Nothing Can Keep Us Together (12 page)

Blair and Serena sat side by side at the long black chemistry lab table, scribbling away at their last and final exam. The AP chemistry students had been seated between the regular senior chemistry students and were taking a different exam, so it wasn’t supposed to matter that the girls were practically bumping elbows. Constance Billard liked to think its girls were beyond cheating, but the truth was, they cheated all the time. Blair and Serena were no exception.

Molarity if 5.827 g of NaCl is diluted to a volume of 100 mL? Serena etched into the inside of her forearm with her number two pencil. She yawned and stretched, letting her arm fall on the edge of Blair’s exam book.

n = 5.827 g / 58.4425

n = 0.09970 mol of NaCl

M = 0.09970 mol / 0.100 L

M = 0.9970 molar

Blair scribbled the answer on the inside cover of her blue book. What are you wearing Monday? she wrote next to it.

Why Monday? Serena wrote back before copying the answer Blair had given her. Was it possible that Blair already knew she’d been called back for a second audition?

Graduation—duh?! Blair scribbled back hastily.

Serena stared at the words Blair had written. It was so typical of her not to have realized her mistake. The second audition was on Monday—and so was graduation. Her parents were going to be there. Erik, her brother, had delayed his plans to spend the summer skiing in New Zealand with Liesl, his bodacious chick-of-the-week, so that he could be there. And Blair was giving a speech.

Oops.

You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Blair wrote, before racing through the next two pages of her exam.

Serena watched her admiringly. Blair totally deserved to go to Yale. She was a complete whiz when it came to tests. Sunlight streamed into the chemistry lab windows and a bird chirped merrily. Serena sighed and began to scribble her name in the corner of page three of her nine-page exam.

Serena van der Woodsen. Breakfast at Fred’s, starring Serena van der Woodsen.

Normally she didn’t daydream about things like this, but this was her first chance to star in a real movie. It was hard not to want it just a little bit.

Blair folded over the last page of her exam, rapidly scribbled in the answers, and then went back to check her work. Once she was satisfied that all was correct, she glanced up at their proctor, Mrs. Crandall. The overweight, red-faced teacher was busy filing her nails, which were painted an atrocious dark beige, making her fingers look like the pig feet steeped in formaldehyde they’d had to dissect in ninth-grade bio. Blair shoved her paper out of the way and reached for Serena’s.

“Hey—” Serena started to object.

“Shush,” Blair whispered, already beginning to answer the unanswered questions.

Serena drew a smiley face on the page Blair was working on. It was just like old times. Except for the fact that she was with Nate, and Blair was with her new British hunk. She frowned. And she was going to miss graduation, which was going to make Blair hate her all over again.

Yup.

Nothing Can Keep us Together

Vanessa kept the white Morgane Le Fay dress Blair had bought for her to wear at graduation stashed in her closet until Sunday night, the night before graduation. The lights were off in the apartment and she was all alone. She stripped down to her black-and-white striped Jockeys and slipped the dress on over her stubbly head, padding over to the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door to check it out.

The dress was prettier than anything she’d ever owned, with a plunging V in the satin bodice, an asymmetrical hemline, and a sort of flapper-style low waist that she’d had no idea would look as flattering on her as it did. She went back to the closet to retrieve the shoes. She and Blair had the same size feet, and Blair had left her a pair of white Michael Kors wedge-heeled sandals to go with the dress. She’d even found Vanessa a pair of cool white fishnet gloves from some consignment shop on the Upper East Side, because it was a Constance Billard tradition for the girls to wear white gloves during the ceremony.

The thing was, Vanessa wasn’t going to be at the ceremony. Aaron was arriving at ten the next morning to pick her up, his red vintage Saab 900S loaded up with herbal cigarettes, soy crisps, dried edamame, and peach-flavored Snapple iced tea for their cross-country sexcapade. Her parents were in Santa Fe, New Mexico, participating in some sort of hippie artist happening, and her older sister, Ruby, was still in Finland or Poland or Lapland, developing a freaky foreign fan base for her band, SugarDaddy. It wasn’t like anyone in her family cared if she missed graduation. She’d get her diploma in the mail, and Blair could return the dress. It wasn’t a big deal.

Right. We believe you.

There was a scratching sound at the front door. Vanessa left her room and flicked on the living room light as someone shoved a piece of paper underneath the door. She recognized Dan’s boyish scrawl before she even knelt down to pick it up.

Can’t make it through graduation tomorrow without seeing you one more time. I’m upstairs.

—D

Not again!

Vanessa left the dress on and clomped upstairs to the roof in her Michael Kors wedgies. It was a mild June evening, almost nine, but not quite dark. Traffic snaked on and off of the Williamsburg Bridge, and a chorus of fire alarms sounded down on Broadway. A hurricane lantern swung from the steel frame supporting the water tower. Beneath it, Dan was sitting in the lotus position, naked, with a thick paperback book open in his lap.

“What are you doing?” Vanessa demanded.

Dan looked up, his love-struck face illuminated by the lamp. He was all shimmery with it—the light and his complete adoration of her. “Wow,” he murmured softly. “You look so pretty. It’s almost like how—” He stopped with an embarrassed smile.

“What?” Vanessa folded her arms across her chest. If she and Dan hadn’t already been best friends for so long, she might have been more upset by his freaky naked stalking appearances. But Dan was Dan—she could only muster mild irritation.

“You look like how I imagine you’d look at our wedding,” Dan blurted haltingly.

Whoa.

Vanessa decided that the only appropriate response was to completely ignore what he’d said. “Is that something to do with the speech you’re giving tomorrow?” She pointed at the book.

“What?” Dan looked down, like he’d forgotten it was there. “Um, sort of. Actually, not really.” He closed the book and held it up, revealing all his naked manly bits. “It’s called The Sexual Art of Ecstasy. I found it in the bookstore.”

Vanessa nodded with faint interest, as if he’d just told her that it might rain later.

“There’s this part about meditating together until you get to a place where you’re both, like, there. It talks about how Sting can, like, do it forever, even though he’s really old. Well, this is how he does it.”

Like we really want to know.

Vanessa stared at him. Dan was sort of adorable in his own bizarre, scrawny-bodied way, but the truth was, she’d been hoping she wouldn’t see him again before she left tomorrow because she didn’t want to have to explain anything—how she loved him, but how she’d promised Aaron. How it had been sort of exciting and fun seeing two guys at once but how it had to end sometime. The truth was, she wasn’t even sure how she felt, because she’d been trying not to think about it.

Dan put the book aside and held out his hand. “Or we could just kiss,” he suggested with a sort of polite tenderness that made her glad he was already naked.

She went over and knelt down in front of him, careful to lift her dress up so it wouldn’t touch the ground. “Just watch the dress,” she warned him.

This might be her only chance to wear it. Not that she was about to tell him that.

Gossipgirl.net

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

See how easy that was?

We did it! Now, if we could just decide on one of the seven dresses we bought for graduation at Bergdorf’s, Barneys, and Bendel’s because a) after popping Vivarin and bingeing on late-night pizza we didn’t know if we’d gain weight or lose weight during exam week; b) we hate making decisions; and c) white is the new pink this summer. At least, it better be.

Boatload of european import cars unloads at ny docks last night

I’m beginning to read like the Wall Street Journal or something, aren’t I? Anyway, if you were out and about on Park Avenue last night the way I was, you might have noticed the fleet of sleek black cars being delivered to a certain Upper East Side garage. Looks like a few of us are getting what we asked for, except. … Dad, I asked for pink!

They know you cheated

For those of you who cheated on your final exams, we know who you are, and your teachers know, too. We saw how you finished early and spent the rest of the time writing notes and doing actressy face exercises—S!! They’re only overlooking it because they want to get rid of you. Why they even bother giving seniors finals is beyond me.

A remedy for pregraduation jitters

Of course, there’s nothing to be nervous about. All we have to do is look gorgeous and accept our diplomas. But we are nervous nonetheless. Maybe because we have to go through it with our parents watching. Maybe because we have no idea what comes next. You know how the school nurse always prescribes the same thing no matter what’s wrong with you? Chew a Pepto-Bismol. Gargle with salt water. Well, I’m the same way: champagne and a boy. Take one dose and then repeat every fifteen minutes until symptoms subside.

Happy Graduation! See you at the party afterwards!

You know you love me.

gossip girl

Nothing Can Keep us Together

Outside Brick Church on Park Avenue and Ninety-second Street, a throng of black town cars released women in Chanel couture and men and boys in Ralph Lauren Purple Label into the church to watch their daughters and sisters graduate in Constance Billard’s commencement exercises. It was a balmy June morning, and a pleasant breeze rustled the crab apple trees bordering the sidewalk, scattering petals and pretty green leaves onto the avenue. The lovely redbrick church with its sturdy white columns and creeping, well-tended green ivy looked like something out of a picture book. In fact, today the entire Upper East Side seemed picturesque and soaked in sun and apple blossom perfume, for today was graduation day.

Hooray!

Isabel’s mom, Titi Coates, craned her surgically enhanced neck to survey the well-dressed audience, nearly popping the buttons on her hot-pink-and-gold Versace cap-sleeved coat-dress. “I heard Harold Waldorf flew in from Paris with his flaming French boyfriend to see Blair graduate today,” she whispered to Lillian van der Woodsen, who was seated in the dark mahogany pew next to her. “He even had a red convertible Peugeot sent over in parts, with a special French mechanic to assemble it for her.”

Mrs. van der Woodsen shook her head. She liked gossip, but only the harmless kind—about people’s dogs or their golf game.

Harmless gossip? What would be the point?

“Harold Waldorf is in Bordeaux, at a wine auction,” she corrected her tackily dressed neighbor in a polite whisper as she smoothed out the lilac-colored silk calf-length skirt of her simple-but-gorgeous Yves Saint Laurent suit. “I know for a fact because a dear friend of mine is bidding on a few bottles of Burgundy for us there. However, I know nothing about the car.”

Around the corner, in one of the church’s outer chambers, the seniors lined up in size order, giddily awaiting the first few chords of “Pomp and Circumstance.” Kati Farkas and Isabel Coates were the shortest ones, in matching white Ferragamo flats and matching Carolina Herrera Mexican bridesmaid–style dresses with lace bows in the back and little white pom-poms hanging from the elbow-length sleeves. Desperate to be next to each other in line, they’d done a survey of all the girls in their class, asking what size heel they planned to wear for graduation. Even Doc-Marten-boots-wearing Vanessa had said she’d be wearing platforms, so flats were their best option. How cool was it that not only were they together in line, wearing matching outfits—they were first!

Yippee!

In her two-and-a-half-inch white kidskin Manolo dancing shoes, Blair was somewhere in the middle. Her white satin Oscar de la Renta suit had been flawlessly tailored, the jacket nipping in around her tiny waist and accentuating her excellent shoulders. None of the other girls had been creative or fashion-forward enough to even think of wearing a suit, let alone the shimmery coral pink Chanel lipstick she’d bought especially for the day or the simple pearls she’d chosen for her ears. She’d memorized her speech and kept reciting it over and over in her head, bouncing on the balls of her feet to keep her circulation going and her adrenaline level high.

Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen. And thank you to the senior class for electing me as its speaker. You know, some of us girls have been together since kindergarten. We learned to read together. We lost our baby teeth together. We learned how to get the most Oreos at recess together. And as the years went by, we learned not to crack under pressure together. Now here we are, college-bound, and we’re all still friends. How could we not be?

There’s something else I learned at Constance that I wanted to share with you today: how to get what you want. …

“Has anyone seen Serena?” Nicki Button asked loudly as she examined her beady brown eyes in a compact and tugged on her sweet, drop-waist, flapper-style graduation dress. “Can you believe I bought this at a children’s vintage clothing boutique?” she asked for the tenth time so everyone could remark on how tiny and skinny she was.

“And what about Vanessa?” Laura Salmon added, sucking in her breath as she tried to tighten the semi-inappropriate lace-up bodice on her corset-style Alexander McQueen dress.

“You’d think they could try not to be late just this once,” Rain Hoffstetter put in, helping Laura with her laces and trying not to bang into anyone in her inexplicably pouffy Christian Lacroix number.

Blair looked around. She’d been so preoccupied with going over her speech, she hadn’t even noticed: Vanessa and Serena were missing.

Hello?

“It’s nearly ten-thirty,” Mrs. McLean announced urgently, clapping her meaty, freckled hands together to call the girls to order. “We’ll just have to start without them.”

Blair spun her ruby ring around and around on the ring finger of her left hand. Serena and Vanessa were going to miss graduation?! But they’d miss her speech, and anyway, where the fuck were they??!!

Mrs. Weeds, Constance’s frizzy-haired hippie music teacher, banged out a few chords on the organ, her fat shoulder blades jiggling in a strapless Laura Ashley number. “All right, girls, this is it!” Mrs. McLean shouted excitedly. “Your last hurrah as Constance girls.” She raised her freckled fist in the air, her red, white, and blue Talbots special-occasion suit wrinkling with the strain. “Make it a good one!” she added, looking dykier than ever.

“Ooh!” the audience gasped as the girls began to march into the main hall of the church and down the lily-strewn center aisle in time to the music, looking like crosses between runway models and mail-order brides.

Eleanor Waldorf Rose sat between her husband of less than one year, Cyrus Rose, and Blair’s twelve-year-old brother, Tyler. Eleanor was the only woman in the room wearing a wide-brimmed dove gray Philip Treacy hat with actual dove feathers in it.

Exactly where did she think she was—England?

Cyrus Rose was wearing a remarkably ugly avocado-colored double-breasted Hugo Boss suit and was jiggling Yale, Blair’s six-week-old baby sister, on his knee. Yale had on the Burberry kilt Blair had bought for her even before she was born and a white eyelet onesie that Blair had ordered from Oeuf, a baby boutique in Paris. Tyler looked hungover. Or maybe Blair just hadn’t seen him in so long, she’d forgotten what he looked like even though he was her brother. And Aaron appeared to be missing.

Wonder why.

When Blair reached their pew, Eleanor leapt to her feet and blew her a kiss, snapping away with her baby pink Nokia camera-phone while tears oozed down her overly rouged cheeks. “We’re so proud of you,” she gushed in a voice that was definitely louder than a whisper.

Farther down the aisle Mrs. van der Woodsen caught Blair’s eye and beamed at her proudly, as if Blair were her own daughter. Blair shrugged her shoulders apologetically, although she was pretty sure Serena’s mom hadn’t quite realized that Serena was missing. Poor Mr. and Mrs. van der Woodsen. Even Erik, Serena’s hot junior-at-Brown brother whom Blair had almost lost her virginity to over spring break, was there.

Blair had never met Vanessa’s parents, but Vanessa had described them to her pretty well, and she didn’t see any gray-haired, inappropriately dressed hippies in the audience. She decided to keep her eyes on the chestnut brown ponytail of the girl in front of her in line, who happened to be Rain Hoffstetter, whom she happened to kind of hate. All Blair had to do was make her speech, which she’d memorized so thoroughly, she could recite it in her sleep, and then get her diploma. Then she was going to have the best graduation party anyone had ever been to, have sex with Marcus, take a carriage ride in Central Park, and then he’d ask her to marry him. … Her eyes misted over dreamily and she stepped on the back of Rain’s puffy white dress, nearly knocking her over.

Focus, focus!

One by one the girls filed in and seated themselves in the first three rows of pews. Thirty-four seniors in total, not counting the missing two. Mrs. McLean stood at the pulpit, waiting to address the outgoing class and their families. Blair would give her speech directly afterwards, and then the guest speaker, “Auntie Lynn,” some old lady who’d basically founded the Girl Scouts or something, was supposed to talk. Auntie Lynn was already leaning on her metal walker in the front row, wearing a poo-brown pantsuit and hearing aids in both ears, looking sleepy and bored. After she spoke—or keeled over and died, whichever came first—Mrs. McLean would hand out the diplomas.

Mrs. Weeds crashed through the last few chords of “Pomp and Circumstance.” “Let us pray,” Mrs. McLean directed somberly and bowed her head. The headmistress had become deeply religious after her husband, Randall, had died in a deep-sea fishing accident in the Florida Keys. At least, that was the story the girls told, along with the one about Mrs. McLean’s girlfriend, Vonda, who lived in Mrs. McLean’s country house up in Woodstock, New York, and drove a tractor. Mrs. McLean had the words Ride me, Vonda tattooed on her inner thigh. There was even a rumor that Vonda used to be Randall, but none of the girls knew for sure.

“I heard Serena and Nate eloped to Mustique. That’s why she’s not here,” Rain whispered to Laura. “She’s wearing her graduation dress as a wedding dress. Remember how we saw her trying on that veil in Vera Wang?” she added knowingly.

“And I heard Vanessa is pregnant,” Laura replied. “She’s up in Vermont with her parents, dealing. I guess she’ll probably still get her diploma anyway.”

Blair tried unsuccessfully not to listen, but of course she was dying to know where Serena and Vanessa were herself. Had Vanessa gone off somewhere with Aaron? Or Dan? Had Serena and Nate really eloped? It was such a crazy day and such a crazy time in their lives, she wasn’t sure what to believe.

“And now, I’m delighted to introduce Blair Waldorf, our senior class speaker,” Mrs. McLean announced. With a bob of her Raggedy Ann auburn head, she stepped away from the podium to make way for Blair. Blair stood up, smoothed out her swishy, pleated white satin Oscar de la Renta skirt, and climbed daintily over the pointy white-shoe-clad feet of her classmates, growing steadily more and more enraged as she overheard snatches of their whispers and mutterings.

“Serena is so totally not going to Yale next year.”

“Vanessa is in L.A. Didn’t you hear? She’s making a movie with Brad Pitt.”

Blair mounted the steps to the podium—a vision of perfection with her Oscar-tailored satin suit, her smooth and shiny dark bob, her long-lashed bright blue eyes, her glittering coral-colored mouth, and her exquisite white shoes. She cleared her throat, trying to tear everyone’s attention away from the subject of the two missing girls.

“Thank you,” she began. “First, I’d like to congratulate my class. We made it!” she cried with exaggerated glee. But none of her fucking classmates were even looking at her.

Who cares? Who cares? Who cares? She was graduating today, she had an amazing new boyfriend who just happened to be an English lord, and in the fall she was off to Yale. That was all that mattered, she told herself as she continued her speech. And that she looked seriously hot in her sleek Oscar de la Renta suit while all the other girls looked like Little Bo Beep in their frilly white dresses.

“Now here we are, college-bound, and we’re all still friends,” Blair declared determinedly.

Sure they are.

Nothing Can Keep us Together