Love, Serena,” was all it said. Blair had tucked the postcard into her old Fendi shoebox with all the other mementos from their friendship. A friendship she would cherish forever, but which she’d thought of as over until now. Serena was back. The lid was off the shoebox, and everything would go back to the way it was before she left. As always, it would be Serena and Blair, Blair and Serena, with Blair playing the smaller, fatter, mousier, less witty best friend of the blond über-girl, Serena van der Woodsen. Or not. Not if Blair could help it. “You must be so excited Serena’s here!” Isabel chirped. But when she saw the look on Blair’s face, she changed her tune. “Of course Constance took her back. It’s so typical. They’re too desperate to lose any of us.” Isabel lowered her voice. “I heard last spring Serena was fooling around with some townie up in New Hampshire. She had an abortion,” she added. “I bet it wasn’t her first one either,” Chuck said. “Just look at her.” And so they did. All four of them looked at Serena, who was still chatting happily with Nate. Chuck saw the girl he’d wanted to sleep with since he could remember wanting to sleep with girls—first grade, maybe? Kati saw the girl she’d been copying since she started shopping for her own clothes—third grade? Isabel saw the girl who’d gotten to be an angel with wings made out of real feathers at the Church of the Heavenly Rest Christmas pageant, while Isabel was a lowly shepherd and had to wear a burlap sack. Third grade again. Both Kati and Isabel saw the girl who would inevitably steal Blair away from them and leave them with only each other, which was too dull to even think about. And Blair saw Serena, her best friend, the girl she would always love and hate. The girl she could never measure up to and had tried so hard to replace. The girl she’d wanted everyone to forget. For about ten seconds Blair thought about telling her friends the truth: She didn’t know Serena was coming back. But how would that look? Blair was supposed to be plugged in, and how plugged in would she sound if she admitted she knew nothing about Serena’s return, while her friends seemed to know so much? Blair couldn’t very well stand there and say nothing. That would be too obvious. She always had something to say. Besides, who wanted to hear the truth when the truth was so incredibly boring? Blair lived for drama. Here was her chance. Blair cleared her throat. “It all happened very . . . suddenly,” she said mysteriously. She looked down and fiddled with the little ruby ring on the middle finger of her right hand. The film was rolling, and Blair was getting warmed up. “I think Serena is pretty messed up about it. But I promised her I wouldn’t say anything,” she added. Her friends nodded as if they understood completely. It sounded serious and juicy, and best of all it sounded like Serena had confided everything to Blair. If only Blair could script the rest of the movie, she’d wind up with the boy for sure. And Serena could play the girl who falls off the cliff and cracks her skull on a rock and is eaten alive by hungry vultures, never to be seen again. “Careful, Blair,” Chuck warned, nodding at Serena and Nate, who were still talking in low voices over by the wet bar, their eyes never straying from each other’s faces. “Looks like Serena’s already found her next victim.” Serena was holding Nate’s hand loosely in hers, swinging it back and forth. “Remember Buck Naked?” she asked him, laughing softly. Nate chuckled, still embarrassed, even after all these years. Buck Naked was Nate’s alter ego, invented at a party in eighth grade, when most of them had gotten drunk for the first time. After drinking six beers, Nate had taken his shirt off, and Serena and Blair had drawn a goofy, buck-toothed face on his torso in black marker. For some reason the face brought out the devil in Nate, and he started a drinking game. Everyone sat in a circle and Nate stood in the middle, holding a Latin textbook and shouting out verbs for them to conjugate. The first person to mess up had to drink and kiss Buck Naked. Of course they all messed up, boys and girls alike, so Buck got a lot of action that night. The next morning, Nate tried to pretend it hadn’t happened, but the proof was inked on his skin. It took weeks for Buck to wash off in the shower. “And what about the Red Sea?” Serena said.