I Like It Like That (5 page)

The second night of their visit, Vanessa's parents took her and Ruby to the gallery where their found-art sculpture exhibit was showing.

The gallery was huge and bright, with pale wood floors and white walls. In the middle of the largest room stood a brown-and-white shire horse, happily devouring a supersized Caesar salad out of an enormous wooden bowl. Beside the horse was a blue plastic bucket with a pitchfork sticking out of it. Whenever the horse pooped, the stylish German girl behind the desk near the door of the gallery would jump out of her swivel chair to shovel it up with the pitchfork and dump it in the bucket.

Vanessa's twenty-two-year-old sister Ruby stroked the horse's nose and fed him peppermint Tic Tacs, the gallery lights bouncing off her purple leather pants.

“That's Buster. He's sweet, isn't he?” their mother, Gabriela, asked, admiring the horse. “We found him eating romaine in our community garden. His owner was an angel to let us borrow him.” She pulled her long gray braid over her shoulder and stroked the end of it. The garish African caftan she'd chosen to wear that evening hung from her broad shoulders like a purple, yellow, and green tablecloth with a hole cut in the top for her head. Shunning fashion altogether, Gabriela preferred “tribal costumes” and liked to think of herself as a “global fashion model.” She was even wearing Mexican moccasins made from the hides of wild pigs.

Buster was sweet, but what made him art? Vanessa wondered. She went over to something nailed to the wall, only to discover that it was a chain of metal cheese graters. Some of them even had dried bits of orange cheese stuck to them.

“You're probably thinking, ‘I could have made that,’” her father, Arlo Abrams, observed.

“Not really,” Vanessa replied. Why the hell would she want to make a chain of cheese graters?

Arlo shuffled over to her wearing a dusty black wool Peruvian cape, an ankle-length hemp skirt—yes, that's right, a skirt—and white canvas tennis shoes. Gabriela was responsible for dressing him, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered with clothes at all. His long gray hair fanned out around his shoulders, and, as usual, he looked gaunt and alarmed. Vanessa was pretty sure the alarmed part was from all the acid he'd taken when he was younger. And who knew, maybe he was still taking it.

“Close your eyes and run your hands over them,” Arlo instructed, reaching for Vanessa's hand. His breath smelled like the barbecued tempeh Ruby had put in the lasagna last night, or maybe she was smelling the old cheese on the graters.

Vanessa closed her eyes, wondering if this was the moment when she would come to understand the brilliance and purpose of her parents' work. She allowed her father to run her fingers over the pointy, sharp nubs of the graters. It felt exactly like touching cheese graters, nothing more and nothing less. She opened her eyes.

“Creepy, huh?” was all Arlo said, his hazel eyes twitching.

Creepy was right.

Across the room, Ruby and Gabriela were standing over a pot of dirt—another one of their found artworks—giggling like ten-year-olds.

“What's so funny?” Vanessa asked, thinking they were probably talking about one of Ruby's weird musician boyfriends or something. Then she noticed that even the snooty blond German girl behind the desk had cracked a smile. “What?” Vanessa repeated.

Arlo chuckled and ran his paint-stained fingers through his long gray hair, looking incredibly pleased with himself. “There are seeds in that dirt,” he whispered, his eyes popping. “You know, seeds!”

Huh?

Vanessa had always been a loner at school, with her shaved head and her penchant for wearing only black, but usually her solitude was voluntary. In this case she wanted to get the joke, she really did. But she just didn't. And if her parents thought art was a horse eating salad or some kitchen utensils tacked to a wall or a pot of dirt with seeds in it, there was just no way they'd, ever understand the dark intensity of her morbid, subtle films. And there was no way she was ever going to share her films with them.

“Ready to skedaddle?” Gabriela called over from the pot of dirt. The family's hippie art-school friends, the Rosenfelds, had invited them to some sort of art benefit, and they'd decided to drag Vanessa and Ruby along.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Vanessa asked skeptically as they stood outside the gallery, waiting for a cab. She imagined spending the rest of the evening dancing barefoot around a fire in some sculpture park in Queens to beckon the spirits of spring or some equally lame hippie nonsense.

“Somewhere called the Frick. It's on Fifth Street, I think.” Gabriela started to dig around in her shapeless purse, which a friend had constructed for her out of recycled tractor tires. “I've got the address written down somewhere.”

“It's Fifth Avenue,” Vanessa corrected. “I know where it is.” And she was pretty sure there weren't going to be a whole lot of men in skirts there, either.

No, but it would be a lot more fun if there were.

The Frick had been the New York residence of Henry Clay Frick, the industrial-era coke and steel magnate. Mr. Frick was a great collector of European art, and after he died, the mansion was turned into a museum.

The Virtue vs. Vice benefit was in the Living Hall, a large, oak-paneled room laid with a Persian carpet and displaying paintings by major sixteenth-century artists such as El Greco, Holbein, and Titian. At the middle of one wall stood one of Soldani's bronze sculptures, Virtue Triumphant over Vice, and in the center of each of the huge round tables set for the party with cream-colored linens and sparkling silver stood a ten-inch-high replica of the same sculpture, surrounded by a garland of purple tulips.

Not that anyone was paying any attention to the art.

Women in custom-made couture gowns and men in tuxedos milled around the tables or stood by the bar, nibbling plum-dipped duck fritters and talking about everything except art.

“Did you see the van der Woodsen girl in that new perfume advertisement?” Titi Coates murmured to Misty Bass.

“The phony tear was just too much. I thought it was rather exploitative, didn't you?” Misty declared. She nodded pointedly as Serena and Blair followed Serena's parents into the room before the two girls veered off to find something to drink.

“Your boobs must stick out further than mine.” Serena hiked up the black strapless Donna Karan dress she'd borrowed from Blair. They wore the same size bra, so she'd thought the dress would stay up fine, but every time she took a step, she could feel the dress inching floorward.

“Yeah, but you're skinnier.” Blair wasn't about to admit it, but Serena's pink Milly cocktail dress had been gradually ripping under her arms and in the seams in the bodice ever since she zipped it up. Every so often she'd hear another little rip as the threads gave way, but hopefully the dress would hold up until they got home.

Everyone seemed to be drinking cocktails, but the cocktail servers were nowhere to be found. “Why are we here again?” Blair whined.

“I don't know. It's just one of those things,” Serena answered contritely.

“Well, if they don't have Ketel One vodka this year, I'm leaving,” Blair grumbled. Last year she'd had to settle for Absolut, which was so passe, it was practically prehistoric.

“Isn't it wonderful to see those two girls together again?” Blair's mother breathed in Mrs. van der Woodsen's ear. “It was no good when Serena was away at boarding school. We girls need to keep our friends close.”

“Yes, quite,” Mrs. van der Woodsen agreed coolly as she averted her blue eyes from Eleanor's pregnant belly. She and Eleanor had always been friendly, but a baby at nearly fifty was simply too vulgar. And that fat, loud, mustachioed real estate developer she was married to was a little hard to take. “Oh, look, there's Misty Bass. Let's go and say hello.”

Misty had left Titi Coates arguing with her daughter, Isabel, about whether Isabel should get a car for graduation or not, and now Misty was sitting alone with her son, Chuck, gossiping as usual. She was a severe blond in a gold Carolina Herrera gown and vintage Harry Winston jewels, and he was a dark, deceptively handsome devil in a gray Prada zoot suit with green pinstripes.

In fact, Chuck really was the devil, and he was always looking for new ways to express his evil. But be patient, we'll get to that.

“Pushing fifty and nearly seven months along,” Misty whispered to her son. “What does your friend Blair make of it?”

Chuck shrugged as if he could have cared less. At Serena's big New Year's Eve bash, he'd sidled up to Blair and proposed that she give up her virginity to him, since he was rather an expert at deflowering. To his irritation, Blair had flatly refused. Lately he'd been experimenting with being gay, if only to stave off boredom.

Or to have an excuse to wax his eyebrows.

“She probably made herself puke a few extra times,” Chuck observed callously, referring to Blair's little bulimia problem, which was hardly a secret. “She'll be out of the house soon after the kid's born, anyway.”

“I heard Blair's going to a clinic right after graduation to take care of her problem once and for all,” Misty Bass noted. “Isn't that right?”

But Chuck had stopped listening. Across the room a little drama was unfolding, and he didn't want to miss it.

Nate hadn't even laid eyes on Blair since she'd stalked him all the way to rehab in Greenwich, Connecticut, a few weeks ago. During her one and only appearance in group therapy, the counselor had forced her to admit out loud in front of the group that she was bulimic, although Blair had insisted on calling it “stress-induced regurgitation.” Nate might have been amused by Blair's dramatic appearance at the clinic, but at the time he was just beginning to hook up with Georgie, and two crazy girls at once were simply too much for him to handle. Thankfully, Blair saw right away that her plan of attack had backfired and promptly decided that rehab was beneath her.

As if she really wanted to spend Saturday afternoons talking about how she occasionally stuck her finger down her throat instead of shopping for shoes with Serena. No, thank you.

And what about Serena? Nate couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen her, but as always she looked glamorous and poised, in that charming, understated way of hers. Usually Nate liked to hang out in one place at parties and let people come to him if they felt like talking, but he decided to go over and say hello. Why the hell not? Even if Blair wouldn't speak to him, Serena would.

Serena was the first to see him coming. She flicked her cigarette, ashing on the mansion's priceless marble floor. “Nathaniel Archibald,” she declared, partly to warn Blair, but partly out of pleased surprise. “Our long-lost Nate.”

“Fucking hell.” Blair stamped out her Merit Ultra Light with the pointy heel of one of her black satin Manolo Blahnik party shoes. “Jesus.”

Serena wasn't sure if Blair was swearing because Nate was the last person on earth she wanted to see or because Nate looked so devastatingly hot in his classic Armani tux.

There's nothing more breathtaking than a delicious boy in a tuxedo, even if you're supposed to be hating him.

“Hey.” Nate kissed Serena quickly on the cheek and then tucked his hands into his tuxedo jacket pockets, smiling cautiously at Blair. She was twirling her ruby ring around and around on her little finger like she always did when she was nervous. Her short haircut made her cheekbones stand out more, or maybe she'd lost some weight. Anyway, she looked sort of … fierce. Fierce and delicate at the same time. “Hey, Blair.”

Blair dug her fingernails into her palm. She needed another drink. “Hello. How's rehab?”

“Over. At least for me. That girl I'm seeing—Georgie—she's still there.”

“Because she's a drug addict?” Blair responded, tossing back the last of her vodka.

The boisterous big-band music that no one had even noticed was playing suddenly stopped, chilling the room.

“We're getting drunk,” Serena cut in before Blair could do anything insane, like karate-chop Nate's head off. “Only one more day of school left before break!”

Nate flagged down a passing waiter and got them all more vodka. “You guys going anywhere good?”

“Sun Valley—just like always,” Serena told him.

Blair just stood there guzzling her second drink and wishing a) that Nate would go away, b) that he didn't look quite so dashing and nonstoned, c) that he would stop being so absurdly friendly, and d) that Serena would stop being so friendly back.

“Blair's coming with us. She just got her ticket.”

Nate pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket and stuck one between his lips. He lit it carefully, glancing at Blair through the flame and then away again.

“Looks like I'm going there, too,” he said finally. “Georgie's mom has a house near the mountain. We should ski together.”

Blair felt her stomach begin to gurgle and splosh in Serena's too-tight dress.

“I'll be right back.” She shoved her empty glass at Serena. “Maybe you should find our table so we can sit down.”

“Blair's living at my house for a while,” Serena explained to Nate as they watched Blair make a beeline for the ladies' room. All of a sudden, Serena felt sort of big-sisterly and protective toward Blair, and she was glad she'd been able to help. “Her mom's turning her room into a nursery for her new baby sister. Bummer, huh?”

Nate tried to imagine what Blair's life must be like now that she had a new stepfather and stepbrother and a new baby sister on the way. He didn't get very far.

“You look different,” Serena noted, looking him up and down. She cocked a perfectly groomed eyebrow and grinned. “You look good.”

Nate and Serena had always lusted after each other. They'd even given in and had sex once, losing their virginity together the summer before tenth grade, just before Serena had gone off to boarding school. It was a recreational sort of lust, though, with no strings attached, and they'd never acted on it again since that one time.

“I feel good,” Nate admitted. He thought about telling her how he'd quit getting high but still hadn't made lax captain. How he couldn't wait for her to meet Georgie because they'd definitely get along. But Nate wasn't much of a gusher. “It's cool you're going out there,” he said simply. “It should be a good time.”

“Should be a good time?” Serena repeated, throwing her arms around him in her usual spontaneous manner and getting pink lip gloss all over his cheek. “Normally I only have my boring old brother to ski with. It's gonna rock!”

Nate endured the hug, trying not to get turned on. But now that he was pot-free, the mere whiff of a girl's perfume or the brush of her hand was enough to make his cheeks flush, especially when she was as gorgeous as Serena was.

Serena lifted a cigarette from out of the pack in his breast pocket and squeezed past him. “I better go check on Blair. See you later, okay?”

Nate watched her go, feeling for his cell phone in his tuxedo pants pocket. Georgie was probably in her room at Breakaway right now, having quiet time, or whatever it was they made their patients do after dinner, but maybe the nurse on duty would be nice enough to let them have phone sex.

He dialed the number and put the phone to his ear before looking up. Chuck Bass was staring at him from his seat next to his jewel-encrusted mom, looking extremely gay indeed. And just the thought that Chuck might possibly have a crush on him was enough to quell the urgency of Nate's call to Connecticut. He tucked the phone back into his pocket and went off to find his table, not even bothering to think about the rumors Chuck had already started circulating about him and Serena.