“I have to talk to you,” Blair said. She held out her glass. “Fill me up, first?” Nate took her glass and Blair led him over to the marble-topped wet bar by the French doors that opened onto the dining room. Nate poured them each a tumbler full of scotch and then followed Blair across the living room once more. “Hey, where are you two going?” Chuck Bass asked as they walked by. He raised his eyebrows, leering at them suggestively. Blair rolled her eyes at Chuck and kept walking, drinking as she went. Nate followed her, ignoring Chuck completely. Chuck Bass, the oldest son of Misty and Bartholomew Bass, was handsome, aftershave-commercial handsome. In fact, he’d starred in a British Drakkar Noir commercial, much to his parents’ public dismay and secret pride. Chuck was also the horniest boy in Blair and Nate’s group of friends. Once, at a party in ninth grade, Chuck had hidden in a guest bedroom closet for two hours, waiting to crawl into bed with Kati Farkas, who was so drunk she kept throwing up in her sleep. Chuck didn’t even mind. He just got in bed with her. He was completely unshakeable when it came to girls. The only way to deal with a guy like Chuck is to laugh in his face, which is exactly what all the girls who knew him did. In other circles, Chuck might have been banished as a slimeball of the highest order, but these families had been friends for generations. Chuck was a Bass, and so they were stuck with him. They had even gotten used to his gold monogrammed pinky ring, his trademark navy blue monogrammed cashmere scarf, and the copies of his headshot, which littered his parent’s many houses and apartments and spilled out of his locker at the Riverside Preparatory School for Boys. “Don’t forget to use protection,” Chuck called, raising his glass at Blair and Nate as they turned down the long, red-carpeted hallway to Blair’s bedroom. Blair grasped the glass doorknob and turned it, surprising her Russian Blue cat, Kitty Minky, who was curled up on the red silk bedspread. Blair paused at the threshold and leaned back against Nate, pressing her body into his. She reached down to take his hand. At that moment, Nate’s hopes perked up. Blair was acting sort of sultry and sexy and could it be . . . something was about to happen?
Blair squeezed Nate’s hand and pulled him into the room. They stumbled over each other, falling toward the bed, and spilling their drinks on the mohair rug. Blair giggled; the scotch she’d pounded had gone right to her head. I’m about to have sex with Nate, she thought giddily. And then they’d both graduate in June and go to Yale in the fall and have a huge wedding four years later and find a beautiful apartment on Park Avenue and decorate the whole thing in velvet, silk, and fur and have sex in every room on a rotating basis. Suddenly Blair’s mother’s voice rang out, loud and clear, down the hallway. “Serena van der Woodsen! What a lovely surprise!” Nate dropped Blair’s hand and straightened up like a soldier called to attention. Blair sat down hard on the end of her bed, put her drink on the floor, and grasped the bedspread in tight, white-knuckled fists. She looked up at Nate. But Nate was already turning to go, striding back down the hall to see if it could possibly be true. Had Serena van der Woodsen reallycome back? The movie of Blair’s life had taken a sudden, tragic turn. Blair clutched her stomach, ravenous again. She should have gone for the hot dog after all. “Hello, hello, hello!” Blair’s mother crowed, kissing the smooth, hollow cheeks of each van der Woodsen. Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss! “I know you weren’t expecting Serena, dear,” Mrs. van der Woodsen whispered in a concerned, confidential tone. “I hope it’s all right.” “Of course. Yes, it’s fine,” Mrs. Waldorf said. “Did you come home for the weekend, Serena?” Serena van der Woodsen shook her head and handed her vintage Burberry coat to Esther, the maid. She pushed a stray blond hair behind her ear and smiled at her hostess. When Serena smiled, she used her eyes—those dark, almost navy blue eyes. It was the kind of smile you might try to imitate, posing in the bathroom mirror like an idiot. The magnetic, delicious, “you can’t stop looking at me, can you?” smile supermodels spend years perfecting. Well, Serena smiled that way without even trying. “No, I’m here to—” Serena started to say. Serena’s mother interrupted hastily. “Serena has decided that boarding school is not for her,” she announced, patting her hair casually, as if it were no big deal. She was the middle-aged version of utter coolness. The whole van der Woodsen family was like that. They were all tall, blond, thin, and super-poised, and they never did anything—play tennis, hail a cab, eat spaghetti, go to the toilet—without maintaining their cool. Serena especially. She was gifted with the kind of coolness that you can’t acquire by buying the right handbag or the right pair of jeans. She was the girl every boy wants and every girl wants to be. “Serena will be back at Constance tomorrow,” Mr. van der Woodsen said, glancing at his daughter with steely blue eyes and an owl-like mixture of pride and disapproval that made him look scarier than he really was. “Well, Serena. You look lovely, dear. Blair will be thrilled to see you,” Blair’s mother trilled. “You’re one to talk,” Serena said, hugging her. “Look how skinny you are! And the house looks so fantastic. Wow. You’ve got some awesome art!” Mrs. Waldorf smiled, obviously pleased, and wrapped her arm around Serena’s long, slender waist. “Darling, I’d like you to meet my special friend, Cyrus Rose,” she said. “Cyrus, this is Serena.” “Stunning,” Cyrus Rose boomed. He kissed Serena on both cheeks, and hugged her a little too tightly. “She’s a good hugger, too,” Cyrus added, patting Serena on the hip. Serena giggled, but she didn’t flinch. She’d spent a lot of time in Europe in the past two years, and she was used to being hugged by harmless, horny European gropers who found her completely irresistible. She was a full-on groper magnet. “Serena and Blair are best, best, best friends,” Eleanor Waldorf explained to Cyrus. “But Serena went away to Hanover Academy in eleventh grade and spent this summer traveling. It was so hard for poor Blair with you gone this past year, Serena,” Eleanor said, growing misty-eyed. “Especially with the divorce. But you’re back now. Blair will be so pleased.” “Where is she?” Serena asked eagerly, her perfect, pale skin glowing pink with the prospect of seeing her old friend again. She stood on tip-toe and craned her head to look for Blair, but she soon found herself surrounded by parents—the Archibalds, the Coateses, the Basses, and Mr. Farkas—who each took turns kissing her and welcoming her back. Serena hugged them happily. These people were home to her, and she’d been gone a long time. She could hardly wait for life to return to the way it used to be. She and Blair would walk to school together, spend Double Photography in Sheep Meadow in Central Park, lying on their backs, taking pictures of pigeons and clouds, smoking and drinking Coke and feeling like hard-core artistes. They would have cocktails at the Star Lounge in the Tribeca Star Hotel again, which always turned into sleepover parties because they would get too drunk to get home, so they’d spend the night in the suite Chuck Bass’s family kept there.