I Like It Like That

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  What about those two?

  My sources say this is definitely not the first encounter between the infamous Greenwich heiress and our favorite perfume model. The two were fast friends at Hanover their junior year but had a fight over a boy in France the summer before they were both kicked out. I'm pretty sure there's more, but instead of making up a lot of hooey, I'd rather wait for the skeletons to come tumbling out of the closet, and I'm sure they will.

  Sightings, lots of 'em

  V walking from Manhattan to Williamsburg, picking up trash with her parents and looking miserable. D taking out a recycling bag filled with hundreds of little bottles of unopened San Pellegrino water outside a building on Eleventh Street. B taking off her skis in the middle of a run in Sun Valley, just to see if a certain boy would hike all the way back up the run to help her put them back on. S and G in the bathroom at the bottom of the mountain in Sun Valley, with the entire Dutch Olympic snowboarding team. Playing kissing games? C and N on the lift up to Sun Valley's half-pipe. Also playing kissing games? S and the Dutch Olympic snowboarding team posing for a ChapStick ad at the top of the mountain.

  She's not the only one keeping busy on her vacation! Enjoy it while it lasts.

  You know you love me.

  gossip girl

  Upper east siders party sun valley style

  “Okay, I'm ready,” Serena said after smearing a little moisturizer on her face and running a brush through her still-damp hair once or twice.

  Of course she looked beautiful—she couldn't help it—but she could have given the locals a real treat and at least worn a little lip gloss.

  “Well, I'm not.” Blair leaned over the bathroom sink to apply some mascara. A white towel was wrapped around her head and her freshly polished nails were barely dry. “Aren't you even going to blow-dry your hair?”

  “Nope.” Serena looked at her watch. Erik was waiting for them in the lobby, and she'd barely gotten a chance to talk to him alone since they'd arrived. “I'll meet you downstairs, okay?”

  “Fine,” Blair answered distractedly. She didn't know why Serena had to be in such a hurry. This was their first Sun Valley party, and she for one wanted to look good. Erik had been so attentive and was always so completely adorable that tonight might just be the night she said, Yes, oh yes! “What's the rush, anyway?”

  Serena blew out her breath. “What's the point of making an effort? It's not like I'm going to be flirting with somebody's brother all night!”

  Blair screwed the top back on her mascara and glared at her friend's reflection in the bathroom mirror. “So you're mad at me because of Erik?” She dug around in her cosmetics bag for her bronzing powder.

  Serena kicked the door frame with her fuzzy sheepskin boot. “I'm not mad. I'm just …”

  Jealous?

  She sighed noisily and turned around to yank her powder blue parka from the hook by the door. “I'll see you downstairs,” she mumbled, as she hurled herself out the door.

  “Don't worry,” Blair called after her. “I'm moving back home when we get back!”

  “Aren't you cold?” Nate took off his well-worn, navy blue Brown sweatshirt and offered it to Georgie. He slept in the sweatshirt for luck sometimes. As if the Brown admissions office was going to overlook the fact that he'd been busted by the cops for buying weed just because he liked to sleep in their sweatshirt.

  Georgie was walking around in her orange sorbet La Perla panty-and-bra set while Chuck Bass, Josef, Sven, Ulrich, and Gan played mah-jongg on Xbox. Maybe they are all gay, Nate thought hopefully. Even so, he didn't like it when Georgie walked around in her underwear. She was too … too … naked, and her nakedness was supposed to be reserved for herself and him, After all, she was his girlfriend. Well … wasn't she?

  “Why don't we go upstairs?” he whispered suggestively in her ear. He'd imagined that he and Georgie would spend the majority of their time in Sun Valley in bed having lots of sex. But he'd never even taken his pants off in her presence. Not once. And it wasn't that Georgie was actually a serious prude under all that flaunting and nakedness. She was just too busy being crazy and guzzling mood enhancers to lie still for a second and let him kiss her.

  “What's upstairs?” Georgie asked, lighting a cigarette. Her long silky brown hair was pulled over one pale shoulder and her long pale legs were crossed, twice.

  Only seriously skinny girls can do that.

  Nate shrugged. “I just thought we could … you know … hang out.”

  Any normal girl would have looked into his emerald green eyes and gone all prickly and faint at such an invitation. But Georgie was too screwed up even to notice how cute and irresistible he was.

  In other words, she was an idiot.

  She cocked a suspicious eyebrow at Nate. “You didn't smuggle in weed without telling me, did you?” she asked hopefully.

  “Nah.” He reached out and touched her hair, smoothing it over her bony shoulder. “I just thought we could use the privacy,” he said, his cheeks turning adorably pink at the suggestion in his voice.

  Georgie swung her legs over the arm of the wooden chair she was sitting on. It had been carved by Shoshone Indians out of birch trees and then painted orange.

  Butt-ugly, but probably worth a fortune.

  There was a honk outside. Georgie swung her feet to the floor and swiped Nate's sweatshirt out of his hand. “Guess I should put something on,” she mumbled, yanking the thing over her head as she headed for the front door. Her white butt cheeks peeked out from under the navy blue sweatshirt, somehow making her look even more naked than before.

  “Thank God you're here,” she told the bemused delivery guy. She pulled a bottle of Stoli out of the crate on his dolly and cracked it open. Then she grabbed the remote control for the ten-disc CD player and clicked it on. An old Blondie song came on—”The Tide Is High.” “You can set up the coolers out by the hot tub.” Georgie pointed at Nate with the bottle of Stoli. “He'll show you where it is.”

  Down in the lobby of the Sun Valley Lodge, Erik was talking to a bunch of ski patrol guys about the day's big rescue. Some dude had been showing his girlfriend how to ski backward and had skied right into a tree. A branch had impaled him right in the ass.

  “It was pretty gnarly,” Serena heard one of the ski patrol guys say.

  “What was?” she asked, climbing into Erik's lap. He draped his long arms around her, and she burrowed her cheek into his chest, hungry for attention. “Mmm. You smell nice and clean.”

  The ski patrol dudes sipped their beers and looked on enviously. If only they each had their own model-gorgeous blond sister to snuggle with.

  “Hey, where's your friend? The one with the cute little … haircut?” one of them asked.

  Serena sat up and perched on Erik's knee, her baby-blue-Ugg-bedecked feet just grazing the carpet. She tugged on the legs of her Habitual jeans. Usually people were too busy looking at her to ask about Blair. But Blair did put a hell of a lot more effort into her appearance than Serena did, so maybe Blair deserved the attention.

  “She's upstairs, getting ready.” She elbowed Erik in the belly. “You want to go up and check on her?”

  Erik kind of liked that the ski patrol guys had noticed Blair, since he and Blair were so clearly going to be getting it on very soon. He elbowed Serena back.

  “Ow!”

  The two siblings exchanged fierce glances. “I didn't say anything bad,” Serena insisted sulkily. Erik's fierce look turned into an amused grin. “What?”

  “I think someone's here to see you,” he whispered.

  Serena looked up to find Jan, future dentist and blond Dutch Olympic snowboarder, gazing at her soulfully. “I was hoping to escort you to the party.”

  The ski patrol guys stepped back to make room for him. Serena slid off her brother's knee. This wasn't exactly the kind of attention she'd been hoping for. “Um, we're waiting for Blair.”

  Erik gave her a little push from behind. “Why don't you two run along?” He gestured to
the ski patrol guys. “I invited these guys to the party. Blair and I can get a lift with them.”

  Just then the elevator doors binged and slid open.

  Ladies and gentlemen … Queen of the Mountain!

  Blair had fastened a little gold heart barrette in her hair and was wearing the jade chandelier earrings Les Best had given Serena after she'd modeled in his runway show. She was also wearing Serena's light blue cashmere pullover, which was fine because Serena had been planning on giving it to her, anyway. It was a little tight in the chest, which was also fine. Blair liked it like that.

  So did the Sun Valley Ski Patrol. They nudged one another and shifted their feet and mumbled noisily, like animals in a barnyard.

  “Hey. You look fantastic,” Erik said, liking the way the other guys were ogling her. He held out his hand possessively. “Ready to go?”

  Blair was glad she had taken her time getting ready. She was even wearing the plain white cotton Hanro underwear that Serena always made fun of, calling them her “grannypants.” But the truth was, Blair was always more comfortable in her granny undies than in all the fussy, lacy panties and thongs she owned. And she looked better in them, too. They were what she imagined herself wearing when she was being undressed.

  And someone was definitely going to be undressing her tonight.

  Still life with toothbrushes

  Jenny was so confused by what had happened with Leo earlier that evening that she stayed up late, painting a still life and sorting out her thoughts. As usual, there were no fruit or vegetables in the fridge except for a thousand-year-old moldy orange, so she painted toothbrushes and a bar of Dove soap instead.

  It seemed entirely possible that Leo did not own a dog and did not live in that stunning apartment on Park Avenue.

  Maybe he's just a normal, everyday person, she thought to herself as she carefully touched up the blue bristles on Dan's toothbrush. Just like me. Actually, she still didn't know what he was. Why didn't he just make it clear instead of playing games?

  She glared down at her canvas. “This is dumb,” she grumbled, and tossed it into the trash can under her desk. Everything was dumb. All of a sudden she just felt so … dumb.

  And dumb people need company.

  “Oh, so now you have time to talk to me?” Elise said when she picked up the phone.

  “I'm sorry,” Jenny allowed. “I've been acting stupid.”

  “That's okay.” Elise's voice softened. “Anyway, I don't see why you're making such a big deal out of this. I mean, if he was so rich and his mom was this crazy person who dressed up her dog, he probably wouldn't be such a good boyfriend to have. Right?”

  Jenny thought about this. “How would you know?” she asked suspiciously. “How many boyfriends have you had?”

  Elise didn't answer right away. Jenny had touched on a sore subject. “Actually, I thought your brother was going to be my first boyfriend, but I guess not.”

  Jenny snorted. “Like that would ever work. You don't smoke, and you don't even like coffee.”

  She could feel Elise smiling on the other end, and it felt good that she'd made her friend smile. “Anyway, I think you should stop thinking of Leo as something he's not and just see if you like who he actually is.”

  Jenny crouched down and pulled the smudged, wet still life out of her wastepaper basket. Maybe if she didn't think of the toothbrush painting as a still life but as a painting with toothbrushes in it, it would work better. She might even add something not so still to it, like Marx the cat. She lay down on her stomach and pulled up the corner of her pink bedspread, looking for him.

  “So …” Elise said. “Are you going to call him or what?”

  Marx wasn't there. Jenny stood up and went over to her computer. “No. He likes e-mail better.” She sat down, an idea forming in her head.

  She was going to invite herself over to Leo's house—at least, she was pretty sure that basement apartment on East Eighty-first Street was his house. This e-mail was her warning signal. She was going to find out once and for all who he was and what he was all about—whether he liked it or not.

  The phone still pressed to her ear, she went online and started to type.

  “So you really don't think Dan and I could have worked?” Elise persisted. “He was writing a poem about me, I think.”

  Jenny could have told her all about how Dan was still in love with Vanessa and how all the poems he wrote were really about Vanessa and him, even when he pretended they were about someone else. Also, she'd bet anything Elise would get bored with his “I'm a tortured, miserable soul” bullshit after about ten minutes.

  “No way,” she answered distractedly. “Sorry, let me just finish this.”

  “That's okay. I think I'm going to e-mail your brother right now and tell him what a jerk he is.”

  “Good idea,” Jenny agreed.

  Now both girls were typing away at their keyboards as they breathed ferociously into their phones.

  When you have a tough message to get across, it's always good to have backup.

  E-mailing boys is so much easier than talking to them face to face

  Dear Leo,

  I know this seems like a strange thing to say, but I really feel like you've been hiding something from me and I don't know. I really like you a lot, and I think you like me. So how come you've never invited me to your house? The thing is, I know where you live now. So I'm coming over tomorrow at six, which is when you're usually finished walking Daphne, I think. Okay. See you then.

  Jenny

  Dear Daniel,

  First of all, I think you are a real jerk for leading me on, because you know I'm younger than you and less experienced, and you should watch out whose heart you break, because it could come back and bite you in the ass. Also, it's so obvious you are still hung up on the first and only girl who would be stupid enough to be your girlfriend. Your sister didn't even have to tell me that—you are just so transparent, it's like you're writing on tracing paper. There, I can be poetic, too. Write that, asshole!

  Your nonfriend and best critic,

  Elise

  B tries to keep her eyes on the prize

  The door to Georgie's house stood open. No Doubt was blasting out of both the indoor and outdoor speakers, and there were clothes strewn all over the front steps. Four boys with long hair were walking around in their underwear eating wild-mushroom potstickers and showing off their snowboarding muscles. When Blair and Serena walked in with Erik and Jan and the ski patrol guys, they turned around to gape and smile.

  “Where's Georgie?” Serena asked, desperate to find the heart of the party before Jan-the-dentist tried to get her alone.

  “In the hot tub,” the boys answered in unison.

  Blair stayed in the living room while Serena went out the patio doors in search of their host, with Jan trailing after her. Erik went over to the bar and began to mix drinks. He'd taken a bartending course last semester—the most useful thing he'd learned in college so far.

  Blair noticed that Nate was sitting by himself on a leather sofa in the corner of the living room, sort of picking at his toes. He was wearing his broken-in navy blue Brown sweatshirt and a pair of tattered yellow St. Jude's gym shorts. With his wavy golden brown curls and sparkling green eyes, he looked like a sad little boy. Blair wanted to sit down next to him and ask him why he was picking his toes and looking so sad at his girlfriend's party, but then Erik came over and handed her a glass filled with something swirly and orangey-pink.

  “Mai tai. Careful, it doesn't taste it, but it's almost all liquor.”

  “Thanks.” Blair took the glass. Normally she preferred vodka tonics, but she'd drink anything Erik made for her.

  “I'm going out to sit in the tub,” Erik said. “Wanna come?”

  Blair shook her head. “No thanks.” The idea of jumping into the hot tub with Georgie and whoever else was in there really wasn't all that appealing. And she didn't want Erik to think she couldn't fend for herself at a party. Besides, th
ere was a whole table of catered food standing only ten feet away. If Erik went outside, she'd have a chance to stuff her face without worrying about whether he thought she was a big fat pig or not.

  A girl needs fuel, especially when she has a long night ahead of her.

  As soon as Erik left, she grabbed a plate of spring rolls and plopped down on a love seat next to a guy with shoulder-length brown hair, who was smoking a joint.

  He looked up at her and smiled. “You board?”

  Blair had no clue what he was talking about. “No.” She took a deep breath through her nostrils. She never got high, but she was feeling sort of nervous all of a sudden, and all the stoners she knew were so mellow. Maybe a few hits off this guy's joint were just what she needed. “Is that pot?”

  The guy smiled again and looked at the roach in his hand. “It was. Sorry, it's kaput.” He wasn't wearing a shirt or shoes, and he still had his ski pants on. They were bright green, with reinforced knees.

  “So how do you know Georgie?” Blair asked, still chomping her food.

  “Who?”

  Blair could feel Nate watching her from across the room. Maybe he thought she was sharing this guy's joint.

  Oh, the irony.

  “Where do you go to school?” she asked, figuring the guy must be about twenty and in college.

  “I don't do school,” he told her. “I board from March till December and then surf the North Shore all winter.”

  Blair shoved a potsticker in her mouth and chewed. “How can you snowboard all summer?”

  “Chile. Argentina.”

  “And the North Shore is in Hawaii, right?”

  Don't ask how she knew this. It was the kind of thing a girl with brothers just knows.

  The guy nodded. “You surf?”

  Blair shook her head, intrigued by the idea. She envisioned herself in her new pink Eres bikini and a Hawaiian lei made of white orchids and red hibiscus blossoms, balanced on a surfboard and riding out a humungous wave. She'd have an amazing tan and incredible butt muscles—the kind that actually look good in a thong. And after a long day of surfing, Erik would massage her with coconut oil and feed her the fresh fish he'd caught that day. Maybe she didn't really need to go to Yale or any college at all—she could just … surf.