? It was easier to be with Tawny than it was to be with any other girl he’d ever known; she wasn’t demanding and self-absorbed like Blair, she wasn’t naïve and needy like Jenny, she wasn’t unpredictable and inattentive like Serena. She just ... was.
Classic stoner logic.
“Come on,” Tawny urged, backtracking to grab his hand and pull him through the bushes.
She led him into a sun-dappled clearing where two massive trees had fallen on top of one another, creating natural benches that were obviously popular with the locals, since the forest floor was littered with old beer bottles and cigarette butts. Three guys hunkered on one of the felled logs, passing a joint between them. Behind them, through the trees, the blue-black water of the sound glinted and swelled.
“Hey guys!”Tawny cried.
Three heads swiveled in their direction. With their baggy jeans and plucked eyebrows, gelled hair, and dorky striped button-downs, these were the kind of guys Nate and his friends would have scoffed at if they’d ever come across them in the city. They were the kind of guys who got into fights with bouncers and wore gallons of cheesy drug-store cologne. And they were also, apparently,Tawny’s friends.
“Nate,these are Greg,Tony,and Vince.”
“What’s up?” Nate asked, nodding uneasily in their direction.
Tawny clambered over the trunk and took a seat next to Greg, a deeply tanned guy cupping a joint in his palm and jutting his chest out into the air territorially in a way that reminded Nate of a bulldog.
“We’ve got some herb, bro,” announced Vince, who appeared to be Greg’s twin. “Have a seat.”
Nate’s ears pricked up at this offer. He hated being called “bro” by guys he didn’t even know, and he hated guys who pretended to be cool when they were really losers, but he had to admit a smoke—even with these dorks—sounded like his kind of dessert.
Tawny took a hit and handed over the slightly damp roach. Nate inhaled greedily.
“Good stuff, right?” the guy called Greg asked gruffly. “I got it off my regular guy. He’s always busiest in the summer, you know, but he saves the best shit for loyal year-round cus-tomers like me.”
It wasn’t great stuff—the Hawaiian stash Nate had stored back in his bedroom was much better—but he couldn’t complain.
“Fucking city kids,” growled Vince, taking the joint from Nate. “They always fuck everything up during the summer. Fucking traffic. Fucking clubs. Fucking pain in the ass.”
Eloquently put.
“Summer crowds, man,” mumbled Tony, who hadn’t yet spoken. He was glaring at Nate, studying him suspiciously from under the perfectly creased bill of his Coney Island Cyclones baseball cap.
Nate was zoning out as usual, the way he liked to when he was smoking herb, but he heard what the guys were saying. Loud and clear.
“Totally.” Tawny yawned, lazily resting her blond, curly-haired head on Nate’s shoulder.
Nate glanced down at his tattered work outfit. It was pretty clear Tawny disliked the wealthy crowd that flooded the Hamptons every summer, and Nate was definitely part of that crowd. With his workingman’s tan and ragged clothes, she’d probably taken him for the kind of guy who had to spend his summer earning his money, presumably to pay his way through Yale in the fall. He felt a stab of guilt. He hadn’t exactly been honest with her.
Old habits die hard. “Same old story every year,” Tony continued. “Why don’t they find someplace else to go, like France or some shit?” “They’re not so bad,” Nate ventured. “I mean, I’m kind of from the city—” “You are?” Tawny demanded, lifting her head. She narrowed her normally wide blue eyes. “You never said anything.”
“You never asked,” Nate pointed out. There were murmurs from the other guys. Vince spat into the sand. Out on the water, a fishing boat flashed its lights.
“I knew it,” Tony said, spitting on the ground. “I could just smell it on you.”
“But I mean, it’s no big deal.” Nate shook his head. “I mean . . . I’m not like a lot of those kids.”
“Well, I guess . . .” Tawny sank back into him, rubbing the side of her face against his work-strong chest. “Maybe you’ll take me back to the city some time?”
“Sure, sure.” Nate wrapped his tanned arm around her waist. “That’d be fun.”
As long as he keeps her away from Blair Not-so-good-with-jealousy Waldorf.
come up and see me sometime
The evening after their study session and another disheart-ening day of rehearsal, Serena sat in the backseat of a taxi on her way back to the Chelsea Hotel. But this time, she had something to look forward to. She checked the text messages on her phone again, mostly because she wanted to reread the note from Thaddeus.
Come down and see me. I miss you. xx
Serena had been starting to doubt herself after all the insults from Ken Mogul, but here it was: incontrovertible, digital proof that she, Serena van der Woodsen, still had it.