Vanessa was pretty sure that everything she’d heard was completely bogus, but it couldn’t hurt to mention it to Dan.
“What do you mean?” Dan said. “What stories?”
“Like she manufactures her own drug called S, and she has some pretty bad STDs,” Vanessa said. “And she possibly might have murdered some kid up at boarding school. I really don’t want to deal with that.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Dan demanded.
“I have my sources,” Vanessa insisted vaguely.
A bus roared up Madison on its way to the Cloisters. On the side of it was a massive photograph of a belly button. Or was it a gunshot wound? Scrawled in blue girly writing on the side of the poster was the name “Serena.”
Vanessa stared after the bus. Was she losing her mind? Or was Serena really and truly everywhere? Every last bit of her?
“I just don’t think she’s right for us,” Vanessa insisted, hoping Dan would come around if she used the word us. It was their movie, not just hers. “Besides,” Vanessa said, remembering her footage of that L’Ecole girl, splayed on the pizza boxes, and of the body she’d just discovered in the darkroom. “I’ve been getting all this amazing background stuff for the movie. I’m beginning to think I don’t need actors. It’ll be like, a documentary almost.”
“Fine,” Dan responded coldly. The words from the angry, life-is-shit Bash haiku he’d just translated came into his head:
Fleas, lice,
a horse peeing
near my pillow.
“So, want to come out with me and Ruby in Brooklyn tomorrow night?” Vanessa asked, eager to change the subject.
“Nah.” Dan clicked off and tossed the phone angrily into his black courier bag.
That morning Jenny had stumbled into his room, eyes all bloodshot, hands covered in red ink, and dropped an invitation to that stupid birds of prey party on the floor beside his bed. He’d actually dared to think that since he was going to be Serena’s costar, he might take her to the goddamned party as his date. Now, that little dream was all shot to hell.
Dan couldn’t believe it. His one chance to get to know Serena was gone because Vanessa wanted to exercise her artistic license to make the worst film ever made. It was unbelievable. More unbelievable still was that Vanessa, queen of the alterna-rebel scene, had stooped to spreading rumors about a girl she barely knew. Maybe Constance was finally rubbing off on her.
Oh, don’t be a spoilsport. Gossip is sexy. Gossip is good. Not everybody does it, but everybody should!
Dan headed back across Broadway toward school. Chuck Bass was standing outside the school doors with Jeffrey Prescott and Roger Paine, smoking Marlboros.
“Just wait ’til I get her up in my suite,” Chuck was saying. “She can slice me and dice me as many ways as she wants to.”
Dan paused to eavesdrop, pretending to check the messages on his phone.
“You think Serena could really off someone?” Jeffrey said. “Like, with her bare hands?”
“Bare hands. Bare everything!” Chuck crowed.
“Shit.” Roger shook his head. “You think she’s the one making all those Constance babes disappear?”
Chuck shrugged his shoulders. “Only chicks gone are the ugly ones, so it’s not like I’m heartbroken.”
“Survival of the fittest!” Jeffrey shouted, slapping palms with Chuck.
Dan lit another cigarette and then tossed it aside without smoking it. He felt a little sick. Not because he believed what Chuck and his friends were saying, but because for the first time in his life he truly felt angry enough to kill someone other than himself. Angry enough that he could taste Chuck’s rich, coppery blood as it streamed out of the stumps left by his severed tongue and amputated pigskin loafer–wearing feet.
Or maybe it was just instant coffee residue, all gunked up on his molars.
A bus stopped at a light right in front of the school. First Dan noticed Serena’s name. It was scrawled in blue, in messy girl’s handwriting on a giant black and white poster of what looked like a rosebud. It was beautiful.
He turned his attention back to Chuck.
Oh roses so red—
my blood is not blue.
You fuck with me, and I’ll kill you.
little j, little j, run for your life
Jenny felt like a zombie on Thursday from missing a whole night’s sleep, but she was actually still alive, which was something to be proud of these days. She’d gotten all the Kiss Me or Die invitations done—calligraphied by hand, with a perfect little heart-shaped blood red ink spatter on each one—and now she and Dan each had an invitation of their very own. The rest of the invitations were all wrapped up in a plastic Gristedes bag in her backpack, ready to be hand delivered to Blair Waldorf the moment Jenny saw her.
It was already lunchtime and Jenny was ravenous. Last night, in a rare eating frenzy, her pig of a brother had devoured all her raw ground beef. The only meat left was a can of Marx’s vile-smelling Fancy Feast, but Marx had gobbled it right up the minute Jenny spooned it into a bowl.
Bypassing the grilled cheese sandwiches and Dannon yogurt, Jenny wrangled two raw hot dogs and three raw tuna sushi rolls out of the Constance lunch ladies, then stopped off at the salad bar to stock up on boiled eggs. She carried her feast to the far corner of the cafeteria, looking for a quiet table where she could make up the homework she’d skipped last night.
With only her backpack for company, she began pulling raw tuna strips out of their seaweed and cold rice casing, wrapping them around pieces of raw hot dog before stuffing the whole lot into her mouth. As she chewed she began to notice how eerily quiet the cafeteria was.
Every day it seemed to grow quieter and quieter. Some of the loudest girls were dead or missing. Some girls’ parents were keeping them home from school, just to be safe. In less than a week the noise inside the cafeteria had gone from loud hysterics to hushed information-infused whispers to a completely dead and stony silence.
It was totally creepy. But at least it meant Jenny could get a good table.
She whacked a boiled egg against her tray and began to peel it, scattering broken white eggshells all over her navy blue uniform and onto her plate. The egg was not quite hard-boiled, and she quickly sucked out the yellow yolk, reveling in the almost-raw taste of the soft, sulfuric gunk.
A cold draft ran through the cafeteria. Goosebumps stood out on her arms and legs. Did someone open a window?
Jenny shivered and glanced behind her, choking when she saw Serena van der Woodsen coming out of the lunch line and making a beeline for her table. Was Serena actually going to sit with her, live and in person?
More to the point: Would she live to tell the tale?
Jenny put down her mangled egg and tried to compose her face into a semi-cool expression. Deep breath in, deep breath out.
“Hi!” Serena beamed at Jenny and set down her tray. “You’re the girl from the bathroom.” You’re lucky to be alive, she almost added, but she didn’t want to be mean.
God, Serena was beautiful. Her hair was the pale gold color some of the other Constance girls tried to achieve by spending four hours at the hair salon. But hers was natural. Or maybe she was some kind of albino.
“Hungry?” Serena asked, pointing at Jenny’s messy tray.
Jenny nodded, speechless in the presence of such greatness.
“I can’t eat again ’til dinner,” Serena sighed, resting her beautiful head on her arms. “I ate six cookies this morning. I’m such a pig.”
Jenny poked at her hot dogs. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten two. Serena probably thought she was some sort of glutton. And she couldn’t believe they were talking. Like friends. Just hanging out.
“Oh!” Jenny exclaimed, remembering the invitations. She reached into her backpack and pulled out the Gristedes bag. “I just finished the invitations for that big party next week that everyone’s going to,” she gushed, eager to impress.
Serena lifted her head. “What part
y?”
Jenny opened the Gristedes bag and sorted through the stack of thick, cream-colored envelopes. “You know, the one Blair Waldorf’s running?” She came to an envelope with Serena’s name printed on it in ornate gold calligraphy. The red ink spatter heart on this one was particularly well executed. She handed the envelope to Serena. “The guest list Blair gave me still had your boarding school address. I was going to slip it into your locker or something,” she said, blushing. “But now that you’re here…”
Serena frowned down at the envelope in her hand. “Thanks.”
You sound like a stalker, Jenny scolded herself. Slip it into her locker? You didn’t have to say that!
Serena ripped open the envelope and read the invitation inside, her eyes dark, her forehead creased.
Oh, God. She thinks it’s ugly! Jenny panicked, all the while taking mental notes on how to act as mysterious, poised, and cool as Serena was acting at that very moment.
If only she could have heard the livid thoughts in Serena’s head, railing against Blair. She didn’t want me to come to the party. She didn’t even tell me there was a party. How selfish. How mean. She totally deserves to die.
“Ginny? What are you doing?”
Both Jenny and Serena turned to look. Blair stood just a few feet away, her foxlike face flushed and angry-looking.
“Ginny, can I talk to you for a moment in private?” Blair called. “We can go in the darkroom.”
Serena grabbed Jenny’s arm protectively. “Don’t go anywhere with her,” she whispered. “You stay right here.”
“Ginny?” Blair intoned angrily. “I’m speaking to you.”
It was terrifying to disobey Blair Waldorf, but Jenny listened to Serena and stayed frozen in her spot. She held up the Gristedes bag. “I have the invitations,” she told Blair. “See? They’re all done.” She pointed at Serena’s. “I think they turned out great.”
Blair came over and snatched away the flimsy Gristedes bag. “I hope you’re not handing them out to just anyone,” she snapped.
Jenny’s face flushed. The cafeteria was even quieter than it had been before.
Serena wondered what would happen if she grabbed Jenny’s fork and stabbed Blair in the neck. It probably wouldn’t kill her. She could throw her through a window afterwards, but that might not kill her either.
“Serena was on the list,” Jenny said defensively.
Blair smirked. It was all she could do to restrain herself from wrapping the dinky plastic Gristedes bag around Ginny’s perky little face and suffocating her, but then the party invitations would get creased and that would never do.
“Jenny corrected my address,” Serena said coldly.
“I can see that,” Blair replied.
“It sounds like a great party,” Serena enthused fakely.
“It’s a really good cause,” Blair answered fakely back. She glared down at little Ginny, who seemed so thrilled to be caught in the middle of their conversation. If only I had a pole, Blair thought. A long, sharp pole. I could ram it right through Ginny’s rib cage and then right through Serena’s too. Right into the wall, where I’d let them hang, like warning flags: Don’t mess with Blair Waldorf, or you’ll wind up stuck on a pole, hanging from the wall.
“Guess I better get a new dress,” Serena observed, rising to her feet. She was taller than Blair, and she was wearing her boots. She could probably stomp Blair to death if she stomped for long enough.
“Me too!” Jenny clapped her hands together. Life was full of miracles. As long as she could stay alive, it would only get better and better. She grinned giddily up at Serena. “Blair let me make an invitation for myself.”
“You’re lucky,” Serena said, reaching for Jenny’s fork.
“Really lucky,” Blair agreed, stuffing the invitations into her red Longchamp tote. She’d wanted to strangle little Ginny in the darkroom to pay her back for intervening, but the invitations had to be stamped and mailed, and she was running out of time. She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow at Serena and attempted a smile.
“See you tomorrow night?”
Serena stabbed the fork into one of Jenny’s hot dogs and attempted to smile back. “I can hardly wait.”
Tension like this might call for something sharper than a fork.
hey people!
S AND B HEAT UP THE HOT TUB!
This just in from an anonymous source: Apparently, back when they were still inseparable, S and B used to spend a lot of time together in the hot tub. I’m not talking about the wooden barrel hot tub Olga and Jurgen have out back behind the cottage in Sweden. I’m talking about the notoriously big and swanky marble hot tub in C’s suite at the Tribeca Star. Between soakings, S and B were known to beat each other’s naked bodies raw with green willow sticks. Two silly drunk girls practicing a sacred Eastern European spa treatment, or an expression of their true feelings? Maybe they’ve hated each other all along!
LADY GAGA, S, AND ME
In case you haven’t seen the poster plastered on all the buses, taxis, and subways all over town, the original photo of S can still be seen at the Whitehot Gallery in Chelsea, amidst portraits of other notorious scenesters, myself included. Bet your bottom, darling! The Remi brothers know a good one when they see it. And now you can see it too. Wink, wink. An icon knows a good icon when she sees it, and I can tell you, like Warhol before them, the Remis are icons-in-the-making. All they have to do now is die young, which isn’t such a challenge these days.
YOUR E-MAIL
q:
Dear Gossip Girl,
I won’t tell you who I am, but I’m in the Remi brothers show too. I really love their work, and I love the picture they took of me, but no way would I let them put it on the side of a bus. If you ask me, S is asking for it.
—Anonomy
a:
Dear Anonomy,
It’s cool to be modest, but personally, if you wanted to put any bit of me on the side of a bus, I’d be willing. Nobody knows you if nobody knows you.
—GG
SIGHTINGS
Little J buying twelve pounds of ground chuck at Gristedes. Fueling up for a big night, J? N hanging out with C at a bar over on First Avenue. Guess N wants to keep his eye on C so C doesn’t spill the beans, huh? V filming rats in the subway. No comment. And B, buying candles and body paint at Ricky’s on Seventy-eighth and Lex for her big night with N. Body paint? No comment.
That’s all for now. See you at brunch with the parents on Sunday.
You know you love me,
friday the thirteenth: the showdown
The Star Lounge in the Tribeca Star Hotel was big and swanky, filled with comfy black velvet armchairs and ottomans and circular black velvet banquettes, so that the guests could feel like they were having their own private party at each table. The walls were painted dark purple with the ash from that big Icelandic volcano thrown at them, giving the place an eerie, celestial air. Panda bear rugs were tossed willy-nilly across the floor. Black candles flickered on low black-lacquered tables. A famous DJ wearing a hockey mask played the soundtracks to old movies like Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Exorcist, layering in sitar music and chill dance beats. It was only eight o’clock, but the Star Lounge was the bar of the moment, and it was already jammed with people, all dressed in the hottest fashions and sipping the newest cocktail concoctions.
Blair didn’t care what time it was or what she was wearing or what she drank—she just needed a drink.
The stupid bitch of a cocktail waitress was ignoring her because she was wearing faded Hudson jeans and a boring black sweater. Pretty soon, though, she’d be naked, greeting Nate at the door, her body covered in paint.
Sex was a big deal, and Blair had decided to decorate herself with body paint for the occasion, with colorful, suggestive arrows and street signs leading to all the right places, sort of like a Keith Haring painting. Nate was going to love it. Her face grew hot just thinking about it! She looked around the room self-consciously. She fel
t like a loser sitting all by herself without even a drink. Where was Serena, anyway? She didn’t have all goddamned night. She still had to straighten her hair and pick the right glasses for the wine.
If Serena doesn’t show up within five minutes, I’m going to shove that burning black candle up that rude cocktail waitress’s left nostril, and then get the fuck out of here, she told herself sulkily.
“Ooh. Look at her,” Blair heard a woman whisper to her friend. “Isn’t she something?”
Blair turned to look. And of course it was Serena.
She wore blue suede knee-high boots and a real Pucci-print minidress with swirls of neon blue, traffic cone orange, and lime green. The dress was long-sleeved with a mock turtleneck and a beaded crystal belt. In an ode to Vidal Sassoon, Serena had pulled her hair into a high, tight ponytail on top of her head, with the ponytail part swooping down toward her perfect chin in an angular blond Nike swoosh. Pale blue eye shadow brought out the lake blue of her eyes, and her smiling lips wore a creamy shade of light pink. She waved at Blair from across the room and wove her way through the crowd. Blair watched the heads turn as she passed, and her stomach churned. Just wait ’til she choked them all with the belt of Serena’s tacky Pucci dress.
“Hi!” Serena plunked herself down on the black velvet ottoman beside Blair’s chair.
Immediately, the cocktail waitress appeared.
“Missy,” Serena greeted her with a warm kiss.
“Hey!” Missy exclaimed, delighted that Serena remembered her name. “My sister said she saw you a few days back at a party she was working down in Chelsea. Said that’s you in the picture on all those buses. That true?”
Blair rolled her eyes in disgust. All she wanted was a fucking drink.
“That’s me. Pretty crazy, huh?”
“You are so rad!” Missy squealed. She glanced at Blair, who was glaring at her. “What can I get you girls?”
Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer Page 16