She’d shaved her head again recently. It was looking particularly domelike and odd. Jenny wondered if she should say something, like, “Nice haircut.” But then she decided that would be weird.
Clark filled up two glasses of Coke and slid them across the bar. He hit play on the VCR and then came around to the other side of the bar and wrapped his arm around Vanessa’s waist.
“And now for our feature presentation,” he said, in a Mr. Moviefone voice.
Vanessa scowled. “Just watch,” she said.
Jenny kept her eyes trained on the TV as the film began. The camera bopped along Twenty-third Street, following Marjorie Jaffe, a sophomore at Constance, as she walked toward Madison Square Park. Marjorie had frizzy red hair and was wearing a Kelly green scarf.
Kelly green is great if you wear it ironically. But Marjorie looked like she was actually serious about it.
Marjorie crossed the street and entered the park. Then she stopped, and the camera panned in on her face. She was chewing gum, slowly playing it between her teeth as her eyes scanned the park, looking for someone. At the corner of her mouth was an angry cold sore that she’d tried and failed to cover up with concealer. It looked pretty nasty.
Finally Marjorie seemed to find what she was looking for. The camera followed as she hurried over to a park bench. And on the bench was Dan.
He was lying on his back, one arm flung out, his fingers trailing the ground. His clothes were rumpled and his shoes were untied. A glass crack pipe lay on his chest, and there were bits of garbage stuck in his hair. The camera lingered on his still form. The sun was going down, and his cheeks glowed orangey pink in the light.
Jenny took a sip of her Coke. Actually, her brother made a pretty convincing junkie.
Marjorie knelt beside Dan and took his hand.
Dan didn’t move. And then, slowly, his eyes fluttered open.
“Were you sleeping?” Marjorie said, peering at him. She smacked her gum a few times and wiped her nose on the back of her hand.
“No, I have been looking at you for a long time,” Dan said quietly. “I knew by instinct that you were here. No one except you gives me such a sense of gentle restfulness … such light! I feel like weeping from very joy.”
Jenny knew the movie was adapted from a scene in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It was kind of weird hearing her brother talk like someone out of the nineteenth century, but it was kind of cool, too.
Marjorie began tying Dan’s shoes, still smacking her gum. She didn’t look like she was trying to play a part. She was just sort of there. Jenny couldn’t tell if that was intentional or not.
Before she could finish tying his shoes, Dan sat up and grabbed her wrists. The crack pipe rolled to the ground and smashed to pieces. “Natasha, I love you too dearly! More than all in the world!” he gasped, trying to sit up and then sinking back on the bench as if in pain.
“Easy there, soldjah,” Marjorie said. “Don’t have a coronary.”
Ruby burst out laughing. “That girl is too much!” she cried.
Vanessa glared at her. “Shush,” she said.
Jenny kept her eyes on the screen. Dan tried to reach for the crack pipe, but all that was left were shards of glass.
“Careful,” Marjorie warned. She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a stick of gum. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “It’s wintagreen.”
Dan took the piece of gum and laid it on his chest, as if he were too exhausted to unwrap it and put it in his mouth. Then he closed his eyes, and Marjorie took his hand again. The camera panned away, sweeping across the grounds of the park. It paused to watch a pigeon peck at a used condom on the ground, and then it hurtled west on Twenty-third Street, all the way down to the Hudson River, where it watched the sun set and disappear. Then the screen went black.
Vanessa got up and turned the lights back on.
“What was going on in the end with that pigeon and the condom?” Clark asked. He stepped behind the bar and pulled a bottle of Corona from the fridge. “Anyone want anything?”
“It’s a mood piece,” Vanessa said defensively. “It doesn’t have to make perfect sense.”
“I thought it was hilarious,” Ruby said. She tipped her glass back and chewed on some ice. “More Coke, please,” she told Clark.
“It wasn’t supposed to be funny,” Vanessa said angrily. “Prince Andrei is dying. Natasha will never see him again.”
Jenny could tell Vanessa was trying very hard not to lose her shit. “I thought the cinematography was great,” she said. “Especially those shots at the end.”
Vanessa shot her a grateful look. “Thanks,” she said. “Hey, you never saw the final cut of Serena’s film, did you? It’s pretty decent.”
“Yeah,” said Jenny. “But you did all the camera work for that, too, right?”
Vanessa shrugged. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
“Seriously, though. Your film was good, but I liked Planet of the Apes better,” Ruby joked.
Vanessa rolled her eyes. Her sister could be so immature. “That’s because you’re a moron,” she snapped.
“I liked it,” Clark said. He took a sip of his beer. “Although I didn’t really get it.”
“There’s nothing to get” Vanessa said, exasperated.
Jenny didn’t feel like sitting there listening to them argue. She’d come to Williamsburg to be entertained, not tortured. “Hey, do you want to go get some food somewhere or something?” she asked Vanessa.
Vanessa grabbed her coat off the bar stool and jammed her arms into it. “Definitely,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
They walked to a café that specialized in Middle Eastern food and ordered hummus and hot chocolate.
“So, Jennifer. With a rack like that, how come you don’t have like, seven boyfriends?” Vanessa said, pointing directly at Jenny’s chest.
Jenny was too embarrassed to even realize how rude Vanessa’s question was. “Well, I do … kind of… have one.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Sort of.” Jenny blushed, remembering how Nate had been about to kiss her in the park. He’d promised to call her the minute he got back from Brown. Just thinking about it made her sweat.
The waitress brought their hot chocolates.
Vanessa scooted her chair forward and blew into her mug. “So tell me about this boy.”
“His name is Nate, and he’s a senior at St. Jude’s,” Jenny said. “He’s kind of a stoner, but he’s really sweet and totally unpretentious, you know, for a boy who lives in like, a billion-dollar town house.”
Vanessa nodded. “Uh-huh.” He sounded like the kind of boy she would never be remotely interested in. “And are you guys like, going out? Isn’t he kind of… you know, old?”
Jenny just smiled. “Nate doesn’t mind. He just… likes me.” She blew happily into her mug, letting the steam hit her cheeks.
Vanessa was about to ask if Jenny was putting out for this Nate character. That might explain why he liked her so much.
“I mean, we haven’t even kissed or anything yet,” Jenny continued before she could ask. “Which kind of makes me like him even better. He’s so not slimy, you know? He doesn’t even stare at my chest.”
“Wow,” Vanessa said, impressed.
“Anyway,” Jenny added, sipping her hot chocolate. “He’s up at Brown this weekend. I wonder if he’ll bump into Dan.”
“Maybe.” Vanessa shrugged, trying to act like she didn’t care. She wished she didn’t get all goose-pimply whenever anyone mentioned Dan’s name.
The waitress brought their hummus, and Vanessa sank a piece of pita bread into it and swirled it around.
Jenny knew Vanessa still had a huge crush on Dan—her film was partly a testament to that. But Dan was with Serena now. And if Dan was with Serena, Jenny had access to Serena, which was just the way Jenny had always wanted it. Or was it?
Jenny dipped her pinky in the hummus, brought it to her mouth, and sucked on it, thinking. Dan was his usual misery-able self whether he
was with Serena or not, although Jenny had to admit she kind of missed him. And when she really thought about it, she realized she didn’t need Serena to be going out with Dan to hang out with Serena. After all, she had helped Serena with her film. She could talk to her whenever she wanted. She wasn’t Dan’s little sister Jenny anymore. She was Jennifer, her own person, with a hot senior for a boyfriend.
She looked up and smiled at Vanessa. Maybe she could help her.
“You know, Serena tried to read one of Dan’s favorite books,” Jenny said. “And she totally hated it. She couldn’t even finish it.”
Vanessa frowned. “So?”
Jenny shrugged. “So I just don’t think they have all that much in common, that’s all.”
Vanessa narrowed her eyes. “This coming from the girl who would practically lick the bottoms of Serena’s feet if she asked you to.”
Jenny opened her mouth to say something in her defense. Them she shut it again. It was true: she had been following Serena around like a little puppy dog. But not any longer. Her name was Jennifer now.
“I just think that if you still have feelings for Dan, you should do something about it, that’s all. You might be surprised,” Jenny said.
“I don’t,” Vanessa said quickly. She grabbed a triangle of pita bread and ripped it angrily in half.
“Yes, you do.”
Vanessa didn’t like being told what to do, especially by a little kid. But Jenny seemed sincere, and if Vanessa were to be honest with herself, she had to admit that she very definitely did still have feelings for Dan.
She ran her hand over her nearly bald head and raised her eyes to meet Jenny’s. “You think?” she said.
Jenny cocked her head. Vanessa had pretty decent bone structure. With a little lip gloss she might actually look like a girl. She also wasn’t half as tough or as weird as she made herself out to be.
“You might have to grow your hair out a little, but it could happen,” Jenny said. “I mean, you guys are already really good friends. You just have to take it to the next level.”
Give a girl a boyfriend and she becomes a total expert on relationships.
b freaks out in a major way
“So how’d it go?” Aaron asked when Blair came back to the car after her interview. He was sitting on the Saab’s hood, softly playing his guitar and smoking another herbal cigarette. He looked right at home at Yale.
“Okay, I think,” Blair said hesitantly. Reality had yet to set in. She opened the door to the passenger seat, sat down, and removed her shoes. “I think I have a blister. Fucking flats.”
Aaron opened the driver’s side door and got in. “So what’d they ask you?” he said.
“You know, why Yale—stuff like that,” Blair said vaguely. The whole interview was a blur to her now. She was just glad it was over.
“Sounds pretty standard,” Aaron said. “I’m sure you did fine.”
“Yeah.” Blair turned and reached behind her for her bag. The Selected Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe was lying on the backseat.
Blair remembered one of her interviewer’s questions. Can you tell me about a favorite book you’ve read recently?
Uh-oh.
Suddenly it all came back to her.
She whipped around, trembling. “Shit,” she said, in almost a whisper.
“What?”
“I messed up. I completely fucked up the whole thing.”
“What do you mean?” Aaron asked, confused.
Blair rubbed the pimple above her eyebrow. “He asked me if I’d read any good books lately. Do you know what I said?”
Aaron shook his head. “What?”
“I told him I hadn’t been reading anything because my life is a total mess. I told him I shoplifted. I told him I was suicidal.”
Aaron just stared at her, his eyes wide.
Blair gazed out the window at Yale’s pretty campus. She’d wanted to go there since she first came with her father to watch the Yale versus Harvard football game on alumni weekend when she was six. Yale was her destiny. It was everything she’d worked for. Why she didn’t go out on weeknights anymore because she was actually studying for her APs. She’d been so confident about getting in, and in a few short minutes she’d blown it completely. How could she face everyone after this?
Aaron put his hand on her shoulder. “So are you? Suicidal, I mean?”
Blair shook her head. “No.” She slumped in her seat, her chest heaving as angry tears rolled down her cheeks. “Although I should be after this.”
“And do you really shoplift?”
“Shut up,” Blair snapped, shrugging his hand off her shoulder. “This is all your fault. You kept me up too late. I should have just taken the train up this morning like I’d planned to.”
“Hey, I didn’t tell you to say all those things in your interview,” Aaron corrected her. “I wouldn’t worry about it so much, though. The interview only counts for like one fifth of the whole process. You might still get in. Even if you don’t, there are a billion other good schools to go to.”
Blair considered this. She tried to remember how the rest of the interview had gone. Maybe that one little blip hadn’t mattered as much as she thought.
Then she remembered what she’d done at the end of the interview.
Blair slammed her head against the back of her seat. “Oh God!”
Aaron put the key in the ignition and started the engine. “What?”
“I kissed him.”
“Who?”
“The guy. The interviewer. I kissed him on the cheek before I left,” Blair said. Her lower lip trembled and more tears rolled down her face. “I was a total freakshow.”
“Whoa,” Aaron said, sounding slightly impressed. “You kissed your interviewer? I bet you’re like the first person who’s ever done that.”
Blair didn’t answer. She turned her body toward the window and wrapped her arms around herself, crying miserably. What would she tell her father? What would she tell Nate? She’d given him such a hard time about not being serious about Yale, and then she’d gone and turned her own interview into a complete farce.
“Okay, you know what?” Aaron said, backing the car out of the lot. “I think we should get the hell out of here before they call the cops or something.” He smiled and picked up a dirty Dunkin’ Donuts napkin from off the floor, handing it to Blair to blow her nose with. “Here.”
Blair let the napkin drop to the floor. She couldn’t imagine how she’d gotten herself into this situation in the first place. Riding around in a dirty car with an overly optimistic dreadlocked vegan boy who was soon to become her stepbrother. Staying up late eating junk food and drinking beer. Spilling her guts to her Yale interviewer and then kissing him and totally wrecking her future. These sorts of things didn’t happen to her. They happened to losers with problems. The actors who showed up time after time at castings but never got the leads. People with bad hair and skin problems and horrible clothes and no social skills. Blair touched the zit on her forehead once more. Oh God. What was she turning into?
“Want to go get breakfast somewhere?” Aaron asked, turning onto the main road through New Haven.
Blair slumped down in her seat. She couldn’t bear to eat anything ever again. “Just take me home,” she said in disgust.
Aaron put on a Bob Marley CD and drove toward the highway, while Blair stared out the window, trying to think of reasons to live.
There was the Constance film festival on Monday. If she won she’d have one more accolade on her record, and maybe Yale would turn a blind eye to her unfortunate interview. Maybe they’d forgive her for being weird, because, after all, she was an artiste. And if she won the competition but still didn’t get into Yale, she could become all artsy and start wearing only black like that weirdo Vanessa and apply to NYU or Pratt. And if she didn’t win? She’d have one more thing to add to her list of reasons why her life was totally fucked up.
To makes things worse, next weekend was her mother’s spa
day and bridesmaids’ luncheon. Blair was going to have to be pleasant and enthusiastic. She might even have to talk to Serena. Yippee!
And then the following Saturday was the wedding day itself. Her birthday. And the day she was finally supposed to lose her virginity to Nate. Blair squeezed her eyes shut as tight as they would go, trying to recall the image she’d dreamed up earlier of Nate uncorking a bottle of champagne in their hotel suite, wearing those sexy cashmere pajama bottoms. Instead her head was filled with an entirely different vision. She imagined Aaron’s dog trotting up to her with a letter in his slobbery mouth. The letter was written on Yale stationery and it read, “Dear Ms. Waldorf, We regret to inform you that you have been denied admission to Yale. Thanks for trying, and have a nice life. Sincerely, Yale University Office of Admissions.”
Blair opened her eyes and sucked in her breath. No, she told herself firmly. She wasn’t a loser. She was going to get into Yale, no matter what. She and Nate were going to go there, together. They were going to live together and do it whenever they wanted to. That was the life she had imagined for herself and that was how it was going to be.
She turned to Aaron. “First thing when we get back, I’m calling my dad and asking him to donate something to Yale,” she said determinedly. It wasn’t exactly bribery, was it? That sort of stuff happened all the time! And it wasn’t like she was a bad student or anything.
Still, her interviewer definitely wasn’t going to forget that kiss anytime soon. Whatever her father donated was going to have to be pretty huge.
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people
WHO’S WITH WHO?
Has D completely given up on S? Is S blowing D off on purpose or just being oblivious in that fabulous way of hers? And is N actually serious about J? I mean, is he really going to ditch B in her time of need? For a ninth-grader?? Place your bets now.
YOU KNEW THIS WAS COMING
Yale University has just announced the addition of the Yale Waldorf Vineyard, and a new minor in wine management has been added to the curriculum. Students will produce their own wines, which will be sold by local merchants with the university’s name on the label. Each semester a group of students will live and work at the university’s new vineyard in Southern France, mastering the art of making wine, eating French food, and speaking French like natives. The vineyard will be up and running this summer, thanks to a generous donation by a prospective parent.