hey people!
I can’t resist writing more about N, my new favorite topic. He is so stunningly beautiful, after all. Even if he is kind of lacking in the get-up-and-go (aka balls) department.
STONED IN CENTRAL PARK
Actually, my new favorite topic is the Waspoid—the elite version of the wasteoid, or stoner boy. Unlike the average stoner wasteoid, the Waspoid isn’t into metal or online dungeon games or skateboarding or eating raw food. He gets cute haircuts and has good skin. He smells nice, he wears the cashmere sweaters his girlfriend buys for him, he gets decent grades, and he’s sweet to his mom. He sails and plays soccer and lacrosse. He knows how to tie a necktie. He knows how to dance. He’s sexy! And he would never kill anyone. Too messy. Too final. In fact, the Waspoid never fully invests himself in anything or anyone. He isn’t a go-getter and he never says what’s on his mind. He doesn’t take risks, which is what makes him so risky to fall in love with.
You might have noticed that I’m just the opposite. Not that I’m into murdering people, but I never know when to shut up! And I seriously believe that opposites attract. I have to confess, I’m becoming a Waspoid groupie.
Apparently I’m not the only one.
YOUR E-MAIL
q:
dear gossip girl,
i hooked up majorly with N on a blanket in central park. at least, i think it’s the same N. he’s all freckly, right? does he smell like suntan lotion and weed?
—blanketbaby
a:
Dear blanketbaby,
Mmmm. I bet he does.
—GG
SIGHTINGS
B buying condoms at Zitomer Pharmacy. Lifestyles Extra-Long Super-Ribbed! What I want to know is how she knew what size to get. I guess they’ve done everything but. Afterward, B made a beeline (no pun intended!) to a cheesy nail salon on Lexington for a Brazilian bikini wax. Ouch. That’s not something you want to skimp on. Also spotted, S at the post office, either receiving or mailing a big package. Barneys baby clothes for her little French tot, maybe? Caught R and L in the 3 Guys Coffee Shop, eating fries and slurping hot cocoa again. They might have to return those cute little dresses they bought at Bendel’s the other day. Too bad Kiss Me or Die is not a muumuu party. And finally, D and V in the Hunting and Fishing department of Paragon Sports—either suiting up to film her movie or getting ready for a wild night of… hunting and fishing.
VOCAB
Since so many of you have been asking, I’m going to answer the big question that’s been baffling you since you found out about the Kiss Me or Die party.
Here we go. According to my handy Webster’s unabridged dictionary:
bird of prey, n. any number of flesh-eating birds, as the eagle, hawk, owl, vulture, etc.
I’m sure I had you on the edge of your seat over that one. Just trying to keep you in the know. That’s my job. Besides, the birds aren’t the only ones stalking their prey these days.
See you in the park!
You know you love me,
a boy’s guide to hunting and fishing
Paragon Sports, the only sporting goods superstore in all of Manhattan, located on Broadway near Union Square, carried a large selection of impressive-looking hunting knives. Vanessa and Dan had arranged to meet there during his PE class and her free study period after lunch in order to equip Dan with a suitable costume to wear as deranged killer Mickey Knox in her remake of Natural Born Killers.
Right now Dan was wearing a tight white O’Neill kids’ sleeveless rash guard tucked into a pair of men’s size extra-small slim-fit green camouflage cargo pants by The North Face, a shiny black faux-leather Patagonia women’s size extra-small belt, black Red Wing men’s work boots, and some sort of black polyester webbing over-the-shoulder harness that was supposed to carry a yoga mat, but which Vanessa was sure they could make good use of as Mickey Knox’s multi-weapon holster.
“I look like one of the Village People,” Dan mumbled, regarding himself in the full-length mirror beside the upstairs hunting knife display. The white rash guard emphasized his bony rib cage and skinny arms. Vanessa hadn’t told him he’d have to dress like a tool before he’d agreed to be in her movie.
Vanessa ignored him as she studied the knives. Mickey Knox was an ace knife-thrower. Of course he carried guns too, but for those she’d have to go to Toys R Us. Even a toy gun was risky on the Brooklyn Bridge though. Unless it was neon orange or electric green, someone might mistake it for a real gun and call the police. Knives were safer.
And way cooler. She’d never appreciated how pretty knives could be, with their variously carved handles and curved, finely pointed blades. And then there was the Leatherman, which included a knife, a pair of scissors, two screwdrivers, an Allen wrench, and a saw, and came in a neat little leather sleeve.
“May I ask what you need a hunting knife for?” said the sporty-looking geek behind the display. He wore thick, black-framed glasses and had long sideburns and probably went to NYU, Vanessa thought enviously. She bet he rock-climbed in the Palisades in New Jersey on the weekends and lived in a grubby, loud studio apartment on the Lower East Side on some dismally cool street over a bar, where people like Blair Waldorf would never dream of setting foot.
“It’s a prop. For a movie I’m making.” Vanessa grinned and pointed at Dan. “He’s going to slice open a lot of innocent people with it.”
Dan glanced down at his stupid cargo pants with the tags dangling from the belt loops. He wished he could change.
“It has to look impressive,” Vanessa told the sales guy. She pointed to a fourteen-inch textured steel bowie knife in the display. “That one’s nice.”
Dan peered over her shoulder. The knife was huge and beautiful, with a gold and white pearl inlaid titanium handle and a wide blue steel blade that only tapered at the very end, like a mini-machete.
The salesman sucked in his breath and pulled his purple plaid flannel shirt away from his chest in a gesture that suggested the room was heating up. “Yup. That is a nice one. For a total of $4,500.”
Vanessa frowned. Maybe she should have gone to a cooking store. A nice sharp carving knife probably only cost around thirty bucks.
The salesman picked up the knife and set it down on top of the glass display case. “Comes with a hand-stitched leather sheath and its own sharpener.” He ran his thumb over the blade. “Feel that,” he said, holding the knife up for Dan and Vanessa to touch.
Dan pressed his entire hand against the sharpest part of the blade, pulling it away again before the salesman could see he’d drawn blood. “Cool.”
Vanessa didn’t want to touch it. What was the point? She was already spending a small fortune on Dan’s outfit. “Do you have anything in the thirty- to fifty-dollar range?”
The salesman put the knife down and leaned toward her. His breath smelled like Altoids. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you have this one on loan if you bring it back safe and sound. No one’s going to buy it anyway. Hunting’s not real big in Manhattan.”
Is that so?
“You would do that?” Vanessa asked incredulously. Every time she ventured below Twenty-third Street the people just got nicer and nicer.
Dan sucked on his bleeding hand.
“You can return the clothes too,” the sales guy said, lowering his voice. He jerked his chin at Dan. “As long as he doesn’t soil them,” he added, implying that Dan was mentally challenged and might have trouble keeping his pants clean. “Keep the tags on, hold on to the receipt, and bring them back within thirty days. My girlfriend works as an assistant props stylist for commercials. They do it all the time.”
Vanessa wanted to hug him, but that wouldn’t be cool. Besides, he had a girlfriend, and she was supposed to be in love with Dan. “Thank you. Thank you so, so much.”
She glanced at Dan. He was staring at the knife, still sucking on his hand.
“Go get changed so we can pay,” Vanessa told him. Sometimes she wondered if Dan was a little slow. Maybe he just needed
to eat something.
Dan wandered back to the dressing room where he’d left his school clothes, marveling at how good his own blood tasted. Maybe Jenny was on to something. Maybe if he tried it, he’d enjoy the taste of raw meat.
As he changed back into his regular clothes, Mickey Knox’s lines from Vanessa’s script reverberated in his head. “Life is fragile and absurd. Murdering someone’s not so hard.”
Dan bent down to tie his Converse sneakers, tugging violently at the laces and knotting them tight. A true poet, he could see the words from the script in his head, each letter distinct, with glistening edges. He moved a letter here, added one there, deleted a few, until they aligned to form a new haiku:
Rage, hate, pretty knife—
October moon, tight white shirt.
This blade cuts through bone.
s tries to improve herself
“Well, it’s wonderful to have you back, dear,” Ms. Glos, the Constance Billard School’s elderly college advisor, told Serena. She picked her glasses up from where they were hanging around her neck on a gold chain and slid them onto her nose so she could examine Serena’s schedule, which was lying on her desk. “Let’s see, now. Mmmm,” she muttered, reading over the schedule.
Serena sat in front of Ms. Glos with her legs crossed, waiting patiently. There were no diplomas on Ms. Glos’s wall, no evidence of any accreditations at all, just pictures of her grandchildren. Serena wondered if Ms. Glos had even gone to college. You would have thought if she were going to dish out advice on the subject she could have at least tried it.
Ms. Glos cleared her throat. “Yes, well, your schedule is perfectly acceptable. Not stellar, mind you, but adequate. I imagine you’re making up for it with extracurriculars, yes?”
Serena shrugged her shoulders and allowed herself a small, embarrassed grin. If you can call drinking Pernod and dancing naked on a beach in Cannes an extracurricular.
What about setting people on fire, or scalping them? Or how about having sex with your best friend’s boyfriend—twice?
“Not really,” she said. “I mean, I’m not actually signed up for any extracurricular activities at the moment.”
Ms. Glos let her glasses drop. Her nostrils were turning very red and Serena wondered if she was about to have a bloody nose. Of course, Serena was used to blood, but she didn’t know if she could handle one of Ms. Glos’s famous bloody noses. The college advisor’s hair was thin and white and her skin was very pale, with a yellowish tinge. All the girls thought she had some terrible, ancient contagious disease like bubonic plague or leprosy.
“No extracurriculars? But what are you doing to improve yourself?”
Serena gave Ms. Glos a polite, blank look. Who said she needed improving?
“I see. Well, we’ll have to get you involved in something, won’t we?” Ms. Glos said. “I’m afraid the colleges aren’t going to even look at you without any extracurriculars.” She bent over and pulled a big loose-leaf binder out of a drawer in her desk and began flipping through pages and pages of flyers printed on colored paper. “Here’s something that starts this week. ‘Feng Shui Flowers, the Art of Floral Design.’ ”
She looked up at Serena, who was frowning doubtfully. “No, you’re right. That’s not going to get you into Harvard, is it?” She pushed up the sleeves of her blouse and flipped briskly through the binder’s pages. She wasn’t about to give up after only one try. She was very good at her job.
Serena gnawed on her thumbnail. She hadn’t thought about this. That colleges would actually need her to be anything more than she already was. And she definitely wanted to go to college. A good one. Her parents certainly expected her to go to one of the best schools. Not that they put any pressure on her—but it went without saying. And the more Serena thought about it, the more she realized she really didn’t have anything going for her. She’d been kicked out of boarding school, her grades had fallen, she had no idea what was going on in any of her classes, and she had no legal hobbies or cool after-school activities except browsing exotic weaponry websites, giving herself Dead Sea mud facials, taking catnaps, and hooking up with Nate. Her SAT scores sucked because her mind always wandered during those stupid fill-in-the-bubble tests, and when she took them again, they would probably suck even worse. Basically, she was screwed.
What about her death toll? Surely that would stand out on an application.
“What about drama? Your English grades are quite good; you’d like drama,” Ms. Glos suggested. “They’ve only been rehearsing this one for a little over a week. It’s the Interschool Drama Club doing a modern version of Sweeney Todd.” She looked up again. “How ’bout it?”
Serena jiggled her foot up and down and chewed on her pinky nail. She tried to imagine herself onstage, singing in a musical. She would have to dance too, wear a corset and a hoopskirt. Maybe even a wig. She’d seen Sweeney Todd. It was all about a barber who cut his customers’ throats and then pulled a lever in the barber’s chair, dumping the poor customer into the basement where his accomplice, Mrs. Lovett, would dispose of them by making them into mince pies, which she sold at her bakery next door. The drama club at Hanover had staged the musical last winter, providing Serena with much inspiration.
She took the flyer from Ms. Glos’s hand, careful not to touch the paper where the diseased woman had touched it. “Maybe,” she said doubtfully.
Ms. Glos closed the binder. “Your friend Blair Waldorf might be able to help,” she suggested. “Blair has always participated in so many marvelous extracurricular activities. Sometimes I wonder how she does it.” She smiled fondly. “Blair’s applying early admission to Yale, you know.”
Blair. Serena’s heart rate quickened. Her hackles rose. Blair.
Blair was so smart, so perfect, so Ivy League–bound. Blair had Nate. Blair had friends and a sweet little brother who still lived at home. Blair had a pretty pedigreed cat and an amazing selection of Christian Louboutin shoes. Blair was going to Yale, and she was going nowhere.
Hot white anger coursed into Serena’s blood, energizing her body like sugar. She ground her molars together. “Good for Blair,” she said bitterly.
Ms. Glos squeezed her red-tinged nostrils between her thumb and forefinger. “Oh dear, I think I might be having one of my spells.”
Serena tossed aside the perky drama flyer and rose to her feet.
“Here, have a tissue,” she offered and plunged her hand inside the Kleenex box on Ms. Glos’s desk. She yanked out the entire wad of tissues. Folders and papers slid to the floor as she lunged across the desk and began to shove the tissues up the surprised college admissions advisor’s nostrils, into her open mouth, and down her throat. One by one, Serena balled up the tissues and stuffed them in, finishing off with the crumpled Sweeney Todd flyer and suffocating the white-haired, jaundiced woman completely.
Winded, Serena clambered off the desk, straightened her skirt, and pulled up her knee socks, feeling slightly aghast at her own behavior. Killing a teacher for suggesting that she try out for a musical was so rash, something Blair would do, not her.
Alas, S. Peer pressure preys on even the best of us.
The final classes of the day were just letting out. The Sweeney Todd rehearsal was in the auditorium but didn’t start until six, so that girls who participated in after-school sports could also be in the play. Serena walked up Constance’s wide central stairwell to the fourth floor to retrieve her coat from her locker and see if anyone wanted to hang out. All around her, girls were flying past, a blur of end of the day energy, rushing to their next meeting, practice, rehearsal, or club. Out of habit, the younger girls paused for half a second to say hello to Serena, because ever since they could remember, to be seen talking to Serena van der Woodsen was to be seen.
“Hey, Serena,” Elizabeth Young, a junior, sang out before diving down the stairs for Glee Club in the basement music room. Please don’t follow me, she prayed silently, crossing her fingers as she went.
“Later, Serena,” mutter
ed Anna Quintana, the sophomore sports prodigy, speed-walking by in her gym shorts and cleats. Why didn’t I take kickboxing instead of soccer? she scolded herself. Then I could take you on.
“See you tomorrow, Serena,” Lily Reed, a freshman, chirped softly, blushing down at her riding breeches. Sometimes I have dreams that I’m a knight on horseback and I gallop up to you on my horse and loan you my lance.
“Bye,” snarled tough Carmen Fortier, one of the few scholarship girls in the junior class. Carmen was headed to the Art of Floral Design Club, although she told her friends in her Bronx neighborhood that she took karate. Wow. Her hair is so not extensions. It’s totally real.
Suddenly the hallway was empty. Serena opened her locker, pulled her plastic Burberry raincoat off the hook, and put it on. Then she slammed her locker shut and trotted downstairs and out the school doors, turning left down Ninety-third Street toward Central Park.
There was a box of orange Tic Tacs in her pocket with only one Tic Tac left. Serena fished the Tic Tac out and put it on her tongue, but Ms. Glos had made her feel so anxious about her future that she could barely taste it.
She crossed Fifth Avenue, walking along the sidewalk that bordered the park. Fallen leaves scattered the pavement. Down the block, two little Sacred Heart girls in their cute red and white–checked pinafores were walking an enormous black rottweiler.
Guard dogs seem to be getting more and more popular these days.
A cluster of vultures flapped up from the treetops and soared over Fifth Avenue toward Constance Billard. Serena thought about entering the park at Eighty-ninth Street and sitting down for a while to kill time before doing her homework.
Better to kill time than people.
But alone? What would she do, bird-watch? Instead, she went home.
Nine ninety-four Fifth Avenue was a stark, white-glove building next to the Stanhope Hotel and directly across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The van der Woodsens owned half of the top floor. Their apartment had fourteen rooms, including five bedrooms with private bathrooms, a maid’s apartment, a ballroom-sized living room, and two seriously cool lounges with wet bars and huge entertainment systems.
Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer Page 12