Because I'm Worth it (14 page)

“Just think of it as a job, son,” Saul Burns had tried to reassure him. “An after-school job.” Captain Archibald hadn’t said anything. It was pretty clear that Nate had disappointed him beyond words. Luckily Nate’s mother had been in Monte Carlo visiting her thrice-divorced sister. When Nate had relayed the sordid tale over the phone she’d shrieked and wept, smoked five cigarettes in rapid succession, and then broken her champagne glass. She was always a little dramatic. After all, she was French.

“All right. Let’s start out by going around the circle,” Jackie instructed in a sunny voice, as if this were the first day of nursery school. “Tell us your name and explain why you’re here. Keep it short, please.” She nodded at Nate to start, since he was sitting directly to her right.

Nate shifted uncomfortably in his Eames chair. All the furniture at the posh Greenwich, Connecticut, rehab clinic was twentieth-century modern, to match the minimalist beige and white décor. The floor was cream-colored Italian marble, crisp white linen curtains covered the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the staff wore beige linen uniforms designed especially by nineties denim impresario Gunner Gass, a former patient who was now on the facility’s board.

“Okay. My name’s Nathaniel Archibald, but everyone calls me Nate,” Nate mumbled. He kicked at the legs of his chair and cleared his throat. “I got busted a few days ago buying weed in Central Park. That’s why I’m here.”

“Thank you, Nate,” Jackie interrupted. She smiled a frosty, brown-lipsticked smile and made a note on the pad in her clipboard. “We prefer it here at Breakaway if you call the substance in question by its true name. In your case, marijuana. If you can use its name consistently, you are making one more step toward your freedom from it.” She smiled at Nate once more. “Would you like to try again?”

Nate glanced self-consciously at the other losers in the group. There were seven of them altogether, three guys and four girls, all staring at the floor, worrying about what they were going to say and looking just as uncomfortable as he felt.

“I’m Nate,” Nate repeated mechanically. “A narc caught me buying
marijuana
in the park. That’s why I’m here.” Across the circle a girl with dark brown hair that hung down almost to her waist, bloodred lips, and skin so pale it was almost blue gazed at him soulfully, like a coked-up version of Snow White.

“Better,” Jackie said. “Next.” She nodded at the Japanese girl sitting next to Nate.

“My name is Hannah Koto and I took Ecstasy before school two weeks ago and got caught because I laid down on the floor to feel the rug in my trig class.”

Everybody laughed except for Jackie. “Thank you, Hannah, that was fine. Next.”

Nate tuned the next two people out, kind of grooving on the way Snow White was jiggling her foot, like she was keeping time to her own private concert. She was wearing light blue suede boots that looked like they’d never been worn outside.

Suddenly it was her turn. “My name is Georgina Spark. Everyone calls me Georgie. I guess I’m here because I wasn’t very nice to my father before he croaked, so I have to wait until I turn eighteen before I can live my life the way I want to.”

The rest of the group tittered nervously. Jackie frowned. “Can you name the substance you were found abusing, Georgina?”

“Cocaine,” Georgie answered, letting a curtain of dark hair fall over her face. “I sold my favorite show horse to buy fifty grams. It was in the papers and everything.
New York Post
, Thursday, February—”

“Thank you,” Jackie interrupted. “Next group member please.”

Still jiggling her foot, Georgie glanced up through her hair and met Nate’s intrigued gaze with a mischievous bloodred smile.

“
Bitch
,” she mouthed, obviously referring to Jackie.

Nate grinned back and nodded his chin ever so slightly. Saul Burns had told him to treat rehab like an after-school job. Now he had a reason to work hard at it.

s
wears her love like a baby tee

“You’re friends with that Serena chick, right?” Sonny Webster, a lanky boy with jet-black hair streaked with paper-bag-brown highlights asked Chuck Bass as they sat in the second row, waiting for the Les Best show to begin on Friday night. Sonny was the son of Vivienne Webster, a British lingerie designer whose hip-hugging boy shorts were all the rage at the moment. Sonny and Chuck had met in a bar last night and were already fast friends. They were even wearing matching Tods moccasins— dark brown with neon green rubber soles. Very gay urban yachtsman, and extremely impractical for the unprecedented amount of snow that had been predicted for that evening.

Chuck nodded. “She’s appearing naked. That’s what I heard, anyway.” He rubbed his newly toned stomach. “I can’t wait,” he added halfheartedly.

“See Chuck talking to whatshisname, Vivienne Webster’s totally gay son?” Kati Farkas whispered to Isabel Coates. “I swear Chuck’s into guys now.” She and Isabel had made it to the front row, just as they’d set out to do. Not because of their completely unnecessary little volunteer effort hanging up N
O
L
OITERING
signs around Bryant Park but because Isabel’s father, Arthur Coates, was a very famous actor who’d complained that his daughter and her friend
deserved
to be in the front row this year because he’d already spent a fortune on Les Best’s entire spring-summer collection.

“I think maybe he’s bi,” Isabel whispered back. “He’s still wearing that gold monogrammed pinky ring.”

“Yeah,” noted Kati. “Like that’s not totally gay.”

The huge white tent in Bryant Park was packed with fashion magazine editors, photographers, actresses, and socialites. Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” pounded out of Bose speakers. Christina Ricci sat in the front row on her cell phone arguing with her publicist and defending her decision to come to Les Best’s show instead of Jedediah Angel’s, which was happening downtown at exactly the same time.

“Look, there’s Flow from 45!” Sonny squealed. “He’s such a
god
. And there’s Christina Ricci. My mom just got a huge order from her.”

As Chuck gazed around the room, looking for more celebs and trying to be seen himself, he spotted Blair about ten seats down in the third row. He blew her a kiss and she smirked back.

“Why are we here again?” Blair yawned to Aaron. Even though she was completely annoyed with Serena these days, she’d decided to come to the show to see if any of Les Best’s autumn collection suited her new image. Now that she was packed into the hot, crowded tent with its overly loud music and overwhelming perfume stench like a twelve-year-old with a general admission ticket at a 45 concert, she honestly couldn’t give two fucks about the clothes or that Serena was the star of the show. It was all Serena needed to prove that she really was the center of the universe.

Blair didn’t need to hang out with gorgeous models and camp fashion designers, anyway. She was going to Yale, the premier institution of higher learning in the entire world,
and
she was going to be asked out
very soon
by a classy older man. She felt extremely accomplished for someone so young. The noise and glitz of Fashion Week seemed less alluring now that her own life was so . . .
stimulating
. Plus they were seated in the third row, which was a major insult when she’d always been seated in the first or second row at every other show she’d ever been to.

“I’m honestly not sure why I’m here,” Aaron answered grumpily. He unzipped the bright green Les Best golfing jacket Serena had given him and then zipped it up again. The jacket was made of stiff cotton canvas that made a loud, swishy sound when he moved. It was way too flashy for his taste, but he’d kept it on because Serena had insisted that he couldn’t come to a fashion show and sit in the third row without wearing an article of the designer’s clothing. Aaron liked the buzzy vibe of the fashion show. It was like being at a rock concert. But it was just so bogus that they were all gathered there to look at . . .
clothes
.

Outside the snow had been falling steadily on the brightly lit city for over two hours. Blair could just imagine how insane it was going to be to find a cab home later that night, with everyone totally underdressed, totally buzzed, and all thinking they deserved the next available ride. She kicked the back of Nicky Hilton’s chair with her black patent leather Les Best flats and yawned for the fiftieth time. While her mouth was still stretched open in full yawn, the lights suddenly dimmed and the music stopped. The show was about to begin.

The collection being shown was for next fall, and the theme was Little Red Riding Hood. The stage was decorated like a fairy tale forest, with dark brown velvet tree trunks and low branches covered in glittering emerald green silk leaves. Fluttery flute music began to play, and suddenly Serena skipped onstage wearing her gray pleated Constance Billard

School uniform skirt, red suede over-the-knee boots, and a little red wool minicape tied at the neck. Under the cape she was wearing her own white baby tee with I L
OVE
A
ARON
emblazoned in black across the chest. Her long blond hair was done in pigtails, and her face was free of makeup, except for her lips, which were painted a bright, thrilling red. Serena walked the runway with easy confidence, flouncing her pleated uniform skirt, twirling around, and then pausing for the cameras like she’d been doing it for years.

Who is she?
A hundred gossip-starved voices murmured at once.
And who is Aaron?

Blair rolled her eyes, even more bored and annoyed now that the show was under way.

“Who’s Aaron?” Sonny whined to Chuck Bass.

“The fuck if I know,” Chuck answered back.

“Is that supposed to be Aaron Sorkin? You know, the television writer?” a bewildered fur-wearing
Vogue
editor asked her neighbor.

“Whoever he is, he’s one lucky dude,” said a photographer.

“I heard he dumped her. I guess she’s trying to win him back,” Isabel snickered to Kati.

“Well, don’t look now, but I think that’s him, and he looks pissed,” Kati hissed back. Both girls turned to stare.

Serena blew Aaron a kiss from the runway, but Aaron was too busy feeling hot and embarrassed about her T-shirt to even notice. He’d thought Serena would be nervous walking the runway with all those supermodels. He’d thought she’d need his moral support, but it was pretty obvious she was having the time of her life. She probably got a thrill out of hearing everyone in the tent whispering her name. Not him. Sure, he wanted to be famous—a famous
rock star
. Not famous for being the boy on Serena’s I L
OVE
A
ARON
T-shirt.

He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out his half-empty tin of herbal cigarettes. Before he could even open the tin, a security guard put his hand on his shoulder.

“No smoking in the tents, sir.”

Fuck this,
Aaron mumbled under his breath. But he couldn’t just get up and leave while Serena was still onstage. He glanced at Blair in the seat next to him. She was biting her lip and clutching her stomach like she had gas or something.

Blair wanted to cover her diamond-studded ears to block out the sound of everyone whispering Serena’s name.
Those eyes! Those legs! That fantastic hair!
It was completely nauseating, and the after-party was bound to be just more of the same. As soon as Serena skipped down the runway path marked T
O
G
RANDMOTHER’S
H
OUSE
and off the stage to change outfits, Blair stood up to go.

“I think I’m going to take off before the snow gets too fucking deep,” she announced to Aaron.

“Yeah?” Aaron jumped to his feet. “I’ll help you find a cab.” Serena didn’t need him around. She’d probably be so surrounded by admirers during the after-party, he wouldn’t even get a chance to see her. She wouldn’t mind if he just quietly took off.

Outside in Bryant Park the snow was already ankle deep. The lion statues on the steps of the public library looked even larger and more menacing blanketed in white.

“Think I’ll just hop a train up to Scarsdale,” Aaron said, referring to the Westchester suburb where he’d lived with his mom before deciding to move in with his dad’s new family in the city last fall. He flicked open his Zippo and lit an herbal cigarette. “My buddies and I always get together out on the golf course when there’s a big storm like this. It’s a good time.”

“Sounds like a fucking blast,” Blair replied disinterestedly.

Fat, frozen flakes of snow landed on her mascara-coated lashes and she squinted her eyes, burying her hands in her black cashmere Les Best evening coat pockets as she searched for a cab.
Fuck,
it was freezing.

“Want to come with me?” Aaron offered, even though Blair had been a total bitch lately. They were still stepbrother and stepsister—they could at least try to be friends.

Blair grimaced. “No, thanks. I’m going to call this man I met. See if he wants to meet me somewhere for a drink or something.” She loved how the word
man
sounded so much more sophisticated than
guy
.

“What
man
?” Aaron asked suspiciously. “Not that old dude from Yale you were with last night?”

Blair stamped her feet to keep her toes from getting frostbitten inside her totally-wrong-for-the-weather Les Best Mary Janes. Why did Aaron always have to act so infuriatingly superior? “First of all, I could be meeting someone else. Second of all, what do you care anyway? And third of all, if it is him, so
what
?” She flung her hand in the air and waved it impatiently. It was only nine. Where the hell were all the fucking cabs?

Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just guessing he’s like some big investment banker who gives lots of cash to Yale, and you’re flirting with him or whatever because you want to get in so badly. Which is pretty lame if you ask me.”

“Actually, I didn’t ask,” Blair snapped back. “But maybe I
should
listen to Mr. Accepted-Early-At-Harvard-Even-Though-All-I-Do-Is-Sit-Around-In-My-Underwear-Drinking-Beer-And-Pretending-I-Play-In-A-Really-Cool-Band-Which-Actually-Sucks, since you obviously know everything.” A taxi screeched to a stop at the corner of Forty-third Street to let someone out. Blair made a dash for it. “Don’t fucking make judgments about something