I Like It Like That

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  Petite mignonette, sweet coquette

  I taste your cookies, your bread

  You fill my plate

  The last line sounded familiar, like maybe he'd already used it in another poem. He crossed his legs, pondering, and heard the sound of a toilet flushing. He could pee, he decided. Pee and then finish the poem. He got up to go to the bathroom. Inside, there was something written in Latin on the wall in red ink, but he couldn't decipher it.

  When he got back to his desk the piece of paper with his poem on it was gone, but the entire staff was still in the conference room.

  Dan didn't dare investigate. He could only hope his fragment of a poem would be published under “Anonymous” in the next issue of Red Letter. Eventually, he could leak the information that the poem was his, and the literary world would clamor for more. He'd publish a book—or maybe ten books—and become world-famous, just like Mystery Craze.

  Although maybe not quite as notorious.

  I, mystery man

  Jenny and Leo held hands throughout the entire movie and kept holding hands as they walked out of the theater. Jenny hadn't even paid attention to the movie. All she could think the entire time was, He's going to take me home afterward. We're only five blocks away from that big doorman building on Park. And then I'll meet his dog and his mom and her personal trainer and their ten maids …

  “So, I was thinking maybe we could walk over to the Guggenheim now.” Leo smiled down at her with his cute cracked-tooth smile.

  If he was so loaded then how come his parents didn't get his tooth fixed? Jenny wondered. Then again, she was glad they hadn't. “It's after eight. Aren't all the museums closed by now?”

  “They have these once-a-month things at night,” Leo explained. “And it's kind of cooler, you know, seeing the paintings when it's dark out.”

  If Jenny had been thinking properly, she would have thought this was just about the best thing anyone had ever said. First of all, how cool was it that she and Leo were both into art and museums? Second of all, how cool was it that he knew about these funky nighttime art happenings and that he wanted to take her to one?

  But all Jenny could think was, He's not taking me home! What's wrong with me? What's wrong with him? What's his story?

  “Do you have any pets?” she demanded suspiciously as they crossed Second Avenue and headed east toward Fifth.

  “Pets? No. Why?” Leo wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Brrr. You warm enough? Do you want my scarf?”

  Another heart-meltingly romantic gesture, but did she notice?

  No pets? Jenny brooded, too distracted to be bothered by the cold. But why would he lie? And how come he's trying to change the subject so quickly?

  “Well, here we are.”

  The ghostlike coil-pot structure that was the Guggenheim Museum hovered above them in the dark. “Kiss, Kiss,” a banner proclaimed, flapping over the museum's entrance. Leo blushed when he noticed Jenny looking at it.

  “Come on, let's go in.”

  Jenny opened her purse to pay for her half of the admission, but Leo motioned for her to put her wallet away. “That's okay. I'm a member. We can get in free.”

  A member? Well, well, well. And hadn't Elise said that Leo had been seen at that big Frick Museum benefit on Thursday night? His family probably owned the Guggenheim.

  They wound their way up the graded halls of the museum, stopping at the first painting on exhibit. It was Marc Chagall's Birthday, a painting of a woman holding a bouquet of flowers, kissing a man who is flying in the air above her head. The woman looked as if she had just been doing something boring, like setting the table, when the man swooped down and caught her lips with his.

  “I love the blue,” Leo said, studying it. “You would think blue would make it cold, but it doesn't. It warms it up.”

  “Mmm.” Jenny wasn't listening to a word he said. She was studying his profile, his hair, his clothes, his shoes, his finger-nails, looking for a clue, some sort of explanation.

  Leo glanced at her, blushing again. He took her hand. “May I kiss you? I mean, before we look at the next one?”

  If she hadn't been paying attention before, she was now.

  “Oh! Um. Sure.” Jenny took a step backward and almost lost her balance.

  Leo held her hand even tighter. “I've got you.”

  Jenny let him pull her toward him, and she lifted up her face to meet his. What they did next was no mystery at all, although she kind of wondered where he'd learned to kiss so well.

  If only she could stop thinking so much.

  That prelaw geek is looking pretty hot

  “You know he must really like you if he came all the way out here on a night like this,” Ruby whispered in Vanessa's ear just before her regular Monday night gig with her band, SugarDaddy, was about to begin.

  “He's just here for the music,” Vanessa replied sarcastically.

  Jordy Rosenfeld was standing in the doorway of the dark, crowded club, unzipping his green Columbia ski parka. His weirdly long nose was red and dripping from the cold, and his bright yellow turtleneck and khaki pants stood out like strobe lights amongst the black-clad native Williamsburgers..

  Normally the sight of a guy like him might have made her cringe, but at this point Vanessa didn't care how yellow his turtleneck was. And his nose was actually kind of sexy and distinguished, if you looked at it from a certain angle. She stood up and waved him over.

  “Hello, Mrs. Abrams,” Jordy greeted Gabriela. “How are you, Mr. Abrams?”

  Vanessa's parents were wearing matching Greenpeace T-shirts, tight black leggings, and Birkenstocks with white tube socks. They could have been a piece in one of their art shows.

  Still-life of hippie freaks.

  Gabriela shot her daughter a look of confused surprise. “Hello, Jordy. Vanessa didn't tell us you were coming tonight.”

  “That's because I wanted to keep it a secret.” Vanessa flashed Jordy her version of a come-hither smile, which was actually just a normal-looking smile, since Vanessa didn't smile much.

  Jordy unzipped his jacket and sat down next to her. “I got my paper done.”

  “Then you deserve a drink,” Vanessa told him. She motioned to the bartender, tapping on her nose and pulling her ears in a series of pretend signals. SugarDaddy played so regularly at the Five and Dime, it was practically their second home. Vanessa had even had a fling with the old bartender, who now guided Whitewater rafting trips in New Zealand.

  The bartender came over to see what Vanessa's new friend wanted.

  “Do you have Baileys Irish Cream?” Jordy asked.

  Arlo was watching the band as they went through their sound check. SugarDaddy was made up of four Irish guys with pale faces and far-away looking eyes, and Ruby, who yelled and shook her ass a lot, even though she wasn't the lead singer.

  “Eating goober peas,” Ruby said quietly into her mike, testing the sound. Arlo grinned, looking extremely proud.

  Gabriela got up to go the bathroom. “I hope they start soon. Arlo and I promised these nice people we met on the subway we'd do a chanting session with them at midnight.”

  The bartender brought over the glass of milky beige stuff on ice, and Jordy took a sip. “I like it,” he said simply.

  Gabriela came back from the bathroom, her long gray hair rebraided and pinned Heidi-style on top of her head. She'd put on ChapStick—her version of makeup—and taken off her tube socks.

  The lights dimmed, and Ruby began to growl into the microphone and slap her bass. Then the band broke into one of their signature tunes, “Canada Is the Future.”

  Jordy glanced around the crowded bar, his huge narrow nostrils flaring. Vanessa noticed the tag was sticking out of the neck of his yellow turtleneck. Made in China, it said.

  Gabriela pointed at it. “Did you know that most of the textiles made in China are produced by prisoners from Thailand who are tortured and starved?”

  Jordy stared at her.

  “Your shirt was made by
victims of mass trade,” Gabriela lectured.

  Vanessa was sure there was some validity to what her mother was saying, but Jordy's shirt was already ugly enough—they didn't have to talk about where it was made.

  SugarDaddy broke into one of their famously long drum riffs. Ruby yelled along with the drummer's noise, something about assholes in minivans.

  “You don't know how disappointed I was to hear your mother say she doesn't recycle,” Gabriela droned on. “I was thinking you and your parents should maybe come up to Vermont for a little retreat. It's very pure up there. It might help remind them what's sacred.”

  Jordy smiled politely. “I'll mention it to them. But really, the only reason my parents don't recycle is because their apartment building has an incinerator, and it's just easier to chuck everything down the chute. I basically live on shrimp-flavored ramen noodles and coffee, so I don't have anything to recycle, anyway.”

  Gabriela stared at him in frightened alarm.

  Vanessa grinned. Yes, Jordy was the Antichrist, and he was getting cuter and cuter by the second. She inched her chair a little closer to his as SugarDaddy struck up one of their weird, bouncy dance tunes.

  Vanessa leaned over and whispered in Jordy's ear, “Any second now I'm going to kiss you.”

  The corners of his lips turned up, and he took another sip of Baileys.

  Gabriela nudged Arlo's leg with her bare toe. “Come on and dance, darling. I need to blown off some steam.”

  But Arlo was so transfixed by the musicians, drool was collecting in the corners of his mouth. Vanessa thought he looked like a baby watching the circus for the first time.

  She inched even closer to Jordy and held up her face, angling it a little to avoid running into his nose. “I'm going to kiss you now,” she whispered before her mother could drag Arlo out of his seat.

  Then she pressed her lips against his, tasting the Baileys and the difference between kissing him and kissing Dan. And it was kind of … yummy.

  Sex is better après-ski

  “Are you sure you're not cold?” Serena asked Blair for the fourth time. Blair was wearing only her pink Eres bikini top underneath a white cashmere cable-knit cardigan, and black Miss Sixty stretch cords.

  Not exactly high-performance mountain gear—but that depends on your definition of performance.

  Blair leaned against Erik's shoulder as she made another attempt to jam her ski-boot heel down into her bindings. “Darn, it won't go in.” She grinned sheepishly as Erik knelt at her feet to help. He was wearing a fuzzy Patagonia fleece jacket over an adorable hand-knit Aran sweater and tight black ski racing pants that showed off the definition of his long, sexy thighs. No, she wasn't remotely cold, but thanks for asking.

  Serena batted at the snow with her ski pole, eager to get out on the slopes and away from whatever was going on between her big brother and her best friend. It was kind of cute watching Erik pretend he didn't know Blair was flirting with him. But then again, it kind of wasn't.

  Serena zipped her sensible-but-sexy lavender one-piece Ellesse ski suit up to her chin and pulled her gray cashmere flap hat down over her ears. If Nate didn't get there soon, she was going to hit the chairlift alone. There was a whole mountain full of cute boys just waiting to fall in love with the way she cut her turns. She just had to get out there.

  “Good.” Erik stood up and pulled on his heavy-duty black leather ski gloves. “How does mat feel?”

  Blair leaned on her poles and bounced her knees up and down like a go-go dancer. “Okay,” she ventured timidly. “But what if I fall?”

  Erik shoved his mirrored Scott sunglasses up on his nose. He looked as if he'd been skiing there all season, even though he'd only just arrived. “I won't let you fall,” he promised, with a grin that implied he'd be holding her hand all the way down the mountain.

  Serena rolled her eyes and pulled her Smith goggles down, ready to ditch them both and leave a note for Nate with the chairlift attendant, but then she saw Nate's golden head bob up the snowy path from the road, his pot-leaf snowboard and Georgie's skis propped effortlessly on his strong, boatbuilder's shoulders. Georgie was at his side, her waist-length almost-black hair fanning out behind her like a cape. She was wearing a mink-lined dark denim jumpsuit that looked like it had been made especially for her by Tom Ford. Even her hat and her brown leather ski boots were trimmed with mink.

  “She's prettier than I remember,” Serena said quietly, but Blair was too busy pretending her stomach hadn't done a funny little dip at the sight of Nate and his new girlfriend even to hear her.

  When they were still a few hundred yards away, Nate heaved the skis off his shoulder, and he and Georgie stepped into them effortlessly. Then they skied over, gliding gracefully across the snow like figure skaters.

  “Hey. Good to see you.” Nate had been up half the night watching Georgie do naked Jägermeister shots in the hot tub with the Dutch snowboarding team, so he wasn't lying. Morning couldn't have come soon enough.

  “Wow!” Georgie enthused when she saw Blair. “You're brave.”

  Blair gave Georgie the once-over and unzipped her cardigan a few inches. “Thanks,” she replied, even though she wasn't exactly sure what Georgie meant.

  “I've got the same one in white,” Georgie said, pointing to Blair's bikini top.

  Both Erik and Nate stared at Blair's small but nice chest, imagining how much better Georgie's bigger and nicer chest would look like in a white version of the same top.

  Erik held a ski pole out to Blair. “Come on, I'll tow you.”

  Aw, how cute!

  They were just about to join the long line to the chairlift when Chuck Bass coasted by on his new Burton snowboard. “Hey,” he greeted them. “I've been getting pointers on the half-pipe from the Dutch team. Those guys are the bomb!”

  All five of them watched Chuck glide on into the ski school queue, which got to cut the rest of the line. “Come on!” he called over. “I've got a ski instructor pass!”

  None of them even wanted to know how Chuck had finagled a ski instructor pass. They didn't even mind skiing with him if it meant they got to cut the lines.

  Exactly the result he'd been going for.

  All the major lifts in the resort were high-speed quads, taking four people up the mountain at a time. Serena and Georgie were the first two in line, and although it pained Blair to ride next to Georgie, she couldn't exactly yell, “Stop!” when Erik joined them.

  Swoosh! The chairlift swooped under their bums and lifted them off their skis and into the air.

  “Whee!” Serena and Georgie cried in unison.

  “Whoa.” Blair clutched Erik's arm. Even after all these years of skiing, chairlifts still made her nervous.

  Nate and Chuck were right behind them, their snowboards banging together as they sank into the chair.

  “Got any weed?” Chuck unzipped the chest pocket of his shiny dark purple Bogner ski suit with its weird fox fur zip-on collar and pulled out a silver flask. He offered it to Nate. “Brandy?”

  “I don't get high anymore,” Nate insisted stubbornly. He squinted at Chuck's boots. They were exactly the same as his, but Chuck's snowboard was hot pink, with the words Chiquita Banana written across the top of it. It was definitely a girl's snowboard, and Nate sort of suspected Chuck was wearing a woman's ski suit. That wasn't even gay, it was just plain weird.

  Ahead of them, smoke curled up into the air above Georgie's mink hat. Nate could only hope that the others would be sensible enough not to let her do anything too illegal on the chairlift.

  Chuck pulled a Marlboro out from behind his ear and lit it. His jawline was shadowy with black stubble, and it looked like he might be growing some experimental facial hair. “I heard Blair and your new girlfriend had a major catfight over you up at rehab in Greenwich.”

  Nate waved Chuck's cigarette smoke away. He was kind of grooving on the pointy tops of the pretty dark green pine trees growing out of the soft white blanket of snow below them. The smoke wa
s ruining it.

  “I also heard Georgie and Serena went to boarding school up in New Hampshire together and got kicked out at the same time. They were caught doing it. Like this.” Chuck grabbed his crotch and ground his pelvis into the chair, his tongue lolling disgustingly.

  “I doubt that,” Nate said, although he wasn't so sure. He'd never actually heard the whole story of why Serena had gotten kicked out of Hanover Academy at the beginning of the school year, and he barely knew anything about Georgie. The two girls hadn't given any hint of recognizing each other when they'd met just now, but then again, girls often played it cool until they had a chance to talk and figure things out.

  Up ahead of them, Georgie and Serena were lighting their second clove cigarettes. “I only smoke these on the lift,” Georgie explained with the air of someone who smokes something different at every altitude. “They taste better up here.”

  “Mmm,” Serena inhaled. She turned around to check on Nate and Chuck. Nate was staring straight ahead, while Chuck smoked and gabbed. “What a cute couple,” she joked.

  Georgie giggled. “See, even Chuck thinks Nate is cute.”

  Blair didn't say anything, but she secretly hoped Georgie's fur hat would catch fire and she'd fall to the ground in a heap of burning fur.

  Serena gave Nate the finger. Then she grinned and blew him a kiss. Georgie turned around and did the same thing but in the opposite order.

  “You know you love us!” the two girls shouted.

  Blair slid her arm through Erik's as the chair headed toward the steep downhill ramp where they had to unload. Getting off the lift was even worse than getting on.

  “Keep your tips up, and hold on to me,” Erik coached her gently.

  She did as she was told, keeping a steady grip on his arm as they glided down the ramp side by side. Then Erik made a neat little turn and skidded to a stop. Blair slammed into him and sat down hard on the backs of her skis.

  Oof!