Nothing Can Keep Us Together

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  Lord Marcus pressed the button for the elevator and the doors rolled open.

  “Wait!” one of Ken Mogul’s black-tunic-wearing, blond crew girls yelled. Blair’s heart skipped a beat. Surely they were going to offer her the part right now and send the other girls packing. But the girl was looking at Serena.

  “Oops!” Serena blushed, swiping the mirrored aviators off her head and handing them back. “I’m such a klepto!”

  The girl took the sunglasses and then stood on tiptoe to whisper in Serena’s ear. Blair watched, riveted, as Serena nodded, listening silently. Then the crew girl left to supply her sunglasses to another Holly hopeful.

  Blair bit her lip, nearly drawing blood. The need to know what the crewperson had whispered to Serena was killing her, but she forced herself not to ask, and Serena decided not to tell her. The idea that they were sort of talking to each other again was so tenuous and so new, neither of them wanted to ruin it.

  Plus, Lord Marcus had only seen Blair on her best behavior. She couldn’t pull an Exorcist and freak out in front of him now or he’d pack his bags and head back to the U.K. as quick as you can say, “Bloody hell.”

  Serena reached for Nate’s hand and gave it an excited squeeze, barely able to keep the secret to herself. “Let’s go get silly.”

  “Hear, hear!” Lord Marcus agreed.

  Blair didn’t even flinch at the sight of Serena and Nate holding hands. She’d always wanted to be a foursome; she’d just always thought it would be her and Nate and Serena and someone else. She looked up into Lord Marcus’s handsome golf-course-green eyes and he swooped down and kissed her tenderly on the tip of her nose.

  Nate had never been that into public displays of affection. And anyway, what had ever been so special about Nate?

  Boys will be boys and girls will be girls

  “I heard about you. You’re the kid who’s to take my place on the Yale lacrosse team. Excuse me, ladies.” Lord Marcus reached across Blair and Serena to clasp Nate’s hand in the cramped backseat of the cab as it raced down the hot Park Avenue blacktop. “Coach said you were a maniac with a stick.”

  That’s one way of putting it.

  Nate hoped Lord Marcus wouldn’t guess that he’d been crying. Now would’ve been a good time to take another Viagra, just to give him an ego boost and keep the tears from flowing. If it hadn’t been for those annoying side effects, he’d have taken it every day.

  What, like the major hard-ons? But that’s not a side effect, that’s the whole point!

  “So is Yale, like, seriously tough or what?” Nate asked, because it was the only thing he could think of to say. Blair had her head on Lord Marcus’s shoulder, and she looked so comfortable, it was sort of unsettling and nice to see at the same time. Her dark hair was growing out and it looked so soft and shiny, Nate could almost feel it in his hands.

  Oh, please. Don’t cry.

  “Not as hard as Coach Heffner’s arse,” Lord Marcus joked. “She told us all about how she stabbed you with a fork when you tried to hit on her.”

  Nate had pretty much blocked that little episode out of his mind, and he flinched, remembering. “I just wasn’t expecting a hot female coach,” he admitted.

  “Believe me, none of us were,” Lord Marcus replied with a knowing smile. He lit a Marlboro Red, but the tiny, shriveled cabdriver flapped his hand in annoyance, so he threw it out the window.

  “Let’s all light cigarettes and see what he does,” Serena whispered, still feeling giddy. She handed out four Merit Ultra Lights from her black suede Balenciaga fringed hobo bag and Lord Marcus helped her light them with a silver Tiffany lighter.

  The driver screeched to a halt when he noticed the smoke. “Get out of my cab!” he shouted, his tiny, shriveled fists raised in anger.

  Lord Marcus, ever the polite Englishman, began to apologize, pretending he didn’t know it was illegal to smoke in American taxis. But they were already on Park Avenue and Forty-seventh Street, just around the corner from the Yale Club, so they got out anyway.

  What a sight: a lovely brunette dressed exactly like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, two handsome, green-eyed, lacrosse-playing, neatly dressed boys, and a heart-wrenchingly gorgeous blonde in jeans. The Yale Club’s dress code forbade distressed denim, but Serena looked so pretty in her jeans, no one cared. As soon as they stepped into the club’s sparse, neoclassical lobby, all the middle-aged Yale alums in J.Press suits stopped talking business and switched off their BlackBerrys. Oh, to be seventeen and irresistible!

  As if any of them were ever this irresistible.

  Lord Marcus took Nate up to his suite to show him some lacrosse trophy that only Nate would appreciate, while Blair led Serena into the club’s lounge, where they settled in at the elegant bar with its gold ceiling, polished wood floor, and dark wood paneling. Of course they were used to going out all the time, but it still felt extremely grown-up to be out at a private club bar on a Saturday morning, especially when they were supposed to be glued to their textbooks, studying for their final exams, which would begin on Monday.

  “So, what are you going to say in your graduation speech?” Serena asked Blair. “What’s that Dr. Seuss book—you know the one everyone always quotes from?”

  Blair rolled her eyes. She was so not quoting from that book. “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!”

  The bow-tied bartender brought Blair’s drink first—a Ketel One martini straight up with an olive. She took a sip and then stuck a cigarette into her cigarette holder. She was enjoying the whole cigarette holder thing so much, she planned to use it right up until Breakfast at Fred’s came out and all the girls started copying her.

  Ergo, the difference between being trendy and being a trendsetter.

  “Actually, I’m going to write about going after what you want and getting it,” she declared, blowing smoke over the top of Serena’s pale blond head. “I never thought I’d get absolutely everything I wanted. But I kept trying, anyway, and now I have it. Everything.”

  Serena nodded. “I know what you mean.” The bartender brought her Tanqueray gin fizz and she took a few tentative sips, wondering if she should tell Blair right now that when Ken Mogul’s assistant had whispered in her ear, she’d asked Serena back for a second audition. But things were going so well with Blair at the moment, she didn’t want to ruin it. Besides, even if she wound up being offered the part, she wasn’t sure she wanted it. She tried to think of something else to say, something about getting what she’d always wanted, even though she’d never really wanted anything—things just fell into her lap.

  “I’m so in love with Nate,” she blurted out, trying to sound as thrilled with the way things had turned out as Blair did.

  Blair lit the end of her cigarette. How easy it would be to accidentally set fire to Serena’s long black eyelashes. She surveyed the room, trying to decide whether or not to let her temper get the better of her.

  Whoa, she’s thinking about it? Is this a turning point?!

  Blair loved the Yale Club lounge. The gold-leaf paint and oriental carpets made it feel grand and exclusive, but it was more comfortable and less stodgy than some of the other rooms in the club. The lounge was the perfect place to escape from the heat. And it went with her dress. “Pretty soon we’ll all be at Yale,” she mused.

  The two girls stared at each other, their blue eyes locked, trying to decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  Serena giggled. “And we can take the train back to the city and stay here, and our parents won’t even know we’re in town!”

  That does sound like fun.

  “This would be such a great place to have a party,” Blair chimed in, deciding to be nice. She blinked, wondering why she hadn’t thought of it before. Of course, it meant there’d be a lot of random crashers—other seniors from dopey schools that she didn’t even know, and random juniors who thought they were cool now because they were going to be seniors next year. But she was Constance Billard’s graduation speaker. It
made perfect sense that she should host a graduation party—the graduation party.

  She gave Serena a stiff hug, barely keeping her cigarette holder aloft to avoid setting fire to her hair. “We always have the best ideas,” she murmured, half to herself and half to her old friend.

  Serena smiled eagerly, even though she had no idea which ideas Blair was referring to. “Don’t we?” she agreed.

  Nate had brought a couple of prerolled joints along with him. He and Lord Marcus made themselves comfortable in the lord’s gold-and-white-wallpapered suite, blasting the AC as they lay on their backs on the king-size, apricot-colored bedspread, puffing away and trading secrets about Blair.

  See, boys really are worse than girls.

  “She acts all grumpy when you come on to her, and then she complains when you don’t,” Nate complained, shaking his head. “I never understood that.”

  “But as long as you let her know she’s irresistible, she can’t make a fuss,” Lord Marcus pointed out. “That’s what’s crucial.”

  Nate turned his head to look at the older boy through a haze of pot smoke. He’d known Blair practically since he was born. How come this guy, who’d only just met her, seemed to have her all figured out? Was it possible that he and Blair were totally incompatible? Maybe they were actually never meant to be.

  Nate couldn’t think about it anymore without having a major sob attack. Instead, he took another hit and allowed his mind to go heavenly blank.

  “I’m thinking of asking Blair to come over to England to visit for the summer,” Lord Marcus mused aloud. “I’ve told my family all about her and they’re desperate to meet her. Apparently my dad knows her dad. And my mum’s already got us married off.”

  Nate took another hit. No need to get upset. His mind was as smooth, white, and wrinkle-free as the 800-thread-count pillow shams on Lord Marcus’s bed.

  Lord Marcus finished off his joint and sat up, stubbing it out neatly on the sole of his amber-colored Tod’s lace-ups. “The ladies will be wondering where we are.” He clapped Nate on the shoulder. “Shall we go, then?”

  Nate sat up on his elbows and shook his head blearily, like a dog. A stray tear seeped out of the corner of his left eye and trickled down his cheek. He swatted it away angrily, but then another one began to trickle out of the corner of his right eye.

  “Are you all right?” Lord Marcus asked. “Do you need a minute?”

  Nate shrugged, and then his lower lip began to tremble.

  Lord Marcus sat down next to him and pulled Nate into his arms. “There, there,” he murmured. “You’re all right.”

  This wasn’t the pretend gay affection that Nate and his friends used to drive one another nuts. This was the real thing: a big-brotherly hug. Nate had never had a big brother, or any siblings for that matter, and the hug was exactly what he needed.

  “Mon père habite en France dans le Loire. Il aime des autres hommes. Il est un fag!” Blair shrieked, and she and Serena burst into a fit of giggles.

  “Qu’est-ce que vous faites, mes cheries?” Lord Marcus called out as he and Nate approached.

  “We’re conversing in French. There’s an oral part to my AP exam. We have to talk about our family for ten minutes,” Blair explained. “Using all the tenses.”

  Serena rolled her eyes. “That’s what you get for taking APs.” She squinted at the two boys. “Hey, are you two stoned?”

  Nate grinned sheepishly. “Slightly.”

  “You big idiot.” Serena grabbed him and kissed him smack on the lips, bubbling over with relief that she and Blair were talking again.

  Blair was so fine with seeing Serena and Nate kiss right in front of her, she didn’t budge. Within seconds Lord Marcus had slipped behind her and wrapped his arms sexily around her waist—the sort of husbandlike, proprietary gesture Blair had always dreamed about. He winked at Serena. “Did you know Serena means mermaid in Italian?”

  “Yeah,” Serena giggled and then flashed Blair a look that said, Where’d you find him, anyway?

  Blair returned the look with a smug smile that was a combination of See, I told you I had everything and Hands off, bitchface.

  Nate licked the taste of Serena’s vanilla-scented MAC lip gloss off his lips and then downed the rest of her gin fizz, his eyes on Blair’s perfect, lightly tanned feet. Something about the way they looked in those shiny, flat black shoes was making him seriously horny.

  Good thing he left the Viagra at home.

  Gossipgirl.net

  Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.

  hey people!

  A not-so-private party at the yale club

  In case you were feeling left out of Saturday’s Yale Club all-day-and-all-night festival of debauchery—they certainly kept the staff busy trotting over to Grand Central for more Prosecco from the Campbell Apartment and cheesecake from Junior’s—a certain Yalie-to-be will host the graduation party of a lifetime at the club next Monday night. The Yale Club is strictly members-only, but never fear. Yalie Daddy has paid the club handsomely to keeps its doors open all night long to any well-dressed merrymaker who wanders in looking for more ways to make merry. It’s his way of apologizing to his daughter for not being there in the flesh. Aw, how sweet.

  Let’s hope he doesn’t forget that she will also need some way of getting around New Haven next year. Vroom, vroom.

  Postbreakfast depression

  Ken Mogul is either extremely fussy, extremely mean, or both. Rumor has it that only four girls were called back for a second audition for the lead role in his new feature film, Breakfast at Fred’s. Another rumor is that he’s casting his younger sister in the Holly Golightly part and the casting on Saturday was actually just for extras. What a waste of talent.

  An arranged marriage

  We’ve all heard about how the British royals have a penchant for arranged marriages. It saves a lot of trouble and embarrassment when no one has to sneak around or worry about introducing their socially inept, badly dressed girlfriend to their mom, who happens to be the queen. Well, according to my sources in the U.K., a certain blue-blooded English hunk, who recently graduated from Yale and is currently residing at the Yale Club while he finishes up some business—aka partying—in New York before going home for the summer, has been betrothed to an equally royal English girl since he was barely two years old. I haven’t seen a picture of her, but having witnessed how quickly he snapped up our B, my guess is she’s probably not much of a looker, and he’s probably not too thrilled about marrying her.

  Thief of stolen goods identified

  Not that I want to be the bearer of more bad news, but my coach friend has been e-mailing me regularly—hey, who gave him this link?!—and apparently the Viagra perp has been identified and will be punished accordingly. Does that mean he/she won’t graduate??

  Your e-mail

  Q:Dear GG,

  I know I shouldn’t have, but I kind of told on one of my pals and now I’m worried he’s not gonna graduate cuz of me. I just thought, better him than me, you know?

  —lamo

  A:Dear lamo,

  Yeah, that was kind of lamo. But you know that already.

  —GG

  Q:Dear Gossip Girl,

  I wanted to personally invite you to try out for my new movie. You have the attitude I’m looking for. Hopefully you have the look. When r u available?

  —mogs

  A:Dear mogs,

  Nice try.

  —GG

  Sightings

  B, S, N, and Lord M at Cipriani Dolci across from the Yale Club, drinking Bloody Marys at Sunday brunch. They certainly know how to prepare for finals! V with A in his red Saab, pretending not to notice when they almost ran over D crossing Houston Street on their way to a movie at the Angelika. D was on his way back from one of those Chinese herbalists on Canal Street, carrying a small pouch of what was advertised as “Love Potion XXX.” Oh, the tangled we
b we weave. J alone in the Gristedes on West Ninety-sixth Street buying a liter screw-top bottle of red wine and a jumbo-size can of Folgers instant crystals. Her clothes and hands were smeared with what looked like gray eye shadow, coffee, and wine. Obviously, she’s so dedicated to her art, they didn’t dare card her.

  One more week to go

  So this is it, my sweetnesses—the final stretch. Aside from exams, which are just trivial annoyances really, school is essentially over. Repeat after me: only one week till graduation. Only one week till graduation. Only one week till graduation.

  Good luck!!!!

  You know you love me.

  gossip girl

  D writes another ode

  Dan finished his AP English exam with twenty minutes to spare and began rewriting his graduation speech about love in the back of his blue book. This time he planned on quoting from Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”:

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

  I took the one less traveled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  The words sounded sterile and entirely overused to him, though, especially in the context of graduation. Besides, neither he nor his classmates were actually taking the road less traveled. They were graduating and going straight to college. And how boring was that? The truth was, it had never really occurred to him to do anything else. Until now.

  He’d been battling with the notion for days that come fall, Vanessa would be here in New York and he would be there, in Olympia, Washington—on the other side of the country. The thought was unbearable to him, even though he was still unsure of Vanessa’s true feelings for him, especially after she’d so brusquely dismissed him the other night the minute Aaron had come home and had proceeded to not call him all weekend.

  But maybe he was the one who hadn’t been clear. He’d already told that nutty professor he’d decided not to spend the summer working in Olympia. Why not take it one step further and announce to everyone at graduation that he wasn’t going to college, period. That would show Vanessa, and the world, how far he was willing to go—for love. He would take the road less traveled by.