Nothing Can Keep Us Together (10 page)

Serena worried that she should have dressed up like the other girls. Would the director think she wasn’t trying hard enough because she hadn’t worn pearls and a black cocktail dress? Plus, she was blond and big-boned and tall and didn’t look a thing like Audrey Hepburn. In fact, now that she thought about it, she really shouldn’t have been trying out for the part at all.

Too late.

“Oh, thank God,” Ken Mogul exclaimed when he saw her. “Go ahead. Action.”

Serena hadn’t bothered to Google Ken Mogul, and she didn’t know anything about his directing style, but she knew what the word action meant, and the minute she heard it, she started to do her thing.

“How do you do?” she chirped brightly, holding her hand out to an imaginary bartender. She took a seat and then spun once around on the bar stool, giggling and kicking her feet with girlish satisfaction. “Don’t you just love it here? Isn’t it wonderful waking up and knowing this place is right here, every day? It’s my absolute paradise!”

Ken Mogul did that weird peekaboo thing with his hands again. He glanced at one of his Swedish-looking blond crew girls, ripped off the pair of mirrored aviator shades she had propped on her head, and tossed them to Serena.

“Do it again with these on,” he ordered.

Serena did as she was told, wondering if it was a good thing or a bad thing that Ken Mogul closed his eyes when she started to talk.

“Next!” he shouted, dismissing her.

Nate was standing by the elevators, a damp tissue wadded in his fist. “My mom brought me here to buy my first real suit,” he told Serena, his lower lip trembling. “Afterwards we got ice cream and she took me to the zoo in the park. It smelled like peanuts.”

“Aw.” Serena hugged him and kissed his ear. “Listen, I think I know of a way to cheer you up.” After the Viagra incident in Bergdorf’s on Tuesday, Serena thought Nate was basically up for it any time, anywhere. She nodded toward the ladies’ lounge.

Nate hesitated. He’d smoked a tiny joint when he woke up, and he’d left the Viagra at home. Besides, all this crying was so exhausting. He really wasn’t in the mood.

The ladies’ lounge door swung open, and Blair and that sandy-haired hunk of hers came out, holding hands. “How do you do?” Blair gestured with her empty cigarette holder in an exaggerated imitation of the part both girls had just played. She giggled. “You guys want to go get a drink?”

“Definitely,” Serena gushed eagerly.

Of course, it was only ten-thirty on a Saturday morning, but the future Audreys of the world clearly know how to enjoy themselves.

Lord Marcus pressed the button for the elevator and the doors rolled open.

“Wait!” one of Ken Mogul’s black-tunic-wearing, blond crew girls yelled. Blair’s heart skipped a beat. Surely they were going to offer her the part right now and send the other girls packing. But the girl was looking at Serena.

“Oops!” Serena blushed, swiping the mirrored aviators off her head and handing them back. “I’m such a klepto!”

The girl took the sunglasses and then stood on tiptoe to whisper in Serena’s ear. Blair watched, riveted, as Serena nodded, listening silently. Then the crew girl left to supply her sunglasses to another Holly hopeful.

Blair bit her lip, nearly drawing blood. The need to know what the crewperson had whispered to Serena was killing her, but she forced herself not to ask, and Serena decided not to tell her. The idea that they were sort of talking to each other again was so tenuous and so new, neither of them wanted to ruin it.

Plus, Lord Marcus had only seen Blair on her best behavior. She couldn’t pull an Exorcist and freak out in front of him now or he’d pack his bags and head back to the U.K. as quick as you can say, “Bloody hell.”

Serena reached for Nate’s hand and gave it an excited squeeze, barely able to keep the secret to herself. “Let’s go get silly.”

“Hear, hear!” Lord Marcus agreed.

Blair didn’t even flinch at the sight of Serena and Nate holding hands. She’d always wanted to be a foursome; she’d just always thought it would be her and Nate and Serena and someone else. She looked up into Lord Marcus’s handsome golf-course-green eyes and he swooped down and kissed her tenderly on the tip of her nose.

Nate had never been that into public displays of affection. And anyway, what had ever been so special about Nate?

Nothing Can Keep us Together

“I heard about you. You’re the kid who’s to take my place on the Yale lacrosse team. Excuse me, ladies.” Lord Marcus reached across Blair and Serena to clasp Nate’s hand in the cramped backseat of the cab as it raced down the hot Park Avenue blacktop. “Coach said you were a maniac with a stick.”

That’s one way of putting it.

Nate hoped Lord Marcus wouldn’t guess that he’d been crying. Now would’ve been a good time to take another Viagra, just to give him an ego boost and keep the tears from flowing. If it hadn’t been for those annoying side effects, he’d have taken it every day.

What, like the major hard-ons? But that’s not a side effect, that’s the whole point!

“So is Yale, like, seriously tough or what?” Nate asked, because it was the only thing he could think of to say. Blair had her head on Lord Marcus’s shoulder, and she looked so comfortable, it was sort of unsettling and nice to see at the same time. Her dark hair was growing out and it looked so soft and shiny, Nate could almost feel it in his hands.

Oh, please. Don’t cry.

“Not as hard as Coach Heffner’s arse,” Lord Marcus joked. “She told us all about how she stabbed you with a fork when you tried to hit on her.”

Nate had pretty much blocked that little episode out of his mind, and he flinched, remembering. “I just wasn’t expecting a hot female coach,” he admitted.

“Believe me, none of us were,” Lord Marcus replied with a knowing smile. He lit a Marlboro Red, but the tiny, shriveled cabdriver flapped his hand in annoyance, so he threw it out the window.

“Let’s all light cigarettes and see what he does,” Serena whispered, still feeling giddy. She handed out four Merit Ultra Lights from her black suede Balenciaga fringed hobo bag and Lord Marcus helped her light them with a silver Tiffany lighter.

The driver screeched to a halt when he noticed the smoke. “Get out of my cab!” he shouted, his tiny, shriveled fists raised in anger.

Lord Marcus, ever the polite Englishman, began to apologize, pretending he didn’t know it was illegal to smoke in American taxis. But they were already on Park Avenue and Forty-seventh Street, just around the corner from the Yale Club, so they got out anyway.

What a sight: a lovely brunette dressed exactly like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, two handsome, green-eyed, lacrosse-playing, neatly dressed boys, and a heart-wrenchingly gorgeous blonde in jeans. The Yale Club’s dress code forbade distressed denim, but Serena looked so pretty in her jeans, no one cared. As soon as they stepped into the club’s sparse, neoclassical lobby, all the middle-aged Yale alums in J.Press suits stopped talking business and switched off their BlackBerrys. Oh, to be seventeen and irresistible!

As if any of them were ever this irresistible.

Lord Marcus took Nate up to his suite to show him some lacrosse trophy that only Nate would appreciate, while Blair led Serena into the club’s lounge, where they settled in at the elegant bar with its gold ceiling, polished wood floor, and dark wood paneling. Of course they were used to going out all the time, but it still felt extremely grown-up to be out at a private club bar on a Saturday morning, especially when they were supposed to be glued to their textbooks, studying for their final exams, which would begin on Monday.

“So, what are you going to say in your graduation speech?” Serena asked Blair. “What’s that Dr. Seuss book—you know the one everyone always quotes from?”

Blair rolled her eyes. She was so not quoting from that book. “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!”

The bow-tied bartender brought Blair’s drink first—a Ketel One martini straight up with an olive. She took a sip and then stuck a cigarette into her cigarette holder. She was enjoying the whole cigarette holder thing so much, she planned to use it right up until Breakfast at Fred’s came out and all the girls started copying her.

Ergo, the difference between being trendy and being a trendsetter.

“Actually, I’m going to write about going after what you want and getting it,” she declared, blowing smoke over the top of Serena’s pale blond head. “I never thought I’d get absolutely everything I wanted. But I kept trying, anyway, and now I have it. Everything.”

Serena nodded. “I know what you mean.” The bartender brought her Tanqueray gin fizz and she took a few tentative sips, wondering if she should tell Blair right now that when Ken Mogul’s assistant had whispered in her ear, she’d asked Serena back for a second audition. But things were going so well with Blair at the moment, she didn’t want to ruin it. Besides, even if she wound up being offered the part, she wasn’t sure she wanted it. She tried to think of something else to say, something about getting what she’d always wanted, even though she’d never really wanted anything—things just fell into her lap.

“I’m so in love with Nate,” she blurted out, trying to sound as thrilled with the way things had turned out as Blair did.

Blair lit the end of her cigarette. How easy it would be to accidentally set fire to Serena’s long black eyelashes. She surveyed the room, trying to decide whether or not to let her temper get the better of her.

Whoa, she’s thinking about it? Is this a turning point?!

Blair loved the Yale Club lounge. The gold-leaf paint and oriental carpets made it feel grand and exclusive, but it was more comfortable and less stodgy than some of the other rooms in the club. The lounge was the perfect place to escape from the heat. And it went with her dress. “Pretty soon we’ll all be at Yale,” she mused.

The two girls stared at each other, their blue eyes locked, trying to decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Serena giggled. “And we can take the train back to the city and stay here, and our parents won’t even know we’re in town!”

That does sound like fun.

“This would be such a great place to have a party,” Blair chimed in, deciding to be nice. She blinked, wondering why she hadn’t thought of it before. Of course, it meant there’d be a lot of random crashers—other seniors from dopey schools that she didn’t even know, and random juniors who thought they were cool now because they were going to be seniors next year. But she was Constance Billard’s graduation speaker. It made perfect sense that she should host a graduation party—the graduation party.

She gave Serena a stiff hug, barely keeping her cigarette holder aloft to avoid setting fire to her hair. “We always have the best ideas,” she murmured, half to herself and half to her old friend.

Serena smiled eagerly, even though she had no idea which ideas Blair was referring to. “Don’t we?” she agreed.

Nate had brought a couple of prerolled joints along with him. He and Lord Marcus made themselves comfortable in the lord’s gold-and-white-wallpapered suite, blasting the AC as they lay on their backs on the king-size, apricot-colored bedspread, puffing away and trading secrets about Blair.

See, boys really are worse than girls.

“She acts all grumpy when you come on to her, and then she complains when you don’t,” Nate complained, shaking his head. “I never understood that.”

“But as long as you let her know she’s irresistible, she can’t make a fuss,” Lord Marcus pointed out. “That’s what’s crucial.”

Nate turned his head to look at the older boy through a haze of pot smoke. He’d known Blair practically since he was born. How come this guy, who’d only just met her, seemed to have her all figured out? Was it possible that he and Blair were totally incompatible? Maybe they were actually never meant to be.

Nate couldn’t think about it anymore without having a major sob attack. Instead, he took another hit and allowed his mind to go heavenly blank.

“I’m thinking of asking Blair to come over to England to visit for the summer,” Lord Marcus mused aloud. “I’ve told my family all about her and they’re desperate to meet her. Apparently my dad knows her dad. And my mum’s already got us married off.”

Nate took another hit. No need to get upset. His mind was as smooth, white, and wrinkle-free as the 800-thread-count pillow shams on Lord Marcus’s bed.

Lord Marcus finished off his joint and sat up, stubbing it out neatly on the sole of his amber-colored Tod’s lace-ups. “The ladies will be wondering where we are.” He clapped Nate on the shoulder. “Shall we go, then?”

Nate sat up on his elbows and shook his head blearily, like a dog. A stray tear seeped out of the corner of his left eye and trickled down his cheek. He swatted it away angrily, but then another one began to trickle out of the corner of his right eye.

“Are you all right?” Lord Marcus asked. “Do you need a minute?”

Nate shrugged, and then his lower lip began to tremble.

Lord Marcus sat down next to him and pulled Nate into his arms. “There, there,” he murmured. “You’re all right.”

This wasn’t the pretend gay affection that Nate and his friends used to drive one another nuts. This was the real thing: a big-brotherly hug. Nate had never had a big brother, or any siblings for that matter, and the hug was exactly what he needed.

“Mon père habite en France dans le Loire. Il aime des autres hommes. Il est un fag!” Blair shrieked, and she and Serena burst into a fit of giggles.

“Qu’est-ce que vous faites, mes cheries?” Lord Marcus called out as he and Nate approached.

“We’re conversing in French. There’s an oral part to my AP exam. We have to talk about our family for ten minutes,” Blair explained. “Using all the tenses.”

Serena rolled her eyes. “That’s what you get for taking APs.” She squinted at the two boys. “Hey, are you two stoned?”

Nate grinned sheepishly. “Slightly.”

“You big idiot.” Serena grabbed him and kissed him smack on the lips, bubbling over with relief that she and Blair were talking again.

Blair was so fine with seeing Serena and Nate kiss right in front of her, she didn’t budge. Within seconds Lord Marcus had slipped behind her and wrapped his arms sexily around her waist—the sort of husbandlike, proprietary gesture Blair had always dreamed about. He winked at Serena. “Did you know Serena means mermaid in Italian?”

“Yeah,” Serena giggled and then flashed Blair a look that said, Where’d you find him, anyway?

Blair returned the look with a smug smile that was a combination of See, I told you I had everything and Hands off, bitchface.

Nate licked the taste of Serena’s vanilla-scented MAC lip gloss off his lips and then downed the rest of her gin fizz, his eyes on Blair’s perfect, lightly tanned feet. Something about the way they looked in those shiny, flat black shoes was making him seriously horny.

Good thing he left the Viagra at home.

Gossipgirl.net

Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.