Because I'm Worth it (5 page)
“It’s your sister.” Dan propped himself up on one elbow as he reached for his phone. “Maybe she’s calling to tell you to get your own damn cell phone,
finally
,” he joked. “Should I answer it?”
Vanessa rolled her eyes. She and her twenty-two-year-old bass-guitar-playing sister, Ruby, shared an apartment in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Ruby had made three New Year’s resolutions: to do yoga every day, to drink green tea instead of coffee, and to be more nurturing toward Vanessa, since their own parents were too busy being art-hippie freaks up in Vermont to nurture her themselves. Vanessa was pretty sure Ruby was only calling to ask when she’d be home so Ruby could have the meatloaf and mashed potatoes all done when she got there, but it was so unlike Ruby to call Dan’s phone right in the middle of the school day that she couldn’t resist answering.
She took the ringing phone from Dan and clicked it open. “Yeah? How did you know where to find me?”
“Well, good afternoon to you, darling sister o’ mine,” Ruby chirped cheerfully. “Remember? I stuck your schedule up on the refrigerator so I’d know exactly where you are and what you’re thinking about at all times, like the new and improved version of Big Brothers Big Sisters. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that the mail came and there was a suspicious-looking envelope from NYU addressed to you. I couldn’t help but open it. And guess what?
You got in!
”
“No fucking way!” Vanessa’s body was already shot through with adrenaline from saying, “I love you,” and now
this
. Not to be cheesy, but talk about orgasmic!
She’d never been sure of her chances of getting in early, and just to show the NYU admissions office her artistic range and to prove how serious she was about being a film major, she’d sent them the New York film essay that she’d shot over Christmas break. Once she’d sent it in, she’d worried they’d think she was trying too hard. But now her worries were over. They liked her! They wanted her! Vanessa could finally shake the bitchy, shallow shackles of Constance Billard for good and focus on her craft at a place for serious artists like herself.
Dan was gazing up at her from the bed. His sweet brown eyes seemed to be shining a little less ecstatically than they had been before.
“I’m so proud of you, sweetie,” Ruby crooned in her most motherly voice. “Will you be home for dinner? I’ve been reading Eastern European cookbooks. I’m thinking of making pierogi.”
“Sure,” Vanessa answered quietly, suddenly concerned about Dan. He hadn’t applied anywhere early, so it would be a couple months before he found out where he was going next year. Dan was so sensitive. This was just the sort of thing that could throw him into an insecurity-induced depression, the kind where he locked himself in his room and wrote poems about dying in a car accident or something. “Thanks for letting me know,” she told Ruby quickly. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
Dan was still staring up at her expectantly as she clicked off the phone and dropped it on the bed. “You got into NYU,” he said, trying but failing to hide the note of accusation in his voice. Oh, how skinny and stupid and inadequate he was! Not that he wasn’t happy for her, but Vanessa was already into college, and he was just this scrawny guy who liked to write poems and who might never get into college at all. “Wow,” he added hoarsely. “That’s great.”
Vanessa flopped back on the bed and pulled the sheet up around them. The room felt colder now that the sweat of passion had cooled on their bodies. “It’s really no big deal,” she argued, trying to play down the excitement she’d exuded when she’d heard the news. “You’re the one with a poem about to come out in
The New Yorker
.”
Over Christmas break, Vanessa had submitted Dan’s poem “Sluts” to
The New Yorker
without his knowing, and it had been accepted for publication in the Valentine’s Day double issue, which would be out later that week. “I guess,” Dan agreed, shrugging his shoulders dubiously. “But I still don’t know anything . . . I mean, about my
future
.”
Vanessa encircled Dan’s waist with her arms and pressed her cheek into his pale, ribby chest. She still couldn’t believe she was going to NYU in the fall. It was a sure thing, her destiny. Still trembling with excitement, she tried to focus on consoling Dan. “How many other seventeen-year-old kids have you heard of with poems published in
The New Yorker
? It’s amazing,” she murmured gently. “And as soon as the admissions officers at the colleges you applied to find out about it, you’re going to get in everywhere you applied, and maybe even places you didn’t.”
“Maybe,” Dan responded hollowly. It was easy for Vanessa to sound so confident. She was already
in
.
Vanessa propped herself up on one elbow. There was one sure way of making Dan feel better, at least for a little while. “Remember what we were doing right before Ruby called?” she purred like a mischievous black kitty cat.
Dan frowned up at her. One black eyebrow was cocked at a sultry angle and her pale nostrils were flared. He hadn’t thought he’d be up to it anymore, but his body surprised him. He pulled Vanessa down on top of him and kissed her hard. If anything could make a boy feel more like a lion than a mouse, it was a little purring.
Me-ow
.
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people!
Senior slump
I’ve heard the expression “senior slump” many times, but I never knew what it meant exactly. Now it’s crystal clear. Senior slump is when you blow off your afternoon classes and go back to your friend’s apartment to order veggie lo mein, drink chardonnay, and smoke cigarettes. It’s when you wind up in bed with a boy at three o’clock in the afternoon. It’s when you skip third-period calculus to stock up on clingy silk jersey wrap dresses at Diane von Furstenberg’s private sale. It’s when you accidentally sleep till ten on a Thursday.
Oops.
Last term we were such goody-goodies, teachers’ pets. This term we’re badasses. We’re also feeling our wild oats. I’m pretty sure half the girls in my P.E. class were off kissing boys on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art instead of doing chin-ups on the monkey bars in the gym. Keep it up girls— hooking up is
much
better exercise!
Sightings
J
and a tall, freckled girl with an unfortunate haircut giggling during a dance class at Constance Billard. Guess
J
has a new friend.
N
and his buddies ordering chai at
Starbucks
, in the hopes that it might be laced with something mood-altering.
V
at the NYU store buying an NYU mug, an NYU sweatshirt,
and
an NYU baseball cap. And she claims not to be a sucker for that sort of thing.
D
combing his local newsstand for an advance issue of
The New Yorker
.
S
and
A
enjoying a little PDA as usual. She’s never had a boyfriend for more than five minutes, so we’ll see how long this lasts. . . .
Okay, I admit it. I’m cutting class as we speak. Promise you won’t tell!
You know you love me.
gossip girl
Standing in a drift of old snow outside the Constance Billard School for Girls on East Ninety-third Street, Aaron Rose waited for Serena to come hurtling through the towering royal blue school doors and into his arms. Mookie, his brown-and-white boxer, sat panting beside him on the sidewalk wearing the red-and-black plaid doggie jacket Serena had bought him yesterday at Burberry. In Aaron’s hands were two steaming cups from Starbucks. Ever since they’d gotten together at Serena’s wild New Year’s Eve party six weeks ago, this had become their little ritual. Aaron would meet Serena after school and they’d amble down Fifth Avenue arm in arm, drinking soy lattes and stopping now and then to kiss. New Year’s Eve had been a total fuck-it-we’re-both-in-the-mood-so-why-not-hook-up? spontaneous sort of thing, but over the past month they’d spent every out-of-school moment together, and they were now known as the best-looking and most adorable couple—well, threesome, if you included Mookie—on the Upper East Side.
Suddenly a ray of bright winter sun flashed on Serena’s cool blond head as she pushed open the school doors, skipped down the stairs in her Stephane Kelian brown suede boots and navy blue Les Best pea coat, and stepped out onto the snowy sidewalk. Her whole face glowed with angelic excitement when she caught sight of Aaron and Mookie.
“Hi, pup!” she squealed as Mookie wriggled up to her and nuzzled her cashmere-gloved hands. She squatted down and let the dog lick her face as she stroked his head. “You look
so
handsome today.”
Aaron watched them with a lazy sense of pride.
Yep, that’s my girlfriend. Yep, isn’t she gorgeous?
Serena stood up and threw her arms around his neck. The air around them filled with the heady, sandalwood-and-patchouli–based scent of the custom-blended essential oil mixture she always wore. “You know what I’ve been thinking about all day?” she gushed, planting a kiss on Aaron’s thin, dark red lips with her full, peach-glossed ones.
Aaron splayed his feet to keep from stumbling backward and spilling the lattes.
“Me?”
he guessed. Serena was the type of girl who gave herself
entirely
to whatever she was into at the moment, and for the time being she just happened to be into Aaron. It had kind of gone to his head.
She closed her eyes and they kissed again, deeply this time. Behind them, girls in neat wool coats and tall leather boots spilled out of the school doors, shouting giddily. A few of them huddled together to watch in awe as Serena and Aaron continued to kiss.
“Oh my God,” whispered one eighth grader, swooning in the presence of such coolness. “Do you see what I see?”
Mookie pawed at the snow and whined impatiently. Serena rubbed her cheek against the scratchy alpaca wool of the gray-and-purple sherpa hat she’d bought for Aaron last weekend at Kirna Zabete in Soho. She loved the way his cute dark brown dreadlocks poked out from beneath the earflaps.
Everything about Aaron was so adorable, she just wanted to eat him up with a spoon!
“
Of course
I was thinking about you,” she said, taking her latte. She cracked open the lid and blew on the sweet, steaming liquid. “I was thinking we should get tattoos.” She paused, waiting for Aaron to respond, but his soft brown eyes looked puzzled, so she went on. “You know, like of our names. To show our commitment to each other.” She took a sip of her coffee and licked her lovely, luscious lips. “I’ve always wanted a tattoo that only I knew about. You know, somewhere
private
.”
Aaron smiled hesitantly. He liked Serena a lot. She was intoxicatingly beautiful, a total sweetheart, and completely undemanding. She was above and beyond any girl he’d ever met. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to tattoo her name all over his body. In fact, he’d always thought tattoos were kind of violent, like brands on cattle, and as a vegan and a Rastafarian, he was morally opposed to any type of violence.
“Tattoos are against my religion,” he stated, but when he saw Serena’s gorgeous face crumple in dismay he took her hand and added quickly, “But I’ll think about it, okay?”
Serena wasn’t one to hold grudges, certainly not against the cutest boy in the universe. Already over it, she tugged on his hand and they started walking toward Fifth Avenue. The sky was a sullen gray, and a chilly wind bit at their faces. In an hour it would be dark.
“So what should we do?” she asked. “I was thinking it might be kind of crazy to go up to the top of the Empire State Building. I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve never even been up there. And it’s
so cold
. I bet no one even thinks of going up there at this time of year. It’ll be totally empty and romantic, like in a old movie or something.”
Aaron laughed. “You’ve been hanging out with Blair too much.” His stepsister always turned everything into a romantic black-and-white movie from the fifties, trying to make her life even more glamorous than it already was. As they turned down Fifth, Mookie scampered ahead of them, tugging on the leash looped loosely around Aaron’s wrist. “Hey, chill out, Mook.”
Serena tucked her free hand into Aaron’s black North Face parka pocket. “Blair was acting really weird during peer group, that new thing we’re doing with the freshmen at lunchtime. After that she just disappeared. She didn’t even show up for gym.”
Aaron shrugged and sipped his drink. “Maybe she had cramps or something.”
Serena shook her pretty head. “I’m worried she’s a little jealous. You know, of
us
.”
Aaron didn’t say anything. Over Christmas he’d developed a huge crush on Blair, even though she was his stepsister. Being with Serena had made him forget all about it, but it was still odd to think that Blair might actually jealous of
them
, when he’d been pining over
her
all those weeks.