I Will Always Love You

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  The intercom buzzed, which was odd, since she wasn’t expecting anyone. She didn’t hang out with her friends much anymore, preferring to be home in case Hollis called from Reykjavík. The movie shoot had raged on for months and months longer than originally planned, and now he was still there, editing on location until the end of January. She’d visited once, during her spring break in April. It had been amazing to see him, but devastating to leave after only five days. They e-mailed as much as they could, but between the time difference and his insane work schedule, they’d barely even spoken save for a crackly ten-minute call on Christmas. It had been so long since they’d seen each other that Vanessa sometimes wondered if Hollis had been a figment of her imagination.

  Filmmakers are creative people.

  Vanessa quickly threw the empty aluminum container into the plastic takeout bag and skidded on her stockinged feet over to the door, pressing the video intercom buzzer. A grainy image of Ruby and her baby, Moxie, sprang onto the screen.

  “It’s your sister and your favorite niece!” Ruby trilled, unaware that Vanessa could see them. “And it’s fucking freezing down here,” she added.

  “Come on up!” Vanessa yelled happily. Ruby and Piotr had moved to a two-bedroom apartment in Prospect Heights right after they’d had Moxie. It was two subway rides away, and Vanessa missed having them right around the corner. She hurriedly picked up a pair of jeans from the floor and pulled them on over the boxers.

  The elevator door slid open. Ruby was bundled up in a black Brooklyn Industries puffer coat and a red hat, and eight-month-old Moxie wore a white fur hood. She looked like the monkey Chuck Bass used to tote around in high school.

  Vanessa immediately plucked the baby from her sister’s hands.

  “Don’t say hi to me. I’m just the mom,” Ruby joked as she walked into the large loft. “So, Piotr’s family is here through New Year’s and I seriously need a break.” She pulled out a bottle of wine from her voluminous bag and set it on the counter. She paused and glanced around the room suspiciously. “God, it’s always so neat in here.”

  “I like it this way,” Vanessa explained. She naturally had sloblike tendencies, but in the last year that had all changed. She liked scrubbing the tiles in the shower and Swiffering under the Sub-Zero. It gave her something to do besides miss Hollis.

  If it makes you happy…

  Vanessa pulled Moxie’s hood off her tiny head. “Still no hair,” she observed, checking the baby’s bald head.

  “You didn’t have any hair for four years,” Ruby observed blithely, settling in on the leather couch. Now, Vanessa’s silky jet-black hair fell inches past her shoulders. “Hand her over, she needs to feed.” Ruby pulled the neck of her gray Hanes T-shirt down to expose her boob, and cradled Moxie in the crook of her arm. Vanessa looked away politely.

  Ruby’s head fell back against the couch. “You know, you should really throw a New Year’s party. I mean, with an apartment like this, it’s practically your duty. Do you ever have people over?”

  “Sometimes,” Vanessa said evasively. In truth, she’d never invited anyone except Ruby up to the loft. She felt it would somehow be disloyal to Hollis, having people over in his apartment while he slaved away in Iceland. She checked the fridge to see if there was anything she could offer her sister. A forgotten carton of lo mein from last week, a container of orange juice, and a plastic tub of almonds sat on the center shelf. “Nuts?” Vanessa pulled out the container and threw a couple in her mouth.

  “Thanks.” Ruby took a couple, crunched them loudly, and threw one over to Norma. It bounced off the dog’s nose and onto the floor. She just stared at it. “Seriously, Vanessa, you’ve become weird.”

  “I have? Look at your shoes,” Vanessa shot back. Ruby wore a pair of burnt sienna–colored Dansko clogs, cutoff sweatpants, and the same red woolly cardigan that she’d worn on Christmas.

  “They’re not weird, they’re comfortable. You’re the one wasting your youth. I already had mine.” She sniffed, tucked her boob back inside her shirt, and passed the baby to Vanessa.

  “Hi, Bunny!” Vanessa cooed, inhaling the sweet scent of Johnson’s baby shampoo, which Ruby used despite the fact that Moxie had approximately three strands of hair. Moxie felt reassuringly heavy in Vanessa’s lap.

  “Listen, you’re acting like you’re in mourning or something. Live a little! I’ve been given the night off from Piotr’s family and I intend to use it for good.” Ruby grinned. “Let’s buy some slice and bake cookies and listen to Christmas music. I’m not ready for the holidays to be over yet. What do you say?”

  “I’m in!” Vanessa smiled and then headed up the winding staircase to the sleeping loft. Their California king-size bed was immaculately made, with a white duvet cover contrasting with the black bed frame. Vanessa wasn’t sure when she’d slept there last. It felt too big by herself, so she often curled up with Norma on the couch. She pulled a scarf from her closet and wrapped it around her neck. Her sister was right. Maybe she had gone a little bit overboard with the reclusive-widow thing, acting like Hollis was a ship captain lost at sea instead of a film director caught up with editing. It would be good to get out for a little bit.

  “Ready!” Vanessa yelled down the stairs as she ran her fingers through her long hair. Her index finger caught on a large snarl. “And FYI, I didn’t take a shower today so sorry if I smell,” she called as she ran down the steps. She reached the bottom and gasped.

  There, standing by the elevator, his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face, was Hollis.

  “Okay, we’ve already got our first date planned. Shower, here we come!” Hollis grinned. He had slight bags under his gray eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in months. He wore a black leather jacket and his trademark fedora over his thick dark hair. He stood there casually, like he’d only been gone a matter of minutes—not months.

  Vanessa didn’t say anything. She felt like she was going to cry. Even though it was practically a scene from a terrible chick movie, she couldn’t resist running to him and wrapping her arms around him tightly. She lifted her face up until her mouth met his.

  “Remember, there’s a kid watching!” Ruby called from the couch. Moxie gazed, entranced, at Hollis.

  “Hi,” Vanessa said dumbly, staring up at him as if he were a vision.

  Courtesy of too many Scrubbing Bubbles fumes?

  “I couldn’t wait a month. I don’t want to be in Iceland. I want to be with you,” Hollis said simply.

  “You’re back?” Vanessa asked. “For good?”

  Hollis nodded. “Unless you’re hiding a boyfriend somewhere.”

  “Just Paul Morrissey.” She gestured to the DVD case on the coffee table.

  “We’ll leave you alone,” Ruby said, bundling Moxie back into her snowsuit. “Maybe there’s a movie about talking penguins we can see.”

  Vanessa didn’t even notice her adorable niece and sister as they made their way into the elevator. She was too busy kissing her boyfriend.

  Beats mopping the floor.

  survivor

  “Do you think Jenny will choose RISD or Pratt?” Serena asked, taking a thoughtful sip of her organic chai. She and Dan were seated at a small table in Blue State Coffee, one of the cute coffee shops on Thayer Street in downtown Providence.

  “Pratt,” Dan said confidently. His hair was sort of shaggy—Serena hadn’t been able to drag him to John Barrett’s—and he wore a rumpled blue cotton oxford shirt and jeans. He looked slightly homeless, but to her, he was absolutely adorable. “Jenny’s wanted to go there since she learned how to draw,” he said proudly.

  “I didn’t have a clue when I was her age.” Serena wrinkled her nose. “But I guess it just depends on the person. Blair always knew she wanted to go to Yale….” She trailed off.

  “Have you spoken to her? Is she in New York for the holidays?” Dan asked before emptying the last of his double espresso from his mini porcelain cup. It made him feel like a character in Alice in Wonderland. The esp
resso was his second, and they’d been in the shop for less than an hour, hanging out while Jenny took her RISD tour. She was due back any minute.

  “I don’t know.” Serena shrugged, thinking of her and Blair’s huge fight last winter. A blowup between them wasn’t anything new—they’d been fighting since before they could properly form sentences. But their arguments usually blew over quickly. This one hadn’t. Blair had gone to study abroad at Oxford while Serena had gone to Yale, and they hadn’t spoken since last January. “It doesn’t matter. I just hope she’s had as good a year as I have,” Serena added, smiling at Dan.

  She and Dan had gotten together the previous winter break, and the relationship had quickly turned serious. By April, Serena was spending most of her weekends at Dan’s Upper West Side apartment. They’d sit at the tiny kitchen table, studying together, or go to the coffee shop on his corner and read. Dan was a junior at Columbia and Serena wasn’t quite sure what she was at Yale. She’d just started in September, but she’d carried over a few credits from courses she’d taken at the New School earlier that year.

  Being at Yale was more complicated than she’d thought it would be. It was strange living in a dorm when she was used to having her own apartment. She felt years older than her fellow freshmen, and it wasn’t easy to get back into studying mode, especially since she’d only taken fun classes at the New School, like screenwriting and New York in Literature. She liked reading books, but she’d never been one for taking tests and writing papers. And even if she did go back to the city every weekend, it was hard to be separated from Dan from Monday to Thursday.

  She did miss acting, but she didn’t miss having an agent and a publicist and getting followed around and pointed at everywhere she went. Her first few weeks on campus, she’d get the occasional second look or stare, but she’d quickly found a degree of anonymity she relished. Yale students were so busy with their own lives that for the most part they couldn’t get worked up over a girl who was an actress once.

  “Another cup?” Serena teased, noticing Dan’s jittery hands.

  “Nah, I’m good,” Dan said, missing her sarcasm. Sometimes, like right now, Dan still couldn’t believe Serena van der Woodsen was his girlfriend.

  She laced her fingers in his as she gazed absentmindedly out the window. It was starting to snow, and the flakes swirling around the Gothic buildings of the Brown campus were very romantic. It reminded her of playing in the snow with Nate back in high school. It made her want to start a snowball fight, but Dan wasn’t really the roughhousing type.

  Dan’s cell buzzed in his pocket. “It’s Jenny. She’s meeting us at the car.”

  “Let’s go.” Serena stood and made her way out of the coffee shop. Together, they headed to the parking lot and settled into Dan’s blue Buick Skylark.

  Dan rested his hands on the steering wheel and leaned back into the bucket seat as they waited for Jenny. He was suddenly glad he’d had the two espressos. He loved Jenny, and he loved Serena, but the two girls together had made for an exhausting ride up. They’d bothered him every fifteen minutes to stop for coffee, snacks, and bathroom breaks, making what should have been a three-hour trip more like five. Dan didn’t want a repeat performance on the way back, especially since the snow was starting to stick to the ground.

  Jenny bounded in the back door of the Buick, looking red-cheeked and radiant.

  Wonder why?

  “You’ll never guess who I ran into—Nate Archibald! Isn’t that crazy? He was going to take the train back to the city, but I figured we could just give him a ride,” Jenny said without taking a breath. Her gaze landed on Serena. Oops. In her excitement, Jenny had almost forgotten about Nate and Serena’s complicated history. To her, Serena was simply Dan’s girlfriend. Would this be weird?

  Of course it will!

  Dan narrowed his eyes at the dark blond, green-eyed figure outside his car. Nate Archibald was the asshole who’d broken Jenny’s heart three years ago, and had broken Serena’s heart just the year before. Dan had only heard the vaguest details about what had happened, but he knew Nate was bad news. What the fuck was he doing here? “Actually, I think we’re pretty full—” Dan began. He racked his brain, trying to think of some lie to prevent Nate from driving home with them. A weight limit?

  A no-assholes rule?

  “Natie!” Serena squealed, peering out the window at Nate. “What are you doing here?!” Serena couldn’t believe Nate was right in front of her. She’d hardly thought about him this past year. She knew she should still be mad at Nate after what happened last winter, but it all seemed so far in the past. Besides, she could afford to be generous. If Nate hadn’t made her so miserable last year, she’d never have reached out to Dan. So in a way, she owed her current happiness to him.

  “We totally have room!” Serena announced, getting out of the car. Nate looked so cute and helpless, with snowflakes sitting in his dirty blond hair. She threw her arms around Nate in an affectionate old-friends hug. “Hop in,” she told him, getting in the backseat with Jenny.

  Dan sputtered, his blue fleece–gloved hands gripping the steering wheel. He didn’t love the idea of Jenny talking to this douche, and he really didn’t like the familiar way Serena had hugged him. And now he had to give the guy a ride?

  “Hey, I really appreciate the ride, especially with this snow. I’ll take middle,” Nate offered, climbing over Serena and wedging his lanky frame into the middle of the seat between her and Jenny.

  Serena squeezed his shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said.

  Dan glared mutinously toward the backseat. Why didn’t Serena offer to sit up front with him? What was he? Their fucking chauffeur?

  “Great. Let’s go,” Dan growled, navigating out of his spot and slowly driving down Thayer Street toward I-95.

  “Dan, aren’t you going to ask me about RISD?” Jenny needled in her little-sister voice.

  “How was it?” Serena asked curiously.

  “So good,” Jenny gushed. “And guess what? Nate’s going to Brown!”

  “You are, Natie? Oh my God, that’s awesome!” Serena cried. “Wait, we need something to celebrate. Dan, can you stop for snacks?”

  Dan grunted. The last thing he wanted was for them to eat a fucking cake in the backseat of his car while he drove them around like a fucking soccer team. “I think we should just try to get home as quickly as possible. The snow’s really coming down,” he pointed out.

  “Whatever you say.” Nate shrugged. “I’m still not used to being back on the East Coast. We don’t get snow at Deep Springs.”

  “Did you know that Nate knows how to birth cows?” Serena said proudly as Dan merged into the bumper-to-bumper traffic of I-95 South. The cars were jockeying for road space, and the steadily falling snowflakes made for poor visibility. Dan sucked in his breath. He hated driving. Part of the reason he loved living in New York was that he never had to drive.

  “I need to concentrate,” he muttered, turning on the windshield wipers.

  Nate tapped Dan’s shoulder. “You want me to drive? I’m pretty good at dealing with the dust storms in California.”

  “No,” Dan said shortly. He looked in the rearview mirror. Jenny was leaning toward the middle section of the seat, practically on top of Nate. She was a smart girl, but when it came to boys, she could be sort of a ditz. Dan knew his sister, and right now Jenny was in full-on flirt mode.

  God help us.

  “I got stuck in the snow once,” she offered. “With my friend Tinsley. Our car broke down in the middle of the highway, and we had to spend the night in it. We thought we were in, like, the middle of nowhere, but when we woke up the next morning we realized we were right in front of a hotel. The owners felt sorry for us and gave us a free breakfast.”

  Nate chuckled. “That’s funny. I always wondered what went down at boarding school. Serena would never give up any stories about Hanover.”

  “What do you want to know?” Serena stuck out her tongue at Nate. “That was a million ye
ars ago, anyway.”

  Dan pulled forward into an empty lane and accelerated angrily.

  Suddenly, the car swerved toward the shoulder. Dan whipped the wheel in the opposite direction, the back of the car swinging like the tail of a snake. Behind them a car horn blared. Jenny shrieked, and Serena braced herself against the back of Dan’s seat.

  Dan pressed on the brake and pulled over, his breath short and heart pounding. Everyone was silent. They could’ve been killed. He peered out the window. Fat flakes were falling, and the stormy clouds meant it was only going to get worse. Fuck. Stuck in a fucking blizzard, hours from home. “It’s too dangerous to try to get all the way back to the city in this. I don’t have snow tires, and this car isn’t exactly in the best of shape.” Dan said flatly, hating the truth of the statement.

  They all peered out at the swirling snow. “Damn, dude,” Nate swore sympathetically. Dan just glared at him in the rearview mirror. Helpful. Really helpful.

  “We could stay at a hotel!” Jenny offered happily. She loved hotels. They could get two rooms: one for Dan and Serena and one for her and Nate.

  “I have an idea…” Serena offered. “Blair’s Newport house isn’t far from here. It’s empty. Her mom’s in California and her dad’s in France. And I still remember the security code.”

  Dan shook his head. That was the thing about Serena. Everything always worked out for her, so it never occurred to her that breaking into someone’s house could be a bad idea. “I don’t think—” he began.

  “Perfect,” Nate enthused. “Man, I used to love that house. Remember how we always used to play croquet on the lawn and talk in British accents?”

  “Oh my God, yes! And Blair would always get so competitive?” Serena rolled her eyes. “I’m going to drive. I know where it is,” she announced, already unbuckling her seat belt and climbing up front.

  Wordlessly, Dan slid out of the driver’s seat and walked through the falling snow to the passenger door.