Leaving them to celebrate without him, he meandered slowly west on Eighty-sixth Street toward home, thankful that his parents had been so pissed off at him for that goddamned asterisk that they’d gone straight up to Mt. Desert Island for the week, leaving him in peace. Up in his room, he began to sort through his cedar walk-in closet. On the shelf above the clothes rail, behind that ridiculous Darth Vader head he’d worn for Halloween two years in a row back in fourth and fifth grade, was the little mahogany pirate’s treasure chest with the brass lock that his uncle Gerard had given him when he was eight, where Nate stowed all his old photographs. He grabbed the clothes rail with one hand and used it to steady himself as he scaled the closet wall with his bare feet, trying to get the fucker down.
The chest spilled open on the floor. There he was on a fishing boat in Prince William Sound up in Alaska two Augusts ago with his arm around his dad, both smiling like losers and wearing dirty yellow foul-weather gear. That was the best time he and his dad had ever had together. Fishing in the weird eleven o’clock twilight, surrounded by ghostly glaciers, and sharing a flask of Scotch on their way back into port. Then there were the pictures of him and Blair. He looking bored and sleepy and embarrassed, with his head on her rose-colored pillows, and she looking crazily ecstatic, with her cheek pressed violently into his ear as she held her camera in front of their faces and snapped the pictures herself.
Then there was the picture of Serena’s elegant, tanned foot with the words Miss you written on it in purple marker that she’d sent him last year while she was still up at boarding school. Nate had kept it, loving her sexy silver toe ring, and loving how he knew it was from her, even though she hadn’t sent it with a note or used a return address or anything. He held the photograph in his hands, trying to invoke that tingly, turned-on feeling he’d felt when he’d gotten it in the mail, but now it was just a silly old photograph that didn’t really invoke anything.
He glanced at the photo of him and Blair again, missing the way they used to kick around together doing stupid things, like drinking way too many vodka tonics before a movie and then running out during the previews because they couldn’t stop laughing. Her new-shoe-and-Kiehl’s-cucumber-skin-cream smell. The way she was so sexy when she was throwing a fit. He wanted her to sit on his lap. He wanted her hands in his pockets. He wanted her to call him at seven o’clock in the morning on a Sunday because she was hyper and couldn’t wait for him to wake up.
He tossed the photos back in the pirate’s chest and closed the lid. Hanging on the clothes rail inside a clear plastic bag was the moss green cashmere sweater Blair had given him last spring. The maid had sent it to the dry cleaners so it would be ready for Nate to wear at Yale in the fall. Nate ripped open the bag and felt inside the sweater’s right sleeve. No, maybe it was the left. Yes, there it was. The tiny gold heart pendant Blair had sewn inside it so that he would always be wearing her heart on his sleeve. Blair probably thought he hadn’t noticed the heart, but he wore the sweater so much, how could he not have? He loved that sweater.
Sounds like the love went beyond knitwear.
Tears began to seep out of the corners of Nate’s green eyes as he grasped the gold heart pendant between his thumb and forefinger and ripped it out of the sweater’s sleeve. His phone rang before he could decide what to do next.
Hopefully nothing too rash.
“Hello?”
“It’s been a rocky year for you, son,” Coach Michaels barked on the other end of the line. “I thought you were over all that drug nonsense. Then you have to go and steal my damned Viagra? What’s wrong with you, boy?”
“I’m sorry,” Nate mumbled almost inaudibly. He was already crying. Coach couldn’t make him feel much worse.
“I had a long talk with Dr. Nesbitt and your dad after the ceremony,” Coach continued, “and you’re one lucky kid.”
Lucky? It wasn’t exactly the first word that came to Nate’s mind.
“Withholding your diploma was just a little slap on the wrist to let you know you can’t get away with stealing my stuff, especially my medication. Your real punishment comes this summer. I’ve got a place out in the Hamptons that could use some fixing up. So if you want to play lacrosse for Yale next year, you gotta be my boy this summer. Live over the garage, work for me, and in your spare time, you’ll be going to the local church for AA meetings.”
Nate swallowed hard. He’d imagined a lazy summer up in Maine getting tan and helping his dad with the boats, but he had no choice. He had to be the coach’s Hamptons bitch for the summer. “Sorry for being such a dick, Coach,” he said earnestly. “I promise to make it up to you.”
Coach Michaels chuckled. “Then at least you’ll be a dick with a diploma!”
Nate forced himself to chuckle along with the old man. Things were going to be okay, he told himself. He’d have his diploma by the end of the summer.
“Thanks, Coach.” He hung up and opened his damp hand to look at the gold heart pendant.
Well, some things were going to be okay.
He sighed the sort of shuddering, exhausted sigh that comes after a long cry and tossed the heart onto his neatly made bed. Then he went back to rummaging through his closet. He was supposed to meet Serena at Blair’s Yale Club party at seven o’clock. Maybe she’d come up with a way to make everything okay.
Without any Viagra.
Will j resort to homeschooling?
“I guess I failed to raise you properly.” Rufus sighed heavily as he stared into a troughlike glass of red wine. The way he saw it, you had two choices in this city. Either you spent an arm and a leg to send your kids to private school, where they learned to shop for insanely expensive clothes and to be snobbish to their father, but also to converse in Latin, memorize Keats, and do algorithms in their heads; or, you sent them to public school, where they might not learn to read, might not graduate, and risked getting shot. He’d thought he’d done the right thing. But now it looked like neither of his kids was going to any school of any kind next year.
“You didn’t fail, Dad,” Dan corrected as he scarfed down a forkful of sesame noodles. Rufus and Jenny had waited outside Hunan 92 on Ninety-second and Amsterdam while he went in to buy some celebratory takeout. He’d stayed up all night working on his speech, drinking instant coffee after instant coffee and smoking Camel after Camel. If he didn’t eat something, he wasn’t going to make it to any party later. Now they were home, sitting at the dining room table, staring at one another, with an unopened bottle of champagne on the table. It was a Monday and barely four o’clock—an odd time to all be home together.
“At least he got into college,” Jenny put in glumly. She’d worn a new stretchy lavender-and-pale-yellow Pucci print wrap dress to Dan’s graduation, and there were two huge damp spots under each pendulous boob from where she’d sweated in the heat. She felt disgusting and was particularly resentful of her brother and father for being in such equally bad moods that they weren’t even going to try to cheer her up. She thought about calling Elise, but she was at her country house in Cape Cod, and she’d only make Jenny feel worse by moping about the fact that they were going to be apart next year. That is, if Jenny was actually going anywhere next year. As things stood, she might have to be homeschooled.
She glanced at her father. In an effort to fit in with the other fathers, he’d worn a suit to Dan’s graduation, but it was black wool—too warm for June, and all wrong with the weirdly trendy, tight-fitting pumpkin orange shirt he’d borrowed from Dan to wear underneath it. He’d yanked out the orange ribbon in his fury, and his wiry salt-and-pepper hair was now fashioned into a sort of messy chignon, held together with the electric blue magnetic bulldog clip they used to keep their takeout menus on the door of the refrigerator. To make things worse, there were stray pieces of pink towel lint in his beard.
Maybe homeschooling wasn’t such a great idea.
“Isn’t there someplace you kids need to be?” Rufus asked, downing the remains of his wine. Obviously, one
glass wouldn’t be nearly enough.
“Come on, Dad,” Dan complained. “It’s not like I’m never going to college. I just deferred for a year, that’s all.”
Rufus reached for the uncorked bottle of Sangiovese in the middle of the table and poured himself some more. “I just spent eighty thousand dollars on your high school education, all borrowed, so it’ll probably be double with interest. Excuse me for not being ecstatic.” His gray eyebrows knitted together in a furry single line. “Does Vanessa even know about this?” he demanded suspiciously.
Dan ripped open a clear plastic packet of fluorescent orange duck sauce with his teeth and squirted it onto an egg roll. “Not really.”
Jenny and Rufus both stared at him in shocked surprise.
Dan looked up. “What?”
“Idiot,” Jenny breathed across the table at him. She’d worked with Vanessa Abrams on Rancor, the Constance student-run arts magazine, and had hung out with her enough times to know that she was fiercely independent and not at all into this sort of lovesick-puppy-dog shit Dan was pulling. Besides, wasn’t she supposed to be going out with Blair Waldorf’s stepbrother now? “Idiot,” she muttered again.
Rufus didn’t say anything. He just picked up his glass of wine, carried it out of the dining room, down the hall, and into his office, slamming the door shut behind him.
Dan shrugged his shoulders and opened up another packet of duck sauce. “I really don’t know what everyone’s problem is.”
Jenny was about to tell him what an ignorant, presumptuous asshole he was when her baby blue Nokia began to jingle with the first few notes of “Happy Birthday to You,” the Raves recording she’d sung backup for. She bit her lip, still glaring at Dan with her big brown eyes.
“It’s your phone. You better answer it,” Dan told her with his mouth full.
“Fine.” Jenny reached into her imitation—Louis Vuitton Calla Lily purse and pressed the yes button on her phone. It was probably Elise, calling her from Cape Cod to complain about how bored she was of eating lobster with her parents. “Just to warn you, I’m in a really bad mood,” Jenny said in greeting.
There was silence on the other end.
“Hello?” Jenny demanded impatiently.
“Yes? Is this Jennifer Humphrey?” a polite male voice replied.
Oops.
She sat up straight in her chair. “Speaking.”
Jenny reminded Dan of someone just then, but he couldn’t quite place who. Their mother, maybe? Except the only real memory he had of his mother was of her trying to teach him how to tie a tie when he was only five. He’d kept messing up because her perfume was so pungent, it had made him dizzy.
“This is Thaddeus Moore, director of admissions at Waverly Prep,” the man introduced himself. “Do you have a moment?”
Did she ever!
“Yes,” she answered cautiously, her heart beating so hard, she could practically feel her ribs cracking. Dan’s pack of Camel filters was sitting on the table. She reached for them and pulled one out, tapping it on the tabletop like a veteran smoker. If only her dad had left the wine behind.
“Good. Well, I wanted to let you know that we received your application and the package you sent, and we were very impressed, especially with your artwork,” Mr. Moore informed her. “I myself spoke with your headmistress, Mrs. McLean, and she couldn’t say enough kind, enthusiastic things about you. Of course, applications for next fall have been closed since December. However, due to unexpected circumstances, a space has just opened up for the fall. So if you’re still interested in attending Waverly next year, we’d be happy to have you.”
Jenny whipped the unlit cigarette at her brother and it bounced off his stupid, staring forehead and onto the floor. “Really?!” she nearly shouted. “Oh my God. Really?!”
“Yes, really,” Mr. Moore responded with what sounded like a tinge of amusement. “We’ll send you the paperwork today if you like.”
Oh, what a nice, nice man. “Yes, please!” Jenny stood up and then sat down again. She was so excited, she thought she might wet her wrap dress. “Thank you. Oh my God. Thank you so much!”
“You’re quite welcome.”
She realized she should hang up before she said something really stupid and he changed his mind. “I better go tell my father now. I’m so glad you called. Thank you.”
Jenny hung up, danced around the table, and threw her arms around Dan. “I’m going to boarding school!” she shrieked giddily, grabbing his shoulders and shaking his skinny, smelly body like a rag doll. “I’m going to boarding school!”
“Cool,” Dan responded, relieved that the attention had shifted away from his own dubious predicament. He fished a fortune cookie out of the bottom of the paper bag he’d brought his Chinese food home in. “Good for you.”
Jenny spun around and hurtled toward her dad’s office. Ignoring the strict rule Rufus had laid down when she was just a babe, she flung open the door without knocking.
Rufus looked up in surprise, lit match and translucent green water pipe in his hands, the window flung open and the warm air acrid with the stench of pot. “Grr,” he growled.
Jenny didn’t even care. She’d always suspected he smoked pot, anyway. “Dad, I got into Waverly,” she told him breathlessly. “You know, the boarding school I read about with the new art program? I got in!” she practically shouted at him. “I got in!”
Rufus blew out the match, opened his desk drawer, and chucked the evidence into it. Then he opened his arms to give her a big bear hug.
“I just wanted it so badly, it had to happen,” Jenny gushed, her face pressed into his warm, smoky shoulder.
We’ve always been told, “Be careful what you wish for.” But maybe Blair had it right after all: The more you want, the more you get.
Gossipgirl.net
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people!
Our last night together
We’re now officially high school graduates!!! Let’s get ready to party hearty—at the Yale Club!! There’s no guest list and no dress code, so crashers—you may not be guaranteed a room, but you’re certainly welcome! Definition of a crasher: anyone who did not graduate today and/or anyone who doesn’t actually know the girl hosting the party.
Their last night together
Alas, B’s lovely English lord is flying home tomorrow. Will he break off his engagement to the girl it’s rumored he’s been betrothed to since he was a wee lad? Or will he marry her, leaving B in the lurch? At least she can drive off into the sunset in her new, adorable, bisque-colored convertible Beamer. Did you see it parked outside Brick Church? Imported directly from the Continent. No one—and I mean no one—in this country has that car.
Your e-mail
Q: Dear GG,
I’m a premed sophomore at Yale and I heard that kid N has already signed up to be a lab rat for the medical school’s psychiatric division. Like, they’re going to give him all these mind-altering drugs that they’re trying out, and they even pay him to take them.
—jrmed
A:Dear jrmed,
Like he needs to be paid?! Anyway, first things first—the boy doesn’t even have his high school diploma yet.
—GG
Q:Dear Gossip Girl,
My son tells me you are the voice of the young people and so I must ask if you know a gifted poet who was on his way to Evergreen College but tripped over his heart. You see, I am something of a poet myself! This poet was going to assist me with my history of sex poetry book, but he writes to say he doesn’t come. I am upset! I need talented assistance! Maybe you can come to Olympia to help me. You sleep in hammock. My son makes good Greek food!
—professorpop
A:Dear professorpop,
My, is it ever tempting, but I kind of already have plans this summer. Besides, hammocks have never been my thing—I’m a 600-thread-count-Egyptian-cotton-sheet
sort of girl. Your book sounds quite intriguing, though. Good luck with that.
—GG
They finally caught on
Almost all the private schools in Manhattan have finally figured it out: Seniors don’t want to take final exams or sit in class the last month of school, nor do they need to, since they’ve already been accepted at college and are so mentally spent by then, they can’t possibly learn anything new. So, starting next year, seniors will only have to go to class until the middle of May. They’ll finish up the year by doing an internship of their choice anywhere in the city. Sounds pretty cool, huh? Too bad none of us got to do it. I could have “interned” with an online news column and “gone to work” in bed in my favorite black cotton DKNY intimates nightgown. Not that I’m bitter. After all, I’ve already graduated!!!!
Sightings
B mooning the Yale Club out of her new Beamer convertible. V mooning the Yale Club out of B’s new Beamer convertible. The girls started celebrating early, so who knows what kind of shape they’ll be in later tonight. … That conceited indie film director paying a personal visit to S’s family’s Fifth Avenue penthouse. S stepping out of her apartment building, looking resplendent in a yellow eyelet Tocca sundress. Thank goodness she changed. J in Bed, Bath and Beyond, already decorating her room at Waverly Prep. D buying a whole bucketful of red roses for guess who? Good thing she didn’t leave town, but too bad she’s forgotten all about him! Tonight should be très, très interessant.
See you then!
You know you love me.
gossip girl
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
Still wearing her perfectly fitted white satin Oscar de la Renta suit, Blair sat on Lord Marcus’s knee on a brown leather wing-back chair in the Yale Club lounge, feeling weirdly content as throngs of people wandered into her graduation party with their yearbooks tucked under their arms. She and Lord Marcus hadn’t had a chance to consummate her graduation yet, but as soon as the party kicked into high gear, they’d slip up to her suite and do it once and for all. She’d already filled the suite with Diptyque candles in scents of sandalwood, bergamot, and lime, and underneath her suit she was wearing her favorite new cream-colored embroidered cotton Cosabella camisole-and-thong set.
Nothing Can Keep Us Together Page 15
