Her parents had to go up there and get her. She was, like, taking over the school!” Chuck was getting really worked up. His face was turning red and he was spitting as he talked. “I heard she’s got diseases, too,” he added. “Like, STDs. Someone saw her going into a clinic in the East Village. She was wearing a wig.” Chuck’s friends shook their heads, grunting in amazement. Dan had never heard such crap. Serena was no slut; she was perfect, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she? That’s yet to be determined. “So, you guys hear about that bird party?” Roger asked. “You going?” “What bird party?” Jeffrey said. “That thing for the Central Park peregrine falcons?” Chuck said. “Yeah, Blair was telling me about it. It’s in the old Barneys store.” He took another drag on his cigarette. “Dude, everybody’s going.” Everybody didn’t include Dan, of course. But it very definitely included Serena van der Woodsen. “They’re sending out the invitations this week,” Roger said. “It has a funny name, I can’t remember what it is, something girly.” “Kiss on the Lips,” Chuck said, stubbing out his cigarette with his obnoxious Church’s of England shoes. “It’s the Kiss on the Lips party.” “Oh, yeah,” Jeffrey said. “And I bet there’s going to be a lot more than kissing going on.” He sniggered. “Especially if Serena’s there.” The boys laughed, congratulating each other on their incredible wit. Dan had had enough. He tossed his cigarette on the sidewalk only inches from Chuck’s shoes and headed for the school doors. As he passed the three boys he turned his head and puckered his lips, making a smooching sound three times as if he were giving each boy a big fat kiss on the lips. Then he turned and went inside, banging the door shut behind him. Kiss that, assholes. “What I’m going for is tension,” Vanessa Abrams explained to Constance’s small Advanced Film Studies class. She was standing at the front of the room, presenting her idea for the film she was making. “I’m going to shoot the two of them talking on a park bench at night. Except you can’t really hear what they’re saying.” Vanessa paused dramatically, waiting for one of her classmates to say something. Mr. Beckham, their teacher, was always telling them to keep their scenes alive with dialogue and action, and Vanessa was deliberately doing just the opposite. “So there’s no dialogue?” Mr. Beckham said from where he was standing in the back of the classroom. He was painfully aware that no one else in the class was listening to a word Vanessa was saying. “You’re going to hear the silence of the buildings and the bench and the sidewalk, and see the streetlights on their bodies. Then you’ll see their hands move and their eyes talking. Then you’ll hear them speak, but not much. It’s a mood piece,” Vanessa explained. She rea............