I Will Always Love You

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  Cue the Joni Mitchell sound track….

  She’d sat on her bed in her empty apartment last night, leafing through scripts her agent had sent along. She could be a young woman looking for love in the city; she could be the beautiful former golden girl who gets sucked into a downward spiral of coke and vodka; she could be the love interest, a beautiful but vacuous blonde who was only the end goal; or, for a real change of pace, she could be the bitchy villain in a superhero movie, wearing a leather catsuit and a dark wig.

  Serena didn’t want to be in any of those movies. She didn’t want to be in any movies, period. Sure, the press junkets, the swag, the glitz and glamour had been fun at first, but they’d quickly lost their appeal. Instead, she’d thought a lot about what Dan Humphrey had said, about Columbia giving him the chance to think and learn and explore. The more and more she thought about it, the more appealing college seemed. Where else could she spend her time reading and growing up and figuring out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life?

  Just this morning, she’d summoned her courage and made a call to the Yale admissions office, to let them know her deferral period was over. Now she was officially in, ready to matriculate next fall. She’d told her parents and brother at brunch. There was only one other person who needed to know.

  I’m sure that person will be thrilled.

  “Your friend coming?” the server asked dubiously, picking up Serena’s now-empty vodka soda.

  “Who knows?” Serena sighed. She knew Blair was staying at the Tribeca Star, and was counting on her coming in or out at some point in the evening. But she’d already been waiting for an hour, and so far, no sign of her. “I’ll have another one.”

  Serena glanced up at the entrance again. If she didn’t come in five minutes, she was leaving.

  That won’t be necessary.

  Sweeping into the bar, not bothering to take off her oversize Louis Vuitton sunglasses, was Blair. She wore a dark pair of skinny jeans and an oversize black sweater, looking like a more glamorous version of Katie Holmes.

  “Blair!” Serena called, standing up and waving wildly. Blair flicked her eyes to Serena’s corner, as if she were completely uninterested or unimpressed to see her there.

  Blair put her hands on her hips and glared at her former friend. What the fuck was Serena doing here? First Nate, now this? That was it, she was never coming back to New York after this trip. She’d have bagels FedExed to her in New Haven and deal with the Barneys at The Grove when she visited her mom in LA. She could probably go through the rest of her life never coming to the city again.

  “What are you doing here?” Blair finally asked. She felt like hell. She’d barely slept last night. Chuck had been true to his word and had picked her up for brunch. It might have been fun—Chuck had ridiculous stories about life at Deep Springs, and had done his best to avoid the topic of Nate—but Blair had been hungover and shaky and tired. She’d been napping on and off all afternoon. She probably looked like hell, too. She was still wearing the same jeans-and-sweater combination she’d been wearing last night, but no way did she want to go back to her own hotel room and take the chance of running into Nate or Pete. She was sure they were both gone by now—long gone. But just in case.

  “I wanted to see you. Please sit down?” Serena begged. Blair paused, but then reluctantly slid onto a leather ottoman opposite Serena.

  “What is it?” Blair snapped.

  Serena took a deep breath. At first she wanted to tell Blair everything: that she’d been burned by Nate, that she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Dan Humphrey for two days, and that, most important, she was going to Yale. But she didn’t know where to begin.

  “Vodka soda?” the server said, plunking a tumbler on top of a pink star-shaped coaster. “And what would your friend like?”

  “Nothing.” Blair impatiently waved the server away with her hand. “You came to tell me something?” Blair asked pointedly, as if she were conducting a job interview with someone who had absolutely no shot in hell of getting the position.

  “Look, I know you’re mad at me. I’m sorry. I hate how we fight. It’s so pointless. And I wanted you to know—I’m coming to Yale next fall,” Serena blurted. “We’ll be at the same school again—without Mrs. McLean watching us!” she joked, hoping Blair would laugh, remembering their Talbots pantsuit–loving former headmistress. Blair just raised her eyebrow and sighed.

  The sound track at the bar suddenly changed to a cheesy pop song, reminding Serena of how much fun the two of them used to have, back when they would dance around her bedroom until they collapsed in a tired heap on top of each other. Back before Nate came between them. Serena managed a watery smile. “Can’t we be friends?” she asked finally.

  Blair stared into Serena’s large blue eyes, which looked so innocent and pleading. They’d had so many fights, followed by so many teary makeup sessions. For a moment, Blair wanted to throw her arms around Serena and tell her everything would be okay, that they would always be friends. But that wasn’t exactly true. Everything wasn’t okay. Serena had stolen Nate, had cost her Pete, and now wanted to come to Yale—and who knew what she would do once she got there?

  Blair stood up. Maybe forgiveness had worked in the past, but she had to move forward. And her future had no place for Serena. Serena had taken Nate from her and now that she’d already lost him, she wanted to take Yale. She could have it. Blair wasn’t going to be around to watch.

  “Actually, I’m going abroad next year, so we won’t really see each other.” She slung her Chloé hobo bag over her shoulder. “’Bye!” she called, not bothering to look back.

  Au revoir…

  III

  hey people!

  a note to all you study abroaders

  We know who you are. We can hear and smell you from a mile away. You’re the guys and girls who pronounce everything with a slightly clipped British accent, like Madonna, or roll your r’s even when you’re speaking English. You’re the ones talking about how the siesta really suits you, or how a glass of wine with lunch really calms the nerves. You’re the ones who won’t shut up about how much better your adopted country is—even though you’ve spent most of your first semester getting drunk with fellow study abroaders and you can only say one sentence in the language of your host country: “Where’s the bathroom?” or “toilet,” as they say in the U.K.

  Don’t get me wrong—I understand the appeal of your international environs. Take a look at B. Even though a bevy of well-bred British boys have been following her through the medieval streets of Oxford, she’s been spotted drinking pints and sharing snogs with a fellow American… a very familiar one. Is it just me, or are American boys that much sexier when they go abroad?

  on the home front

  I haven’t forgotten about all of you who stayed stateside. My first subject: S, current cause célèbre at Yale. Sadly for the Yale drama club and all the other school societies eager to claim her as a member, she’s practically a part-time student, hopping on the Metro North every Thursday afternoon after Moral Philosophy class. Her destination? The Upper West Side, where she spends most of her time holed up with D. Those two only venture out occasionally, blissfully disheveled, for pancakes and coffee on Sunday mornings. Boring couple alert!

  Meanwhile, V has been keeping a low profile at her Williamsburg loft, occasionally emerging to walk her adorable dog. Whatever happened to that filmmaker boyfriend of hers? It’s an awfully big apartment for just one person. N has been spotted out at Deep Springs, his eyes glittering for one girl only… a newborn albino calf named Gertie. Or perhaps I should refer to her as Baby G? Finally, little J is back in the city for the holidays, last seen lunching at Balthazar and poring over college catalogs with her dark-haired, violet-eyed boarding school friend. Is our little J all grown up? All I can say is, boarding school has been very good to her.

  your e-mail

  q: Dear Gossip Girl,

  So, I’m a freshman and when I got my housing assi
gnment last August, I was thrilled to find out I was rooming with S. As in, the famous S. But she’s never around, and when she is, all she does is read philosophy and have sappy convos on her cell with her boyfriend. Isn’t she supposed to be the dancing-on-tables life-of-the-party? What happened?

  —roomie

  a: Dear Roomie,

  It’s called acting far beyond her years, because she’s all boring and married. Hopefully she’ll grow out of it soon and will start having fun with the rest of us. Or at least attempting to entertain us again.

  —GG

  sightings

  J piled in a car with S and D. Destination: Providence, Rhode Island. Can’t believe she’s ready to tour colleges!… B being picked up at Logan Airport in Boston by her gay dad, H, his new husband, and her adopted stepbrother and sister. What a beautiful, accepting family!… N at Grand Central, drinking a large coffee and glancing wistfully at the clock in the center of the station. Headed somewhere, or just remembering the road not taken?… V walking her chow-poodle mix around Williamsburg, watching all the hipster couples holding hands. Lonely much?

  college confidential

  For most of us, the exhausting process of choosing a college is in our distant past. But for those of you using the holiday break to plan your future, here’s a helpful hint: College tours never give an accurate representation of what your experience will be like. You may never even set foot in that fabulous science library or use the multimillion-dollar athletic complex. But you do have to make friends. My advice: Go on a tour of your own and see what—or who—you come across.

  You know you love me,

  gossip girl

  an almost missed connection

  “This is the John Hay Library,” Naomi, Nate’s tour guide at Brown, explained, stopping in front of a large Gothic building in the chilly late-December afternoon. The aged brick buildings of the Brown campus looked stately in the crisp winter air and there was a light dusting of snow on the campus green. “It houses our collection of rare books. Most students prefer to study at the John D. Rockefeller library, which we call the Rock,” Naomi continued with a smile. She was a pixieish junior with spiky short brown hair who majored in feminist dance, and had proudly explained that Brown allowed its undergrads to design their own major. Back in high school, Nate had thought designing a major seemed cool, but now it seemed sort of dumb. What was feminist dance, anyway?

  I’m sure he could get a private lesson.

  “They say rubbing the nose of the John Hay statue brings good luck.” Naomi rolled her eyes as if to show how ridiculous she thought the tradition was. It didn’t stop several students from dipping away from the group to forcefully rub the sculpture, determined to increase their chances of admission.

  Nate sighed. He’d been at Deep Springs for the last year, but the college was only a two-year program. Afterward, students transferred to schools like Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, or Brown, which Nate had always heard was the most flexible and mellow of all the Ivies. But no matter how laid-back Brown was, after living on a farm with thirty dudes, going to an actual university was going to be a giant jolt to the system.

  “Let’s keep going! I can’t wait to show you the science library!” Naomi trilled, walking backward. Nate tried not to groan. The more he heard, the less he felt like he belonged anywhere.

  He jammed his hands in the pockets of his khakis. It was just a few days after Christmas, and the Brown campus was practically deserted. Nate looked around dazedly, trying to place himself here, but he couldn’t.

  As he approached the campus gates, he noticed a pretty girl in a bright red coat, squinting at the campus map. She was obviously lost. Something about her made Nate want to go over and help her, and he found himself stepping away from the group.

  As he got closer, he took in the girl’s long, curly brown hair and milky white skin. It was Jennifer Humphrey, the sweet, big-chested freshman he’d hooked up with senior year!

  Jenny squinted up at the map of the Brown campus. She’d come to Providence to tour RISD, where she’d applied back in November, but Brown was right next door, and she figured she might as well look around. If she could ever find anything. It looked a lot like Waverly—the snow-covered green, the oversize brick buildings, the occasional preppie-boho student who crossed her path—except bigger. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find herself looking up into a familiar pair of glittering green eyes.

  “Nate?” she squeaked, her voice going up an octave. “I mean, Nate,” she repeated, trying to sound like the mature and collected eighteen-year-old she was. Or would be, if she hadn’t just been confronted by her high school crush.

  “Jennifer, right?” Nate smiled easily, his whole face lighting up.

  Jenny nodded mutely, trying to ignore the sweat beads forming along her hairline and her heart hammering in her chest. She was glad her belted red Searle coat was buttoned up all the way, so Nate couldn’t see the red hives that sprang up on her chest when she was embarrassed.

  “Long time no see.” Nate smiled. “Do you go here?” His green eyes searched Jenny’s dark brown ones.

  Jenny shook her head, her brunette curls bouncing around her head like vines. “I just went on a tour of RISD. I applied there, and Pratt, but I can’t decide between them. I’m a senior this year,” she explained nervously, feeling like she’d traveled back in time to her awkward high school years. She might as well be wearing her seersucker Constance Billard uniform, worrying about whether Mrs. M was going to bust her for talking to a boy on campus. “Do you go here?”

  “Nah.” Nate shuffled from side to side. “Just looking. Where are you headed now?”

  “My brother’s supposed to pick me up on Thayer Street. Think you can help me find it?” Jenny asked coyly.

  Who can resist a damsel in distress?

  “I think it’s that way.” Nate pointed to a set of tall wrought-iron gates on the other side of the snowy campus. “I’ll walk over there with you,” he offered, and led the way down a path that ran along a squat, ivy-covered building.

  “Thanks!” Jenny practically had to run in her distressed Frye cowboy boots to keep up with Nate’s long strides.

  Nate slowed down. He’d gotten used to a faster clip, keeping up with Gertie and the other girls on the farm. “So, do you go to Constance?” he asked.

  “No, I go to Waverly. It’s a boarding school upstate. But what about you? Didn’t you go to Yale?” She remembered hearing about Nate getting into all the schools he’d applied to, despite being a well-known stoner and slacker. She hoped she didn’t sound like a stalker.

  “I go to Deep Springs. It’s a working ranch in California. We spend the morning reading and in classes and then the afternoon doing manual labor on the ranch.”

  “Oh.” Jenny wrinkled her nose. Poor Nate! “Did your parents make you go there?”

  Nate shook his head, his green eyes suddenly far-off. Jenny wondered what he was thinking about. He seemed so much older than the guys at Waverly, who bragged about sneaking booze to the Crater, Waverly’s best outdoor party spot, or how many times they’d fallen asleep in Ms. Hummerton’s Texts of the Twentieth Century class. She loved Waverly, but she was more than ready for her next adventure.

  And it might just be more imminent than she thinks.

  They were nearing the center of campus and Jenny felt her heart flutter in anticipation. She could imagine everyone passing them thinking they were a couple back early from break, deep in conversation about what to do for New Year’s.

  “So, why did you go to Deep Springs?” Jenny pressed.

  “I just needed to get away from everything. But the program only lasts two years, and then you transfer. Next year, I’m thinking Brown.” Nate nodded definitively. The tour guide had been annoying, but the campus was pretty and Yale was out of the question now that both Blair and Serena were there. Or so he’d heard.

  Jenny scanned the parked cars for Dan’s beat-up Buick Skylark when they reached Thayer Street.
The redbrick sidewalk was confettied with coarse salt. “I’m seriously considering RISD….” She trailed off, hoping Nate would make the connection.

  Nate smiled. Jennifer looked really cute in her red coat, with her hair pulled back from her round, cherubic face. “Well, if you’re at RISD and I’m here, I guess we may be seeing each other a lot next year.”

  Jenny smiled right back. She’d make sure of it!

  Just the sort of determination every college admissions officer wants in a college candidate.

  watching him watching her watching him

  It was a Saturday night and Vanessa was curled up on the black leather couch, eating takeout straight from the carton and watching Flesh, the 1968 Paul Morrissey movie about a hustler in New York who has a whole lot of sex. When she’d first watched it in high school, she’d thought she’d missed something. Now, she realized that there really wasn’t much else going on in the film. It was practically a porno.

  In a way, everything—the movie, the takeout, the fact that it wasn’t even ten o’clock on a Saturday night and she was curled up on the couch wearing an oversize purple NYU sweatshirt and a pair of Hollis’s boxer shorts—was the same as her life had been five years ago, when she was fifteen and friendless.

  Except she wasn’t fifteen anymore, and she was far from friendless—she was dating Hollis Lyons, even if he had been away in Iceland for the last ten months. She was living in a spacious loft with its own elevator and a gorgeous view of the Williamsburg Bridge. She was a junior at the Tisch School of the Arts. She had a so-ugly-it’s-cute reddish-brown choodle, currently snoring gently on the floor. She had everything she wanted. So why did she feel so lame?