You Know You Love Me

Gossip Girl 2 - You Know You Love Me

Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

Oscar Wilde

Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or
abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me. hey people! Ever wondered what the lives
of the chosen ones are really like? Well, Im going to tell you, because Im one of them. Im
not talking about beautiful models or actors or musical prodigies or mathematical
geniuses. Im talking about the people who are born to itthose of us who have everything
anyone could possibly wish for and who take it all completely for granted.

Welcome to New York Citys Upper East Side, where my friends and I live and go to school
and play and sleepsometimes with each other. We all live in huge apartments with our own
bedrooms and bathrooms and phone lines. We have unlimited access to money and booze and
whatever else we want, and our parents are rarely home, so we have tons of privacy. Were
smart, weve inherited classic good looks, we wear fantastic clothes, and we know how to
party. Our shit still stinks, but you cant smell it because the bathroom is sprayed hourly
by the maid with a refreshing scent made exclusively for us by French perfumers.

Its a luxe life, but someones got to live it. Our apartments are all within walking
distance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue, and the single-sex private
schools, like Constance Billard, which most of us go to. Even with a hangover, Fifth
Avenue always looks so beautiful in the morning with the sunlight glimmering on the heads
of the sexy St. Judes School boys. But something is rotten on museum mile. . . . SIGHTINGS
B with her mother, arguing in a taxi in front of Takashimaya. N enjoying a joint on the
steps of the Met. C buying new school shoes at Barneys. And a familiar, tall, eerily
beautiful blond girl emerging from a New Haven line train in Grand Central Station.
Approximate age, seventeen. Could it be? S is back?! THE GIRL WHO LEAVES FOR BOARDING
SCHOOL, GETS

KICKED OUT, AND COMES BACK

Yes, S is back from boarding school. Her hair is longer, paler. Her blue eyes have that
deep mysteriousness of kept secrets. She is wearing the same old fabulous clothes, now in
rags from fending off New England storms. This morning Ss laughter echoed off the steps of
the Met, where we will no longer be able to enjoy a quick smoke and a cappuccino without
seeing her waving to us from her parents apartment across the street. She has picked up
the habit of biting her fingernails, which makes us wonder about her even more, and while
we are all dying to ask her why she got kicked out of boarding school, we wont, because
wed really rather she had stayed away. But S is definitely here.

Just to be safe, we should all synchronize our watches. If we arent careful, S is going to
win over our teachers, wear that dress we couldnt fit into, eat the last olive, have sex
in our parents beds, spill Campari on our rugs, steal our brothers and our boyfriends
hearts, and basically ruin our lives and piss us all off in a major way. Ill be watching
closely. Ill be watching all of us. Its going to be a wild and wicked year. I can smell it.

Love,

I watched Nickelodeon all morning in my room so I wouldnt have to eat breakfast with them,
Blair Waldorf told her two best friends and Constance Billard School classmates, Kati
Farkas and Isabel Coates. My mother cooked him an omelet. I didnt even know she knew how
to use the stove.

Blair tucked her long, dark brown hair behind her ears and swigged her mothers fine
vintage scotch from the crystal tumbler in her hand. She was already on her second glass.
What shows did you watch? Isabel asked, removing a stray strand of hair from Blairs black
cashmere cardigan.

Who cares? Blair said, stamping her foot. She was wearing her new black ballet flats. Very
bow-tie proper preppy, which she could get away with because she could change her mind in
an instant and put on her trashy, pointed, knee-high boots and that sexy metallic skirt
her mother hated. Poofrock star sex kitten. Meow. The point is, I was trapped in my room
all morning because they were busy having a gross romantic breakfast in their matching red
silk bathrobes. They didnt even take showers. Blair took another gulp of her drink. The
only way to tolerate the thought of her mother sleeping with that man was to get drunkvery
drunk. Luckily Blair and her friends came from the kind of families for whom drinking was
as commonplace as blowing your nose. Their

parents believed in the quasi-European idea that the more access kids have to alcohol, the
less likely they are to abuse it. So Blair and her friends could drink whatever they
wanted, whenever they wanted, as long as they maintained their grades and their looks and
didnt embarrass themselves or the family by puking in public, pissing their pants, or
ranting in the streets. The same thing went for everything else, like sex or drugsas long
as you kept up appearances, you were all right.

But keep your panties on. Thats coming later. The man Blair was so upset about was Cyrus
Rose, her mothers new boyfriend. At that very moment Cyrus Rose was standing on the other
side of the living room, greeting the dinner guests. He looked like someone who might help
you pick out shoes at Saks bald, except for a small, bushy mustache, his fat stomach
barely hidden in a shiny blue double-breasted suit. He jingled the change in his pocket
incessantly, and when he took his jacket off, there were big, nasty sweat marks on his
underarms. He had a loud laugh and was very sweet to Blairs mother. But he wasnt Blairs
father. Last year Blairs father ran off to France with another man. No kidding. They live
in a chateau and run a vineyard together. Which is actually pretty cool if you think about
it. Of course none of that was Cyrus Roses fault, but that didnt matter to Blair. As far
as Blair was concerned, Cyrus Rose was a completely annoying, fat, loser. But tonight
Blair was going to have to tolerate Cyrus Rose, because the dinner party her mother was
giving was in his honor, and all the Waldorfs family friends were there to meet him: the
Bass family and their sons Chuck and Donald; Mr. Farkas and his daughter, Kati; the
well-known actor Arthur Coates, his wife Titi, and their daughters, Isabel, Regina, and
Camilla; Captain and Mrs. Archibald and their son Nate. The only ones still missing were
Mr. and Mrs. van der Woodsen whose teenage daughter, Serena, and son, Erik, were both away
at school. Blairs mother was famous for her dinner parties, and this was her first since
her infamous divorce. The Waldorf penthouse had been expensively redecorated that summer
in deep reds and chocolate browns, and it was full of antiques and artwork that would have
impressed anyone who knew anything about art. In the center of the dining room table was
an enormous silver bowl full of white orchids, pussy willows, and chestnut tree branchesa
modern ensemble from Takashimaya, the Fifth Avenue luxury goods store. Gold-leafed place
cards lay on every porcelain plate. In the kitchen, Myrtle the cook was singing Bob Marley
songs to the soufflŽ, and the sloppy Irish maid, Esther, hadnt poured scotch down anyones

dress yet, thank God. Blair was the one getting sloppy. And if Cyrus Rose didnt stop
harassing Nate, her boyfriend, she was going to have to go over there and spill her scotch
all over his tacky Italian loafers. You and Blair have been going out a long time, am I
right? Cyrus said, punching Nate in the arm. He was trying to get the kid to loosen up a
little. All these Upper East Side kids were way too uptight. Thats what he thinks. Give
them time. You sleep with her yet? Cyrus asked. Nate turned redder than the upholstery on
the eighteenth-century French chaise next to him. Well, weve known each other practically
since we were born, he stuttered. But weve only been going out for like, a year. We dont
want to ruin it by, you know, rushing, before were ready? Nate was just spitting back the
line that Blair always gave him when he asked her if she was ready to do it or not. But he
was talking to his girlfriends mothers boyfriend. What was he supposed to say, Dude, if I
had my way wed be doing it right now? Absolutely, Cyrus Rose said. He clasped Nates
shoulder with a fleshy hand. Around his wrist was one of those gold Cartier cuff bracelets
that you screw on and never take offvery popular in the 1980s and not so popular now,
unless youve actually bought into that whole 80s revival thing. Hello? Let me give you
some advice, Cyrus told Nate, as if Nate had a choice. Dont listen to a word that girl
says. Girls like surprises. They want you to keep things interesting. You know what I
mean? Nate nodded, frowning. He tried to remember the last time hed surprised Blair. The
only thing that came to mind was the time hed brought her an ice cream cone when he picked
her up at her tennis lesson. That was over a month ago, and it was a pretty lame surprise
by any standard. At this rate, he and Blair might never have sex. Nate was one of those
boys you look at and while youre looking at them, you know theyre thinking, that girl cant
take her eyes off me because Im so hot. Although he didnt act at all conceited about it.
He couldnt help looking hot, he was just born that way. Poor guy. That night Nate was
wearing the moss-green cashmere V-neck sweater Blair had given him last Easter, when her
father had taken them skiing in Sun Valley for a week. Secretly, Blair had sewn a tiny
gold heart pendant onto the inside of one of the sweaters sleeves, so that Nate would
always be wearing her heart on his sleeve. Blair liked to think of herself as a hopeless
romantic in the style of old movie actresses like Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. She
was

always coming up with plot devices for the movie she was starring in at the moment, the
movie that was her life. I love you, Blair had told Nate breathily when she gave him the
sweater.

Me too, Nate had said back, although he wasnt exactly sure if it was true or not. When he
put the sweater on, it looked so good on him that Blair wanted to scream and rip all her
clothes off. But it seemed unattractive to scream in the heat of the momentmore femme
fatale than girl-who-gets-boyso Blair kept quiet, trying to remain fragile and
baby-birdlike in Nates arms. They kissed for a long time, their cheeks hot and cold at the
same time from being out on the slopes all day. Nate twined his fingers in Blairs hair and
pulled her down on the hotel bed. Blair put her arms above her head and let Nate begin to
undress her, until she realized where this was all heading, and that it wasnt a movie
after all, it was real. So, like a good girl, she sat up and made Nate stop.

Shed kept on making him stop right on up until today. Only two nights ago, Nate had come
over after a party with a half-drunk flask of brandy in his pocket and had lain down on
her bed and murmured, I want you, Blair. Once again, Blair had wanted to scream and jump
on top of him, but she resisted. Nate fell asleep, snoring softly, and Blair lay down next
to him and imagined that she and Nate were starring in a movie in which they were married
and he had a drinking problem, but she would stand by him always and love him forever,
even if he occasionally wet the bed.

Blair wasnt trying to be a tease, she just wasnt ready. She and Nate had barely seen each
other at all over the summer because she had gone to that horrible boot camp of a tennis
school in North Carolina, and Nate had gone sailing with his father off the coast of
Maine. Blair wanted to make sure that after spending the whole summer apart they still
loved each other as much as ever. She had wanted to wait to have sex until her seventeenth
birthday next month.

But now she was through with waiting. Nate was looking better than ever. The moss-green
sweater had turned his eyes a dark, sparkling green, and his wavy brown hair was streaked
with golden blond from his summer on the ocean. And, just like that, Blair knew she was
ready. She took another sip of her scotch. Oh, yes. She was definitely ready.

What are you two talking about? Blairs mother asked, sidling up to Nate and squeezing
Cyruss hand. Sex, Cyrus said, giving her a wet kiss on the ear.

Yuck.

Oh! Eleanor Waldorf squealed, patting her blown-out blond bob. Blairs mother was wearing
the fitted, graphite-beaded cashmere dress that Blair had helped her pick out from Armani,
and little black velvet mules. A year ago she wouldnt have fit into the dress, but she had
lost twenty pounds since she met Cyrus. She looked fantastic. Everyone thought so.

She does look thinner, Blair heard Mrs. Bass whisper to Mrs. Coates. But Ill bet shes had
a chin tuck. I bet youre right. Shes grown her hair outthats the telltale sign. It hides
the scars, Mrs. Coates whispered back. The room was abuzz with snatches of gossip about
Blairs mother and Cyrus Rose. From what Blair could hear, her mothers friends felt exactly
the same way she did, although they didnt exactly use words like annoying, fat, or loser.
I smell Old Spice, Mrs. Coates whispered to Mrs. Archibald. Do you think hes actually
wearing Old Spice? That would be the male equivalent of wearing Impulse body spray, which
everyone knows is the female equivalent of nasty. Im not sure, Mrs. Archibald whispered
back. But I think he might be. She snatched a cod-and-caper spring roll off Esthers
platter, popped it into her mouth, and chewed it vigorously, refusing to say anything
more. She couldnt bear for Eleanor Waldorf to overhear them. Gossip and idle chat were
amusing, but not at the expense of an old friends feelings. Bullshit! Blair would have
said if she could have heard Mrs. Archibalds thoughts. Hypocrite! All of these people were
terrible gossips. And if youre going to do it, why not enjoy it? Across the room, Cyrus
grabbed Eleanor and kissed her on the lips in full view of everyone. Blair shrank away
from the revolting sight of her mother and Cyrus acting like geeky teens with a crush and
turned to look out the penthouse window at Fifth Avenue and Central Park. The fall foliage
was on fire. A lone bicyclist rode out of the Seventy-second Street entrance to the park
and stopped at the hot-dog vendor on the corner to buy a bottle of water. Blair had never
noticed the hot-dog vendor before, and she wondered if he always parked there, or if he
was new. It was funny how much you could miss in what you saw every day. Suddenly Blair
was starving, and she knew just what she wanted: A hot dog. She wanted one right nowa
steaming hot Sabrette hot dog with mustard and ketchup and onions and sauerkrautand she
was going to eat it in three bites and then burp in her mothers face. If Cyrus could stick
his tongue down her mothers throat in front of all of her friends, then she could eat a
stupid hot dog.