Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  When Serena got home the enormous apartment was empty. Her parents were rarely home. Her father ran the same Dutch shipping firm his great-great-grandfather had founded in the 1700s, and both her parents were on the boards of all the big charities and arts organizations in the city. They were out all day and every night, attending meetings and lunches, art openings and cocktail parties, fundraising auctions and dinner dances. Right now Deidre the housekeeper was out shopping, but the place was spotless, and there were vases of fresh cut flowers in every room, including the bathrooms.

  An enormous butcher block table stood in the center of the kitchen—oh, what she could do to Blair’s straight-A, extracurricular activity–toned body on that table. First she’d cleave the meat from the bone and then she’d tenderize it into pan-sized fat free filets. The Yale-bound brain she’d pound into a supersized mincemeat pie and deliver to Constance Billard’s headmistress in a pretty blue and white china pie dish….

  On the butcher block table was today’s pile of mail. Serena sifted through it. Mostly there were benefit invitations for her parents—white square envelopes printed with old-fashioned typefaces. Then there were the art openings—postcards with a picture of the artist’s work on one side and the details of the opening on the back. One of these caught Serena’s attention. It had obviously been lost in the mail for a little while, because it looked beaten up, and the opening it announced was beginning at 5 P.M. on Wednesday, which was… right now.

  Serena flipped the card over and looked at the picture of the artist’s work. It looked like a close-up black and white photograph of an eye, tinted pink. The title of the work was Stefani, and the name of the show was “Behind the Scene.” Serena squinted at the picture. There was something innocent and beautiful about it, and at the same time it was a little gross, like the bloody hole a ski pole made when she used it to stab someone. Maybe it wasn’t an eye. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was definitely cool. No question about it, Serena knew what she was doing for the next couple of hours.

  Within minutes she was stepping out of a taxi in front of the Whitehot Gallery downtown in Chelsea. The gallery was full of twenty-something hipsters in cool clothes, drinking free martinis and admiring the photographs hanging on the walls. Each picture was similar to the one on the postcard, that same close-up black and white eye, blown up, all in different shapes and sizes and tinted with different colors. Under each one was a label, and on every label was the first name of its subject: Mary-Kate, Justin, Arizona, Taylor, Miranda, James, Emma, Lindsay, Stefani, Ed, Kristen.

  French pop music bubbled out of invisible speakers. The photo-artists themselves, the Remi brothers, identical twin sons of a French model and an English duke, were being interviewed and photographed for Artforum, Vogue, W, New York, and the New York Times.

  Serena studied each photograph carefully. They weren’t eyes, she decided, now that she was looking at them blown up. But what were they? Belly buttons?

  Suddenly Serena felt an arm around her waist.

  “Hello, ma chèrie. Beautiful girl. What is your name?”

  It was one of the Remi brothers. He was twenty-six years old and five foot nine, the same height as Serena. He had curly black hair and brilliant blue eyes. He spoke with a French and British accent. He was dressed head to toe in navy blue, and his lips were dark red and curved foxily up at the corners. He was absolutely gorgeous, and so was his twin brother.

  Lucky girl.

  She was still wearing her Constance uniform but Serena didn’t resist when he pulled her into a photograph with him and his brother for the New York Times’ Sunday Styles section. One brother stood behind Serena and kissed her neck while the other knelt in front of her and hugged her knees. Around them, people watched greedily, eager to catch a glimpse of the new “it” girl.

  Everyone in New York wants to be famous. Or at least see someone who is so they can brag about it later.

  The New York Times society reporter recognized Serena from parties a year or so back, but he had to be sure it was her. “Serena van der Woodsen, right?” he said, looking up from his notepad.

  Serena blushed and nodded. She was used to being recognized. “You must model for us,” one of the Remi brothers gasped, kissing Serena’s hand.

  “You must,” the other one agreed, feeding her an olive.

  Serena laughed. “Sure. Why not?” Although she had no idea what she was agreeing to.

  One of the Remi brothers pointed to a door marked PRIVATE across the gallery. “We’ll meet you in there,” he said. “Don’t be nervous. We’re both gay.”

  Serena giggled and took a big gulp of her drink. Were they kidding? They should have been nervous. She had her switchblade with her.

  The other brother patted her on the bottom. “It’s all right, darling. You’re absolutely stunning, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. Go on. We’ll be there in a minute.”

  Serena hesitated, but only for a second. She could keep up with the likes of Lady Gaga and Emma Watson, no problem. Chin up, she headed for the door marked PRIVATE.

  Just then, a guy from the Public Arts League and a woman from the New York Transit Authority came over to talk to the Remi brothers about a new avant-garde public art program. They wanted to put a Remi brothers photograph on the sides of buses, in subways, and in the advertising boxes on top of taxis all over town.

  “Yes, of course,” the Remis agreed. “If you can wait a moment, we’ll have a brand new one. We can give it to you exclusively!”

  “What’s this one called?” the Transit Authority woman asked eagerly.

  “Serena,” the Remi boys said in unison.

  social awareness is next to godliness

  “I found a printer who will do it by tomorrow afternoon and hand-deliver each of the invitations so they get there by Friday morning,” Laura said, looking pleased with herself for being so efficient.

  “But look how expensive it is. If we use them, then we’re going to have to cut costs on other things,” Blair pointed out. “See how much Alaric is charging us for the flowers?”

  As soon as they were finished with their Wednesday after-school activities, the remaining members of the Kiss Me or Die organizing committee had convened over french fries and hot chocolate in a booth at the 3 Guys Coffee Shop to deal with the last-minute preparations for the party. Blair Waldorf, Laura Salmon, Rain Hoffstetter, and Tina Ford, from the Seaton Arms School, were all present. Nicki Button, Kati Farkas, and Isabel Coates were not, because they were dead.

  The crisis at hand was the fact that the party was only nine days away, and no one had received an invitation yet. The invitations had been ordered weeks ago, but due to a mix-up, the location of the party had to be changed from Pier 60 in Chelsea to the Frick, an old mansion on Fifth Avenue, rendering the invitations useless. The girls were in a tight spot. They had to get a new set of invitations out, and fast, or there wasn’t going to be a party at all.

  “But Alaric is the only place to get flower centerpieces for the tables. I know it’s expensive but it’s so worth it. Oh, come on, Blair, think how cool they’ll be,” Tina whined.

  “There are plenty of other places to get flowers,” Blair insisted.

  “Or maybe we can ask the birds of prey people to pitch in,” Rain suggested. She reached for a french fry, dunked it in ketchup, and popped it into her mouth. “They’ve barely done anything.”

  Blair rolled her eyes and blew into her hot chocolate. “That’s the whole point. We’re raising money for them. It’s a cause.”

  Rain wound a lock of her gleaming dark hair around her finger. “What is a bird of prey anyway?” she said. “Is it like a woodpecker?”

  “No, they’re like eagles and vultures,” Tina said. “And they eat other animals, like rabbits and mice and squirrels and stuff. Even if they’re already dead.”

  “Gross,” Rain said.

  “I just read a definition,” Laura mused. “I can’t remember where I saw it.”

  On the I
nternet, perhaps?

  “They’re almost extinct,” Blair added. “Which is sort of the whole point.” She thumbed through the list of people they were inviting. Three hundred and sixteen. All young people—no parents, thank God.

  Blair’s eyes were automatically drawn to a name toward the bottom of the list: Serena van der Woodsen. The address given was her dorm room at Hanover Academy, in New Hampshire. Blair put the list back down on the table without correcting it.

  “We’re going to have to spend the extra money on the printer and cut corners where we can,” she said quickly. “I can tell Alaric to use lilies instead of orchids and forget about the peacock feathers around the rims of the vases.”

  “I can do the invitations,” a small, young-sounding voice spoke up from behind them. “For free.”

  The four girls turned around to see who it was.

  Oh look, it’s that little Ginny girl, Blair thought. The ninth grader who did the calligraphy and creepy dead angel drawings in our school hymnals.

  “I can do them all by hand tonight. The materials are the only cost, but I know where to get good quality paper cheap,” Jenny Humphrey said.

  “She did all our hymnals at school,” Laura whispered to Tina. “They look really good.”

  “Yeah,” Rain agreed. “They’re pretty cool.”

  Jenny blushed and stared at the shiny linoleum floor of the coffee shop, waiting for Blair to make up her mind. She knew Blair was the one who mattered.

  “And you’ll do it all for free?” Blair demanded suspiciously.

  Jenny lifted her gaze. “I was kind of hoping that if I did the invites, maybe I could come to the party?”

  Blair weighed the pros and cons in her mind. Pros: The invitations would be unique and, best of all, free, so they wouldn’t have to skimp on the flowers. Cons: There really weren’t any, except that the little freshman’s boobs were going to take up a lot of space at the party.

  Blair looked the Ginny girl up and down. Their cute little ninth-grade helper with the huge chest. She was a total glutton for punishment, and she’d be totally out of place at the party. But who cared?

  “Sure, you can make yourself an invitation. Make one for one of your girlfriends, too,” Blair said, handing the guest list over to Jenny.

  How generous. Too bad she already disposed of Jenny’s only girlfriend.

  Blair gave Jenny all the necessary information and Jenny dashed out of the coffee shop breathlessly. The stores would be closing soon, and she didn’t have much time. The guest list was longer than she’d anticipated, and she’d have to stay up all night working on the invitations, but she was going to the party; that was all that mattered.

  Just wait until she told Dan. He was going to freak. And she was going to make him come with her to the party, whether he liked it or not—especially since Elise seemed to have moved away without telling her and totally didn’t respond to her texts.

  She hailed a cab, and told the cabbie to take her to Michaels, the huge crafts store on upper Broadway. The cab’s window was halfway down and the crisp late afternoon air had the distinct scent of New York in autumn—a mixture of smoking fireplaces, dried leaves, decomposing bodies, dog pee, and bus exhaust—a scent that to Jenny seemed full of promise. She hugged herself. It was happening: She was going to Kiss Me or Die. She’d buy a cool new dress and wear the highest heels she could get away with. She’d straighten her hair—or at least try to—and curl her eyelashes. And at the party she was going to get kissed.

  Or die?

  natural born killers

  Two martinis and three rolls of Remi brothers’ film later, Serena jumped out of a cab in front of Constance and ran up the stairs to the auditorium, where the interschool play rehearsal had already begun. After having her photograph taken from every possible angle, she’d had a crisis of conscience, realizing that this sort of extracurricular activity wasn’t going to get her into college either. As always, she was half an hour late.

  Jaunty piano music drifted down the hallway. Serena pushed open the auditorium door to find an old preschool acquaintance, Ralph Bottoms III, onstage singing “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” with passion. He was dressed as an old-fashioned barber, complete with fake mustache, open white shirt, suspenders, shiny black boots, and a bloody straight razor. Ralph had gained weight in the last few years, and his face was ruddy, as if he’d been eating too much rare steak. He held hands with a stocky girl with straight black hair and a heart-shaped face, wearing a red velvet nineteenth-century prostitute dress. She was singing too, belting out the words in a thick Korean accent.

  “He shaved the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard of again.”

  Serena leaned against the wall to watch with a mixture of horror and fascination. The scene at the art gallery hadn’t fazed her, but this—this was scary. Even the opportunity to wield the bloody straight razor couldn’t tempt her.

  The drama teacher, a sweaty, enthusiastic Englishwoman in clogs, finished the song with a prolonged piano chord. The rest of the Interschool Drama Club whistled and cheered. Then the drama teacher began to direct the next scene.

  “Put your hands on your hips,” she instructed. “Show me, show me. That’s it. Imagine you’re the Justin Bieber of Fleet Street!”

  Serena turned to gaze out the window and saw three girls get out of a cab together on the corner of Ninety-third and Madison. She squinted, recognizing Blair, Laura, and Rain. Serena hugged herself, warding off the strange feeling that had been stalking her since she’d come back to the city. For the first time in her entire life, she felt left out.

  Without a word to anyone in the drama club—Hello? Goodbye!—Serena slipped out of the auditorium and into the hallway outside. The wall was littered with flyers and notices and she stopped to read them. One of the flyers advertised the tryout for Vanessa Abrams’s film: Natural Born Killers, a modern retelling of the violently romantic Oliver Stone classic. Try out for Mallory. Wednesday, sunset. Brooklyn Bridge.

  Knowing what little she did about Vanessa, the film was going to be very serious and obscure, but it was better than shouting goofy songs and doing the Hokey-Pokey with fat, red-faced Ralph Bottoms III. It was still light out. Hopefully the tryout wasn’t over. Once again, Serena found herself running for a cab, headed downtown.

  “This is how I want you to do it,” Vanessa told Marjorie Jaffe, a sophomore at Constance and the only girl who had shown up to try out for the role of Mallory Knox, the murderous teen bride in Vanessa’s film. Marjorie was short and stocky, with curly auburn hair, freckles, and a little pug nose. She chewed gum while she talked, had flabby arms that jiggled when she moved them, and was completely, nightmarishly wrong for the part.

  The sun was setting and the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian footpath basked in a pretty pink glow. Ferries, container ships, barges, cruise ships, tugboats, yachts, small motor craft, and sailboats traversed the busy harbor. Cars zoomed back and forth over the bridge and helicopters policed the sky—all under the blandly imperious watch of the Statue of Liberty. The gusty sea air was fresh and cool, but tainted with the scent of New Jersey and the landfill on Staten Island. As always, the footpath was crawling with camera-toting tourists, eager to capture themselves in front of the most famous backdrop in the world.

  Dan hung over the side of the bridge, waiting for the enormous orange Staten Island ferry to go off course and crash into Governor’s Island. A favorite haiku by Bash came to mind:

  A fishy smell—

  perch guts

  in the water weeds.

  Dan was dressed in his Mickey Knox costume, with the Paragon Sports price tags tucked in so they wouldn’t show, and armed with the bowie knife, a crowbar, and a baseball bat, all hanging from the black yoga mat harness strapped over his shoulders and across his chest. Dan’s hollow cheeks and sunken eyes looked almost grotesque in the pinkish-gray twilight, and his ribs stuck out impossibly through the tight white sleeveless rash guard. In him Vanessa thought she had created a
very believable psychopath.

  “Watch,” Vanessa told Marjorie. She yanked the bowie knife out of the hand-stitched leather sheath tied to the harness strapped to Dan’s chest, and pretended to cut open her own hand.

  “Is that a real knife?” Marjorie whined, chomping on her gum. “What if I cut myself for real?”

  Vanessa put her video camera down on the ground.

  “Why don’t I run through the scene with Dan while you watch?” she said. “We’re going to say our lines this time. When you do it you don’t need to say them, you just need to think them. Got it?”

  She slipped the bowie knife back into its sheath and smiled up at Dan. God, he looked hot. In a starving, miserable sort of way.

  “Okay. Let’s go. Action!”

  Dan swung from the bridge’s cables and gaped at the water with a crazed smile. “Life is fragile and absurd. Murdering someone’s not so hard.” It was the most he’d spoken all day.

  Vanessa put her arms around him and yanked the knife from out of its sheath, praying the tourists on the bridge would be too busy taking photographs to pay them any mind. She mimed cutting her hand open, baring her teeth at the pain.

  “Mickey Knox, will you marry me?” she asked, wondering if in real life she would ever get to utter those words to Dan. Will you marry me?

  Dan reached for the knife and cut his own hand open for real. Man, he loved that sharp, sharp knife. “I will,” he said. “I will.”

  It was just a shallow cut, like a paper cut, but still. Vanessa was pissed that he’d gotten the knife dirty. They reached out and clasped each other’s hands in a bloody handshake.