Because I'm Worth it (22 page)

“Blair?” Owen answered eagerly on the first ring. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all day!”

“In high school?” Blair shot back. “I know it was a long time ago for you, but it’s this place where you go during the week where they teach you stuff. I’m only home now because I’m not feeling well.”

“Oh. I guess you’re not up for dinner then?”

Owen’s voice didn’t sound nearly as sexy now that she knew what a complete asshole he was. Blair walked over to the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door and examined her hair. It already looked a little longer. Maybe it wouldn’t take that long to grow back. Or maybe she’d cut it even shorter. She pulled her hair back severely from her forehead to see what it would look like supershort.

“I know your daughter,” she hissed into the phone as she walked over to her dresser and dug around in the top drawer until she found the little pair of silver antique sewing scissors she’d inherited from her grandmother and never had much use for.

“B-Blair—,” Owen stammered.

“Fuck off.” Blair clicked off the phone and threw it onto her bed. Then, grabbing a handful of hair, she began to hack away with the tiny silver sewing scissors.

Good-bye, Audrey Hepburn, hello Mia Farrow in
Rosemary’s Baby
!

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

hey people!

The least painful way to say good-bye

Sad but true, the reality of Valentine’s Day is that it makes demands on relationships that those relationships may not be able to handle. What do you do when you both know it’s over and you just want to move on so you can start maxing out your credit cards on presents for yourself instead of for someone else? In my vast experience with painless breakups, the less you say the better. Don’t hash things out. A simple gesture means so much more. An invitation to do something ‘with the gang’ instead of alone together. A tender kiss on the cheek. A good-bye wave. And don’t you dare return any gifts. They’re yours! Keep ’em.

One thing you may not have realized about me

I
am
real. That means I have a birthday. Next Monday I turn eighteen and I’m having a party and you’re all invited. I know what you’re thinking, it’s
Monday
. But really, what else have you got to do on a Monday night? Your Latin homework? A do-it-yourself facial? Plus, the week will
fly
by afterwards, I promise.

When?
Monday, 9
P.M.
till dawn.

Where?
Gnome. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it. No one has. It’s a brand-spanking-new club on Bond Street celebrating its opening night with my party. Isn’t that sweet?

What to bring?
Yourself, your most beautiful friends, and of course,
a present
!

Sightings

B
absent from school for the second day in a row.
D
waiting around in the lobby of the
Plaza Hotel
looking nervous in his spiffy new Agnès B. suit.
S
at the
Les Best
atelier trying on a gorgeous sunflower yellow dress for a photo shoot.
J
riding the Seventy-ninth Street crosstown bus back and forth through the park for
hours
.
A
playing guitar on the train back from Scarsdale, where he’s been hiding out for days.
N
jogging around Central Park—so much clean living gives a boy energy!

Your e-mail

Q:
    Dear Gossip Girl,

I kissed a girl (I’m a girl too) but I didn’t mean anything by it. Actually, there’s a boy I like. What should I say to this girl without hurting her feelings, because she’s my friend?

—doubletrouble

A:
    Dear double,

I’ve never been a big believer in the theory that kissing someone is a promise you won’t kiss anyone else. Kissing is fun. Why limit yourself to just one kissee? The trick is telling the person you’re just having fun, you’re not planning to get married or anything.

BTW, it’s best to do this
before
you kiss them, not after.

—GG

Q:
    Dear GG,

I’m stuck in rehab and I’m allowed to log onto the Web but certain e-mail accounts are blocked so I can’t send a message to this boy I’m hung up on and miss so much. He even sent me roses! Luckily I can get on your site so I can tell the world that I’m in love. Maybe when I get out of here we can have a drink to celebrate. It’s on me.

—rehab babe

A:
    Dear babe,

Instead of us having a drink when you get out, you should start a site of your own. Or write a book. Just a suggestion.

—GG

Don’t forget my party—wish list to come!

You know you love me.

gossip girl

lifestyles of the rich and famous

Wednesday after school Dan stood in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, fiddling with the collar of his new black Agnès B. suit jacket and clutching the small red leather-bound book Mystery had given him for Valentine’s Day. He’d been to the Plaza only once before, when he and Vanessa had been in Central Park filming ice skaters and she’d had to use the bathroom. Even in his fancy new suit he felt out of place in such sumptuous surroundings.

He’d better get used to it. After all, he was about to become a very famous author who had tea with his agent in fancy hotels on a regular basis.

Pauper in a mirrored castle,
he thought, forming the beginnings of a poem.

“Daniel!” Dan heard Rusty Klein shout from across the room. This time she was wearing her red wig in fat braids on either side of her head, and her immense, six-foot-plus frame was cloaked in an unusual black Japanese geisha robe dotted with tiny white flowers and paired with tall, black suede stiletto boots—as if she wasn’t already tall enough. Mystery stood at her side looking like a starved ghost in a tattered plum-colored wrap dress and worn brown leather boots. Her collarbone stuck out from her skinny frame like an airplane wing, and her lips were so chapped, they were completely white.

Skeleton princess drifts out on a ray of dust.

“Hey,” Dan greeted them casually, as if he always hung out at the Plaza after school. Inside his white Agnès B. shirt the silver gravity pen Mystery had given him beat against his pale chest. “Thank you for the gifts.”

Rusty swept him up in a big bear hug, suffocating him with her rank oily-fish perfume and smudging his cheek with orangey-pink lipstick. “Mystery and I had
too
much fun shopping for you, darling! We had to
force
ourselves to stop.”

Mystery ran her tongue over her yellow teeth. “We’ve been drinking martinis and deconstructing Kafka like two old ninnies,” she croaked, sounding drunk and looking like she hadn’t slept in weeks. She blinked her sleepy gray eyes. “Now that you’re here I can eat. You starve me.”

Bones draped in moth wings sewn with cobwebs.

“This way,” Rusty chortled, ignoring Mystery’s odd pronouncement. She ushered them through the immense lobby and into a large tearoom full of gilded mirrors, tinkling crystal, and overly perfumed ladies with freshly blown-out hair. The round, white-clothed table had been laid with a silver tea service and a three-tiered silver tray covered with freshly baked scones, pots of homemade jam, and tiny cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Two half-empty martini glasses stood on the table, ready to be polished off.

“We’ve been having a little party to celebrate Mystery’s debut,” Rusty explained merrily. She sat down and tossed back the remains of her drink.

The queen of poesy gives a tempting tug.

Dan sat down next to her and put his red leather book on the table. “What debut?”

Rusty grabbed a blueberry scone and slathered it with butter, shoving the whole thing into her enormous orangey-pink mouth, where it disappeared instantly. “Good, you brought your observations book. Have you been writing everything down? Remember, nothing is inconsequential!” She winked at Mystery. “Who knows? It could all add up to a book!”

Mystery giggled and glanced at Dan. “I finished my novel,” she confided huskily.

House on fire! House on fire!

Dan rubbed his thumb over the tines of his fork, as he absorbed the information. Mystery had finished writing an entire novel in less than a week and all he’d done was write one crappy Valentine’s Day poem for Vanessa. He couldn’t even bear to read Vanessa’s response after he’d sent the poem to her, that was how badly it sucked.

“But I thought you’d just started it,” he said, feeling weirdly betrayed.

“I had. But Sunday night I fell off the plateau and kept gathering momentum, and I just couldn’t stop writing until I finished. I e-mailed it to Rusty at dawn this morning, just as the street cleaners were arriving. She’s already read the whole thing. She says I’m the next Virginia Woolf!”

“I thought you were the next Sylvia Plath,” Dan accused grumpily.

Moth princess helps herself to stolen meat.

Mystery shrugged her thin shoulders and poured a heaping spoonful of sugar into her martini, stirring it pensively before picking up the glass with both hands and taking a gulp.

“Anyhoo, let’s talk about
you
Dannyboy,” Rusty practically shouted. “Oh, fuck me.” She pulled her hot pink cell phone out of her purse, pushed a few buttons and held it up to her ear. “Hold on, loves. I have to call my messages.”

Dan waited, watching Mystery dunk so many spoonfuls of sugar into her drink that it looked less like a martini and more like a slushy from 7-Eleven. He hadn’t noticed before, but her gnarly, gnawed-on fingernails were as yellow as her teeth.

Rusty tossed her cell phone into the middle of the table. “I think you should write a memoir,” she told Dan, reaching for another scone and breaking it in half. “
Memoir of a Young Poet
. I love it!” she shouted. “You’re the next Rilke!”

The queen of clowns pulls a pink rabbit out of her hair.

Dan tugged on the gravity pen. He wanted to write down something about Mystery’s yellow fingernails in his observation book and how surprising it was that he wasn’t turned off by them. In fact, they turned him
on
.

“But how can I write a memoir when all I do is go to high school?” he argued miserably. “Nothing big has ever happened to me.” He reached for the teapot with trembling hands and poured warm, fragrant Earl Grey tea into his white teacup. Ah,
caffeine
.

Rusty tapped the cover of his observation book with her long, orangey-pink fingernails. “
Small things
, darling. Small things. And you might want to think about putting off college and writing for a year or two, just like Mystery.” She wiped her mouth with a white cloth napkin, smearing it with lipstick. “I’ve got you signed up with Mystery for a poetry reading at the Rivington Rover Poetry Club tomorrow night. Buckley is already distributing the flyers. It’s very now. All the old poetry clubs are coming back. You’ve got to be able to perform. I’m telling you, poetry is the next rock’n’roll!”

Mystery giggled and kicked Dan’s shin under the table like drunken donkey. Dan was tempted to kick her back because it kind of hurt, but he didn’t want to be immature.

Rusty snapped her foot-long fingers and the waiter instantly appeared. “Give these kids anything their little hearts desire,” she directed. “I have to run, darlings. Mama has a meeting.” She blew kisses at them and then click-clacked across the room in her geisha dress, turning heads with her flaming braids and immense stature.

Mother bird flees the nest, leaving the princess and the pauper with open beaks.

Mystery downed the dregs of Rusty’s martini and gazed exhaustedly at Dan with droopy gray eyes. “Every time Rusty mentions your name I feel the heat creep up my thighs,” she confessed throatily. “I’ve been drowning in desire all week, but I managed to channel that animal energy into my book.” She giggled. Her teeth looked like they’d been colored in with a yellow crayon. “Parts of it are totally X-rated.”

Pauper turns prince. To coin a phrase, I’m crowning.

Dan reached for a cucumber sandwich and shoved it in his mouth, chewing it violently without even tasting it. He was supposed to go home and write his memoir. He was supposed to have a girlfriend. He was supposed to be freaked out by this decidedly insane, yellow-toothed, horny chick. But the truth was, he was horny, too. He’d lost his virginity twice already, and he couldn’t wait to lose it again and again.

“Come on,” Mystery beckoned, holding out her yellow-nailed hand. “We can get a room and put it on Rusty’s tab.”

Dan picked up his observation book and followed her to the front desk. Poetry be damned. He couldn’t resist following this story line to the next chapter.

l
is for love

Jenny couldn’t be sure that the L who’d sent her a note on Valentine’s Day was actually the boy from Bendel’s. He could’ve been a total nerd or even a gross, perverted old man, but secretly she was already in love with him. She felt like a girl in a fairy tale in love with a man in a mask, and she was determined to ride the Seventy-ninth Street crosstown bus until she met him face-to-face. Monday and Tuesday she rode the bus alone until 7
P.M.
with no luck. On Wednesday after school Elise came with her.