The sun had just set. Vanessa decided to sit down on a bench and wait for something interesting to happen.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Three young vultures swooped down from the sky and dropped three small objects on the pavement. The objects rolled until they came to a stop in front of Vanessa’s bench. Two human eyes and a human nose stared up at her, all in a row, like an ellipsis.
Vanessa zoomed in on them excitedly.
Talk about found art.
sunday brunch
Late Sunday morning the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were crawling with people. Tourists mostly, and locals who had come for a brief visit so they could brag about it to their friends and sound cultured.
Inside, brunch was being served in the Sackler Wing for all the museum’s board members and their families. The wing was a superb setting for nighttime parties—glittering gold and exotic, with the moonlight shining dramatically through its modern glass walls. But it was all wrong for brunch. Smoked salmon and eggs and mummified Egyptian pharaohs really don’t mix. Plus, the morning sun shining so brightly through the slanting glass walls made even the slightest hangover feel ten times worse.
Who invented brunch anyway? The only decent place to be on a Sunday morning is in bed.
The room was filled with large round tables and freshly scrubbed Upper East Siders. Eleanor Waldorf, Cyrus Rose, the van der Woodsens, the Basses, the Archibalds, and their children were there, all seated around one table. Blair sat between Cyrus Rose and her mother, looking grumpy.
Nate had been intermittently baked, drunk, or passed out since Friday night, and looked woozy and rumpled, as if he’d just woken up. Serena wore a pretty yellow dress she’d bought shopping with her mother the day before, and she’d had her hair cut, with soft layers framing her face. She looked even more beautiful than ever, but felt nervous and jumpy about being seated with Blair and Chuck. Only Chuck seemed at ease, happily gulping his Bloody Mary and looking rather dapper in his Hermès eye patch.
Cyrus Rose sliced his salmon and leek omelet in half and plunked it on a pumpernickel bagel. “I’ve been craving eggs,” he said, biting into it hungrily. “You know when your body tells you you need something?” he said to no one in particular. “Mine’s shouting, ‘Eggs, eggs, eggs!’ ”
And mine’s shouting,“Shut the fuck up before I ram that omelet down your windpipe,” Blair thought.
She winced and pushed her plate away from her. “I hate eggs.”
Cyrus pushed her plate back. “No, you eat. All you girls are dying because you’re way too thin.”
“That’s right, Blair,” her mother agreed. “Eat your eggs. They’ll keep you strong for tennis.”
And other strenuous activities.
“I hear eggs make your hair shiny,” Misty Bass added.
Blair shook her head. “Eggs make me gag.”
Chuck reached across the table. “I’ll eat them, if you don’t want them.”
Blair handed her plate over, careful not to look at Serena or Nate, sitting on either side of Chuck. Instead she watched the table’s centerpiece, a fishbowl terrarium full of electric blue poison dart frogs, frantically hopping around their round glass prison.
Jacked up on strong coffee, Serena was busy cutting her omelet into little squares, like Scrabble pieces. She began building tall towers of them.
Out of the corner of his eye, Nate was watching her. He was also watching Chuck’s hands. Each time they slid underneath the tablecloth and out of view, Nate imagined them all over Serena’s legs.
“Anyone see the Styles section of the Times today?” Cyrus asked, looking around the table.
Serena’s head shot up. Her picture with the Remi brothers. She’d forgotten all about it.
She pursed her lips and slunk down in her chair, waiting for an inquisition from her parents and everyone else at the table. But it never came. It was part of their social code not to dwell on things that embarrassed them.
“Pass me the cream, Nate darling?” Serena’s mother said with a smile.
And that was that.
Nate’s mother cleared her throat. “How are the preparations for the Kiss Me or Die party going, Blair? Are you girls all ready?” she asked, swigging her Seven and Seven.
“Yes, we’re all set,” Blair answered politely. “We finally got the invitations cleared up. And Kate Spade is sending over the gift bags after school on Thursday.”
“I remember all the cotillions I used to organize,” Mrs. van der Woodsen said, with a dreamy expression. “But the thing we always used to worry about most was would the boys show up.” She smiled at Nate and Chuck. “We don’t have to worry about that with you two, do we?”
“I’m all over it,” Chuck said, scarfing Blair’s omelet.
“I’ll be there,” Nate said. He glanced at Blair, who was staring at him now.
Nate was wearing that same green cashmere sweater she had given him in Sun Valley. The one with the gold heart.
“Excuse me,” Blair said. Then she stood up abruptly and left the table.
Nate followed her.
“Blair!” he called, weaving his way around the other tables, ignoring his friend Anthony, who was waving to him from across the room. “Wait up!”
Without turning around, Blair began walking even faster, her heels clacking on the white marble floor.
They reached the hallway to the restrooms. “Come on, Blair. I’m sorry, okay? Can we please talk?” Nate called.
Blair reached the door to the women’s room and turned around, pushing it halfway open with her rear end.
“Just leave me alone, okay?” she said sharply, and went inside.
Nate stood outside the door for a moment with his hands in his pockets, thinking. That morning, when he’d put on the green sweater Blair had given him, he’d found a little gold heart sewn into the sleeve. He’d never noticed it before, but it was obvious Blair had put it there. For the first time, he’d realized that she really meant it when she’d said she loved him.
It was pretty intense. And pretty flattering. And it kind of made him want her again. It wasn’t just any girl who’d sew a gold heart into your clothes. Or cover her body in paint and greet you naked at the door.
He had that right.
Serena had to pee desperately, but Blair was in the bathroom. After Blair and Nate had been gone for five minutes, though, she couldn’t hold it any longer. She stood up and headed for the ladies’ room.
Familiar faces gazed up at Serena as she passed their tables. A waitress offered her a glass of champagne. But Serena shook her head and hurried down the marble hall to the bathrooms. Quick, heavy footsteps smacked on the floor behind her. She turned around. It was Cyrus Rose.
“Tell Blair to hurry if she wants dessert, will you?” he told her.
Serena nodded and pushed open the door to the ladies’ room. Blair was washing her hands. She looked up, staring at Serena’s reflection in the mirror over the sink.
“Cyrus says to hurry if you want dessert,” Serena said abruptly, walking into a stall and banging the door shut. She sat down on the toilet, but nothing happened. Her bladder was full, but nothing came out.
Serena couldn’t believe herself. How many times in the past had she and Blair gone to the bathroom together, talking and laughing while they peed?
There was a quiet, awkward pause.
Don’t you just hate awkward pauses?
“Prepare to die,” Serena thought she heard Blair whisper in a low growl before she left the bathroom.
The door swung shut, but even with Blair gone Serena couldn’t relax. Like Diana, goddess of the hunt, she was the huntress. She wasn’t used to being hunted.
Cyrus caught Nate in the men’s room.
“You and Blair have a fight?” Cyrus asked. He unzipped his pants and stood at the urinal. Lucky Nate.
Nate shrugged as he washed his hands. “Kind of.”
“Let me guess. It was about sex, right?” Cyrus
said.
Nate blushed and pulled a paper towel out of the dispenser. “Sort of…” He really didn’t want to get into it. He certainly wasn’t going to mention the body paint.
Cyrus flushed the urinal and joined Nate at the sinks. He washed his hands and began fussing with his tie, which was bright pink with yellow lions’ heads on it. Very Versace.
Read: tacky.
“The only things couples fight about are sex and money,” Cyrus observed.
Nate just stood there with his hands in his pockets.
“That’s all right, kid. I’m not going to give you a lecture or anything. This is my future stepdaughter we’re talking about. I’m sure as hell not going to tell you how to get into her pants.”
Cyrus chuckled to himself and left the bathroom, leaving Nate to stare after him. He wondered if Blair knew Cyrus was planning on marrying her mother.
Nate turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face. He studied himself in the mirror. He’d been up late last night with the boys, playing stupid drinking games to Tomb Raider. Every time they saw Angelina Jolie’s nipples, they had to drink. He’d tried to drown his worries about Blair and Serena in as much booze as he could swallow, and now he was paying for it. His face was pale, there were brownish-purple circles under his eyes, and his cheeks were still sort of gray from the paint. He looked like shit.
As soon as this damned brunch was over, he was heading into the park for a smoke in the sun and a can of whiskey and Coke. The perfect cure-all.
But first he’d have to flirt with Blair a little bit. If she would let him.
Instead of returning to her table when she left the ladies’ room, Blair made her way across the Sackler Wing, toward Arms and Armor. She’d waited long enough. It was time.
Rain and Laura spotted her first.
“Blair! Over here!” Rain called, patting the empty gold chair next to her. Their parents and friends were working the room, socializing, so the girls had the table to themselves.
“Here,” Laura said, handing Blair a glass full of champagne and peach puree.
“Thanks,” Blair said, taking an impatient sip.
“Anthony Avuldsen just came over and tried to get us to come to the park with him.” Rain giggled. “He’s kind of cute, you know, in a Waspoid kind of way.”
Hey, cool word!
Laura rolled her eyes. “Isn’t this boring? How’s your table?”
“Don’t ask,” Blair said. “Did you see who I’m sitting with?”
The other two girls sniggered. “Have you seen that billboard of her by those dead artist guys?” Laura said.
Blair nodded and rolled her eyes.
“What’s it supposed to be, anyway?” Rain asked. “Her belly button?”
Blair had gotten awfully close to having her own Remi brothers portrait done, but she still had no idea. “Who cares?”
“She has no shame,” Laura ventured. “I actually feel kind of sorry for her.”
“Me too,” Rain agreed.
“Well, don’t,” Blair said fiercely before making her escape.
Nate pushed open the men’s room door at exactly the same time that Serena pushed open the ladies’. Together, they walked down the hallway back to the table.
“Nate,” Serena said, smoothing her new yellow Marni dress over her legs. “Can you please explain why you’re not talking to me?”
“I’m not not talking to you,” Nate said. “See, I’m talking to you right now.”
“Barely,” Serena said. “What happened? What’s wrong? Did Blair say something to you about me?”
Instinctively, Nate reached into his jacket pocket and fingered the silver flask of whiskey that was hidden there. He looked down at the marble floor, avoiding Serena’s beautiful sad eyes.
“We should get back,” he said, speeding up.
“Fine,” Serena answered, trailing after him.
Chuck smirked at them knowingly as they returned to their chairs. How was it? his face seemed to say.
Serena wanted to rip off his other eyelid. She ordered another cup of coffee, dumped four teaspoons of sugar in it, and stirred and stirred, wondering where the hell Blair had gone.
Nate ordered a Bloody Mary. Chuck followed suit.
“Bottoms up!” Chuck cried cheerfully, banging his glass against Nate’s and taking a big gulp. Blood red tomato juice sloshed on the white tablecloth. Blue frogs hopped crazily in their round glass cage.
Serena pushed her chair back and stood up to hunt for Blair.
A Kentucky rifle. A double-barrel breechloading pinfire shotgun. The crossbow of Count Ulrich V of Würtemberg. The rapier of Christian II, Elector of Saxony. The flintlock gun of Louis XIII, King of France. The flintlock pistols of Empress Catherine the Great. Rowel spurs. A powder horn. The small-sword of Colonel Marinus Willet.
Blair browsed the displays, finally deciding on a pretty Colt third model Dragoon percussion revolver inlaid with tiny golden animals and displayed in a nifty blue velvet–lined wooden box. A life-sized oil portrait of the proud Revolutionary War leader Colonel Marinus Willet himself looked on as she wrapped her fist in her lavender Lutz & Patmos cashmere cardigan and broke the glass.
Serena heard the alarm. Instinct told her to run toward the sound, sure that Blair was up to something. She dashed across the sun-dappled Charles Engelhard Court in the American Wing and through the glass doors to Arms and Armor. The doors swung shut and locked behind her. Before her stood the collection’s central exhibit, a lifelike display of four mounted knights and their horses. The alarm pealed loudly. Tourists ambled around the display, unfazed. Blair was nowhere in sight.
“Miss, you can’t do that!” a suited security guard on the other side of the display shouted at Blair.
Blair pointed the revolver at him. “Oh, shut up,” she snapped. “My family basically owns this entire wing.”
Serena shot around the mounted knights and across the main hall. She ran up behind the quavering guard under Blair’s arrest and stopped short. “I doubt they’d put a loaded gun in a display case, Blair.”
Blair pulled the trigger, hoping to blow a large hole through the guard’s chest and then through Serena’s. The trigger clicked. Nothing happened. Fuck. Serena was right.
Both girls dashed away to arm themselves. Serena broke a glass case and chose the saber of Sultan Murad V. It was long and sharp and perfectly arched, with a gorgeous gold-tassled jade hilt, encrusted with gold and precious jewels. Blair broke another case and chose a yataghan from the court of Süleyman the Magnificent, a gleaming sword-machete-spear combo with a nearly three-foot-long blade that looked sharp as hell and was decorated in gold with a fight scene between a dragon with ruby eyes and a phoenix with silver teeth.
The weapons were so heavy the girls had to use both hands to wield them. The security guard had disappeared, either afraid for his life or calling for backup, or both. The alarm was loud. It rang in the girls’ ears. But that didn’t stop the tourists.
Nothing ever does.
“Do you girls know how to get to the Arts of Africa, Oceana, and the Americas?” a ditzy bald man wearing half-glasses asked them.
“Shut up!” Blair shouted at him, and sliced him in half.
“Blair!” Serena scolded while taking a stab at Blair with the saber.
“Like you’re so perfect,” Blair scoffed, leaping away with balletic grace.
Serena drew back the saber and prepared to strike again, accidentally disemboweling a tour of matriarchs from the Cosmopolitan Club while she was at it.
Whoops.
Blair swung at Serena with the yataghan’s gleaming blade. Two security guards ran in to stop her, losing their legs as Serena swung back with the saber to defend herself.
Whoops again.
Besides the now-locked doors to the American Wing, Arms and Armor had only two methods of egress—the main entrance, and a stairway in the far right-hand corner of the hall. Serena sprinted toward the stairs, her breath coming short and
fast, her arms aching as she ran with the heavy saber.
Blood dripped from Blair’s weapon onto her gunmetal Miu Miu mules.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Blair cried, giving chase.
The girls’ footsteps echoed in the cavernous hall. A display of armor for a mounted Japanese samurai warrior looked on in delight, his cricket bat of a sword remaining sheathed in its leopardskin scabbard.
Running up stairs with a long, heavy saber was hard work. Plus, Serena didn’t play tennis. With aching legs and arms she labored, sweating and panting, to the top of the stairs, headed for Musical Instruments on the second floor.
Next thing you know they’ll be going at it with cellos.
Far fitter, Blair took the marble steps two at a time. Soon she was right behind that familiar blond swath of hair. Blair squared her shoulders and took aim. She drew her arm back like a bow and hurled the yataghan at Serena’s straining form, catching her between the shoulder blades. Blood blossomed on the yellow dress. Slowly, like a slain warrior in a movie, Serena dropped her saber, staggered, and fell.
Blair wished she had a chainsaw. Somehow she’d expected Serena’s death to be grisly, gruesome, and noisy. But the stairwell was quiet. She waited for Serena to rise up and strike again like Glenn Close in the bathtub at the end of Fatal Attraction, but nothing happened, not even a twitch of Serena’s bloody hand. Blair turned and headed back downstairs again, feeling slightly ripped off. At least Serena was dead now, but her new shoes were totally fucked.
Security was busy locking down the area. No one was allowed in or out while the murderers ran amok. Blair returned to her table and began to devour her crème brûlée. It was full of eggs, but she didn’t care—she’d throw it all up soon anyway.
“Hey Blair.” Nate came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, causing Blair to drop her spoon with a clatter. He smiled and leaned over her. “That looks awesome. Can I have a bite?”
Blair’s hand fluttered nervously to her heart. Sexy Nate. Her Nate. God, she still wanted him—so, so much. But she wasn’t going to give up that easily. She had her pride. Regaining her composure, she reached for her Bloody Mary and downed the entire drink in one big swallow, including the poison dart frog Chuck had thrown in just for fun.
Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer Page 21
