Nobody Does It Better (2 page)

She carried down Eighty-Second Street
toward Fifth Avenue
, checking her cell phone for a message from Nate at every corner. Obviously he'd call any se3cond now. Like all possessive, aggressive, obsessive girls, she liked to think Nate didn't have a life without her.

Then again, if he didn't, she'd go completely nuts.

“They gave us five spreads,” Serena van der Woodsen explained as she flipped through the hot-off-the-press June issue of W magazine. “That's ten whole pages!” The world-famous fashion designer Les Best had just messengered the fashion magazine over to her apartment with a note that read, “As ever, you are fabulous, darling. And so's that dark-haired little hottie friend of yours!”

The same dark-haired little hottie, fourteen-year-old Jenny Humphrey, was desperately trying not to pee her pants. Serena, the coolest senior girl at Constance Billard, and totally famous and beautiful model/ Upper East Side girl-about-town, had actually asked her to hang out after school today. She was now sitting in Serena's huge, awesomely old-fashioned bedroom- her private sanctuary- on her bed, flipping through the latest issue of the coolest fashion magazine in the world, looking for pages featuring the two of them modeling the type of amazing designer clothes Jenny had always gazed at longingly in stores but never once dreamed she'd actually wear. It was so unreal she could hardly breathe.

“Here, look!” Serena squealed, stabbing at the page with a long, slender finger. “Don't we look like badasses?!”

Jenny leaned in closer to see, happily inhaling the sweet scent of Serena's custom-blended patchouli oil perfume. Across Serena's lap lay a spread of the two girls dressed head to toe in Les Best couture, motoring down the beach in a dune buggy, the Ferris wheel at Coney Island rising up behind them, all lit up. The style of the picture was typical Jonathan Joyce - the uber-famous fashion photographer who had shot the spread- totally natural and unposed, like he'd just happened upon these two girls riding their dune buggy on the beach at sunset and having the time of their lives. Indeed they did look like badasses in leather vests over white bikini tops, and white leather knee-high go-go boots with teeny-tiny heels. Their hair was winged back, their nails were painted white, their lips were painted cotton candy pink, and peacock feathers dangled from their ears. It was all very retro eighties/futuristic/cutting edge, and absurdly cool.

Jenny couldn't pull her eyes away. There she was, in a magazine, and for the first time ever her enormous chest wasn't the focal point of the picture. In fact the two girls looked so fresh and pure the picture was almost wholesome. It was beyond what Jenny could have hoped for. It was heavenly.

“I love the look on your face,” Serena observed. “It's like you've just been kissed or something.”

Jenny giggled, feeling very much like she had just been kissed. “You look pretty too.”

Oops, look who has a major crush on Serena - just like everyone else in the universe!

But Jenny's crush was deeper than most: she actually wanted to be Serena. And the thing Serena had that she still lacked was a questionable past- that alluring air of mystery.

“Bet it seems like forever ago that you were kicked out of boarding school,” Jenny ventured boldly, her eyes fixed on the magazine.

“I was worried I'd never get into a single college because of all that,” Serena sighed. “If I'd known I'd get into all of them, I'd never have applied to so many schools.”

Poor thing. If only we all had that problem.

“Did you like boarding School?” Jenny persisted, turning to gaze up at Serena with her big brown eyes. “I mean, more than going to school in the City?”

Serena lay back on the four-poster bed and stared up at the white eyelet canopy overhead. She'd been eight years old when she'd first gotten the bed, and she'd felt like a princess every night when she'd gone to sleep. As a matter of fact, she still felt like a princess, only bigger.

“I loved feeling like I had my own life, apart from my parents and the friends I'd known practically since I was born. I like going to school with boys, and eating with them in the dining hall. It was like having a whole class of brothers. But I missed my room and the city, the weekends hanging out.” She pulled off her white cotton socks and threw them across the room. “And I know it sounds totally spoiled, but I missed having a maid.”

Jenny nodded. She liked the sound of eating in a dining hall with a whole bunch of boys. She liked it a lot. And she'd never had a maid, so it wasn't as if she'd miss that.

“I guess it was a good preparation for college,” Serena mused. “I mean, if I actually decide to go to college.”

Jenny closed the magazine and held it against her chest. “I thought you were going to Brown.”

Serena pulled a down-feather pillow over her face and then pulled it off again. Was it really necessary to answer so many questions? All of a sudden she kind of wished she hadn't invited Jenny over. “I don't know where I'm going. I might not even go. I don't know,” she mumbled, tossing the pillow on the floor next to her socks. Her flaxen hair fanned out around her perfectly chiseled face as she gazed skyward with her enormous blue eyes. She looked so lovely, Jenny half expected a flock of white doves to flap out from underneath the bed.

Serena grabbed the stereo remote from off her bedside table and clicked on the old Raves CD that she'd been listening to a lot lately. The CD had come out last summer and reminded her of a time when she was completely carefree. She hadn't been kicked out of boarding school yet. She hadn't thought about applying to college. She hadn't even started modeling yet.

“What's so great about Brown?” she questioned aloud, although her brother Erik went there and would be totally pissed off if she decided not to go. Plus, she'd met a hunky Latin painter at Brown who was still totally in lobe with her. But what about Harvard, and that sensitive nearsighted tour guide who'd also fallen in love with her? Or Yale and the Whiffenpoofs, who'd written a song for her? And there was always Princeton, which she hadn't even visited. After all, it was the closest to the city. “Maybe I should just defer for a year or two, get my own apartment. Model some, and maybe try acting.”

“Or you could do both. Like Claire Danes,” Jenny suggested. “I mean, once you stop going to school, it's probably really hard to go back.”

As if you'd know, Little Miss Helpful.

Serena rolled off the bed and stood in front of the full length mirror that hung on the back of her closet door. She'd rumpled her turquoise Marni peasant blouse, and her blue-and-white-seersucker Constance Billard uniform was hanging lopsidedly on her hips. That morning she'd been late as usual and had tripped running to school, losing her orange Miu Miu cork-heeled clogs and landing facedown on the sidewalk. Now the iridescent pink polish on the big toe of her left foot was chipped, and a purple-and-yellow bruise stood out on her right knee.

“What a mess.” She complained.

Jenny wasn't sure how Serena could even stand to look at herself in a mirror every day without passing out in amazement at her own perfection. That anyone as perfect as Serena could have issues was totally unfathomable. “I'm sure you'll figure it out,” she told the older girl, becoming suddenly distracted by a photo of Erik van der Woodsen, Serena's hot older brother, propped up on Serena's bedside table in a silver Tiffany frame. Tall and lanky, with the same pale blond hair, cut in a long shag framing his face, Erik was a male version of Serena. Same huge dark blue eyes, same full mouth that turned up at the corners, same straight white teeth and aristocratic chin. In the picture he was standing on a rocky beach, tan and shirtless. Jenny squeezed her bare knees together. Those chest muscles, that stomach, those arms- oh! If boarding school was filled with boys who were even half as gorgeous as Erik van der Woodsen, they could sign her up!

Easy there, cow girl.

Serena's pink iMac beeped, indicating that she'd just received an e-mail.

“Probably one of our fans.” Serena joked, although Jenny thought she was serious. Serena went over to her antique letter-writing desk, jiggled her mouse, and clicked on the latest e-mail message.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Serena,

Our sorority totally worships Les Best and some of us were at his show this spring, so you can imagine how completely thrilled we were when we heard you were considering attending Princeton this fall. And if you do go to Princeton, you have to become a Tri Delt. We already have all these amazing fundraising ideas for this year, including a Les Best fashion show to benefit the Wild Horses of Chincoteague, featuring us, the Tri Delts, as models! The best part is you won't even have to pledge. Congratulations, Serena, you're already a sister! All you have to do now is get your behind up to Princeton a few days early this August so you can get a good room in our house.

We totally can't wait. Big kisses.

Your sis,

Sheri

Serena read the message again and then logged off, staring at the blank screen in shock. Pushy sorority sisters were just about the last people she wanted to hear from, and anyway, wasn't Princeton supposed to be sort of intellectual? She picked up the phone to call Blair and then slammed it down again, realizing she'd completely forgotten that Jenny was even there. Jenny was sweet and adorable and everything- but she didn't have, like, homework or a movie to go to or something?

See, even perfect goddesses have a bitchy side.

Jenny slid off the bed and hitched up her extra wide supportive bra straps, guessing she was about to be dismissed. “You know my brother Dan is singing for the Raves now,” she announced. “His fist gig with them is tomorrow night. I can put you on the special guest list if you want to come.”

Jenny wasn't even sure if there was a special guest list. All she knew she was getting free because she was Dan's sister. Dan thought he was so famous now that he was a member of a band with the number one album on the East Coast, but if she showed up to the gig with Serena- two gorgeous models out on the town in matching Les Best dresses- she'd completely out famous him.

Serena wrinkled her nose. She wanted to go to the Raves gig, she really did, but she and her parents had already RSVPed yes to some Yale prospective students' get-to-know-you party tomorrow night. She couldn't exactly make her parents go by themselves.

“I don't think I can,” she explained apologetically. “There's this Yale thing I have to go to. But I'll try to get down there if it finishes early.”

Jenny nodded and stuffed the issue of W into her Gap tote bag, disappointed. She'd envisioned making an entrance at the Lower East Side club with Serena. Never mind the Raves- they were rock stars, big deal. She and Serena were supermodels- at least Serena was. Heads were guaranteed to turn,

Guess she'll have to satisfy herself with being the lead singer's little sister. Like that would ever be enough.

“Crack me like an egg!”

Daniel Humphrey glared at himself in his bedroom mirror and took a long drag on a half smoked camel. A lame-voiced wimp in worn khaki-colored corduroys and maroon Gap T-shirt. Not exactly rock'n'roll.

“Crack me like an egg!” he wailed again, trying to look angst-ridden, rebellious, and sickly cool all at the same time. The problem was, his voice always broke when he went into the higher ranged, coming out in a breathy whisper, and his face looked soft and young and totally unthreatening.

Dan rubbed at his bony chin and thought about growing a goatee. Vanessa had always had a strong aversion to facial hair, but what she thought was no longer relevant since they were no longer a couple.

Almost two weeks ago at Vanessa's eighteenth birthday party at her apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Dan had been discovered by the megapopular indie band the Raves. Or rather, his poems had been. Thinking they'd both go to NYU next year and live happily ever after, Dan had moved in with Vanessa only a few days before. Butt heir relationship had quickly deteriorated. More depressed than usual, Dan had been sitting in a corner during the party, chugging Grey Goose vodka straight out of the bottle. Meanwhile, the Raves showed up at the party and their lead guitarist, Damian Polk, stumbled upon a stack of black notebooks filled with Dan's poetry. Damian and his band members had gone crazy over the poems, insisting they would work perfectly as lyrics. Their lead singer had just mysteriously quit- rehab anyone? - and so they decided to ask Dan to be their front man. By then Dan was just piss drunk and thought the whole thing was totally hilarious. Throwing himself into the task with drunken fervor, he'd stolen the show, electrifying drunken partiers with his brazen performance.

He thought his was a one time deal, a way of distracting himself from the fact that he'd just broken up with the only girl who'd ever loved him. The next day he discovered he was card-carrying member of the band, and completely in over his head.

During rehearsals Dan found that his normally sober self was physically incapable of putting out the same reckless energy that he'd had at the party, and, compared to the other band members, who were all in their twenties and wore clothes tailor-made for them by avant-garde designers like Pisolcock and Better Than Naked, he felt like a geeky, squeaky little kid. He'd even asked Damian Polk why in the hell the Raves wanted him to be their lead singer in the first place. Damian had replied simple, “It's all about the words, man.”

Dude, just because he could write them didn't mean he could sing. But maybe if he looked more like he could sing, he might actually convince people that he deserved to be in the band.

Dan shuffled through his messy desk drawers searching for the battery-operated beard trimmer he'd bought last year during a week of experimenting with the length of his side-burns. He moved on to his little sister Jenny's room, and finally found it under her bed, inexplicably rolled up inside and old pink bath towel.

Little sister lesson number one: If you want to keep your shit, put a padlock on your door.

Not bothering to return to his own room, he went over to the mirror on the back of Jenny's closet door and tugged at the outgrown Mr. Trendy Artiste haircut he'd gotten soon after he'd made his switch from bohemian poet to gritty rock star, it was time for a change.

Eek! Doesn't everyone know not to try a new look the day before a big event?

The trimmer buzzed to life and Dan began shaving the back of his neck, watching the light brown strands gather on the faded chocolate-colored carpet in mousy clumps. Then he stopped, worried all of a sudden that a beard trimmer didn't have exactly the right sort of blades the shave one's entire head with. It might leave weird red track marks all over his skull, or shave his head unevenly so that it looked like his hair had been eaten rather than cut.

Sure he wanted to look hard-core, but not chewed-head hard-core.

He debated whether or not to continue. If he stopped now, the shaved parts could be completely concealed by the rest of his hair until he bent over, and then, voila- a shaved neck. It was kinda cool knowing the shaved part was there without being able to see it. Then again, an unnoticeable hair-cut wasn't exactly the look he was going for.

He put the beard trimmer down, propped a Camel between his lips, and reached for Jenny's phone. If there was one person who knew anything about shaving heads, it was Vanessa. She'd kept her own head shaved sine the ninth grade, and, shunning the expensive salons like Frederic Fekkai and Elizabeth Arden's Red Door that her coiffed classmates frequented, insisted on shaving it herself. Secretly he's always thought she looked prettier with a little more hair, but she obviously thought she looked great bald, he wasn't about to say anything.

“If this is about the apartment-share, I will be calling you once I've reviewed your online application,” Vanessa said robotically when she picked up.

“Hey, it's me, Dan,” Dan responded brightly. “What's up?”

Vanessa didn't answer right away. She wanted to give Dan space to grow and blossom into the next Kurt Cobain or John Keats or whatever the fuck he weanted to be, but breaking up with her and kicking him out of her apartment hadn't been exactly been easy for her. The casual lets-be-friends tone in Dan's voice made her heart feel like a deflated balloon.

“I'm kind of busy actually.” She typed a bunch of nonsense into her computer to make it sound like she was drastically preoccupied. “I have a lot of applications to go through- for the new roommate- you know?”

“Oh.” Dan hadn't been aware that Vanessa was looking for a roommate. Then again, with her older sister Ruby gone on tour with her band, it would be kind of lonely and boring living all alone in the apartment, especially without him to keep her company.

For a fleeting moment Dan was so overcome with regret he felt like grabbing a pen and writing a tragic breakup poem using the words cut or shaved, but then his newly shorn neck began to burn and prickle, and he remembered why he'd called Vanessa in the first place.

“I just had a quick question.” He took several quick puffs of his cigarette and then absentmindedly dropped it into a vase of daisies wilting on Jenny's desk. “You know when you shave your head? Is there like, a certain kind of razor you use? Like a certain blade?”

Vanessa's first impulse was to warn him that with a shaved head he'd look like a skinny seven-year-old leukemia patient who'd just been through chemo, but she was tired of protecting him from his own mistakes, especially now that they were “just friends.” “Wahl blade number ten. Look, I gotta go.”

Dan picked up his beard trimmer. It was from CVS and didn't have a blade size. Maybe he'd be better going to a barber. “Okay. See you at my gig tomorrow night though, right?”

“Maybe,” Vanessa replied breezily. “If I get this roommate thing figured out. Gotta go. 'Bye!”

Dan hung up and picked up the beard trimmer once more. “Crack me like an egg!” he shouted, holding it in front of his chin like a microphone. He whipped off his t-shirt and struck out his pale, skinny gut, trying to look saucily bored and rebellious, like a shorter, thinner, less-fucked-up Jim Morrison. “Crack me like an egg!” he wailed, falling on his knees.

His dad, Rufus, suddenly appeared in the doorway, wearing a cigarette burned gray Old Navy sweatshirt and the pink terrycloth headband that Jenny used to keep her hair back hen she washed her face. “Good thing your sister's too busy to hang out with us after school anymore. She might not be too thrilled to find you stripping in her room,” he commented.

“I'm rehearsing.” Dan rose to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster. “Do you mind?”

“Go right ahead.” Rufus stood in the doorway, scratching his chest fingering the unfiltered Camel tucked behind his left ear. He was a work-at-home single dad, the editor of lesser-known Beat poets and esoteric writers no one had ever heard of. “I think if you put the emphasis on every other word, it might be more effective/”

Dan cocked his head and handed Rufus the beard trimmer. “Show me.”

Rufus Grinned. “Okay but I'm not taking my shirt off.”

Thank the Lord.

He held the beard trimmer away from his face as if worried that it might turn on by itself and buzz off his famously unkempt beard. “Crack Me like an Egg!” he howled, his brown eyes gleaming. He handed the trimmer. “Try it.”

Of course Dan's dad had sounded just exactly the way Dan wanted to sound. He tossed the trimmer on to Jenny's bed and pulled his shirt back on. “I have homework to do,” he grumbled.

Rufus shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, I'll leave you alone.” He winked at his son. “Decide where you want to go next year yet?”

“No,” Dan answered hollowly, then shuffled out of Jenny's roomand back into his own. His dad was so gung-ho about the whole college thing, it was seriously annoying.

“Columbia
's close!” Rufus called after him. “You could live at home!”

As if he hadn't already mentioned that a thousand times.

Alone in his room, Dan found a rubber band in his desk drawer and tied his hair up into a stubbly ponytail, leaving the shaved part exposed. He picked up the beard trimmer again. “Crack Me like and Egg!” he whispered, imitating his father as best as he could. He grimaced. There just wasn't ebough gristle in his voice to sound convincing.

Trading the trimmer for the pile of college catalogs he'd been thumbing through for the past three months, he flopped don on his bed. Only one more week to choose between NYU, Brown, Colby or Evergreen. He flipped to a picture of a tweedy, intellectual-looking Brown student, his back propped against the trunk of agiant elm tree, scribbling away in a notebook like a young Keats. He looked exactly as Dan had envisioned he'd look himself next year- before he'd been discovered by the Raves and before he'd just shaved the back of his head.

He ran his finger over the shaved part of his head and glanced down at his outfit. He'd have to go shopping, because none of his clothes went with his hair anymore.

And you thought that was something only girls worry about.

If only Jenny were there to help out, Dan thought grimly. But his little sister was too busy being a supermodel to go through his closet with him and tell him what was lame and what was acceptable. Dan picked up a cup of Folgers instant coffee that had been cooling on the floor since that morning and took a sip. He grimaced at his reflection in the mirror, and for an instant he could almost envision himself up on stage, giving the audience the same annoyed, pissed-off grimace. Maybe, just maybe he could pull this off, without his sister's help.

Or maybe not.