“You know the answer to that,” snapped Blair, who was angrily riffling through the dark walnut armoire where Annabella, Bailey Winter’s housekeeper, had hung all of their garment-bagged clothes. “I swear one of those fucking girls took my fucking Dolce sundress. The one with the grommets. I can’t find it anywhere.” She started haphazardly ripping dresses off of their wooden hangers and tossing them onto the floor.
Well, that’s what maids are for!
“Mmm,” Serena murmured. There was nothing special about Blair throwing a tantrum, although Serena kind of hoped she’d pick up the clothes afterwards. But ever since they’d arrived at Bailey Winter’s sprawling modernist compound, Blair had thrown more than her fair share—even for her.
Now that’s really saying something.
Blair was convinced that the skanky Eurotrash models Ibiza and Svetlana were out to get her. She kept accusing them of swiping her clothes or using her La Mer SPF 45 moisturizer and insisting that Ibiza, the brunette, was mimicking her every move, from her new chin-grazing hairstyle to her wardrobe selections. Serena had to admit the pair bore a troubling resemblance to her and Blair, but they seemed harmless enough. They were just annoying, like the copycat ninth-grade girls back at Constance Billard.
Isn’t mimicry the most sincere form of flattery?
“Fuck this,” Serena announced, closing the magazine and pushing it off the bed. She yawned. “I’m not going to rot in here all summer long just because we want to avoid some weird girls with buckteeth and cross eyes. I’m going swimming.”
“But I can’t find my new navy polka-dot Ashley Tyler cover-up,” Blair whined. “What’s the point of being a muse if I’m not dressed to inspire? If that Ibiza girl borrowed it, I swear I’m going to rip her malnourished arms off.”
Spoken like a true muse.
“Come on, Blair.” Serena slipped a Gauloise from the battered pack on the neatly made bed beside her, lighting it with the silver Dunhill lighter she’d swiped from her brother, Erik. It was engraved with his monogram EvdW. “Just throw something on and let’s go. It’s too nice outside.”
“Throw something on? I have nothing to fucking wear because of those fucking copycats.” Blair threw her hands in the air, as though the piles of tissue-thin cotton and fine washed-silk garments all around her were invisible
“Then just wear something ugly and see if they copy that,” Serena offered, exasperated. She loved Blair, she really did, and they’d been best friends for forever, but sometimes she just wanted to slap her perfectly toned little butt cheeks.
“Actually . . .” Blair threw herself onto the bed and snatched Serena’s Gauloise from her lips. She inhaled deeply and narrowed her brilliant blue eyes thoughtfully. “That gives me an idea.”
“What a glorious day!” Blair flung open the impeccably clear French glass doors to the pool house and strode into the fierce afternoon sunshine, bare arms stretched out above her head. “Come on, Serena. Let’s get some sun.”
“Coming, coming,” Serena giggled, stumbling out of the shaded bungalow, the sun-warmed bluestone burning the soles of her freshly pedicured feet. She held her rolled-up magazine in one hand, a burning cigarette in the other, and her white horn-framed Cutler and Gross sunglasses covered most of her face. Other than that, she was completely, totally, outrageously naked.
“Maybe we should ask Stefan for some iced coffee,” suggested Blair, settling her own exposed hindquarters onto a teak chaise. Her only accessories were a tiny gold Me&Ro anklet and oversize black Ray-Bans.
“Vhat is going on?” demanded Ibiza, yanking her ninety-pound frame out of the pool. She was so emaciated she looked like one of those send-money-now third-world kids in the TV commercials, totally overdressed in her icky trade-mark lavender-and-gold striped cutout one-piece.
“What do you mean?” Serena casually tossed her maga-zine onto the chaise next to Blair.
“Your clothes,” accused Svetlana, still in the water, her colorless, overprocessed hair matted flat to her head. “You’re not wearing any clothes!”
“Oh dear.” Blair sighed dramatically and turned onto her stomach. The sweltering sun felt nice on her bare bottom. “You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?” demanded Ibiza, glaring down at her pert, naked body.
“I guess the latest issue of Estonian Vogue or whatever it is you usually read neglected to cover the naked trend.” Blair yawned. “It’s the very latest thing.”
Serena stubbed her cigarette out in a large seashell on a glass side table next to her chaise. She tried to avoid looking at Blair in order to suppress the unstoppable hysterics and probably a snort that would spill out of her if she did.
“Is latest thing to go naked?” Svetlana glanced down at her spindly bikini-thong, which she’d probably mail-ordered from the Victoria’s Secret catalog. The water distorted her body’s appearance, so that it almost looked like she had actual hips and curves.
Merely an optical illusion.
“Yes, is obvious,” scolded Ibiza, pulling down the straps on the top of her cutout suit. Her body, with its circular cutout tan lines, looked like a Twister mat. “Is much better like this. Is European way, really.”
“Topless is so done though.” Serena gave an exaggerated yawn, staring down at her magazine and trying not to lose it. “Blair and I have been going topless at the beach since we were eleven, at least.”
“At least,” Blair chimed in. Flat on her stomach, she put her head down and closed her eyes.
“Right.” Ibiza took the bait. She hopped up on one leg and then the other, tugging off the rest of the hideous suit. It fell to the ground with a wet slap. “Of course, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable, yes?”
“Yes,” concurred Svetlana miserably. She slipped out of her sad red polka-dot bikini and dropped it at the pool’s edge. Then she leapt into the water and swam away embar-rassed, her body a skeletal flash of underfed whiteness.
“Zo glad we can all just relax now, yes?” Ibiza asked, sounding confident but looking uncomfortable just standing there, her Twister-mat body completely naked, like she didn’t know what to do with herself. Blair noticed that her boobs were totally asymmetrical, like they’d been glued on wrong. Maybe they had.
“Have you seen hottie that lives next door?” Ibiza started to say in a feeble attempt at casual small talk while naked. She shook her hands out like they were burning up.
“Maybe we should ask Stefan for some iced coffee,” Serena suggested, ignoring her.
“Yes, sound very good.” Ibiza nodded then strode slowly and deliberately to the umbrella-shaded table. She pulled out one of the heavy wooden chairs and curled up on it oh-so-casually. “I call him. Stefan! Stefan!”
Serena held her breath, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps.
“Now,” hissed Blair quietly.
On cue, they jumped off of their lounges and took off running, giggling hysterically, over the plush velvety lawn and into the thicket of leafy trees on the perimeter of the large, sunny yard.
“Look, look!” Serena ducked behind the leafy boughs of a baby oak, pointing at the scene they’d just fled: Stefan had appeared, as beckoned, clad in his usual ensemble of tight white tee and cargo shorts. He was also sporting a cute little grosgrain ribbon headband to keep his thick hair out of his brown eyes, which were wide with shock. Ibiza sat before him in all her bizarre pale-and-tanned polka-dottedness. She stuck out her chest, trying to look sexy, but her oddly shaped boobs just pointed in different directions. Svetlana had chosen just that minute to finally emerge from the pool, dripping wet. She picked up her iPod, stuck in her headphones, and began to dance, flapping her pale, spindly arms. She looked like an albino flamingo. “Ratfucker!” she sang loudly, totally misunderstanding the words to the latest Coldplay song.
Serena and Blair laughed so hard they nearly peed them-selves. Serena felt flushed and giggly, almost like a little kid again. A very powerful wave of déjà vu washed over her, and she was tran
sported to a moment exactly like this one, only years ago, when they were much younger. She and Blair were changing out of their one-piece Lands’ End bathing suits behind some raspberry bushes at her house in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Nate kept threatening to chase them, and they were giggling so hard they kept pricking themselves and sticking their feet into the wrong holes of their terrycloth shorts.
“What the f—?”
Serena couldn’t believe her eyes—it was almost as if she’d conjured him. Nate stood in front of them, his eye-brows furrowed, brushing the splinters off the seat of his khaki shorts after jumping the wooden fence between the two properties.
“Natie!” Serena ran over and threw her arms around him, forgetting how completely naked she was. He hugged her back, awkwardly patting her bare shoulder. She giggled and bounded back to Blair’s side, obscuring her privates with a leafy branch.
Blair grinned devilishly. It somehow seemed so right to run into Nate like this. There was just something so obvious about the three of them together again, even if two-thirds of them weren’t wearing any clothes.
“Strip, Nate!” Blair cried, running after him like she was going to pull down his cargo shorts. He ducked behind an oak tree.
“Skinny-dipping?” Nate asked, peeking out from behind the slim tree trunk.
Serena smiled as she studied her old friend or boyfriend or whatever Nate was—she wasn’t even sure. That confused expression, those sleepy, stoner green eyes—he hadn’t changed a bit. But for once, Nate wasn’t looking back at her at all— he was staring, mouth agape, at Blair.
“Naked is the new clothed,” Blair told him matter of factly. She placed a hand on the fleshy curve of her hip. “Haven’t you heard?”
Blair had known he was around here somewhere, of course, but she hadn’t expected him to find her. Their whole relationship had always been about chasing him and trying to pin him down—she’d kind of wanted to just handcuff him to her bed, and not even in a dirty way, but just so she could keep track of him and make sure he wasn’t doing something idiotic. But now he was here and he’d obviously come looking for them. Or, judging by the way he was looking at her, he’d come looking for her.
“Totally,” Serena confirmed, crossing her arms over her sun-dappled chest. The fact that Nate wasn’t looking at her made her feel even more naked. She’d never clamored for Nate’s attention, but she’d wanted it. She’d always wanted it. Just then Blair lunged for Serena’s elbow, yanking her in the general direction of Bailey Winter’s pool.
“Wait, where are you going?” Nate stammered.
Blair held tightly to Serena’s hand as they ran. “Get a good look!” she called behind them as they pranced up the flagstone path to the screen door. “And think about us tonight!”
Don’t worry, he will.
newyork.craigslist.org/groups
Announcing Inaugural Meeting, Song of Myself Literary Salon (Manhattan)
Rejoice, righteous wordsmiths! We are pleased to announce a new and exclusive literary group in the grand tradition of the European salons of Gertrude Stein and Edith Sitwell.
We are two humble servants of the written word: one a vaunted young poet and songwriter with a semi-international reputation, the other a reader and thinker who cherishes Wilde and Proust over all else. We are looking for like-minded young men and women who love to read, write, and talk about reading and writing, and maybe drink a little Chianti or whatever. Consider the following statements/questions. We’ll read every response closely and then send invitations to our inaugural meeting to a carefully handpicked group of discerning New Yorkers.
1. Poetry deserves a more central role in the culture today. There should be an American Poet Idol show. Agree or disagree?
2. What is your favorite word? What is your least favorite word? Write a sentence using both at the same time. Example: Mayhem. Snack. Sitting in the middle of the iridescent-brown cockroach mayhem, Bonita ate a snack of butterfly wings.
Interested participants should attach a photograph. We need to make sure you’re not 12. Or 112.
Looking forward to some inspiring conversation! (BYOB!)
n’s great escape
“There you are!”
Babs Michaels stood at the cheap Formica counter of her ramshackle kitchen, artfully arranging slices of cantaloupe on a plate of scrambled eggs and buttery toast. Nate rubbed at his bloodshot eyes with the heel of his hand and yawned— for a second the sight of a very tanned woman preparing breakfast gave him a weird flashback to when he was a kid. He used to stumble downstairs to the kitchen of his Upper East Side town house to find Cecille, his parents’ Barbadian chef, preparing cinnamon wheat toast or a bowl of Irish oatmeal for him before he headed off to St. Jude’s in the morning.
But he wasn’t a kid, he didn’t have to go to school any-more, and Babs, in her tissue-thin pale purple robe, with her tight, leathery skin, was definitely not Cecille. Besides, he’d already eaten two strawberry frosted Pop-Tarts at his house in Georgica Pond.
“Morning,” Nate muttered, watching suspiciously as Babs set the loaded plate on the table, humming throatily.
“You need a big breakfast today, don’t you, Nate? All that sweating and straining in the hot sun.” She sidled over to Nate, placing her cool hand on his right bicep, which was peeking out of his navy blue Ben Sherman polo.
“R-r-right.” Nate pulled out of her determined grip, tak-ing a seat at the table. He was kind of hungry, and the plate of scrambled eggs and lightly browned toast looked sort of tempting, but even in his early morning stupor, Nate could see where this was headed. He’d start eating, Babs would pour him more orange juice she’d just made from the can, ask him to rub more ointment on her tattoo, then suggest that maybe they should take a soak together in the hot tub that Coach never stopped talking about. And before he knew it, she’d handcuff him to her bed and rub the slimy leftover cantaloupe slices over his naked body or something.
The way to a man’s heart is said to be through his stomach.
The thought of being naked in bed with Babs made Nate completely nauseated, but he could still feel a certain longing in the pit of his stomach. It definitely wasn’t for Babs fluttering around in a purple nylon robe that was barely long enough to cover her half-fit, half-middle-aged-flabby ass, though. It had more to do with the memory of Blair, wearing only the lightest sheen of sweat and lotion, grinning at him naughtily when he discovered her the day before in his extremely gay neighbor’s yard. He’d seen her naked lots of times, but standing there in the broad daylight, her delicate shoulders a little browner that the rest of her, she’d never looked more beautiful. He’d spotted the tiny familiar apple-shaped birthmark on her hip and had had to will himself not to grab her and kiss it.
“What’s the matter, hon?” Babs wondered, stepping behind his chair and leaning over him so that her weirdly hard boobs were sort of rubbing against his upper back. “You’re not hungry this morning?”
Bursting out of his chair as if he’d been electrocuted, Nate’s voice came out much more loudly than he’d planned: “You know, I should, um, well, I need to make a telephone call.”
“A phone call?
“Yeah.” He blushed deeply. “Is that okay? I mean, can I have your permission? I know I’m technically on the job and all.”
“You don’t need my permission,” she whispered. “There’s nothing I would ever forbid you to do, Nate. Nothing.”
“Thanks!” He practically sprinted out of the kitchen and onto the back deck. Fumbling in the deep pocket of his cargo shorts for his Motorola Pebl, he started scrolling through his address book and quickly dialed the first entry: Anthony Avuldsen, his lacrosse teammate and the guy who’d already saved him once that summer, when he’d found him-self entangled in a complicated romance with a hot townie chick who’d turned out to be more trouble than she was worth.
Don’t they all?
Nate was on the verge of hanging up after five rings, when Anthony answered with a friendly, exagge
rated shout. “Whassup?”
“Dude.Where are you?”
“On my way to the beach,” Anthony yelled over the car stereo, blasting AC/DC’s “Back in Black” so loud that his phone shook. “Can you hang out?”
Nate stared out at the small, shimmering, rectangular-shaped pool and the slightly overgrown lawn beyond it. The idea of mowing that grass made him want to cry; the thought of turning around and going back into that house and getting molested by Babs made him want to hurl.
Talk about a rock and a hard place.
“Hang out,” Nate repeated slowly. “Yeah, let’s do that. I’m at Coach’s place in the Bays. Pick me up?”
“Pick you up?” screamed Anthony. “Cool, yeah, what-ever. Give me ten minutes.”
Nate shoved the phone back into his pocket and inhaled deeply, steeling his nerves.
“Everything okay?” Babs opened the sliding glass porch door and trotted outside. Her purple robe had come undone and was hanging off her shoulders like a cape, revealing her complicated, lacy, animal-print underthings. They reminded Nate of the kind of bathing suit his eccentric French now-dead grandmother had worn during a family trip to the Turks and Caicos when he was a kid.
Oh, how alluring!
“I’m actually not feeling that well.” He wasn’t even lying, really, since the thought of what might happen if he didn’t get out of there made him feel totally queasy.Wincing in pain— but trying not to overdo it—Nate let out a pathetic cough.
“Poor boy,” she cooed, using one hand to cinch her flimsy robe closed. She placed her other palm against his furrowed brow. “You do feel a little warm.”
Maternal instinct and Basic Instinct—what a disturbing mix.
“Yeah.” he agreed, backing away. “I don’t know if I can tackle the lawn today.”
“No, of course not.We should get you out of those clothes and right into bed. I can make you some nice herbal—”